Several US states have had video game restriction laws quashed
in the courts in recent months. Illinois, California, Michigan and
Wisconsin have all signed orders into state law only to have them
challenged and overturned in federal courts.
Louisiana's law banned the sale or rental of any violent video
game to someone under 18 years old. Anyone selling such material
would be fined up to $2,000 or sent to prison for a year or
both.
The Entertainment Software Association and the Entertainment
Merchants Association took a case for a preliminary injunction
against the law which will by heard on 27th June at the US District
Court for the Middle District of Louisiana.
Laws such as this have been a major battleground for an industry
reputed to be worth $13 billion a year in revenues. The ESA has
taken a number of the cases, and is currently spearheading a
similar charge in Minnesota.
There, the state passed a law that would fine children, not
retailers, if unsuitably rated games were sold or rented to them.
The ESA will argue that the bill violates the First Amendment
constitutional rights of any children fined the $25. The ESA
represents the games publishing industry.
A recent law in Maryland, however, received the backing of the
ESA. It only sought the banning of the sale of sexually explicit
material to minors and omitted any reference to violence outside of
a sexual context.
"The ESA has always been supportive of the inclusion of video
games to 'harmful to minor' statues that meet the Supreme Courts
obscenity standards," said an ESA statement in April. "We believe
that video games should be treated in the same way that books and
movies are treated under the law."
