Reply #5: LA Times: Judge Halts Limits on Game Sales to Kids

[NoPasaran]

A federal ruling that blocks California's ban on the sale of violent video games to children is the latest setback to lawmakers trying to clean up a medium that is increasingly graphic — and just as popular.

The preliminary injunction granted late Wednesday by U.S. District Judge Ronald M. Whyte delays implementation of a measure that would make it a crime to rent or sell games that "depict serious injury to human beings in a manner that is especially heinous, atrocious or cruel" to people younger than 18.

The law, written by Assemblyman Leland Yee (D-San Francisco) and signed in October by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, was to take effect Jan. 1. Whyte, whose courtroom is in San Jose, blocked that until lawyers for the game industry and the state can argue whether the sales ban tramples free-speech rights.

In granting the injunction sought by the Entertainment Software Assn. and the Video Software Dealers Assn., Whyte concluded that the trade groups "are likely to succeed on the merits of their claim that the act violates the 1st Amendment."

http://www.latimes.com/technology/consumer/gamers/la-fi-games23dec23,0,121002.story?coll=la-home-headlines&track=morenews