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Video Games Not Protected Form of Speech
E-Rock writes "Video Games are lumped with child porn as unprotected forms of speech. "A federal judge said local governments can limit children's access to violent or sexually explicit video games, saying games are not constitutionally protected forms of speech." Story with limited details at Nando."
So, now that virtual child porn IS legal, what about virtual video games?
Just like there's no "speech" in a picture. (If you think of a game as a interactive series of pictures)
Monday is a horrible way to spend 1/7 of your life.
hello :)
St. Louis County's regulations on video games upheld
Copyright © 2002 AP Online
The Associated Press
ST. LOUIS (April 25, 2002 9:04 a.m. EDT) - A federal judge said local governments can limit children's access to violent or sexually explicit video games, saying games are not constitutionally protected forms of speech.
Senior U.S. District Judge Stephen Limbaugh, in a ruling issued Friday, rejected a request by a video game industry group to throw out a St. Louis County ordinance regulating access to arcade and home video games.
The county must now decide whether to ask Limbaugh to dismiss the lawsuit filed by the Interactive Digital Software Association, county Counselor Patricia Redington said Monday.
The ordinance, passed in 2000, would require children under 17 to have parental consent before they can buy violent or sexually explicit video games or play similar arcade games. The council has suspended implementation of the ordinance until July 1.
The video game group called the ruling wrong on the facts and the law.
"The decision is clearly in conflict with virtually every other federal court decision on this and related issues," group President Doug Lowenstein said in a statement. "We're confident that our position will be sustained on appeal."
Limbaugh said he reviewed four different video games and found "no conveyance of ideas, expression, or anything else that could possibly amount to speech. The court finds that video games have more in common with board games and sports than they do with motion pictures."
Limbaugh said the county has a compelling interest in protecting the physical and emotional health of its children and assisting parents as guardians of their children's well-being.
St. Louis County modeled its ordinance after one in Indianapolis. That ordinance has been invalidated by a federal appeals court in Chicago.
Slashdot, come for the goatse, stay for the trolls.
Booyah!
In other news, MegaGameCorp announced today that their planned Christmas 2002 release of "Child Porn: The First Person Shooter" will be delayed indefinitely...
Recursive: Adj. See Recursive.
First Post!
Which four games did the judge review? I can think of four games that obviously don't say much... Bolo, Tetris, Solitaire, and Tic-Tac-Toe.
Grim Fandango has some pro-Communism arguments sprinkled throughout. Does that not qualify as political speech?
3D Printing Tips and Tricks at Zheng3.com
So we could get those goatfuckers at Paramount to finally take that almighty shitfest off TV every night at 10/9 central.
Maybe if it were lumped in with child porn as unprotected speech, it would be less attractive to people as entertainment.
Well, most people. Not me, but most people.
I know at my local stores, if you want to buy a 'M'ature game, you have to show ID if you appear under 17. There are games which, quite frankly, aren't appropriate for that crowd. It's just the same as buying adult magazines and stuff--they won't let you in/let you buy if you're not of age. What's the big deal here?
sig--we don't need no goddamn sig
They're *entertainment*, not speech...
Unless someone comes out with a pro-[insert political agenda here] game, I'm gonna have a hard time swallowing that something like GTA3 or Final FantasyXXVVVIIII has some kind of constitutional protection...
-----
Is Darwin an evolutionary OS?
Come to the University of Mars! Classes starting soon!
I hate seeing when a judge feels he has to play daddy for the civilians..... Guess what? The children under 17 already HAVE parents, and its THEIR jobs to see to the monitoring of their video games and television and reading habits. If the child *didn't* have parents to watch over them, i can assure you that most likely the child is seeing far worse things in their life than GTA3.
Yes, our government is supposed to protect us, its citizens.. But everyone i talk to agrees with me that micromanagement in a corporate environment sucks, isnt this just micromanagement from the government into a family unit?
Is not life a hundred times too short for us to bore ourselves? -Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
The original law that was to be simply limited underage children:
"The ordinance, passed in 2000, would require children under 17 to have parental consent before they can buy violent or sexually explicit video games or play similar arcade games. "
(from the article)
I don't see anything wrong with this; it's the same way with movies in many places.
The problem is, of course, that once video games aren't protected as free speech, that they can start cracking down on whatever they feel like cracking down on.
Better protect your copies of GTA3!
Children under the age of 18 do not have full protection of rights under the constitution in the first place. If someone is going to argue that their violent or explicit videogame should be sold to minors without any restrictions, I don't think that's gonna fly if it goes to the supreme court level.
It's not a large step from stating that video games are not protected, to movies, and then plays, and possibly even books.
What about those 'interactive books'? Are they not protected?
Furthermore, what exactly is not protected, the media, or the source code?
This has sinister implications indeed.
hear the free speech coming out of the judges mouth when I frag his ass for the bazillionth time in T2. Seriously, If you have no context (never in his life played a REAL video game - solitaire dont count), how can you properly judge anything?
Same with drugs cases, how many of these federal judges even know what drugs are like? They are soooo quick to issue thier version of the law of the land, and they have no experience in the field.
Waahh...Yes, call the Wahmbulance, im pissed off today.
"I am a warrior, and information is my weapon..."
We as Americans must demand unrestricted access to virtual crack hos getting blown up. Our Fore Fathers would be proud if they knew that little Jane and Jimmy American had the constitutionally protected right to mass gibs.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
If (at least in some states) source code is free speech, and games are just the result of that code, I don't see how this is going to hold up under appeal. IANAL (obviously).
But we ALSO have freedom of EXPRESSION, and a game is definitely a means of expression.
And cutscenes in games are like movies, so I don't see how those cannot be considered speech seprate from the game.
This is just another example of how the US government is taking away basic freedoms from their citizens. At this point in our history, the average US citizen (naturalized or otherwise) have fewer freedoms and rights then under the British government prior to the Revolutionary War. We have more taxes, no real representation in Congress since the Senators and Representatives are bought and paid for by big bussiness. We can't bear arms in most cites, stories in the press are censored, our homes can be searched without a warrent under very weak excuses from the police, the state takes over federal control on a number of issues including gun control. It's only a matter of time before we can't cross the street without breaking the law.
GeneralKael -- Slacker Extraordinaire
IIRC, movies are a protected form of expression. If you think of a video game as an interactive movie (not a strech given the strong plotlines of many video games), would this not fall into the same or similar category? Games are, after all, works of fiction.
"I just want to thank my coach Eric a.k.a. Disco for shattering my reality..."
So, by that logic, if I tell a joke, it's entertainment and not speech?
"Hardly used" will not fetch you a better price for your brain.
In most places in the U.S., if you are under 17, you can't get into R-rated movies without an adult. If you are under 18, you can't buy a porn mag.
Why is that *any* different from restricting minors' access to certain video games? If society is going to allow freedom of expression in the content of games, it also has the responsibility of protecting vulnerable children from potentially harmful content. With freedom comes responsibility.
Parents, at home, they can let their kids play whatever games they want, or watch whatever movies, or look at whatever magazines. But in public space, there is a certain generally accepted level of protection for children that applies to all of these.
dinner: it's what's for beer
Why can't parents, and not the government, keep their children from violent and explicit games? And why can't we have a few more judges that have some common sense?
Every day you see more and more proof that the left is gaining more and more ground in this country. Things like this where government protection seems to be the only solution, so we slowly learn to accept more and more governmental control.
Yeah, I know, T(H)GSB, but oh well. This is important to me.
--- witty signature
I have a friend that runs a videogaming site and repeated some interesting facts he heard about violence in video gaming, especially in the way it pertains to children. *The average video gamer is 28 years old *Last year(2001) only 9% of all videogames sold carried the M rating. Pretty sad information like this exists and people still want to point the finger at everything in world except their bad parenting.
Finally, math books without any of that base 6 crap in them.
Here's the Yahoo link
Watch the Teaser Trailer for "The Lightning Thief" Her
Here is more information (in a PDF file) about a similar case. As far as I'm concerned, what's the problem restricting kids from this type of content? If the parents think its cool, let them sign a waiver.
Simple problem, simple solution.
Wow! Four games and he's got the whole thing figured out? Imagine if someone claimed they had read four books and understood the complete posibility of literary expression. How did this guy graduate from high school, much less law school?
-BlackFoliage
What about games that are porn? Am I the only person who actually enjoyed playing this series? It was risque, witty and very entertaining. Amazing that something so forward thinking hasn't been bothered to be duplicated with current game technology.
Hammer of Truth
Since parents can't seem to parent these days, I tend to agree just as long as they let me play any damn violent deathgame I want once I'm at the age of majority.
Luck favors the prepared, darling.
They'll pry this joystick out of my cold, dead hands!
modern choral music...
We have a LOCAL LAW (important part) that states that children We have a judge that says that the law is OK.
These must be the same people that say that certain movie titles are not appropriate for children So again ... I fail to see what the problem is here.
Karma? Karma? I don't need no stinkin' karma.
HEMOS: A federal judge said local governments can limit children's access to violent or sexually explicit video games
I'm not American so forgive me if I'm wrong but isn't children's access to violent or sexually explicit videos/books/sex shows/whore houses already limited over there as in the rest of the world and further more isn't this regarded as a good thing?
--
Reverse outsourcing: it's the future
What those who might protest are forgetting is that until someone reaches the age of majority in the US, his/her rights - particularly "Constitutional" rights - are severely limited. Most rights that children have are those given to them by their parents.
Limbaugh said the county has a compelling interest in protecting the physical and emotional health of its children and assisting parents as guardians of their children's well-being.
If the county has the time and manpower to help parents "protect the physical and emotional health" of their children by worrying about what video games they play then the county needs to have it's budget cut. Most counties can't keep the potholes in their streets filled or balance their budgets and yet these guys want to help folks raise their kids... nope, sorry guys, I don't think so!
- The auditors said to secure the server... hand me that duct-tape -
How is this any different than restricting access to other forms of entertainment based on age?
Movies, music, magazines, etc. have been suffering the same way for years. This is not a troll: I am all for age-restriction of content. If I want my kids to see something, they'll see it, because I'll buy it and give it to them. Otherwise, I prefer that inappropriate speech be a little harder for them to access.
