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Video Game Law Blog - 2008
Current issues in video game law.
| Submitted by Karine Bellavance
It has been reported by PC World that Japan's Fair Trade Commission (the FTC) has slapped Sharp with a fine of over $2.9 million pursuant to Japan's Antimonopoly [read more]Tuesday, 23 December 2008 |
| Hasbro has apparently dropped its copyright infringement lawsuit against the makers of Scrabulous, RJ Softwares. No explanation for the discontinuance of the proceedings has been given.
Personally, [read more]Thursday, 18 December 2008 | Pablo Guzman |
| Shortly after the release of the Wii, Nintendo was sued over weak remote straps that were allegedly unsuitable for normal play because the straps caused the remote to fly out of the player's hand [read more]Monday, 15 December 2008 | Amanda Alfieri |
| Midway has been declared the winner in a copyright infringement action brought by William Crawford, a California screenwriter, over Midway's game "Psi-Ops: the Mindgate Conspiracy". [read more]Tuesday, 9 December 2008 | Michael Mjanes |
| It seems that THQ and Activision have settled their copyright fight over the box art for Activision's "SCORE International Baja 1000". Patent Arcade is reporting that THQ discontinued [read more]Tuesday, 9 December 2008 | Michael Mjanes |
| Submitted by Karine Bellavance
Sony Computer Entertainment America's head of hardware marketing, John Koller, has said that although piracy remains a problem for the PlayStation Portable (PSP), [read more]Thursday, 4 December 2008 |
| Can you battle zombies in a mall (or depict such events, anyways) without worrying about infringing on the IP rights of MKR Group, the owners of the "Dawn of the Dead" licenses? Capcom, [read more]Monday, 1 December 2008 | Tudor Carsten |
| The Classification Board of Australia has refused to classify F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin FPS, which will prevent it from being sold in Australia. The Board hasn't given an explanation for its [read more]Friday, 28 November 2008 | Chris Bennett |
| Harmonix, MTV, EA and Viacom, the creators of the game Rock Band, are the defendants in a class action lawsuit for having allegedly shipped defective drum pedals in a scheme to cheat consumers. According [read more]Friday, 28 November 2008 | Amanda Alfieri |
| Amy Taylor, a 28-yeard old British woman, was shocked and distressed when she walked in on David Pollard, her husband of three years, having sex with another woman. This was not the first time she'd [read more]Wednesday, 26 November 2008 | Tudor Carsten |
| Davis LLP is pleased to announce that Chris Bennett, a partner in the Vancouver office, was selected as one of the Lexpert® Rising Stars: Leading Lawyers Under 40 at a gala event in Toronto last [read more]Tuesday, 25 November 2008 |
| Submitted by Karine Bellavance
Sony has been ordered to pay $18.5 million to Agere Systems following a successful patent infringement lawsuit filed in 2006. Agere Systems alleged that Sony violated [read more]Monday, 24 November 2008 |
| United States Magistrate Judge Richard Seeborg granted Capcom's Motion to Dismiss the lawsuit instituted by The MKR Group, which claimed that Capcom's mall-zombie-game Dead Rising infringed [read more]Monday, 24 November 2008 | Pablo Guzman |
| In an earlier posting, we reported that Take Two sued the Chicago Transit Authority after the CTA removed ads for Grand Theft Auto IV. The CTA's actions appear to have been a response to a Fox [read more]Thursday, 20 November 2008 | Chris Bennett |
| It was reported by the San Francisco Chronicle that a federal jury awarded $28.1 million dollars to over 2000 retired NFL players as the result of a lawsuit against the NFLPA. The players claimed [read more]Thursday, 13 November 2008 | Amanda Alfieri |
| Mexico's Procuraduria General de la Republica and Agencia Federal de Investigacion recently seized 20 tons of pirated materials including approximately 91,200 copies of video games, 130,000 video [read more]Tuesday, 11 November 2008 | Pablo Guzman |
| The Entertainment Consumers' Association (ECA) promotes gamers' rights and wishes to ensure that First Amendment rights are upheld for videogames as they are for other forms of entertainment [read more]Friday, 7 November 2008 | Amanda Alfieri |
| Submitted by Karine Bellavance
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) is praising publisher Sega for pulling adds it was running on its website to promote its Samba de Amigo game available [read more]Thursday, 6 November 2008 |
| Reports came out earlier this week of a study of Japanese and American kids testing whether exposure to violent video games led to more "violent dispositions" (coverage at: GameDaily.com) [read more]Tuesday, 4 November 2008 | Pablo Guzman |
| Australia is the only developed country without an R18+ rating for games.
The Australian public's opinion was polled about the introduction of an R18+ rating for games and a subsequent report [read more]Monday, 3 November 2008 | Amanda Alfieri |
| As first reported by Patent Arcade, THQ has filed suit against Activision Blizzard claiming trade dress and copyright infringement over the box art for Activision's brand new release, "SCORE [read more]Friday, 31 October 2008 | Michael Mjanes |
| This week, a federal appeals court will have to determine whether legislation drafted by Leland Yee for the state of California that had been struck down by the courts should be revived.
The original [read more]Tuesday, 28 October 2008 | Amanda Alfieri |
| The Las-Vegas Review Journal has reported that Electronic Arts is being sued by Gerald Willis for as much as 1.5 million dollars for infringing Willis' copyright over the University of Las Vegas' [read more]Wednesday, 22 October 2008 | Amanda Alfieri |
| A Muslim gamer's flagging of a song that contains lyrics from verses of the Koran has resulted in a formal apology from Sony. It is reported that the complaint will result in the delay of the [read more]Tuesday, 21 October 2008 | Pablo Guzman |
| Barack Obama has brought his campaign online. It is reported that nine games, including Burnout, Madden, Nascar and NHL, feature Mr. Obama's in-game ads in the Xbox Live versions of the games [read more]Tuesday, 21 October 2008 | Pablo Guzman |
| Submitted by Karine Bellavance
Despite the fact that Gears of War 2 is not coming to PC, it is reported that a forged copy of the game has already been uploaded by various pirate sites for use [read more]Tuesday, 21 October 2008 |
| Submitted by Sylvie Lang
A U.S. Appeals Court has ruled that the estate of legendary football announcer John Facenda can sue NFL Films for the misuse of his father’s voice in a promotional [read more]Friday, 17 October 2008 |
| Submitted by Karine Bellavance
Gary Boulter, who took part in a major piracy operation in Bristol, plead guilty to 23 offenses relating to the commercial piracy of illegally copied games, films, [read more]Friday, 17 October 2008 |
| Submitted by Karine Bellavance
NVIDIA Corporation is being sued by a New York based law firm for alleged securities fraud. The firm alleges that between November 2007 and July 2008, NVIDIA accumulated [read more]Friday, 17 October 2008 |
| Former Cleveland Browns player Jim Brown is suing Electronics Arts and Sony for using his image in EA's Madden NFL series without his authorization.
Brown takes the position that video games [read more]Tuesday, 12 August 2008 |
| Though Take Two had been nearing settlement with the plaintiffs in a class action who claimed to have been offended by hidden, sexual content in Take Two's GTA San Andreas Game - a.k.a. the Hot [read more]Saturday, 9 August 2008 | Tudor Carsten |
| Facebook users in Canada and the US were blocked from using the extremely popular Scrabulous application earlier this week. Facebook blocked the application pursuant to Hasbro’s request, as [read more]Friday, 1 August 2008 |
| Activision and Vivendi Games have officially merged as Activision Blizzard, making Vivendi Games a wholly-owned subsidiary of Activision. The merger is viewed as a new chapter in interactive entertainment, [read more]Tuesday, 29 July 2008 | Josie Morello |
| U.S. District Judge Ron Clark has rejected Nintendo Co’s bid for a new trial and forced the company to either post a bond or put royalties in escrow to avoid a ban in the US on some of its controllers [read more]Friday, 25 July 2008 |
| A lawsuit has been filed in U.S. District Court in New York by Hasbro Inc. against the creators of “Scrabulous”. Although an official version of Scrabble was issued last week by Electronic [read more]Friday, 25 July 2008 |
| Video game hardware and software sales for the first half of 2008 are up 56 percent in Canada and 53 percent in the US compared to last year. First-half sales were $783 million in Canada and $8.3 [read more]Friday, 18 July 2008 | David Spratley |
| According to a Bloomberg report, Konami filed suit in Marshall, Texas, Federal Court on July 9, 2008 against Harmonix Music Systems, its parent company Viacom and Viacom’s MTV Networks Co.
Konami [read more]Friday, 18 July 2008 |
| In March we reported that Vivendi had sued the author of a software tool that automates certain in-game tasks such as fighting in World of Warcraft. Vivendi claimed that the software tool infringed [read more]Thursday, 17 July 2008 | Chris Bennett |
| The New York State Assembly has passed a bill mandating that all videogames sold in the state of New York display ESRB ratings on their packaging. The bill also requires new consoles to be equipped [read more]Wednesday, 16 July 2008 | Josie Morello |
| Jack Thompson, lawyer and anti-video game advocate, is facing permanent disbarment. Judge Tunis, the Referee overseeing Mr. Thompson's disciplinary hearing rejected the recommendation of the Florida [read more]Tuesday, 15 July 2008 | Tudor Carsten |
| The verdict in favour of Anascape Ltd., originally handeded down on May 14, 2008, was upheld by the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texax, Lufkin Division, when it denied Nintendo's [read more]Tuesday, 15 July 2008 | Tudor Carsten |
| The claim alleges that Electronic Arts' exclusive rights agreement with the NFL, NCAA football and the Arena Football League, which grants EA the sole right to publish games featuring the thoe [read more]Tuesday, 15 July 2008 | Tudor Carsten |
| A Delaware judge denied the preliminary injunction to halt the merger between Activision and Vivendi S.A. that was requested by the Wayne County Employees' Retirement System. The announcement [read more]Monday, 14 July 2008 |
| Submitted by Amanda Alfieri, Articled Student
Topware Interactive obtained judgments from a London Court against four individuals for file-sharing . The Court granted interim damages in the amount [read more]Friday, 11 July 2008 |
| Submitted by Tania Da Silva, Articled Student
On June 17, 2008, it was reported that two of Tecmo’s employees, Team Ninja developers Hiroaki Ozawa and Tatsuki Tsunoda, were filing a class [read more]Friday, 11 July 2008 |
| Nintendo has sued Nyko Technologies Inc. over its Wii accessory, the wireless Kama Nunchuk. In a suit filed in US District Court in Seattle, Nintendo alleges that Nyko’s remote "wholly [read more]Thursday, 3 July 2008 |
| GameSpot is reporting that a suit against Nintendo for using unauthorized music in its 2004 commercial for “Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door” has been dropped. Morgan Creek Productions [read more]Thursday, 3 July 2008 |
| Who can forget the infamous Hot Coffee episode from a few years ago, when players found hidden (and adult-oriented) content in Take Two's "Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas"?
Well, except [read more]Thursday, 3 July 2008 | David Spratley |
| There have been a number of movies in recent years based on video game properties (e.g, Hitman, Doom, etc.) Even though Take Two's Grand Theft Auto series of games is wildly popular, however, [read more]Thursday, 3 July 2008 | David Spratley |
| The Entertainment Software Association recently received $65,000 in fees and expenses from the state of Minnesota, after the state tried and failed to draft enforceable anti-violence video game legislation [read more]Thursday, 3 July 2008 | Chris Bennett |
| Paramount Pictures and Electronic Arts released the Godfather game back in 2006. The estate of Mario Puzo (the author of the original books) has now sued for royalties from the video game.
Anthony [read more]Friday, 20 June 2008 | David Spratley |
| In an earlier posting, we reported that the video game industry has seen some huge exclusive agreements, such as EA’s exclusive video game rights to the NFL, NCAA football, and ESPN. We noted [read more]Thursday, 19 June 2008 | Chris Bennett |
| Microsoft is no doubt breathing a sigh of relief after a jury ruled that the XBOX 360 didn't violate an Alcatel-Lucent patent for coding video frames. On the other hand, the jury also ruled that [read more]Monday, 9 June 2008 | Chris Bennett |
| Submitted by Dr. Andreas Lober / Carine Neumüller, LL.M.
Germany has been known for strict legislation regarding violence in games for a long time, but recent changes will make live even [read more]Tuesday, 20 May 2008 |
| Take Two has sued the Chicago Transit Authority after the CTA removed ads for Grand Theft Auto IV. The CTA's actions appear to have been a response to a Fox News reporter's on-air question [read more]Wednesday, 14 May 2008 | Chris Bennett |
| Despite the fact that sales of their flagship franchise are smashing records this week, Take-Two is still embroiled in all kinds of legal troubles. It was recently revealed that another shareholder [read more]Friday, 2 May 2008 |
| To the inhabitants of Cologne, their "Dom" is very dear – and legend says that tourists calling the building "Cathedral" have found themselves thrown into the Rhine. So the [read more]Tuesday, 29 April 2008 |
| If Minnesota's video game legislation were a Monty Python character, right about now it would be saying "I'm getting better ... I think I'll go for a walk." Which is another [read more]Monday, 28 April 2008 | David Spratley |
| Hard to find time to blog, what with the steady torrent of press releases and marketing hype on this GTA IV-eve. Apparently, an ever-growing list of concerned citizens would like to remind you that, [read more]Monday, 28 April 2008 |
| A Brazilian court has ordered that sales of Rockstar's "Bully" game be suspended, apparently on the grounds that any virtual violence that takes place in a virtual school setting is [read more]Wednesday, 23 April 2008 | David Spratley |
| Earlier this month, Arizona passed a new law that would have made game companies responsible for any felony or violence committed by an individual who was being influenced by dangerous or obscene [read more]Tuesday, 22 April 2008 | Chris Bennett |
| The governments of Canada and the United Kingdom are engaged in a increasingly heated dispute about the success of the Canadian video game industry. In particular the U.K. government has accused Canadian [read more]Tuesday, 8 April 2008 | Michael Coburn |
| Germany is known to have some of the strictest rules for youth protection in computer and video games, which have brought the world interesting features such as green blood.
