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The State of Video Game Regulation
Gamasutra is running an in-depth look at the regulation of video games in the US and other countries. They discuss the reasons for such legislation, such as child protection and intellectual property restrictions, as well as what gamers can expect to see in the coming years.
"Fairfield also points out combinations of laws, which, when put together make for strange outcomes. The biggest of these, for video games, is the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. In short, gaining unauthorized access to someone's computer and doing $500 in damages opens you up for criminal charges. It's good for prosecuting hackers, but it makes for a strange fit with social networking websites and user-generated content. That fit was especially strange when prosecutors weren't quite sure how to approach the widely publicized case of Megan Meier. The 13-year-old Meier committed suicide after being deceived and bullied by another girl and her mother, Lori Drew. Unable to find a good way to approach the issue, prosecutors charged Drew under MySpace's End User License Agreement, effectively giving MySpace the power to dictate criminal law."
I had to choose between voting for a nigger or a republican.
I always wondered if there was any truth in the, "TV and computer games are bad for you" story until my son was born. When he was 3 and was told to turn off the TV, he had a paddy. He's grown out of that, but now he's 6 and plays on his PC and Nintendo DS, when he's told to finish and switch it off, he gets quite agressive and shouts and makes threats. Even he realizes later that it is ridiculous and unacceptable, but he is so disoriented from being immersed in the game (Lego Star Wars and Lego Indiana Jones if you must know) that he can't see reason at the time. I guess it's all part of learning and growing up.
There was a case in the Netherlands where kids obtained some items in Runescape through extortion of another kid. This is also punishable just like "normal" theft according to the judge (if you can call theft normal).
Link to article in Dutch: http://www.parool.nl/parool/nl/7/Misdaad/article/detail/38458/2008/10/21/Rechter-straft-jongens-voor-afpersen-in-computerspel.dhtml
when you accept it as such.
I don't see why they should regulate video games any more than they regulate the content of books.
Yeah, having myspace set legal precedent is a great idea. Since they do such a good job with things like css, (d)html, javascript and the like. I'm sure they'd do incredibly well in the judicial system.
Before you freak out, please read this post as sarcastic.
Believe that we should start executing people for breaking their EULAs.
It's the next logical step towards a beautiful future.
You can't take the sky from me.
But the topic is MySpace. That's quite the tangent, unless there's a MySpace video game. Wait, there ISN'T, is there?
Can you *imagine* what the MySpace game would be like?
::shudder::
Don't put advice in your sig.
... Don't buy them for them, and turn on the content rating system, to stop them from borrowing them from friends. Both the XBox and PS3 have these features. Older consoles don't, I admit. But it's a trivial issue. Nonetheless
Most kids are bright enough to tell fiction from reality, and the ones who aren't are likely to get into trouble anyway.
I hesitate to say it, but George Carlin was right - "Wait, the kid who eats too many marbles doesn't get to grow up to have kids of his own? Good. Fuck 'em."
Boo the Dictator Bush at several events while dodging Sheeple, Cronies and Zombie Service agents. Victory at the end of each round is celebrated with a pitcher of ice cold beer, a big fat blunt and a porn magazine.
Rated "E" for Everyone as everyone should know IT IS JUST A FUCKING GAME FOR CHRIST SAKE!
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"effectively giving MySpace the power to dictate criminal law." is a load of rubbish, people need to read TFA before making statements like that. Lori was prosecuted for using a fake account to ILLEGALLY HARASS and VICTIMISE A MINOR!
The prosecution used the available and existing laws to ensure some sort of punishment for this crime as it generally fell into a non-existing law area. No laws were changed, no laws were trampled on. Unless people sign terms of agreement anywhere, AND intend to mis-represent themselves AND harass and victimise minors to the point of physical/mental harm or death, they have NOTHING to fear.
Period!
But if they do have that intention, they deserve everything they get.
Seriously, the solution is simple. Just do it like they do in NZ. Exactly the same system for video games as for movies. Effectively it just becomes the following:
R18 - Sexual content / Drugs / Extreme violence - GTA
R16 - High levels of violence - UT
M - Medium level violence, alcohol, etc - Baldur's Gate
G - Everyone - Tetris
It's illegal to supply anything with an R rating to someone under the R rating age, even if you're their parent. Nice and simple, and you never have problems with people claiming they didn't know what their kids were playing.
