Rick Falkvinge, founder of the Swedish and first Pirate Party, stops by TorrentFreak to offers his opinions on digital rights management. As you can probably guess, he thinks DRM should go the way of the dodo. Falkvinge starts by saying that after the European Greens’ adoption of his party's position on DRM, he has been getting a lot of questions about why DRM should be banned. He lays out his first point with the following:

Last week we highlighted Jim Sterling's rant on what publishers and developers say about the used games market and how it is mostly nonsense. This week's episode of The Jimquisition on The Escapist is full of sunshine and roses as the outspoken Destructoid editor talks about some of the tactics that being used by publishers that he does NOT find obnoxious, and would like to see further encouraged. Instead of punishing people for buying games, Jim thinks they should do more to reward them for buying games new.

On this week's episode of the "Jimquisition" on The Escapist, the outspoken Destructoid editor Jim Sterling takes aims at the claims by publishers and developers that buying used game is tantamount to committing an act of piracy. His basic point is that used games have a right to exist and are not evil just because publishers decided they weren't getting their fair share of GameStop's profits.

Watch it to your left, or go native at The Escapist.

I'm all for letters to the editor, but one written by one Tina L. Bechtel, is particularly over the top and needs to be read to be believed. The Marysville, California mother of at least one son (at least the one she mentions in her letter) delivers what she calls her "long-overdue reaction to the 'supreme sellout' of our children," referring to the Supreme Court's decision earlier this year in the Brown v. EMA case.

Another interesting editorias about Tea Party Zombies Must Die - this time in the Washington Post. What's interesting about this opinion piece is that the author, Alexandra Petri, is a recovering (I think) comedian and part-time pundit who can see both sides to some degree but shrugs off the manufactured outrage as.. well, manufactured:

"I tried to get indignant about the game. I really did. This morning, I sat and furrowed my brow and thought dark thoughts for a good half-hour.

The latest edition of Gus Mastrapa's Joystick Division column, Pretension +1, tackles the recent player rage over Blizzard's decision to require a connection when playing Diablo III. Let's jump straight to the main thrust of the column entitled "How To Freak Out About A Video Game":

Is using a Kinect martial-arts simulator like UFC Personal Trainer like practicing martial arts or like playing a videogame? The answer is neither, according to a guest editorial on Wired's Game|Life written by Paul Ballas, a Philadelphia-area child psychiatrist. Ballas's editorial, "UFC Trainer Is Helpfully Violent," comes to the conclusion that, while UFC Personal Trainer is based on a violent fighting franchise, it could also have positive effects on kids' health.

You have to love the dramatic and often over-the-top stories from The Sun. The UK newspaper loves to write stories that can best be described as fictional. Not to infer that they lie; rather they make connections that aren't always there.

Australian Content Industry Group spokeswoman Sabiene Heindl pens an editorial in The Australian praising the recent deal between Internet Service providers and content creators in the United States (you know the deal that has basically turned ISP's into Internet traffic cops). Heindl starts out by calling the deal "good news for anyone who has released an album, made a movie, developed a video game or software, or written a book anywhere in the world."

A new survey by video game price comparison and marketplace Playr2 reveals that the average consumer doesn't spend all that much time playing a new game's campaign mode (or single player) before their interest wanes. The short answer to that question is the time spent on the campaign mode is usually just a handful of days, according to a survey of 1,671 users. Breaking that question down among the most popular titles, the answers become even more surprising:

- Call of Duty: Black Ops - 2 days
- Terminator Salvation - 2.5 days
- Resident Evil 5 - 3.2 days
- God of War 2 - 3.3 days
- Uncharted 2 - 3.8 days
- Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands - 4.1 days
- Assassin's Creed II - 5 days
- Uncharted - 6.6 days
- Metal Gear Solid 3 - 6.8 days
- Grand Theft Auto IV - 8.2 days

This question did not include downloadable content or online modes.

Our favorite moderator and all around GamePolitics storm trooper Andrew Eisen offers an interesting rant on Nintendo not releasing games in North America, why it sucks, and why Nintendo and other companies that continue to ignore the global marketplace are losing copious amounts of cash (the rant is appropriately titled "Nintendo: Why Won't You Let Me Give You My Money?").

He even throws in a bit about Brown v. EMA in there to make it slightly relevant.. As a fan of EarthBound (Mother series in Japan) I fully endorse this message. I want Ness now. For some background information on Andrew's rant, you can check out his blog at IGN.

We hope Andrew will do more of these.

Mark Methenitis finally delivers a Law of the Game column over on Joystiq that tackles the Brown v. EMA Supreme Court decision. First he apologizes for the delay, then jumps right into the important take-aways that impact the industry and the public.