If you fall off a building, go real limp, because maybe you'll look like a dummy and people will be like hey, free dummy
You have now lumped child porn in with all other forms of porn as well as non-porn NC-17 movies. Thank you for painting as detailed and accurate a picture of the issue as the decision this story is complaining about.
The judge says he reviewed four games (what a HUGE sample) and found them to be closer to board games not movies/stories, therefore justifying his judgement. I think he has a point with some games, but what about games like Myst, any RPG, even to some degree some of the First Person Shooters have a plot. As a parent, I would like to know what my children are doing, playing, and watching, but that is my responsibility, not societies as a whole.
What happened to taking responsibility for ourselves. Sometimes it seems that we are expecting more and more for our institutions to take care of us.
There goes another freedom. All I can do is watch the USA's basic ideas go down the crapper one by one before I pack up and move to Canada or Japan.
Limiting access to minors is one thing, while protecting free speach is other. It is very diferent, if you say that videogames are not protected by the freedom of speach, then one could censor a videogame, base in the fact that it has porn or violence. Censorship means that you can get the game even thougth you an adult.
If you limit the access of some videogames to children, would be just like a playboy magazine or alcoholic drinks, that can only be sold to an adult. One could argue that this is also bad, but it is certainly better then the above option. And if you are a father that don't agree with this, you can aways buy the game for your kid.
The article seem to indicate that this is case for this law.
[]'s Victor Bogado da Silva Lins
^[:wq
So playboy is really protected because of the articles??! :)
I guess I don't understand the reason why this was in front of a US judge to begin with; we are talking about restricting access of questionable material to children, not adults. If this is the case, then I really don't understand. These are children; they are supposed to have restricted access to violence and nudity. The video game group that filed this suit should be ashamed of themselves. The ordinance didn't ban the questionable video games, just limited access to them. I have to agree that it is a shame that we expect the law/government to pick where parents are failing, but this is the corner we have painted ourselves into....
...we are from the government - we are here to help...
Since the Supreme Court refused to hear Indianapolis's appeal on their video game law, where a lower court said that video games did fall under the First Amendment, how does Judge Limbaugh think he has a leg to stand on?
Since the origins of this country, Free Speech has been one of our most treasured amendments. Over the course of the years, we have seen these non-alienable rights slowly eroded by the politics of the times. Sadly, what is lost cannot always be regained. The Prohibition was the exception that proved the rule.
But are we now crossing the final line? Who is to say what the difference is between a console game and a web-based game? From there, a short leap from web game to web news site (anything come to mind?), and from that point it isn't hard to imagine the end of what was once the only Free Press in the civilized world.
In the past we have learned to treasure even that speech which is most offensive, including pornography, slander, Nazism, lynchings, and shouting "Fire!" in a crowded theatre.
I wonder if this ruling will be remembered in times to come as the beginning of the proverbial end.
Karma: Good (despite my invention of the Karma: sig)
The ordinance, passed in 2000, would require children under 17 to have parental consent before they can buy violent or sexually explicit video games or play similar arcade games. The council has suspended implementation of the ordinance until July 1.
Hmmm... doesn't say anything about limiting what you can depict, nor about limiting sales, nor about what you can do with it... It just says minors can't purchase it without concent. Now where have we seen that before?
Cigarettes?
Alcohol?
Firearms?
Porn videos?
Ok, so Little Johnny has to get his big brother to buy a copy of GTA4 (now with force-feedback hookers!)... annoying, but not any kind of threat to freedom that hasn't already been accepted for years.
Make up your minds people. Either children are NOT treated differently, in which case they can do all the bad things adults can do, but also have to pay all the penalties we do... or they ARE, in which case they get "protected" from things "we" think are "bad".
---Begin Quote
l Edition aand racing games then yeah, I can see his point. But even shoot em up games like Time Crisis or Slient Scope have anti-terrorist agendas. Just like many (crappy) HollyWood movies.
Limbaugh said he reviewed four different video games and found "no conveyance of ideas, expression, or anything else that could possibly amount to speech. The court finds that video games have more in common with board games and sports than they do with motion pictures."
---End quote
This guy didn't try and play and of the final fantasy games. All those games push a fairly similar agenda of machine == bad and protect the earth. Or MGS, if you don't think that killing is wrong after playing MGS, then you didn't watch the cut scenes ( that games lives in contridiction, because it preaches that violence and killing are wrong, but the only way to beat it is to be involved with killing people ).
If he was only playing MK4, SFXXXSuperCapcomMarvelFighterTurboMegaAlphaSpecia
I feel that most games released today resemble the HollyWood schlock rather then the artistic projects that get produced. More like Scorpion King rather then say Pi. For every artistic game like MYST, there are a hundred shoot-em-up death game 2000 knock offs.
The guy only saw 4 games, I bet that if you showed certain movies to a judge who had never seen movies before you could get the same verdict, that movies have no artistic merit as well.
Movies and fictional novels are protected forms of speech. I have played computer games that have affected me deeply.
Deus Ex is an example of what I consider a game with a message.
I hope there will be more games like Deus Ex in the future. This is a new medium, and our legal system must recognize it. I'm not so worried about the speech that will be lost today, but I am worried about what video games will be like a decade from now.
A decade from now we could have real art being created with video games. Think of the messages that creators could use video games to send. People would have the choice of playing state of the art, edgy games. And of course they would have the choice of playing crap -- just like in any medium.
Or a decade from now we could have a giant conglomorate like Disney pushing out mediocracy on a traquilized public. Vanilla mediocracy without any ideas that hadn't been approved by a dozen focus groups and six lawyers.
Paintings are protected speech. Sculpture is protected speech. Books are protected speech. Movies are protected speech. Games deserve the same. We will regret it later if the protection is not extended.
"St. Louis County modeled its ordinance after one in Indianapolis. That ordinance has been invalidated by a federal appeals court in Chicago." The way the courts work, this almost gaurantees that this thing will get smashed in appeal.
Science may someday discover what faith has always known.
"no conveyance of ideas, expression, or anything else that could possibly amount to speech. The court finds that video games have more in common with board games and sports than they do with motion pictures."
I wonder what four games he examined. Of coarse not every game amounts to speech or expression.. but either did the movie Titanic or most other hollywood drivel, yet somehow they are protected.
Again, movies are not prohibited to minors by law, only theaters have that policy.
There is a vast, vast difference between one entity that creates and distributes films (the MPAA) instituting policies on who may be sold their films, and the government instituting laws saying that certain films may not be shown to certain people regardless of who made them or other factors..
This does not, however, have any bearing on the fact that in most jurisdictions there are age restrictions on who can buy pornography, so your point still holds. But the MPAA's rating system does not support what you are saying.
Now that the show is over and we have jointly exercised our constitutional rights we would like to leave you with one very important thought. Sometime in the future you may have the opportunity to serve as a juror in a censorship case, or a so called "Obscenity" case. It would be wise to remember that the same people who would stop you from listening to Boards of Canada may be back next year to complain about a book, or even a TV program. If you could be told what you can see or read, then it follows that you could be told what to say or think. Defend your constitutionaly protected rights. No one else will do it for you. Thank You. --Boards of Canada
OK, first, I disagree with his sampling methods. Only four? Far too few. There is also no mention of what types of games he played. Did he try Grim Fandango? Or just Quake 3 Arena?
Second, why are movies always the only thing video games are compared with? What about cartoons? Comic strips? Hell, I've read books worse than some video games.
"Conveyance of ideas" and "expression" seems to be gravely misunderstood by this judge. As someone else here already pointed out, images can convey ideas. Photography and paintings are forms of expression that are definitely first amendment protected, unless I am sorely mistaken.
Video games can seem daft and mindless, but they are still a form of creative expression by those who make them. At the very least, for the graphic art included in most modern games. I've been playing Darkened Skye recently, and despite its endless platform jumping at some points, the art makes me catch my breath at times, and what little dialogue there is is very funny at times. It may be little more than a pulp fantasy at times, but it's certainly more entertaining, with more intelligent ideas and thems, than the Doom novels. I hope books are still considered speech...
I found that story a bit runny eggs
s souri.asp
http://www.videobusiness.com/news/042302_games_mi
"... local governments can limit children's access... "
Keywords: Limit, Children
Because, you know, adults can buy child porn.
Video games aren't leaving the realm of protected speech. They aren't banning them. They're saying children shouldn't have access to it, like porn, guns, alcohol, tobacco, and many other things 95%+ of America says children shouldn't have access to. And to be honest, I've played some games that I don't think children should play.
I think, at least from reading the majority of the posts here, that we may be missing the point. The point isn't that the judge didn't rule that games are a form of free speech, but that he did this in the case of children, and he made the statement to that effect. Granted, I am going to jump up and down, wail, and gnash my teeth at the thought of someone threatening my 1st amendment rights, but this is not what is going on here. RTFA, guys!!
...we are from the government - we are here to help...
I'm not saying that children should be allowed to buy what ever they want. I think that there should be restrictions on what they can buy and that ultimately that decision lies with the parents. But to lump video games in with child porn is a travesty to those laws. IMHO this judges ruling lessens the laws regarding child porn. The immediate effect of this ruling doesn't bother me, but the specifics of why it was ruled the way it was, does.
... upon examining Limbaugh's brain the court found "no conveyance of ideas, expression, or anything else that could possibly amount to intelligence. The court finds that Limbaugh has more in common with a bowl of Jell-O than than he does with a US Distric Court Judge..."
Every times they think they can hang out the daddy/mummy, great if they don't let their childrens of 15 play games with blood (oh, no!), fine, but other most still be allowed to do so, you have to grow up one day you know. But me (15) I'll play them, gee, your 17, by law you'rn't allowed to play a damn shit and than y're 18 and suddenly you're flooded with porn, drugs, murders, jeez, it could go a litle bit more gradually, no strict borders (a kid is a kid until 18) but vague border, (this is allowed at 6, this is allowed at 7, that is allowed at 8 etc..etc..), thank heaven I live in the Netherlands (here I can buy a bloody game with bloody murder whenever and where I want, and that doesn't makes me a serial killer, so what?).
Freedom of speech(TM) is that to much asked?
If at first you don't succeed, then sky diving definitely isn't for you.
I've rarely (if ever) seen a video game that had a message. A real message besides "Get the power up and win the game". Y'know some message like "Rexamine your life, help the homeless" or something. There's a difference between writing thousands of lines of code and writing a poem. The code is less self-expressing. You can't say "That if statement, I feel, makes a comment on the human condition" when it only makes the human condition if(evilguy.Hp=0 Then evilguy == dead.
