Comic Book Industry Rallies Against Game Law

The Supreme Court case that may determine whether states can criminalize sales of games to minors gre a bit more complicated today as a legal lobby supporting the comic book industry has now thrown its support behind the game industry by filing a "friend of the court" brief in the case, which has been officially titl"Schwarzenegger vs. the Entertainment Merchants Association".

The Comic Book Legal Defense Fund (CBLDF) has asked the Supreme Court to reject the law on the grounds that it "would undermine more First Amendment principles in a single case than any decision in living memory," according to a copy of the brief obtained by the Los Angeles Times.

"The first amendment is indivisible," said Robert Corn-Revere, an attorney with the law firm representing the CBLDF, said. "If it's weakened for one medium, it's weakened for all. If a precedent is established for the censorship of games, it will be used for everybody else. You'll see a lot of support for our position from different quarters."

The Supreme Court will hear arguments on November 2 in "Schwarzenegger vs. the Entertainment Merchants Association". California Assembly Bill 1179 is at issue in the case, which was signed into law by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2005, but challenged in court before it could take effect.

Penned by California state assemblyman Leland Yee (D-San Francisco), CAB1179 sought to ban the sale or rental of "violent video games" to children. A "violent" game was defined as a "game in which the range of options available to a player includes killing, maiming, dismembering, or sexually assaulting an image of a human being." If it becomes law, retailers that sold such games would be subject to a $1,000 fine.

The bill would also have required "violent" video games to bear a 2-inch-by-2-inch sticker with a "solid white '18' outlined in black" on their front covers, more than twice the size of the current Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) ratings that currently adorn covers.

In 2007 a circuit court judge struck down the law as unconstitutional, but admitted that he was "sympathetic to what the legislature sought to do." Last year the original ruling was backed up by an appellate court judge.