Federal Judge Strikes Down Ban on Violent Games

CaptainEbo writes "A federal judge in Louisiana has issued a preliminary injunction blocking a statewide ban on violent video games. The judge's holding that 'depictions of violence are entitled to full constitutional protection' flies in the face of Louisiana's assertion that video games interactive nature make them inherently more likely to incite people to violence, and therefore requires reduced First Amendment protection. In rejecting the state's argument, the judge compared video games to literature. 'It is the interactive aspect of literature that makes it successful — 'draw[ing] the reader into the story, mak[ing] him identify with the characters, invit[ing] him to judge them and quarrel with them, to experience their joys and sufferings as the reader's own.'" GamePolitics also has reaction to the news from Louisiana political figures, as forwarded by Jack Thompson.

Comments

Preliminary Injunction != Strikes down

[Anonymous Coward]

The judge issued a preliminary injunction, he did not strike the law down. All the preliminary injunction means is that the law will not take effect while the lawsuit is being conducted. It may be a good sign, but the case isn't over yet.

Re:Preliminary Injunction != Strikes down

[spiritraveller]

And one requirement for the judge to issue a preliminary injunction is that he has to determine that the benefitting party is likely to win the suit. So by issuing it, he has to have already reached a decision about the merits of the case.

It's true that it isn't the end, but it definitely points to one side as the likely winner.

Not a ban

[CrashPoint]

Title and summary are incorrect. The law was not a ban on violent games, it was a ban on selling said games to minors.

Re:A good law would be...

[bigbigbison]

In the United States this is not accurate.
In the USA, NO ratings on media are government enforced.
All ratings from videogames to TV shows to movies are self-imposed.
There is NO law that prevents minors from entering R rated movies.
Therefore to single out games would take an overwhelming amount of evidence that games were harmful.

Even things like "XXX" movies are not government rated. If someone is arrested for selling pornography to a minor, they first have to establish that the item in question is indeed pornography (sure in many cases this is trivial, but there have been several cases where comic books containing sexual material have been seized and the court cases have basically revolved around proving they were pornographic).

Moreover, the film industry has largely taken to circumventing their own rating system by releasing the film as PG-13 in US theaters and then come out with an "unrated edition" on DVD which they commonly advertise as containing more nudity and/or violence. Even if it were illegal for a store to sell a child an "R" rated film, how could it be illegal to sell a film which isn't even rated?