You can argue whether the content of these video games should be allowed or not, but video games are not trying to make a 'statement'. They are selling products any way they can -violence, sex, action, graphics...
Save the free speech argument for those times when it really applies
The first generation schooled by the government is taught a full curriculum.
The second is taught a watered-down curriculum to make things easier for more kids to pass, since by now the graduation is meaningful to employers, and we want everyone to be employable.
The third is taught by the undereducated second, and so begins to think in terms of self-esteem and participation and such, rather than actual knowledge or ability. It's a downward spiral from there.
The best defense against idiocy: home school your children.
-- Two men say they're Jesus. One of them must be wrong. - Dire Straits
Unless done at a marked crosswalk.
As I understand it, the restriction on 17 and under going into an R-rated film is not a "law" passed by government but rather an agreement within the entertainment industry to self-police itself.
Specifically, the MPAA rates the film (their methodology is as controversial as the ratings system in general) and the exhibitors (that is, the movie theaters) agree to restrict ticket sales in accordance with the MPAA ratings.
The MPAA ratings are also used to determine when advertisements for movies are permitted-- that's why you don't see ads for R-rated movies during hours when kids are watching TV. Or at least that's the idea-- there was a scandal about a year ago where a lot of R-rated films was being advertised to children on TV.
Apparently, the film company's defense was that ad-purchasing time packages did not match the resolution of the MPAA ratings system-- so there was no way to buy advertising time in slots that exactly matched the demographics of the ratings. (And I'm sure the fact that most theaters weren't checking IDs made the spillover ok too)
I think (but I'm not sure) that blockbuster and other video rental places also check IDs just as theaters do. But I wonder if they care about video games... anyone know?
W
-------------------
This is my SIG. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
A lot of people seem to have forgotten, or perhaps never learned, that at least half the stuff posted on /. as "stories" are just post-bait.
Remember, kiddies, /. has no content without the posts you make.
So quite often you'll see "news for nerds" that's nothing more than a cheap attempt to up the daily post count -- remember, it's the volume of posts that make /. valuable to the advertisers...
t_t_b
I'm on PJ's "enemies" list! Are you?
You can get the Judge's opinion here (96k pdf).
but it still has regulations on it. how is this judge coming to the conclusion the video games with sexual content are not speech?
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
What really annoys me though, is that high court judges are supposed to avoid making rulings that can change the interpretation of the constitution. This ruling could have been made by simply saying that local community standards can be set on video games. But he decided to say they didn't get first amendment protection, and that they equate to child porn. This judges discision will probably get thrown out on a showing of bias.
So what about movies, books, and music? If a movie can have a political message, why not a game?
What was that bunny RTS that came out not too long ago? Where all the bunnies had French accents and the pigs had German accents? A Commentary on WWII maybe? Satirical comments perhaps?
"For a successful technology, honesty must take precedence over public relations for nature cannot be fooled." -Feynman
if this was self imposed like the movies you speak of. Instead this is a law restrict kids from buying certain games the gov. deems unworthy of them. You cite an example of the movies.. the rating system is completely self imposed so it has NO RELEVANCE to this except that it is how video games should be handled.
--
WHO ATE MY BREAKFAST PANTS?
"Limbaugh said he reviewed four different video games and found 'no conveyance of ideas, expression, or anything else that could possibly amount to speech.'"
Well, then, that's settled. I agree with the "four items, one judge" standard. Next up: books! Find four books, and a judge who thinks those four are devoid of substance, and I think we can all agree we can rightfully declare that at that point, books would become "non-speech".
After books, of course, the next thing to lose its speech status should be speeches!
Judge Limbaugh's ruling is available in PDF.
This story is really frustrating. As a Canadian citizen that has seriously considered relocating to the states, I must say that this type of judgment is the reason why I stay put.
In Canada, the freedom of speech protections (well... freedoms in general) are so much greater than those in the United States. In fact, things like computer software, video games, pornography, EVERYTHING is given the dignity of being considered "expression" and protected. When something offends society, it's prohibition must pass a stringent test of being a reasonable prohibition and having that prohibition be the LEAST restrictive way to control the unwanted elements.
This decision undermines the work that many artists and developers do in producing video games. If you've ever looked at the credits on a video game, you'll notice that they read more like movie credits than anything else. The video-game medium is becoming increasingly artistic and games like Black and White, Max Payne, and GTA3 are rich with storylines and character development like a movie. To state that it's illegal to acquire games when underage... that's not itself bad. but to state that the videogames are not themselves speech... that's much more troubling. Therefore, I think that the judgment is a step back... Too bad... it's a rare privilege to be able to make good law and a shame so many are wasted.
Later.
I am not quite sure how this squares with the story about PS2 games being used to teach children how to read. Why would the material used in schools not be Free-Speech? It might be simplistic and naive but content none the less. Maybe we can get the NASA SciFi guy from yesterday to propose a 1% tax on books to educate judges.
Help fight continental drift.
So dont be surprised that steve is issuing fascist rulings.
This space for rent.
The four games were in fact not 'played' but were presented by the defendants (St. Louis County) on a video tape.
:|
From the Judge's statement:
St. Louis County (provided) a videotape depicting four different games: "The Resident of Evil Creek", "Mortal Combat," "DOOM," and "Fear Effect."
Two of these games I've never heard of. Two are ancient. Who knows how the defendants edited footage of the games; I'm sure it was with an impartial eye.
Man, I thought it was a 50 hour movie that just stopped every 10 seconds in case I needed to run to the bathroom. Pressed (x) a few times and it would return to the movie. Huh, a game you say?
Heh heh... maybe the judge just couldn't beat the final boss and missed out on the closing fmv and thus didn't get the entire story?
-- If god wanted me to have a sig, he'd have given me a sense of humor.
whoa...that is scary...now Rush is deciding what laws are just?
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
If US just has voluntary age limits for porn/movies, are the ones for alcohol, sex and cigarettes optional too?
I know in the UK it is 18 (alcohol), 16 (sex) and (16 but they tried to make it 18) for cigarettes (of course 14 year olds often do all three of these) but I'm sure those are by law. Selling an 18 movie to a 17yo can by law get the shopkeeper into a whole lot of pain.
How much interaction can a movie have before it becomes a game? (dvd)
Aren't movies free speech?
What about screenplays?
What about books?
What about oral stories?
How about verbal instructions on how to polish my jackboots?
I had better polish them now while I still can!
It's getting awfully slippery.
Novel theory: Modern Man evolved from psychopath
They just changed access to games from an opt-out to an opt-in policy. That way, if the parents do nothing, their children will NOT have access to porn and violence, whence before they did.
Parents can still consume porn and violence, and give it to their children. I don't see the big problem.
And I thought we all agreed that opt-ins were a good thing.
aligning the term "video game" with the term "pornography" without the work done to define pornography (there is artistic nudity in the current court interpretations that is very protected, if frequently threatended) is just too overbroad.
It's like saying that "photography" is not protected. When it comes down to it, there is sufficient medium agnostic protections and delineations to cover our buts on this stuff - throwing in video games categorically makes not sense and I'd guess it won't last.
The first amendment has been interpreted in far broader terms than just speech, however. It is the freedom of expression. The Supreme Court is likely to disagree that games are not a protected form of "speech."
The race isn't always to the swift... but that's the way to bet!
ok, slashdot stuck the little bit about child porn in there... it is ridiculous to bring the 2 together. This is no more than r-rated movies, having to be 18 to buy regular porn, and other similar laws. when you bring up child porn it is obvious that you just want a reaction...
I just saw this:
Why can't parents, and not the government, keep their children from violent and explicit games?
I agree. I'm a parent, but it's not always that easy. Let me explain why parents can't always keep children from violent and explicit games.
About a year ago, I took my 5-year-old daughter to the local movie theater. In the lobby there was a row of games, including House of the Dead 2. The games in the theater lobby are situated so they face you as you stand in the lobby/concessions area. My daughter took notice of the game, ran over to it, grabbed the gun controller and stood there looking at the running demo of rotting zombies being shot and exploding gorily before her eyes. I rushed over to her and pulled her away, but obviously, I would have preferred she not have seen it.
Now, before anyone assumes I'm some religious goody-two-shoes, I will assure you I love these kinds of games. I'm totally addicted and Quake and Quake 2 will always have a home on my hard drive. I own quite a few violent games but I keep them locked up and my daughter never sees them. I maintain that control. I see it as my duty as a responsible parent.
These kinds of games, on clear public view in places where the public, including children, gather are a serious problem as it removed some measure of that control from me as a parent. I resent that. It pisses me off.
I later called the corporate offices of Regal Cinemas and complained about this and got back a completely defiant attitude about how they had the right to put those games there and how much money those games brought in, and how nobody else compains about it, etc. etc. I pointed out that if a film contained those kinds of gory and violent images, they would be required by law to ensure than a minor has a parent or guardian with them before viewing the movie. This point went right over the guy's head.
I even mentioned that perhaps they could situate the games so they aren't on clear view of the public, but I was told that it would make the games less appealing and make them less profitable. I then asked if they could turn off the demo mode and was given the same excuse.
IMO, some legal control over video games is not going to hurt anyone, exactly the same way legal control over objectionable material in films is not going to hurt anyone. Quite the contrary. As long as we're controlling where it can be displayed and who can play it, not distating what the games makers can or cannot do.
Let's not have some knee-jerk reaction to this. When corporate America can't see beyond its profits, then I have no problem with allowing the government to step in and teach them better.
--Rick
--Rick "If it isn't broken, take it apart and find out why."
Start with a book. Turn it into a choose your own adventure. Protected?
Now make it a little more sophisticated; Something like "Grail Quest". It has the player keep track of things like inventory and health and armor, but is still a choose-your-own adventure. Protected?
Okay, now lets take the SAME exact thing, but have a computer do the book keeping for the player. Protected?
Now lets make it a little more sophisticated, but still wordy, like Zork. Protected?
Replace wordy imagery with the occasional ASCII graphic. Protected?
Give the user a map, like in Zork Zero (if I recall correctly). Protected?
Use the map primarily, and the text secondarily, like in NetHack. Protected?