Whilst these are a [read more]Tuesday, 8 April 2008 |
| We've recently updated our chart of video game law cases. It includes brief summaries of many of the key cases dating back to the 1980s. Check it out here. There's also a link in the right [read more]Wednesday, 2 April 2008 | Chris Bennett |
| Sony has issued a notice to PLAYSTATION Network users that their personal information on the PLAYSTATION Store may have been compromised. The notice warns that some users’ passwords may have [read more]Friday, 28 March 2008 | Chris Bennett |
| Vivendi, the parent company of Blizzard Entertainment (the creator of the popular World of Warcraft on-line multiplayer game), has sued the author of a software tool that automates certain in-game [read more]Thursday, 27 March 2008 | David Spratley |
| Despite being overturned by the High Court on a “clear error of law”, the UK Video Appeals Committee has reconsidered the ban on Manhunt 2 and once again reversed the decision not to give [read more]Tuesday, 25 March 2008 |
| Another Court of Appeal has upheld an injunction against a law banning the sale or rental of violent video games to minors. Once again, the absence of proof of harm was the key factor. However, the [read more]Tuesday, 25 March 2008 |
| Sounds like Massachusetts is getting ready to take another crack at banning violent video games, this time by defining violent games as harmful to minors in a manner that mirrors the legal standard [read more]Tuesday, 25 March 2008 |
| The stakes have risen in Electronic Art’s (“EA”) attempt to acquire Take-Two Interactive (“Take-Two”). After having been rebuffed by the management of Take-Two, EA has [read more]Thursday, 20 March 2008 | Michael Coburn |
| On March 10 Harmonix Music Systems, Inc., filed a lawsuit against Activision for unpaid royalties relating to "Guitar Hero". Harmonix developed the first two "Guitar Hero" games [read more]Thursday, 13 March 2008 | David Spratley |
| Today the Financial Post published an interesting article entitled "Virtual Worlds Ripe for Real-World Lawsuits". It discusses topical online legal issues such as IP infringement in Second [read more]Wednesday, 12 March 2008 |
| Take-Two is facing some shareholder discontent over its handling of EA’s recent $1.9 billion buyout offer. The announcement today that two of the publisher’s largest shareholders have [read more]Tuesday, 11 March 2008 |
| Dr. Hook would be proud: Davis LLP's Second Life office (and a few of our video game lawyers) just made the cover of the Canadian Lawyer magazine.
Check it out here.
[read more]Monday, 10 March 2008 | Chris Bennett |
| Submitted by Michael Mjanes
According to reports in the Globe and Mail, an international coalition of teachers' groups is urging retailers to refuse to sell Rockstars’ re-release of [read more]Thursday, 6 March 2008 |
| Submitted by Michael Mjanes
The California Court of Appeals has denied a petition by Jakks Pacific Inc. to disqualify potential arbitrators in its ongoing dispute with video game publisher THQ [read more]Thursday, 6 March 2008 |
| Submitted by Michael Mjanes
Despite Capcom’s pre-emptive attempt to have a court declare that the popular “Dead Rising” video game does not infringe any copyright or trademark, [read more]Wednesday, 27 February 2008 |
| In its "Special 301 Report", filed with the U.S. Trade Representative, the Entertainment Software Association claims that online piracy is a persistent problem in Canada, China, Malaysia, [read more]Tuesday, 26 February 2008 | Tudor Carsten |
| An interesting legal issue has arisen at Activision Inc. Specifically, Wayne County Employees' Retirement System of Wilmington, Delaware an investor in Activision, is suing the Company for failing [read more]Monday, 25 February 2008 | Michael Coburn |
| Submitted by Michael Mjanes
Fans of zombie movies will undoubtedly recognize this old chestnut: a protagonist, barricaded in a curiously weapon-rich building, surrounded by zombies, must use any [read more]Thursday, 21 February 2008 |
| Submitted by Michael Mjanes
According to reports in both the Guardian and MCV, the soon-to-be released Byron Report is likely to recommend that the UK drop the European PEGI ratings system for [read more]Thursday, 21 February 2008 |
| Submitted by Michael Mjanes
According to reports, Duke Nukem developer 3D Realms is being sued for copyright infringement over an as-yet-unreleased game entitled “Earth No More”, due [read more]Thursday, 21 February 2008 |
| BarTalk recently published an article about blawging and had some kind words for our blog. Who wouldn't want to talk about video game lawyers and video game law, you ask? Definitely not the two [read more]Saturday, 16 February 2008 |
| Australia’s Office of Film and Literature Classification has banned the sale of Digital Extremes' Dark Sector in Australia. The Office was particularly concerned about the game’s “high- [read more]Saturday, 16 February 2008 | Chris Bennett |
| Square Enix, the Tokyo-based creator of the Final Fantasy franchise, has filed a federal lawsuit for copyright infringement against four wholesalers whom Square Enix claims were selling unlicensed [read more]Thursday, 14 February 2008 |
| In 2002 Ubisoft signed a deal with MGA Entertainment to publish video games based on the Bratz doll IP. In 2003 MGA tried to terminate the contract on the basis that Ubisoft was not meeting its obligations [read more]Wednesday, 13 February 2008 | David Spratley |
| This is not breaking news, but it's interesting nonetheless. A lawsuit filed last summer shows that one of the founders of the IGE (a virtual property business which lets customers buy and sell [read more]Wednesday, 13 February 2008 | David Spratley |
| Business in Vancouver recently ran an interesting article about virtual property and divorce. It includes quotes from one of our Vancouver video game lawyers, Chris Bennett.
Article here.
[read more]Sunday, 10 February 2008 |
| According to a weekend report from Afterdawn, the Finnish Christian Democratic Party (CDP) is pushing for a new domestic video game inspection regime. The CDP, which holds only 7 of the 200 seats [read more]Wednesday, 6 February 2008 |
| Silicon Knights and Epic Games have been embroiled in a lawsuit over the Unreal Engine 3 for some time now. According to recent reports, Silicon Knights has filed subpoenas on several Unreal Engine [read more]Tuesday, 5 February 2008 | David Spratley |
| The UK Advertising Standards Authority has ruled that a TV ad for Midway's "Stranglehold" cannot be shown on British television because the ad encourages and promotes violence. The decision [read more]Tuesday, 5 February 2008 | David Spratley |
| In 2005 we reported that Roller Coaster Tycoon developer Chris Sawyer had sued Atari for US$5 million in respect of royalties he claimed Atari owed him. Sawyer also claimed that Atari breached a licensing [read more]Tuesday, 5 February 2008 | Chris Bennett |
| New Mexico’s 1% excise tax bill HB583 is presently under review by the House Business & Industry Committee. It is reported that, if passed, it will become law on January 1, 2009 and would [read more]Friday, 1 February 2008 | Pablo Guzman |
| The State of California is the site of an ongoing battleground between free speech advocates and legislators seeking to limit access to violent video games.
A law passed by the State Legislature [read more]Wednesday, 30 January 2008 | Michael Coburn |
| Sony Computer Entertainment Europe is facing claims of trade-mark infringement from Buzztime Entertainment, a California-based maker of interactive electronic trivia games that are often found in [read more]Wednesday, 30 January 2008 |
| Despite a successful appeal to the British Video Appeals Committee (see our previous coverage), it appears Rockstar Games is still not able to release the controversial Manhunt 2 in the UK. On January [read more]Wednesday, 30 January 2008 |
| Take-Two Interactive has announced details of its compensation plan for gamers who purchased copies of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas before July 20, 2005 - the version which contains the sexually-explicit [read more]Wednesday, 30 January 2008 |
| After announcing that its MMO, Gods and Heroes: Rome Rising, would be put on hold so that it could focus on Star Trek Online, Perpetual Entertainment was sued by its former PR firm, Kohnke Communications [read more]Tuesday, 29 January 2008 | Tudor Carsten |
| The class-action lawsuit against IGE is moving ahead, slowly but surely. That lawsuit, filed on behalf of all World of Warcraft players, alleges that IGE (by gold farming, spamming, etc.) has prevented [read more]Tuesday, 29 January 2008 | Tudor Carsten |
| The Society of Authors, Composers and Music Publishers of Canada (SOCAN), the collective society mandated to collect royalties for musical works in Canada, proposed a tariff to the Copyright Board [read more]Wednesday, 23 January 2008 |
| Following its demise this summer, “self-styled” virtual bank Ginko Financial was thought to have disappeared into the ether - literally. It appears to have indirectly reared its less than [read more]Tuesday, 22 January 2008 | Sarah Dale-Harris |
| Reported statistics about on-line gaming in China are pretty staggering: there are about 40.2 million on-line gamers, and 2007 on-line game sales exceeded $1.46 billion. The flip side is growing concern [read more]Friday, 18 January 2008 | David Spratley |
| We commented last week on the Texas lawsuit against Microsoft which was prompted by the problems XBOX Live experienced over the holiday season (see our previous post). The plaintiffs' lawyer has [read more]Thursday, 17 January 2008 | David Spratley |
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GamePolitics cites various sources which claim that the Indian government is contemplating legislation banning violent video games. It's not clear what form the ban might take (for [read more]Thursday, 17 January 2008 | David Spratley |
| Attention all game business people in the Metro Toronto area: The GameON Finance Forum is taking place on January 17 and 18 in Toronto.
we're proud to say that Sarah Dale-Harris, one of our [read more]Wednesday, 16 January 2008 | David Spratley |
| A 20-year-old man was recently arrested an charged with stalking a 15-year-old-girl. This appears to be another situation where the initial contact between the parties was on-line (in this case apparently [read more]Wednesday, 16 January 2008 | Michael Coburn |
| Nintendo and Sony have been the latest video game manufacturers to be accused of infringing patents in producing video game controllers. Copper Innovations Group has commenced lawsuits in Pennsylvania [read more]Wednesday, 16 January 2008 | Michael Coburn |
| Hasbro, the owner of the board game SCRABBLE, has sued Facebook for copyright infringement, claiming that the Scrabulous game on Facebook violates Hasbro’s copyright in SCRABBLE. Hasbro is keen [read more]Wednesday, 16 January 2008 | Chris Bennett |
| Two brave entrepreneurs have finally ventured into the frontier of virtual intellectual property protection and have opened a “Second Life Patent and Trademark Office” at www.slpto.com [read more]Tuesday, 15 January 2008 | Sarah Dale-Harris |
| In the wake of the collapse of “Ginko Financial” in August 2007 and a significant number of Resident complaints that in-world “banks” are defaulting on their promises, Linden [read more]Friday, 11 January 2008 | Sarah Dale-Harris |
| In an effort to expand its portfolio and in the hopes of securing a leading competitive position in the RPC, action and adventure genres, Electronic Arts has completed its acquisition of VG Holding [read more]Tuesday, 8 January 2008 | Sarah Dale-Harris |
| It’s a good question, especially in the US where the legislation is regularly struck down as being unconstitutional. Maybe the answer, in part, is that some people don’t know where to [read more]Monday, 7 January 2008 | Chris Bennett |
| Microsoft's XBOX Live network, an on-line system which allows subscribers to access content and play games over the Internet, experienced difficulties over the holiday season due increased demand [read more]Monday, 7 January 2008 | David Spratley |
| A US district court has denied an injunction application that would have stopped the sale of "Guitar Hero Encore: Rock the 80s". The application was brought by The Romantics, who sued Activision [read more]Wednesday, 19 December 2007 | David Spratley |
| An interesting story out of Texas where GamesRadar has been charged by the Texas Attorney General with failing to protect the privacy and safety of children.
The charge stemmed from an alleged [read more]Tuesday, 18 December 2007 | Michael Coburn |
| A game counterfeiter in Richmond B.C., a suburb of Vancouver, has plead guilty to counterfeiting video games for a variety of game systems.
The counterfeiter was fined $25,000 and was forced to [read more]Tuesday, 18 December 2007 | Michael Coburn |
| Activision is facing another lawsuit over its Guitar Hero game. Recall that The Romantics sued Activision over "Guitar Hero Encore: Rock the 80s" back in November (see our post here). Now [read more]Friday, 14 December 2007 | David Spratley |
| The Seoul Central District Court recently issued copyright infringement sentences to the producers and directors of a music video for Korean singer “Ivy”. The video used portions of the [read more]Thursday, 13 December 2007 | Chris Bennett |
| In separate press releases, Atari has announced a settlement of its dispute with FUNimation over licensing of the Dragon Ball Z name as well as its further borrowing of $4M from BlueBay.
The $4M [read more]Tuesday, 11 December 2007 | Tudor Carsten |
| The CBC recently published an article on Canadian businesses in Second Life. The article, written by Luigi Benetton, mentions Davis LLP's office in Second Life and features some spunky quotes [read more]Monday, 10 December 2007 |
| Rockstar's difficulties with Manhunt 2 have been widely reported. The game was initially banned in the UK, and Rockstar appealed that decision (see our previous post).
Today, the 7-person [read more]Monday, 10 December 2007 | David Spratley |
| Apple has recently filed US patent application no. 20070279394 for "Techniques for Interactive Input to Portable Electronic Devices." The application discloses a technology that will allow [read more]Monday, 10 December 2007 | David Spratley |
| A US law firm has filed a class action lawsuit in the US on behalf of certain shareholders of Giant Interactive Group Inc., the game company in China that operates ZT Online.
The lawsuit claims [read more]Wednesday, 5 December 2007 | Chris Bennett |
| We reported back in November about a lawsuit by a group of Second Life merchants against Thomas Simon ("Rase Kenzo" in SL) and for making and selling unauthorized copies of the plaintiffs' [read more]Wednesday, 5 December 2007 | David Spratley |
| Here's a profile of video game and intellectual property lawyer Chris Bennett that recently appeared in the Financial Post Business Magazine. It's apparently the side profile... [read more]Wednesday, 5 December 2007 |
| A Hong Kong court has ordered Nintendo to remove from its website a press release relating to litigation between it and Supreme Factory Limited ("Supreme"). Supreme has been accused of infringing [read more]Wednesday, 5 December 2007 | Tudor Carsten |
| A pair of white-hat hackers claim to have found a vulnerability in Second Life (through an issue with QuickTime, which is used to stream videos in SL) that allows them to lift Lindens (SL's in-game [read more]Tuesday, 4 December 2007 | David Spratley |
| A US man says that his Wii provided evidence of his wife's improprieties. Here's the story: When the man returned home from serving in Iraq, friends and family told him that his wife had cheated [read more]Tuesday, 4 December 2007 | David Spratley |
| The merger between Activision and Vivendi's game division (which includes Blizzard Entertainment), will create a challenger to Electronic Arts for the title of world's biggest publisher. Though [read more]Monday, 3 December 2007 | Tudor Carsten |
| Australia’s federal classification board, the Office of Film and Literature Classification (OFLC), has awarded a MA15+ rating to a revised version of Activision’s Soldier of Fortune: Payback [read more]Friday, 30 November 2007 |
| Rockstar Games, publisher of the ultra violent Manhunt 2 video game, continue to push for a the UK ban on the game to be lifted.
In an appeal to the Video Appeals Committee, Rockstar's legal [read more]Thursday, 29 November 2007 | Michael Coburn |
| In what we like to imagine was the legal equivalent of the frenzied combat in "300", Game publisher Playlogic appears to have triumphed over game developer World Forge in a dispute over [read more]Thursday, 29 November 2007 | Tudor Carsten |
| Despite its anti-drunk driving message, Place to Pee, a urination-controlled driving game, has been banned by Belgian police who found the game indecent.
