--- From: "Justin Hall" <justinat_private> To: <declanat_private> Subject: Politech thanks; Videogames declared "speech" worthy of protection Date: Wed, 4 Jun 2003 10:31:21 -0700 It was just yesterday that the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals declared video games speech worthy of first amendment protections. It's not the first time games have had their "speech" status confirmed, but it is a significant refutation of an April ruling by Federal Judge Stephen N. Limbaugh Sr., which was covered by PoliTech: http://www.politechbot.com/p-03463.html. The timing of the Appeals court decision is important due to a new batch of State laws limiting specific aspects of videogame content. Washington State House Bill 1009 outlaws the sale or rental of videogames depicting violence against law enforcement officers to under-17 minors. So kids there aren't supposed to play cops and robbers with modern toys. And this is only one among many similar bills emerging in Statehouses. There is already a ratings system in place for videogames, the ESRB, charged with limiting access to inappropriately violent titles. It's an attempt by the games industry to police itself as the movie industry does. There may be sporadic problems with ratings assignment or enforcement, but that does not make it appropriate for legislators to ban specific speech for consumption by specific audiences. Parents should be able to use videogame ratings to decide which products are appropriate for their child. Videogames are still developing as a medium. Hopefully these recent court decisions will uphold the rights of videogame developers to express themselves, through games; games that are to be played by adults as well as children. Yes the videogame industry needs to develop more non-violent means of expressing action. But if we attempt to legislate against games to protect children, we will limit the potential of videogames to speak to all people. We're tracking the various cases on Game Girl Advance: http://www.gamegirladvance.com/ And the Program Director for the IGDA (International Game Developers' Association) Jason Della Rocca has a weblog where he's sharing some solid sober opinions with useful links: http://www.igda.org/blogs/realitypanic/ Thank you Declan, Justin Hall http://www.links.net/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------- POLITECH -- Declan McCullagh's politics and technology mailing list You may redistribute this message freely if you include this notice. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- To subscribe to Politech: http://www.politechbot.com/info/subscribe.html This message is archived at http://www.politechbot.com/ Declan McCullagh's photographs are at http://www.mccullagh.org/ Like Politech? Make a donation here: http://www.politechbot.com/donate/ -------------------------------------------------------------------------
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