Apply better graphics, like the graphic ports of NetHack. Protected?
Give the user a first person perspective in the maze, Ultima Underworld or something like that. Protected?
It is a SMOOTH continuum from books to games. I can take any game, and gradually transform it into a book, and any book and gradually transform it into a game.
Give me any two expressions, one slightly more interactive than the other, and I can construct an expression in between.
...that they won't be having "Postal 2" lanparties in the media center after school?
damn, I can't wait for that game to come out.
-Dr. Sublimation
"Limbaugh said he reviewed four different video games and found "no conveyance of ideas, expression, or anything else that could possibly amount to speech. The court finds that video games have more in common with board games and sports than they do with motion pictures.""
So let me get this straight; if a movie tells a story, or expresses and idea, it is protected speech, but if I make a video game based ON that movie, with the same plot, the same characters, the same locations, and the same themes, the only real difference being the additon interactivity, suddenly all premise of expression is lost?
If I take a choose-your-own adventure book, convert it to a simple program, and the only thing lost is the paper and ink, I would essentially have any of the early video games. How is this not speech?
And how is a board game not speech? Many board games are obviously designed entirely to express various ideas; ranging from promoting a drug-free lifestyle to acting out a war to teaching the traditions of judaism.
This judge is obviously incompetent. His judgement has no chance of holding up in the supreme court. I only hope that the people of Saint Louis have the sense to get rid of him.
I just read the ruling, and what's going on is that Video Games are protected forms of speech because they are video games. Just like Photography is protected categorically just because there is Ansel Adams in the world.
I guess I don't see too much of a problem with this if the lines are kept clean (that it doesn't sway toward limiting protections to Video Games - giving greater meaning to medium of "Video Game" to an to "Photography" or "Cinematography". I certainly think it would be possible to create "hate speech" or "pornography" within the context of a video game and that when that judgement is made it should follow in line with the policies.
Now...I'm not saying I agree with where the current line is drawn...but that's different topic!
They aren't prohibited by law because the Movie industry took matters into their own hands. Do you see arcades and stores that sells games doing the same thing?
The big difference here is distribution. There are a limited number of places to go and see movies, so it's relatively simple for the movie theaters to self regulate themselves. Video games and arcades on the other hand are controled by thousands of individual companies, far to many for them all to agree to regulate themselves. All it takes is one small group to not play and the rest will have to follow because they are losing potential money.
A much closer analogy is video rental stores which generally are restricted by law to obey the ratings.
For example, if an arcade game shows you a movie, then while you are distracted by the movie electrocutes you, then says game over, that's not protected speech, even though the movie is. You can't take something that IS protected speech, add something that ISN'T, and expect it to keep staying protected speech.
So what do video games add to static movies? They add INTERACTIVITY and SIMULATION. Could either of these things added to protected speech make it no longer protected speech?
In a particular world view (not my own), yes. Interactivity, for example, changes the expression of the idea of killing a person into a chance to actually experience killing a person. Expressing an idea, and giving a chance to experience are very different things, it's not ludicrous to imagine the people writing the Constitution would mean to protect one without protecting the other.
Another example, with simulation, a virtual world can take directions that the original creator didn't intend or even concieve. If I play Quake III as Xaero and kill someone else playing as Anarki, that's not an attempt by John Carmack to say that dorky computer hackers on cyber skateboards deserve to be killed by alien warlords--because John Carmack didn't intend for Xaero to always win.
To put that example in other terms (because this is fun), imagine that I am playing a Hamlet video game. On the Character Select screen, I choose Hamlet. I proceed to kill my father's murderer right away, because I'm awesome. Shakespeare obviously didn't intend that, and perhaps the developers of the simulated characters whom I'm supposed to interact with didn't forsee what happens, and the remainder of my Hamlet play experience is totally different from what anyone intended. Can this be said to be expression, if the idea to be expressed doesn't exist until it is viewed?
I want to just say "yes, it's still speech, fr33 sp33ch rul3z d00dz", but I can't call someone stupid who says "no".
Of course, I thought of these issues after playing a lot more than 4 video games...
I'm not trolling here, and I strongly believe in children having protection of basic human rights. BUT, I'm opposed to children under 17 having priveledges equal to those of adults. In my mind, freedom of speech is a right for adults (well, should be anyway), but a *priveledge* for children.
Children should have parents, and should have to have permission to do just about anything.
[Besides, I'm sick of 12-yr-olds fragging me.]
-Dr. Sublimation
Therein lies the trap: when does it not apply?
Much as I'd like to see more intelligence injected into contempory video games (a lot of them are simply "product"), I want more to see foresight injected into our judiciary. So I see any claim that something is not protected as a basic right to be at best dubious, and at worst depressing and/or frightening.
People who want to nullify basic rights don't just come out and say "You no longer have this right -- deal with it." They eliminate them piecemeal, one at a time, starting with the most heinous because nobody likes them, and then working toward banning the whole thing much farther down the road.
"'A' is not Free Speech." Soon as the people generally accept that assumption, someone will come out and say "'B' is not Free Speech, it too closely resembles 'A'." And many people will see the reason and go along with it, though some are inconvenienced by it.
And so it continues through the alphabet, chaining together all those things that people want to outlaw until the right itself means nothing; nobody can do anything worthwhile with it. Around X or Y, most people will be outraged and want to fight back, but by then it'll be too late.
Somewhere in the grand scheme, some sort of firebreak must be set up to protect what we have left of those rights, or some push to take back what narrow-minded so-called "decent" people want to give away (not because we want to use those freedoms, but because they see no use for them).
But sometimes I wonder if we haven't passed that point already.
You cannot truly appreciate Dilbert until you read it in the original Klingon.
in the same category as movies? You can rate them and keep kids that are too young from seeing them, but you can't keep developers from making them as violent and gory as they want.
Here is the first amendment to the Constitution:
Note that it says "Congress shall make no law..." -- it does not say that "No law shall be made by any government in the USA, whether federal, state, or local...A similar misunderstanding can be seen surrounding the "establishment" clause: "Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." Note that it does not say that a local or state government cannot make a law regarding religion -- only that Congress cannot do that.
This is a fine point of Constitutional law that many people do not understand. And it is this unfortunate, widespread misunderstanding that has allowed groups like the ACLU (which does many good things) to all but remove religion from the public square. This was never the intent of the first amendment, but it is the interpretation of leftist groups like the ACLU, and it has unfortunately been upheld by some activist judges.
They are just a form of freedom, and we all know the federals can trample all over that! ;P
Here's some speech:
All your base are belong to us!
Where??
We can't carry around sniper rifles no matter how safe we'd be with them, because some people can't be trusted with them. Similarly for public good, some restrictions need to be realized in other areas where some of a demographic will abuse even though others of the same demographic won't.
Slay a dragon... over lunch!
2002-04-25 17:42:32 More Videogame Injustice (or History Repeats Itsel (yro,games) (rejected)
:/
You guys have some of the most evil people and you have some of the nicest people on earth. Too bad to see your country being ruined by those, how shall I call them, Taliban clones?
we're heading down the road to canadian arcades.
Every seen one? sports games, race games, abstract (tetris-type) games, but not a single fighting game or even space-ship-shooter game.
sigh...
-matt
First of all, there are ratings on all games like movies have. They did that back in the 90s in response to the backlash from games like Mortal Kombat. www.esrb.org has the details on their rating system.
Secondly, the only movies that children cannot buy are adult (porno) movies. Blockbuster will let children rent rated R movies if the parent doesn't say no. And no they are not restricted by law either.
Arcades are really the only place that possiably should be regulated, but then they should also regulate the machines that are in movie theaters and bars... etc.
Personally I hate this type of big brother regulation. I think that people should be allowed to make their own decisions. But then again, the lack of decision making seems to be popular.
Of course now all US citizens get 12 years of free education. We also get protection from pirates and bandits. There are no slaves or indentured servants. You don't need to be rich to speak your mind on the Internet. And most people live past the age of 50.
:)
While the government has taken some freedom from us it has also given us freedom that we didn't have before. I value freedom from disease, freedom from armed thugs and freedom from ignorance. I appreciate the ultimate freedom, not being a slave. And I value the freedom to speak my mind in a very public forum.
If the government didn't allow stores to prevent minors from playing mature video games then some crackpot special-interest group would try to keep us all from exercising that freedom. It's not like minors have that much trouble sneaking into R-rated movies.
And actually crossing the street is often illegal (jaywalking), but you usually won't get a ticket for it
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
This says nothing about fucking video games.
-c
I have discovered a truly remarkable proof which this margin is too small to contain.
anything that is "immoral" or "indecent" can fall under two catagories:
1) Intentionally Immoral, and therefor purposely making a point, therefor free speech. Unsupressable.
2) Unintentionally Immoral, therefor not considered by all to be immoral, therefor not immoral. Also Unsupressable.
Just something being considered by someone to be indecent and immoral means that it is an expression. If I create something which you consider wrong, and I dont consider it wrong, [the creation] is my expression of what I feel is not wrong. Unsupressable.
If we only did things which no one found offencive, we wouldnt be able to do anything.
[I, personally, am personally offended whenever someone tells me to have a nice day]
Anything offencive, obscene, indecent, immoral, etc, is automatically free speech. It doesnt "convey a message" anymore once you have no reason to try and stop it from existing.
This may bring up the point of the makers of games not doing so to change the world. Well to that, I just dont give a shit. Intentions don't matter here, see above.
As for the games themselves, they certainly do fucking convey a message. It's FICTION. Apparently this judge thinks that the only Protected speech is speech against the government. He'll have Tolkein pulled off the shelf and burned because he doesnt bother to 'convey' anything other than a story.
Articles like these are why Fate wont give me Pyrokenis
-- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
This is not entriely a freedom of speech issue -- it's actually more of an Individual Rights/Freedom of Access issue -- and when you put it like that, it makes sense.
The issue at hand is not "are we going to make video games illegal", it's "Who are we going to let see certain games". This is the same issue as movies -- whether or not you believe in movie ratings is up to you.
The reason why this is legal to do is that "children" are not "complete" citizens, as per US Judicial Code Title 42, Chapter 21 -- this is why the government can also disallow children to vote, serve in the military and enter into legal contracts.
Again, whether or not this is the correct way for a government to behave is left as an excercise to the reader.
