Intellectual Property Law

Supreme Court Takes On Videogame Sales to Kids

By David Kravets

The Supreme Court agreed Monday to decide whether the states may ban the rental or sale of violent videogames to minors.

Without comment, the justices said they would review California’s videogame law, which passed five years ago. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected the law last year as a First Amendment free speech violation, saying among other things that there was no proof for the theory that certain videogames caused aggression in minors. The law has never been in force.

Similar bans have been overturned in Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota and Oklahoma, and in the cities of Indianapolis and St. Louis.

California’s law would prohibit the sale or rental of a game that is “patently offensive” and “morbid,” “heinous” or “cruel.” Such games would require an “18″ label on the packaging.

The Supreme Court routinely take cases with an eye to overturning a lower court’s decision. But in this case, the high court may be reviewing the lower court decision to dispel any doubt that “these types of laws violate the First Amendment,” says Steve Smith, a Los Angeles intellectual property attorney who heads the videogame practice at Greenberg Glusker.

“It’s also vague and ambiguous,” Smith added in a telephone interview.

State Sen. Leland Yee (D-San Francisco), who wrote California’s ban, was hopeful “the high court will determine our law to be constitutional, but regardless, states are now certain to receive direction on how to proceed with this important issue.”

The Entertainment Software Association, which opposed the law, said it’s hopeful that the Supreme Court will agree that the measure is unconstitutional. “Courts throughout the country have ruled consistently that content-based regulation of computer and videogames is unconstitutional,” Michael Gallagher, ESA president and CEO, said in a statement.

California had argued that it had a right to regulate violent videogame content, because it already bans the sale of pornography to minors.

The San Francisco?based 9th Circuit concluded otherwise, saying the First Amendment allows restrictions on minors’ access to sexual content but not necessarily depictions of violence (.pdf).

See Also:

• Videogame Violence
• Penn & Teller Call Bullshit on Videogame Violence
• You Grew Up Playing Shoot’em-Up Games. Why Can’t Your Kids?
• Violent Videogames Under Attack
• Video: Onion Special Report Lampoons Game Violence
• All That Gore Gets in the Way of Gameplay
• Expert Debunks Connection Between Violence and Gaming
• Gaming, Real Violence Trends Tracked, Charted

Full post as published by Threat Level on April 26, 2010 (boomark / email).