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Guy Game Results in Lawsuits and Injunction

Posted by Zonk on from the stupidity-beyond-my-comprehension dept.

Several readers have written in to report on Tuesday's lawsuit regarding 'The Guy Game'. The PC/console offering, which strings a weak trivia game around footage of naked college age girls, has come under fire after the revelation that a woman featured prominently in the game was under the age of 18 at the time the footage was taken. The lawsuit names Sony (PS2), Microsoft (Xbox), Take-Two Interactive (Publisher), and Top Heavy Studios (Developer) as defendants. Commentary available on GamesIndustry.biz.

24 of 111 comments (clear)

  1. Well... by th1ckasabr1ck · · Score: 5, Insightful
    According to the Cox News Service, the lawsuit explains: "Plaintiff is still a teenager and wishes to attend college, develop her career and be active in her community and church."

    I wonder what the church thinks of the game. Maybe if she wants to be such a model citizen, she should start out by not running around topless during spring break.

    1. Re:Well... by EnronHaliburton2004 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      be active in her community and church

      That's a typo, it's really supposed to say "be attractive in her community and church"

      But honestly, any time you hear some person trying to act holier then thou and bragging about how the go to church and have a personal relationship with Jesus, it's because they are lying.

      --
      94% of Repubs and 21% of Dems voted to renew the Patriot Act
    2. Re:Well... by thefirelane · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Maybe if she wants to be such a model citizen, she should start out by not running around topless during spring break.

      Insightful? You realize that's why we have the concept of 'a minor' right? So that dumb youthful indiscretions do not tarnish one's life for ever?

    3. Re:Well... by acousticiris · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Lets be realistic here... if the lawsuit explained that "Plaintiff is still a teenager and wishes to operate as a high-priced hooker to the stars but now cannot because everyone can get a look at the goods..." it probably wouldn't go over very well with a jury.
      It's most likely something along the lines of "Mom and Dad found out I was in the game so now we all have to act like good Christians and sue the world over to prevent the tarnishing of our reputation."
      It does irritate me when people try to make themselves look better by professing that they attend church, and it's ironic (in a very disturbing way) when it is used as part of a lawsuit who's purpose is to prove that the individual at hand should not be held accountable for their actions.
      I understand the LAW protects a 17 year old from being an idiot, but lets not kid ourselves and assume that a 17 year old girl didn't know flashing your breasts around town (or in a video game) was probably not a very good idea. And if she was worried about tarnishing her reputation, it seems that bringing a very high-profile lawsuit against some very high-profile companies is going to make this whole thing quite public and will probably cause the game to be far more successful than it otherwise would have been...even if it only gets to exist on the black market from here on out.

      --
      "God is dead!" - Nietzsche
      "Nietzsche is dead!" - God
    4. Re:Well... by ivan256 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      You realize that's why we have the concept of 'a minor' right? So that dumb youthful indiscretions do not tarnish one's life for ever?

      That's also why you have parents. Why did they let her run around topless for spring break in the first place if it was going to be such an issue? As for "tarnishing one's life", well, you're born topless. I don't understand why being seen with your shirt off is such a big deal anyway. Hell, until you hit the teenage years, lots of parents think little girls running around on the beach with no shirt on is "cute". As soon as they have breasts, though, everybody's sexual insecurities make them all uncomfortable about it. People like that need to grow up.

      To top it off, it's not like somebody forced her to do this, or paid her to do it. It's something that happened in a public place, and as such it shouldn't be any less legal to photograph it than it is to witness it. If having a photograph of a naked person in public who happens to be a minor is a crime, it should be the guardian of that minor who allowed them to be naked in public who should be held responsible. That assumes that the real goal here is to protect minors though, and not to make people feel all warm and fuzzy inside because they don't have to be embarresed that they're aroused by sexually mature women.

      Since we're on slashdot I guess I should throw out a strawman here. What happens if a 17 year old streaks past the camera in a live newscast? Should the news outlet be prosecuted for child pornography, or be disallowed to keep that footage in their archive?

    5. Re:Well... by Babbster · · Score: 2, Interesting
      Yeah, that works out really well for kids over around 14 who commit SERIOUS crimes and are tried as adults.

      There's a point at which even a teenager should know the difference between right and wrong - wrong including posing nude and then signing papers claiming to be 18 years old (unless it was the stupidest company on the planet that had the releases drawn up, said releases would have a statement of age and would include her birthdate).

      Bottom line: The game is most likely crap (I've never heard a good thing about it and have no interest myself) but this unidentified female is just another scumbag who wants a free payday.

    6. Re:Well... by JuggleGeek · · Score: 4, Insightful
      Yeah right. And when a minor kills someone and the courts let them off easy 'cause their only 15, it's OK. They shouldn't be responsible for stealing the gun, shooting the victim, etc - they are just a minor.

      She was 17 years old running around topless on a beach because she wanted people to look at her cute little titties. And now she's bitching and whining and suing over it.