Hilary Rosen's speech was about her love of money and her desire to roll around naked in a pile of money.
1. The Resident of Evil Creek
2. Mortal Combat [sic]
3. Doom
4. Fear Effect
Draw your own conclusions, but seems to me the deck was just a weeeeeee bit stacked.
I think what a lot of people are missing (and is causing much contention) is that there are two issues here:
1) Should computer games be considered a protected form of speech
2) Should there be restrictions on what type of computer games (movies, music, books, etc.) children can buy?
There's a big difference here.
Movies are a protected form of speech while they are still restricted to minors; i.e. I can make a really nasty porn movie (thanks to freedom of speech) and advertise it and sell it to adults, but not to children (thanks to 'decency' laws).
Whereas here, not only can I not sell Nudie Raider to little kids, but the government can potentially stop me from selling it at all if I have any, say, interracial girl-on-girl action, or if I call the MPAA a bunch of nincompoops, or whatever they want, because it's not protected speech.
I've heard it said that most major disagreements come from a difference in the assumptions of the people disagreeing. That seems to be the issue in this thread. I just wanted to bring to light one possible cause.
"Every day you see more and more proof that the left is gaining more and more ground in this country."
Wakey, wakey. I have a great big cup of coffee and a fresh danish for you. This is your happy day, if you think the "left" is bad. Because if you think the "left" is gaining ground in the US, it's time to take a big look around. The nasty, evil "left" has been in steady decline since the 1970s. The US, already considerably to the right of, for example, western Europe, is hurtling at breakneck speed toward becoming a solidly right-wing state with the passage of anti-civil-rights laws like the DMCA and the Patriot Act. The right is winning, big-time. So don't fret, put on your happy face!
If the software is copyrighted... then we are not able to distribute it amongst ourselves. We can scream FREE SPEECH! And the courts just laugh.
So if the software was copyrighted, we already know that it isn't sheltered by free speech. Isn't this finding of the court in-line (redundant) with what we already know?
So the weird thing is that the publisher WANTS it to be protected by free speech in order to PRODUCE it... but NOT protected by free speech in order to keep it's DISTRIBUTION under their control.
Ah hypocrisy. Gotta love it.
The article states that this federal judge ruled that "local governments can limit children's access to violent or sexually explicit video games"...ok fine makes sense. 16 year olds can't go buy pr0n DVDs at the local adult bookstore. here's the kicker, tho: "...saying games are not constitutionally protected forms of speech." Him saying the games are not protected forms of speech can (and considering our governments current state of paranoia/personal freeedom-stomping-in-the-name-of-security) and will affect ALL OF US. grown folks too. i hope the supreme court will overtrun this nonsense...
Lord of the Rings was edited to bring the rating down. Not because it was too violent for the director or the producer. Just to bring the rating down.
I'd rather see every infant know that there's such a thing as death, see every child frightened out of their wits from something that isnt real just long enough to realize that the world around them is horribly worse, see every adult questioning their sexuality when they see a 200' long billboard of a penis in public view, than ever, EVER have someone limit what they create in order to ensure that more people have the option of seeing it.
Everything is rated G. Otherwise it wouldnt really be free speech would it? Freedom of speech entails the freedom to be heard.
-- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
Despite what other replies are saying this ruling is not a step to out law these games. In your post you refered to a law that requires parental consent before buying Mature video games. The video game industry was trying to get this law thrown out as being unconstitutional. The only judgement made was to maintain the law that already exists.
if($america does(!look_for($peace)))
{
we_are_doomed();
}
Then again in a video game isn't not just the the coder's speach, but also the dynamic expression of the player. The coder in the world he/she creates, and the player in how he/she adapts to this new world.
Since the judge said video games were closer to sports than free speech, this raises an interesting question-- what if a town banned baseball within the city limits? While I don't think a town should be allowed to do this, I don't think its a violation of free speech. What consitutional agrument would you use?
That not a single one of these games was an RPG?
Seems to me that RPGs like Final Fantasy have a conveyance of ideas of a sort. Hell, there's enough lines of text in there that they OUGHT to amount to speech (one would think).
And also consider the fact that of late, RPGs and some platformers been considered very much LIKE movies (Final Fantasy anyone?), a contrast to Limbaugh's claim that "The court finds that video games have more in common with board games and sports than they do with motion pictures."
It's practically impossible to liken something with such a elaborately laid-out plot and script like Final Fantasy to a board game like Chutes and Ladders.
Mario Party on the other hand...
I actually found a set of very strong social messages in "Munch's Odyssey". I'd say it's easily comparable to something like Dr. Seuss' "The Lorax".
Now, perhaps if you're from a certain sort of household you wouldn't want your children exposed to a game clearly opposing vivisection, racism and environmental degradation -- if you were a federal judge that tilted to the right, for example -- however others might.
This is a very disgusting ruling. Video games are a strong candidate to become the most powerful art form of the 21st century and they are being politically suffocated in the cradle.
Of course, the reason they are being marginalized is that they threaten to sap the attention and dollars of "consumers" away from established media.
Sheesh. Every day another triumph for greed and ignorance. America - what's left to love about it?
- Night
BTW, this is US District Court Justice Stephen Limbaugh, SR. not Missouri Supreme Court Chief Justice Stephen Limbaugh, JR. as someone responding to the previous story confused the two.
Fuckers!
If you think the judge was wrong, then find four video cames that have a conveyance of ideas, expression, and real speech.
And then write up a formal letter and send it to the judge, expressing why you think video games should be speech.
I, personally, haven't seen any games that merit the same protection as half the novels I read. While I can think of a theoretical video game that would do such, I don't know of any offhand that meet the standard.
(I'm also pefectly fine with the government having the power to regulate commerce of catagorically objectionable material, including violent video games. I know what to do if a legislature with jurisdiction over me passes a law that adversly affects my life.)
Do you _really_ consider videogames speech?
no worthwhile comment here....i just wanted to record my opinion for all time, or at least until /. finds out their backups aren't able to be restored at some future date....
What are we missing here? This is not a first amendment issue. Constitutionally speaking, state and local governments have the right to set their own decency standards.
If you don't like it, move. The federal gov't is [supposed to be] restricted from setting these types of standards (see Campaign Finance Reform), so should be able to find some place to live if you don't like it.
I don't think local governments should be doing that so much but under our federal constitution, they can
Error: Success
This made the shitty fake nutella I'm eating taste just a bit better, through hilarity!
At a very basic level, every act of expression can be considered to be interactive. (The reader response theory of modern lit crit deals with this to some extent.) That is, there's a constant give and take between the reader/observer and a creative work, static or otherwise. A person comes to "art" with a given set of experiences and beliefs through which the creative elements are filtered and to some extent reconstructed. (If you really want to force the issue, we can drop the "re" and say a work is "constructed" for the very first time when a reader/observer experiences it.) Heck, even the same reader/observer coming to the same work at two different points in time may result in two different readings.
In short, a static work offers a nearly limitless set of ways in which it can be experienced. It is, in a nutshell, interactive.
Video games simply take that basic idea and codify it. Specifically, a game designer does not present the player with a singular experience, but rather the potential for a given set of experiences. Not limitless, since there are constraints to what I can do in game; for example, if the game lacks guns, I can't choose to shoot someone.
I choose Hamlet. I proceed to kill my father's murderer right away, because I'm awesome. Shakespeare obviously didn't intend that...
That doesn't diminish the standing of the original as speech or art. For instance, I can grab a Dostoevsky book off my shelf, tear out every other page, and try reading the thing that way. Did he intend this? No. Does it alter my reading experience? Yup. Does this mean "Demons" is not speech or art? Of course not.
when you consider that deep down inside all a video game is is a buncha source code strung together. There are many legal battles going on right now about whether source code should be protected under freespeach. Well if a video game isn't protected... the source code for it isn't protected... which opens up a whole big chink in the armour of the source code freespeach arguement.
isn't because the speach isn't protected, it is because a crime against, and involving the *participation* of an actual child is required to produce it!
( And as an aside this is *exactly* why it has not yet been possible to ban porn staring "actresses" who are actually of age but merely LOOK like they could be younger, or animations of "apparent" minors)
The judge has a couple of other problems with this ruling, which if upheld could have unintended consequences. Video games are protected by *copyright,* a right of distribution accorded to orginal works of * art and literature.*
Think about it.
The copyright protection extends to *board games* which ARE, indeed, protected by constitutional free speach rights.
So are sports for that matter, although this connection is a bit more abstract, being analogous to the right to burn a flag as speach, as well as having the additional constitutional protection of freedom to assemble, which would also apply to LAN parties.
The truely ironic thing is that if the judge had ruled video games WERE more analogous to movies he could have simply pointed to the existing restrictions minors endure with regards to gaining access to movies, and his decision would probably stand.
You see, minors inherently *don't have* full constitutional rights. That is part of the very *definition* of minor.
So is this ruling bad? As an individual ruling it sucks monkey balls. It's so bad as to approach bizarre, BUT. . . it will end up with a formal declaration by the Supreme Court that games are a protected form of speach. ( Or the SC could bounce it back to the lower court for further consideration, which would then support the ban using actual legal means).
This, in the end, is a good thing, and the way our mucked up legal system works.
KFG
Rather, the spirit of the law is meant to protect the right to create and express one's self through whatever means necessary, except in cases where the rights of another person are being violated (ie. I can't express my anger by blowing your head off with a shotgun). The judge, for obvious reasons, is unable to say why he thinks that film should be covered under freedom of speech, but games are not. There is simply no way to justify that illogic.
Bottom line: This judge is more concerned with his incorrect belief that the government needs to -- or has the RIGHT to -- raise our children for us, than upholding our constituional rights (of freedom of speech and of freedom to raise our own children). If this judge believes that is acceptable, he should be permanently removed from his capacity as a judge. He is abusing his position to do exactly the opposite of what the law's purpose is: to protect our rights, not remove them from us.
Not sure I read this right but doesn't the article say that governments can limits CHILDREN'S access to these video games? This doesn't sound like a free speach issue (no mention of adult limits) but a kiddie issue which is hardly breaking new ground. Children are limited from reading Hustler all the time so its not surprising they can'y buy Hustler:the video game.
;)
ps: any misuse of the EULA for Hustler:the video game is purely an accident, sorry
Tim T.
