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Take-Two Interactive and Sony Sued Over GTA
An anonymous reader writes "Apparently Take-Two Interactive is being sued by the parents of two kids who killed a man. I remember reading about the killing incident a few weeks ago, but this is the first I've read about an actual lawsuit. The part that I found most interesting was that Sony will also be named in the lawsuit because GTA was exclusive to their console." Update: 09/18 16:27 GMT by M : The Independent has moved/deleted the story on their site, breaking our link. We've already mentioned this story anyway.
This sounds very similar if not identical to Kids Kill, Victim Sues Game Maker.
From the article:
"Mr Hamel, a nurse, was killed while driving home to Knoxville, Tennessee. Miss Bede, who was travelling in another car with her boyfriend, was seriously injured and has eight fragments of shrapnel in her pelvis."
"Miss Bede and the family of Aaron Hamel plan to sue Take-Two Interactive Software, which publishes Grand Theft Auto, for liability in a wrongful death lawsuit. Take-Two owns Rockstar Games, which is based in Edinburgh and designed the first version of the game in 1997. Sony will also be named in the lawsuit, because Grand Theft Auto was made exclusively for its Play- Station consoles. Sony declined to comment on the case."
Naah, add them right now. Its out for Windows as well already. Do you want Sega (for GTA2 on the Dreamcast) and Nintendo (for GTA1 and 2 on Game Boy Color) included as well?
"I Know You Are But What Am I?"
Referring to The Manchurian Candidate, a 1962 film in which American soldiers are brainwashed into becoming fighting machines in the Korean war, Mr Thompson said: "We have got a nation of Manchurian Candidates who are training on these video games."
Next on the list of plantiffs -- the Bicycle Playing Card Company.
Mod Karma -1: I sed bad wurds. If I cep my mouf shut, I wud be at riyses.
The $100m legal action involves Joshua Buckner, 14, and his stepbrother William, 16, from Newport, Tennessee, who shot dead Aaron Hamel, 45, and seriously injured Kimberly Bede, 19, on 25 June..
...Miss Bede and the family of Aaron Hamel plan to sue Take-Two Interactive Software, which publishes Grand Theft Auto, for liability in a wrongful death lawsuit.
So this is the same old story.
I guess the NRA can now add video games to their ever expanding list of things that kill people (guns and god excluded).
Apparently Take-Two Interactive is being sued by the parents of two kids who killed a man.
That isn't apparent to me. The story linked to says that "Miss Bede and the family of Aaron Hamel plan to sue Take-Two Interactive Software, which publishes Grand Theft Auto, for liability in a wrongful death lawsuit. "
Miss Bede was seriously injured. Aaron Hamel was killed. They were not the parents of the kids.
I don't agree with suing the game company, let alone Sony, over this, but pretending it's the parents of the kids doing the suing makes it sound roughly 23 million times more absurd than it is.
it is the people who were shot, not the shooters. Miss Bede and the family of Aaron Hamel plan to sue Take-Two Interactive Software, which publishes Grand Theft Auto.... Click the link on the article and read it.
They are probably talking about Marine DooM. This is a mod of DooM II once used by the USMC for training.
But of course the press never talks about the details in these situations, and just tries to sensationalize any video-game related death.
totally out of proportion to the actual damage done (e.g. the McDonalds coffee lawsuit)
Ah, this myth again...this was not a frivolous lawsuit. Perhaps you should check out the facts.
A couple of weeks ago my niece(9yrs) and nephew(11yrs) stayed at my mother's on vaccation. We watched some generic family movie on tv. It was past 8pm, but I thought that watching that movie'd be perfect. Y'know, vaccation and all. Wrongo. The TV channel advertised the usual 10pm sex, crime&drugs dreck during commercial breaks. Even the ads sported lots of nudity and stupidity I wouldn't want my kids to watch. I never was bothered about this, but having those kids next to me made me take another viewpoint. Face it, kids are exposed to stuff they won't be able to cope with. Without parental guidance god knows what will become of them. Society acts irresponible. I don't say that violent games, movies and so forth shouldn't be produced. But each and every one of us should try to keep it out of their hands.
20 minutes into the future
actually they were from Tennessee, its just a British newspaper reporting on it.
A few years ago, the mother of a child who was killed by one of his friends sued Midway, saying the friend was inspired by Mortal Kombat. She lost. An article I found about it said...
:)
U.S. District Judge Janet Bond Arterton found that the lawsuit brought by the victim's mother failed to state a claim upon which relief could be granted. Thirteen-year-old Noah Wilson died in November 1997 when his friend, identified in court papers as Yancy S., stabbed him in the chest with a kitchen knife. Noah's mother, Andrea Wilson, sued Midway Games Inc., claiming that Yancy S. was addicted to "Mortal Kombat" video games and that he was so obsessed with the game that he actually believed he was the character "Cyrax." Wilson argued that Yancy S. was mimicking Cyrax's combat moves at the time he stabbed her son.
But Judge Arterton held that the video game is protected by the First Amendment. While Wilson had argued that "Mortal Kombat" differed from books and motion pictures by virtue of its "interactivity," Judge Arterton said the plaintiff failed to offer a persuasive reason for distinguishing the technological advances that led to the game's creation from developments at the turn of the 20th century that ushered in the motion picture.
You can read the entire article here. Part of me is seriously hoping that the defense can use this in the trial, but then IANAL, so I don't know for certain either way.
Just my $.02...
I think the problem comes from the fact that McDonalds pretends it isn't. They'll do things like list nutrition information, and then go and hide it in some place you would not look.(Though, I hear that practice is changing now.)
What baloney. They listed the "nutrition information" in response to people who wanted to know how much sodium and calories they were snarfing, exactly. And if you follow it you can actually get a healthful meal at McDonald's (like a salad with no dressing, for instance). They post it on the wall by the counter in every Mcdonald's, and some Mcdonalds' have little handouts you can take home for your perusal.
McDonald's never pretended their food was anything but pure feel-good tasty decadent junk. Though they have respoded to people who wanted more healthy choices (who were thre because their kids saw the damn clown on TV and kept bawling till they got to go to playland and throw their fries all over the damn place), by providing things like salads, reduced fat items, and diet drinks.