Category: Legal

A Skeptical Supreme Court Hears Schwarzenegger v. EMA

Yesterday, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Schwarzenegger v. EMA, a case addressing whether states can ban the sale of violent video games to minors without also violating the First Amendment. A full transcript of oral arguments has been made available here. Coverage emerging since arguments concluded yesterday indicate that the Court appears skeptical towards the California law’s constitutionality. After the jump, we gather the news and analysis.

Supreme Court Hears Oral Arguments In Schwarzenegger v. EMA

This morning the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Schwarzenegger v. EMA, a case addressing whether states can ban the sale of violent video games to minors without also violating the First Amendment. The Comic Book Legal Defense Fund wrote a brief in support of the video game industry, urging the court to to affirm the Ninth Circuit’s decision that a California law banning the sale or rental of any video game containing violent content to minors, and requiring manufacturers to label such games, is unconstitutional. The CBLDF brief emphasizes the history of moral panic that led to the comics industry being decimated in the wake of government scrutiny in the 1950s.

Early reports from oral arguments indicate that members of the court were “sympathetic” to the California law, but strongly questioned its constitutionality. Full story, with links to analysis and transcripts, follows the break.

Preliminary Injunction Granted Against Massachusetts Online Censorship Law

U.S. District Judge Rya W. Zobel granted a preliminary injunction against the online censorship law that went into effect in Massachusetts earlier this year. Massachusetts booksellers, trade associations including the CBLDF, and the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts filed suit in July to block the law because it imposes severe restrictions on constitutionally protected speech on the Internet, on the grounds that such material might be “harmful to minors.” The Court enjoined the law because it did not require that such material was purposefully sent to a person the sender knew to be a minor.

Josh Neufeld Named As Ambassador of Free Expression by U.S. State Department

The Washington Post reports that Josh Neufeld, author of A.D.: New Orleans After The Deluge is being sent on a three week tour of North Africa and the Middle East as an ambassador of Free Expression by the U.S. State Department. Neufeld is known for chronicling his experience as a volunteer for the Red Cross following Hurricane Katrina.

Neufeld told The Post:

The State Department invited me “specifically because of the Katrina book, which is blatantly so critical of the government,” Neufeld tells Comic Riffs of his comics reportage. “The program brings in cultural figures who disseminate [this message] — the State Department is proud of that freedom of expression. … They bring me over as a statement of how our civil society welcomes voices of dissent in all forms.”

The CBLDF congratulates Josh for being appointed to perform this important work!

ComicsAlliance: Why Video Game Censorship Matters to Comics

Over at ComicsAlliance, David Brothers writes a compelling analysis of the issues at stake in Schwarzenegger v. EMA, and how they are critically important to comics.

This case, Schwarzenegger v. EMA, has nothing to do with comic books, so what’s up with Stan the Man and the CBLDF speaking out? Shouldn’t they be out there fighting whatever new boogieman is trying to censor comics? But while it may not be immediately apparent, by speaking out against video game censorship, Lee and the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund (our partner in the Monsters Project) are safeguarding the future of comics as well.

Read the full analysis here.

CBLDF & Dark Horse Cheer Free Speech Victory in Ninth Circuit!


The Comic Book Legal Defense Fund and Dark Horse Comics applaud a decision issued by United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit holding that two Oregon statutes that criminalize distributing sex education and other non-obscene materials to minors are unconstitutional in violation of the First Amendment. The State of Oregon argued that the statutes applied only to “hardcore pornography,” but the Ninth Circuit found that they applied to much more, including Kentaro Miura’s manga “Berserk,” Judy Blume’s “Forever,” and Margaret Atwood’s “A Handmaid’s Tale.” The plaintiffs did not challenge Oregon’s existing law making it a crime to contact a minor with the intent of having sexual contact. CBLDF and Dark Horse were among the plaintiff group challenging the statutes.

