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Legal Trouble For MMOs In Australia

Posted by Soulskill on from the under-scrutiny-down-under dept.

Zonk tips a story at Massively that has uncovered a potential legal controversy in Australia where some MMOs are concerned. Under Australian law, all games require a formal rating to be sold. Due to an oversight, many MMOs do not carry such a rating, yet they have been sold since release without anyone realizing the problem. "According to the Act, selling a single copy of an unclassified game attracts a penalty of AU$27,220.80 or two years. Selling unclassified games in commercial quantities (50 or more) can have a much steeper schedule of penalties, and additional penalties apply to advertising unclassified material, or simply omitting the correct ratings labels on the merchandise. ... publishers and distributors at some point misunderstood their obligations with respect to MMOG classifications in Australia, and operated under the belief that no such rating was required here." Reader Clomer points out that this has been brought to the attention of the Australian media, so hopefully the issue will be resolved soon.

20 of 207 comments (clear)

  1. Pisses me by QuantumG · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Adults should be free to buy whatever the hell games they want. Requiring a rating on games, movies, music, etc, is just censorship by another name.

    --
    How we know is more important than what we know.
    1. Re:Pisses me by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Adults should be free to buy whatever weapons they want. Requiring licenses and waiting periods is just tyranny by another name.

      Adults should be free to buy whatever drugs they want. Banishing marijuana and LSD is just oppression by another name.

      Wow, this is a ridiculous comparison. Maybe they should outlaw cars too? They kill and hurt a lot more people than games do.

      How about we outlaw stairs? Single story buildings ONLY. Stairways kill and hurt more people than games do!

      While we're at it, let's outlaw solid food. People choking on solid foods have a higher mortality rate than people playing a video game.

    2. Re:Pisses me by IBBoard · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Would those adults that should be free to buy whatever they want be the ones who are over 18 and hence generally (unless some countries have odd certificates/classifications) both old enough to be considered adults and old enough to buy any game because the classifications stop at 18?

      "It's terrible censorship that games and movies have ratings that stop at 18, thereby not stopping anyone 18 years old or older (who at that age is considered to be an adult) from watching or buying them"!

    3. Re:Pisses me by Daimanta · · Score: 5, Insightful

      `Wow, this is a ridiculous comparison. Maybe they should outlaw cars too? They kill and hurt a lot more people than games do.`

      I mean, its not as if you need to have a license to drive or anything like that.

      --
      Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power lost.
    4. Re:Pisses me by powerspike · · Score: 4, Insightful

      welcome to Australia, we have 7 people all required to say new to change the ratings system, one of them currently in a religious nut, so won't even allow a r rating, so that's not going to be changed any time soon. How does this affect you, well publishers are dumbing down games to get past the 16+ rating in Australia, i believe the last one was fallout3, but alot of major titles are doing it...

    5. Re:Pisses me by drsmithy · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Adults should be free to buy whatever the hell games they want. Requiring a rating on games, movies, music, etc, is just censorship by another name.

      No, it's not, and conflating the two is extremely counter-productive.

      Not all media purchasers are adults. Not all adult media purchasers are purchasing the media for their own use. A ratings system is they so they are able to make *educated decisions* about what it is they are purchasing. A ratings systems - in and of itself - does not prevent an adult from buying anything they want.

      Now, a ratings system might have a "Not Rated" or "Illegal" rating that means no-one is allowed to sell anything that is rated as such, however, that is simply a problem with the individual ratings system, not with the entire concept. Australia has such a problem, in that there is no "R" equivalent for games. This doesn't mean all the other ratings given out to games are meaningless or pointless.

      Ratings systems are _good_ and should be encouraged. They allow consumers to make educated decisions about their purchases and substantially deflate genuine pro-censorship arguments.

    6. Re:Pisses me by Nuskrad · · Score: 5, Informative

      The problem in Australia is that their classifications consider some things unsuitable even for an 18/Adults Only rating, and so refuse classification, which means the product can't legally be sold, even to adults.

    7. Re:Pisses me by QuantumG · · Score: 4, Informative

      And in the case of games, anything deemed not suitable for a 15 year old is banned.

      There is no R18+ rating for games.

      --
      How we know is more important than what we know.
    8. Re:Pisses me by mog007 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Now, a ratings system might have a "Not Rated" or "Illegal" rating that means no-one is allowed to sell anything that is rated as such, however, that is simply a problem with the individual ratings system, not with the entire concept.

      The distinction between something being at the highest or "worst" rating and being unclassified is akin to censorship. Watch the movie "This film is not yet rated." It shows how the MPAA is censoring films that it doesn't agree with, and that's in the United States with a non-public controlled rating system. At least when a film gets hit with NC-17 here, they can sell the film on the internet, or change it a little bit, call it unrated, and have no problems getting it to be sold at a store.

      Stores are afraid to stock NC-17 titles, because they're usually associated with porn. The problem with Australia's method is that the board that makes the rating decision could, someday soon, decide that a game is sending the message that the Aussie government is evil, and refuse it classification.

