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."

Comments

Not the end of the story

[NMerriam]

In other news, MegaGameCorp announced today that their planned Christmas 2002 release of "Child Porn: The First Person Shooter" will be delayed indefinitely...

Re:Not the end of the story

[President Chimp Toe]

It's already out

Don't they do this already?

[SplendidIsolatn]

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?

Re:Don't they do this already?

[lamont116]

Are pornos illegal? No. Limiting certain games to adults only won't result in them becoming illegal, just as limiting some movies to adults hasn't made those movies illegal.

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?

some times i get so angry about this....

[sniepre]

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?

Re:some times i get so angry about this....

[Anixamander]

While I tend to think the judge ruled on the wrong grounds on this one, I personally have no problem with limiting the access of video games to minors. Everyone likes to trot out the argument that it is the parents' responsibility, but that only works to a certain degree. A parent cannot, and should not, be around their child 100% of the time. There should be times when the child can be with their friends without parental supervision. And when that happens, I see no problem if the parent gets a little assistance from retailers who won't sell overly violent video games, or porn, or beer or cigarettes to their children. The movie rating system seems to work well, and there is no reason the video game ratings should not work the same way. And just as with a movie, if the parent wants their child to be exposed to the video games, they can buy it for them. This is not an issue of asking retailers to do the parenting. It may be a little bit of assistance, but I see no reason why this is patently wrong.

Re:some times i get so angry about this....

[sniepre]

"A parent cannot, and should not, be around their child 100% of the time. There should be times when the child can be with their friends without parental supervision."

My only thought at this point is, who should set the rules on what is acceptable and unacceptable for a developing child to see? I'm not talking about ages 8-12 or whatever.. but mid to late teens... are growing constantly at that age...

Sometimes, letting them discover some parts of the real world is necessary. You and I both know what a gun can do, and I think it can sometimes backfire keeping a devloping teen locked away from being able to experience certain elements of the real world.

Surely, a parent would tell their children what is right, and what is wrong. So, after the child was raised properly with the knowledge of right and wrong, if they desire to go learn of the *real world* i dont think there should be a magic cut off at 17-18 when they are then declared arbitrarily to be "mature enough" to be exposed to it all at once.

Its just a part of growing up, IMHO.

Re:some times i get so angry about this....

[Bagheera]

I have to ask "are you a parent?"

We agreee that the judge botched the ruling, and I agree completely that I don't need to be, nor should I be, around my kid 24x7 to make sure she stays out of trouble, but it's not the government's place to do my job for me.

The point here, as others have mentioned, is one of micromanagement. If I don't want my kid playing violent video games (or smoking, or watching R-Rated movies), I tell her not to and, if I've done my job as a parent, she won't. Same goes for drugs, pr0n, teen sex, etc. Yes, there are some cases (ethanol, cigarettes) where there are proven harmful consequences where I don't mind their intervention, but there is no proof whatsoever that video games are going to hurt anything but the kid's thumb muscles.

The movie ratings are, in many respects, a farce. The whole concept of strictly "age dependent" ratings is inane. Yes, it's convenient and there is some justification for it (statistical averages) but there is no mystical transition in head space when someone turns 17,18,21 that makes them suddenly able to understand things they couldn't understand the day before - or take responsibility for same.

All the ordnance does is put additional burdens on retailers with no real benefit to the people it's trying to protect. THAT is what is patently wrong about it.

Re:some times i get so angry about this....

[Happy Monkey]

Can you imagine how much MORE trouble I would have got myself into if these things were LEGAL?

None. It would have been legal.

Re:some times i get so angry about this....

[TGK]

So I'm going to have to point this out... it's probably said elsewhere, but it needs to be said here too.

Many things are protected speech. Porn (for the most part) is protected.... at least insofar as the Court has refused to define obsenity in any real meaningfull sence. Justice Stone once said "I'll know obsenity when I see it" which more or less sums up our Judicial System's take on the issue.

That said there is a difference between what is protected and what is freely available. Playboy's pictures (nudes) are protected speach, but you can't buy a Playboy until you're 18.

Printing something is direct speech. It's a form of expression.

Buying something is indirect speech. Voting with your wallet if you will.

In order for Congress to restrict what you have the right to buy it must restrict your right to indirect speech. The Court (not court) has a test for this. It is known as the "compelling state interest test." The upshot of this is that the State must prove that it has a compelling reason to restrict this speech. If no such reason is proven the challenge fails and the law is overturned. It is one of the few cases wherein the DEFENDENT has the burden of proof (assuming the state is being sued for restricting my freedom of speech).

