According to a recent Reuters report, a Chinese court has recently ordered an online games company to return virtual belongings to a player whose game account was looted by a hacker. The 24-year-old gamer, Li Hongchen, had spent two years and some 10,000 yuan ($1,210) on pay-as-you-go cards while playing the online game Hongyue, or Red Moon, before his account was hacked in February.

　　Li asked Beijing Arctic Ice Technology Development Company to identify the hacker who stole his virtual property, which included a stockpile of biochemical weapons, but was told that the company could not give out a player's private details. The company also argued that the virtual property existed only in the game and essentially amounted to little more than data as far as its operating companies were concerned. Li also enjoyed no success with the police, and so he took his case to court demanding 10,000 yuan ($1,210) in compensation.

　　Yesterday Beijing's Chaoyang District People's Court ruled that Beijing Arctic Ice should restore Li's lost items, finding it liable because of the loopholes in its server programs that made it easy for hackers to get in.