LEGISLATION

Rhode Island Senate Bill 2156: Legally Enforcing ESRB Rating System

Rhode Island's SB 2156 seeks to criminalize - with the possibility of a year-long jail sentence, a $1,000 fine, or both - retailers' sales or rentals of video games rated "M" (for mature) to anyone under 17 and "AO" (Adults Only) rated games to anyone under 18 years of age. Additionally, the bill would make it illegal for a "sales clerk" to sell or rent "violent" or "sexually explicit" games to people under 18;  the bill defines none of these terms adequately. S.B. 2156's provisions would also extend to Internet transactions.

Not only do states  have no power to enforce the video game industry's voluntary rating system, but video games as well as violent images or content have been designated through a significant body of case law as protected speech - for minors as well as adults. The same holds true for content that is sexually explicit, unless it cannot pass a specific test developed by the Supreme Court.  This bill neither defines the term "sexually explicit" nor the term "violent" in a constitutionally acceptable way and does not contain the necessary safeguards that would allow it to pass the Court's three-prong test. 

Thus, the bill amounts to an unconstitutionally overbroad ban on First Amendment-protected speech for minors. Moreover, the inclusion of Internet communications and sales blurs the important distinction between brick-and-mortar retail stores and online venues, where it is not possible for site owners to determine the ages of their customers. The bill's passage would  have a chilling effect on producers and distributors of content and would deny minors as well as, through its Internet provision, adults access to "sexually explicit" or "violent" material, which has been established as unconstitutional through a series of judicial decisions.

 A Senate committe recommended that the bill be held for further study on March 16, 2010.

Read Media Coalitions Memo in Opposition to S.B. 2156

 Read the text of S.B. 2156

 

updated 3/26/10