ESA Asks California for 1.1 Million Dollars from California

The Entertainment Software Association has announced that it has filed a motion with the United States Supreme Court asking it to award the organization 1.1 million dollars, representing legal fees that it was forced to pay to attorneys in order to win the recent case about video game violence and the First Amendment rights of publishers.

The Supreme Court, in one of the last decisions of the current term, has decided that a law which sought to ban violent game sales to minors and established prohibitive fines was unconstitutional.

The ESA says that the Supreme Court decision is “a historic and complete win for the First Amendment and the creative freedom of artists and storytellers everywhere.”

The organization that represents gaming industry interests also says that it is aiming to get attorney fees back from the State of California because “California persisted in defending a law that Plaintiffs warned the Legislature was unconstitutional before it was passed”, adding that the law “was previously found to be unconstitutional by the district court and a unanimous panel of the Ninth Circuit, and that it is similar to at least eight other laws invalidated as unconstitutional prior to the time that California sought certiorari in this case.”

The Entertainment Software Association has also recently revealed that it has spend roughly the same amount of money linked to the Supreme Court suit on lobbying the federal government in Washington.

Lawmakers in California passed the anti video game bill despite the fact that a number of legal experts said that it had no chance of standing up to a challenge in front of the Supreme Court.

The state then decided to continue defending the law despite the fact that a panel of judges from the Ninth Circuit of Appeals struck it down.

The California Senator who drafted the defeated bill is working on an updated version.