Mmmmm... Freedom of Speech-y

June 3, 2003 5:37 PM

A Good Day for Video Games.Turns out that video games are protected by the First Amendment, at least according to the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals, which today overturned a St. Louis ruling that video games do not constitue protected speech. A good quote from the opinion: "If the first amendment is versatile enough to 'shield [the] painting of Jackson Pollock, music of Arnold Schoenberg, or Jabberwocky verse of Lewis Carroll,' we see no reason why the pictures, graphic design, concept art, sounds, music, stories, and narrative present in video games are not entitled to a similar protection. The mere fact that they appear in a novel medium is of no legal consequence."
posted by jscalzi (7 comments total)

I've actually been discussing this on another forum for a while now.

I actually didn't think these laws were that bad (note they don't outlaw games, they limit games from being sold to minors with graphic violence). Anyway the interesting thing about that conversation we never looked at the first ammendment angle. Instead I felt these laws were okay since they allowed more parental influence in the media their children interact with.

Interesting precedents though
posted by bitdamaged at 5:55 PM on June 3, 2003

Yeah, it always seemed to me that if you could card for R rated movies, you could prevent minors from buying violent video games.
posted by Yelling At Nothing at 6:02 PM on June 3, 2003

Yeah, it always seemed to me that if you could card for R rated movies, you could prevent minors from buying violent video games.

Except it's not the government that does the carding. Theaters decide who's allowed in for movies, and the MPAA, which handles the rating system, is a private entity. This decision, like the first amendment itself, only applies to government actions; stores can continue to refuse sales of M-rated games to minors.
posted by mr_roboto at 6:13 PM on June 3, 2003

Yeah, I thought of that about as soon as I hit post. Good deal.
posted by Yelling At Nothing at 6:39 PM on June 3, 2003

this makes me happy.

in order to celebrate i'm going to put off studying for finals and go spend the rest of the day at warcraft.
posted by joedan at 8:00 PM on June 3, 2003

joedan: You're just now getting to finals? I feel sorry for you.
posted by delmoi at 1:12 AM on June 4, 2003

This is great news. Thanks for the link.
posted by Prospero at 9:33 AM on June 4, 2003