Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Association
| Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Association | |
|---|---|
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| Argued November 2, 2010 Decided June 27, 2011 |
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| Full case name | Edmund G. Brown, Governor of the State of California, and Kamala Harris, Attorney General of the State of California v. Entertainment Merchants Association and Entertainment Software Association |
| Docket nos. | 08-1448 |
| Citations | 564 U.S. 786 (more) |
| Prior history | Preliminary injunction granted to plaintiffs, sub nom. Video Software Dealers Assn. v. Schwarzenegger, 401 F. Supp. 2d 1034 (N.D. Cal. 2005); summary judgment granted to plaintiffs, No. C-05-04188, 2007 WL 2261546 (N.D. Cal. Aug. 6, 2007); aff'd, 556 F. 3d 950 (9th Cir. 2009);cert. granted, 559 U.S. 1092 (2010) |
| Holding | |
| Video games are a distinct communications medium protected by the First Amendment. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed. | |
| Court membership | |
| Case opinions | |
| Majority | Scalia, joined by Kennedy, Ginsburg, Sotomayor, Kagan |
| Concurrence | Alito, joined by Roberts |
| Dissent | Thomas |
| Dissent | Breyer |
| Laws applied | |
| U.S. Const. amend. I; Cal. Civ. Code §§ 1746–1746.5 (2009) | |
Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Association, 564 U.S. 786 (2011), is a landmark case by the Supreme Court of the United States 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 upheld 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 improving technology.
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. 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 from minors.
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