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Actually, none of this has anything to do with legal risks, in our case at least. It's purely customer-oriented. Someone who has purchased something from us is happier if he/she knows he/she can't easily lose it.
The player wouldn't have a gripe in the US (yet) at least. If an item has value (and that's not really related to whether the player paid money for it or not) and it's taken by another player within the legitimate confines of gameplay, multiple lawyers have told us there's likely no issue. If this WAS an issue, then any thief on any game, whether hobbyist or commercial, could be prosecuted for stealing something of value, whether the game sells things, even whether the game is commercial at all (since being non-commercial doesn't prevent in-game assets from accruing value). It's not paying money for something that gives it value. One pays money for something because it already has value.
I don't know if there are games where the game administrators sell things where this is the case, but it's certainly the case with items of value in many games, ranging from small DIKUs to World of Warcraft.
--matt
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