Mike Richardson, publisher of plaintiff Dark Horse comics says, “We were extremely happy to see these statutes overturned. Our Constitution’s First Amendment was intended to keep the hands of the government off the printing presses of America. Creators everywhere can breath a sigh of relief that these laws, open to interpretation and likely to be abused, have been put down.”

Full announcement and text of decision follow the jump!

Comic Book Legal Defense Fund Urges Supreme Court to Reject New Restrictions on Speech in Video Game Censorship Case


Comic Book Legal Defense Fund today filed a friend-of-the-court brief in Schwarzenegger v. EMA, urging the Supreme Court to affirm the Ninth Circuit’s decision that a California law banning the sale or rental of any video game containing violent content to minors, and requiring manufacturers to label such games, is unconstitutional.

The Comic Book Legal Defense Fund submits that, if allowed to stand, California’s law would reverse fundamental First Amendment principles by creating a new category of unprotected speech, diminishing the First Amendment rights of minors, and reducing First Amendment protection for new media. The CBLDF argues that the law under review is the most recent example of government improperly attempting to regulate content by using junk science, and calls upon a history of moral panics against media that includes the 1950s crusades against comics that crippled the industry and harmed the art form. The CBLDF asks the Supreme Court to deny California this attempt to roll back protections guaranteed by the First Amendment, as it and other courts have correctly done in the past.

Read on for the full release, and brief.

Yale Hosts “Superheroes in Court! Lawyers, Law and Comic Books” Exhibit

The Yale Law Library is hosting “Superheroes in Court! Lawyers, Law and Comic Books,” an exhibition of rare comics highlighting the cross section of comics and the law, in the real world and on the comics page. The exhibit is curated by Mark Zaid, a national security lawyer.

Writing about the show for the New York Times, John Schwartz highlights artifacts on display showcasing comics’ censorship challenges:

And, as with all works of literature, the comics have spawned First Amendment disputes, in this case pitting free speech against the dangers of harming young psyches with depictions of things like crime and horror. The show displays a report to the United States Senate, “Comic Books and Juvenile Delinquency,” from 1955, and an American Civil Liberties Union report from the same year, “Censorship of Comic Books.”

The exhibit runs until December 16. Highlights are also on view at the Yale Law Library Rare Books Blog.

CBLDF Joins Challenge To Alaska Censorship Law

CBLDF joins a coalition of organizations and local booksellers filing suit to block a broad Alaska censorship law that bans constitutionally protected speech on the Internet on topics including contraception and pregnancy, sexual health, literature, and art and also threatens retailers of books, magazines, movies and other media.

Signed in May by Governor Parnell and effective July 1, the law, Section 11.61.128 of the Alaska Statutes, imposes two severe restrictions on the distribution of constitutionally protected speech on the Internet and in book and video stores and libraries. The law could make anyone who operates a website or communicates through a listserv criminally liable for nudity or sexually related material, if the material can be considered “harmful to minors” under the law’s definition. In effect, it bans from the Internet anything that may be “harmful to minors,” including material adults have a First Amendment right to view. Also, a bookseller, video retailer, or librarian can be prosecuted if he or she is unaware that it contains nudity or sexual content and unknowingly sells, rents, or loans a book, video, magazine or other media to a minor whether online or in a brick and mortar location. Violators of either part of the law can be sentenced to up to two years in prison, must register as sex offenders and could be forced to forfeit their business.

Robert Corn-Revere Named CBLDF Legal Counsel

The Comic Book Legal Defense Fund is pleased to announce the engagement of Robert Corn-Revere as the organization’s new legal counsel. Bob will lead the CBLDF’s legal program, serving as the first responder to First Amendment emergencies that come to the organization’s attention, as well as providing guidance and assistance to the comics community on legal issues that impact their First Amendment rights. He succeeds legendary First Amendment advocate Burton Joseph, who passed away earlier this year.

Corn-Revere is one of the country’s most prominent First Amendment experts, with extensive publications and litigation experience.