Exactly. The ones who have problems with video games are the ones who have problems anyway. I played 18 rated games in my early teens and I worked out okay because I knew that there was a difference between reality and fiction. If you don't know that then films, books and even childhood "role playing" games like "Cowboys and Indians" can have pretty much the same effect and cause you to think it is acceptable to do things you shouldn't.
Bringing accountability to Government means actually saying what you think, not just accepting that you have no voice...
Incidentally - the Internet & Web is the most effective tool for "having a voice" that the Human Race has ever had, why do you think China comes down so hard on it?
Don't just let Governments (or other people in power) pull the wool over your eyes with crap because it makes their jobs easier... Speak out!! (within legal boundaries)
Remember people, we live in Democracies (well, alot of us do!), you don't just have to bend over and take it unless EVERYONE AGREES you should, and most of the time people JUST AREN'T AWARE/INFORMED of what's happening.
A Man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties -- Albert Einstein
Why are needed "new" laws for "online"?
The current laws for "offline" would work as well, so why???
Different societies have different value systems, and so different countries regulate different media in different ways.
What's important is that games get treated fairly against other media and regulated for what they are, not what scared, ignorant people worry they might be. The problem is that governments and legislators don't yet "get" games, and so fear and ignorance reign supreme.
As an example, in Australia, the government has a Classification Board that rates books, TV, movies and games. The Board is supposed to represent the values of the community and it generally does a pretty good job. Very few movies are refused classification (eg: banned).
Not so with video games. Games are regularly refused classification in Australia, largely because the highest classification for games is MA15+ - so if a game is considered only suitable for adults, then it can't be classified.
Yes, this is ludicrous and there's been a huge response from the local industry and a lot of local gamers. You can read more about it here if you are interested.
The point I'm trying to make, though, is that games are not treated on the same level as other forms of media in Australia, because they're poorly understood by government as a medium - mainly because the people in government didn't grow up playing games. I'd bet there are similar issues to varying degrees in other countries.
Give it a decade or so and things will be different. Until then, we're going to have to keep putting up with emotive comments and costly ineffective legislation from politicians looking for cheap popularity amongst their ignorant and fearful dull-eyed constituents.
They are definately able to find a link between pornography and paediatricians!! Funny that, violence on TV (Big business) and in games doesn't lead to crimes but porn does. Who would have thought...
The key issue here was that she did this in order to commit the crime of inflicting severe emotional distress on another. The first amendment has never protected people who want to do that. What really got Drew was the fact that she broke the ToS in a serious way in order to commit another crime.
The danger is not so much as the child not knowing the difference between fictional and real. But the fact at young ages kids get emotionally connected. Even non-violent games, they get very angry when they loose candy land (a game of chance). But with Video games the child really gets emotionally connected the game, and normally really connects himself with the characters, and when he plays outside of the game he usually plays the video game that he is connected to. Leading them to do dangerous activities, No they probably wont go shooting people, but kicking, punching, finding a stick and using it as a sword. For most games these activities do almost no damage. Thus kids think they are relativity safe to act out in play. Also video games love to extend a persons ability to jump and survive jumps thus making kids more willing to jump of higher areas and hurting themselves.
No just targeting video games is unfair a lot of TV shows even ones targets kids like PowerRangers do the same thing, however video games adds that extra element of emotional connection.
We love to see the extram stories of people killing others. But the real danger is Billy smacking Joey with a baseball bat breaking an arm, pretending (and knowing that he was pretending) to be a video game character with a sword.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
$5000, not $500
In short, gaining unauthorized access to someone's computer and doing $500 in damages opens you up for criminal charges. Aggresive DRM anyone? I figure disabling my dvd drives and putting difficult to remove malware on my computer without informing me is punishable by some prison time.
The biggest issue, it seems to me, is that people who spend a lot of time playing video games generally lack social skills. While everyone else was learning how to relate to the world, video game players were learning how to relate to video games.
Those who play games don't realize that they are socially backward because they are socially backward.
What you've just written is a monument to the mollycoddling that Western (but particularly middle class American) children get put through. It's utterly ridiculous. Little boys have run around with sticks, knocked each other over, fallen out of trees, and got busted nicking candy from the store since time immemorial, these things are an important part of establishing identity and social boundaries.
If a kid breaks another kids arm when playing with a baseball bat, he's learnt a damn hard lesson and won't do it again. If it's his arm that gets broken he'll learn to stay away from similar situations.
Adults often try to rationalise this behaviour as "he was playing halo, and he just hit his friend with a bat. It's the game's fault", when it ain't. He was being a kid.