Child Porn - illegal to make, illegal to own, illegal to sell, illegal to send over U.S. Mail, etc., etc.
Video Games - In a few cities minors can't buy/rent some games (violent and/or sexual) - but their parents probably could buy/rent it for them (just like a parent can get a kid into a rated R movie).
Minors have very few rights, and their "freedoms" get trampled on every day. The video game issue seems so very low on the list, especially when some issues (like random drug tests, random searches, etc.) seem like much more important battles to me.
I have little problem telling a 16-year-old that he will have to wait two years to buy GTA. Now, if they start telling 25-year-olds that they can't buy GTA3, then that may be a problem - but stick to the actual case at hand.
Copyrights apply only to forms of speech (expressions). Otherwise books and movies couldn't be copyrighted, they're considered speech.
In fact, what this judge just did was invalidate the copyrights on every videogame ever made. If they're not speech, you can't copyright them. You certainly can't copyright toys.
Ultimately this will be struck down on appeal because the judge arbitrarily decided what consitutes speech. That makes it too easy to have the courts just call whatever they don't like not speech and ban it.
Lord of the Rings was edited to bring the rating down. Not because it was too violent for the director or the producer. Just to bring the rating down.
Market demands. There's nothing sinister about this. PG films consistently do better than R-rated films. Look it up.
I'd rather see every infant know that there's such a thing as death, see every child frightened out of their wits from something that isnt real just long enough to realize that the world around them is horribly worse, see every adult questioning their sexuality when they see a 200' long billboard of a penis in public view, than ever, EVER have someone limit what they create in order to ensure that more people have the option of seeing it.
Oh c'mon! Do you have children? Why does my right as a parent to limit what sort of material my child sees in public get trampled by some advertiser's right to shove offensive material down my throat. It's comforting to see that Slashdot also has folks willing to defend big, mindless corporate interests!
Everything is rated G. Otherwise it wouldnt really be free speech would it? Freedom of speech entails the freedom to be heard.
That last statement is pure bollocks. When has the supposed "freedom to be heard" ever been established? That's silly. You have the right to say and express yourself in whatever way you wish. However, if you think you have the right to forcibly expose me and my child to it, then you are sadly mistaken.
If you can provide proof that there is a legally supported "freedom to be heard" I'd be very interested in seeing it.
--Rick
--Rick "If it isn't broken, take it apart and find out why."
and please don't kill me because I can't spell - been awake far too long ;)
Tim T.
The judges statement,
is obviously pure nonsense. Heck, need I point out the Salon article about State of emergency. Not that I think a judge (or anyone else in government) would like the message in State of Emergency. In fact, I am absolutely sure that if this judge gets a book in front of him where he doesn't like the message, he'll find some excuse to suppress it. However, that's beside the point, I can point out numerous games with political messages. I got so mad about a pro-gun control message in A Mind Forever Voyaging that I quit playing, I prefer the paranoid Libertarian message of Half Life.But these things don't bother me as much as they used to. One reason is that the video game industry is obviously all grown up and can take care of themselves as part of the larger content industry. The other reason is that I think that these conservative, midwestern cities are just deliberately trying to stir up controversies. Maybe they want to show, "Hey, we big government conservatives can be just as intrusive and divisive as the most left wing commie fanatics out there."
I mean, how else would this judge get a chance to make a whole moral value judgement on a technology he happens to despise, and get carried everywhere in papers. (I've noticed that conservatives like to be in your face every bit as much as your left wing protest groups, they just have different ways of going about it.)
I mean, I hate hearing about it as much as I hate hearing about government oppression in any place.
Of course, it is not nearly as big as Falun Gong protesters paying the price for taking over the cable service in Changchun province in the People's Republic of China. (Which I'm surprised wasn't covered here on Slashdot as it was a clever hack in the service of free speech, peaceful protest, and justice for people who are being tortured and murdered for their belief systems.)
I do think we will get there (in the United States) soon though, probably within my lifetime. But we aren't there yet.
All the creatures will die, And all the things will be broken. That's the law of samurai. (Jubai, 1605)
That the judge found no protected speech content in video games is neither particularly surprising nor disturbing. Why? They are, in effect, a form of commercial speech -- that is, speech whose primary purpose/objective is generating revenue for its creator. Commercial "speech" is held to a much lower protection standard than, say, political speech or intellectual discourse.
His finding here actually helps as a precedent, for example, in court cases hoping to uphold Washington's spam law, or local size/height restrictions on billboards, or state laws restricting telemarketing practices. On the other hand, it still doesn't preclude specific challenges to these sorts of laws being applied to specific games which may, in fact, contain protected speech content; contrast Half-Life with SimEarth in terms of potentially protected content, for example.
Ironically, this may also help the open source gaming community in another way: if you have a body of rulings indicating that source code is speech, and a second body of rulings indicating that video games distributed commercially as object code are not speech, then that is quite a competetive advantage for the openly-distributed-as-source product. If only we could be similarly lucky with operating systems!
MOO;IANAL.
There used to be a picture linked here.
Having seen the egyptological treatment in The Real Scorpion King on the History Channel, I'm totally gonna see that movie.
-l
Help cure AIDS, cancer, and more. Donate your unused computer time to worldcommunitygrid.org. Join Team Slashdot!
They're comparing this to child pornography, which, from what I know, is totally illegal, not just for people under 17. So next is it games that contain certain obscenities? No shooting automatics in a game unless you have a license in real life? Thats a big stretch, but still, it can be connected to other things fairly easily.
paul
I loved LSL too.
Actually, the repeal was incomplete. You still cannot do many thing that were once legal. For example distilling your own alcohol is a federal
offense. Until recently brewing your own beer was illegal as well. Many of the 'dry counties' around the US were made that way during
prohibition and they never repealed the local legislation.
If I have to go in (I'm 16 now) with my mom to buy Doom 3 when it comes out.... I'll kill something... (just kidding on the last part)
:o
I'll guess its just another game to pirate
paul
I think if you zoom out a little, the big picture is even more disturbing. As a society, we've progressed from the "War on Drugs" with all the abuses of power and degradation of rights that came with it [Disclaimer: I do not intend to present a moral verdict pro or con drugs in this post. It's just an example to illustrate by point.] to what you might call the "War for Children."
In the name of this war, as in the Drug War (and, I suppose, nearly every other war of any kind in history), we as a people have been willing to accept all sorts of infringements on our rights, in lots of areas that only tangentially touch on children or their well-being.
Think about how many times you've heard a politician, talking head, special interest rep, or other pundit say we have to do something "for the children" or "to protect our children." How many times have we been told that we "owe it to our children"?
Now, naturally, people do this because it works. Their children are the most precious things in the world to most people, and most parents would sacrifice anything for their childrens welfare. That is good and noble. What is disturbing is that our society has progressed (regressed?) to the point that it is willing to sacrifice rights that belong to all of us (including our children) in the interest of protecting "our" children collectively.
This is the result of decades of public figures engaging in demagoguery using children the same way welfare, Social Security, the Second Amendment, and religion have been used. I believe that doing so trivializes children, engenders an excessive feeling of entitlement in them, and exposes them to the insidious dangers of being abused as symbols.
And isn't abuse in all its various forms what we really want to prevent?
The most politically incorrect video game ever made. Run through the ghetto blasting away various blacks and spics in an attempt to gain entrance to the subway system, where the jews have hidden to avoid the carnage. Then, if YOU'RE lucky.... you can blow away jews as they scream "Oy Vey!", on your way to their command center.
Get it here!
The ruling is useless. Here is why.
If the parents involved actually PARENT their children, and do their job of monitoring and controlling what their children see and do, then this is completely unnecessary.
Of course, government seems to be under the impression that parents can't do thier job and must therefore restrict the children from purchasing these violent sexually explicit video games. Of course, if the parents aren't watching their children anyways, how are they going to prevent them from pirating it? Same goes with movies these days. Blockbuster might not rent the movie to a 12 yr old, but he can download it for free off the internet anyways, so what difference does it make.
All the government is doing is putting a huge target on the games. The kids will now know exactly WHICH games to go after first.
-Restil
Play with my webcams and lights here
This seems to cut out most "R" or "NC-17" rated movies, dunnit? Well, at least all excepting the very few that feature no nudity or sex.
Several states still have movie classification boards that review films to determine whether they are harmful to minors - one may safely assume that these boards by and large are rubber-stamp bodies that follow the MPAA ratings. Some states have a film classification board and still use codify the MPAA's ratings explicitly into law. Check out this Tennessee statute:
Finally, lots of states require videos to display an MPAA rating (or "not rated" if they are, well, not rated), and then have statutes that explicitly claim not to adopt the MPAA rating system, but which in effect bar the rental of R, X, or NC-17 movies to minors.
Finally, there are plenty of local ordinances around the country that bar the showing of R or NC-17 flicks to minors explicitly. These may not be constitutional, but any statute is presumed constitutional until it is challenged. Do you have the time and money to challenge such a law in your town? I don't.
Bottom line, MPAA ratings might as well be law. Don't even get me started on zoning ordinances that automatically classify any theater that shows an NC-17 or unrated film as a porno house, to be zoned out of existence.
-Isaac
I am not a lawyer, and this is not legal advice. For Entertainment Purposes Only.
If they can't be covered under First Amendment protections, then how can they be protected by copyright law? Obviously, we can infer from this decision that we have every right to freely copy and distribute video games.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
Pardon my mangled language - editing a post that long in a tiny textbox leads to silly mistakes.
-Isaac
I am not a lawyer, and this is not legal advice. For Entertainment Purposes Only.
I knew I had seen this judges name recently.
So video games are not a protected form of speech, but junk faxes and spam are?
Specifically this post where the poster found nothing out in the public realm about which judge had ruled in favor of the faxers/spammers, but did find it on LEXIS/NEXIS.
I don't know if this person is related to Rush Limbaugh or not, but considering his rulings (in these two cases anyway - favoring big business over individual rights and to 'protect the children' by stomping on the first amendment) he could at least be a dittohead.
This judge bears watching, god knows how many other wacko rulings he may emit.
The saving grace may be in the last sentence of the article; "St. Louis County modeled its ordinance after one in Indianapolis. That ordinance has been invalidated by a federal appeals court in Chicago."
War is Peace. Freedom is Slavery. Ignorance is Strength. - George Orwell or George Bush?
