Appeals court rules video games qualify as free speech has word of an appeals court decision overturning a previous ruling that stated computer and video games were not free speech as protected by the U.S. Constitution. Here's a bit:

Last April, Senior U.S. District Judge Stephen Limbaugh ruled that computer and video games had "no conveyance of ideas, expression or anything else that could possibly amount to free speech" in a St. Louis County case that sought to limit children's access to mature video games.

The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals disagreed, saying a "particularized message" is not required when it comes to the First Amendment.

"If the First Amendment is versatile enough to 'shield [the] painting of Jackson Pollock, music of Arnold Schoenberg, or Jabberwocky verse of Lewis Carroll,' we see no reason why the pictures, graphic design, concept art, sounds, music, stories, and narrative present in video games are not entitled to a similar protection," the court said in its ruling. "The mere fact that they appear in a novel medium is of no legal consequence."