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Gaming Companies Being Sued Over Columbine
Rajeev Raghavan writes: "According to this article at the Denver Post. One of the families of the slain teachers at Columbine is suing 25 game companies for $5 billion in damages plus damages of $5000 to $10 million for individual parties in the class action law suit. Great, lets blame more people for our problems, shall we."
iD software should COUNTER-SUE, claiming that the parents' irresponsible guardianship led their children to cause harm to the business, by creating a situation in which the company's video games became linked, in the news media, to their killing spree.
The reduction in sales has cost iD software millions of dollars. The parents are liable for that loss!
Hey, it's no more inane than what's being claimed by big bad John DeCamp...
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You really think you would have killed someone if you had a gun? I grew up with guns around and never shot anyone. Sure I thought about it, in a fantasy mode like the way you'd think about punching your boss in the nose when you're really pissed off, but I never seriously considered it or thought I might "snap" and do it. Hunting as a kid taught me what bullets do to flesh and bone and I knew damned well that I would regret hurting a person like that.
Do you really not trust yourself with the power of life and death over others? Maybe you should turn in your driver's license.
If the court is idiot enough to let this go thru, we will have a whole slew of issues to blame on video games: We can sue pubs of driving/racing games for auto accidents, PacMac for my eating disorder, and, on the bright side, Msft for a new liver since they drove me to drink.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
...and the shops for making them so easily available and selling the games, too!
Sue the tech support people who put the PCs together, and fix them when they break!
Hell, sue MS - it's their OS that the games run under!
What's next - suing people for not preventing people from doing things? Oh wait, that's already happened...
Cheers,
Tim
It's official. Most of you are morons.
In this case, I imagine the lawyer is doing it pro bono (for free). It is typical in American pro bono cases, for the lawyer's percentage to be as high as 40%. Thus. 40% of 5 billion dollars - a hefty 2 billion. That should cover his costs rather nicely, with a few pennies left over.
Plus, the publicity generated ensures him cases into eternity, even if he does lose.
He knows what he's doing.
Yep. Sounds like those darned video games are to blame to me. . .
Except for when he's not.
That is one transparent way of lying or self-deception. It's related to
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...Kids with guns, lots of guns, kill people.
The plaintiff seeks remedies, presumably for negligence, resulting from allegations that a computer game tortiously resulted in the injury, death and mental injury suffered by the students in Columbine. Even assuming that the first amendment the claim could stand after a first amendment analysis, it seems an unlikely result.
Its very difficult to be liable under a negligence theory for the criminal intentional acts of a third party. The Plaintiff will have to prove that the defendants owed a duty of care to the particular plaintiffs (or in the case of wrongful death, the decedents), and further that the video game caused (not just in the "but for" sense, but also in the sense of legally, or proximally causing the result). This is an enormously tough row to hoe, both legally and factually.
In each case, the plaintiff will have to prove that it was forseeable that this particular individual would have injured these particular defendants, or similarly situated defendants. Unlikely. A substantial body of law tends to treat intentional torts, such as violent crimes, to be intervening acts that are not forseeable, perhaps even as a matter of law. Such an intervening act might well "cut off" the chain of proximate cause from prior conduct of a defendant.
While the abuse excuse might have (however unlikely) been a defense for those who actually did the shooting, had they lived, there is no law of which I am aware that would provide reasonable grounds for using abuse excuse as grounds in support of a plaintiff in a civil case to impute proximate cause to a vender of content for the intentional acts of a third party.
In other words, there may well be legal grounds that would, in themselves, preclude bringing the matter to trial, or admit judgment as a matter of law for the defendants. Even if it did survive summary judgment and motions to dismiss, and even if the tearful and sympathetic plaintiffs led a jury to find for them, the judge might well issue judgment for the defendants notwithstanding the verdict. Even were the judge too timid to intervene as she should in the face of a meaningful verdict, there could well be rock-solid grounds for appeal.
All that from basic tort law issues, even presuming that the first amendment does not, itself, preclude the cause of action entirely.
Err... yes, but in Muslim countries, women are also stoned to death for being the victims of sexual assault. Not your best example.
