Supreme court VS: games fall under freedom of speech

The Us supreme court has Monday, a line put out by the California law that the sale of violent games to children prohibits. The court ruled that the law violates the right to freedom of expression.

The U.s. supreme court ruled that the California gamewet in conflict with the first amendment of the constitution of the United States, among other things, the freedom of expression. The court believes that video games, like other media such as books, theatre and films, the protection of the first amendment to earn.

The court noted that the state of California is not entitled to violent games ban and violence in other media untouched. Furthermore, eight of the court that psychological examinations are insufficient to prove that violent games have a greater negative impact on children than violence in other media.

Finally, the court ruled that California has not been shown that parents need to have rules and regulations that the sale of violent games to children prohibits. The games industry offers parents the ability to monitor what kind of games children play by means of the rating system from the Entertainment Software Rating Board, according to the court.

The California gamewet was at the end of 2005 by then-governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. The regulations rebuked the sale of violent games to minors with a fine of up to $ 1000. Lower judges have to the law has already twice been declared invalid with similar conclusions as the US Supreme Court Monday pulled.

Of course, to respond to various parties within the gaming industry excited on the decision of the supreme court. According to Michael Gallagher, ceo of the Entertainment Software Rating Board, can politicians better to spend time and money in creating awareness of the ratings and parental controls, to parents for their own children to decide what is or is not acceptable.

Proponents of the law are disappointed and believe that the battle is still not over. James Steyer of Common Sense Media, which concerns itself with improving the ‘medialeven of children think that parental supervision will not be sufficient and that children themselves the impact of violent video games is not able to estimate. Steyer says it intends to work with policy makers to a ‘sensible solution’ for protecting children from violent games.