This is fucking enough! First the call copying a CD to your hard drive "piracy" then that fucker Hollings (1st against the wall) gets paid by Disney to call all of us major criminals, now, this shit. THIS FUCKING COUNTRY IS A BIG PILE OF DOG SHIT. How can this shit be supported any fucking longer?
Let's replay the score:
In this country, it is perfectly legal to bribe public officials... This is called "fund raising"
In this country, it is perfectly legal to for the government to take your life... This is called "tough love"
In this country, that espouses democracy, the government has time and time again overturned public votes to legalize pot... This is a "war" on drugs
In this country, a cokehead piece of crap can block black people from voting, wipe his ass with absentee ballots than call the candidate who did win a "sore loser" for asking that the ballots be count right in the first place... This is called "democracy"
I don't know about you, but between the way that the whiteascocaine house has dealt (fumbled) the bullshit war on "terror", which is nothing more than thinly veiled saber rattling against a bunch of enemies that we can't fight and win (china, north korea) - and the previous administration's blowjobs to the media industry (dmca), I feel completely alienated.
These are the same fuckers who blew the tobacco settlement on highway projects, even though your medical plan still doesn't cover smoking cessation.
Our nation is run for the corporations, by the corporations and is of the corporations. Our voices don't count for shit. Our president is an indolent shithead. Our votes are useless.
Thanks to years of insider relations with the evowed enemies of our country, these fuckers created a situation that allowed 9/11 to happen.
Worse yet, is the mounting evidence that these soulless pieces of crap allowed 9/11 to happen in the first place. Look at the way the FBI dealt with the flight instructor pleading for them to listen to the warning signs of dealing with these people. Shit, don't forget that we granted visas to these fucking criminals in the first place.
Don't forget how this fine nation of ours has dealt with our enemies. Back in the good old days, we dealt properly with our enemies. We killed them. If you look for Mussuloni, you better look in hell.
10 years ago, billions of dollars were spent in a war against a piece of shit in Iraq. Look for Saddam Hussein, and he's lighting a Cubano with a burning American flag.
When is enough going to be enough? We didn't have many rights to begin with, but now "our government" is raffling off the few remaining ones to the highest bidder. All the while Pat Robertson is smiling in the corner! We allow these hatemongers to blame all of society's problems on the people least able to defend themselves. They trample on rights to free speech and assembly (think:rave) in the name of the war on drugs and how important it is that we protect children.
How far are we, the people, going to allow this abortion of democracy to crawl foward? When are we going to put a stop to this nonsense!
Never, if you keep voting "yessir, Republican" and "yessum, Democrat" every November. I'm not advocating one single third party, but all of them! Far Right and Left together! At least they are acknowledging these problems instead of hiding behind bullshit issues.
I don't like that, but what I would like is if they decided that political candidate's signs with no information but their name isn't a protected form of speech... Those things are annoying! How can anyone consider those things speech
I don't remember the original MGS that well, but I know it's possible to beat MGS2 without killing anyone (I have). The weapons are even color coded by wether or not they kill people.
After hearing about this new Britney Spears video game, I have become consumed with the idea of Video Game Satires. If one were to make a video game where, say, the objective is to traverse through America as Britney Spears, selling addictive pink bubble gum to urban teens, could I use her likeness without her permission?
-- PK
Not only did this idiot judge err bigtime in this decision, check out his other inane decision this month where he says junk faxes ARE protected speech.
0 0/ 4-22-2002/200204221019491903.html
http://news.findlaw.com/ap_stories/high_tech/17
Clearly this judge has gone senile and needs to be removed from the bench.
He came to it by analogy with sports. Here is his reasoning as I understood it. Baseball is a sport and not speech. Add violence to a sport, i.e. hockey or boxing, and its still not speech. He wasn't dealing with (or at least didn't mention) sexual content, he was dealing with violence.
According to the paper, this judgement was based on an earlier finding:
"In the early 1980s, courts began facing the issue of whether video games were forms of expression entitled to First Amendment protection. Courts almost unanimously held that video games lacked the expressive element necessary to trigger the First Amendment."
Ok, so what games were common in the early 80's? Pac Man? Asteroids? I can see how this decision came about with that kind of content. Probably the only expressive games around were MUDs, but text-based games hardly satisfy the "video" requirement. This was just a technological limitation at the time.
"The court went on to hold that the plaintiff had succeeded in establishing only that video games are
more technologically advanced games than pinball or chess, and that technological advancement alone does not impart First Amendment status to what is an otherwise unprotected game."
This is clearly flawed. If movies and books are protected, why not games that are based on them? How about movies/novels that are based on games? The only thing really different about games is that they are interactive. But wait...would a magazine or a dictionary be considered a game? Reading an index and flipping through pages is quite interactive. Even a T.V. becomes a video game when one uses the "controller" to surf through commercials in order to find the best shows.
"Leave the strategizing to those of us with planet-sized brains." -Tycho
Several other courts have addressed the same Fax-SPAM issue, and have uniformly held in the opposite direction.
Needless to say, there are a lot of lawyers looking at this Limbaugh guy's output, and scratching our heads, and wondering where (aside from Federalist Society conventions perhaps) he gets those wacky ideas of his.
Limbaugh said he reviewed four different video games and found "no conveyance of ideas, expression, or anything else that could possibly amount to speech. The court finds that video games have more in common with board games and sports than they do with motion pictures."
Obviously Limbaugh never heard of The Sims, or read any of the stories in The Sims Exchange, where players have uploaded more than 50,000 families with their stories, each of which certainly qualify as free speech.
The Sims has much in common with web publishing tools, word processors, graphics editors, 3D CAD tools, storyboarding and movie production tools, all of which essentially support free speech, storytelling and public expression.
The Sims supports the expression of free speech in several ways. You can take pictures of the scenes in the game, collect them into your family album, and write stories about them. You can create your own characters, props and scenery, construct sets with the built-in architectural tools, and direct the plot of your own story as it unfolds on the screen. You can take snapshots and write text to record your stories, and share them with other people.
The Sims lets people of all ages produce illustrated web pages about their house, family, and an album telling their story. It lets you upload your web pages and games to The Sims web site, were many other people can read the stories, and even download and play with the families.
The Sims is an example of a video game that essentially supports free speech, which should clearly be protected by the Constitution.
-Don
Take a look and feel free: http://www.PieMenu.com
Video games aren't protected and recognized as speach but 'The Scorpion King' is? The judge based his decission on 4 video games and found that they were nothing like a motion picture? Was he playing Tetris or something?
The irony is that if there were strictly enfourced violence and porno laws on games for minors, the bar would be raised and games for adults that generally had a reasonable amount of speech would be produced. Games are much more frequently refered to as adult when they are not just for kids but with movies, it's more likely to mean porn. I don't think that any movie based on the style and theme of State of Emergency would be refered to as adult. It would be a dumb teen guy flic (you know the kind) but the game was called "adult". In my opinion, truly adult games would not have so much violence, drugs, sex, etc... that's teen movie stuff.
I'm a game player and have been for years. I play violent games and it has not been some hirrible influence to me. I do not think that such centure for minors is necessary. All I wanted to do is touch on the fact that it is a childish (including teens, twentys) market and that this is not necessarily completely detrimental.
People have been mentioning treasured gems that they love that have story. Forget these few instances. That kind of quality could be the norm.
Why is everyone assuming that Video Games are speech? To me that just seems ridiculous. Is Monopoly speech? How about Uno? Poker? Or is it by virtue of the fact that they are played on a computer they are suddenly considered speech?
Come on people, lighten up...
I never say forcibly, but it is fairly obvious that freedom of speech does not mean only that you can say whatever you want, if it do it in a government-designated sound-proof room.
Just dont go to places you disagree with. That's what capitalism is about. The government shouldnt be made to interfere with business because pissy reality-controllers dont want fiction to exist in
front of the eyes of their poor innocent offspring.
-- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
I'll never subject my children to most games (plus a lot of shit on the net) until they are ready.
....unfortunately we live in a world void of responsibility therefore the gubment has to take care of us. This I hate, but still respect to a degree with all the worthless parents out there.
That's my decision and my resposibility
Given thinkgeek's penchant for t-shrits with decess/encryption code on them, can we expect
Pong code on a T-shirt anytime soon?
I was actually thinking about video game censorship and ratings earlier. I thought of something, why not create a single rating system for any content-based item? I don't partically like censorship, but ratings do give room for "worse" things in content, because the rating says "stay away kids". This way, the same rating given to the new Jason X would be given to whatever Duke Nukem comes out next, if it does. Simple and money saving, even.
Question
http://www.ironfroggy.com/
Some things cant be expirenced without some interaction. Asking a question is a type of interactivity. Does this mean that every book with a question mark is no longer free speech?
Question
http://www.ironfroggy.com/
*sigh* Yes, this case was about limiting childrens access to video games, the same way we limit access to movies. But... movies are protected, and we limit their access... how are games different? I am in favor of preventing 12 year olds from getting GTA3, but that doesn't mean games are speech! The judge basically says he wasn't moved by the 4 games he played, and then points out how computer games include things like Solitare, which shouldn't be protected. Of course, I can also make a movie of the power gague of a battery running down, which will have less meaning, but that doesn't mean the movie isn't protected under the first ammendment. Honestly, this guy obviously hasn't communicated with anyone who really plays games.... Final Fantasy games, Deus Ex, Myst.... all of these have meaning, and yet he claims they aren't protected as free speech! This needs to be dealt with, even though the case is about children viewing games, he's ruling that games are not protected. Any more cases dealing with games will just reference this ruling, and claim its not protected..... This has to be (and WILL be) overruled, nobody who has completed FFVII will say games can't convey a meaning.
So what about max-payne, that was 75% comic book.
I never say forcibly, but it is fairly obvious that freedom of speech does not mean only that you can say whatever you want, if it do it in a government-designated sound-proof room.
Can you cite some examples of what you mean. I don't understand this statement at all.
Just dont go to places you disagree with.
