Grand Theft Auto Ban To Be Decided By Courts

Wingchild writes "Haitian civil rights groups in Florida have filed a lawsuit with the circuit court in Palm Beach County, which Rockstar Games has asked to be moved up to a federal court for a final decision on whether or not their game has to be banned from stores. This move happens as the court of media opinion begins weighing in on the subject (facts irrelevant, of course), a fact which Slashdot Games noted a scant two days ago."

Comments

A Game Is Freedom of Speech

[BoldAC]

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.

Parents should just do their job.

AC

Re:A Game Is Freedom of Speech

[CSZeus]

It's not as easy as all that. I'd imagine that all sorts of issues get involved, from racial/ethnical issues ("Kill the Haitians!") to obscenity (which, according to the Supreme Court, is not protected by the Freedom of Speech clause).
It'll be interesting to see how they play the cards.

(and yes, putting all the legalities aside, I rather agree with you - if the parents don't like it, they should just keep their kids from playing it. Doesn't mean they don't have a case, though.)

Re:A Game Is Freedom of Speech

[AntiOrganic]

First off, where do you get off that everyone defending the Constitution and the rights enumerated therein is a "liberal?" It seems like it's almost trendy these days to refer to the Constitution like it's some antiquated relic preventing this country from being run the way it ought to be. I happen to consider myself a centrist on most issues, leaning slightly to the right on economic issues and slightly to the left on social ones. Though, the broad-stroked brush with which you paint everyone with opposing ideals ought to say enough about you without even needing to go into detail concerning your actual views.

A video game is a form of expression, a work of art, just like a movie or music. I'm not trying to imply a "slippery slope" chronology here, which has been all too cliched recently, but legally, to permit a "ban" of this game would set a legal precedent permitting songs with racist lyrics or movies deemed "politically incorrect" to be banned just for insensitivity to certain cultures. You don't see anything wrong with that?

Haven't we lost enough of our civil liberties in the last two and a half years?

Re:A Game Is Freedom of Speech

[cfuse]

Parents should just do their job.

Next thing you know, you'll be telling us to think for ourselves!

Re:A Game Is Freedom of Speech

[NanoGator]

" I'd imagine that all sorts of issues get involved, from racial/ethnical issues ("Kill the Haitians!")"

Man, that shouldn't even be an ethnic/racial issue. The reference was to the Haitian gang, not the entire population from that background.

Re:A Game Is Freedom of Speech

[kfg]

One might well ask where you get off denying Alexander Hamilton's (a "conservative" Federalist) admonition that the Bill of Rights is not to be interpreted as in any way being a restriction on the rights of the people and pointing out that even in the absence of the Bill of Rights the Constitution gives Congress no authority to pass laws that would violate the rights enumerated in it?

The Constitution overtly restricts the government, not the people, and your post is exactly the sort of thing he warned an explict Bill of Rights would lead to.

Your view is radical, antiliberty and downright unamerican.

From your tone one might surmise you consider yourself a conservative. Well sir, I am a conservative. As an American that also makes me a liberal, as the Constitution and the Bill of Rights are overtly liberal documents. I have taken an oath to defend the Constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic, and you sir, are an enemy of the Constitution.

KFG

Re:A Game Is Freedom of Speech

[runlvl0]

Next thing you know, you'll be telling us to think for ourselves!

If someone tells me to thinks for myself, and I do it, then did I?

Re:A Game Is Freedom of Speech

[Daimaou]

Okay, let me make sure I have all this straight.

Source code is not free speech.

Religion is not free speech.

Anti religious speech is free speech.

Politics ARE free speech, except prior to an election, where anybody caught speaking at all will be run through with a spoon.

Pornography is free speech.

Pro gay speech is free speech.

Anti gay speech is not free speech.

Games depicting white people in futuristic battle gear, aliens, robots, skeletons, and other obvious "bad" people being killed are free speech.

Games depicting gay, athiest, Hatian politicians, turning tricks with alien robots, and then being killed with a sharpened religious symbol are not free speech.

The definition of freedom seems to be escaping me.

Re:A Game Is Freedom of Speech

[psyco484]

Except that's not the issue since that's a derogatory term towards people of an African decent. The game doesn't use a derogatory term, it simply says "kill the Haitians." Since within the game the Haitian gang is simply refered to as "the Haitians" I don't see why "kill the Haitians" is unacceptable.

Don't worry though, there's an easy solution: "kill the group of persons whom have a common trait of originating in a non-specific country." Come to think of it, "kill" is a strong word and probably offends those not living. Let's replace all instances of "kill" with "give a basket of kittens to." It's not so bad really, sure "give a basket of kittens to the group of persons whom have a common trait of originating in a non-specific country," isn't as to-the-point as "kill the Haitians," but at least no one gets offended. Then we can all sing songs and dance amongst the trees and kittens and give flowers to each other and everyone will be happy, or else.