Coverage at: Gamepolitics [read more]Thursday, 29 November 2007 | Tudor Carsten |
| An Australian computer security expert has found that the PS3's computing power makes it a powerful tool for cryptography cracking. This does not mean that casual gamers can suddenly start hacking [read more]Thursday, 29 November 2007 | David Spratley |
| Virgin Comics, a division of Richard Branson’s Virgin empire, announced today that it would partner with Perspective Studios to develop a diverse slate of original intellectual properties. The [read more]Tuesday, 27 November 2007 |
| Davis LLP’s Video Game Law Blog celebrates its third birthday. Since its inception in 2004, the blog has been a vehicle for members of the Davis LLP Video Games & Interactive Entertainment [read more]Tuesday, 27 November 2007 | Chris Bennett |
| "Guitar Hero Encore: Rock the 80s", part of Activision's popular "Guitar Hero" franchise, includes a cover version of the song "What I Like About You" by The Romantics [read more]Monday, 26 November 2007 | David Spratley |
| Upset by the fact that the ESRB rated the revised Manhunt 2 game as "Mature" instead of as "Adults Only", four U.S. senators - Hillary Clinton, Joe Lieberman, Evan Bayh and Sam [read more]Friday, 23 November 2007 | Tudor Carsten |
| In response to more disappointing news, Atari, Inc. has publicly questioned whether it will continue to carry on business.
The release of Atari, Inc.'s second quarter results indicated that [read more]Thursday, 22 November 2007 | Michael Coburn |
| The recent release of the much anticipated Guitar Hero III has apparently resulted in at least one (minor) crime. In Adamsburg, Pennsylvania, a modern day Bonnie and Clyde allegedly attempted to steal [read more]Thursday, 22 November 2007 | Michael Coburn |
| A class action lawsuit has been filed in California against Microsoft and Bungie, alleging that Halo 3 causes the Xbox 360 to crash or freeze, and therefore that the software is not "fit for [read more]Thursday, 22 November 2007 | David Spratley |
| The “Something Awful” website has apparently posted a link on its site to a pornographic cartoon featuring Jade Raymond, spokesperson for Ubi’s Assassin’s Creed. According [read more]Wednesday, 21 November 2007 | Chris Bennett |
| It's been a while since we've posted anything in our ongoing Star Wars vs. Star Trek debate. Probably that's because we have great difficulties finding any law-related aspects to the debate [read more]Wednesday, 21 November 2007 | Chris Bennett |
| All within a few days, Singapore announced that it was banning the science fiction RPG "Mass Effect", then announced that the ban was lifted and that the game will be issued an M18 rating [read more]Monday, 19 November 2007 | David Spratley |
| A San Francisco Comcast subscriber is suing Comcast,the US' No. 2 broadband carrier, for breach of contract and bad faith dealings, claiming Comcast is violating net neutrality principles by slowing [read more]Monday, 19 November 2007 | Dani Lemon |
| The BBC is reporting that a Dutch teenager is in jail facing theft charges after stealing 4,000 Euros worth of virtual furniture from the teen networking site Habbo Hotel.
Habbo Hotel users create [read more]Thursday, 15 November 2007 | Dani Lemon |
| Atari has announced that it will no longer carry out game development. Instead, as set out in its official statement, the company will focus on "title acquisition, sales and marketing, and physical [read more]Thursday, 15 November 2007 | Tudor Carsten |
| A Georgia (USA) resident has started a class action suit against Microsoft, claiming that Microsoft improperly allowed the man's son to subscribe to Xbox Live using the man's debit card, and [read more]Thursday, 15 November 2007 | David Spratley |
| For advertisers, at least. Media giant NBC Universal has announced that it will start selling ads into IGA Worldwide's inventory of game titles. Industry commentators note that NBC Universal is [read more]Thursday, 15 November 2007 | David Spratley |
| The ESRB has investigated the Manhunt 2 hacking/content issue (see our previous posthere), and has upheld the game's current M rating. The ESRB concluded that the content that is accessible by [read more]Thursday, 15 November 2007 | David Spratley |
| Atari, Inc. announced that its net loss for the first quarter ended June 30, 2007 was $11.9 million. By comparison, Atari’s loss for the first quarter ended June 30, 2006 was $7.3 million.
The [read more]Tuesday, 13 November 2007 | Michael Coburn |
| Our Dave Spratley is frequently accosted by paparazzi and admirers as he goes to and from work. Now things will no doubt get worse: Business in Vancouver recently quoted him in an article regarding [read more]Tuesday, 13 November 2007 | Chris Bennett |
| Isn’t it kind of like getting sued? You know you’ve really hit the big time when someone takes the time to hack your software? Or was this just a stunt to promote game sales? Seriously [read more]Tuesday, 13 November 2007 | Sarah Dale-Harris |
| The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has been busy investigating video game companies including Take-Two Interactive, Activision and Electronic Arts. The investigation into EA’s stock [read more]Thursday, 8 November 2007 | Chris Bennett |
| Game publisher Atari Inc. has announced that it is in danger of losing its licence to the Dragonball Z franchise.
In a recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Atari disclosed [read more]Monday, 5 November 2007 | Michael Coburn |
| Back in July we mentioned a Florida lawsuit by Eros LLC, who sells "virtual adult-themed objects" in Second Life (see previous post). Eros sued someone for selling unauthorized copies of [read more]Thursday, 1 November 2007 | David Spratley |
| It appears that patent issues between Activision’s new Guitar Hero III title and Konami’s Guitar Freaks may have been resolved.
The 9 patents listed on the Official Xbox Magazine demo [read more]Wednesday, 31 October 2007 | Tudor Carsten |
| Our very own Dani Lemon was recently featured in a Canadian Lawyer article about life as a video game lawyer. She says she likes it. Go figure!
Click here for the article. [read more]Tuesday, 30 October 2007 | Chris Bennett |
| Activision has announced that the latest entry in its popular Guitar Hero franchise will feature several real-world brands. Activision has entered into agreements with various well-known musical instrument [read more]Thursday, 25 October 2007 | David Spratley |
| In 2006 a US district court judge held that fantasy baseball leagues can use player names and stats without permission (see our previous post).
The 8th Circuit Court of Appeals has now upheld [read more]Wednesday, 17 October 2007 | David Spratley |
| Rockstar's "Manhunt 2" ran into rating troubles some months ago (see our previous posts here and here). The game received an "Adults Only" rating from the ESRB, meaning that [read more]Wednesday, 10 October 2007 | David Spratley |
| Jack Thompson, well known for taking on the video game industry, appears to have filed documents in the Florida courts against Microsoft and Best Buy claiming that Halo 3 (about to be released) is [read more]Monday, 24 September 2007 | David Spratley |
| In the wake of several virtual property-related disputes in Second Life, Linden Lab has beefed up its Terms of Service to include an out-of-court settlement procedure in the hopes of reducing dispute [read more]Monday, 24 September 2007 | Dani Lemon |
| Like similar laws enacted by other states, Oklahoma's law seeking to ban the dissemination to minors of compter or video games containing any depiction of "inappropriate violence", has [read more]Tuesday, 18 September 2007 | Tudor Carsten |
| Game Politics has an interesting entry about infamous anti-game attorney Jack Thompson's allegation that he is depicted in Grand Theft Auto IV (currently under development).
Thompson says [read more]Tuesday, 18 September 2007 | David Spratley |
| The American Federation of Musicians, a musicians’ union, is allowing its officers to enter into agreements with video game publishers to use video game music in trailers, advertisements, soundtracks [read more]Thursday, 13 September 2007 | Chris Bennett |
| RIM and Atari have been squabbling over two Blackberry games ("BrickBreaker" and "Meteor Crusher"). Atari thinks these games infringe its copyright in "Breakout" and [read more]Wednesday, 12 September 2007 | David Spratley |
| The Office québecois de la langue fran¸aise and the Entertainment Software Association of Canada officially made public the agreement reached in connection with the availability in Quebec [read more]Tuesday, 11 September 2007 | Pablo Guzman |
| A Chinese firm, Founder Electronics, has sued Blizzard for infringing on its copyright by using five of its fonts in Blizzard's popular World of Warcraft game. Founder is seeking damages of 100 [read more]Monday, 10 September 2007 | Tudor Carsten |
| Here's an article published in the Lawyers Weekly this week, in which we discuss some of the virtual law going on in Second Life. The article was written by freelance writer Luigi Bennetton. [read more]Tuesday, 4 September 2007 | Chris Bennett |
| A recent editorial in the Shanghai Daily News calls for the Chinese government to ban trading in virtual property, mostly because that trade is fuelled by "an underground network of theft" [read more]Thursday, 30 August 2007 | David Spratley |
| After initially warning Atari, Inc. last month, Nasdaq has again notified the software publisher that it is in danger of being de-listed from the exchange.
The latest warning arose after Atari [read more]Thursday, 30 August 2007 | Michael Coburn |
| Take-Two Interactive Software Inc.'s ("Take-Two") troubles with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC") continue as it was recently served with two "'Wells [read more]Thursday, 30 August 2007 | Michael Coburn |
| Here's a nice little blurb about our Video Game Law practice. Wow... that guy sure looks cool playing video games in his suit...
Link to National Article [read more]Wednesday, 22 August 2007 | Chris Bennett |
| Quebec Government Minister Christine Saint-Pierre stirred things up in Quebec today by her declaration to Le Soleil newspaper that all video games coming to Quebec would have to be made available [read more]Thursday, 16 August 2007 | Pablo Guzman |
| Recent reports alleged that Metallica filed suit against Harmonix and Red Octane on the grounds that Guitar Hero III and Rock Band violate Metallica's copyright in its music. This of course led [read more]Thursday, 16 August 2007 | David Spratley |
| Epic has filed a Motion to Dismiss Silicon Knights (“SK”) mid-July lawsuit and a cross-claim, alleging that SK’s lawsuit is merely a strategy, designed to force Epic to renegotiate [read more]Wednesday, 15 August 2007 | Pablo Guzman |
| In 1995, OJ Simpson was acquitted in criminal court of murdering Ron Goldman. Two years later, Goldman’s family won a civil suit against Simpson. The court awarded the family over $33 million [read more]Wednesday, 15 August 2007 | Chris Bennett |
| In March 2004 Nintendo filed a new US patent application excitingly titled "Game System and Game Information Storage Medium Used for Same", for what looks to be a small hand-held device [read more]Tuesday, 7 August 2007 | David Spratley |
| Following the issuance of a permanent injunction, California Governor Schwarzenegger's 2005 video game violence law will never go into effect, unless the Governor is successful in his projected [read more]Tuesday, 7 August 2007 | Pablo Guzman |
| A while ago we mentioned a Florida lawsuit against Microsoft, alleging that Xbox360s scratch discs to the point that the discs are unreadable (see here).
Another similar lawsuit was launched in [read more]Friday, 3 August 2007 | David Spratley |
| US Customs agents recently conducted dozens of raids of homes and businesses to seize mod chips that allow pirated versions of games to be played on gaming consoles. The mod chips were apparently [read more]Friday, 3 August 2007 | Chris Bennett |
| Curtis Jackson, aka 50 Cent, has filed a $1 million lawsuit against Traffix Inc., an internet advertising company. The claim alleges that an on-line advertisement mini-game called "Shoot the [read more]Thursday, 2 August 2007 | David Spratley |
| Two former executives of Take-Two Interactive Software Inc. ("Take-Two") have plead guilty to misdemeanor charges involving falsifying company records in connection with backdated stock [read more]Wednesday, 1 August 2007 | Michael Coburn |
| Our Video Game Law Group was recently featured in the Vancouver Sun, Business in Vancouver and The Lawyers Weekly. Here are the links:
Vancouver Sun article is here.