      You may believe that people should be able to do any damn fool thing they want with no repercussions, but that's an unreasonable belief. Real life doesn't work that way.

      The very idea that one would be "tarnished forever" for running around partially nude is nonsense in and of itself.

    7. Re:Well... by Romeozulu · · Score: 4, Insightful

      It's something that happened in a public place, and as such it shouldn't be any less legal to photograph it than it is to witness it.

      It's perfectly legal to photograph someone in a public place, but it is not legal to use that image for commerical purposes. This is a issues that photographers deal wih everyday.

    8. Re:Well... by arkanes · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I have to agree with the stupid whiny thing, but on the other hand, it's not like it's well known what you have to do as far as release forms goes for crowd footage. And if the crowd footage happens to be of very young college girls with thier tops off, then anyone with half a brain should realize they need to go the extra mile to make 100% certain than they aren't shipping anything with underage girls in it. If she was an out of focus background character cause she streaked by while they were filming someone else, that'd be a different story.

    9. Re:Well... by taustin · · Score: 3, Informative

      News is a rather large exception. And even in the news, the image must be newsworthy.

      Plus, news organizations routinely pay for such rights anyway, whether they have to or not.

      A video game, however, is not news. This situation is pretty clear cut. Commercial exploitation of someone's image without persmission is illegal. And someone under 18 cannot legally give permission.

      Plus, technically (stupid as the law is), her being under 18 makes it child porn.

    10. Re:Well... by badasscat · · Score: 2, Interesting

      News is a rather large exception. And even in the news, the image must be newsworthy.

      Show me the law that says that. If it's done in public, it's fair game, regardless of whether it is "newsworthy" or not. I don't recall any newsworthiness standards, so I think that you're completely wrong.

      Bzzzt. He's completely right. You're not.

      Specifically what's wrong is your idea that "if it's done in public, it's fair game" - no, it isn't, and I want to put a stop to this myth right now.

      Read this to learn the difference between informational (ie. news) and commercial (ie. non-news) uses of photography. Read this for some general information on when and why a release is required.

      Now that that's out of the way, surely you must know that minors cannot sign binding contracts (ie. a release from a minor is meaningless, even if one exists in this case), and that depictions of underage nudity in this country are illegal in their own right. What some people are doing in this thread right now is defending child porn, whether or not they think that's what it is. Legally, that is what it is.

      There is grounds for a lawsuit here on several different issues, and grounds for criminal prosecution on at least one.

    11. Re:Well... by BenEnglishAtHome · · Score: 2, Insightful
      ...depictions of underage nudity in this country are illegal in their own right.

      Uh, no.

      Go to your local, large, well-stocked bookstore. Ask to see all the books by David Hamilton (or any of a dozen other artists who do similar work). Browse for a while. Report your findings back here.

      Yes, I'll grant you that in this instance a case could be made for criminal prosecution and that underage nudity is usually prosecutable. Your blanket statement, however, overstates the situation rather badly.

  2. The cynical/conspiracy theorist... by the+Man+in+Black · · Score: 4, Interesting

    ...yes, I'm certain this won't hurt sales at all. Kinda like Traci Lords "leaking" the fact that she was underage in order to get all her old movies pulled (and turned into hot collector's items) with the fringe benefit of making her last and only "adult age" porno flick sell like gangbusters.

    What? So I'm a pervert. At least I'm open about it.

    --
    El riesgo vive siempre!
  3. Lawers are so short-sighted... by acousticiris · · Score: 4, Funny

    So sue Sony because a playstation can play a game that features content that breaks the law.

    I'm surprised they were so short-sighted:
    They should sue the maker of the digital camera used to take the picture of the girl.
    If they used a scanner and a traditional camera, they should sue both the maker of the scanner and the camera. Double the dollars!
    How about suing the DVD Consortium because they produced the scandard by which the disc used to distribute the content contained the illegal picture.

    Too much? More realistic:
    Jail all of the end-users because they now possess child-pornography.
    Sue the ESRB ... which arguably operates as a clearing-house when they choose to slap a rating on a game.

    One can argue that because MS, Sony et. al. have put controls on their console allowing them to essentially declare what can and cannot run on it (without a mod-chip of course), that they "sanctioned" rather than just simply "allowed" this to take place...
    Of course, we can expect that Sony, MS et. al. will probably be far more conservative in deciding what is or isn't allowed to operate on their systems from here on out. I may not agree with the content of the game, but it'll shame when all of the software is dumbed down so as not to offend even the most conservative among us.

    But the cynic in me has to ask the question...if this succeeds: What happens when a slick lawyer is able to confuse a judge and a jury into drawing the conclusion that the OS/product not only "is" a clearing-house, but legally "must operate as" a clearing-house for the applications running on it. Do they sue all of the Linux programmers when Linux fails to block something illegal or offensive?

