Virtual justice: Woman jailed for 'killing' her 'husband.'

Had to share this news tidbit, sent to me by Luckie designer Tim Kolankiewicz:

TOKYO – A 43-year-old player in a virtual game world became so angry about her sudden divorce from her online husband that she logged on with his password and killed his digital persona, police said Thursday.

The woman, who has been jailed on suspicion of illegally accessing a computer and manipulating electronic data, used his ID and password to log onto the popular interactive game "Maple Story" to carry out the virtual murder in May, a police official in the northern city of Sapporo said. He spoke on condition of anonymity because of department policy.

You can read the whole story here. I'm just upset she was charged with "inappropriate computer access" — not something cool, like "avataracide."

Comments

[Ike]

This couple clearly had larger issues.

I'll bet he's relieved she "killed" him, because an online divorce would have left him liable for avatarimony.

[Dogear-Nation]

This is too funny. We talk about Virtual worlds on my podcast all the time. This will be on the agenda when we record tomorrow. The funny thing is that it is a story on two levels. One a traditional computer crime, and the other a VW murder. There was a great story a year plus ago on the death of avatar... how do we deal with grieving when we have to shut down an account. It took me over a year after I stopped playing Star Wars Galaxies to shut off the account, because I had to let my avatar die.

[the girl Riot]

however, not actually cool, because things like that legit murder over a woman's Facebook status happen. i still can't really get over that and i'm kinda processing what that means culturally.