california-game-law posts

As promised, the US Supreme Court heard the oral arguments today in Washington DC for and against the 2005 California law that if enforced would restrict the sale of certain games with violent content to minors. The Wall Street Journal reports that a number of the justices questioned the constitutionality of the law during the hour long session.

Justice Antonin Scalia stated, "Some of the Grimm's Fairy Tales are quite grim. Are they OK? Are you going to ban them, too?." Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg added, ""What about films? What about comic books? Why are videogames special?" However some justices did say that the California law could be written more narrowly to better define what games would be restricted for sale. The final decision by the court should be made by June 2011.

Update: You can now read the transcript of this morning's oral arguments at the US Supreme Court's web site.

If things go according to schedule, the US Supreme Court should be hearing oral arguments right now for and against Schwarzenegger, et al., v. Entertainment Merchants Association, et al. (08-1448). The California law, which was signed by Governor Arnold Schwarzengger five years ago, was designed to restrict the sales of certain games with violent content from minors. The game industry filed a lawsuit against the law and kept it from being enforced while the cast went through the court system.

So far the case has gone in the game industry's favor with two lower court decisions ruling against the law was unconstitutional. However the US Supreme Court surprised many by deciding to hear the case in its court. As reported by the court's official web site, the arguments will be made by California deputy state attorney general Zackery P. Morazzini and by Paul M. Smith of Jenner & Block in Washington for the game industry. The court is expected to make its final decision on this case before the end of June 2011.

This Tuesday, oral arguments for and against the California game law that seeks to restrict the sales of games with violent content to minors will be made at the US Supreme Court. A well known conservative pundit was actually defending games this past week: Rush Limbaugh.The radio talk show host chatted with one of his listeners this past week on the subject of the California law.

In a transcript of the conversation on Limbaugh's web site he states, "If you want to buy something raunchy in a video game, you should be allowed to, and if it's too raunchy the market won't support it? Fine, it dies. If the market likes it, then we got a cultural problem to deal with, but the government ought to have nothing to do with it." He added, "Leave your game alone. The people that put together these video games are artists in their own right. If you're gonna start saying that video games are raunchy, then how the hell do you leave cable television alone?"

[Via Kotaku]

With the US Supreme Court scheduled to hear the oral arguments for and against California's controversial retail game law next week the man who sponsored the law is sticking to his believes in a new interview with Gamespot this week.

Yee spends much of the time slamming the ESRB, the US game ratings board, calling the board "biased." He states, "The ESRB is funded by the industry, so it's like the fox guarding the henhouse." When it's pointed out the the US movie industry also rates its movies, Yee states, "It's a different technology. You go to a movie and you just sit there for two hours and see everything. Within video games, content is so embedded that you are unable to look at all the content in one sitting."

Yee's law, if it is allowed to be enforced, would restrict the sales of certain games with violent content to minors. Yee claims that such a law doesn't violate the First Amendment rights of free speech. He states, "Interestingly, kids can have access to these ultraviolent video games even under my bill. All you have to do is go to your parents, talk to your parents, and if your parents want to get it for you, they can go to the store and get it for you."

If you want to find one place to truly understand what all the issues are in the upcoming US Supreme Court case centering on the game industry, you can't do much better than the article posted on the court's official blog site. The blog entry this week goes over the pros and cons of the case which has the game industry fighting against a proposed law from California that, if approved by the court, would restrict the sales of certain games with violent content to minors.

The nine judges of the court are scheduled to hear arguments for and against the law on November 2. Meanwhile supporters of the California law are pushing their own viewpoints beforehand. The Parents Television Council has published its own secret shopper survey where it says retailers sold M-rated games to kids 19 percent of the time. Even with that relatively low number the PTC claims "that this rate of failure remains wholly unacceptable."

While it likely won't get the attendance or the media coverage of the Rally to Restore Sanity, the Entertainment Consumer Association is prepping its own rally to support the game industry on November 2 on the steps of the US Supreme Court. The rally will begin at 9 am ET, one hour before the highest court in the US hears oral arguments for and against the proposed California law that if approved would restrict the sales of certain games with violent content to minors.

The ECA web site has more info on how to attend both their rally outside the court as well as links leading to info on how people can actually sit in on the actual oral arguments inside the court building itself.

This November, oral arguments will be given to the US Supreme Court in the case that pits the game industry against the state of California over a law that if approved would restrict the sales of certain games to minors. Game Politics reports that a mock version of that case was held at William & Mary Law School this past weekend.

In short, it sounds like the mock trial was unfortunately weight heavily against the game industry, According to a person who attended the event, he "understood the ESRB rating system better than any of the Moot Court participants." In the end, the mock court voted 6-3 in California's favor. We just hope this is not an indication of how the real court case will turn out.

The battle lines against California's PC and video game law have officially been drawn. The last day to file a brief for and against the law to the US Supreme Court was last Friday. Today the Entertainment Software Association announced that over 180 briefs have been filed against the law which proposes that games with violent content be labeled and their sales restricted from minors.

The ESA notes that the briefs come from a wide variety of sources including First Amendment experts, non-profit organizations, and 82 "social scientists, researchers, and medical professionals." Those particular briefs went after California's scientific defense of the law, saying the state used "questionable research and incomplete data".

Perhaps most damning was the brief filed by the attorney generals of the states of Rhode Island, Arkansas, Georgia, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Utah, and Washington along with Puerto Rico. The brief states that in their opinion "quick fixes such as the California Statute cause more practical and constitutional problems, in expanding unneeded regulatory activity and hindering law enforcement, than they solve." Oral arguments for and against the law will be made to the nine members of the US Supreme Court on November 2.

Yesterday was the last day that groups could file a brief that either supports or fights against a California game law to the US Supreme Court. A group called the Media Coalition took the opportunity to do just that as the fight heads to oral arguments in front of the nine judges on November 2.

The Media Coalition represents a number of entertainment industry trade groups in the US that cover the movie, book, comic book, music and other industries. They are attacking the California law that would restrict the sales of certain games with violent content to minors if it is allowed to pass. The Media Coalition fears that if the US Supreme Court allows this law to stand it could open the floodgates and allow other entertainment forms to be regulated in the same manner. As the group states in its press release, "There is no First Amendment exception for violent speech in books, movies, music, or other mediums, and we believe that the Supreme Court should not open the door to a new category of unprotected speech for video games or otherwise."

Update: Doom and Quake creators id Software have also filed their own brief against the California game law. Thanks to Blue's News for spotting that.

With the US Supreme Court getting ready to hear arguments in early November on the issue of selling games with violent content to minors, a new survey commissions by an independent ratings board claims that there is broad support from the US public for such a ban.

Common Sense Media announced today that in a survey of 2,100 US adults that 72 percent of those surveyed would support a ban of selling such games to minors. The group also claims that the survey shows that over half of US adults would rate the game industry "poorly" when it comes to protecting minors from such games. This would seem to somewhat contradict the results of another survey issued by the ESRB ratings board which handles the ratings for all retail games. As described in the 2009 ESA annual report, the survey said that 87 percent of parents were aware of the ESRB ratings system and 76 percent of parent saying they check a game's rating before purchasing a game for their children.