Game Over for Limits on Violent Video Games

04 July 2011

This is the VOA Special English Technology Report.

America's video game industry was the winner in a decision last week by the United States Supreme Court.

The justices rejected a law in California that banned the sale or rental of violent video games to people under eighteen. They said the two thousand five law violated the free speech guarantee in the First Amendment to the Constitution. The vote was seven to two.

The court decided that video games are a protected form of creative expression like books, plays and movies. Paul McGreal, dean of the University of Dayton law school in Ohio, says California did not see gaming that way.

The US Supreme Court says California cannot ban the rental or sale of violent video games -- like this Grand Theft Auto game -- to children

PAUL McGREAL: “The state of California tried to argue that this was not speech, it was more of an activity because children interact and play with the video games, and so it’s not traditional speech like a book or like a magazine.

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California lawmakers argued that violent games were especially harmful to children. But the court said they were no more harmful than the violence in other forms of media. Justice Antonin Scalia wrote the majority opinion. He pointed to the violence in fairy tales like "Snow White" and "Cinderella" and in cartoons.