Precisely! I don't want my daughter to be exposed to alcohol or cigarettes and loud music and swearing, therefore I don't take her to bars. I don't want her exposed to sexually explicit behavior so I don't take her to live sex shows or strip clubs. I don't want her exposed to violent or sexual imagery in films so I don't take her to R-rated movies. The current problem with violent video games is that there are no restrictions imposed on them where and when they can be on public display--unlike the things I've mentioned previously. Why is everyone so up-in-arms over what is clearly a double-standard? Is it because video games are such a regular part of your daily life that you feel any changes imposed on them would "hit too close to home"? They're part of my daily life too, but my principles do not change on a whim because it would be an inconvenience to me. You should re-examine your thinking on this.
That's what capitalism is about.
No, it isn't. Capitalism has nothing to do with protecting someone's perceived right to put offensive or objectionable material in a public place.
The government shouldnt be made to interfere with business because pissy reality-controllers dont want fiction to exist in
front of the eyes of their poor innocent offspring.
Nobody is trying to "control reality." What I think is reasonable is to expect violent video games to be not on public display. They should be restricted to arcades and possibly placed in adult subsections within arcades. That's not unreasonable at all and perfectly analogous to how society handles similarly objectionable material in films, music, and other forms of media. I don't understand this overreaction to such a reasonable notion.
--Rick
--Rick "If it isn't broken, take it apart and find out why."
Movie ratings have affectively killed quality movies aimed at intelligent people - no-one wants to release something marked NC-17 because many cinemas won't show it and no newspaper will carry the listing; studios butcher their movies to get a lower rating so they can make more money; backward rental outlets won't carry unrated or NC-17 rated movies.
To a somewhat more limited extent you have so-called family values chains that won't carry music that has a warning label; and we can be sure they also won't carry games like that either. The result? More garbage aimed at the lowest common denominator.
Popularity ratings for television have similarly ruined quality television.
Frankly I don't care if my children see nudity or sex, in fact I think it sends a very disturbing message to children if you try to shield them from these things. Sex is an integral part of good family values. Violence is a slightly more gray area, but to date there is been no evidence that exposure to violent movies or games leads to violent behaviour.
I could find 4 games but instead I'll concentrate on one series of games. Since one example is enough to prove that not all games are devoid of content that should be protected as free speech. In Ultima IV, Richard Garriot (aka. Lord British) invented a system of beliefs for his imaginary world. I won't go into the details but this elaborate system promotes the following of eight virtues (such as compassion, justice, and so on). Now Lord British has received mail from people who told him how their life had changed because of that insight, that they had become better persons. This game influenced those people on a moral level, religious even. How can such a game not be protected by free-speech?
True warriors use the Klingon Google
You see that it's a Panasonic ad. Apparently they have much cooler advertisements in Japan than they do here!
:)
I think "hi-ho" is meant as a nonsense-word / trademarkable advertisement, the same way it is in "Snow White and the Seven Dwarves"
In post-9/11 America, the CIA interrogates YOU!
At best, video games are commercial speech, which has historically (IIRC) been more controlled by the courts than artistic or political speech. What were the developers of Quake trying to express? Nothing. They were simply developing a piece of software for people to use as they saw fit. Take the analogy out of games and into any other kind of software, and it becomes obvious. What were Microsoft's developers trying to express when they created Word? A piece of software is not an artistic creation in itself, although it can produce artistic creations (screenshots from games, for example).
The bigger (and more thorny) issue is whether video games should be barred from being sold to children if the games are violent. I answer that with a firm "it depends". I think that below a certain age, children are not able to cognitively tell the difference between reality and fantasy. While that age may be different from child to child, there's a certain baseline that people can agree to, I think, and psychologists would certainly have an idea what that age was, statistically. Now, that won't stop bad people from doing bad things. A teenager that shoots up a school is doing it because he/she is mentally ill and/or just an ass, rather than because they played too much Half-Life. All playing these games probably does for an older child is improve their eye-hand coordination for shooting purposes.
Instead of labeling stuff, whether it be music, movies, games, internet sites, whatever, as offensive, why not mark the non-offensive/kiddie stuff as non-offensive/kidde stuff. With the way the 'moral 'majority'' have done things, they've labeld 'bad' things as bad. The problem with that is the 'bad' labeled things get black listed by proxy of not being carried in stores, theaters, etc. But I guess that's the end to their means; to push their views on others.
I am not saying he should not be allowed to swear. I am saying that he shouldn't use his freedom to swear, just as he should not use it to so strongly denounce the US government (criticism is ok and encouraged as long as it is helpful, but that was not helpful criticism). I am not demanding that he not swear, but it certainly didn't help his arguments, which now seem to be made more on the basis of anger than that of rational thought. And it is offensive.
In the (translated) words of Voltaire, "I disagree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." Of course that doesn't mean I won't ask him not to say it...
--Mike Hamburg
I hereby place the above post in the public domain.
Okay, now lets take the SAME exact thing, but have a computer do the book keeping for the player. Protected? No.
That'd probably be where the judge draws the line. His reasoning (or lack thereof) would probably go like this:
Interactive Book: Speech
Electronic Book: Speech
Interactive Electronic Book: Not Speech.
Not to sound like a radical wingnut, but, practically speaking, this judge needs a bullet in his head before he makes any more bad judgments. Of course, his resigning would be fine too, but he'd probably say "Over my dead body."
no
everything you just said there is a complete fairy tale. You would expect a teenager to say such things.
The world hasn't changed much socially in 10 thousand years. All the same vices, all the same selfish stupid actions. And always all the same results.
The laws however have come and gone. The social apprehensions too have been cyclical.
But there is no such thing as moral relativity. You kill someone, you change the world for the worse... doesn't matter if it's acceptable or not.
Drinking beer has consequences. The greeks worshiped (and feared) Dionysius for the same reasons we don't let minors drink. The consequences are IDENTICAL, but the laws are different. Viewing porn has consequences. The puritans put people to death for the same hedonistic actions that siblings commited with each other in ancient Egypt. Where one culture prohibits, another promotes. But nevertheless BOTH cultures still committed the same acts (although the Puritans in secrecy), and the results were mostly the same: Neither culture is here today.
The basic consequences of your actions don't change if some self-centered ego-tripping politician makes them legal or not. One could argue that getting caught and being punished for a crime would cause a different consequence... but that's not what I'm talking about here. I'm saying that there is no difference in comitting a crime of which no one is aware, and committing a legal act. ("It ain't illegal if you don't get caught.") The legality effects that you discuss are so MINOR... that weighed with 6 BILLION people, they become completely negligible.
What's funny is that someone actually moderated your first response up. That just goes to show if you want karma, you should learn the politically correct "one-liner"... it doesn't matter if it's accurate or not.
peace
If you had bothered to read anything about this you would have seen that the judge is oversteping his athority by claming that games are not a protected form of speech. He's saying the entire interactive entertainment industry has no artistic merit worth protecting. That's the whole issue. I couldn't give a crap if some local government decides to make the game ratings legaly binding. It's when some ignorant judge says that the most promising new form of expression in the last 50 years has the expressive depth of roulette that I get upset.
::Can you cite some examples of what you mean. I don't understand this statement at all.
/is/ about not using products you disagree with. Obviously your comment about not changing your principles do to inconvenience is ill-placed. You wont change your own principles if it's inconvenient, but certainly forcing inconvenience on someone else is no problem for you! /no/ child is allowed to see such things, how is that freedom to those parents who frankly dont give a shit about what you think? You have many options availible to you about getting your entertainment in a variety of ways, just as I have a variety of places that I can go see shit blow up. That variety wont always be mixed the same way. Sometimes I'll switch which place I buy something at because I dont want to be bombarded with products I consider to be an evil, and sometimes you'll do the same.
Example: I want to say that donkeys dont have eyebrows. I dont know why, this is hypothetical. Now, it is my right to say such a thing. For some reason, the government doesnt want me to say such a thing, so they decide they've found a loophole in the BOR and so, while I retain my right to say whatever I want to about Donkeys and their Eyebrows, I can only state my opinions where they will be unheard.
Obviously, freedom of speech entails the right to be heard by whoever wishes to listen.
::No, it isn't. Capitalism has nothing to do with protecting someone's perceived right to put offensive or objectionable material in a public place.
Capitalism
If you do not wish to see in a public place something which you find objectionable, cease to go to that public place. Actually, get everyone to stop going to that public place. Form a protest. Stand outside the theater with a sign, organize a boycot, Make your voice be heard to the management of the theater.
But not to the government. Speak with your dollar, not with your Older Brother.
If on the decision of a few, or even a majority of parents who dont want their kids to see violence in public, the government decides to make sure that
Should the government really get involved, and so limit us both?
and finally, Reality happens in public. And I'm equally annoyed about things such as control of Movies and other media. Video Games and Music are two things which seem like they still have a chance to be fought against, which is why I'll do what I can to try and keep the government out of their way, and try to keep people seeing that there are more reasonable ways of getting people to not do things they disagree with.
-- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
Read the ruling as linked to below. He never even played anything, he watched a videotape supplied to him by the defendants of the four games mentioned, and ruled based on that. I question the legality of this.
-------------------------------------------------
There is an insightful analysis of the legal decision at penny arcade, written by one "Atticus XI - Lawyer of Doom." Many lucid points raised on the side of those who are good and just.
Tetris rules.
Touche! I guess I'm in a bad habit, diarrhea of the keyboard. My excuse is that my char limit is set to 32768. I'm also flirting with promotion of offtopic mods. I suppose playing Slashdot is cheaper then hanging in a bar.
Maybe I can afford a posting style that is a bit less "thorough", but then I might suffer some kind of Identity crisis. Thanks for the tip.
At my local county IT dept where i worked a while back we had a program called 'little brother' in addition to our firewall. We could see what people are doing. Even on a small DSL router I advised a small printing company on purchasing had logging abilities of all http sites viewed from the inside. Perhaps parents should set up firewalls and stuff if they can't watch their kids all the time. So the kid learns to get around them, they learned something didn't they. I think 9/11 (god i hate to be so cliche) has shown some kids the shit that can happen in the real world. I don't think that Max Payne is gonna warp their minds anymore than that did. Hell I have been playing Wolfenstein since it came out among other things, and i am the least violent person i know :)
In addition, who gives the kids the money to go buy GTA3? How is a 10 year old getting to Best Buy? My kids are gonna know what they should and shouldn't be doing online.
Can you copyright something that isn't expressive in any way? If I remember correctly, the 1st amendment covered all forms of expression... Now, let's all go make copies of out games and upload them to OC3 servers!