The Interactive Digital Software Association (IDSA) hailed today’s unanimous decision
by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit finding that video games are
a constitutionally protected form of expression and that government cannot legally
enact laws regulating the sale of violent video games to minors.

“This decision is a total and unambiguous affirmation of our position
that video games have the same constitutional status as a painting, a film,
or a book,” said Douglas Lowenstein, president of the IDSA. “The
decision sends a powerful signal to government at all levels that efforts to
regulate consumers’ access to the creative and expressive content found in video
games will not be tolerated.” . . .

The ruling struck down a St. Louis County law that sought to ban the sale of
violent video games to minors. The case was filed by the IDSA; The Missouri
Retailers Association; The Video Software Dealers Association; The American
Amusement Machine Association; The Amusement & Music Operators Association;
The Interactive Entertainment Merchants Association; BFC Enterprises, Inc.;
J.S. Morris and Sons Novelty Company; Vending Enterprises, doing business as
Midwest Enterprises, Inc.; and Wonder Novelty Co.

In its ruling, the Court made three extremely important findings. First, it
concluded that games, regardless of their content, are constitutionally protected
speech. “If the first amendment is versatile enough to ’shield (the)
painting of Jackson Pollack, music of Arnold Schoenberg, or Jabberwocky verse
of Lewis Carroll,’ Hurley, 515 U.S. at 569, we see no reason why the pictures,
graphic design, concept art, sounds, music, stories and narrative present in
video games are not entitled to similar protection.”

Second, the Court found that the County had utterly failed to establish that
there is a compelling state interest in regulating the sale of games to minors
on behalf of parents.

“We do not mean to denigrate the government’s role in supporting parents,
or the right of parents to control their children’s exposure to graphically
violent materials. We merely hold that the government cannot silence protected
speech by wrapping itself in the cloak of parental authority…To accept the
County’s broadly-drawn interest as a compelling one would be to invite legislatures
to undermine the first amendment rights of minors willy-nilly under the guise
of promoting parental authority.”

Third, the Court was dismissive of the County’s claim that violent video games
need to be regulated because they have been proven to be harmful to minors.

The Court found the county’s evidence, which it called “…a small
number of ambiguous, inconclusive, or irrelevant (conducted on adults not minors)
studies; and the testimony of a high school principal who admittedly had no
information regarding any link between violent video games and psychological
harm,” to be unpersuasive. “The County’s conclusion that
there is a strong likelihood that minors who play violent video games will suffer
a deleterious effect on their psychological health is completely unsupported
in the record.”

Lowenstein continued, “We hope that this ruling, coupled with a similar
ruling by the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals in a case involving an Indianapolis
law seeking to restrict the display of violent video arcade games, will give
pause to those who would use the power of the state to regulate speech they
find objectionable.”

Pointing out that the Federal Trade Commission has found that parents are involved
in the purchase and rental of video games 83% of the time, Lowenstein said,
“We’ve said from the start of this case that trying to turn retailers
into surrogate parents is the wrong approach. Instead, of wasting taxpayers’
money in court, we hope that public officials in St. Louis County and elsewhere
will take up our long standing offer to work cooperatively to ensure that parents
use the highly regarded Entertainment Software Rating Board video game rating
system to make informed choices for their families.”

The St. Louis County Ordinance overturned today, originally passed in 2000,
sought to make it illegal for any person to sell, rent, or make available violent
video games to minors. After the IDSA’s motion for summary judgment in district
court was denied, the IDSA and its joint plaintiffs filed an appeal in the U.S.
Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals. Today’s decision in the Eighth Circuit reverses
the earlier decision and directs the district court to enter an injunction preventing
the ordinance from going into effect.

Other groups filing briefs supporting the IDSA and its co-plaintiffs were:
The International Game Developers Association; ID Software, Inc.; the Media
Coalition; The Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression;
the Free Expression Policy Project; and the American Civil Liberties Union.

The IDSA is the U.S. association dedicated to serving the business and public
affairs needs of the companies publishing interactive games for video game consoles,
handheld devices, personal computers, and the Internet. IDSA members collectively
account for more than 90 percent of the $6.9 billion in entertainment software
sales in the U.S. in 2002, and billions more in export sales of American-made
entertainment software. The IDSA offers services to interactive entertainment
software publishers including a global anti-piracy program, owning the Electronic
Entertainment Expo trade show, business and consumer research, government relations
and First Amendment and intellectual property protection efforts.

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