Judge Blocks Louisiana Violent Games Law

kukyfrope writes "A Baton Rouge federal judge has today issued a temporary injunction against Louisiana's violent games law that Governor Kathleen Blanco just signed last week. According to local newspaper The Advocate, U.S. District Judge James Brady issued the injunction just hours after the Entertainment Software Association and Entertainment Merchants Association filed the lawsuit in Louisiana. "How would a person assess whether a particular video game appeals to a minor's 'morbid interest in violence'? And what constitutes a 'patently offensive' depiction of violence? Persons of ordinary intelligence are forced to guess at the meaning and scope of the act," said New Orleans attorney James A. Brown"

Comments

Finally

[ToasterofDOOM]

At least someone has their head screwed on tight enough to realize that this is bullshit legislation. I'm glad we're not te only ones here at /.

Re:Finally

[TubeSteak]

Anyone with two neurons to rub together knew the legislation was BS.

Now what if they had gone ahead and instituted some arbitrary standards of 'patently offensive' & 'morbid interest in violence'?

The court isn't being asked to rule on the legality of the intent behind the Violent Games Law, merely its vague wording. It isn't like the Lousianna Legislature can't fix the defects in the law & pass it again.

Until a Court declares that the intent of the law is Unconstitutional, I don't think this is over.

Re:Finally

[Haeleth]

Now what if they had gone ahead and instituted some arbitrary standards of 'patently offensive' & 'morbid interest in violence'? The court isn't being asked to rule on the legality of the intent behind the Violent Games Law, merely its vague wording. It isn't like the Lousianna Legislature can't fix the defects in the law & pass it again.

Which is just fine. There's nothing wrong with legally enforced ratings. They don't hurt anyone. The beer industry does not seem to be suffering from the fact that it's illegal to supply liquor to minors; the porn industry does not seem to have been stifled by the fact that Walmart does not stock hardcore videos.

The problem with this law was nothing to do with its stated intent; it was that it was vaguely worded. The wording was designed to create an atmosphere of fear and uncertainty, where game manufacturers were not able to be sure whether their games would be treated as "violent" or not, and where game retailers were not able to be sure whether they were allowed to sell certain games to minors. That would have stifled people's free expression by encouraging self-censorship. That would have been bad.

But the stated intent itself is not bad. It's not even censorship. A well-written law of this sort, with very precise and rigid definitions and easily-understood effects, would not be a problem. If they want to institute some "arbitrary" standards, then that's fine. If the people change their standards, the law can be changed to reflect that. The people will get what they want, which is what "democracy" means.

It's only vague or over-broad laws, like the DMCA, that have chilling effects.

Re:Finally

[maxpublic]

The people will get what they want, which is what "democracy" means.

It's a good thing we don't live in a democracy, for then we'd be truly fucked. Democracy is called "a tyranny of the majority" for good reason. Our founding fathers knew that, and opted for a constitutional republic instead.

But the stated intent itself is not bad.

That's a matter of opinion, not fact. In my equally unimportant opinion, as a parent I'm the only person on this Earth who gets to decide what sort of video games my kids can and cannot play. And I don't see it as a very big step between legislating who can and cannot *buy* a video game to who can and cannot *play* a video game. I think it's fairly obvious that the folks who want to barge into my home and tell me how I should parent my kids are using this as a first step towards putting *me* in jail if I go and buy the 'violent' video game for my child myself.

Really, these idiots need to tend to their own affairs, and stay the hell out of mine. We're talking about computer games, not crack.

Max

Re:Finally

[plague3106]

There's nothing wrong with legally enforced ratings. They don't hurt anyone.

Sure it does. R rated movies have a smaller target audience, and thus become less profitable to make. Therefore, the numbere of R rated movies decreases. It still ends up being censorship. Personally it hurts me because G and PG movies I automatically rule out as the same tripe over and over again. As a rule, I don't find them entertaining (sorry, I guess I don't find what entertains 8 years olds entertaining to me). Same things goes for M and AO rated games.

The beer industry does not seem to be suffering from the fact that it's illegal to supply liquor to minors; the porn industry does not seem to have been stifled by the fact that Walmart does not stock hardcore videos.

These industries also have stores which exist soley for that market. There's plenty of adult stores and liquor stores around. Hell, I can buy beer at convience stores here in Vermont. The same is NOT true for M rated games. Walmart may sell beer, but it won't sell an M or AO rated game. And what this law is attempting to do is make it so that no other stores will carry M or AO rated gamse either, because they FEAR they MIGHT be prosecuted under this law. In the end, its still censorship, just like the FCC indecency fines are still censorship. The government can't tell FreeFM what to bleep on O&A, but they CAN fine FreeFM is someone complains. The end result is that FreeFM bleeps things because of a POSSIBLE government imposed fine. Its still censorship. In some respects its actually worse, because the FCC can't give any guidelines on what can or cannot be said, so FreeFM is many times overzealous, and censors MORE than if there were hard and fast censorship rules.

