722.686 Definitions.

607 words·~3 min read·/mi/chapter-722/722-686

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Sec. 16.

As used in this part:

(a)"Computer" means any connected, directly interoperable or interactive device, equipment, or facility that uses a computer program or other instructions to perform specific operations including logical, arithmetic, or memory functions with or on computer data or a computer program and that can store, retrieve, alter, or communicate the results of the operations to a person, computer program, computer, computer system, or computer network.

(b)"Computer network" means the interconnection of hardwire or wireless communication lines with a computer through remote terminals, or a complex consisting of 2 or more interconnected computers.

(c)"Computer program" means a series of internal or external instructions communicated in a form acceptable to a computer that directs the functioning of a computer, computer system, or computer network in a manner designed to provide or produce products or results from the computer, computer system, or computer network.

(d)"Computer system" means a set of related, connected or unconnected, computer equipment, devices, software, or hardware.

(e)"Device" includes, but is not limited to, an electronic, magnetic, electrochemical, biochemical, hydraulic, optical, or organic object that performs input, output, or storage functions by the manipulation of electronic, magnetic, or other impulses.

(f)"Disseminate" means to sell, lend, give, exhibit, show, or allow to examine or to offer or agree to do the same.

(g)"Extreme and loathsome violence" means real or simulated graphic depictions of physical injuries or physical violence against parties who realistically appear to be human beings, including actions causing death, inflicting cruelty, dismemberment, decapitation, maiming, disfigurement, or other mutilation of body parts, murder, criminal sexual conduct, or torture.

(h)"Harmful to minors" means having all of the following characteristics:

(i)Considered as a whole, appeals to the morbid interest in asocial, aggressive behavior of minors as determined by contemporary local community standards.

(ii)Is patently offensive to contemporary local community standards of adults as to what is suitable for minors.

(iii)Considered as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, educational, or scientific value for minors.

(i)"Local community" means the county in which the video game was disseminated.

(j)"Minor" means a person less than 17 years of age.

(k)"Morbid interest in asocial, aggressive behavior" means a morbid interest in committing uncontrolled aggression against an individual. In determining whether an ultra-violent explicit video game appeals to this interest, the video game shall be judged with reference to average 16-year-old minors. If it appears from the character of the video game that it is designed to appeal to this interest of a particular group of persons, then the video game shall be judged with reference to average 16-year-old minors within the particular group for which it appears to be designed.

(l)"Ultra-violent explicit video game" means a video game that continually and repetitively depicts extreme and loathsome violence.

(m)"Video game" means an object or device that stores recorded data or instructions generated by a person who uses it, and by processing the data or instructions creates an interactive game capable of being played, viewed, or experienced on or through a computer, gaming system, game console, or other technology.

History: Add. 2005, Act 108 , Eff. Dec. 1, 2005

Constitutionality: In Entertainment Software Association v Granholm, F Supp (2006), the United States district court for the Eastern District of Michigan, Southern Division, permanently enjoined enforcement of an act regulating sexually explicit and ultra-violent video games as violating free speech rights and the due process requirement that a law be sufficiently definite to provide notice of the conduct prohibited that are granted in the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution.