Media Coalition joins fight against California videogame law

[Jitway]

In 2005, California passed a law that prohibited the sale of violent or sexually explicit video games to minors. Since then, as in every other state where this sort of law has been attempted, the legislation was found to be unconstitutional. It was hit with an injunction preventing its enforcement before being completely blocked back in 2007. Gov. Schwarzenegger appealed that decision, and this week Media Coalition filed an amicus brief to oppose the law and hopefully end this back and forth in the courts.

 

California's appeal, if it is successful, would "carve an enormous new exception into the First Amendment bedrock up on which [the groups that make up the Coalition] depend for the creation and dissemination of a wide variety of... media."

 

The California law also includes a labeling requirement for game titles. "Violent" games sold or imported in California must include a label that shows a solid white "18" outlined in black, with dimensions no less than two inches by two inches, and placed on the cover of the game. "These requirements constitute compelled speech," the Coalition claims. "They are not narrowly tailored as other less restrictive means are readily available to ensure that parents are informed of the violent content in video games."

 

"To date, state and local government efforts to restrict minors' access to violent video games, or to impose mandatory rating or labeling systems on these products, have not survived strict constitutional scrutiny," the Federal Trade Commission wrote in a 2007 review titled "Marketing Violent Entertainment to Children." In fact, every single law hoping to criminalize the act of selling "violent" content to children has failed in the past, at considerable cost to taxpayers.

 

 

Ya spend the money to research and fight this with our money and not let's say on things like feeding the poor or health care. The government has its head up its ass again. They did this with the warning label of lyrics on cds so I guess it is time to put a big label on the games so Mommy And Daddy can see it and not buy it for you. Give me a break.

 

 

Read the full story HERE

[Lucandrake]

My mommy and daddy both bought me sh!t with the stupid cd labels, won't stop me from buying 18 labels to my kids.

 

Stop putting money in a useless direction, you effing pricks.

[Sybarite Paladin AxL]

Haha, mommy and daddy never bought me games. They just gave me money and I bought me games. Are these people mentally incapacitated or something? Don't they see parents are oblivious to such things?