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Hot Coffee In The Retail Space
Gamasutra has a piece talking to the Interactive Entertainment Merchants Association's Hal Halpin about the impact of recent gaming news on the retail space. From the article: "As of this minute, [the game retail industry's] three major opponents are the State of California, the State of Illinois and the State of Michigan ... More specifically, they are those states' respective attorney generals and their governors, who each signed into law bills which their legislatures knew full-well would be in violation of the First Amendment."
Heck, I consider David Grossman to be another dishonest huckster, but he's like a pillar of honesty compared to Thompson. (Remember him? He used to have Thompson's part in this debate. I miss those days.)
Just read the man's (Jack's) words, he come across as a dishonest, bigoted grandstander whose primary concern is stroking his own massive Ego. I don't get why this guy is treating him like someone who is taking a reasonable, morally responsible position here.
"MIT betrayed all of its basic principles."
He also speaks in favor of Jack Thomson's efforts saying that the only front he disagrees with is the limitation of MA or AO games to the public in general... which is the only issue Thompson ever argues about (well, I know he'd like it banned, but that's not going to happen).
Personally, I agree that certain content should NEVER fall into the hands of minors. I don't care what the parents say. There is no such thing as a non-impressionable teenager. You can tell me how independent you or your kids are, but right up till you die your environment has an impact on you.
Any parent who thinks their 13 year old son is old enough to handle extreme violence (killing bystanders for fun), sexuality (nudity, scantally clad women/men doing their thing, porn), or drug use (the support of it) in any video games/movies (very few exceptions) more than likely would rather let the game machine and TV raise thier kids than step up to the plate. At any rate, they're not okay in my book.
The article doesn't make much sense, and it's kind of hard to understand if this guy's got a point.
They're worried about their wallets. This guy doesn't care what's actually in the game. Free speech is to keep voices from being quelled on a political front, for the most part. They aren't being silenced anyway. We aren't violating free speech, we're protecting our kids', and thier future's!
This sig isn't original enough, it's time to come up with something witty...
No, it's not just you. The article isn't really about anything either, just the head of a industry organization continuing to pat the industry on the back, and try to justify the existence of the organization.
It's like one of those quarterly or yearly "letter from the CEO" some companies distribute.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
What gets me about the Hot Coffee deal is the reasoning behind it, something along the lines of:
"A technically proficient minor could unlock content that's not suitable for those under the age of 18."
Right. Because a kid who can work his way through the Hot Coffee modding process can't find his own (real) porn on the internet. Might as well ban that too (though I bet they could at times).
"This is considered plagiarism."
Actually, it was beyond a cheat code - it was a hack. There was no way to expose the disabled content in the game without pushing bits around manually. Afaik, you had to hexedit a savegame or gamestate or something to expose it. People then uploaded the hacked savegame file that you could DL to try it.
The problem is that there is no real analogy for it in the real world. Most other forms of media can't include unviewable content in any expressible form. Imagine if a VHS tape had a porn movie outside of the margins of the screen - you'd have to practically break your VCR to view it. Or a book had 2 pages glued together with dirty pictures on them - but the only way to expose it was with chemical solvents that you'd have to go to a specialty store to buy.
From Wikipedia:
.", even though the text of the 1791 First Amendment states clearly that "Congress shall make no law... abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press . . .".
Consequently, the literal text of the First Amendment has been functionally revised through the doctrine of stare decisis, as the Court has also acknowledged. For example, in Denver v. FCC (1996), [1], the Court stated that "this Court, in different contexts, has consistently held that the Government may directly regulate speech . .
This phenomenon of functionally revising literal text has also been referred to as creating a "virtual First Amendment".
But if the literal text of the First Amendment is no longer used by the Supreme Court in rendering its decisions, what is? The text below is a brief representation of the virtual text used by the Supreme Court in its First Amendment jurisprudence over the years, from Thomas Ladanyi's book The 1987 Constitution.
Text of the Virtual First Amendment (heavily abridged)
No State legislature or the Congress of the United States shall make any law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press all media of information; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances
There is a 14th amendment, you know. In fact, it's newer than the 1st.
English is easier said than done.
minors aren't full citizens of the united states, ask any attorney.
Actually, they are.
Nothing in the constitution says anything about giving gaming rights to people that are not citizens of the United States.
The Constitution guarantees rights, it doesn't grant them. And at any rate, the 5th, 9th, and 14th amendments protect the rights of all people in the United States to play video games.
making a law which makes it illegal to sell games (of any type, violent or not) to minors is not a violation of anyone's first amendment rights.
Possibly, however, the 1st amendment right of game developers to communicate with minors, and the 1st amendment right of minors to listen, are both implicated. Perhaps these rights are not infringed upon by the law, but it's not a given.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
They signed a bill banning obscene material on the Internet... I think 1997. It was declared unconsitutional (first amendment) and repealed soon after.
There were a few attempts. However, it was how the law was constructed, not the actual goal of restricting the supplying of adult materials to children, that was at issue. So you can't reasonably imply that because those laws failed, that therefore government cannot restrict people from providing adult material to children.
And I am still pissed at the EFF over that. They told a ton of outright lies about the CDA and COPA (such as saying the Starr Report would be illegal under COPA, despite the fact that it was quite clearly exempted under the "serious political interest" clause of the bill).