I want to make this clear because of the misleading nature of the title. A decision which limits what I can buy does not in any way make a ruling as to weather video games are or are not free speech. It simply states that a judge thought that the Government has a compelling reason to limit who can buy what.

That being said, the normitive upshot of all this is fairly simple. If a parrent wants their kid to play this game they can buy it for them. The force of law only prevents a child from going behind a parrents back and buying the game himself. There is little danger of some sort of governmental intrusion into anyone's life considering the allready curtailed freedoms allowed to minors in this country.

Re:some times i get so angry about this....

[Anthony Boyd]

Yes, there are some cases (ethanol, cigarettes) where there are proven harmful consequences where I don't mind their intervention, but there is no proof whatsoever that video games are going to hurt anything but the kid's thumb muscles.

Yikes. I feel like flailing my arms and shouting, "danger!" There is indeed a huge amount of evidence that violence in media -- music, games, movies, and books -- influences people. Hell, the entire advertising industry is built upon the idea that media can influence people.

I suspect you're saying what you're saying because either you personally are unaware of any evidence, or you're perfectly aware of it and reject it as hogwash. But psychologists going back to 1864 (I think, that number is off the top of my head) have documented something called the "werther's effect" which nowadays is called social proof. Wether was a writer (or the main character of a book, again, this is off the top of my head). Anyway, the main character of this moving, well-written book eventually killed himself. The book was immensely popular, and soon a wave of similar suicides began to sweep across multiple countries. By 1866, the book was banned by entire continents. Since that time, this has been studied to death -- they've studied accidents where everyone drove by without offering assistance, video games, rock music, laugh tracks, advertising, movies, you name it. It all ties in to social proof, which states: the more a person identifies with the environment, the more likely the person is to be influenced by it.

So your normal, healthy, well-adjusted slashdotter (cough) is NOT going to identify with pac man and start eating ghosts. Nor will he/she identify with doom and start shooting up everything in sight. But a young angry white boy who sees a lifelike portrayal of young angry white boys is going to be influenced. A middle-aged Asian dad who interacts with a game or movie or people who are also middle-aged, Asian, and fathers, will be influenced. There are a lot of reasons for this, and you can use Google to get some really great, really boring papers and essays about the research in this area. But the bottom line is realistic portrayals of anything will influence people of similar background.

This ruling is troubling, the original law wasn't

[Mantrid]

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!

We must march on Washington.

[Kenja]

They go too far.

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.

How is that possible?

[seldolivaw]

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).

Re:How is that possible?

[Green Light]

Yeah, and there's a lot of source code that I wouldn't want my kid to see either...

Why should games be any different from movies?

[Mr. Neutron]

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.

Leisure Suit Larry

[smack_attack]

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.

The judge saw the wrong games...

[Steveftoth]

---Begin Quote
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, SFXXXSuperCapcomMarvelFighterTurboMegaAlphaSpecial 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.

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.

Re:Simple question

[prizog]

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.

MPAA Film ratings not a "law"

[VValdo]

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

Judges Opinion online:

[Anonymous Coward]

You can get the Judge's opinion here (96k pdf).

choice bit

[startled]

"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!

Final Fantasy X was a game???

[Tenebrious1]

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?

Re:Simple question

[Elwood P Dowd]

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.

Re:a strange outcome

[the_2nd_coming]

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.


Nazism is the only thing you listed that IS protected speech.

Slander, speech that presents a clear and present danger to the US, and speech that endangers the public safty are all illegal forms of speech.

these have been set forth by cheif Justice Marshall. the 1st cheif justice of the United States.

so giving away national secrets is not protected speech, elling fire in a crouded theater is not protected speech, and telling a lie about a person to people in a credible mannor (ie not satire)that damages their reputation (like saying a person rapes little boys when you know he does not) is not protected speech.

What about Choose-Your-Own-Adventures?

[LionKimbro]

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.

Re:which four?

[Bonker]

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.

Re:Speech????

[TRACK-YOUR-POSITION]

Speech is something that comes out of your mouth. Books are speech on paper.

Ahem. You have a very creative way of writing books. Most of us uses pens/keyboards with out fingers.

This says nothing about fucking video games.

It also says nothing about fucking swearing on fucking internet message boards, my dear Professor Shitfuck.

Re:which four?

[Rayonic]

> 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.

Re:So, name four games that *do* meet the standard

[kindbud]

Four games that are equivalent to literature:

• The 7th Guest
  
• Myst
  
• Secret of Monkey Island
  
• Oddworld
  

Having named some games in this genre, I think anyone else can recall several more advernture games that are essentially an interactive novel.

Ultima as a religion

[codexus]

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?