On Tuesday, January 2, a bill was introduced in the Georgia General
Assembly by Representative, Vernon Jones, that would make the sale of
any recording bearing a "parental advisory" sticker to anyone under
18 a criminal act. Ignoring Joel Flatow from the RIAA who spoke out
against this legislation, the special Judiciary Committee voted 5-3
in favor of HB-1170. These types of attempts to achieve
un-Constitutional government censorship are becoming more and more
common in the United States. Similar bills are also being proposed
or are being seriously discussed in several states. All such
legislation is being pushed under the guise of "protecting the
children".
As Recording Industry Association of America's Vice President of
Governmental Affairs, Joel Flatow, himself put it, this bill
"adversely affects consumers, retailers, parents and the music
industry throughout Georgia. It takes a voluntary program and
burdens it with criminal consequences....It will discourage
retailers from carrying music with the advisory label (as Walmart and
Kmart have already done -ed.) in order to reduce their exposure to
criminal prosecution. As such, the bill does precisely what the
First Amendment prohibits: chilling the free expression of
artists."
Vernon Jones tried to counter this argument by suggesting that
keeping kids from buying certain types of music was the intent of the
RIAA all along. "Retailers haven't called me to oppose this. Parents
haven't called me to oppose this," he proclaimed.
Rock Out Censorship has been fighting the censorship of Tipper Gore's
"parental advisory" stickers since the late 1980's. The RIAA caved
into threats back then when they accepted the "voluntary" sticker
program. And now, when they finally stand up to censorship, it's
already gone to far! It's no longer voluntary and it is our
position that those that pushed for the stickers in the first place
intended to use them to push unconstitutional legislation such as
this all along. We counter Vernon Jones ridiculous statement with
this: The warning label was supposed to be a tool to help parents in
making parental guidance decisions. It is NOT supposed to be a tool
for the state to effectively become the parents by
unconstitutionally restricting access to ALL minors.
As long as the RIAA continues to seek compromise when it comes to our
First Amendment rights, bills like this will continue to pop up all
over the country. We urge the RIAA to not only stand their ground
against such blatantly unconstitutional legislation, but to scrap the
entire warning label system altogether because it is increasingly
clear that the enemies of free speech have much more in mind than was
initially claimed back in the 1980's during the Senate Hearings that
brought the warning label system into being in the first place.
You can help stop this bill by calling Georgia Rep. Vernon Jones
yourself. Help stop creeping censorship in Georgia by contacting the
following people:
- HB 1170's sponsor -
Georgia State Representative, Vernon Jones (D-071)
Legislative Office Building
Room 509
Atlanta, GA 30334
RIAA Vice President of Governmental Affairs
Joel Flatow
Recording Industry Association of America
1330 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 300
Washington, DC 20036
Tel: 202-775-0101 http://www.riaa.com
(You might want to remind them that, although we're thankful they're
standing up to this bill, if they hadn't caved-in to the PMRC back in
1985, we wouldn't be facing legislation like this in the first
place.)
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