The legal definition, which doesn't include things like happiness/privacy/karma. Generally, in court, "value" means "market value" expressed in the currency of

The legal definition, which doesn't include things like happiness/privacy/karma. Generally, in court, "value" means "market value" expressed in the currency of the court's country. Often the penalties for various levels of fraud are based on the value (= market value) of the gain -- for example, hypothetically, the law might state that if the value was under $1,000 it's a misdemeanor rather than a felony or that if the value was under $100 you can't be sentenced to prison time. Something like my own privacy which has value only to one person (me) does not have market value. [edit: added two paragraphs]