Congress should back off censorship
by Stephanie Friswell, Reporter

   Congress was delayed in its intent to thwart the video game world with the recent ruling of a federal judge.
   The Protect Children from Video Game Sex and Violence Act of 2003 was introduced to the House of Representatives in February.
   The act intends to fine any business that sells video games depicting violence to minors and was modeled on a similar St. Louis law passed in 2000.
   According to Congress, video game retail stores sell inappropriate games to minors.
   A report by the Federal Trade Commission, appointed by the President, found underage children were able to purchase restricted games 78 percent of the time.
   The industry responded by announcing that a separate study found 85 percent of those video game sales were to adults.
   This percentage shows that parents are purchasing most restricted games for their children.
   Critics believe that the ESRB, the self-rating system, is not working because retail stores want to sell to minors.
   The 10 biggest retailers of video games have agreed not to sell restricted games to anyone under the age of 17.
   Game Stop, an affiliate of Barnes & Noble, makes it an offense worthy of dismissal for any of its employees to sell restricted games.
   These major retailers cooperate with the self-rating system set by the video game industry.
   Only 10 percent of video game sales are to minors, and according to the largest retailers, these are all sales that abide by the rating system.
   The law is an infringement on video game makers' freedom of speech and encroaches on game makers' rights by restricting the creative process.
   Game makers, similar to movie directors, consider their work an art form.
   Government involvement will lead to a violation of the freedom of expression because game makers will be forced to follow guidelines designed to prevent exposure of violence and sex to minors.
   The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago compared games to works of literature such as Dracula, War and Peace and The Odyssey.
   The appeals court noted "violence has always been a central interest of human kind" and "a recurrent and even obsessive theme of culture high and low."
   A federal appellate court ruled similarly in a recent case, granting video games protection similar to that of graphic art, concepts sounds and stories.
   This ruling struck down the St. Louis law that the act was based on.
   A U.S. House bill that would make the sale of violent games to minors a federal offense is pending, but the video game industry is skeptical of its passage.
   If the law is passed, the number of minors exposed to violent and sexually explicit video games will not diminish.
   Minors will continue to purchase games through parents and other means, so this new ruling will harm mostly video game makers, which is not the intent of the act.