Expert Witness Journal Issue 65 February 2026 - Flipbook - Page 86
Court of Appeal 昀椀nds that digital
assets in a computer game are
property that can be stolen
by Adam Sanitt at Norton Rose Fulbright LLP
In R v Lakeman [2026] EWCA Crim 4, the Court of
Appeal held that ‘gold pieces’ in an online computer
game constituted property for the purposes of s4
Theft Act 1968.
Background
The gold pieces were recorded as entries in a ledger
kept by Jagex, the developer and publisher of the
game. The terms and conditions stated that they
could only be redeemed in game and that Jagex
could delete the gold pieces or anything in game
bought with them. Sale or gifting in the real world
was forbidden. An employee of Jagex hacked into
user accounts and transferred a large number of
gold pieces to accounts within his control which he
then sold in the real world for 昀椀at currency.
Decision
The Court of Appeal stressed that the de昀椀nition of
property for the purposes of theft in the criminal law
was not the same as the de昀椀nition for the purposes
of private law. However, they did consider the Law
Commission’s consultations and reports on digital
assets and previous cases dealing with digital asset
property issues, coming to conclusions that will be
relevant in general, and it is this discussion which we
consider here.
First, the Court supported the Law Commission’s
conclusion that digital assets are real functional
things distinct from the code that instantiates them.
The ecosystem of software, players and code allows
the gold pieces to appear visually, to be traded in
the game and to have other functional attributes. It
is these manifestations together that constitutes the
gold piece, not simply the underlying data. Copying
the data underlying a gold piece would not copy the
gold piece. It followed that what must be evaluated
to determine whether it constitutes property is
not the underlying data but the ideational object
constituted by the combination of people and
software and manifested visually or otherwise by
the system.
EXPERT WITNESS JOURNAL
84
FEBRUARY 2026
