http://www.legalaffairs.org/issues/January-February-2006/
feature_dibbell_janfeb06.msp Julian Dibbell makes $11,000 selling items on Ultima
Online, asks the IRS if this is taxable income, or what. They
don’t know, and suggest that he pay $650 + lawyers’ fees to
find out. (I think part of the problem here is that some of
this money is bound up in virtual objects still held within
UO—although fundamentally I don’t see why the issue is
that different to the issue of taxing stock market gains, another
self-contained system of completely virtual
“goods.”) 14:29