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Jack Thompson Calls Cops on Penny-Arcade
Anon1001 sent us the latest developments in the ongoing saga between Miami Attorney Jack Thompson and Penny-Arcade. So far the story goes that Jack has filed a wrongful death suit against Rock Star, claiming that GTA is a cop killing training simulator responsible for the murder of a pair of cops. He also
offered $10k to charity if anyone who would develop some ridiculous murder spree game. When someone did it, and he changed his mind and Penny-Arcade donated the cash instead. All of this is being documented on the Penny Arcade website, in phone calls, rants and comics, as well as an 'I Hate Jack Thompson' T-Shirt. (Note, Slashdot's parent company owns ThinkGeek).
He has now
called the cops claiming harassment. Update: 10/18 17:40 GMT by Z : It seems like this confrontation has been brewing all summer. The most recent altercation is just another link in the chain made by Thompson's reaction to Hot Coffee and his crusade against the Sims 2. Further, PA has put up the scan of the letter to the cops, and a photo of the check.
It's going to happen very soon now, as Jack is getting loonier and loonier. He keeps dancing around direct legal threats, because he knows what will happen. Soon he will slip, and soon after that he won't be a lawyer anymore, and won't THAT be a shame?
"Oh my God. This is terrible. This is the end of my Presidency. I'm fucked."; ~ Donald J. Trump
He also offered $10k to charity if anyone who would develop some ridiculous murder spree game.
What the fuck does that even mean?!
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I sure hope they cite his ass for making a false report. Publications are not harrassment. Jack Thompson himself started this mess. Does he consider himself guilty of "harassing" the makers of GTA? ...the video game industry? ...game loving Slashdotters everywhere?
IAAL, and I gotta say, Jack Thompson, YOU SUCK.
"These idiots have been so careless as to post on their www.pennyarcade.com web site what they are doing regarding the harassment of me."
In the same sentence he's call them idiots he gives the wrong web address.
What does this man think he's going to accomplish? His vitriolic actions are very unlikely to change anyone's mind about the issue of video game violence. I teach argumentative writing and rhetoric to college students; one of the first things we teach is to know one's audience. Very few people of the ultra-conservative persuasion, however, need to be persuaded - they already are fanatically against video games that contain violence, sex, etc.
And his tactics - wilfully distorting the truth, branding video game makers as murderers, setting up straw men to attack in his ravings about violent entertainment - well, I doubt anyone who's played the games he's targeting is going to burn their copy of GTA because of the things Thompson is saying.
Bravo, Penny Arcade, for helping him do what he'd end up doing anyway: alienating anyone who might have listened to a more logical or reasonable argument against game violence, and generating more media attention for Rockstar Games et al. so they will, in turn, sell more games and continue creating popular content. For a lawyer, Thompson seems to have missed that one little maxim: "any press is good press."
I will offer 10K* to the first person who makes a game involving running Jack Thompson over with an 18-wheeler .**
*10k meaning a 10k text file composed of the words "Jack Thompson is a twit" , as opposed to 10,000 in money
**This is satire , a parody of Jack Thompsons Parody ***
*** This , like J. Thompsons Satire is poor Satire .
The only things certain in war are Propaganda and Death. You can never be sure which is which though
Though I'm sure many following this mess know about it. Jack has also recently recieved a letter from Dr. David Walsh of the National Institute on Media and the Family. In this letter (published on www.gamepolitics.com) Dr. Walsh distances himself and his organization from Jack. His comments tend to really get to the core of what Jack does, "Your commentary has included extreme hyperbole and your tactics have included personally attacking individuals for whom I have a great deal of respect." He's like a kid on a playground. Someone does something he doesn't like and he starts yelling about getting his daddy to get them, because his daddy is a cop or a lawyer. Only he is the lawyer...
Jack Thompson:
.
+Led the campaign against the 1989 2 Live Crew album "As Nasty As They Wanna Be", and later, Ice T's "Cop Killer."
+Filed with the FCC regarding the contents of a 2003 edition of Howard Stern's radio show resulted in Clear Channel Communications being fined $496,000 in 2004.
+Filed, in 1999, a $33 million federal products liability lawsuit against several entertainment companies, including Time Warner Inc., Polygram Film Entertainment Distribution Inc., Palm Pictures, Island Pictures and New Line Cinema, Atari Corp., Nintendo of America, Sega of America Inc. and Sony Computer Entertainment on behalf of the parents of victims of the 1997 Paducah schoolhouse shootings.
+Most recently has taken his tirade against videogame publishers Take Two (Grand Theft Auto series, Bully et. al.), Capcom (Killer 7), and EA (The Sims. Yeah really).
A great interview with Jack by Chatterbox Video Game Radio can be found at: http://www.chatterboxgameshow.com/jack.htm
This guy has really made himself a credible source for irrationality and brought many smiles to sane peoples faces.
Most comment points excerpted from Wikipedia.org
A B A C A B B
GREAT in the sense of successful, of course, not in the sense of "good for the people."
You all are taking note of what he's trying to do, right? He's trying to transform the gamer community's reaction to his lunacy into attacks on his cause, which is, at least in his mind, protecting innocent kids and brave police officers.
It's just a matter of time before it becomes a real simple equation:
Disagreeing with Jack Thompson = Helping to kill cops
At that point, it becomes really easy to pass laws banning the types of videogames that Jack disagrees with. (Then movies, then web sites, maybe even books...)
Yep, he may be just a lawyer right now, but he clearly has higher intentions in mind, and he's using skills that have been taught very well over the past few years to get elected. It doesn't take too much gray matter to realize that soccer moms outnumber gaming advocates by a pretty wide margin, so who would you rather have included in your base?