Re:A Game Is Freedom of Speech

[mcpkaaos]

but at least no one gets offended

I'd like you to know that I own a pet store. I sell, among other things, kittens. If video games promote the willful act of freely distributing kittens with no means of compensation for the giver, then I could be out of a job. I would lose my house, my car, my boat, and my wife, so used to living the expensive lifestyle afforded her by my kitten sales, would leave me (and probably for one of those communist animal shelter bastards). My children, starving and shoeless, would be forced to prostitute themselves on the cold, wet streets of San Diego. Imagine my poor kids, street urchins all, the painful chafing of sand between their naked toes[*].

For shame. I can't believe you could be so insensitive, you, uh, insensitive clod.

Then we can all sing songs and dance amongst the trees and kittens and give flowers to each other and everyone will be happy, or else.

And my brother, the florist...

[*] On the behest of Mark Asparagus, Michael Jackson is excluded from this suggestion.

It's just a game.....

[mike300zx]

People are getting to dang PC if they can't seperate the goings on within a game to what's actually going on in real life. This does need to be allowed to stay in stores if for nothing else then for free speech. If a particular retailer doesn't want to sell it than so be it, but an all out ban on a game being sold is stupid.

0th3r m3d14

[Deraj DeZine]

Yet if all of the game's anti-Haitian material was put into a book, people would call it free speech...

Why Tort Reform is neccesesary

[Crashmarik]

Anyone who is famillar with the florida courts can understand why Rockstar Games wants the lawsuit moved to the federal system.

This case illustrates a deeper problem. The very nature of the legal system lets irate idiots inflict a death of a thousand cuts. There is no barrier to be overcome to bring a lawsuit. No penalty for bringing a frivolous lawsuit. Just the sound of society grinding down, under the weight of too many lawyers.

Argh! NYPost Is Not Credible!

[the_mad_poster]

Slashdot can REALLY get on my fucking nerves now and then. I think I'm going to have to use a Louisville slugger to beat this point into the editors' and submitters' thick skulls...

The NY Post is NOT a credible news source. The NY Post is a TABLOID RAG that INTENTIONALLY writes up utterly ridiculous bullshit for the sole purpose of entertaining and/or selling magazines (and, it might be noted that the NY Post sells like week old baked horseshit, and for good reason).

I'm in Pennsylvania and they sell the NY Post here. However, they pull a dirty trick - most places put it with the regular newspapers instead of with crap like National Inquirer and Weekly World News. Then, people buy it and mistake it for upstanding journalism with some level of integrity. They wrote the piece to incite people. I mod the entire NY Post staff, and the writer of that article in particular, with -1 Flamebait.

PLEASE stop thinking that the NY Post is a newspaper. It is a tabloid, nothing more. It doesn't represent popular opinion, and, in fact, when they write garbage like that, it doesn't even necessarily represent the NY Post's opinion. It's JUST A TABLOID.

Other games

[Reorax]

I've been told to kill Germans in tons of World War II games and no one's complained about that...

Re:You're missing a lot of gray area.....

[MillionthMonkey]

and secondly, commercial speech (they are selling a video game) can be highly regulated.

Bzzzt, wrong. The restrictions on commercial speech do not apply to the content of the game itself. Rockstar's commercials promoting the game, however, are subject to restrictions on commercial speech. Rockstar cannot claim, for example, that the game adds two inches to your penis, or helps you learn how to successfully deal with police.

Commercial speech has not appeared in many video games so far, and it's difficult to imagine how it really could. In Crazy Taxi, passengers get in the cab and always want to be taken to places like KFC (beautifully rendered, logo and all). If a game comes out where you have to go to KFC and gorge on buckets of greasy chicken to keep your health points from going to zero, then the game makers (along with KFC) might conceivably be playing with the possibility of commercial restrictions. But movies have been getting away with product placement payola for a while now, so I wouldn't bet on it.

Re:Let me play devil's advocate

[YomikoReadman]

I grew up in a military household, with a father who was an officer in the US Navy. This means that for over half the year on average, my mother who worked in excess of 50 hours a week was the only parent raising myself and 2 siblings. As a result of this, I was in the same situation that these children who have gone out and 'played' GTA and committed other senseless acts of violence were, from a standpoint of the amount of time my parents were around. It is quite likely that they saw more of their parents, mostly due to the fact that one of their parents was not gone for 6 months out of the year. However, that does not mean that my parents were not involved in everything I did, from school activities, to the friends I hung out with to all of the video games I played. The reason that there is a deluge of comments about "where were the parents?" is not so much a literal one, but a figurative one pertaining to why were they not more involved.

I feel that a large part of the issue here is that all the parents of children who do these things is that the parents don't get involved in their lives, so in a somewhat desperate cry for attention, or perhaps to lash out at what they perceive to be a society that carries no love for them they act out the one thing that brings them comfort; a violent video game. While I don't think that the games are entirely to blame, I'm sure that with access to firearms and other weapons they would be quite capable of finding source material in movies or TV, the issue at the heart of all of this is parental involvement, moreso the appalling lack thereof which has come to be the norm in todays society.