A new survey from Rasmussen Reports reveals that around 67 percent of U.S. adults think that states should be allowed to bar the sale or rental of violent video games to minors. Around 28 percent of U.S. adults said states should be barred from enacting prohibitions on sales and rentals of such games to minors.

Around 39 percent said video game developers and publishers should be held liable if it could be proven that their games led to someone committing a violent criminal act, while 45 percent said that developers and publishers should not be held liable.

Finally, 79 percent of Americans believe that parents are more responsible than the government (4 percent thought the opposite) when it comes to limiting the amount of sex and violence children are exposed to in video games.

The survey conducted by Rasmussen Reports is based on nationwide interviews conducted with 1,000 adults. The survey has a margin of error of 3 percentage points.

In a July 1 opinion piece in First Things, Denver Archbishop Charles J. Chaput wrote that the recent U.S. Supreme Court decision on the California video game violence law (Brown v. EMA) is "wrong," and will add "poison" the country's future.

Chaput also wrote that the court's ruling "extends and elevates the individual’s right to free expression – or in this case, a corporation’s right to make a healthy profit - at the expense of family sovereignty, the natural rights of parents and the intent of the Constitution’s authors."

Chaput went on to write that the ruling overlooked the government's duty to protect "human dignity and the common good."

"A law which respects mothers and fathers trying to make good choices for their family does just that," he wrote.

Hey GPers!  Up for some opinions on the recent Supreme Court decision that gave Leland Yee’s violent video game law the Kuribo Boot?

A movement to boycott Battlefield 3 has gained momentum on Reddit, as fans note their displeasure at some of the pre-order goodies EA is offering for those who buy the game early. While pre-order bonuses are nothing new to gamers, it often feels like some bonus items can cause an imbalance in the game and give some players advantages in online play. The boycott was started by Reddit user Ramphastid. Here is the opening salvo against EA:

"As most of you know, EA recently announced an exclusive DLC for pre-ordering BF3," organizer Ramphastid writes on the popular website. "If you don't purchase the pre-order or limited edition version of BF3, you will have to pay extra for the Karkand expansion pack."

Entertainment Consumer Association president Hal Halpin offers his personal (note: not ours) opinion on the timing of the Brown v EMA (formerly Schwarzenegger v EMA) Supreme Court decision over at IGN. There has been much speculation that a decision will be released this week, and Halpin has his own predictions about it:

"Despite law maker Leland Yee’s prognostications, no one really knows when we’ll get the answer, but my money is on this Thursday.

Yesterday House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) detailed the Republican tech agenda, a one-page list of priorities for Republican lawmakers in 2011 and beyond. While Republicans loathe regulations that stymie productivity and put a burden on businesses, they don't seem to have a problem with regulations on consumers' lives when it comes to flying, purchasing goods, legislating morality, or doing things on the Internet. In other words, regulations that punish the everyday citizen are cool, but regulations that keep corporations in check - like net neutrality - are bad.

The bullet points of the Republican tech agenda  are mostly conceptual and non-specific at this point, but here they are:

Silicon Knights head Denis Dyack always has something interesting - and occasionally controversial - to say about the effects of used games. Recently he said in an interview with IndustryGamers that the surge in multiplayer gaming is due mostly to used game sales. The result is due to developers and publishers trying to combat the sale of used games by offering more multiplayer game play and less single-player.

“What’s really happening now is people are starting to say ‘why is everyone pushing towards multiplayer?’ Because the used game sales are hurting the single player experience so much, they’re being forced in because of the economics, not because people who are doing single player games are saying, ‘We really want to do multiplayer’,” he said.

In an article in The Australian Queensland University of Technology professor Bill Caelli says that Sony should keep the PlayStation Network and other services that were compromised by hackers in April offline until governments around the world are satisfied that the company has put enough security in place to protect customers.

Caelli, who the publication calls a "security expert," thinks the Japanese government has the right idea in putting Sony's services on hold while it verifies the strength and depth of new security measures.

"Why is it that in the IT industry enterprises certify themselves?" he said, adding that the general public has "no way of assessing the assurances given by the owners of the system themselves."

In a recent interview with IndustryGamers Silicon Knights front man Denis Dyack said that that the social games market will crash very hard. Dyack admits that current social gaming trends are adversely affecting the traditional games market, but will eventually see "a rapid contraction."

"It is damaging traditional gaming for sure but... how it's going to work out is anyone's guess," he said to IndustryGamers. "The trend that I see is it's probably going to be one of the biggest bubbles and explosions that our industry's seen in a long time and I think when it crashes it's going to crash very hard. I don't think there's an economy there."