-- I'm not evil, I'm
These people bringing the lawsuit are on the right track, they mailed John Carmack personally to demand that he personally prohibit any person under 17 from playing his game. He is a genius coder, he must be able to figure out a way to do it. Senseless auto-killing brainwashing ought only be reserved for those over 18
I have a personal pet theory of why school administrators and (some) parents are going apeshit about Columbine, getting kids booted for even mentioning guns, etc - That theory is that these parents / teachers / adminstrators know FULL WELL the kind of things that drive kids to shoot randomly, they know how bad it is, and they're scared shitless that their kid might get shot. (or hell, why stop with your classmates, might as well go for the office..)
That's why they want to crack down so hard, because it's something they can fix. The underlying issues are much harder. School shootings in Canada (on a smaller scale) have provoked national debates (on TV, even) about the nature of school bullying and what adminstrators can do about it. I saw no such coverage on CNN; the focus was on evil kids and black hearts.
..don't panic
You seem to be confusing games with reality.
The examples you gave are the conditioning of an individual to behave in a certain way because they see others behaving the same way.
Using your examples of muslim women and swearing etc, people behave that way because people around them behave that way.
Quite how you link playing a game with violence in it to actual violence is unclear. Muslims don't respect women more because they played a game about respecting women. Kids dont kill people because they played a game about it either.
If however, kids say others killing people in real life that would of course make them more likely to copy that behaviour.
Here's another example:
If the people a kid spends most of their time with (ie, parents) clearly demonstrate that they don't give a fuck about the kid then that conditioning will teach the child to behave in the same way to others. In extreme cases this can easliy end up with somebody getting shot. I expect when that heppend the parents would know deep down that it was their fault, but probably live in denial and try to blame others and convince the world it wasn't them via the publicity of a lawsuit against games companies.
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As a Nebraskan, I wasn't terribly surprised to see the lawyer for this suit was named as "John DeCamp." Those of us in Nebraska have long experience with this man's erratic behavior, wild charges, publicity seeking and general fuzzy-headedness (just my opinion, of course). For example, do a Google search on "John DeCamp Nebraska." You'll get to read about a long series of unsubstantiated litigation claiming DeCamps' clients as victims of cultism and satanic abuse . . . and that's just for starters. Sigh.
"When I grow up, I'll be stable."
While i agree with you that there are a lot of concerned parents out there (they have a reason to be concerned), that is not why everyone picks on videogames or any kid that puts "shoot" and a classmates name in the same sentence.
That's why they want to crack down so hard, because it's something they can fix.
No, they don't fix a thing by sending a kid that was bullied home for three days. The kid will only learn to keep his trap shut. And no, they don't fix a thing by banning videogames either, because most will ignore that ban anyway and only learn to hide things from their parents.
These kids have proplems. Some need professional psychiatric help. They need to be found. Many of those kids need people to talk to, their parents, teachers, social workers. That means time. Time many parents don't have because they work hard at two or three jobs, time the teachers aren't paid for and time of social workers which the richest country on earth choose not to employ. And time is money. Either money the hard working parents don't earn, or money professionals need to be paid with.
So there is the solution. Talk to the kids about their problems, have someone guard the schoolyard for bullies. Build places where kids can go after school and where some socialworker ensures that things don't get out of hand. But it's an expensive solution.
Now if you don't want to pay all that money, but want to quiet the parents worries there's an other option: do something, anything, and make a lot of mediaruckus about it. Pick out something like games and say "Hey, those games turned the child a killer", disregarding the fact, that in other countries children play the same games without killing half the school. And send children home for three days if they say the bad word at school (no, not "fuck", "gun").
A cheap solution, but one that won't help much i think.
"By the way if anyone here is in advertising or marketing... kill yourself." -- Bill Hicks
From the article:
I don't blame him, what with its blocky, 320x200x256-color graphics, 2.5D engine, MIDI music, and lack of any TCP/IP compatible multiplayer capability! Why, the game looks like it's, oh, six years old or something! I'd be appalled too!
