Minnesota Pays Video Game Industry $65K In Fees

I Said More Ham writes "Minnesota's attorney general will drop the state's efforts to fine underage buyers of violent videogames after a high court struck down a state law as unconstitutional. The Entertainment Software Association, one of the plaintiffs in the case, announced Monday that the state paid $65,000 in attorney's fees and expenses."

Comments

Re:Remind me why this feels right

[cpt kangarooski]

It wouldn't be commercial speech because it is a work of art; it doesn't matter who created it, or what their motivations were. Commercial speech generally consists of things like advertisements, which are more focused on encouraging the audience to engage in some sort of economic activity directly related to the speech.

Anyway, I doubt it would matter. First, the commercial speech doctrine lacks much of a foundation, and the idea of uniquely significant limitations on speech merely because it is commercial in nature may not last much longer, given current trends and weak legal rationales for preserving it. Second, commercial speech is protected under the First Amendment even now, provided that it is not misleading and concerns lawful activity (which, in the case of a game, would be the playing of the game, rather than emulating in real life the things that happen within the game). Such protected speech can only be regulated by the government if there is a substantial government interest in doing so, where the regulation achieves its goal but is no broader than necessary.