The Law has spoken.
Supreme Court rejects the video game ban: overinclusive is the keyword.
So ends that drama.
Here’s the official Supreme Court document, for those who want to read it for themselves:
Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Assn. (08-1448)
PDF format. Neat things mentioned:
*no acceptable link between violence and video games
*speech about violence is not obscene
Overinclusive AND underinclusive are the key words 
Yes, the law managed to be both at the same time.
It is underinclusive because if violent videogames are dangerously corrosive to young minds, why are parents allowed to give them to their children? It’s also underinclusive because it applies restrictions on violence only to video games while other media are completely unaffected.
It is overinclusive because if you’re trying to help parents enforce the ratings system, it goes beyond what is necessary: minors whose parents think video games are harmless are still negatively impacted.
I’m kind of surprised it took this long for the decision to come out. I’m also a bit surprised it wasn’t unanimous. Haven’t quite gotten to the dissent yet …
Though I don’t agree with children having the right to own violent video games (and that’s a personal ethical position of mine), I do like the wording of the ruling as an eroger.
Alright. Violent guro eroge is 100% safe now (we already knew it was – but now there’s a specific case stating it is). Gimmie the DARK STUFF naow!!111!!! :twisted:
Unfortunately, no, it isn’t. It is already well settled that obscene materials are not protected by the law. Violent guro eroge are highly likely to be found to be obscene.
Personally I feel that thoughtcrime is thoughtcrime, no matter the type of thought at issue. But SCOTUS hasn’t endorsed that position. Yet. (I predict that eventually, it will. But it hasn’t yet, and so things will be dangerous for awhile longer.)
You’re unlikely to have trouble as long as you’re careful. But do not make the mistake of thinking this strikes down obscenity. That would be dangerous.
Hah, the opinion (not the majority, actually-binding-law part; one of the other opinions written by a bloc that isn’t a majority) actually specifically mentions RapeLay and Custer’s Revenge.
IIRC, RapeLay was never in danger of being illegal in America. Amazon willingly removed it’s listing - and no American law enforcement made moves to find buyers or sellers of the game. Amazon never broke a law: it just generated a helluva lot of negative media attention. Of course if there was a “secret FBI sting” in the works, it’s dead now. 
True, but it somewhat misses the point. It was never in danger of being ruled obscene because it wasn’t made available in America.
If the game was officially licensed by Jast and put up for sale? Then it would be easy for the police to buy a copy, find it to be obscene, and arrest Peter. I do not think it would be very hard to convince a jury that RapeLay is obscene.
It might go to court, but it would not fail automatically. Even if even a jury found it obscene, this new ruling would provide the foundation for First Amendment protection: especially since it’s cited by name in the against argument. I’m sure many juries would find the Doctrine of the KKK to be obscene (i.e. hang the niggers! burn the blacks!) – but it’s protected from being so (falls under being political – though I’m at a loss at how).
We could instantly rule out RapeLay making a scientific statement.
Characters? Check. Art? Check. Music? Check. Plot? Check. Passed the artistic test as defined in this video game ruling. Quoted exactly: Like the protected books, plays, and moviesthat preceded them, video games communicate ideas - and even social messages - through many familiar literary devices (such as characters, dialogue, plot, and music) and through features distinctive to the medium (such as the player’s interaction with the virtual world). That suffices to confer First Amendment protection.
The horror of rape is a social message. RapeLay is merely one way of telling that social message. I guess that would be political, if illogical hate speech can be defined as one. Hell… doctored pathelogical lying, 100% faked pesudo-science garbage is protected by the 1st Amendment, no matter how wrong it is. See The Bell Curve that “proves” skin color determines intelligence. :roll:
EDIT
Stupid question: Does anyone know of a book, game, or film that has been officially lawed as something that cannot be owned or viewed in the United States?
Ignore real child porn (that’s automatically illegal). Ignore cases where the defendant plea bargained (no defining law is passed for or against). Ignore classified government secrets (it’s not illegal for being obscene).
What non-child porn book, film, or game is specifically named that I cannot own? I don’t think there actually is one. If that’s the case, merely mentioning that is a huge legal defense in of it’s own. In all the cases I can find, the defendant gives up before going “all the way” to the Supreme Court – or the person has real child porn in their stash, ruining the “purity” of their defense.
The only thing the Supreme Court has ever ruled as obscene is real child porn. Nothing else. All other things have failed to make it that far, been ruled to be protected by the First Amendment, or overturned.
From what I can tell nothing has been, although I would argue the limits haven’t been fully tested yet. Some titles, like Eien to Natta Rusuban and a number of Shiritsu Sakuranbo Shogakko’s games would, I’d say, definitely test things. Anyone wanna try and run a test case? =P
You are incorrect at least about child porn: It isn’t obscene; it is its own special kind of exception to the First Amendment. While I am looking for references to specific material, I will post this: http://www.amazon.com/Literature-Suppre … 0816033056 and this: http://www.adlerbooks.com/banned.html
At the very least, the specific material that the MIller v California case was about is banned in the United States. The particular behavior at issue was the mailing of sexually-explicit junk mail as an ad for Miller’s pornographic books.
Edit:
OK, so I found Ward v Illinois, where (post-Miller) the Supreme Court upheld the obscenity conviction of a man selling “obscene sado-masochistic materials”.
But if you mean “the United States” as a whole, I cannot find any federal obscenity statutes. It is all state laws - other than laws barring child pornography, which I believe ARE federal. So if you want to know what is barred, do a search for state laws on the subject. Also, there are almost certainly going to be individual State Supreme Court decisions on various aspects of that state’s obscenity laws.
The bottom line is very little is obscene - only real child porn or images designed to look like real child porn. Anything ruled on via a state court is questionable, especially if wording is similarly vague as this law.
There is also a few other items not protected, hate speech (which is very narrowly defined specific types of speech) and speech meant to incite (but this can only be prosecuted in an after-the-fact case). Neither of those fall under the scope of 99% of eroge out there.
I agree.
I’m not sure whether you agree or disagree,or for that matter what he’s saying. :?
Is he disagreeing with TSC or what?
I think he’s saying that its abusrd we can’t regulate extreme violence and keep it from minors and at the same time saying we over-regulate serialization. Ie, there should be a happy medium that the most extreme stuff is regulated regarless of its context, but not to stick the government’s nose in for less extreme stuff.
I also think he was saying people tend to overreact. and place the blame on societies ills on video games.
It also seemed to be a way to poke fun at Wisconsin debate on bargaining rights again.