The problem with this law was nothing to do with its stated intent; it was that it was vaguely worded. The wording was designed to create an atmosphere of fear and uncertainty, where game manufacturers were not able to be sure whether their games would be treated as "violent" or not, and where game retailers were not able to be sure whether they were allowed to sell certain games to minors. That would have stifled people's free expression by encouraging self-censorship. That would have been bad.

The intent of the law is to censor games, no matter how you slice it or try to justify it. The law must be vague, because it would be struct down as an attempt at censorship. See above where I talk about why the FCC won't tell radio stations what is acceptable and what isn't.

But the stated intent itself is not bad. It's not even censorship. A well-written law of this sort, with very precise and rigid definitions and easily-understood effects, would not be a problem. If they want to institute some "arbitrary" standards, then that's fine. If the people change their standards, the law can be changed to reflect that.

Bull. It is censorship, no matter how you try to justify it. And children don't stop having rights just because they are young.

The people will get what they want, which is what "democracy" means.

Its too bad we are NOT a democracy, and nor would I want this country to become one. Democracy = mob rule. There are plenty of things people have the right to do even though the majority doesn't agree that it should be a right.

For example, free speech. Popular speech doesn't need free speech protection at all. Its the unpopular speech (such as video games) that the first amendment is meant to protect.

Re:Finally

[plague3106]

The MPAA ratings are not government-mandated, nor are there any laws requiring theaters to uphold them. If this is "censorship," then so is the ESRB itself.

The MPAA exists because the government was about to start stepping in and outright censoring. So Hollywood formed the MPAA in an attempt to self-regulate to stave off government stepping in. The same goes for the ESRB; the government was going to step in, they created ratings (hey, it 'worked' for hollywood). The problem is that the government still isn't happy, because there are still quite a few M rated games out there.

To be honest, if you think that something can't be entertaining without sex, violence, or profanity, maybe you're not the go-to guy for judging the quality of movies.

I think its really difficult to come out with something new and groundbreaking if you automatically rule out any possiblity of sex, violence or profanity.

First, the movie leaves the realm of the real world, since in the real world, there is sex, violance and profanity. Second, most G rated movies amount to the 'funny' scenes amounting to 'look at the squirell get hit over the head! HAHA AHAHA AHAH HAHA'. Please. You think THAT makes a quality movie? The EXACT same drivel over and over and over again? Yes, I'm sure that Over the Hedge is a truely groundbreaking movie, and Saving Private Ryan or the Green Mile or even T2 are just plain junk.

You may still be entertained by playing with Legos and Matchbox cars, but I just don't find them entertaining anymore.

Now Honestly...

[Greyfox]

Who didn't see that coming? And why is cash-strapped Louisiana wasting its tax dollars passing and then having to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to defend blatantly unconstitutional laws that have no chance of holding up in court in the first place? It doesn't seem to be financially responsible to the state's taxpayers, if you ask me.

Re:Now Honestly...

[Cheapy]

Elections are coming up.

Re:Now Honestly...

[nacs]

And why is cash-strapped Louisiana wasting its tax dollars passing and then having to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to defend blatantly unconstitutional laws

I think the answer and reason is in your question somewhere...

A bit of good news, at least

[Runefox]

At least we know the US judicial system isn't completely buggered yet. I can't imagine what the world would be like if any more of those fuzzy terms were introduced into law; It would make everything subjective, people could eventually be arrested for anything at all. Why this and other such stuff even got and continues to get passed is beyond me. I guess the courts and patent offices have a lineup at their door, so they have to rush things along. It's the only thing that makes sense, beyond bribery and blackmail, which I'm sure had a hand in it as well.

Re:A bit of good news, at least

[EGSonikku]

How is the 14th ammendment 'unjust' exactly? Last I checked your state ratified it.

You can't have a state taking away constitutional rights and then expect the feds just to look the other way.

Someone needs to re-read the:

Constitution
Bill of Rights
The Hungry Catapillar

Re:A bit of good news, at least

[Planesdragon]

people could eventually be arrested for anything at all

And this is why you MUST serve on jury duty. Because only with reasoned, concientious jurors does our system of laws really work.

When you get right down to it, the law isn't what Congress says, or the President, or the police, or even the judge. The law is what the people, through a jury, say.