The crying shame of it is that given America's record of picking leaders lately, he'll probably succeed, unless at least a few people not just read Slashdot, but actually act on what they read here.
Send a message, folks, and get out and vote. And not just for the big elections every four years. Vote in your Congressional elections. Vote in your state elections. Vote for your local councilmembers. Spread the word and get your friend to vote. Don't be afraid to use that fancy gaming machine to write a fickin' letter now and then. What do you say, can we please stop the ensuing madness to come before it gets started?
Jack wants to protect children and cops. Hey, I do too, I just happen to think he's going about it all wrong. The question in my mind now is: Who will protect the rest of us from Jack?
Quoth the jackass: "I look forward to working with your fine Police Department to shut this little extortion factory down and/or arrest some of its employees."
Extortion factory? That's not a stated opinion, that's stating a (supposed) fact. Better get your own law team together, because libel's a bitch. I'd like to see how many lawyers it will take to get Jack off.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
I always like to ask right-wingers ranting about games and sex causing social decline, "Yeah! I mean, do you know what's happened to rates of violent youth crime and teen pregancny in the last ten years?" They always answer that they're at unprecedented levels, and then are thrown off when I tell them that they've actually been falling quite steadily. Teen pregancy is even at its lowest rate since we began taking statistics in the '40s, down from the all-time high in 1991.
What would be really amusing to me is if they discovered, in 20 years, that untold psychological damage to children was done by The Sims. People spending all day running households like gods, torturing and killing families and developing these horribly twisted personalities. I mean, take a horribly violent, depraved movie -- for example, Saw, and ask what game the creators would probably enjoy playing?
In all seriousness, I think people are both more fragile and more resiliant than they're usually credited with. We handled torturing animals with sticks in the backyard 50 years ago, and we'll handle GTA. And I was going to say something about child-rearing, but then I realized that the last thing anyone wants is more advice on raising kids from a childless twentysomething, so I'll leave it at "the world is probably not coming to an end".
xkcd.com - a webcomic of mathematics, love, and language.
Did anyone else realize.... Citizens United Negating Technology For Life Aand People's Safety
You all may want to check out the ChatterBox interview with Gabe and Tycho that was done this past Sunday. Gabe talks a little about his recent conversations with Jack Thompson. Apparently the first thing Jack said after calling Gabe up and establishing his identity was:
"Let me tell you something, idiot."
This utter professionalism is well-reflected in the text of his fax to the Seattle police.
"There are a bunch of computer geeks out there who think..."
"These idiots have been so careless as to..."
I can only imagine what some of his non-game-related correspondence is like.
Also, this has probably been posted before, but here it is again: the ChatterBox interview with Thompson. Lunacy thrown into the sharpest relief.
The coolest voice ever.
It's not an act -- the guy is actually loony. (Or at least, he has an extremely active imagination.) Here are some other famous outbursts by him.
One example: in 1988, he ran against Janet Reno for DA of Dade County:
Thompson's unique campaign message was that Reno was unfit for the job because, as a closeted lesbian with a drinking problem, she was great candidate for blackmail by the criminal element. Jack never explained why this remained a threat even after he exposed her "secret." Reno cruised at the polls.
Toronto-area transit rider? Rate your ride.
Not Obvious, So Happy I Told. Somebody Has Easily Ruined Laughter Over Coward Kibosh
I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate.
"I guess Jay Leno is going to be there (at the ESA convention, where their friend Robert will be presenting the $10k check)".
Dear God and Jesus,
My name is Jayhawk88, but then you already know that. I know I haven't been the best person in the world, and I don't go to church very much, but if you could see to it that this Jack Thompson v. PA feud receives national media attention, I promise to be a good Christian from now on. I will give to the needy, love my fellow man, and praise your name if you will give me Jerry Holkins debating Jack Thompson on The O'Reilly Factor.
How, pray, does an attorney get disbarred for being a loonie?
Why, dear reader, by doing exactly what the parent poster indicated:
"He keeps dancing around direct legal threats, because he knows what will happen."
We tend to call that "barratry" here in the US. And yes, it is actionable.
Many years ago, we (Meow Media, Inc - parent company of Persian Kitty's Adult Links) were sued by Jack Thompson in what later became a landmark sixth circuit court of appeals first amendment case. Granted, we were vindicated after two years of legal expenses... but it still cost us several hundred thousand dollars in attorney fees, expert witness fees, and appeals fees (which required a second set of attorneys).
While Jack Thompson's lawsuit was grinding its way through the court of appeals, another copy-cat attorney by the name of John DeCamp decided to sue us (Meow Media) for the Columbine shootings!
Soon, every attorney with expensive car payments was jumping on the bandwagon, in [what I perceive as] an effort to collect a "nusiance" settlement from us and other defendants. In fact, this practice became so common and popular that PBS FrontLine ran a feature story on our collective plights.
Fortunately, when the Court of Appeals ruled in our favor on the Paducah lawsuit (and reaffirmed this when they rejected the appeal for reconsideration), the other defendants were quick to drop their lawsuits, else face an action sounding in tort. However, that too required attorney fees and retainers for each case, in each particular venue.
For those of you who have not yet gone through lengthy and cumbersome litigation... there is not much you can do to recover the costs involved with defending yourself from most tort litigation. Sure, we could turn around and sue the families of the deceased children who were killed by the shooter... but that's not exactly good publicity, nor does it make for a sympathetic jury.
So here I sit today, a few hundred thousand dollars poorer, watching history repeat itself.
Check the dns for stopkill.com, his site... it was updated Oct 15, 2005, and the new contact email is "greytop@comcast.net". Hope that helps :)
LegendMUD