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Well, the law isn't likely to recognize a big difference between the game code directly "stealing" your item of value (via an NPC looting your corpse for instance) and another player of the game using that code to steal your item of value. In the former case you sue the developer/publisher. In the latter you sue the player....but more likely find some excuse to sue the developer/publisher anyway, because they have the money to sue for.
Luckily, I seriously doubt we have to worry about this too much. I don't think courts are likely to permanently take a stance that either of the above is actionable as long as it is within the normal course of gameplay. (Just like someone beating you in a hand at poker isn't them 'stealing' your chips. It's just them using the rules of the game to move the chips to their pile.)
You know, there's also the interesting issue of whether you CAN be stolen from, since almost no major games recognize player ownership of anything in the game. This will be tested in court, no doubt, but hasn't yet. Right now, Second Life is about the only major commercial MUD/MMO that explicitly grants ownership of IP to players....but then also says that Linden Labs (the owner of SL) basically has the right to do anything they want anyway, so it's up in the air how much that 'right' they granted to players is actually worth.
--matt
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