The Lawyers Weekly article [read more]Wednesday, 1 August 2007 | Chris Bennett |
| The ESRB is continuing to crack down on publishers and developers who aren't complying with Advertising Review Council guidelines when marketing their videogames. 3D Realms is the latest in a [read more]Tuesday, 24 July 2007 | Dani Lemon |
| The rash of Xbox360 failures is well known (and the reason behind Microsoft's recent extension of the 360's warranty). Now another alleged hardware problem is causing problems for Microsoft [read more]Thursday, 19 July 2007 | David Spratley |
| A new rating scheme has been announced to cover online gaming via consoles, PCs and mobile phones. An extension of the Pan European Game Information (PEGI) rating system, the PEGI Online scheme will [read more]Thursday, 19 July 2007 | Tudor Carsten |
| Just weeks after Sega's Mind Quiz for the Nintendo DS was pulled from the British market for using the word "spastic", Nintendo UK has recalled all copies of Mario Party 8 for the Wii [read more]Thursday, 19 July 2007 | Tudor Carsten |
| Midway Games Inc., along with Chief Executive David Zucker, Chief Financial Officer Thomas Powell and three other executives have been names as defendants in a lawsuit. While not a class action, the [read more]Monday, 16 July 2007 | Michael Coburn |
| Sony Computer Entertainment America has settled an employee class-action lawsuit in California by agreeing to pay $8.5 million to current and past employees who claimed they were entitled to (but [read more]Tuesday, 10 July 2007 | Chris Bennett |
| Eros LLC, a US company whose business is selling "virtual adult-themed objects" in Second Life, has started a copyright infringement lawsuit relating to its products. According to the lawsuit [read more] |
| The estate of an infant who perished in a December 2004 house fire alleged to have been started by a faulty X-Box has commenced a lawsuit against Microsoft Corporation. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. who sold [read more]Wednesday, 4 July 2007 | Michael Coburn |
| EA has been instructed by the British Advertising Standards Authority not to reuse an advertisement depicting a crashed car with the tag line "inner peace through outer violence". The ASA [read more]Tuesday, 3 July 2007 | David Spratley |
| First there was the threat of legal action between Sony and the Church of England over Sony's decision to include a gun battle inside Manchester Cathedral in its Resistance: Fall of Man title [read more]Tuesday, 3 July 2007 | Tudor Carsten |
| Thinking of turning your hot new game into a movie? You'll be happy to know that Canada is getting tough with the pirates who would steal your booty. We recently published an article in the CBA [read more]Friday, 29 June 2007 | Chris Bennett |
| Read Section 5 of the WOW EULA (End-User License Agreement) and you might be concerned about allowing Blizzard Entertainment to "monitor" your machine for "unauthorized" third [read more]Monday, 25 June 2007 | Sarah Dale-Harris |
| The senate and assembly of New York have apparently reached an agreement regarding video game legislation. The legislation would make it a felony to sell violent games to minors. Also, console manufacturers [read more]Monday, 25 June 2007 | Chris Bennett |
| We discussed yesterday how Manhunt 2 has been banned in England and Ireland and has received an AO rating from the ESRB in North America. The consequences of these events are becoming clearer, as [read more]Thursday, 21 June 2007 | David Spratley |
| Gold farmers generally have a bad reputation in the world of on-line games. However, Julian Dibbell (the author of "Play Money: Or How I Quit My Day Job and Made Millions Trading Virtual Loot") [read more]Wednesday, 20 June 2007 | David Spratley |
| The original "Manhunt" game caused its share of controversy when it came out. Its sequel (artfully named "Manhunt 2") is experiencing similar problems, so much so that the game's [read more]Wednesday, 20 June 2007 | David Spratley |
| In 2002, Immersion Corporation sued Microsoft and Sony for infringement of its "haptic or force feedback" tactile response technology patents. The 2003 settlement reached between Immersion [read more]Tuesday, 19 June 2007 |
| Sony has apologized to the Church of England over the inclusion in Sony's title, Resistance: Fall of Man of a violent gunbattle in Manchester Cathedral. In its letter to the Cathedral's dean, [read more]Monday, 18 June 2007 | Tudor Carsten, Christopher Metcalfe |
| Last week in the Federal District Court in Tyler, Lonestar Inventions LP sued Nintendo for patent infringement. Lonestar claims that the Wii uses Lonestar’s patented structure of lining up capacitors [read more]Saturday, 16 June 2007 | Chris Bennett |
| Activision has confirmed that it is the latest video game company to be formally investigated by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC") for allegations of backdating stock options [read more]Thursday, 14 June 2007 | Michael Coburn |
| The Church of England has expressed moral outrage over the inclusion of a seeming replica of Manchester Cathedral in Sony's first-person shooter Resistance: Fall of Man. More specifically, the [read more]Tuesday, 12 June 2007 | Tudor Carsten |
| The New York Assembly has passed legislation which will make it a felony to sell or rent games to minors if the games contain depictions of depraved violence and indecent images. The legislation will [read more]Monday, 4 June 2007 | Chris Bennett |
| Zuffa, LLC, the company behind the Ultimate Fighting Championiship has filed a suit against Take-Two Interactive, alleging that Take-Two sold UFC games - namely, UFC: Sudden Impact, a PS2 title - [read more]Thursday, 31 May 2007 | Tudor Carsten |
| The Entertainment Software Association, has joined with other organizations including the Recording Industry Association of America, the Motion Picture Association of America, Major League Baseball, [read more]Wednesday, 30 May 2007 | Michael Coburn |
| The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (("SEC") has filed a settled civil action against Capitol Distributing, LLC ("Capitol") and an owner of Capital, Terry Phillips ("Phillips [read more]Wednesday, 30 May 2007 | Michael Coburn |
| After a bumpy ride in the Senate, HB1634 has cleared both the Texas House and Senate, passing legislation designed to provide grant incentives to film, television and video game producers. It is reported [read more]Tuesday, 29 May 2007 | Pablo Guzman |
| Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich's law banning the sale and rental of mature games to minors is reported to “have done significant violence to Illinois’ budget”. The state was [read more]Tuesday, 29 May 2007 | Pablo Guzman |
| Phillip Carnell of C'M'S' Cameron McKenna kindly sent us the following summary of the UK Court of Appeal's recent decision in the Nova Productions case. In that case, the owner of [read more]Tuesday, 22 May 2007 | Chris Bennett |
| New York Governor Eliot Spitzer is preparing video game legislation in order to deliver on one of his campaign promises. As it turns out, one of Governor Spitzer's old classmates is Greg Costikyan, [read more]Tuesday, 15 May 2007 | David Spratley |
| According to a letter by WeeWorld CEO, Celia Francis, WeeWorld has been granted it's application for dismissal of its US lawsuit against Nintendo for trademark infringement. As we previously reported, [read more]Monday, 14 May 2007 |
| Video game operators must comply with new rules imposed by the Chinese government by July 16th. In a move which is bound to have repercussions for game operators, the Chinese government has required [read more]Monday, 14 May 2007 | Sarah Dale-Harris |
| Right after the Virginia Tech shootings, lawyer and famed (infamed?) anti-video game activist Jack Thompson was prominently featured on (surprise!) Fox News, where he attributed just about every school [read more]Wednesday, 9 May 2007 | Dani Lemon |
| Anti-violence in video games lawyer Jack Thompson has written to fast food giant Wendy’s to request that it cancel an upcoming kids marketing campaign centered around the Wii console and some [read more]Wednesday, 9 May 2007 | Pablo Guzman |
| (This is an archived case summary)
In this patent infringement action, Leapfrog Enterprises alleged that the Fisher Price PowerTouch product infringed one of the claims in Leapfrog's patent, [read more]Wednesday, 9 May 2007 | David Spratley |
| Ghost Rider creator Gary Freidrich is suing Marvel and the two companies responsible for the recent movie and video game adaptations of the comic for what he calls a "conspiracy to exploit and [read more]Friday, 4 May 2007 | Dani Lemon |
| A U.S. mother is suing Vivendi Games, Sierra Entertainment, and Sony Computer Entertainment America for "neligent, careless and reckless" behaviour after her infant allegedly suffered a [read more]Friday, 4 May 2007 | Dani Lemon |
| LoadingReality.com reports that thanks to certain members of the media "whipping the ignorant masses" into frenzy about video game violence, a young student from Fort Bend, Texas has been [read more]Friday, 4 May 2007 | Pablo Guzman |
| In 2006 Sony Computer Entertainment America Inc. applied for an injunction against Dawn Gilbert, as the result of the more than 100 phone calls that she made to Sony personnel between March 2006 and [read more]Friday, 4 May 2007 | Pablo Guzman |
| Last month we reported that Take Two sued anti-video game lawyer Jack Thompson after he threatened to interfere with the sale of GTA IV and Manhunt 2 in Florida. At the time, Thompson declared the [read more]Sunday, 22 April 2007 | Chris Bennett |
| The British Board of Film Classification recently commissioned a survey in which gamers, parents and members of the game industry were interviewed about various aspects of video games. The BBFC is [read more]Friday, 20 April 2007 | David Spratley |
| We recently co-authored an article on MMO contracts with German lawyer Andreas Lober. The article was published in the CBA National Magazine's Addendum. For your reading pleasure, here's the [read more]Thursday, 19 April 2007 | Chris Bennett |
| So says the FTC. Well, sort of.
According to a new report from the Federal Trade Commission, over 87% of parents surveyed were aware of the ESRB system, and over 70% said they used the system [read more]Tuesday, 17 April 2007 | Chris Bennett |
| The ESA has been awarded legal fees of $91,000 as a result of its successful constitutional challenge of a Louisiana law regulating the sale of violent video games. The Louisiana law, which was passed [read more]Monday, 16 April 2007 | Tudor Carsten |
| Activision has filed a complaint with the US District Court alleging that Maryanne Leach, an individual, has infringed its copyright by distributing to the public two of its most popular video game [read more]Friday, 13 April 2007 | Chris Bennett |
| At the invitation of Linden Labs, creators of Second Life, the FBI has commenced an inquiry into whether virtual currency which can be bought with real money contradicts a U.S. statue introduced last [read more]Wednesday, 11 April 2007 | Chris Bennett |
| Take-Two Interactive Software Inc. has received a notice from the Securities and Exchange Commission that it is under formal investigation for its stock-options practices.
Take-Two completed earlier [read more]Tuesday, 10 April 2007 | Casper Bych |
| A majority of the shareholders of voted in favour of putting a new board in place at Take-Two Interactive Software Inc.’s annual general meeting.
A group of large shareholders decided that [read more]Tuesday, 10 April 2007 | Casper Bych |
| The ad, which is not for any specific game, involves a street race between two cars in heavy traffic. The race culminates in one of the cars overturning. Though the cars never exceed the speed limit, [read more]Monday, 9 April 2007 | Tudor Carsten |
| In yet a further chapter in the Guitar Hero legal saga, RedOctane’s parent Activision has settled its lawsuit against two former Guitar Hero executives. Activision alleged that the former employees [read more]Thursday, 5 April 2007 | Chris Bennett |
| The Denver Regional Transportation District (RTD) directors have ultimately rejected banning the use of adult-rated video game ads on agency buses and trains. The ban, which was put forward by the [read more]Tuesday, 3 April 2007 | Sarah Dale-Harris |
| On Mar 14, 2007, House Bill No. 77 was “Introduced and Assigned to Judiciary Committee” in the House of Representatives. Delaware Representative Helene Keeley is once again attempting [read more]Tuesday, 3 April 2007 | Sarah Dale-Harris |
| Can't get enough of our posts? Want to hear us in person? Well here's your chance! Dave and Chris will be speaking at the Game Summit in Vancouver on May 4th. Here's more info:
CONFERENCE [read more]Monday, 2 April 2007 | Chris Bennett |
| A New York woman has filed suit for unspecified damages in New York Supreme Court claiming that her infant son suffered a “gran mal seizure” (epilepsy) while playing Spyro: Enter the Dragonfly [read more]Thursday, 29 March 2007 | Pablo Guzman |
| The UK Court of Appeal recently decided a case involving copyright infringement and video games. Nova Productions Limited had created a computer pool game called "Pocket Money", and claimed [read more]Wednesday, 28 March 2007 | David Spratley |
| You are probably aware that Viacom recently filed a massive lawsuit against Google over unauthorized film clips on YouTube. Viacom says that YouTube has not been proactive in preventing copyright [read more]Wednesday, 21 March 2007 | David Spratley |
| Ahem.
WeeWorld's suit against Nintendo accuses the game maker of trademark infringement - more specifically, it alleges that Nintendo's Mii avatars infinged WeeWorld's trademarks for [read more]Wednesday, 21 March 2007 | Tudor Carsten |
| Anti-videogame activist (and lawyer) Jack Thompson is being pre-emptively sued by Take Two, in a bid by Take Two to thwart Thompson's plans to attempt to have Grand Theft Auto 4 and Manhunt 2 [read more]Tuesday, 20 March 2007 | Dani Lemon |
| Despite Take-Two’s blockbuster hit, the Grand Theft Auto series, Wedbush Morgan (a financial analyst firm), has downgraded Take-Two’s stock to a sell due to poor financial results and [read more]Thursday, 15 March 2007 | Casper Bych |
| You've all heard a lot about video game legislation in the US. It gets passed, it goes to court, then it gets declared unconsitutional.
"What about Canadian video game legislation?" [read more]Wednesday, 14 March 2007 | Chris Bennett |
| Stay tuned for Take-Two Interactive Software Inc.’s (NASDAQ: TTWO) annual general meeting on March 23rd. A group of investors currently holding 46% of the company may take control of the board, [read more]Wednesday, 14 March 2007 | Casper Bych |
| W. L. Crawford, author of a 1998 screenplay entitled “Psi-ops”, has sued Midway alleging that it has taken his plot and characters for its game “Psi-ops: The Mindgate Conspiracy” [read more]Wednesday, 14 March 2007 | Pablo Guzman |
| n 2005 we reported that Roller Coaster Tycoon developer Chris Sawyer had sued Atari for US$5 million in respect of royalties he claimed Atari owed him. Sawyer also claimed that Atari breached a licensing [read more]Tuesday, 13 March 2007 | Chris Bennett |
| A consumer lawsuit brought in New York against Take-Two Interactive, parent company of Rockstar Games - the publisher of the Grand Theft Auto series - has been stayed in order to allow the parties [read more]Monday, 12 March 2007 | Tudor Carsten |
| The Chinese government is cracking down on the use of virtual money from online games to buy real-world products. According to a government notice, there must be a “strict differentiation between [read more]Thursday, 8 March 2007 | David Spratley |
| The announcement comes in the wake of a $91 million judgment in favor of Immersion in its lawsuit over Sony's DualShock controllers, which Immersion claimed violated Immersion's force feedback [read more]Sunday, 4 March 2007 | Tudor Carsten |
| Take-Two Interactive Software Inc. has agreed to enter into settlement discussions with a view to settling the lawsuit accusing Take-Two of selling its popular Grand Theft Auto video game titles - [read more]Friday, 2 March 2007 | Tudor Carsten |
| The CBC recently reported that Ontario Lottery and Gaming pulled 87 slot machines out of service or physically removed them from casinos following a CBC investigation that uncovered flashing “winning&r [read more]Thursday, 1 March 2007 | Sarah Dale-Harris |
| The award was made by a federal jury in San Diego who arrived at the figure, says Microsoft, by multiplying Windows sales and average PC sales prices worldwide since May 2003
Lucent, which was [read more]Tuesday, 27 February 2007 | Tudor Carsten |
| Gamasutra has an interesting article about the US patent regime and how it does more harm than good, especially in high-tech industries such as video gaming. Note that some of the criticisms raised [read more]Tuesday, 27 February 2007 | David Spratley |
| A flurry of legal activity has erupted over a piece of software called WoWglider. The software (see here) will play your World of Warcraft character for you while you do other things. WoWglider's [read more]Monday, 26 February 2007 | David Spratley |
| Dr. Michael Geist, one of Canada’s pre-eminent technology law scholars, has an interesting entry on his blog about mod chips. One of his readers recently received a cease and desist letter from [read more]Monday, 26 February 2007 | David Spratley |
| Ryan Brant, the founder and former CEO of Take-Two who resigned in October of last year has pleaded guilty to felony criminal charges for his role in backdating stock options and has settled with [read more]Wednesday, 21 February 2007 | Casper Bych |
| Take-Two Interactive Software Inc. (NASDAQ: TTWO) has completed its backdating investigation and has found no misconduct by its current top executives. Take-Two investigation revealed certain “impropri [read more]Wednesday, 21 February 2007 | Casper Bych |
| Majesco Entertainment Co. (NASDAQ: CM), the US publisher of such games as Jaws Unleashed, Soldier of Fortune, BloodRayne was issued a going concern warning by its auditors last month.
Such a warning [read more]Wednesday, 21 February 2007 | Casper Bych |
| Activision, having failed to file its earnings in a timely manner for the quarter ended December 31, 2006, has received its second warning by the Nasdaq. The company, which also failed to file its [read more]Monday, 19 February 2007 | Tudor Carsten |
| The International Intellectual Property Alliance, a coalition of US movie, music and software providers (which, most relevantly for our purposes, includes the ESA), has issued a report urging the [read more]Friday, 16 February 2007 | David Spratley |
| Japanese customs and copyright law is being amended to start banning the exportation of pirated software as of July 1, 2007. The current laws bans importation, but not exportation, of pirated software [read more]Sunday, 11 February 2007 | Chris Bennett |
| Apparently the blessing from Pope Benedict XVI wasn’t enough to help officials see things Jack Thompson’s way. The controversial attorney is facing a disciplinary hearing in Florida at [read more]Thursday, 8 February 2007 | Sarah Dale-Harris |
| Online auction giant eBay has banned the trading of in-game property (e.g., characters, items, weapons, player accounts, etc.) from on-line games such as "World of Warcraft". eBay says that [read more]Tuesday, 30 January 2007 | David Spratley |
| Some time ago the South Korean government introduced a bill that would prohibit the real-world purchase and sale of MMO currency (although it would not affect transactions involving other in-game [read more]Monday, 29 January 2007 | David Spratley |
| From the sounds of it, Jack Thompson has found support in the most unlikely of places: the Vatican. In his annual speech delivered from the Vatican on January 24, 2007, Pope Benedict XVI denounced [read more]Friday, 26 January 2007 | Sarah Dale-Harris |
| We reported recently about two video game-related bills that were introduced in New York's State Assembly (see previous post). Those bills have created concern because some people have misunderstood [read more]Friday, 26 January 2007 | David Spratley |
| Blitz: The League, Midway’s Xbox 360 American football game, has been denied classification by Australia’s Office of Film and Literature Classification (the “OFLC”), thereby [read more]Wednesday, 24 January 2007 | Tudor Carsten |
| (This posting was written by Andreas Lober at Schulte Riesenkampff in Germany).
