Legal dilemma for cyber murder
BEIJING, China (Reuters) -- A Shanghai online game player stabbed to death a competitor who sold his cyber-sword, the China Daily newspaper said, creating a dilemma in China where no law exists for the ownership of virtual weapons.
Qiu Chengwei, 41, stabbed competitor Zhu Caoyuan repeatedly in the chest after he was told Zhu had sold his "dragon saber," used in the popular online game, "Legend of Mir 3," a Shanghai court was told on Tuesday.
"Legend of Mir 3" features heroes and villains, sorcerers and warriors, many of whom wield enormous swords.
Qiu and a friend jointly won their weapon last February, and lent it to Zhu who then sold it for 7,200 yuan (US$870), the newspaper said.
Qui went to the police to report the "theft" but was told the weapon was not real property protected by law.
"Zhu promised to hand over the cash but an angry Qui lost patience and attacked Zhu at his home, stabbing him in the left chest with great force and killing him," the court was told.
The newspaper did not specify the charge against Qiu but said he had given himself up to police and already pleaded guilty to "intentional injury."
No verdict has been announced.
More and more online gamers were seeking justice through the courts over stolen weapons and credits, the newspaper said.
"The armor and swords in games should be deemed as private property as players have to spend money and time for them," Wang Zongyu, an associate law professor at Beijing's Renmin University of China, was quoted as saying.
But other experts are calling for caution. "The 'assets' of one player could mean nothing to others as they are by nature just data created by game providers," a lawyer for a Shanghai-based Internet game company was quoted as saying.
Cyber Online Game Dispute Results in Murder
Cyber Online Game Dispute Results in Murder
This is the stuff I was referring to on the EQ threads. We are behind the times when it comes to passion for our online gaming. Asians are killing each other over cyber swords and all we do here is wimp out and /petition it!
Well Sirensa maybe something will come out of that actually. Perhaps now the courts will decide that online property has a value and this thing may get a legal venue. Koreans (Yes I know it happened in China) at least really take this seriously. Do you remember when that guy died from exhaustion in a Cyber cafe from playing just way too long?
- Jice Virago
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This reminds me of Xanopox calling in a commando strike mission on Furor's house for some reason. Must be all of the EQ nostalgia lately.
War is an option whose time has passed. Peace is the only option for the future. At present we occupy a treacherous no-man's-land between peace and war, a time of growing fear that our military might has expanded beyond our capacity to control it and our political differences widened beyond our ability to bridge them. . . .
Short of changing human nature, therefore, the only way to achieve a practical, livable peace in a world of competing nations is to take the profit out of war.
--RICHARD M. NIXON, "REAL PEACE" (1983)
"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, represents, in the final analysis, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children."
Dwight Eisenhower
Short of changing human nature, therefore, the only way to achieve a practical, livable peace in a world of competing nations is to take the profit out of war.
--RICHARD M. NIXON, "REAL PEACE" (1983)
"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, represents, in the final analysis, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children."
Dwight Eisenhower
damn, NOONE has the right story on that incident...Jice Virago wrote:This reminds me of Xanopox calling in a commando strike mission on Furor's house for some reason. Must be all of the EQ nostalgia lately.
xan said that as a JOKE due to an FoH cleric or wizard (forget name but i remember it being one of those 2 classes) sent xan a tell about a month or two earlier saying "his army friends would come and pay him a visit"
-xzionis human mage on mannoroth
-zeltharath tauren shaman on wildhammer
-zeltharath tauren shaman on wildhammer
Including you. It was said to Krurk, on the old IGE suckass boards.Xzion wrote:damn, NOONE has the right story on that incident...Jice Virago wrote:This reminds me of Xanopox calling in a commando strike mission on Furor's house for some reason. Must be all of the EQ nostalgia lately.
xan said that as a JOKE due to an FoH cleric or wizard (forget name but i remember it being one of those 2 classes) sent xan a tell about a month or two earlier saying "his army friends would come and pay him a visit"