Video games now protected under 1st Admendment

http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/10pdf/08-1448.pdf < full summary

It's awesome when the US gov't actually works like it should.

Commentary welcome.

PS- Hell YEAH!!

 

Yay the government did something right!

 

Cool. But what are the practical implications?

 

I disagree, this is not a Win Win for all.... From where I stand..
But I am not going to make this a Flaming post...

So in the end I am sad about it.
and I will leave it at that...

 

+ 1 Hrogi, I guess School shooter will be fast tracked by its sick creators so the children can get some more twisted ideas!
Kuro, Whats up dude? Lets at least make it a little harder for the kids to get some of these borderline obscene games...
Well back to NFS for me.

 

The point is that the government should not be the one doing the policing. The parents should. Read the opinion... it draws some very apt parallels with other forms of media. It's not illegal for a child to buy an R-rated movie, the industry polices itself. It's not illegal for a child to buy "Lord of the Flies" or "The Brothers Grimm Fairytales", and those have some horrible violence in them. This decision is simply affirming that video games are media just like all other media, and just as deserving of first-amendment protections.

If you don't want your kids to be exposed to something, that's your job. I know it's my job as a parent. If you don't want to play school shooter, or don't want your kids to do so, you need to stop that. Preventing other people from doing it via the government is a horrible abuse of the First Amendment and individual rights.

 

Thank god those little things called parents exist to keep their kids from playings stuff they don't agree with.

 

I wonder if this ruling will be used to stop movie theaters from preventing youths under the age of 17 from watching a R-rated movies on their own. [this might not be enforced by a law, but by the business; idk].

I could easily be ok with either side. I have no problem with minors not being able to buy Mature rated games. In fact, it used to be that way up here in Washington.
However, I'm quite alright with the protection of the 1st amendment. Too bad some of us forgot about the 4th.

 

I saw that on Steam and didn't quite understand it. *shrugs*

I couldn't care less about this. What I want is protection for the customers. Freedom from the iron grips of the software publishers. Ability to make a game return and actually have the rights to duplicate my software for my purpose as I see fit, and not be threatened or restricted in doing so by strict DRM. That would be more significant imho.

 

Can someone explain what this mean? I don`t understand the purpose and the meaning of this admendment. Im not from the US

 

US Supreme Court essentially ruled today that video games are protected under the First Amendment of the US Constitution which says:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Video games fall under "speech", which has often been interpreted as expression. California recently passed a law which would ban the sale of games that some bureaucrat defined as violent. The Supreme court has struck that law down and said that video games are a form of speech/expression and can therefore not be limited by law.

 

One thing is wrong. The proposed law only banned the sale of Violent video games [example: rated Mature] to minors. Adults [18 and older] would still be able to buy them.

 

Here in Utah, minors (17 and younger) have never been able to buy Mature rated video games AFAIK. I don't see a problem with it. Same as limiting who can go into R rated movies in the theater.

 

So when I re-enact a scene from GTA with real hookers, guns, and blow, does that get 1st amendment protection too?


(No, I am not trying to make some sort of thinly-veiled argument that games somehow make kids violent. They absolutely do not, and I support this decision 100%)

 

Syberia, agreed up to the smiley. Do you people actually think in all the single parent homes the adult has time to monitor what is on their children's Xbox or PC? How many even have a clue what goes on at LAN party? Present company excluded but many adults know way less about computers than their offspring. I am surprised by the tone of this thread!

 

That's not a law, though. Video games should be treated exactly the same way, and that's what this Supreme Court decision is affirming. If it is a state law, then the law is unconstitutional and should be thrown out.

That's called "parenting". If your kid is going to a LAN party and you haven't instilled in them appropriate values by that age, you've done your job wrong as a parent. The point of raising children is not to protect them from everything, it's to give them the tools to grow up into well-adjusted adults so they can protect themselves and make their own decisions. My parents never knew as much as I did about computers, but that didn't prevent them from keeping an eye on what I was doing.

 

Hmmm....
This is the first thing that came to mind when I read through this thread.
Have a good laugh guys.

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Crazy people are fun. Back in the 80's it was Dungeons and Dragons that was going to make you a Satanist. Moral outrages and panics are easy to foment among the credulous There's always something new and evil to blame, and get the older generation all worked up because they don't understand it.

 

Extremely out of touch with reality. Good laugh.

 

My dad built me an awesome rig with a Pentium-90 and everything. He even let me play the original 2D side-scrolling Duke Nukem. All when I was probably less than 10.

Ideally my kids will not have such low intelligence that they need the kind of over-the-top parenting that insults it. I did not.

 

Thank you, Pitabred. +rep I completely agree.

I played the early GTA games when I was a minor. I shot the Imperial Forces in those awesome DOS Star Wars games. I've never killed/abused anyone IRL. Humans have violent thoughts. What makes them criminal is the conversion of those thoughts into actions.

Playing devil's advocate, perhaps it is good to have violence in video games. Children can be taught why these actions are not acceptable in the real world. Children can then identify not only the inappropriate action, but the internal emotion or thought processing leading to that kind of action. It's quite odd. Allowing your child to become a criminal in a virtual world, so that they will not become a criminal IRL.

 

i was 4 years when i first played C&C red alert 1 sending dozens of virtual soldier to a certain death crushing enemie ones with my tanks watching thier blood spiled and so on

and i have not yet turned into a psychopat

 

I believe all is based on family education. Parents. I got 2 kids (6 and 4 years) and me and my wife teach them about right and wrong all the time. They know about morals. I think my kids are very intelligent and can get that. I think EVERY KID can get that if teached properly.

I bought a Wii for them. I even bought games for myself (which I never played BTW), like Red Steel and such. They tried once those games, but choose to stay with more "funny" games like Mario series. One of them likes most fighting games, like Smash Brothers and such, while the other driving games (mario, Cars). Both love the mario games, lego series, etc. All kids stuff. THEY choose those games.

They even love to see as I play with PC games, like Rainbow six, Just Cause 2, Batman Arkham (they love that game xD), Farcry 2... even Borderlands!. BUT, on their computer, they chose to play Plants vs. Zombies, Peggle and some cartoon network games. I'm just doing the same my parents did. And I'm not a criminal or psycho.

I can agree with Aneap: "Humans have violent thoughts. What makes them criminal is the conversion of those thoughts into actions.". You can't hide everything from your kids, so is better to leave them in the open and TEACH them... we MUST do our WORK as a PARENT. WE are responsable for our kids, not the goverment, not the world. Fathers, mothers... WE

 

Finally the debate is over and a sentence has been reached. Personally I'm quite happy that videogames can be protected like any other form of media.

 

Corrected

Going more on topic: the problem was not only that California wanted to create its own ESBR-like committee, but also was not clear at all on how to define this "ultraviolent games".

 

this doesn't mean everyone will be creating bogus, demented, ultraviolent videogames. no one needed constitutional support to be able to do that in the first place.