    --
    "God is dead!" - Nietzsche
    "Nietzsche is dead!" - God
    1. Re:Lawers are so short-sighted... by Geoffreyerffoeg · · Score: 2, Informative

      Sorry, you seem a bit short-sighted:

      Sony was not sued because a Playstation can play this game.

      Sony was sued because they published the game, and the game developer contracted for them. They are thus technically the representative of a child pornographer and publishers of child pornography.

      Frankly, I'm surprised Sony was willing to publish so stupid a game. Anyway, they should know you have to be extra careful with releases on content like this. Sony wouldn't've had legal liability if they didn't act as publisher/approver (that's why Dell et. al aren't being sued for the PC version of this); they chose to have their own publishing and content standard rules, and managed to approve something illegal.

      The end users could probably be technically sued, but they'll probably be able to get off due to not knowing about this -- incidentally, anyone who buys the game in response to this story is a prime target for a legal attack due to intentional purchase of child porn.

    2. Re:Lawers are so short-sighted... by Khuffie · · Score: 4, Interesting
      Sony was sued because they published the game

      RTA. Neither Sony nor Microsoft published the game. Take-Two's The Gathering publishes the game. The role Sony and Microsoft have is basically to see if the game is essentially 'bug free', ie it won't cause their console to burst into flames. They usually don't care about the content or the quality of the game itself, just whether or not it'll destroy their hardware.

      Suing Sony and Microsoft here is like me suing a sports store where I bought those Adidas sneakers who got tangled up and caused me to fall, and scar my knees.

      From the article: Why? Because the woman in question was only 17 at the time, and therefore legally incapable of giving her consent to be in The Guy Game, let alone half naked.

      If she was a minor, what the frig' was she doing there, naked? I'm sure whoever was shooting checked their ages at the time (no one's going to be stupid enough NOT to). She must have had an illegal ID at hand (probably, its spring break, she was probably there drinking too). Being 17 doesn't make you stupid.

  4. Ah, the irony by chrisbtoo · · Score: 4, Interesting

    So she's old enough to be in college, she's happy to run around topless while at college, and she's smart enough to sue - but unable to give (or, indeed, not give) her consent to appear in the game.

    Hurrah! for the law.

    --
    Registering accounts later than some other chrisb since 1997
  5. I am suing by MyLongNickName · · Score: 4, Funny

    I was pictured topless in the game here:
    http://image.com.com/gamespot/images/2004/reviews/ 919657_20040901_thumb008.jpg

    (Remove stupid spacing)

    --
    See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
  6. too bad so sad... yeah, right by ChipMonk · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Maybe someone should charge her parents with contributing to the corruption of a minor by allowing her to go there unsupervised.

  7. Re:You think the US laws are stupid?? by Max_Abernethy · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Actually, you're mistaken. Our laws are less consistent. In my home state, Pennsylvania, it would be legal for me (as an 18 year old) to have sex with a 16 year old girl, but not to photograph her. In the state where I go to school, New York, it's illegal for me to have sex with an 18 year old. In some places it's legal to look at pornography at 18, in others not until you're 21. Everything varies from state to state.

  8. Should I even ask? by Vr6dub · · Score: 2, Funny

    Anyone have a link to the screenshots?!? This reply was computer generated and no humans were involved in processing this request Of course I'm joking, kind of.....

  9. Re:You think the US laws are stupid?? by svanstrom · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Didn't say anything about japan; all I was saying was that in some areas of some countries *cough*the us*cough* the girls, law-wise, might be way too young to have sex... but they are allowed to get married, and have sex with their husband/wife... =/

    http://www.ageofconsent.com/ageofconsent.htm

    --
    perl -e'print$_{$_} for sort%_=`lynx -dump svanstrom.com/t`'
  10. Eh...Why is this even on here? by TheBot · · Score: 2, Interesting

    The only person who should get in trouble is the girl! She's the one who did it, was probably drinking (underage as well), and probably thought no one would ever see it. Now Joe-Blow at her High School pirated the game from the, enter-net, and saw her and recognized her from his Bioligy class. Then he proceeds to tell people, and she proceeds to take the defensive and say she's a good christian girl who has real morals and is underage and doesn't want this to ruin her future. Family sues game company, game consoles, people who filmed it, etc. Now, let me get this straight...You mean to tell me if I cut my arm off with a Craftsmen Saw, I can sue Craftsmen for cutting off my arm? Sweeeeeeeet! Lets all go out and make bad decisions, and then get defensive, and sue everyone!

    --
    Flat Screen TV for F
  11. Pics and video by Alsee · · Score: 3, Informative

    Well here's the Guy Game website,
    and here's the Gamespot pics,
    and here's PS2 pics,
    and here's XBOX pics,
    and here's XBOX videos,
    and here's PS2 videos.

    Can anyone figure out who's the girl in question? Or I guess we can just download it all, and then see what pics and vids mysteriously vanish from the websites in the next day or two. heh.

    -

    --
    - - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.