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U.S. Supreme Court rules California can't restrict videogames to minors
Taken from Gamasutra:
"In a landmark ruling on Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court voted 7-2 against a California video game law that sought to place government restrictions on the sale of violent video games to minors. Justice Antonin Scalia was one of the seven justices that voted against the law, and he delivered the court's opinion, vehemently rejecting the California law."
Justice Scalia's opinion can be found here
Some highlights:
Videogames as free speech:
"Like the protected books, plays, and movies that preceded them, video games communicate ideas -- and even social messages -- through many familiar literary devices (such as characters, dialogue, plot, and music) and through features distinctive to the medium (such as the player's interaction with the virtual world). That suffices to confer First Amendment protection."
On speech directed towards children:
"[The Act] wishes to create a wholly new category of content-based regulation that is permissible only for speech directed at children. That is unprecedented and mistaken.... . No doubt a State possesses legitimate power to protect children from harm... but that does not include a free-floating power to restrict the ideas to which children may be exposed. California's argument would fare better if there were a longstanding tradition in this country of specially restricting children's access to depictions of violence, but there is none. Certainly the books we give children to read - or read to them when they are younger - contain no shortage of gore. Grimm's Fairy Tales, for example, are grim indeed. As her just deserts for trying to poison Snow White, the wicked queen is made to dance in red hot slippers "till she fell dead on the floor, a sad example of envy and jealousy."
Conclusion:
"California's legislation straddles the fence between (1) addressing a serious social problem and (2) helping con- cerned parents control their children. Both ends are legitimate, but when they affect First Amendment rights they must be pursued by means that are neither seriously underinclusive nor seriously overinclusive... As a means of protecting children from portrayals of violence, the legislation is seriously underinclusive, not only because it excludes portrayals other than video games, but also because it permits a parental or avuncular veto. And as a means of assisting concerned parents it is seriously overinclusive because it abridges the First Amendment rights of young people whose parents (and aunts and uncles) think violent video games are a harmless pastime. And the overbreadth in achieving one goal is not cured by the underbreadth in achieving the other. Legislation such as this, which is neither fish nor fowl, cannot survive strict scrutiny."
Justices Bryer and Thomas dissented.
While I normally disagree with Scalia, and haven't read the entire decision, I think his analysis is pretty much spot-on. The one thing that I don't like is his reliance on "tradition." Tradition is just stuff or a way of doing things that we've been doing for a long time. That doesn't necessarily make it right or wrong, it just makes it old.
"In a landmark ruling on Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court voted 7-2 against a California video game law that sought to place government restrictions on the sale of violent video games to minors. Justice Antonin Scalia was one of the seven justices that voted against the law, and he delivered the court's opinion, vehemently rejecting the California law."
Justice Scalia's opinion can be found here
Some highlights:
Videogames as free speech:
"Like the protected books, plays, and movies that preceded them, video games communicate ideas -- and even social messages -- through many familiar literary devices (such as characters, dialogue, plot, and music) and through features distinctive to the medium (such as the player's interaction with the virtual world). That suffices to confer First Amendment protection."
On speech directed towards children:
"[The Act] wishes to create a wholly new category of content-based regulation that is permissible only for speech directed at children. That is unprecedented and mistaken.... . No doubt a State possesses legitimate power to protect children from harm... but that does not include a free-floating power to restrict the ideas to which children may be exposed. California's argument would fare better if there were a longstanding tradition in this country of specially restricting children's access to depictions of violence, but there is none. Certainly the books we give children to read - or read to them when they are younger - contain no shortage of gore. Grimm's Fairy Tales, for example, are grim indeed. As her just deserts for trying to poison Snow White, the wicked queen is made to dance in red hot slippers "till she fell dead on the floor, a sad example of envy and jealousy."
Conclusion:
"California's legislation straddles the fence between (1) addressing a serious social problem and (2) helping con- cerned parents control their children. Both ends are legitimate, but when they affect First Amendment rights they must be pursued by means that are neither seriously underinclusive nor seriously overinclusive... As a means of protecting children from portrayals of violence, the legislation is seriously underinclusive, not only because it excludes portrayals other than video games, but also because it permits a parental or avuncular veto. And as a means of assisting concerned parents it is seriously overinclusive because it abridges the First Amendment rights of young people whose parents (and aunts and uncles) think violent video games are a harmless pastime. And the overbreadth in achieving one goal is not cured by the underbreadth in achieving the other. Legislation such as this, which is neither fish nor fowl, cannot survive strict scrutiny."
Justices Bryer and Thomas dissented.
While I normally disagree with Scalia, and haven't read the entire decision, I think his analysis is pretty much spot-on. The one thing that I don't like is his reliance on "tradition." Tradition is just stuff or a way of doing things that we've been doing for a long time. That doesn't necessarily make it right or wrong, it just makes it old.
Comments
But otherwise, I concur.
"But what sense does it make to forbid selling to a 13-year-old boy a magazine with an image of a nude woman, while protecting a sale to that 13 year-old of an interactive video game in which he actively, but virtually, binds and gags the woman, then tortures and kills her? What kind of First Amendment would permit the government to protect children by restrict- ing sales of that extremely violent video game only when the woman—bound, gagged, tortured, and killed—is also topless? This anomaly is not compelled by the First Amendment. It disappears once one recognizes that extreme violence, where interactive, and without literary, artistic, or similar justification, can prove at least as, if not more, harmful to children as photographs of nudity. And the record here is more than adequate to support such a view. That is why I believe that Ginsberg controls the outcome here a fortiori. And it is why I believe California’s law is constitutional on its face. "
Breyer is basically calling the Court on its bullshit double standard between nudity and violence; That the First Amendment protects against the censorship of violence (even graphic violence) but allows the government to restrict and censor "obscene" material. And, according to the court, only pornographic material can be "obscene."
The U.S. is so weird about nudity and violence. I just don't understand it.
Of course, I also understand the precedent of case law, so he's basically saying, "In the past, we've interpreted the constitution like this. Until those interpretations are challenged, we need to abide by them."
The proper conclusion should be that violence and nudity should be treated the same way. But you're right about precedence. Based on the (strange) logic he uses, if the Court can censor and control nudity when it comes to children, it should be able to do the same with violence.
Scalia counters this argument by stating that we have a tradition of prohibiting nudity with regards to children, but not violence, which is why the California law is unconstitutional. This is why I think his "tradition" argument is bullshit. If we were to start censoring violence today, 50 years from now, it would be a tradition. Tradition has to start somewhere.
The FCC has bothered me forever.
The magic code to gain access to most game websites with age verification.
It's stupid to even ask.