Leading computer gaming producers are under attack in Germany! The so-called "Verbraucherschutzzentrale" [read more]Wednesday, 24 January 2007 | Chris Bennett |
| Gamasutra recently published an article on the best game patents of all time. It's well-written and it's an interesting read. The "now and then" comparison at the end is priceless [read more]Monday, 22 January 2007 | Chris Bennett |
| Two bills dealing with video games were recently introduced in the New York State Assembly. Bill A00547, introduced by Keith Wright, prohibits the sale to minors of certain rated video games [read more]Tuesday, 16 January 2007 | David Spratley |
| ...and more about the thousands of digital flying penises. Guntram Graef, husband of Ailin Graef, better known asSecond Life's real estate mogul Anshe Chung, has withdrawn a complaint filed [read more]Tuesday, 16 January 2007 | Dani Lemon |
| an earlier posting , we reported that Activision and new developer Spark Unlimited were involved in a lawsuit regardingCall of Duty Finest Hour.
Today Gamasutra published a feature [read more]Friday, 12 January 2007 | Chris Bennett |
| Washington D.C. has significantly scaled-back its new video game legislation, called the Consumer Education on Video and Computer Games for Minors Act. Originally the legislation would have prohibited [read more]Thursday, 11 January 2007 | Chris Bennett |
| Fenner Investments, a Texas company, has sued all three console makers for violating its patent for a 'Low-Voltage Joystick Port Interface"?. The patent in question was originally developed [read more]Thursday, 11 January 2007 | Tudor Carsten |
| (This posting was written by Andreas Lober at Schulte Riesenkampff in Germany.)
Publishers' hopes for additional revenues created through product placement in games get a slash back with [read more]Wednesday, 10 January 2007 | Chris Bennett |
| Florida lawyer and anti-video game crusader Jack Thomson has drafted legislation for Massachusetts to block the sale of violent games to minors. This follows a string of similar legislation that [read more]Tuesday, 9 January 2007 | Chris Bennett |
| Second Life publisher Linden Lab has released virtual world's viewer as open source software, and intends to do the same with the server software that runs the virtual world itself. Linden [read more]Tuesday, 9 January 2007 | David Spratley |
| The directors and executive officers of THQ Inc (NASDAQ THQI) are facing a class action lawsuit from its shareholders as a New York law firm is looking for plaintiffs in its anticipated class action [read more]Monday, 8 January 2007 | Casper Bych |
| THQ Inc. (NASDAQ THQI) has received a warning from NASDAQ that it will be delisted unless it files its quarterly earning statement. As reported, THQ is currently conducting an investigation of [read more]Monday, 8 January 2007 | Casper Bych |
| Activision, Inc. (NASDAQ ATVI) failed to file its quarterly earning statement due to its ongoing investigation of its stock option grant practice and has accordingly been issued a delisting warning [read more]Monday, 8 January 2007 | Casper Bych |
| As reported in March of last year, Atari received a delisting warning from NASDAQ pursuant to which Atari's stock would be delisted from NASDAQ unless its traded above $1 for more than 30 days [read more]Monday, 8 January 2007 | Casper Bych |
| As anticipated, Atari is going to do a reverse stock split in order to bring its stock price above $1 as it is doing a ten for one reverse stock split, meaning that every shareholder will get one [read more]Monday, 8 January 2007 | Casper Bych |
| Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc. (NASDAQ TTWO) ('Take Two"?) has completed its preliminary independent investigation of its stock option grant practice which we reported on last summer [read more]Monday, 8 January 2007 | Casper Bych |
| Germany's ratings board has refused to rate the upcoming 360 shooter 'Crackdown"?. As a result, the game cannot be sold to minors, can only be sold in person, and cannot be displayed [read more]Friday, 5 January 2007 | David Spratley |
| Guitar Heropublisher Red Octane has reached an out of court settlement with peripheral maker The Ant Commandos (TAC). Red Octane was suing TAC over controller packaging, alleging that TAC had [read more]Wednesday, 3 January 2007 | Dani Lemon |
| In-Fusio is suing Microsoft for wrongful termination of contract amidst accusations that Microsoft is stonewalling In-Fusio's designs for a mobile phone version of superselling videogame [read more]Wednesday, 3 January 2007 | Dani Lemon |
| As you have probably heard, there have been some problems with the wrist straps for Nintendo's new Wii controllers and Nintendo announced a voluntary replacement program last week. In the [read more]Wednesday, 20 December 2006 | David Spratley |
| There was a recent controversy in Boston over the placing of Grand Theft Auto ads on Boston subway cars (see here ). The Metro Boston Transit Authority General Manager has now announced that [read more]Thursday, 14 December 2006 | David Spratley |
| New law has been introduced in China which requires game distributors to get approval from the country's censors before being able to release new games in China. With over 23 million [read more]Wednesday, 13 December 2006 | Sarah Dale-Harris |
| Aye me hearties, the US Entertainment Software Association and the UK's Entertainment& Leisure Software Publishers Association both announced recent devastating broadsides against creators [read more]Tuesday, 12 December 2006 | Tudor Carsten |
| Interlink Electronics, Inc. has filed a lawsuit against Nintendo, claiming that the Wii's controller violates one of Interlink's patents. Lawsuits over controller hardware are not new [read more]Monday, 11 December 2006 | David Spratley |
| Maybe you own a snazzy home in Second Life, or an imposing castle in Ultima Online, or maybe you found a Krol Blade while questing in World of Warcraft. Though the home, the castle and the Krol [read more]Tuesday, 5 December 2006 | Tudor Carsten |
| It will be back to the drawing board for console makers who have to re-think anti-piracy technology in consoles after the Australian government announced plans to pass amendments legalizing mod [read more]Tuesday, 5 December 2006 | Dani Lemon |
| Illinois, $510,000; Washington state, $344,000; St. Louis, $180, 000; Indianapolis, $318,000; Michigan, $182,349"? All in USD!
In April, Michigan's video game law was declared unconstitutional [read more]Monday, 4 December 2006 | Pablo Guzman |
| Toys "R" Us is said to be under investigation by the Better Business Bureau over its Wii bundling practices. Some Chicago consumers are complaining of having been misled and railroaded into [read more]Monday, 4 December 2006 | Pablo Guzman |
| The counterfeit Magic Mega Plug and Play consoles were seized by the RCMP from kiosks at three Ottawa area malls. The consoles were being sold for about $60 and feature over 150 games, including a [read more]Monday, 4 December 2006 | Tudor Carsten |
| In the mid-80's, Keirin Kirby (better known to us video game lawyers of the "?80s as "Lady Kier") was the lead singer of a band called "Deee-Lite". But wait"?that's [read more]Saturday, 2 December 2006 | Chris Bennett |
| Just two weeks after the release of the Nintendo Wii, the Wall Street journal has reported cases of numb arms, sore shoulders and 'Wii-elbow"? caused by jerky or repetitive motions. It's [read more]Friday, 1 December 2006 | Tudor Carsten |
| Following the temporary injunction he issued against same in August 2006, U.S. District Judge James Brady has declared unconstitutional Louisiana's HB 1381, which was signed into law on June 16, [read more]Thursday, 30 November 2006 | Pablo Guzman |
| The Entertainment Software Association's successful first instance challenge of Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich's 2005 Sexually Explicit Video Games Law was upheld by the US Seventh Circuit [read more]Wednesday, 29 November 2006 | Pablo Guzman |
| The US Digital Millennium Copyright Act prohibits the circumvention of technological measures that prevent access to copyrighted works. The US Librarian of Congress has recently announced six [read more]Tuesday, 28 November 2006 | David Spratley |
| The FBI has joined forces with NCSoft to execute a super-top-secret-ultra-dangerous-multi-city shutdown of L2Extreme, a company running its own unauthorizedLineage IIservers and boasting up to 50,000 [read more]Monday, 27 November 2006 | Dani Lemon |
| A game-related controversy has arisen in Boston this week. The heart of the problem is that the Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority has allowed ads for Grand Theft Auto Vice City Stories on its [read more]Friday, 24 November 2006 | David Spratley |
| Alcatel has sued Microsoft for patent infringement relating to digital video and communication network technology. What does this have to do with video game law, you ask? Well, Alcatel is [read more]Wednesday, 22 November 2006 | David Spratley |
| On Monday, November 20, a man identified as 18-year old Bastian B. committed suicide after attacking a German secondary school with guns and explosives and wounding as many as 27 people. The [read more]Wednesday, 22 November 2006 | Tudor Carsten |
| When a New York Times article begins with, 'Howard Stringer, you have a problem. Your company's new video game system just isn't that great,"? you may be well advised to call your [read more]Tuesday, 21 November 2006 | Sarah Dale-Harris |
| Though an earlier bill - HB 257 - classifying violent games as pornography failed to be approved by the Utah legislature in 2006, a new draft bill very similar to HB 257 has been approved by [read more]Friday, 17 November 2006 | Tudor Carsten |
| Call me a wet blanket, but did I really see people lined up on Bay Street this morning, in the rain, waiting for a chance to get a Sony PS3? Not since the last time I was in the UK and saw hoards [read more]Friday, 17 November 2006 | Sarah Dale-Harris |
| Second Life is a popular virtual world with a thriving economy. Players design, create and sell of in-game items, including clothes, furniture, cars, etc. The items are bought and sold for [read more]Thursday, 16 November 2006 | David Spratley |
| Jack Thompson might have lost his court battle against the controversial 'Bully"? video game, but we haven't heard the last of U.S. courts trying to deal with bullies, virtual or not [read more]Thursday, 16 November 2006 | Sarah Dale-Harris |
| Further to our recent post about the ESA and the 'dilution"? or 'tarnishment"? of trade-marks, the Trademark Dilution Revision Act of 2006 recently became law in the United States [read more]Wednesday, 15 November 2006 | David Spratley |
| Backbone Magazine recently published an interesting article by Danny Bradbury regarding legal liability in the online gaming world. If it leaves you craving more, check out the more-detailed [read more]Wednesday, 15 November 2006 | Chris Bennett |
| The Entertainment Software Association recently sent a demand letter to website Kotaku.com, asking the owners of the site to take down their posting regarding a guy who's selling a t-shirt containing [read more]Friday, 10 November 2006 | Chris Bennett |
| According to recent reports, Tecmo's Tomonobu Itagaki, creator of theDead or Aliveseries, has been accused of sexually harassing a former Tecmo employee. According to the former employee [read more]Thursday, 9 November 2006 | Sarah Dale-Harris |
| On October 16, 2006 Xfire filed suit against rival IGN Entertainment over IGN's GameSpy Comrade program incorporated into Electronic Arts' Battlefield 2142 game. Xfire's complaint [read more]Wednesday, 1 November 2006 | Tudor Carsten |
| You may recall that some time ago, shortly after the Hot Coffee affair broke open, a NY grandmother sued Rockstar Games and Take Two for false, misleading and deceptive practices relating to the sale [read more]Monday, 30 October 2006 | David Spratley |
| The presiding judge in the case, Ronald M. Friedman, has recused himself and filed a complaint with the Florida bar against Thompson. Undaunted, Thompson sent an open letter to the Florida bar [read more]Sunday, 29 October 2006 | Sarah Dale-Harris |
| For weeks now, the attempt made by Jack Thompson to block the sale of the controversial 'Bully"? video game in Florida has been a hotbed of discussion and debate amongst video-gamers and [read more]Thursday, 26 October 2006 | Sarah Dale-Harris |
| Silicon Graphics Inc., newly escaped from Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, has launched a patent infringement action against chip-maker ATI Technologies. SGI claims that ATI's Radeon graphics [read more]Thursday, 26 October 2006 | David Spratley |
| Finally, the Boy Scouts of Los Angeles catch up with the trials and tribulations facing your modern LA Boy Scout today! Now, in addition to learning how to tie knots, survive in the [read more]Tuesday, 24 October 2006 | Dani Lemon |
| We reported on October 19 that World Wrestling Entertainment Inc. ('WWE"?) has once again sued video game publisher THQ. Now, details of WWE's claim are available.
In essence, [read more]Tuesday, 24 October 2006 | Tudor Carsten |
| Konami, publisher of Dance Dance Revolution, has settled with Roxor, who had developed its own DDR clone, "In the Groove." Konami had filed suit against Roxor, alleging trademark and patent [read more]Friday, 20 October 2006 | Dani Lemon |
| World Wrestling Entertainment Inc. ('WWE"?) has named video game publisher THQ in a lawsuit seeking, among other things, monetary damages as well as a declaration that WWE is entitled [read more]Thursday, 19 October 2006 | Tudor Carsten |
| Ever had the feeling that you pay too much tax? Ever escaped to your favourite MMO to avoid the realities of everyday life? Well, a taxing reality may soon catch up with gaming worlds and [read more]Thursday, 19 October 2006 | Pablo Guzman |
| My name is Casper Bych, and I am a practicing lawyer in Vancouver, BC. I practice in the corporate finance and securities group at Davis, and am also a member of the firm's Video Games Group [read more]Thursday, 19 October 2006 | Casper Bych |
| Atari, Inc. cannot get a break. Infogrames Entertainment, the parent of Atari, which has been struggling financially for a while (and is now reduced to a penny stock) failed to get the required [read more]Thursday, 19 October 2006 | Casper Bych |
| The chips have fallen and Advanced Micro Devices, Inc., also known as AMD (NYSE AMD) has cleared another hurdle in the process of its take-over ofATI Technologies Inc.(NASDAQATYT and the TSX ATY) [read more]Thursday, 19 October 2006 | Casper Bych |
| AAfter recent brouhaha (brouhaHA?) surrounding an ominous privacy disclaimer contained in EA's shooter game Battlefield 2142, the CEO of advertising giant IGA Worldwide has said that any incursions [read more]Thursday, 19 October 2006 | Dani Lemon |
| Recently several listings appeared on eBay for PS3 pre-orders. The owners of the listings, who claimed they had secured PS3 pre-orders from various retailers, were offering the pre-orders for [read more]Tuesday, 17 October 2006 | Chris Bennett |
| After an unprecedented judicial review to determine if Bully was a public nuisance, some say 'a short gaming session"?, a judge has cleared it for sale next week without any restrictions [read more]Monday, 16 October 2006 | Pablo Guzman |
| We're pleased to report that Edge Magazine selected our blog as its website of the month for November. We're honoured! [read more]Friday, 13 October 2006 | Chris Bennett |
| Florida's Third Court of Appeal has ordered that Take-Two's Bully be reviewed by a judge to determine if it should be deemed a 'public nuisance"?. If found to be a public nuisance, [read more]Thursday, 12 October 2006 | Pablo Guzman |
| A Federal District judge has issued an injunction temporarily blocking the coming into force of Oklahoma's video game law on November 1st.
