From: Sven Hoexter (sven@timegate.de)
Date: Tue Jun 03 2003 - 22:35:55 CEST
On Mon, Jun 02, 2003 at 03:26:37PM +0200, Alexander Schmehl wrote:
Hi,
> Well, there is this "backdoor" used by MS and others for their
> Software. Windows contains Minesweeper, Solitair and other small games,
> and has no USK rating. But their products are "allowed" to be sold to
> children.
>
> "Allowed" is in this case a little difficult. I refer to c't 10, Page
> 18ff (http://www.heise.de/ct/03/10/018/ last but one question) , the
> interview with Mr. Karle from the rheinland-pfälzischem ministry for
> education, woman and youth.
>
> He got asked, why MS may ship their products with games, and if Linux
> Distributions may do the same.
> He distinguishs beetween "Bildträger" und "Trägermedium". The first one
> needs the USK rating, the later one, may go without, if the hole
> character of the product has no influence, compareable to the influence
> of movies oder games, to the evolution of children and youngster, and
> if the product has a complete different purpose.
>
> "This applies for example on on lexical works with small motions
> picture sequences, and - at the present general legal conception - on
> the products named above [MS Produkts and Linux Distributions]."
>
> So I ask again: Anything we know for sure?
Nope there is nothing for sure - it's a law ;)
The problem is without a judgement it's hard to tell what might happen.
> Honestly I don't know how many games are on the CD, I guess it isn't
> that much and we don't ship ego shooters. So I think the disc might
> fall through this "backdoor".
Well shipping the engine for a shooters without the maps is useless anyway
and free maps are very rare.
> > In cases where a CD (or DVD etc.) is not rated and has no offical label
> > it's for 18+ only. So if we don't pay and give away the CD to minors Grisu,
> > myself and maybe Joey will have the risk to get sued.
>
> Okay, I think I see this point, but I realy dislike to tell a
> seventeen year old teenager, that I'm not allowed to give him a CD (and
> I'll keep on giving away Knoppix CDs, after a talk about Linux in a
> school).
Well if the teenager is fourteen or seventeen is uninteressting in this
case it's a law. We can follow it or ignore it and hope for the best.
> So what about this "solution": Everyone at the booth formaly gets his
> own quantum of discs, for whome he and only he is responsible. So I can
> give the seventeen year old teenager a disc, and if a "official" sees
> this, he will sue me, since neither you, nor grisu or joey are
> responsible for my act.
I'm not a lawyer so I don't know how a court would judge in such a scenario.
Sven
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