Grand Theft Auto roars on as Supreme court OKs selling kids violent videos
The decision by the US Supreme court to reject a law stopping minors buying violent video games is, apparently, all about freedom of speech
By 7 votes to 2, the court threw out a California law prohibiting sales of violent video games to minors. The state had argued that violent games were just like sexual materials, which the government can restrict to protect children.
Justice Antonin Scalia wrote for the court, “Even where the protection of children is the object, the constitutional limits on governmental action apply.
"Video games, like protected books, plays, and movies, communicate ideas through familiar literary devices and features distinctive to the medium.
"Reading Dante is unquestionably more cultured and intellectually edifying than playing Mortal Kombat. But these cultural and intellectual differences are not constitutional ones."
The law was never enforced but had the court supported it, other states across the country might have followed suit . Annual video game sales, worth around $10 billion a year, would most likely have suffered.
The challenge to the law was raise by two industry groups whose members included Electronic Arts , Microsoft , Sony and Take-Two Interactive Software, makers of “Grand Theft Auto” originally developed in Dundee.
Under the 2006 California law, the so-called violent video games were to be labelled, and could not be sold or rented to anyone under 18. The penalty was to be fines of up to $1,000. Parents could still have bought the games for their kids, however.