the idea that the author here might have aided or abetted the crime is so sensational that it's almost beneath comment ;-)

simply stated, in most (if not all) legal jurisdictions, aiding and abetting liability would require, at a minimum, that the alleged "abettor" know of the crime and/or intend to facilitate its commission/furtherance.

I'm reminded of cases like The Anarchist Cookbook which has been banned by various jurisdictions, and particularly Hit Man, which was judged to be unprotected by the First Amendment and the publisher liable for crimes committed using the information it provides. Of course, that was a controversial decision, and whatever your stance on "instructional" books, it's pretty ridiculous to accuse the author of a fictional adventure series of intending to start his readers on a life of crime.

So violent video games leads to school shooting crowd finally migrated to china?

Games -> violence has popped up a number of times in the past. Blizzard was sued in 2006 when he committed suicide after playing Warcraft III, and there have been other cases of violence blamed on video games.

Joel,

Hit Man is an interesting analogue to the chinese grave-robbing publication.

thanks for bringing up the story.

curious, i pulled up the U.S. 4th Circuit Court of Appeals decision which held that, as wikipedia (currently) reads, "Hit Man was not protected by the free speech/free press clause of the First Amendment."

an interesting idea, but not entirely accurate. i don't want to go hog-wild on tangential legal issues here in your comments, but the facts of the case are somewhat novel and, as such, you (if you're not familiar already with the case) might find them interesting.

the legal issues are far less troubling than wikipedia would have us believe.

quickly then:

the case arrived at the court as a wrongful death suit--a civil, not criminal, proceeding (like the successful O.J. Simpson suit) against the publisher of Hit Man, brought by the family of a man murdered by a "hit man" who had used the book as his guide during the murder.

very similar so far, essentially, to the grave robbing story above.

the question before the court in the Hit Man case, however, was not, however, whether the publisher was guilty of aiding and abetting the murder either criminally or civilly, but rather whether "the First Amendment absolutely bars the imposition of liability upon a publisher for assisting in the commission of criminal acts."

for reasons inexplicable to rational persons, the publisher-defendant stipulated before trial to a number of damning facts, admitting, essentially, that it had aided and abetted the murderer. to wit, that it:

"intended and had knowledge" that Hit Man actually "would be used, upon receipt, by criminals and would-be criminals to plan and execute the crime of murder for hire."

quite an extraordinary admission.

on the basis of that admission, the only issue before the court was a person or publisher is free to speak knowing and intending that its words would help further a criminal act or, in this case, "cause" a civil injury.

basically, you can't, without proper reason, shout "fire" in a crowded theater.

as the "business end" of the court's words read:

Because long-established caselaw provides that speech--even speech by the press--that constitutes criminal aiding and abetting does not enjoy the protection of the First Amendment, and because we are convinced that such caselaw is both correct and equally applicable to speech that constitutes civil aiding and abetting of criminal conduct (at least where, as here, the defendant has the specific purpose of assisting and encouraging commission of such conduct and the alleged assistance and encouragement takes a form other than abstract advocacy), we hold ... that the First Amendment does not pose a bar to a finding that Paladin is civilly liable as an aider and abetter of Perry's triple contract murder.

thus, contrary to the wikipedia quip cited above, neither the book nor its contents was held to be unprotected by the first amendment. the author, for example, was not held liable; nor is it unlawful to own a copy of the book.

rather, the publishers, who by their own words marketed the book such that it would be used in an actual hit, learned that the first amendment does not sanction the knowing facilitation of criminal acts.

*phew*

sorry for the extended spiel.

Gaming has certainly modified my behavior.

Hardly a Sunday goes by that I don't dress up in frog outfit and go play with the traffic on the 3rd Ring Road. Which is usually why it's so busy that day. The trick is to get to the other side, but you can only jump backwards or forwards one lane at a time. No running! I've been squished once or twice, and although my mother objected to the medical bills last time, I told her that I still had two lives left.

For something different, I also like to build bases to mine Tiberium in Chaoyang Gongyuan. But the forces of the Baoan there are always tank-rushing me and destroying my base before the first Tiberium carrier can return.

This month I'm going to try something different. I'm going to take my high-powered military sniper rifle, which costs $25,000 and can only be sold to legitimate military forces who have a certificate from their government (I'll have to see about getting one of those) and shoot pigeons in and around Beijing. There'll be a glowing orange halo around the ones I have to shoot, and if I get all 100 of them, I'll be that much closer to 100% completion in my life.