Re:A bit of good news, at least

[bar-agent]

And this is why you MUST serve on jury duty. Because only with reasoned, concientious jurors does our system of laws really work.

And that's why we can't serve on jury duty. Lawyers don't want reasoned, conscientious jurors. They want gullible, biased jurors.

Re:A bit of good news, at least

[CRCulver]

Juries do not interpret the law

Jury nullification is seen by many legal scholars as a very necessary democratic check on the legal process, and many just outcomes throughout the 200 year-long history of the United States depended precisely on some citizens asserting this right. See Clay S. Conrad's Jury Nullification: The Evolution of a Doctrine (Carolina Academic Press, 2000) for a history. Your notion that only judges should decide is not in keeping with the actual facts.

Meanwhile... A video game law is supported

[Sigma 7]

While I could see this coming as soon as I read the law itself (and I'm a layman), there's Another Law in the same stat that is receiving full support of the game industry.

The difference with this law is that it only targets sexual content - and thus is allowed to use the "Millar" test. The one that is blocked uses vague/ambiguous definitions that could (in theory) be used to ban the game of Chess.

Re:I am for the freedom to play any game you want.

[AuMatar]

The federal judicial system enforces the Constitution. Its their job to step in when a state law violates it. This law is patently against the first ammendment, and as such it is the duty of the federal system to block it. This is the system working like its supposed to. If it didn't, the constitution wouldn't be worth the paper its printed on, and we'd still have states where women couldn't vote and Jim Crow laws are the norm.

Did you hear?

[fernandoh26]

Quote:

The authority of the Federal government to declare state statutes that affect only that state unconstitutional is something I am against.

In unrelated news, the state of Alaska has today signed the following bills into state law:

- All state elementary, middle school, high school, colleges and universities are now considered faith-based organizations, and can only be attended by white male catholics
- Black people can no longer vote, and only count as 3/5 of a person in the state census
- Slavery is now legal
- All media or speech of any type is subject to arbitrary censorship from by the state government

Looks like that wacky Ted Stevens is at it again!

This is cool!

[Anonymous Coward]

In fact, we need to make a video game where you're a judge and you get to shoot down unconstitutional video game laws.

It's not that hard to be a parent today

[MikeRT]

Aside from the legal meddling of state social workers, there are fewer problems that parents face today than they did before. Parents actually have the ability to extend their standards to places where they would normally have no control, like the television when they're working late. The V-Chip allows a parent who actually has to work late, rather than just to buy that new beamer, to control the content that is accessible. All media today is rated down to minute details to allow the rushed parent a fine-grained survey of all possibly objectionable content within ten seconds, literally. Anyone out of high school with a literacy rate above the fifth grade should be able to grok a ESRB rating in ten seconds or less.

We actually have lawsuits brought by parents who seriously think that others should do more of their job for them!. This is a generation of parents that is so self-indulgent that it wants to legislate its personal preferences onto content providers because it cannot even be bothered to buy the content it enjoys!

The irony of it is that most the people really pushing these laws are left of center! The very people who whine, piss and moan about "puritans" on the right! Last I checked, a puritan is someone who forces their views on someone else at gun point when they're not harming anyone or anyone's property. It's nice to see that the political social conservatives have competition, albeit in a dark sort of way.

I plan to be a full-time father, including sacrificing my material possessions for my kids. Someone once commented to the effect that it's not wise to try to gain the whole world at the expense of your spiritual life. I believe he also commented before some self-righteous liberals and conservatives of his day killed him for defying them, that there would come a day when parents would see their children so throughly abandon the right path that they would curse themselves for being fertile.

Great Examples of how Specific Laws can Suck.

[twitter]

The beer industry does not seem to be suffering from the fact that it's illegal to supply liquor to minors; the porn industry does not seem to have been stifled by the fact that Walmart does not stock hardcore videos.

Actually, both of those industries have suffered terribly from crappy local and federal laws designed to "protect minors". Ask yourself why you can't purchase wine over the internet from small vineyards in California or France. Ask youself where all the local breweries have gone. The control of alcohol has severely limited the quality and choice you have when you want any. I'm no friend of the porn industry, but they too suffer from an amazing and contradictory raft of both specific and vague legislation. You can read about their complaints in xbiz.

The state of both of those industries show that specific laws can suck too. In the case of alcohol, the federal government ruled that brewers must respect each local law. This is not only contradicts former notions of state interference with interstate commerce, it's also unreasonably complex and expensive to comply with. Even if you could comply, good luck finding a shipper. See UPS shipping terms for an example. The porn industry suffers similarly, even online where federal laws are being written specifically to burden the industry.

These laws waste enforcement resources for little public good.