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Video Game Law Blog
Current issues in video game law.
| Earlier this month, ZeniMax Media filed six US trade-mark applications for FUS RO DAH in association with online games and various merch.
FUS RO DAH is a spell used in The Elder Scrolls, and on [read more]Friday, 13 April 2012 | Chris Bennett |
| A new e-commerce law has been enacted in Germany, which will have a major impact on all e-commerce companies doing end-consumer business in Germany. It is especially relevant for all online gaming [read more]Saturday, 10 March 2012 |
| Qj.net has reported that Electronic Arts. Inc. lost its legal battle before the National Arbitration Forum against Abstract Holdings International Ltd. for the rights to the SSX.com domain name. In [read more]Friday, 10 February 2012 | Tania Da Silva |
| We posted recently about how EA has brought a pre-emptive lawsuit seeking judicial confirmation that it has a constitutional right to depict real-world helicopters in its games.
This lawsuit [read more]Wednesday, 18 January 2012 | David Spratley |
| Bethesda and Interplay have settled a long-running dispute over the Fallout IP. Bethesda bought the Fallout franchise from Interplay in 2007, but licensed back to Interplay certain rights to [read more]Wednesday, 18 January 2012 | David Spratley |
| Kotaku is reporting that Electronic Arts has filed a lawsuit asking the US federal court to hold that it has a constitutional right to depict helicopters based on real-life models in its video games [read more]Thursday, 12 January 2012 | Jennifer Whincup |
| Datel Design & Development and Microsoft have buried the hatchet, settling their respective anti-trust and patent-infringement lawsuits against each other in relation to the Xbox 360 system. The [read more]Wednesday, 11 January 2012 | Brandi Stocks |
| According to a Reuters report, the US International Trade Commission has ruled in favour of Nintendo Co. in a patent infringement claim brought by Motiva LLC. In a notice issued by Judge Robert K [read more]Thursday, 3 November 2011 | Michael Mjanes |
| Court denies Ubisoft's motion for a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction against OG's "Get Up and Dance"
Though it's likely that most self-styled "hard [read more]Monday, 31 October 2011 | Ali Owaisi |
| Like all video game lawyers, we're interested in the wacky world of virtual property -- in-game characters and property -- and the questions that surround it, such as who owns virtual property, [read more]Wednesday, 26 October 2011 | David Spratley |
| Mojang, the creator of Minecraft, is in a trade-mark tussle with Bethesda Softworks and has won the first battle. Bethesda, who publishes the "Elder Scrolls" series, objected to Mojang's [read more]Tuesday, 25 October 2011 | David Spratley |
| Rogers, one of Canada's leading telecommunication providers, acknowledges that the internet traffic management techniques that it uses to slow down and prioritize certain kinds of network traffic [read more]Thursday, 8 September 2011 | David Spratley |
| Guest posting by Dr. Andreas Lober
For nearly two decades, "Doom" has been considered evil in Germany: The game was "banned" or, more precisely, "indexed" in Europe's [read more]Wednesday, 7 September 2011 |
| We reported a couple of months ago about game developer Zynga (developer of the super-popular Farmville and Cityville games) suing Brazil-based social game developer Vostu (see here) for alleged IP [read more]Monday, 29 August 2011 | David Spratley |
| Submitted by Brigitte Lenis
A class-action lawsuit was reportedly recently filed in the Southern District of Ohio against Zoo Entertainment (indiePub Games).
Indeed, the company's stockholders [read more]Wednesday, 10 August 2011 |
| Electronic Arts (EA) has made a splash in the social gaming marketplace once again. After acquiring social game developer Playfish in 2009, EA announced on July 12, 2011 that it is in the process [read more]Thursday, 14 July 2011 | Ali Owaisi |
| It has been reported that game publisher Square Enix has filed suit against 15 unknown defendants, alleging copyright infringement over the game Deus Ex: Human Revolution.
The dispute arose after [read more]Thursday, 14 July 2011 | Peter Riddell |
| Global News recently quoted from our article on the constitutionality of Canadian video game legislation Video Game Law in Canada, as part of a story on the U.S. Supreme Court's recent ruling [read more]Tuesday, 28 June 2011 | Chris Bennett |
| Submitted by Brigitte Lenis
According to the Wall Street Journal, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a federal appeals court decision to strike down a 2005 California law that would have prohibited [read more]Monday, 27 June 2011 |
| Video game developer Electronics Arts ("EA") was reportedly sued by the descendents of John Dillinger, a bank robber who was killed by FBI agents in 1934 after a 14 month crime spree. EA [read more]Thursday, 23 June 2011 | Karine Bellavance |
| Game developer Zynga (who we recently blogged about for being on the wrong end of a lawsuit alleging infringement of intellectual property), is suing Brazil-based social game developer Vostu, claiming [read more]Monday, 20 June 2011 | Michael Mjanes |
| Gaming company Zynga Inc. has reportedly been sued by the Learning Company for having used and infringed on its registered and exclusive trademark phrase "The Oregon Trail" in its FrontierVille social [read more]Tuesday, 7 June 2011 | Tania Da Silva |
| Apple stands up for App Developers in the face of patent threats.