(I shudder for the day when the media realizes the existence of Half-Life or Unreal Tournament...)
Ok, I don't post often, but this is too much for me.
First, there are no computer game companies responsible for the actions of anyone. If I tell you jump off a bridge and you do it, and I responsible? No! Next thing we see are going to be parents of teenagers who end up with children suing porn companies and book publishers because they publish sexual content. Monkey see, Monkey do. Monkey needs to get some common sense.
If these people win, I'm done with America. I'm moving to Canada. The legal system here is beyond control when I can sue because I'm an idiot. Don't get me completely wrong though, there are still some good law suits out there the help protect the American people, but when you are suing because you spilled coffee on yourself, or because you're reading a superman comic and you try to fly like superman. That's just too much. And people win these cases. How I ask you?
When this is over, can I sue my parents for getting a divorce when I was a young kid. Or sue my father for making me move around the country every two years? "It disrupted my life and I could have turned out better." I can just see the headlines now "Son suing father over incident that happened 20 years ago."
I think it's time for me to write a script to send the DOJ about six million emails telling them they need to work on this system a little. I don't think that what happened should have happened, but that doesn't mean this is how you deal with it.
~Travis
I don't by any means want to diminish the horrific nature of the acts at Columbine and other such places, but where has personal responsibility gone? It strikes me as amazing that the first thing people want to do is externalize the causes of these tragedies, to find scapegoats to blame for the actions of a misguided (and in some cases, truly ill IMHO) few.
... well, to EVERYTHING. It's really a shame.
On second thought, I guess it's not that amazing. It's just far simpler to point the finger of blame at others, rather than acknowledge that part of the problem might have been in the homes and family lives of the shooters.
(Preamble for below: I'm Canadian, and I live in the U.S. - have for some years now).
The American (it's primarily in the U.S. AFAIK and yes, I've travelled extensively off the north american continent) culture of victimization is an astounding thing. Personal responsibility takes a back seat to finger pointing and blame mongering. It's sad to see reasonable, mature adults, no matter how distraught they are, abdicating their responsibility as parents in order to blame others for the sad events that resulted largely from their home situations.
In the U.S. the media has helped entrench this culture, making it all right to blame external forces and people for everything from bad breath to
-drin
In America today, there is a common inability to admit that you got screwed over by circumstances beyond anyone's control. There always needs to be someone to blame, something to do, some way to "get back" at the people/person who caused your pain. That's not always possible. When there are suspects to be tried, compensatory damages to be collected from the wrongdoer we have our "justice", no matter the real benefit, at least we can say "somebody paid for what happened".
We are so used to it, this automatic satisfaction, we cannot begin to understand that things aren't always "fixable". That unlike the sitcoms we grew up on, not everything can be neatly wrapped up in a set period of time. When there is an absence of "justice", when there is no tit-for-tat, we freak out.
We have grown up believing hopelessness is not a white, middle class, suburban feeling. It is something felt by people half the world away, when we see them on the nightly news. Hopelessness is for people in some foreign-looking hellhole, not an upscale, midwestern community.
The parents in Littleton are trying to find something to fill the dark void in their life, the part of them that was ripped out by events beyond their...or really anyone's control. I have sympathy for their plight, but they should not continue on their quest to place blame where it doesn't belong. It's not easy to simply blame two people who are now dead, we can't get our ideal "justice"...but we have to realize and accept that we don't always get the satisfaction we want...or need. There will be no day in court, no explinations, no chance to scream at Eric and Dylan for the lives they ended.
There are far too many questions still lingering after two long years, and it seems we are nearly out of answers. No one will ever get to ask Why, to dig into the motivations of the killers, to get anything but the slightest hint of the thoughts behind the massacre.
Such is life.
With the inability to even begin to understand anything beyond what was seen in the hallways of Columbine on that afternoon, it is impossible and irresponsible to make assumptions about the deeper issues, the intangible aspects of what was going through their minds, what might of driven them to do what they did. Suing game publishers for billions of dollars is not justice, it does not punish anyone who was involved in any way, it does not bring back the dead, nor does it honor their memory. This is lashing out plain and simple. Lashing out against people who had no part in their troubles. Who didn't do anything, but who are simply convenent targets for rage, the rage of people without any answers, without any hope and who have a disabling inability to deal with the events in their life.