The provisional injunction foreshadows that the [read more]Thursday, 12 October 2006 | Pablo Guzman |
| The defendants - U.S., Canadian and U.K. individuals and corporations - were found by the court to have violated the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (the 'DMCA"?) by trafficking mod chips [read more]Monday, 9 October 2006 | Tudor Carsten |
| The Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act was unexpectedly passed by Congress on Saturday.
In general, the bill prohibits banks and credit card issuers from processing payments [read more]Monday, 2 October 2006 | Pablo Guzman |
| The European Patent Convention says that schemes, rules and methods for playing games, and programs for computers, cannot be patented. However, the European Patent Office has taken a broad approach [read more]Monday, 2 October 2006 | David Spratley |
| Cody Posey was convicted in February, 2006 of murdering his family. In a wrongful death suit filed September 25, 2006 and seeking an unspecified amount of damages, the victims' relatives named [read more]Tuesday, 26 September 2006 | Tudor Carsten |
| Following the filing of a lawsuit by Guitar Hero publisher and recent Activision acquisition RedOctane against The Ant Commandos (TAC), over third-party Guitar Hero controllers, TAC has filed a counter-claim [read more]Tuesday, 26 September 2006 | Chris Bennett |
| Ubisoft is justifiably annoyed that a file containing confidential information and images about upcoming games has made its way onto the Internet. An inquisitive web surfer pulled the file from [read more]Friday, 22 September 2006 | David Spratley |
| Red Octane (the publisher of Guitar Hero) has sued the Ant Commandos for selling wireless guitar controllers for use with the game. Red Octane claims Ant Commandos copied Guitar Hero [read more]Thursday, 21 September 2006 | Chris Bennett |
| Red Octane (the publisher of Guitar Hero) has sued the Ant Commandos for selling wireless guitar controllers for use with the game. Red Octane claims Ant Commandos copied Guitar Hero [read more]Wednesday, 20 September 2006 | Chris Bennett |
| This isn't breaking news, but it's an interesting issue that recently came to our attention. On-line gamers often create what are called 'clans"? or 'guilds"? "? [read more]Tuesday, 19 September 2006 | David Spratley |
| Graphics processor giant nVidia is being sued for patent infringement. Scanner Technologies, in their suit launched in the U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Texas, claims that two [read more]Tuesday, 19 September 2006 | Dani Lemon |
| The U.S. Senate has passed the Children and Media Research Advancement Act ('CAMRA"?). CAMRA aims to foment research on the effect of modern media (including the Internet and video games) [read more]Monday, 18 September 2006 | Pablo Guzman |
| Online instant chat company Paltalk has sued Microsoft for patent infringement. The lawsuit claims that Xbox Live violates two of Paltalk's US patents which cover online communications.
This [read more]Friday, 15 September 2006 | Chris Bennett |
| Linden Labs, the operator of the popular capitalist-fantasy MMORPG, announced on Monday that a hacker had accessed a Web server for several hours, thereby accessing users' confidential information, [read more]Thursday, 14 September 2006 | Tudor Carsten |
| 25-year-old Kimveer Gill is reported to be responsible for the murder of one Dawson College student and injuring 19 others. Not to mention scaring and scarring the student population and bringing [read more]Thursday, 14 September 2006 | Pablo Guzman |
| As reported yesterday, Infogrames Entertainment is in financial trouble and it has unveiled the cure, a debt restructuring plan pursuant to which it will shed approximately 173 million Euros in debt [read more]Wednesday, 13 September 2006 | Casper Bych |
| In April of this year, we reported that Atari, Inc. risked being delisted from NASDAQ if its shares did not trade above $1.00 for more than 10 consecutive business days. That deadline ran out [read more]Tuesday, 12 September 2006 | Casper Bych |
| Now Atari, Inc.'s parent company, Infogrames Entertainment SA, has been suspended from the French stock exchange due to continuing operation related issues.
Lately, Infogrames has been struggling [read more]Tuesday, 12 September 2006 | Casper Bych |
| Late last month video game giant EA entered into an agreement with in-game advertiser Massive through which various EA games will be included in Massive's advertising network. As a result, [read more]Monday, 11 September 2006 | David Spratley |
| Here's another dispatch from the wacky world of virtual property. Various players in the on-line game 'Eve Online"? gave large amounts of in-game currency to another player who operated [read more]Thursday, 7 September 2006 | David Spratley |
| NC Soft, creator of "City of Heroes," wants to be a real-life superhero when it comes to protecting the virtual world from evil. The company has announced that it is launching [read more]Thursday, 7 September 2006 | Dani Lemon |
| In what is said to be the first such deal of its kind, Double Fusion has partnered with Emergent for the integration of their in-game ad technology to Gamebryo Element game engine and toolkit. Double [read more]Thursday, 7 September 2006 | Pablo Guzman |
| Reputedly the largest Chinese video game publisher, Soft-World International has sued Square-Enix for reimbursement of US$3.78 million in paid royalties based on the alleged breach of a MMORPG distribution [read more]Tuesday, 5 September 2006 | Pablo Guzman |
| Take-Two should be celebrating last quarter's jump in its net revenue to $240 million. Instead, Take-Two is reported to have announced the delay of its final earnings report due to an internal [read more]Friday, 1 September 2006 | Pablo Guzman |
| Earlier this month we reported on a US district court ruling that fantasy baseball leagues can use player names and stats without permission from Major League Baseball because MLB doesn't own [read more]Thursday, 31 August 2006 | Michael Coburn |
| The complaint, filed with the Los Angeles Superior Court on August 25, 2006, alleges improprieties in the video game maker's issuance of stock options. Both current and former officers are [read more]Thursday, 31 August 2006 | Tudor Carsten |
| There has been some recent hubbub over whether Konami's Pro Evolution Soccer 6 will be exclusive to the XBOX 360. Microsoft has announced that the game will be a 360 exclusive in Europe for [read more]Wednesday, 30 August 2006 | David Spratley |
| The Rockstar game, due for an October, 2006 release, has been awarded an M rating by Australia's OFCL, thereby avoiding the MA15+ rating which could have effectively banned the game in that [read more]Tuesday, 29 August 2006 | Tudor Carsten |
| Two Bristol men have been sent to jail for large-scale copying operations, which included the creation and sale of pirated games. The men have been convicted under the UK Trade-marks Act and [read more]Monday, 28 August 2006 | David Spratley |
| As you might know, there is an ongoing debate in our Video Game Law group regarding which vessel would win in a head-to-head battle the USS Enterprise or an Imperial Star Destroyer.
One of our [read more]Saturday, 26 August 2006 | Chris Bennett |
| District Judge James Brady has issued a parish-limited preliminary injunction against the State of Louisiana's Violent Game Law. Judge Brady found that "social science evidence demonstrating [read more]Friday, 25 August 2006 | Pablo Guzman |
| Microsoft has filed two lawsuits (one in Utah and one in California) against four defendants it accuses of cybersquatting and typosquatting. Microsoft claims the defendants have registered hundreds [read more]Wednesday, 23 August 2006 | Chris Bennett |
| More than a little distress was caused this week when Microsoft security development engineer Dave Weinstein told developers at the Microsoft Gamefest that criminal elements are hacking into MMORPGs, [read more]Friday, 18 August 2006 | Chris Bennett |
| Florida lawyer and anti-video game crusader Jack Thompson has filed a petition with the 11thJudicial Circuit Court asking for Take-Two Interactive Software and Wal-Mart to supply him with an advance [read more]Thursday, 17 August 2006 | Tudor Carsten |
| A woman who had previously served 12 months in a British prison for videogame piracy has now had almost $500,000 in assets seized for further piracy, after being found in possession of pirated PS2 [read more]Thursday, 17 August 2006 | Dani Lemon |
| The British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal has awarded almost $150,000 to a former EA employee who claims she was unjustly fired after a suffering a breakdown. The worker's health deteriorated [read more]Wednesday, 16 August 2006 | David Spratley |
| The Entertainment Software Association has announced that the video game industry was successful in forcing the State of Illinois to pay its legal bill for challenging a law that the judge said it [read more]Monday, 14 August 2006 | Pablo Guzman |
| The ESA, which established the ESRB, contends that a proposed bill - the "Truth in Video Game Rating Act" (HR 5912) - requiring the ESRB to play through every single video game it rates [read more]Friday, 11 August 2006 | Tudor Carsten |
| Six managers have filed a class action suit for unpaid overtime, under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). They seek to have managers denied overtime since 2003 because they were classified [read more]Friday, 11 August 2006 | Pablo Guzman |
| A US district court judge in St. Louis has ruled that fantasy baseball leagues can use player names and stats without permission from Major League Baseball because MLB doesn't own any intellectual [read more]Thursday, 10 August 2006 | Chris Bennett |
| Microsoft is confident that the DVD firmware hack will be countered by its Xbox Live updates.
Sales of security upgraded consoles in Korea have increased over the past month after hackers tinkered [read more]Wednesday, 9 August 2006 | Pablo Guzman |
| We're all aware of the difficulties that Rock Star and Take Two have experienced in relation to GTA San Andreas, but this one takes the cake Rock Star was sued by an LA strip club for trade-mark [read more]Wednesday, 9 August 2006 | David Spratley |
| US Representative Cliff Stearns has introduced a new bill (HR 5912) titled the 'Truth in Video Game Rating Act"?. The bill, which is directed at the Federal Trade Commission, prohibits [read more]Friday, 4 August 2006 | David Spratley |
| Eidos, makers of theTomb Raiderseries, are contemplating legal action for copyright infringement against Ozura Mobile, who are marketing a new game for mobile handsets called "Lava Kroft." [read more]Friday, 4 August 2006 | Dani Lemon |
| Back in May, Minnesota introduced a law making it a petty misdemeanour for a person younger than 17 to rent or purchase a video game with an M or AO rating (see here ). As it has done in many [read more]Tuesday, 1 August 2006 | David Spratley |
| The province, which last month awarded a total $300,000 to five video game projects and earlier set up a $350,000 incubator fund, has recently announced new grants to help video game makers with [read more]Monday, 31 July 2006 | Tudor Carsten |
| We reported earlier this month that Take Two Interactive had settled the FTC complaints regarding GTA San Andreas. However, this step forward was recently offset by a lawsuit filed by Take Two [read more]Wednesday, 26 July 2006 | Chris Bennett |
| In a report issued last week, entitled the "Game Industry Strategic Framework", Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry ('METI"?) has issued three recommendations that [read more]Tuesday, 25 July 2006 | Chris Bennett |
| Square Enix announced on July 21, 2006 that it had banned or suspended more than 2,000 accounts for its popular Final Fantasy XI video game, citing violations of the user agreement on account of 'malicio [read more]Tuesday, 25 July 2006 | Tudor Carsten |
| The family of legendary football announcer John Facenda has filed a federal lawsuit against the NFL, NFL Films, and NFL Properties LLC in a Philadelphia court this week, for unauthorized use [read more]Friday, 21 July 2006 | Dani Lemon |
| Robert Parungao, a student researcher at the University of British Columbia, says that his research shows that certain video games perpetuate racial stereotypes about Asians. He has examined [read more]Thursday, 20 July 2006 | David Spratley |
| Several professional poker players, including Chris 'Jesus"? Ferguson say they will file a lawsuit against the World Poker Tournament organizers today. The players are upset because [read more]Thursday, 20 July 2006 | Chris Bennett |
| Sony's patented process, which is intended to let users control the action in a video game, would allow a game system (such as the Playstation 3) to view a rod-like controller in a 2D camera [read more]Thursday, 20 July 2006 | Tudor Carsten |
| The Entertainment Software Association (ESA), the video game industry's trade body, and the Entertainment Software Association of Canada (ESAC) jointly issued congratulations to the Royal Canadian [read more]Thursday, 20 July 2006 | Chris Bennett |
| Nintendo might be taking one for the team in the name of energy conservation. The UK is contemplating a new law to get citizens to save energy which would outlaw stand-by switches on electronics, [read more]Thursday, 20 July 2006 | Dani Lemon |
| An Italian news service reports that Ambra Pasta, an Italian pasta company, has commenced legal proceedings against EA over the use of the trade-mark AMBRA in EA's FIFA 2006. The exact nature [read more]Monday, 17 July 2006 | David Spratley |
| Las Vegas officials are concerned about their city being the setting for Ubisoft's upcoming 'Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Vegas"?. They are worried that hyper-realistic images [read more]Monday, 17 July 2006 | David Spratley |
| Gamasutra is reporting that San Francisco firm Massive Black , which designs and outsources art, textures, and 3D models for developers, has filed a civil suit against two former [read more]Monday, 17 July 2006 | Dani Lemon |
| We're pleased to report that our blog now contains a table of video game law cases. It's a work in progress (we have a bunch more cases to add) but we're so excited that we [read more]Friday, 14 July 2006 | Chris Bennett |
| Agere Systems recently sued Sony for patent infringement, claiming that technology in the PSP, PS2 and possibly the PS3 violate Agere's patents. Agere is claiming that Sony knew about the [read more]Friday, 14 July 2006 | Chris Bennett |
| Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc. is one among a number of companies which are being investigated by the US Securities Exchange Commission for option grants to its executives dating back to 1997 [read more]Thursday, 13 July 2006 | Casper Bych |
| In an effort to retain valuable employees, videogame maker Electronic Arts will ask its shareholders this month to approve a plan to let employees swap 'underwater options"? for restricted [read more]Wednesday, 12 July 2006 | Chris Bennett |
| The video game publisher has announced that, along with the confiscation of the 15 trillion gold pieces, 180 user accounts have been cancelled for the long-running MMORPG. Electronic Arts claims [read more]Tuesday, 11 July 2006 | Tudor Carsten |
| In an earlier posting we reported that Throwback Entertainment had acquired several properties from now-bankrupt Acclaim Entertainment. Now Gamespot has run an interview with Throwback, providing [read more]Tuesday, 11 July 2006 | Chris Bennett |
| SCi is denying allegations made by MGE and Mithis Entertainment, developers ofBattlestations MidwayandJoint Task Force,that SCi employees broke into the Hungarian offices of the developers last week [read more]Monday, 10 July 2006 | Dani Lemon |
| Ferrari Enzo aside, it's been a rough ride for former Gizmondo executive Bo Stefan Erikkson. First he was convicted for fraud and other charges relating to his involvement with the [read more]Monday, 10 July 2006 | Dani Lemon |
| Sony Computer Entertainment is introducing a new PSP in 'ceramic white"? (the original PSP is black). However, some ads for the new PSP in the Netherlands are causing a bit of a stir [read more]Friday, 7 July 2006 | David Spratley |
| Last year we reported that the trustee for Acclaim Entertainment had been liquidating Acclaim's assets since Acclaim's bankruptcy. We're pleased to report that one of our clients, [read more]Friday, 7 July 2006 | Chris Bennett |
| Eidos'Reservoir Dogsvideo game, already banned in Australia, has now been banned in New Zealand as well. At issue is the game's 'extreme level"? of violence, with New Zealand's [read more]Friday, 7 July 2006 | Tudor Carsten |
| The developer of Xenepic Online, a popular Japanese MMOG, announced recently that players' personal information was inadvertently compromised. Information relating to almost 300,000 players [read more]Friday, 30 June 2006 | David Spratley |
| For the first time in Nintendo's history, Nintendo's shareholders have voted against a recommendation from its board of directors. The board of directors of Nintendo had suggested a proposal [read more]Friday, 30 June 2006 | Casper Bych |
| Take-Two Interactive is reported to have been sued for $250,000 by actor Roger Hill for the unlawful use of his likeness in The Warriors, a game based on the film by the same name. He is also [read more]Wednesday, 28 June 2006 | Pablo Guzman |
| Insomniac Games' president, Ted Price, is said to have filed a brief supporting the Entertainment Software Association's and the Entertainment Merchants Association's judicial challenge [read more]Wednesday, 28 June 2006 | Pablo Guzman |
| Eidos'Reservoir Dogsvideo game is the latest title to be refused official classification by the Australian Office of Film and Literature Classification. Although the official OFLC explanation [read more]Wednesday, 28 June 2006 | Michael Coburn |
| Take-Two Interactive has received grand jury subpoenas from the New York County district attorney, requesting documents relating to the Hot Coffee sex scenes in GTA San Andreas.