Over the past couple of weeks, Lodsys LLC has apparently sent notice letters to numerous small App developers, demanding that [read more]Thursday, 2 June 2011 | Brandi Stocks |
| It has been reported that the release of Tecmo's Dead or Alive in Sweden, Norway and Denmark has been cancelled. Publisher Nintendo and distributor Bergsala decided not to release the game over [read more]Friday, 27 May 2011 | Peter Riddell |
| The massive data privacy breach in Sony's PlayStation Network has been attracting a great deal of attention in recent days, and is creating problems for Sony (not to mention its customers) around [read more]Tuesday, 3 May 2011 | David Spratley |
| Industry Gamers reports that the four year old legal battle between Silicon Knights and Epic Games over Unreal Engine 3 has taken a giant step forward. In a recent decision, a US federal court in [read more]Monday, 18 April 2011 | Jennifer Whincup |
| We reported recently about Sony's lawsuit against George "GeoHot" Hotz, a hacker who found a way around the PS3's security features (see our previous post) to "jailbreak" [read more]Tuesday, 12 April 2011 | David Spratley |
| The Early Edition on CBC Radio One had an interesting piece this morning about criminals using on-line video games, or virtual property used in on-line games, to launder money. The scenario is that [read more]Tuesday, 5 April 2011 | David Spratley |
| According to arstechnica.com, Sony has taken further steps to demonstrate that its legal action against hacker George Hotz for his PlayStation 3 jailbreak should proceed in California, rather than [read more]Friday, 1 April 2011 | Tania Da Silva |
| According to Dutch reports, Sony has won the release of a shipment of 300,000 PlayStation 3 units that were seized by Dutch customs a couple of weeks ago - check out Mike's post for the background [read more]Wednesday, 16 March 2011 | Brandi Stocks |
| In February, the Australian Classification Board (which sets ratings for video games) delivered a nasty blow to the upcoming Mortal Kombat game by giving it a "Refused Classification" rating [read more]Tuesday, 15 March 2011 | David Spratley |
| We mentioned late last year that Axl Rose of Guns N' Roses had sued Activision over Guitar Hero III (see our previous post). Rose claims that he granted Activision the right to use "Welcome [read more]Tuesday, 15 March 2011 | David Spratley |
| French game publisher and developer Ubisoft has been ordered by the Pan-European Game Information ratings board ("PEGI") to remove its controversial ad for the game "We Dare" from [read more]Monday, 14 March 2011 | Peter Riddell |
| According to a recent Guardian article, tens of thousands of PS3s were seized by European customs officers last week in the Netherlands after LG won a preliminary injunction against Sony in a patent [read more]Monday, 7 March 2011 | Michael Mjanes |
| Although sales of rhythm-based music games are on a steep decline and the "Guitar Hero" franchise is, as of February 2011, officially dead (see gameinformer's coverage and commentary [read more]Thursday, 3 March 2011 | Ali Owaisi |
| Edge Magazine reports that Capcom, the publisher of Street Fighter IV: Arcade Edition, is cracking down on leaked videos of three new characters that appear in the latest installment. Videos have [read more]Wednesday, 26 January 2011 | Jennifer Whincup |
| GamePolitics.com has reported the results of Interactive Age's national survey, which selected the Top 30 Game Law Firms in the country, and reportedly showed that there are 530 attorneys in the [read more]Friday, 14 January 2011 | Tania Da Silva |
| It has been reported that Axl Rose, frontman for Guns N' Roses, has filed a lawsuit against Activision for having failed to respect its covenant not to feature a former band mate in the game Guitar [read more]Tuesday, 7 December 2010 | Karine Bellavance |
| Professor Doug Lichtman at the UCLA School of Law very kindly brought to our attention his podcast of a discussion with senior legal officials from EA, Activision, and Take-Two about legal and other [read more]Tuesday, 7 December 2010 | David Spratley |
| Being the busy video game lawyers that we are, we've recently published another article in the Lawyers Weekly -- this time about the legal issues related to using real-world things (brands, people, [read more]Friday, 3 December 2010 | David Spratley |
| US prosecutors have dropped the first-ever jury case under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act dealing with modding game consoles.
The defendant allegedly modified XBOX360 consoles so that they [read more]Friday, 3 December 2010 | David Spratley |
| Zynga Game Network and Walt Disney's Playdom have settled a lawsuit filed by Zynga just over a year ago.
FarmVille and Mafia Wars creator Zynga, one of the biggest maker of games on Facebook, [read more]Monday, 29 November 2010 | Brandi Stocks |
| We recently published an article in Lawyers Weekly regarding video game theme parks and the associated intellectual property and legal liability issues. Here's the link. [read more]Monday, 15 November 2010 |
| We love video games and play them whenever we can. And despite the fact that we frequently get involved in contract and other disputes regarding games, we think that overall, video games are a lot [read more]Thursday, 11 November 2010 |
| Greg Lastowka has published a new book on the law of virtual worlds. We admit we haven't read it cover-to-cover yet, but on a quick skim it looks like it will be a great read. And it's available [read more]Thursday, 4 November 2010 | Chris Bennett |
| Gamasutra has posted an analysis of the questions from this morning's hearing of Schwarzenegger v. EMA at the US Supreme Court, with a link to the Court's transcript.
Also an OpEd piece [read more]Tuesday, 2 November 2010 | Michael Mjanes |
| We discovered through GamePolitics that Foreignpolicy.com has an interesting article about portraying real-world conflicts in video games. The article was prompted partly by the recent Medal of Honor [read more]Friday, 29 October 2010 | David Spratley |
| Mark your calendars: the US Supreme Court is hearing oral arguments on November 2 about the California law that prohibits the sale of violent games to minors. Two lower courts have overturned the [read more]Friday, 29 October 2010 | David Spratley |
| We reported a while ago (here) about the outcry in Canada and elsewhere over the fact that EA's upcoming Medal of Honor game would allow players to play as Taliban fighters in the multiplayer [read more]Friday, 1 October 2010 | David Spratley |
| Back in June of 2010, it was reported that Tim Langdell, the holder of various trademarks related to Edge (such as Gamer's Edge and Cutting Edge) filed a lawsuit against EA, claiming that Mirror's [read more]Wednesday, 8 September 2010 | Karine Bellavance |
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