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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?
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 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
I'm gonna have a hard time swallowing that something like GTA3 or Final FantasyXXVVVIIII has some kind of constitutional protection.
A hard time swallowing? Would you have a hard time swallowing Lieutenant Commander Data's 12-inch long cyber-cock? Seven of Nine doesn't have a problem with it.
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
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?
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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
---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.
Um. "the left"? I don't think it's censorship is a uniquely left-wing (or uniquely right-wing) phenomenon. Sure, lots of Democrats support these laws, but plenty of Republicans do too. And it's been a long time since the Democrats have represented the left anyway.
Become a FSF associate member before the low #s are used
"... 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'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.
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
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This is my SIG. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
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.
The left? The left used to be all about personal freedoms. Remember hippies?
Besides, conservatives need to divorce the religious right before they can claim that they stand for personal freedoms at all.
There are no trails. There are no trees out here.
Hmmm.
Things "that may portray a distorted or possibly dangerous view of life for a child" -- I'd say that the Bible and the Koran both qualify. Faith denies reason, and promoting faith over reasoning does not seem particularly beneficial.
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
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.
Sayeth the article:
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."
Four games. Four fucking games. Out of a entire fucking INDUSTRY, this asshole reviews four games. This is like reveiwing 'Ishtar', 'Waterworld', 'Howard the Duck', and 'Glitter' and then saying that all American movies suck.
I can list four games off the top of my *head* that have more speech and artistic values than all four of those movies I just mentioned put together.
'Black and White' - Morality play, pure and simple. What's the difference between right and wrong?
'Max Payne' - Dark Psychological Thriller with some gritty 3PS thrown in for taste.
'Starcraft' - Betrayal, Greed, and Cosmic justice carried out against a RTS background.
'Diablo II' - Relgion versus damnation. Hell, most RPG's have storylines. Some are better some are worse. What if the plotline of a RPG was that I was a judge trying to stamp out virtual kiddie porn?
Four fucking games. Gimme a break.
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I only read the Nando article, so it may have garbled the issues, but if something is not "protected speech," it can be banned. It strikes me that a better (and narrower) rationale for upholding the statute is that the games at issue fall into the category of "indecent" speech (think George Carlin's Seven Dirty Words bit), which can be regulated so as to prevent accidental access by children, but not banned outright.
The quotation in the article suggests that this particular judge doesn't think that the games qualify as "speech" at all, which sounds sort of ridiculous, but it may have been taken out of context.
Anyone have a link to the text of the decision?
> I can list four games off the top of my *head* that have more speech and artistic values than all four of those movies I just mentioned put together.
;-)
Not a bad list, but I can do one (or four) better.
The Longest Journey - Adventure games are really the closest thing you can get to a movie in a game. TLJ is one of the best to come out recently, though it was a toss-up between this and Grim Fandango.
Zork - It's almost like reading! Surely even he can get that through his thick skull.
Deus Ex - One of the more literate FPSes. You've got to throw an action one in there.
Tetris - Hey, if we can get him hooked maybe he'll see things in a different light.
This is, of course, ignoring the fact that he has NO PLACE JUDGING WHAT IS SPEECH AND WHAT ISN'T . But if he was a good judge I guess he'd know that already.
[PowerPoint] is a tool for capitalist presentation
Having named some games in this genre, I think anyone else can recall several more advernture games that are essentially an interactive novel.
Edith Keeler Must Die
I'll see your four and raise you four more.
The Legend Of Zelda - The Triforce should be a controlled substance.
Mega Man - Rehabitilitation of mad scientists doesn't work.
Donkey Kong Country - On the other hand, rehabilitation does work for gorillas.
Super Mario Brothers - Trust the fungus.
It would be a mistake, however, to conclude from these pronouncements that the Court, having decided in the late 1960s and the 1970s that children are "persons," determined that children should have the same set of constitutional rights that we ascribe to adults. If the Court did see children as persons, then it surely saw them as peculiar sorts of persons for purposes of constitutional analysis. For example, during the 1970s the Court also decided that juveniles did not have three of the procedural rights that adults take for granted: the right to a trial by jury, the right to bail prior to adjudication, and the right to be protected from corporal punishment.
The usual justification for this confusing set of adjudications was that children must be "safeguarded from abuses," and that the state may continue to create laws that will help parents and teachers discharge their joint responsibility for their children's well-being. Moreover, the Court said, since children do not have the "full capacity for individual choice," they may be deprived of certain adult rights (e.g., to marry, to vote), and their activities can be regulated if it can be shown that this will "safeguard the family unit and parental authority." In sum, the catch-phrase of the 1970s Court that "children are persons" is precisely that: a phrase that lacks the precision of a normative principle.