1 Copy of a Hanson's "mmBop" song, or the billable hour when the lawyer laughed and spat coffee all over a brief?
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
frackin gov't. When will people get it through their heads that gov't is NOT the answer, it's the PROBLEM. Leave us alone like the founders intended.
Fairfield also points out combinations of laws, which, when put together make for strange outcomes. The biggest of these, for video games, is the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. In short, gaining unauthorized access to someone's computer and doing $500 in damages opens you up for criminal charges.
Sony rooted my PC, resulting in loss of hours of my time, well over $500 worth. Why aren't any of Sony's executives in prison?
It's good for prosecuting hackers
And another slashdot story asks about hackable digital converters. When I was a teenager I'd take $10 transistor radios and modify them to be guitar fuzzboxes, and I'd sell them for $50. This can be prosecuted now?
If "hacking" now means only "criminally breaking into computers" than what do we call what was traditionally called hacking? Someone who writes quick and dirty but useable code used to ba a hacker, what do we call him now?
That fit was especially strange when prosecutors weren't quite sure how to approach the widely publicized case of Megan Meier. The 13-year-old Meier committed suicide after being deceived and bullied by another girl and her mother, Lori Drew. Unable to find a good way to approach the issue, prosecutors charged Drew under MySpace's End User License Agreement, effectively giving MySpace the power to dictate criminal law."
Except that Drew was found not guilty of hacking myspace.
Does anybody know a good nerd site I can move to? Because the lack of nerds here lately is unsettling.
Free Martian Whores!
I never hesitate to say that George Carlin was right. He was always right.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Yeah, IRL, me either. Just don't want to get modded down for being seen to slap down someone's kids...
"... if they are at home watching TV or playing video games, I know exactly where they are, what they are doing, and what they aren't doing."
Children need a huge amount of adult attention. They need more attention than the adult just assuring himself that he knows what they are doing.
"During my teenage years those "not socially backward" kids as you would put them would be drinking, smoking, having sex..." That's because they got very, very little adult attention.
"... or sometimes partying." Partying is good. Partying helps teach how to relate to other people. Partying is better than being alone playing usually very violent games.
Firstly I (and many others) feel that the verdict in the Drew case was a travesty, set a horrible precedent and was the one of the absolute worst uses of the judicial system in recent years - the implications are huge and could affect all of us who spend a lot of time online. It was an abuse of the legal system in my mind, tapping into people's emotions about a tragedy to get a dubious legal ruling passed - it was a judicial lynch mob.
Secondly I am so tired of the double standard in video games in how any type of the most gruesome violence is permitted (with the rating system) but even a minor mention of sex or nudity and the game can;t be made. Sex has to be sanitized, yet you can blow someones brains out.
I love violent games as much as the next person, the generally are some of the best games out there - well made shooters are especially up my alley - loved GTA, but damn, it would be nice not to have to tiptoe around any sex or nudity (if it's appropriate). In games made for adults this should be an option. I am not talking about having those things just for the sake of having them, but am referring to the ability for a designer to make a game truly geared towards adults that isn't a lame excuse/attempt at porn. I would like to see the ability for AO titles to be viable, what that would be I don't know, but take the sex scene is GTA4 - they could have made those a lot more fun or funny had they had a little visual latitude.
As a parent I totally understand how and why people are concerned about violent games. I play a lot of games I wouldn't want my daughter to play until she is old enough to understand certain things. The biggest issue I would have with these sort of games is the same issue I have with TV and some movies when it comes to kids, and it the desensitization to violence and the pain and suffering of others. I think that can do a real disservice to the humanity inside a person if they grow up constantly witnessing violent acts.
However, with all of that said I think that it is a parent's job to monitor what their kids see and buy and put it in the proper context.
I do think that the voluntary ratings system is the way to go....The absolute worst thing that could be done is censorship of game content by the government - it would especially be pointless because it's not like it would have an effect on TV (which is much worse). Censorship doesn't solve anything - it's bad enough that the industry self censors based on what they think will sell or be controversial.
Parents who aren't digitally literate could use a little education about these ratings and what they mean, but all in all determining what is appropriate for a child or the market isn't a government job, it's a parent/industry job, and for the record if given the choice between my child seeing explicit violence or explicit sex it's my feeling that sex is much less harmful.
With all the overpopulation and everything.
I was socially backward before I got into video games. How? I spent all of my free time at the public library, reading everything I could get my hands on.