      Now, you won't get arrested for having the game yet, but you can't even buy the unrated version like you can here in the US. It IS censorship by another name, and if you believe otherwise, the spin doctoring that the Australian government is doing seems to be working its magic.

      --
      Learn something new.
    9. Re:Pisses me by drsmithy · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The distinction between something being at the highest or "worst" rating and being unclassified is akin to censorship. Watch the movie "This film is not yet rated." It shows how the MPAA is censoring films that it doesn't agree with, and that's in the United States with a non-public controlled rating system.

      Er, you sound surprised, but this is exactly the kind of result that would be expected from a privately (or "industry") -run ratings system. They have movies to sell, after all, so it pays well to come up with ways of excluding movies that they don't derive an income from.

      Stores are afraid to stock NC-17 titles, because they're usually associated with porn. The problem with Australia's method is that the board that makes the rating decision could, someday soon, decide that a game is sending the message that the Aussie government is evil, and refuse it classification.

      Which will be very quickly reported on and general public outrage will fix the problem.

      I would trust our Government-funded, but independent, ratings board (and its publicly disclosed membership and standards) for objective and reasonable ratings long, long, long before I would trust any group of media companies attempting to do the same.

      Now, you won't get arrested for having the game yet, but you can't even buy the unrated version like you can here in the US. It IS censorship by another name, and if you believe otherwise, the spin doctoring that the Australian government is doing seems to be working its magic.

      Censorship is the active banning of material, it also means it is illegal to own the material.

      Refusing classification because the rating system lacks a suitable rating even though one exists for identical content in other media is a minor lacking in the ratings system.

      If you think the two are identical then you're just trying to use paranoia to sensationalise the real problem which, as I said previously, is extremely counter-productive.

    10. Re:Pisses me by Wildclaw · · Score: 3, Insightful

      "Wow, this is a ridiculous comparison. Maybe they should outlaw cars too? They kill and hurt a lot more people than games do."

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vehicle_inspection

      "How about we outlaw stairs? Single story buildings ONLY. Stairways kill and hurt more people than games do!"

      http://www.communities.gov.uk/planningandbuilding/buildingregulations/

      "While we're at it, let's outlaw solid food. People choking on solid foods have a higher mortality rate than people playing a video game."

      http://www.fda.gov/

      You were saying?

    11. Re:Pisses me by Bastard+of+Subhumani · · Score: 4, Funny

      Guns [snip] because they're dangerous if NOT handled properly

      They're also quite dangerous if they are handled properly. That's the point of them, isn't it?

      --
      Only three things are certain; death, taxes, and apocryphal quotations - Ben Franklin.
    12. Re:Pisses me by mog007 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      If history shows us anything, it's that once something is made illegal to sell, it doesn't take much effort to make it illegal to own.

      I'm sensationalizing it for a reason, and that reason is simply because censorship in ANY form is fucking wrong. And it's VERY wrong when it's being done by the government. This is censorship, plain and simple. The government is saying "no, the citizens aren't adult enough to make the decision to watch that, we're going to make the decision for them."

      --
      Learn something new.
    13. Re:Pisses me by flitty · · Score: 3, Informative

      This Link Seems to list all of the "liberties" you haven't been able to choose for yourself. From my side of the pond, this looks like a censorship black list, but that could just be me.

      --
      Whether or not there is some sort of god, I'm not supposed to say/god is a word and the argument ends there-Smog
    14. Re:Pisses me by flitty · · Score: 4, Insightful
      It may not be illegal to OWN such media, but the summary above does seem to ban the selling of any unrated material

      Under Australian law, all games require a formal rating to be sold.

      --
      Whether or not there is some sort of god, I'm not supposed to say/god is a word and the argument ends there-Smog
    15. Re:Pisses me by ravenshrike · · Score: 4, Informative

      You don't need a license to drive. You need a license to drive on PUBLIC ROADS. On private roads you can drive however fucking much you want.

  2. no surprise by thermian · · Score: 4, Insightful

    As long as there are politicians in need of a platform to rant on in order to get elected, nonsense like this will happen.

    Since the overwhelming majority of people neither play, or possibly even understand, computer games, its a soft touch for some 'fear inducement' followed by 'and I can save the children from it'.

    Thus far it hasn't stopped the games industry raking in billions over the years, nor will it in the future.

    --
    A learning experience is one of those things that say, 'You know that thing you just did? Don't do that.' - D. Adams
    1. Re:no surprise by thermian · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Yes, it's not like 97% of American teens play computer games or over 50% of American adults

      Strangely enough, most of the world aren't Americans, and this story isn't about America either.

      --
      A learning experience is one of those things that say, 'You know that thing you just did? Don't do that.' - D. Adams
  3. Penalty - Send all the convicts to Australia by Patito · · Score: 5, Funny

    AU$27,220.80 or two years? I for one vote for doing things like in the old days: Just send all the convicts to Australia...

  4. Re:Confusing Developments by X0563511 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    This is America. Kids can't look at boobs, but you can legally own and operate flamethrowers, build and use garage guns, and fire an M134 minigun.

    We make a lot of sense here, don't we?

    --
    For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...