Ai Jun passed away over a month ago, but the uproar over who will inherit her online store is still going on.

The 24-year-old woman, who operated an online store on taobao.com, the country's largest C2C e-commerce platform, died suddenly in her sleep on July 17. After her death, her online shop, which had gained a high rating for customer satisfaction during its two years of operating, was closed by taobao.com.

On taobao.com, the higher the rating a store earns, the more commercial value it has, as consumers are more likely to buy from a shop with a good reputation.

Some media reports have said that Ai's fiancé was refused by taobao.com when he asked to be given the store.

But in a statement taobao.com e-mailed to the Global Times, the company said it has not received any request from Ai Jun's fiancé. "We are temporarily supervising the store to protect consumers' rights, and will obey any judicial decision if her heir applies to get the store. As long as the heir submits relevant material to the judicial department, they will be able to continue operation of the shop," the statement said.

Thousands of shop owners on taobao.com initiated an online discussion about "whether virtual property could be inherited." And they had posted around 5,000 comments on the taobao.com community forum by press time.

Some said they had never given any thought to the inheritance issue until Ai Jun's case happened. But most of the owners said it should be possible for their stores to be inherited, as they spend a lot of money and time in developing their shops.

However, the legal recognition of virtual property and related laws about virtual property inheritance are not clearly defined in China, and it could be a major challenge in judging the case.

Lack of legal definition

Shanghai Bar Association launched a seminar about virtual property inheritance on July 20, and Ai Jun's case was involved in the discussion.

"In this case, the virtual online store should be considered as the owner's property since it has attributes of property, so the heir could inherit the store via judicial procedure," Shang Jiangang, senior partner at Dacheng Law Offices, who also participated the seminar, told the Global Times.

But Shang said the procedure will not be easy since no laws concerning virtual property inheritance have been formulated in China so far.

It is necessary to add provisions for virtual property to the existing Law of Succession, given that people's daily lives rely more on the virtual world than before, Shang said.

In the digital and Internet world, it's increasingly common to accumulate virtual wealth in the form of social network resources, various kinds of accounts and even weapons and equipment for online games.

But there are obstacles to formulating the supplementary legal terms, as the Internet is developing so fast. "First, we need to make sure whether each type of virtual property has the normal attributes of property; secondly, it is necessary to specify whether all virtual products could be inherited, or only those with value," Shang said.

Companies' different attitudes

The country's major Internet companies have different rules for virtual property inheritance at the moment. Some companies' rules are a source of discontent among users, but other firms go to greater lengths to keep their customers satisfied.

Tencent Holdings Ltd says that it owns the property rights to the accounts in its QQ service, and that people can only use the accounts, rather than considering them as their personal property.

One case concerning the QQ rules caused controversy last year. A citizen surnamed Xu died in a car accident last October in Guangzhou, capital of South China's Guangdong Province, and his wife applied to Tencent to ask for his QQ account code as a huge amount of their pictures were saved in his QQ mail, Guangzhou Daily reported.

But Tencent refused her request, saying that the company owned the account property rights and that Xu's wife could not inherit the account. The company also said it could not reveal users' personal information, the newspaper reported.

However, NetEase Inc, a popular Web portal, which is also one of China's biggest online game operators, said that if its game players died, their relatives can keep on using the account so long as they submit their identity cards for a check, according to an e-mail the company sent to the Global Times.

But NetEase said it has not released any rules on virtual property inheritance, since the country has not formulated any such laws so far.

Its game players are still hoping that it will formulate official guidelines sooner or later. "I spend most of my spare time and an average of 500 yuan ($79) per month on gaming, so it will amount to a lot of virtual wealth after my death," Fan Yu, a 31-year-old online game fan told the Global Times.

The virtual game market is enormously profitable. According to the latest list of prices for the top 10 virtual weapons in the game Zheng Tu publicized on NetEase's game site, the most expensive weapon costs 15,000 yuan per set, and even the cheapest of the 10 virtual products costs 6,368 yuan.

The number of online game players reached 324 million by the end of 2011, according to China Internet Network Information Center.

Accounts cannot be inherited with Alipay, a third party online payment platform affiliated with Alibaba Group. But Alipay would help the legal heir get back the funds saved in the account.

Wang Shuai, chief marketing officer of Alibaba, posted a comment on his personal Weibo last month saying that "no regulation is perfect, but any perfect regulation should be based on human interest."

More association rules needed

Given the difficulties in formulating new guidance on virtual property inheritance, it may help for various industry associations to launch their own regulations, Li Junfeng, a professor at Shanghai University Law School, told the Global Times.

The e-commerce associations could formulate specific rules for online store inheritance catering to the sector's traits, Li suggested.

The Ministry of Culture and Ministry of Commerce co-released a regulation on online virtual currency in 2009. It was the first time the country had created rules for virtual property.

But the regulation only deals with punishment for illegal actions like stealing game accounts, and does not refer to whether the virtual currency can be inherited.

"All the social and commercial organizations should do more to develop the legal environment," Li said.