Indiana County Decides Not To Charge Redbox After Public Outcry

from the lawsuit-by-public-opinion-poll dept

Last week we wrote about how prosecutors in Indiana were threatening to file criminal charges against Redbox execs unless the company agreed to remove R-rated movies from its kiosks. The whole thing was instigated by brick-and-mortar video stores who didn't like competing with Redbox's $1 video rentals. However, as news spread about this threat, it seems that the residents of that county raised their voices and let the prosecutor know they wanted to keep their Redbox and its R-rated movies. The prosecutor noted that the standard for whether this was a problem was "community standards," and the community made it loud and clear to him that they wanted the Redbox kiosks to stay:

"It's not an exact barometer -- I didn't take a poll -- but it just seemed pretty clear to me that the community would not be behind the prosecution of this," Stan Levco said during Friday's news conference.

While it's good that he's backed down, I'm still not sure which is more troubling, that he initiated the threats at the behest of competitors, or that public outcry alone was enough to get him to back down.

Filed Under: dvds, indiana, movie rentals, movies
Companies: redbox

Indiana Prosecutor Threatens Redbox With Criminal Charges If It Doesn't Remove R-Rated Movies

from the let-me-introduce-you-to-the-constitution dept

Brandon alerts us to the news that an Indiana prosecutor is threatening to bring criminal charges against Redbox execs if they don't remove R-rated videos from the kiosks. The claim, of course, is that this makes it easier for those under 17 to access those movies. Of course, that doesn't explain what's actually criminal about it. Indiana is among the handful of states that should know this -- seeing as politicians there tried to pass a law stopping retailers from selling "mature" video games to kids -- but every law of that nature has been thrown out. The current movie rating system is not, in fact, enforced by the government as that would be a restriction on free speech. Instead, it's a voluntary agreement within the movie industry. In other words, there is no legal issue with these kiosks.

And, of course, the true story behind this threat is found early on in the article. It has nothing to do with "protecting the children" at all. Instead, this is a bunch of independent video rental stores trying to shut down the competition:

"I'm not on a crusade," said Paul Black, an Evansville attorney who says he suggested the inquiry to Levco's office on behalf of a client who operates several video store locations. "We're just looking for a level playing field here."

That's not leveling the playing field. It's trying to block competition -- and doing so with bogus charges of criminal behavior.

Filed Under: criminal charges, dvds, free speech, indiana, kiosks, movies, r-rated
Companies: redbox

Indiana Senators Rush To Put In Place Sexting Law When They Clearly Don't Understand Sexting

from the moral-panics! dept

One of the more recent "moral panics" that we've seen is around this concept of "sexting," where people (often youngsters who might not fully recognize the consequences of what they're doing) send either naked or at least revealing images of themselves to others. In the last year or so the press has written about it quite a bit, and while it seems like it's really just a situation that requires more education for kids to recognize what a bad idea this is, once you get a moral panic going, it's never long before politicians feel the need to "help deal with" the issue, "for the children," of course. Mark sends in the news that some politicians in Indiana have decided to tackle the issue with new legislation, though it's not at all clear that the state Senators debating the subject even understand what sexting means:

"Until some terrible tragedy happens where a child or teenager commits suicide because they have been bullied by e-mail, texting or sexting," said Rep. Sandra Blanton.

Bullied by sexting will lead to suicide? How? And how do you create a law to prevent that? Then there's the politician who wants to ban mobile phones in schools to deal with this issue:

"Keep them in lockers and not allow them in the classroom or on school property to do the sexting," Rep. Blanton said.

Really? The sexting happens on school property? If that's the case, then wouldn't the issue be public nudity -- for which I would imagine there are already laws -- rather than "sexting"? If he just means that the sending of these photos continues on school property, I'm not really sure how keeping the phones in lockers fixes anything. It just means those messages will be sent after school when there's even less supervision of what the kids are doing. I guess that's the head-in-the-sand approach to dealing with things, but I'm not sure how it helps any.

Certainly the issue of sexting is one worth educating kids about, so they recognize the dangers of passing on such photos which can quickly multiply and be spread further in amazingly embarrassing ways. But I don't see how any law helps the issue at all -- but plenty of ways laws can make things worse -- especially when the politicians writing and voting on the laws don't even seem to understand what the issue is beyond "sexting = bad!"

Filed Under: indiana, law, politicians, sexting