Game Attorney's Close Encounter with Florida Legislature
You remember Tom Buscaglia, right?
Unlike the other Miami attorney who gets mentioned on GP, Tom is a hardcore PC gamer who also represents game developers. He is also a card-carrying member of the International Game Developers Association (IGDA).
In addition to his busy schedule, Tom maintains a blog. Worth checking out is his description of an appearance he made yesterday before the Florida House of Representatives, which is contemplating their version of the video game bill brought before the State Senate by Alex Diaz de la Portilla.
Tom was asked to appear by the ESA, and I'll let him explain why in his blog entry. Notably, he mentions that the bill's nominal sponsor, Rep. Dennis Baxley, had never seen a video game until being brought into the political fight by Diaz de la Portilla. As Tom describes the process:
"...it was interesting hanging with a bunch of industry representatives and lobbyists and learning a little more about the process. But the whole thing of listening to this Baxley guy rant on about his warped perceptions about games, and then getting only 5 minutes to respond by addressing the committee comprised of a bunch of folks who were rally not that interested in what was going on anyway, was a bit much for me."
"The only problem I had was when I compared this uproar about video games to the uproar in the 50's about rock and roll. One of the representatives (a 30 something guy who very obviously was not there at the time) objected to my invoking the name of 'Elvis' to make my point. He could not see how anyone could compare Elvis to these evil violent games, which he referred to as an 'abomination... Of course, that is exactly how Elvis was being referred to in the 50's."
By the way, Tom mentioned that the Business Regulation Committee's sessions are taped. The video should be available on committee's website in a day or two.