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Supreme Court To Rule On State Video Game Regulation
DJRumpy sends in this quote from an AP report:"The Supreme Court will decide whether free speech rights are more important than helping parents keep violent material away from children. The justices agreed Monday to consider reinstating California's ban on the sale or rental of violent video games to minors, a law the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco threw out last year on grounds that it violated minors' constitutional rights. California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who signed the law in 2005, said he was pleased the high court would review the appeals court decision. He said, 'We have a responsibility to our kids and our communities to protect against the effects of games that depict ultra-violent actions, just as we already do with movies.'"
SCOTUSblog has a more thorough legal description of the case.
All heil Der Gropenfuhrer!
Also, fuckin' hypocrite.
Parents have a responsibility to be parents and raise their children as they see fit. I do not.
"I use a Mac because I'm just better than you are."
He said, 'We have a responsibility to our kids and our communities to protect against the effects of games that depict ultra-violent actions...'
What effects are those, again?
The kids' parents have the responsibility. Get your big government nose out of my business.
The video game industry puts ratings right on the cover. I don't want the goverment to tell me how to raise my kids.
We let the movie and music industries self-regulate. Why should video games be any different?
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We surely wouldn't want to expose the children to any media influences that glorify violence and fighting, now would we?
Signatures are the new names.
You know who else is always thinking of the children? Pedophiles.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
"We have a responsibility to our kids and our communities to protect against the effects of games that depict ultra-violent actions, just as we already do with movies," the Governor said in a statement.
I know that kids can't get into rated R movies, but stores have been getting more and more strict about not letting kids buy rated M games. I remember when I was like 18 they wouldn't sell Halo 3 to me because I didn't have my ID with me.
My question is, is it A CRIME to rent a rated R movie to a minor? I somehow seriously doubt it. If it is, thats sick. And I cannot understand at all how this could be true for videogames either.
RAISE YOUR KIDS RAISE YOUR KIDS RAISE YOUR GODDAMN KIDS
GCS/MU/P d- s:- a-- C++++$ UL++ P+ L++ E+ W++ N o K- w--- O M+ V- PS+++ PE Y+ PGP t+ 5- X R++ tv+ b++ DI++ D++ G+ e++ h-
"We have a responsibility to our kids and our communities to protect against the effects of games that depict ultra-violent actions, just as we already do with movies."
Which harmful effects are those? Have there been credible, peer-reviewed studies which actually show any negative effect of seeing violence on a screen?
(Arnold Schwarzenegger) said, 'We have a responsibility to our kids and our communities to protect against the effects of games that depict ultra-violent actions, just as we already do with movies.'"
WRONG. WE don't have a responsibility, PARENTS have a responsibility. WE (as in "we the people") have a responsibility to make sure the Constitution doesn't get corrupted by well-intentioned feel-good attempts to legislate morality. Get it straight, ya big goof.
psmylie's dictionary: Godzillion (noun) Any number large enough to destroy Tokyo
The problem with comparing this to movies is that MPAA Rating system isn't law, merely a voluntary policy (Source http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motion_Picture_Association_of_America_film_rating_system) Stores that refuse to sell/rent R-Rated Movies/M-Rated games to minors are well within their rights; stores are free to conduct their business as they wish. However, on that same note, stores can also choose to sell these movies/games to whoever they want.
Charming man. I wish I had a daughter so I could forbid her to marry one. -Arthur Dent
There are no laws revolving around renting R rated movies to minors, and already existing pornography laws should cover pornographic games...
...for people (specially those sitting in the Supreme Court) to understand something as simple as: "Congress shall make no law"? Now law, means no law!
And that video games are speech is so obvious that is shameful if anyone needs it pointed out to them.
If parents don't want their children to play certain games, just like if they don't want them to read certain books, or don't want them to jump from certain bridges, it is their problem to figure out how to do this.
"When in doubt, use brute force." Ken Thompson
Seriously, without violent video games won't the 18 year olds immediately entering the military after high school be sensitive to violence? Won't they be more prone to freeze up in the height of combat? I'm sure Arnold can appreciate the benefit of a soldier free of moral hesitation.
> decide whether free speech rights are more important
> than helping parents keep violent material away from children.
It's not a question of importance, but of relevance.
