Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Association

Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Association, 564 U.S. 786 (2011), is a landmark decision of the US Supreme Court that struck down a 2005 California law banning the sale of certain violent video games to children without parental supervision. In a 7–2 decision, the Court affirmed the lower court decisions and nullified the law, ruling that video games were protected speech under the First Amendment as other forms of media.

The ruling was seen as a significant victory for the video game industry . Several of the Court's justices suggested that the issue might need to be re-examined in the future, considering the changing nature of video games and their continuously developing technology.

Contents

• 1 Background

  • 1.1 California law

• 2 Legal challenges

  • 2.1 The District Court opinion

  • 2.2 The Ninth Circuit appeal

  • 2.3 Supreme Court appeal

• 3 Opinion

  • 3.1 Alito's concurrence

  • 3.2 Dissents

• 4 Reactions

  • 4.1 Public opinion

• 5 See also

• 6 References

• 7 Further reading

• 8 External links

Background

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Main article: Connection between video games and crime and violence

Many video games, as early as 1976's _Death Race _, incorporate some aspect of violence into the gameplay mechanic, such as killing an enemy with a weapon, using explosives to destroy a structure, or engaging in dangerous vehicle races. With modern technology, representations of such violence have become more realistic. This has led to concerns that minors who play such video games will be influenced by the violence, altering their real-life behavior. Academic studies have attempted to find a connection between violent video games and the rate of violence and crimes from those that play them; some have stated a connection exists,

while others find no link between the matters.

Incidents such as the Columbine High School massacre in 1999 have heightened concerns of a potential connection between video games and violent actions.

Accordingly, many concerned groups including politicians and parents have sought to enact regulatory controls of video games to prevent their sales to youth. Prior and during the Brown v. EMA case, parties like the Entertainment Software Association (ESA) sought to overturn similar state laws that placed limits on the sales of violent video games to minors in Michigan and Illinois. The ESA won these cases, with the laws being found unconstitutional and overly restrictive of protected speech.

These states did not further challenge the court rulings. The ESA similarly defeated a Louisiana bill in the 2006 _Entertainment Software Association v. Foti _ case that would have attempted to ban sales of violent video games to minors.

A typical ESRB rating label will identify the appropriate age group and specific content descriptors for each rated game.

To counteract these increasing complaints and attempts at legislation, the video game industry in the United States created the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) in 1994. This was prompted by a 1993 congressional hearing over the violence in the video game _Mortal Kombat _ and lack of consistent content ratings between publishers, with Congress threatening to pass legislation that would mandate a ratings system if the industry did not take its own steps. The industry reacted by forming the Interactive Digital Software Association, which would become the ESA, and establishing the ESRB. The ESRB, like the Motion Picture Association of America 's rating system, is a voluntary and self-regulated body that examines the content of video games as provided by the publisher before distribution, and given a rating describing the content within, generally classified from being all ages-appropriate to adult audiences only. Video game distributors are similarly bound by voluntary compliance to check the age of the purchaser against the rating of the game to prevent the sale of mature titles to younger players. Most stores prevent the sale of unrated games, so virtually every video game sold at retail in the United States is rated by the ESRB.

Attempts have been made to mandate the ratings system; the Family Entertainment Protection Act , a 2005 bill introduced into the U.S. Congress by Senators Hillary Clinton , Joseph Lieberman , and Evan Bayh , would have made ESRB participation mandatory with oversight by the Federal Trade Commission, and introduced fines for selling Mature or Adult-Only content to minors. The bill, however, did not clear the Senate. Though the ESRB met criticism in 2000–2005 for the ease of access of mature-rated games to minors, the Board has improved its efforts to enforce the ratings system at retailers. A 2011 report issued by the Federal Trade Commission found that the voluntary controls by the ESRB had the highest success rate of any media industry, preventing sales of mature titles to minors 87% of the time. Similar content rating systems exist in other countries, including Europe's Pan European Game Information (PEGI) system, the Australian Classification Board , and Japan's Computer Entertainment Rating Organization .

California law

(https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Brown_v._Entertainment_Merchants_Association&action=edit&section=2 "Edit section: California law")

California state senator Leland Yee introduced CA Law AB 1179, the law debated in the case.

In 2005, the California State Legislature passed AB 1179, sponsored by then-California State Senator [Leland Yee](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leland_Yee "Leland Yee"

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