A Chinese court has found a man guilty of stealing online game identities and using them to gain virtual possessions in an online multiplayer historical quest game.

The growing number of virtual property disputes in china has led to a call to legislate more concrete virtual property laws. The need for proper virtual property laws has also arised because of the Chinese government intention to create a massive virtual world network in order to promote Chinese businesses in the real world and to attract foreign corporations to china. 

The Chinese government's growing awareness of the need to protect virtual property rights is part of a Chinese revival in the area of protection of intellectual property rights, that has started in the legislationof the 1979 intellectual property rights law and continued in the acceptance of various international intellectual property treaties in the late 80's and 90's.