After all that has happened, you think people would have learned by now that no good comes from doing such things.
I implore the parents of the Columbine victims to stop this crusade...even if it suceeds there will be no tangible benefit...except the piece of mind that somebody paid.
I don't think we as a society can afford that. (Note: I strongly suggest people watch the film The Sweet Hereafter )
Remember that in America, everyone has identical access to redress of grievances. That means:
1] You can file a suit about anything or nothing.
2] If it IS about nothing, you'll be thrown out on your ear.
This is not a real lawsuit. It is not based on any law, statute, legal doctrine, or precident. The lawyer involved is simply using the legal system to try to make political waves.
In short: The Lawsuit Is A Troll Intended For the Media.
Slashdot bit, as did you. I'm sure a lot of radio talkshow hosts will be using it as a topic for their rants. This kind of pseudo-story is their bread and butter.
As a matter of fact, since millions of kids play these overly violent games everyday, we can now understand why millions of kids take guns to school and shoot millions of other, non-videogame-playing children and then kill themselves every day.
These people bringing the lawsuit are on the right track, they mailed John Carmack personally to demand that he personally prohibit any person under 17 from playing his game. He is a genius coder, he must be able to figure out a way to do it. Senseless auto-killing brainwashing ought only be reserved for those over 18.
Except for when he's not.
From the Article:
"But money may be the smallest part of the goal," said John DeCamp, the Sanders' Nebraska-based attorney. "This is a class action that says that, ultimately, money ain't gonna do it."
Then how come they already put a price tag on it? The fact that the attorney is the one that is saying this makes it even more unbelievable.
The ignorance of this world never ceases to amaze me
Not having kids play cool video games is
having kids feeling uncool, boored, frustrated and easy to have a grip on, obviously.
It`s them having to search for cool alternatives on the web, like how to make H bombs and blow the pentagon or how to hack microsoft.be (again).
It`s them having to see these beautifull all-american documentaries (in technicolor) on tv or in the theatre on how to kill your neighbour in 30 movie shots.
It`s them sneaking around with books that no-on should read, including their own parents at age 16, but hey, they did so anyway.
One wonders what the point is of lawsystems and education if lawyers have even lost grip on the difference between imagination and reality.
I have been trashed with huge quantities of dangerous FPS radiation myself, yet, I wouldn`t ever think of actually shooting anyone. Come to think of it, where could I possible get a gun ? Fuck!.. Must be the shitty strict gun-license policies in my shitty country. Ah well..
With great power comes great electricity bills.
and for our next trick, we'll be suing george lucas for the explosion of the Space Shuttle Challenger.
http://www.clango.org
And people like to pretend, probably because they enjoy porn and violence, that it doesn't harm people, but anyone who can seriously believe this is quite frankly mad.
If you consistently expose people to sex and violence they grow to accept it. It's as obvious as anything. It's conditioning. For instance, in Muslim countries women aren't leered at and treated as sex objects, because society conditions them not to. In Western societies, women are objectified through their portrayal as breasts on a stick on TV.
That's how conditioning works, and that's what's happened here. There is no way that violence has no effect. Just as kids exposed to lots of swearing swear more than those in environemnts where swearing is taboo, those exposed to violence are more violent. Anyone who says otherwise is only doing so because they enjoy violence and sex so much.
I am so sick and tired of everybody whining about being a victim. The only people responsible for Columbine were the two shooters who are now dead. Grieve and get the hell over it! But no, we have ot drag it out ruin as many lives as possible, and provide lawers with millions in fees. Sure - some idiot KNOWs the brakes on a dump truck are defective but sends it out on the road cause he's lazy - that's liable. BUt suing someone because they SHOULD have known something was going to happen is a joke. I'm a parent - you think you know all that your kids do, but you don't and never will!
Columbine was terrible - but it is swinging the lawsuit pendalum even further.
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