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Bitcoin Can't be Owned, Says Japanese Court, as Karpeles Sweats in Cell

posted by janrinok on Saturday August 08 2015, @01:59PM   Printer-friendly
from the that's-one-interpretation dept.

Arthur T Knackerbracket finds that a Japanese Court has decided that BitCoins 'cannot be owned':

A man seeking repayment for Bitcoin lost in the Mt Gox incident has seen his lawsuit dismissed in a Tokyo District Court, with the judge ruling that the gumblecash is "not subject to ownership" claims.

A resident of Kyoto, the plaintiff has stated that he had 458 Bitcoin, contentiously valued at about ¥31m (£160,000), which were stored with the exchange and subsequently lost, reported the Japan Times.

Earlier this month, the Mt Gox CEO, Mark Karpeles, was arrested as part of a police investigation into the exchange's collapse, which led to the loss of "hundreds of millions of dollars" worth of Bitcoin.

The French-born CEO allegedly inflated his personal account by manipulating virtual currency data, according to the Japan Times.

Karpeles denied criminal doings in a statement delivered by his lawyer, the BBC reported.

Judge Masumi Kurachi – who presided over the plaintiff's self-represented claim – stated that the Japanese Civil Code only envisaged proprietorship for tangible entities.

According to the Japan Times, the judge's position is that "it is evident Bitcoins do not possess the properties of tangible entities and acknowledged that they also do not offer exclusive control, because transactions between users are structured in such a way that calls for the involvement of a third party". ®

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  • (Score: 4, Interesting) by maxwell demon on Saturday August 08 2015, @02:07PM

    by maxwell demon (1608) on Saturday August 08 2015, @02:07PM (#219870) Journal

    stated that the Japanese Civil Code only envisaged proprietorship for tangible entities.

    AFAIU this also means that the concept of "intellectual property" is explicitly against the Japanese Civil Code.

    Anyway, what about money on bank accounts? That money usually also doesn't exist as tangible entities (there's much less cash that money), and they also do not offer exclusive control because transactions between users are structured in such a way that calls for the involvement of a third party (the bank).

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  • (Score: 2) by darkfeline on Saturday August 08 2015, @09:30PM

    by darkfeline (1030) on Saturday August 08 2015, @09:30PM (#219998) Homepage

    No, I think the key point is:

    >because transactions between users are structured in such a way that calls for the involvement of a third party

    So intellectual property is still "safe".

    This should still be considered fraud though.

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