This is [read more]Tuesday, 27 June 2006 | Chris Bennett |
| We recently reported on the State of Oklahoma's new video game law and on the computer and video game industry's intention to contest this new law ( here ). Well, the Entertainment Software [read more]Monday, 26 June 2006 | Chris Bennett |
| (This is an archived case summary)
Desgagne v. Yuen, [2006] B.C.J. No. 1418
The plaintiff claimed damages for a personal injury suffered as a result of a collision when she was riding her [read more]Wednesday, 21 June 2006 | David Spratley |
| CAE's president, Robert Brown, has confirmed that CAE has put together a team to study the feasibility of developing aviation themed video games. Mr Brown is quoted as saying that technological [read more]Wednesday, 21 June 2006 | Pablo Guzman |
| A judge of the U.S. District Court in Louisiana has granted a temporary injunction against Louisiana's newest video game law in response to a first amendment challenge by the ESA and EMA. HB1381, [read more]Tuesday, 20 June 2006 | Tudor Carsten |
| On June 16, 2006, HB1381 was signed into law in Louisiana. The law, which carries a penalty of up to $2,000 as well as imprisonment for up to a year, provides that an interactive video or computer [read more]Monday, 19 June 2006 | Tudor Carsten |
| Square Enix is taking steps to stop the trading of in-game currency (called "gil") from Final Fantasy XI online multiplayer game for real money (artfully referred to as Real Money Trading, [read more]Tuesday, 13 June 2006 | David Spratley |
| We reported, in April 2006 (click here ), that the Oklahoma House of Representatives was considering a new bill that would redefine a list of items, such as hardcore pornography, which are deemed [read more]Tuesday, 13 June 2006 | Chris Bennett |
| Smith& Jones Addiction Consultants is opening Europe's first detox clinic for video game addicts in Amsterdam.
It is reported that about a dozen clinics already exist in the United States [read more]Tuesday, 13 June 2006 | Pablo Guzman |
| In an strange intersection of video games and the law, it seems that the US Federal Court judge hearing the John "Junior" Gotti conspiracy case has been accused of playing video games during [read more]Monday, 12 June 2006 | David Spratley |
| In an earlier posting we reported that a World of Warcraft enthusiast had sued Blizzard Entertainment, parent company Vivendi Universal and the Entertainment Software Association for "improperly" [read more]Saturday, 10 June 2006 | Chris Bennett |
| THQ and The Tetris Company have settled a dispute over licensing rights to Tetris. As a result, THQ has acquired the rights to publish a Tetris game for the Xbox 360 in North America and other [read more]Friday, 9 June 2006 | David Spratley |
| Nintendo has announced that it is rebranding some of its hand-held games. The new brand is 'Touch Generations"?, and will include a distinctive logo. Touch Generations games are [read more]Thursday, 8 June 2006 | David Spratley |
| The US Federal Trade Commission announced today that it has reached a settlement with Take-Two and Rockstar Games regarding GTA San Andreas.
GTA San Andreas sparked enormous controversy last [read more]Thursday, 8 June 2006 | David Spratley |
| Just a few days ago we reported that Minnesota had passed some novel video game legislation (novel in the sense that it targets under-aged purchasers of M or AO-rated games, whereas most other states [read more]Wednesday, 7 June 2006 | Chris Bennett |
| Louisiana House Bill No. 254 has received a second reading in the senate and been referred to a Judiciary Committee. The Bill, which has been revised several times, amends the crime of sale, [read more]Tuesday, 6 June 2006 | Tudor Carsten |
| China's Ministry of Culture has identified four games to be banned because they contain pornographic images, violent content or gambling. The games are Blood Rayne II, Obscure, AV Mahjong, [read more]Monday, 5 June 2006 | David Spratley |
| Adopting a somewhat different approach to that of other states, which have attempted to enact bills that proposed fines for retailers who sell inappropriate games to minors, Minnesota bill HF1298 [read more]Friday, 2 June 2006 | Chris Bennett |
| Several news agencies are reporting that students from the Union of Islamic Student Societies are designing a video game where Commander Bahman, an Iranian special forces hero, must rescue the country's [read more]Wednesday, 31 May 2006 | Pablo Guzman |
| Last May 9 House Rep. Michael Fitzpatrick introduced the Deleting Online Predators Act with the view of amending the Communications Act of 1934, targeting access by minors of commercial 'social-networkin [read more]Tuesday, 30 May 2006 | Pablo Guzman |
| Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has long foretold the invasion of Venezuela by the United States. Now members of Mr. Chavez' government find evidence in support of his fears in Pandemic [read more]Tuesday, 30 May 2006 | Pablo Guzman |
| It all started innocently enough a Battlefield 2 player, inspired by the movie Team America World Police, created a short fan film using, among other things, footage from BF2's Special Forces [read more]Thursday, 25 May 2006 | David Spratley |
| The Maryland House and Senate unanimously passed its video game bill into law on May 2. It comes into force on October 1, 2006. Surprisingly, the Entertainment Software Association not [read more]Thursday, 25 May 2006 | Pablo Guzman |
| Stream Theory, which provides streaming application technology, has filed a patent infringement suit against three other companies (Softricity, AppStream and Exent). Stream Theory has a Games [read more]Wednesday, 24 May 2006 | David Spratley |
| Our blog has over two dozen categories of video game law material, including advertising law, IP law, privacy law and more. We now have a new category and RSS feed for virtual property in video [read more]Wednesday, 24 May 2006 | Chris Bennett |
| Tennessee's Senator Kilby has withdrawn his anti-violent videogames bill over constitutionality concerns. In brief, his bill proposed the ban of the sale of violent videogames, regardless [read more]Tuesday, 23 May 2006 | Pablo Guzman |
| A while ago, Immersion Corporation was awarded damages of over $80 million in its patent infringement lawsuit against Sony (see our coverage here and here ). The lawsuit involved the force-feedback [read more]Tuesday, 23 May 2006 | David Spratley |
| The WWE and THQ aren't the best of friends. THQ has a merchandising licence from the WWE, but the WWE says it was obtained by commercial bribery. In 2004, the WWE sued THQ and its joint-venture [read more]Monday, 22 May 2006 | Chris Bennett |
| A gamer has sued Second-Life publisher, Linden Lab, after his online game account was shut down. The gamer claims this resulted in the lost of $3,200 in virtual property. He is now demanding [read more]Monday, 22 May 2006 | Chris Bennett |
| The Minnesota House of Representatives has passed a bill which targets the customer side the video game retail transaction "? the bill makes it a petty misdemeanour for a person younger than [read more]Friday, 19 May 2006 | David Spratley |
| The General Manager of Nintendo UK has taken a few public shots at Sony's new motion-sensing controller, which Sony revealed at the recent E3 convention. According to Gamasutra, David Yarnton [read more]Friday, 19 May 2006 | David Spratley |
| A subscriber to the popular Second Life video game has filed a lawsuit in Pennsylvania seeking financial damages against the video game's publisher, Linden Research Inc., citing a breach of a [read more]Friday, 19 May 2006 | Tudor Carsten |
| Lucent sued Microsoft in March 2006, claiming that technology inthe Xbox 360 used for decoding MPEG-2 files infringes Lucent's patent. Microsoft has now filed a countersuit claiming that [read more]Thursday, 18 May 2006 | David Spratley |
| Louisiana's house of representatives has now passed a bill that would prohibit the sale of potentially harmful video games to minors. The next step is for the bill to proceed before the senate [read more]Thursday, 18 May 2006 | Chris Bennett |
| After having succeeded earlier this month in obtaining a provisional injunction against former Ubisoft Montreal head Martin Tremblay (reported here ), now President of Worldwide Studios at Vivendi [read more]Thursday, 18 May 2006 |
| Timothy Roberts, the former Chief Executive Officer of Infinium Lab, Inc. has been charged by the SEC for artificially inflating the value of Infinium Lab’s stock.
Timothy Roberts allegedly authorized [read more]Wednesday, 17 May 2006 | Casper Bych |
| The parents of a 13-year-old Chinese boy who they say jumped to his death from a tall building after playing one of the popular 'Warcraft"? online games for 36 hours straight are suing Aomeisoft, [read more]Wednesday, 17 May 2006 | Chris Bennett |
| If you're planning an auditory tour de force at next year's Electronic Entertainment Expo, think again.
NCsoft, who set up a large stage area at E3 2006 for live music sets and encouraged [read more]Monday, 15 May 2006 | Tudor Carsten |
| California's video game legislation, which was due to come into force on January 1, 2006, is under review by the federal court. The legislation restricts the sale of violent games to minors and [read more]Saturday, 13 May 2006 | Chris Bennett |
| A co-owner of a trendy Melrose Avenue game store has pleaded guilty to conspiring to traffic in copyright-circumvention technology, conspiring to infringe copyright for financial gain, and wilfully [read more]Thursday, 11 May 2006 | David Spratley |
| VMC Game Labs, a Redmond, WA based consulting agency offering technical support for the video game producers, has opened its first office in Canada and has chosen Montreal as its home.
VMC Game [read more]Tuesday, 9 May 2006 | Chris Bennett |
| First there was the revelation that a mod (a downloadable software modification) for Grand Theft Auto San Andreas used hidden code in the video game to allow the gangster protagonist to engage in [read more]Friday, 5 May 2006 | Tudor Carsten |
| Activision, Inc. (NASDAQ ATVI) has joined Electronic Arts in its class action woes due to lack of payment of overtime wages to its computer graphics employees.
The plaintiff, a former animator [read more]Thursday, 4 May 2006 | Casper Bych |
| We've talked before about in-game advertising (for example, here and here ). One of the leaders in this field is Massive Inc., a New York firm that has developed technology that lets [read more]Tuesday, 2 May 2006 | David Spratley |
| Eliot Spitzer, New York's incredibly active Attorney General and Democratic candidate for Governor, has spoken out about video game regulation. Mr. Spitzer stated that a government-controlled [read more]Tuesday, 2 May 2006 | David Spratley |
| Martin Tremblay, formerly the head of Ubisoft in Quebec, now the President Worldwide Studios of Vivendi Games, has been provisionally enjoined by Mongeon J.C.S. of Quebec's Superior Court from, [read more]Tuesday, 2 May 2006 | Pablo Guzman |
| The latest in the seemingly relentless political attacks on the videogames industry comes in the shape of a new violent videogames bill from the State of Oklahoma, which has successfully passed a [read more]Friday, 28 April 2006 | Chris Bennett |
| Nintendo has changed the name of its next-gen consol from 'Revolution"? to 'Wii"? (pronounced 'we"?).
Interestingly, it appears Nintendo has not yet filed Canadian [read more]Thursday, 27 April 2006 | Chris Bennett |
| Electronic Arts recently announced that it had settled a lawsuit with former employees for $14.9 million. The former employees claimed they were required to work significant overtime without [read more]Wednesday, 26 April 2006 | Chris Bennett |
| A recent study by the Consumer Electronics Association found that among game players between the ages of 25 and 34 woman outnumber men almost 2 to 1. Women in that bracket were found to be less [read more]Tuesday, 18 April 2006 | Pablo Guzman |
| On April 12, 2006, Blizzard announced that it has banned 5,400 World of Warcraft players and suspended a further 10,700 for participating in activities that violate the game's Terms of Use, including [read more]Monday, 17 April 2006 | Tudor Carsten |
| In February of this year, we reported that 'Marc Ecko's Getting Up: Contents Under Pressure"?, after having originally been classified MA15+ by the Federal Government's Classification [read more]Monday, 17 April 2006 | Chris Bennett |
| In an earlier posting we reported that the owner of cheatcc.com (a site dedicated to posting cheat codes for video games) recently sued a competitor, Crave Online Media, for copying his postings and [read more]Wednesday, 12 April 2006 | Chris Bennett |
| A new study published in The Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine concludes that playing violent video games can lead to negative attitudes and behaviours. The subjects were randomly [read more]Wednesday, 12 April 2006 | David Spratley |
| Those of you who regularly read our postings know that Dave and Chris are embroiled in an ongoing dispute about whether the USS Enterprise could defeat an Imperial Star Destroyer in a one-on-one fight [read more]Friday, 7 April 2006 | Chris Bennett |
| Mercury Games, run by the same individuals who ran the now-defunct Digital Jesters, is in some hot water already. Apparently Mercury's new web site, launched just last week, contained incorrect [read more]Wednesday, 5 April 2006 | David Spratley |
| Lucent Technologies has sued Microsoft for infringing Lucent's US patent for 'Adaptive Coding and Decoding of Frames of Fields of Video"?. Lucent has claimed that the XBOX 360's [read more]Wednesday, 5 April 2006 | Chris Bennett |
| Five Ravenna, Ohio teenagers are facing criminal charges after constructing life-size Super Mario Bros. power-up blocks and placing them around their town on April 1st. Although Tim Surette [read more]Wednesday, 5 April 2006 | Dani Lemon |
| A report released on April 3, 2006 by the Harvard School of Public Health suggests that 80 percent of M-rated video games include sex, violence, profanity, gambling or drug and alcohol use which is [read more]Tuesday, 4 April 2006 | Tudor Carsten |
| Last year a Chinese court convicted a man for selling passwords and in-game property which he had stolen from players of the online game "Da Xihua Xiyou". Another court has just upheld [read more]Monday, 3 April 2006 | David Spratley |
| A man named of Essex, in south east England, was convicted for handling stolen goods, and has also received an extended sentence for being in possession of modified game console chips.