Cut that out, or I will ship you to Norilsk in a box.
He told the court he would be back...
The U.S. really needs to have a single system for rating all media for age appropriateness and content, and enforce it at the distribution level. Movies have a rating, TV shows have a rating with a code for content (FV for fantasy violence, D for dialog, etc.), games have their own rating, but magazines and music, to my knowledge, do not. The only one that can't really be controlled is the internet.
Ideally, parents would know what their children are doing 24/7, and be able to determine for themselves what is appropriate for their children. We all know that no parent can actually do that. It's simlply impossible. That's why these ratings need to be enforced. Selling or distributing these things needs to be enforced like the ban on selling alcohol or cigarettes to minors is enforced. Sure, the enforcement isn't 100% effective, as kids still smoke cigarette butts off the street, sneak into their parents' liquor cabinet, or get their older siblings to purchase them for them. But the ban and enforcement is, for the most part, effective enough. The major difference, however, needs to be that enforcement ends with the sale or distribution of this media, and does not actually outlaw the act of kids playing these games or watching these movies (like alcohol and cigarettes are). That should be up to the parents to decide.
Anyway, that's just my opinion.
is for the violent games to be properly labeled as violent games. Beyond that, the parent should make the decision.
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
The question is not whether the law is stupid (It is, of course). It's none of the government's business how you raise your kids.
The question here is whether the state has the right to make an asinine law like that or not. And, unfortunately, they do. The 9th circus... err... circuit court fabricated some inanity that free speech laws prevent age restrictions on products (how would it be constitutional for video games to be protected speech for minors and not for porn for example?). This is judicial activism - i.e. legislating from the bench.
Like it or not, the correct way of dealing with this, is voting the idiots who passed this out of office, and repealing the law - not expanding the meaning of the constitution. Don't get me wrong, I'd be very happy if the law was expunged from the books, but doing it through the courts is probably not the right way, and the plaintiffs should not get their hopes up.
Total Recall anyone? Show that to some minors. Talk about graphic violence.
Honest question - please not to flame. :) How does not selling the game to a minor negate parental responsibility? Does it not *enforce* it by *requiring* the parent buy the game for the child?
'We have a responsibility to our kids and our communities to protect against the effects of games that depict ultra-violent actions, just as we already do with movies.' Protect against the ol' ultra-violence? But that's the most horrorshow part of a game. We already have enough developers getting tolchok'ed in the gulliver over even implying a bit of in-out-in-out.
We have a responsibility to our kids and our communities to protect against the effects of games that depict ultra-violent actions, just as we already do with movies.
First, we have a responsibility to our kids and our communities to prove scientifically exactly what the effects of games that depict ultra-violent actions are, which we haven't done with movies either. I'm not against ratings systems, but they don't currently stop kids from buying tickets to Winnie the Pooh then switching theaters to Saw IV. So I'm not to sure how effective they would be in keeping the same kids that have no problem getting their hands on drugs, alcohol, or cigarettes from getting their hands on violent games.
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
I remember, back in the day (Myself being sixteen, this wasn't so long ago- five, six years max) I went out to Wal-Mart and bought a copy of Black Hawk Down for PC (Not a great game, but OK). I told the guy at the register that I was going to buy Black Hawk Down, and he said I'd need a parent- but as soon as he realized that it was a game, he laughed and rang it up right away, no parent in sight. Granted, the game was rated T, not M, but still, I couldn't have been more than 11 at the time- and I'm a short guy, so I didn't even look that old.
However, the game was quite a bit of fun, and it didn't change how I think or turn me into a psychopath. So I guess the moral guardians have a point, but so do we. In some cases, kids CAN get games they're not supposed to have- but the impact they do have is quite overstated.
"We have a responsibility to our kids and our communities to protect against the effects of games that depict ultra-violent actions, just as we already do with movies" ...said the man who got fame and fortune from making violent movies...
The Supreme Court will decide whether free speech rights are more important than helping parents keep violent material away from children.
The summary is actually lifted directly from the linked article. What a sterling piece of objective, non-editorial journalism.
The Supreme Court will of course decide no such question. Measures are already in place to help parents keep violent content away from children; those parents that care to keep informed about the sorts of entertainment that their children consume have more resources and information available to them now than they have ever had. The question becomes whether the state can hold retailers criminally liable for failing to fill a role that the parents have apparently abdicated. Also from TFA:
The supporters of the law say the same legal justifications for banning minors from accessing pornography can be applied to violent video games.