When asked specifically about Zynga - currently valued at upwards of $10 billion - his comments were less sure but just as disparaging:

From fake protesters to scaring the crap out of your mom, EA has cut loose with some, shall we say, odd marketing choices of late.  Oh sure, there’s no such thing as bad press and EA’s games certainly aren’t hurting for attention but irking the people who actually buy your games in addition to the people who routinely lambast them might not be the best move.

"WTF?"

That was certainly the reaction of many a gamer when they read Dr. Carole Lieberman's comment in FoxNews' Bulletstorm article earlier this week: “The increase in rapes can be attributed in large part to the playing out of [sexual] scenes in video games.”

As we saw a couple weeks ago with Dr. Walid Phares' opinion on a link between Modern Warfare 2 and the recent Moscow airport bombing, sometimes talking points can be taken out of context.  With this in mind, we decided to see what Lieberman had to say in regards to how her comments were presented by FoxNews.

In an editorial entitled "Your mom will hate 'Dead Space 2,' but does anyone care?," writer Tim Dunn ponders why EA's marketing department has used a technique usually used for teens and children for a mature rated game. Further, he wonders why EA would even think about using such a campaign when the Supreme Court is hearing a case about keeping ultra violent video games out of the hands of you children.

While his comments might seems a little overblown, he points out some valid concerns as well. He mentions mature games such as Heavy Rain and Red Dead Redemption, which carry a mature rating because they are telling stories and tackling topics that are geared towards adults. The Dead Space 2 campaign plays on "juvenile notions of maturity gamers have worked hard to change." In other words, the marketing for the game takes that fight a step back.

Here is more from Dunn:

If you have already read our story about Call of Duty developer Infinity Ward blaming Sony for the rash of hacks and exploits, then you get a good sense of how the PS3 Call of Duty community feels. They are pissed off, frustrated and feel like no one wants to help them. No doubt, Infinity Ward and Treyarch are equally frustrated with the problems they have encountered on the PS3 related to Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 and Black Ops.

Another editorial on violent media has made its way to the Internet by way of Sandiego.com's Pop Goes The Culture Blog.

While the author admits he has not played video games since the days of Pong and Atari, he makes some interesting points about music, movies, talk radio, and video games.

First he talks about how the media claims that the Tucson, Arizona killer "got fired up listening to angry talk radio programs." He calls this "incredibly silly logic" and believes that people who listen "to Rush Limbaugh – and you yell at the radio, or you call in and agree with him" it gives you an outlet to express your anger.

In Niall O'Dowd's latest Periscope column he takes a crack at pinning Jared Loughner's senseless act of violence on the influence of violent films and video games. Of course, there is no evidence connecting Loughner to either, but why let the facts get in the way of commentary, right?

O'Dowd opens his column by saying that "other factors" are lost in the discussion of whether or not political rhetoric influenced or inspired the Tucson killer. What influences does he speak of? The culture of violent media that the youth of America are so immersed in, of course. The first target is movies:

Former philosophy professor and regular Huffington Post contributor Myriam Miedzian pens an editorial on Schwarzenegger vs. Entertainment Merchants Association urging the court to "protect people, not corporations." Her opinion piece opens with a discussion of Doom:

She then talks about how video games are not the works of individual writers but corporations, and how the Italian mafia and a certain Arizona killer factor into the equation:

If you have read 16-year-old Sonoma Academy junior Daniel Willens' editorial supporting the California Game Law, then you will be interested in reading this rebuttal in the Press-Democrat. 18-year-old Sonoma Academy Senior Jonny Moon opens his editorial with a discussion of afternoon adventures. Just like his parents sitting before the television watching re-runs of Gun Smoke or Bonanza, Jonny speaks of exploits in the Wild West:

"I came home from school and jumped into the saddle of my American Standardbred. I galloped through the plains of the Midwest and dueled my way to fame. I shot criminals, hogtied bandits and saved a revolutionary's wife. My good deeds saved the life of innocent people, but these actions may soon be banned, as I did this while playing 'Red Dead Redemption,' an alleged 'overly violent video game.'

Not every teenage boy backs the video game industry when it comes to banning the sale of violent video games to children in California. Take 16-year-old Daniel Willens, a junior at Sonoma Academy -- a preparatory school in Santa Rosa, California, for example.

The teenager penned an editorial in the Press Democrat called "PRO: Minors shouldn't be allowed to buy violent games." Daniel sounds like many of the other supporters of the 2005 law written by California State Senator (D-San Francisco). Daniel opens with the following statement: