Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez has signed into effect a new anti-violent video game law that makes it a crime to import “violent” video games, with offenders being forced to pay a heavy fine or even spend up to five years in prison.
Gamethirst has translated the “Ley para la Prohibición de Videojuegos Bélicos y Juguetes Bélicos” (Law for the banning of violent video games and toys) and posted it (reposted here):
1. Violent video games: Video games or programs that can be use on personal computers, arcade systems, video game consoles, portable devices or mobile telephones, or any other electronic or telephonic device, that contain information or images that promote or incite violence and the use of weapons.
2. Violent toys: Objects or instruments that in form mimic any kind of weapon used by the National Bolivarian Armed Forces, weapons of war used by any other nation, citizen or state security forces, as well as those that, though not promoting war, establish the kind of game that stimulates aggressiveness or violence.
Article 13. Those who in any way promote the purchase or use of violent toys or video games as defined by this law will be punished with a fine of between 2,000 and 4,000 tax units.
Article 14. Those who import, manufacture, sell, rent, or distribute violent toys or video games will be punished with 3 to 5 years in prison.
The law seems pretty clear, distribute these violent video games and spend time in a Venezuelan prison.
Result for: video game consoles
Jeremiah Gilliam of the Bronx has been arrested today after police officers found dozens of laptops, GPS devices and video game consoles in his apartment. How did the cops find him? Because he tried playing one of the stolen Xbox 360s online and signed in using the Xbox Live account saved on the system.
The youth whose Xbox had been stolen, was playing online at a friend’s house and saw his own Xbox Live name sign in, prompting the family to call the police who then traced the IP address back to the address where Gilliam was staying.
The criminal was under investigation already for 13 robberies, and police suspect he broke into as many as 200 cars and homes in Westchester County.
“On the day of the burglary, the victim used another Xbox and saw his system was already online,” said one of the arresting officers. “At the house, we found Xboxes, PlayStations, GPS units, laptops — a total of 53 items, including stolen credit cards.”
Gilliam has been charged with grand larceny.
Result for: video game consoles
According to a new ABI Research report, the amount of Web-enabled electronics will at least triple in the next five years, allowing more and more consumers to connect to the Internet via their video game consoles, TVs and Blu-ray players.
There are currently 60 million electronics components worldwide that are Web-enabled and ABI says there will be over 200 million by 2013. Internet-protocol-enabled TVs, which are the standard in Japan, will become commonplace in the USA, adds the report.
“One of the main facets of multi-screen offerings will be Web-based user interfaces and rich Web content across all three screens,” ABI research director Michael Wolf said in a statement. “Beyond the PC and mobile environment is the Internet-connected TV screen.”
More and more TV makers are integrating Ethernet ports into their TVs and Profile 2.0 Blu-ray players are doing the same.
Companies such as Netflix have encouraged the pushing of Internet capability by signing deals to have digital copies of movies streamed directly through Blu-ray players or TVs.