This isn't clearly the case at all. The case will revisit the issue of whether violence (not sex) can constitute regulable obscenity under the First Amendment, a parallel that courts have repeatedly refused to draw.
They point to recent Federal Trade Commission studies suggesting that the video game industry's rating system was not effective in blocking minors from purchasing games designed for adults.
Largely because that isn't what the rating system was designed to do. The whole point to the ESRB is to allow parents to make informed decisions as to what their children can watch, play, etc. The ESRB was never intended as a deterrent against children consuming that content without parental knowledge, or with parental consent. The notion behind the California law (and others in many other states that have been struck down) is that because the ratings aren't doing something that no one ever expected them to do, the state needs to have power to punish retailers for selling a product that (unlike tobacco or alcohol) has a strong component of judicially-recognized speech. I'll be interested to see what SCOTUS does with this...
I must ask, how the hell are children this young getting to the store on their own and shelling out $60+ for a game? How can parents not know their child is walking around with that much money on them, and where are they getting it if not from the parents?
Last year I wrote a paper on video games and violence for a course in my Master's program. To make a long story short, parents needs to start parenting once again. It is not up to the government to "protect" your children from video game violence. It is up to you as a parent to be involved enough in your child's life to understand what forms of entertainment they are participating in. All video game systems come with parental controls these days. If you really don't trust your child, set the control and apply a password they don't know. The other thing that irks me is that the ESRB has done a great job in reducing the % of minors that are able to purchase M-rated games. As found by this FTC report back in 2008, the video game industry had the best improvement and lowest rate of underage shoppers purchasing or viewing "explicit" content. I really hope the lawyers in this case are able to use the government's own statistics to show how wrong and one-sided this argument is. If you want to do this to video games, do it to all forms of entertainment. http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2008/05/secretshop.shtm
"In true dialogue, both sides are willing to change" --Thich Nhat Hanh
It's a LOT easier to control distribution at the point of sale, rather than at the point of consumption.
Some parents don't want their kids eating sugary snacks. So, should we pass a law making it illegal for grocery stores to sell candy to anyone under 18 without parental permission?
Some parents don't want their kids learning about evolution, either. Should we pass another law making it illegal for bookstores to sell science textbooks to anyone under 18 without parental permission?
You can't possibly expect retailers to enforce parents' house rules. That's the parents' job. It's not impossible to stay on top of what your kids are doing, it's just a lot of work. If you're not prepared for that responsibility, then maybe you're not ready to have kids.
If the parents want their kids to have access to those games, then they can still buy GTA 9 for Johnny's birthday.
Why should those parents have to waste their time in order to not restrict their kids from doing something? Shouldn't it be the responsibility of the parents who do want to restrict their kids' behavior to enforce that restriction?
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Don't consoles all come with "Parental Control" options? If you don't want little Timmy playing those violent games, set the parental controls on his console. Then it really doesn't matter what Timmy buys with his allowance, or where he buys it from, he simply can't play it. And if you think little Timmy is mature enough to play adult games, you can adjust (or remove) the controls that are already in place so that he can.
The other issue is, of course, when little Timmy is "buying" the violent game, 99/100 times it is Timmy handing the game to his parent, who puts it on the counter and buys it no questions asked. And woe betide the lowly salesdroid that dares to try to tell mommy what she can and cannot buy for her little angel.
Of course, the real answer here is to take an active involvement in your child's education and play time, and to sit with them (perhaps even playing along) as they play on their X360/PS3/Wii, to ensure that they are not seeing things that you believe would harm their sensitive little brains.
But then, it's so much easier just let the console and/or the TV do all the babysitting. Then, when your child turns into some schizo killer because he wasn't paid attention to at home and was bullied at school, it's all someone else's fault, 'cause the parents are never to blame.</sarcasm>
If video games are to blame for the violence, what about movies like:
Friday the 13th.
Saw
Halloween
Scream
Nightmare on Elm Street.
Need I continue?
Enacting these frivolous laws will open a real bag of worms. I can see motion picture lawyers scrambling to ensure their clients are not dragged down as well.