I write sci-fi for metalheads
And usually that only happens in prisons.
Usually that only happens in American prisons.
It's bad enough when the general media smears the name of Hackers, but we really should know better on /.
Ruby Neural Evolution of Augmenting Topologies
What precedent? Are you talking about the precedent of holding someone responsible for harassing their neighbor? Because I'm all for that. Are you suggesting that just because she did it online and under a false identity means that she shouldn't be held accountable? She did get off pretty much with just a hand slapping since she got nothing more than misdemeanors which is far less than she deserved.
As an aside a friend of mine brought up a good point. He thinks that Lori Drew was just taking the blame for her daughter. I hope he's right because it seems insane to think that she did something so childish and hurtful.
It won't effect any of us who are online. People on here need to quit over-reacting to these things. If this case ever effects your life I will give you a million dollars (obviously, this doesn't count if your harass some poor kid to self harm). The woman is sick and got off with less than she deserved.
Support a great indie game: http://www.abaddon360.com
Are you suggesting that just because she did it online and under a false identity means that she shouldn't be held accountable?
Um, no. She should be punished for the harassment, not for signing up with a fake name. If the former is not actually a crime, then fix that rather than turning the latter into one. As it stands now, just about every Internet user in the US has committed a federal crime, so we should all hope we haven't annoyed any government officials lately.
And yes, if that means Lori Drew gets to walk on a technicality, so be it. She'll still be ostracized for the rest of her life, and that's less bad than opening the door to selective prosecution of anyone who's ever checked their work email from home and thereby violated the "no commercial use" clause of their ISP.
How to solve most of our problems: 1.Lots of nuclear plants. 2.Cure aging.
I'm sorry, but you're wrong - certainly you're entitled to your opinion about whaty happened to Lori Drew, I agree that she was sick and deserved a lot of things - but don't pervert our legal system to try to turn something that isn't a crime into a crime ex post facto.
The verdict on the other hand could affect a lot of people, it could affect me, so on that count you're just plain wrong.
No staking. They stayed in their respective homes.
No libel. The only lies told were about themselves.
No slander. That's verbal communication and this was text.
(PS Are the investigators who found out about the losses investment banks made responsible for the deaths of the high flyers who hilled themselves with the shame?)
And vigelante justice is likewise illegal, so they would have vigilantes kill THEM, and....
gives damages of $5000.
Just ask McKinnon.
That is no defense.
It's funny to see people reacting exactly how the media and jurors in the case did - emotionally, without considering thhat there is a right and a wrong thing to do things, and that the rule of law HAS to be adhered to in all cases, ESPECIALLY in cases where the public feels a heinous wrong has been done.
We cannot compromise long held principles in a one of a kind situation just because we feel someone needs to be punished to to make an example of her.
Harrassment charges would have been fine. The woman is already a national pariah (as another poster has pointed out) and was run out of her neighborhood.
Seriously, the solution is simple. Just do it like they do in NZ. Exactly the same system for video games as for movies.
The film and game rating systems in the United States already have a one-to-one correspondence: E==G, E10+==PG, T==PG-13, M==R, and AO==NC-17. The only way I can see that it could be made more like the OFLC systems in place in Australia and New Zealand would be if the ESRB were to refuse classification to any video game that would be rated R if it were a film.
R18 - Sexual content / Drugs / Extreme violence - GTA
[...]
G - Everyone - Tetris
But how would you rate Dr. Mario or Lockjaw: The Overdose? They're Tetris-style puzzle games with thinly veiled drug references.
You've got a point. I'm 24, I primarially grew up without many video games, and the ones I had most people would call acceptable due to the shockingly bad graphics.
When I was a child...
I grew up without GTA yet I stole.
I grew up not watching violent tv/movies/games yet I got in fights... a lot.
I crashed bikes, fell in black berries, teased kids, got teased and put myself in all sorts of dangerous situations.
People and children have always done this and always will. There is nothing wrong with it. In fact, I'd hazard a guess that anyone who attempts to insulte their children from these experiences, is actually not helping their child.
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Heh, when I was little my favorite game was a Spectrum 48k thing called "B.C. Bill." You were a caveman, and had a club. You bopped women on the head and took them back to your cave, then you bopped walking hamburgers and dinosaurs and took them back to the cave. If you got good at bopping women and food, after a time you'd get young versions of you coming out the cave.
I note that I'm not a violent rapist and animal poacher.