The mind conceives, the body achieves, the spirit manifests.
This coming from The Terminator..
Hey this guy made movies like Terminator and Predator. Just because he's gone all Kindergarten Cop politician, doesn't mean that he doesn't profit daily from kids seeing his older movies. I remember they were big hits with "minors" when I was one myself growing up in the late 80s and early 90s. It's just pure hypocrisy.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
You make it sounds like the state has a compelling reason to control distribution, and that it outweighs society's interest in keeping speech and commerce free.
What if their response is to tell Johnny, "sure, you can buy that game."? Your logic can be turned around and perverted without losing any strength or consistency:
It's a LOT easier to permit unregulated distribution at the point of sale, rather than at the point of consumption. If a parent tells their kid they're allowed to purchase or play a certain game, can that parent ensure that their 15-year-old-kid will be able to purchase it when they go to the mall with their friends, unattended by the parent? 1000 parents, giving permission to their 1500 kids, isn't nearly as effective as letting 100 retailers sell the game by default. If the parents want to prohibit their kids from having access to the games, they can still tell Johnny no, and then pay attention to what's happening in the living room.
The problem here is that each side is assuming their position should be the default, and varying from it is an exception. Presumably that exception will be rare, so the people harmed by it, will be outweighed. "Needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few," and all that other lefty trekkie stuff. But in real life, which is really the reasonable default and which is the exception? And if we err, which side (liberty or restrictions) is appropriate for America to err on, assuming we're going to guess wrong no matter which way we go?
That's why I believe that certain things should be permissable in practice, but not in distribution. It should be permissable for kids to PLAY violent games, if their parents buy it for them, but not for kids to BUY the games themselves.
Why are you only applying this to games (and maybe movies)? If you believe it's so important for restrictive parents to have control over what their kids buy that you favor a ban on selling video games to minors, then you ought to favor a ban on selling anything to minors.
A law that singles out M-rated games is not just a tool for parents to use in enforcing their house rules. It's an endorsement of certain rules to the exclusion of others: the state is saying that parental rules against buying M-rated games are more legitimate than parental rules against buying unhealthy foods, disagreeable political and religious material, ringtones, jewelry, revealing clothes, etc.
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In the USA your equality is based on your political power, which mostly means money and partly means your ability to vote. Children don't vote. No laws are passed with the interests of children in mind. Laws are always passed in the interests of appeasing some parents' notion of what will keep their kids safe. Some parents would no doubt like to ban minors from swearing, too, but it's just a little too silly.
The rights of the actual children are unlikely to be considered in this case. What rights? Constitutional and civil rights before you're 18 seem to only apply to your parents, who effectively own you.
Not a troll, just the bitter truth.
I want my Cowboyneal
Just as we already do with movies? What do we do with movies? A rating system that depends on the theaters to voluntarily enforce them. How is that different from the current way games are handled?
This bill isn't in YOUR business unless you're in the business of selling R-rated materials to minors without parental consent.
Yes, it is my business. I now have to obtain a government ID to be granted the privilege to buy video games.
And many instances of segregation were just "fucking lunch counters". Perhaps you'd have mocked, "Someone call MLK and Gandhi! A black guy can't eat lunch at this deli!"
No, I wouldn't because I'm not so lacking in perspective to ever equate the two.
Nope. See, some of us actually care about civil rights -- even the rights of people younger than us
Aw, you care! Hey everybody! He cares! You can put that on your campaign posters when you inevitably run for office. Caring we can believe in!
But something tells me you'd have the same reaction if this were about voting, owning property, or anything else: bigots rarely keep their bigotry confined to trivial issues.
Something tells you that, huh? hearing voices in your head? Should get that checked. Hey, I kid. :-)
No, I'm nearly an anarchist when it comes to what adults can do. If an adult wants to smoke pot and gamble online while getting an abortion in a mall kiosk, hey, have at it. What I *am* is a jaded bastard with a cold, black heart. :-P
You're like that scene in the British comedy The Young Ones. There's these interviews with kids on the street complaining that society does not recognized their value, but all they really want is to be able to get drunk in pubs.
So, you go fight those important video game based battles. Or maybe you can get the drinking age lowered to -1. Hey, it could be an alternative to abortion. :-)