Investigators [read more]Monday, 3 April 2006 | Chris Bennett |
| In an earlier posting , we reported that the author of an unauthorized guide to World of Warcraft was suing Blizzard Entertainment, Vivendi Universal and the Entertainment Software Association for [read more]Friday, 31 March 2006 | Chris Bennett |
| In 2003, two police officers and a dispatcher were killed in Alabama by a teenager who played Grand Theft Auto obsessively. The teen was sentenced to death, and the families of the victims sued [read more]Thursday, 30 March 2006 | Chris Bennett |
| In an earlier posting , we reported that Rockstar andTake-Two Interactive had been sued by the LA city attorney. The lawsuit claims they made misleading statements and engaged in unfair competition [read more]Wednesday, 29 March 2006 | Chris Bennett |
| Take-Two Interactive has filed three US trade-mark application for VICE CITY STORIES, giving some indication as to how the Grand Theft Auto series is to continue. Industry analysts expect that [read more]Wednesday, 29 March 2006 | David Spratley |
| In a suit filed yesterday in a California court , Brian Knopp is suing Blizzard Entertainment, parent company Vivendi Universal and the Entertainment Software Association for "improperly" [read more]Friday, 24 March 2006 | Dani Lemon |
| Delaware Rep. Helene Keeley, the sponsor of a similar bill that failed in the past, has renewed her efforts in the state congress to prevent the sale of violent games to minors. This time, Rep. Keeley [read more]Wednesday, 22 March 2006 | Chris Bennett |
| It seems we like to talk.
Last week, Chris Bennett gave a presentation on video game development agreements at the Gamer Law Conference in Beverly Hills.
And on June 7, [read more]Tuesday, 21 March 2006 | Chris Bennett |
| Shares in French video game publisher Ubisoft Entertainment have risen 4 percent, following the release ofGhost Recon Advanced Warfighteron Xbox 360 in North America and Europe. The game has [read more]Monday, 20 March 2006 | Casper Bych |
| Last year we reported that a jury awarded Immersion Corp. $82 million in damages after deciding that the rumble feature in Sony's Dual Shock controllers violated two US patents owned by Immersion [read more]Tuesday, 14 March 2006 | Chris Bennett |
| Part of Sony's PSP promotional campaign in the UK involved plain white posters with the red text 'take a running jump here"?. After subway and train workers expressed concern [read more]Friday, 10 March 2006 | David Spratley |
| Senator Tommy Kilby of Tennessee has filed a bill (SB 3981) aimed at preventing the sale or rental of 'extremely violent"? video games in the state.
What is meant by 'extremely violent" [read more]Friday, 10 March 2006 | David Spratley |
| NASDAQ has given Atari, Inc., (NASDAQ ATAR), game publisher and developer, until August 30, 2006 to bring its share price above $1 for ten consecutive days. If Atari fails to bring its share [read more]Friday, 10 March 2006 | Casper Bych |
| Microsoft has reached an impressive milestone by obtaining 5,000 US patents. And, most interestingly from our perspective, the fateful 5,000th patent is a game-related one. US patent no [read more]Tuesday, 7 March 2006 | David Spratley |
| Konami, the publisher of Crime Life Gang Wars, a game about black, urban American gangs, has been ordered by the Advertising Standards Authority (the 'ASA"?) not to repeat an ad which appeared [read more]Monday, 6 March 2006 | Michael Coburn |
| In an earlier posting we reported that Yahoo! sued four former employees who (according to Yahoo!) took various trade secrets regarding Yahoo!'s technology for sending content to mobile phones [read more]Friday, 3 March 2006 | Chris Bennett |
| A British MP has re-introduced a private member's bill aimed at limiting the sale of violent video games. The MP, Keith Vaz, has been actively campaigning for a video game crackdown since [read more]Thursday, 2 March 2006 | David Spratley |
| (Just so you know.)
The court in US v. Yonatan Cohen convicted the defendant for violating US copyright laws by selling a game console that contained over 40 Nintendo games. As part of his [read more]Wednesday, 1 March 2006 | Chris Bennett |
| Several former employees left Yahoo! to join mobile game publisher and distributor Mforma. The problem, according to Yahoo!, is that the former employees took with them various trade secrets [read more]Wednesday, 1 March 2006 | Chris Bennett |
| Electronic Arts has announced that it will launch2006 FIFA World Cup in April, in anticipation of the World Cup which begins this June. This will be the only officially-licensed videogame based [read more]Wednesday, 1 March 2006 | David Spratley |
| Martin Edmondson, the founder of Reflections Interactive (a UK development studio owned by Atari) has dropped his unfair dismissal claim against Atari. Mr. Edmondson resigned in December 2004, [read more]Wednesday, 1 March 2006 | David Spratley |
| You may recall that in late January we covered Utah's violent video games bill (HB 257). Well, it was passed overwhelmingly (56-8) by a vote in the Utah House of Representatives last week [read more]Tuesday, 28 February 2006 | Pablo Guzman |
| Immersion, which develops and licenses touch-feedback technology, has reached a settlement with Electro Source, maker of Pelican video game accessories and one of the top three sellers of video console [read more]Tuesday, 28 February 2006 | Chris Bennett |
| In August 2004, American Video Graphics sued Atari and various other publishers for infringing US Patent No. 4,734,690 (a method for spherical panning). A similar lawsuit was also filed against [read more]Friday, 24 February 2006 | Chris Bennett |
| For anyone who's ever stared in awe at a TV commercial for the latest video game and thought 'I can't believe it looks that good!"?, well, you may have been right after all.
In [read more]Wednesday, 22 February 2006 | Tudor Carsten |
| The dispute between Valve, the publisher of Counter-Strike, and IGA Worldwide, an in-game advertising firm, has been resolved. The two companies had become engaged in a legal quarrel over ads [read more]Friday, 17 February 2006 | Tudor Carsten |
| Last week we told you how Tesseraction was claiming victory in winning a summary judgment against GMX over their distribution of "Enigma Rising Tide." Well, apparently victory [read more]Friday, 17 February 2006 | Dani Lemon |
| AAustralia's entertainment ratings board, the Office of Film and Literature Classification, has refused to grant a rating for forthcoming Atari titleMarc Ecko'sGetting Up: Contents Under Pressure, [read more]Wednesday, 15 February 2006 | Chris Bennett |
| Scottish developer Visual Science has recently gone into creditor protection. The company blames its financial woes on Vivendi Universal Vivendi recently terminated its development agreement [read more]Friday, 10 February 2006 | Chris Bennett |
| (a case summary)
The Governor of Michigan signedMichigan 2005 Public Act 108into law in September 2005, to go into effect on December 1, 2005. The Act is designed to prohibit the dissemination, [read more]Wednesday, 8 February 2006 | David Spratley |
| Tesseraction Games has won a summary judgment against its European publishing partner, UK-based GMX Media , for breach of contract. TAG filed the suit in the District Court of Oregon after alleging [read more]Wednesday, 8 February 2006 | Dani Lemon |
| So you're on your favourite MMO forums and you just read the latest post from Stryker87, a regular contributor on such topics as the etiquette of raiding and the importance of a good supporting [read more]Wednesday, 8 February 2006 | Tudor Carsten |
| In an earlier posting, we reported that Gizmondo Europe sought protection from its creditors. That didn't turn out very well the UK High Court has now ordered Gizmondo Europe to liquidate [read more]Wednesday, 8 February 2006 | Chris Bennett |
| Last week we posted a story regarding the use of the Red Cross insignia in video games. Here's a follow-up story that ran today in the Vancouver Sun, Calgary Herald and Ottawa Citizen [read more]Wednesday, 8 February 2006 | Chris Bennett |
| Sony Online Entertainment 3D artist Josh Robinson has been fired for criticizing the PS3. In January, Robinson posted comments criticizing PS3 development on his blog, including comments [read more]Friday, 3 February 2006 | Dani Lemon |
| In January 2006, Indiana State Senator Vi Simpson announced she would be proposing and supporting a bill to prevent the sale of violent videogames to minors. What exactly was proposed in Senate [read more]Friday, 3 February 2006 | Dani Lemon |
| TToday in Chicago, Mike Sigel (a famous pool player) sued Interplay Entertainment and Celeris Inc. for using his name and likeness in Virtual Pool 2 without his permission. The game apparently [read more]Thursday, 2 February 2006 | Chris Bennett |
| EA's Montreal GM Alain Toscan has sent a letter to Ubisoft's GM Martin Tremblay condemning Ubisoft's practice of requiring employees to sign non-competition agreements, and has [read more]Thursday, 2 February 2006 | Dani Lemon |
| Take-Two Interactive, already the subject of an ongoing investigation by the FTC, was previously named in a lawsuit brought by the families of slain police officers as well as a lawsuit by the LA [read more]Wednesday, 1 February 2006 | Tudor Carsten |
| Hackers continue to chip away at the PSP despite Sony's security upgrades, hackers are able to run their own software on even the latest version of the PSP firmware. The hack depends on using [read more]Wednesday, 1 February 2006 | David Spratley |
| StarForce, Russian makers of game copy protection software that has recently elicited controversy in gaming circles, has threatened technology weblog BoingBoing.net with legal action following a negative [read more]Tuesday, 31 January 2006 | Pablo Guzman |
| Sault Ste. Marie's Algoma University College's Masters programme in gaming has been approved by the Ontario government. The College will be offering the MSc Computer Games Technology [read more]Tuesday, 31 January 2006 | Pablo Guzman |
| virtual gamer Sara Andrews has been instructed by Blizzard Entertainment, the publisher of the popular World of Warcraft online role-playing game, to stop her in-game recruitment activities for her [read more]Tuesday, 31 January 2006 | Tudor Carsten |
| The Red Cross symbol (a red 'plus"? symbol on a white background) is protected by Canadian law. The Canadian Trade-marks prohibits anyone from adopting the Red Cross symbol in connection [read more]Monday, 30 January 2006 | Chris Bennett |
| A new study by the Software Entertainment Association shows that 35 percent of American parents play video games, 73 percent of 'gamer parents"? are regular voters, and 85 percent [read more]Saturday, 28 January 2006 | David Spratley |
| The company, as well as its parent company, Take-Two Interactive, has been sued by the LA city attorney as part of an ongoing investigation into video game marketing. the defendants have been [read more]Friday, 27 January 2006 | Tudor Carsten |
| We reported yesterday about a fatal car crash in Toronto involving two teenagers who were allegedly street racing. Early reports mentioned that a copy of "Need for Speed" was found [read more]Thursday, 26 January 2006 | David Spratley |
| Konami Digital Entertainment and the State of West Virginia have just announced a three year partnership in which all 765 West Virginia public schools will feature Dance Dance Revolution as part of [read more]Thursday, 26 January 2006 | Dani Lemon |
| Another attempt to regulate bad video game content by our neighbours. Utah's Bill HB 257 aims to modify the Criminal Code and stop access to 'inappropriate violence"? by minors [read more]Wednesday, 25 January 2006 | Pablo Guzman |
| Two Toronto teenagers have been charged with criminal negligence causing death after a late-night crash in Toronto on Tuesday night. Police allege that the two teens were street racing when one [read more]Wednesday, 25 January 2006 | David Spratley |
| In an earlier post some of us speculated that the USS Enterprise could defeat an Imperial Star Destroyer. (To be fair, it wasn't an a unanimous judgment, but we cleverly neglected to post [read more]Wednesday, 25 January 2006 | Chris Bennett |
| There are recent reports that as part of the US Department of Justice's effort to enforce online pornography laws, it has petitioned a federal court judge to order Google to release information [read more]Wednesday, 25 January 2006 | Pablo Guzman |
| Gizmondo Europe, a handheld console manufacturer and a subsidiary of Tiger Telematics, has already laid off staff totalling 50% of its payroll in an effort to reduce operating expenses and has obtained [read more]Tuesday, 24 January 2006 | Tudor Carsten |
| In August 2005, 7 of China's largest online video game companies signed an agreement with China's General Administration of Press& Publication (GAPP) office to implement in-game restrictions [read more]Tuesday, 24 January 2006 | Dani Lemon |
| 'Wanna join our group? Then prove you can speak English."?
Chinese-speaking World of Warcraft (WOW) players are complaining that they're being discriminated because they [read more]Sunday, 22 January 2006 | Chris Bennett |
| The continued efforts by US states to introduce legislation preventing the sale of violent videogames to minors took another turn last week, as a Florida Senate committee hearing passed a new bill [read more]Friday, 20 January 2006 | Chris Bennett |
| Sony alleged that the Defendant, Filipiak, operated an on-line retail store that sold devices (“mod chips”) used to modify PlayStation and PlayStation 2 video game consoles so as to circumvent [read more]Tuesday, 17 January 2006 | David Spratley |
| The owners of a video game store in California were recently indicted for allegedly copying XBOX games and installing them on modded consoles.
Video game piracy is obviously an infringement [read more]Monday, 16 January 2006 | Chris Bennett |
| As part of EA and NestaFuturelab's Teaching With Games project, a study published this week says U.K. teachers support the use of video games in education.
1,000 primary and secondary school [read more]Friday, 13 January 2006 | Dani Lemon |
| In the UK, the High Court has granted an order for the winding-up of Digital Jesters, after the firm was sued by several developers for breach of contract and failure to pay monies . Now, the [read more]Thursday, 12 January 2006 | Dani Lemon |
| Ubisoft has signed an exclusive worldwide licence agreement to develop and publish Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle video games based on the upcoming feature film (expected to be released in early 2007) [read more]Wednesday, 11 January 2006 | David Spratley |
| Take-Two Interactive recently purchased Irrational Games, who developed the well-known System Shock 2 game. That game was published by Electronic Arts. Take-Two has announced that it will [read more]Wednesday, 11 January 2006 | David Spratley |
| Here's another post for the "Make up your mind, people!" section of the blog. Back in the fall of 2005, we told you here and here how studies had linked video game playing [read more]Tuesday, 10 January 2006 | Dani Lemon |
| While we thought we were pretty good at coming up with cool and innovative ways to defend intellectual property, Ivy Supersonic has taken it to a whole new level. In 2002, Ms. Supersonic, [read more]Tuesday, 10 January 2006 | Dani Lemon |
| This is a December 21, 2005 decision of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, San Jose division, granting a preliminary injunction against the enforcement of the California [read more]Saturday, 31 December 2005 | Dani Lemon |
| In an earlier posting , we mentioned the ESA's compilation of studies which suggest that video games don't lead to real world violence.
Now, here's an editorial from a video [read more]Thursday, 29 December 2005 | Chris Bennett |
| Maybe it was all that holiday eggnog that did it. Who knows? But the kind folks at Blawg Review declared our Video Game Law Blog the 'judges' choice for Speciality Blawgs"? [read more]Thursday, 29 December 2005 | Chris Bennett |
| The US District Court for the Northern District of California has granted a preliminary injunction stopping the implementation of California's new video game law. The Court stated that video [read more]Friday, 23 December 2005 | David Spratley |
| We reported several months ago (see post ) about how Blizzard was scanning the hard drives of World of Warcraft players, trying to prevent hacking and cheating. Blizzard is obviously keeping [read more]Friday, 23 December 2005 | David Spratley |
| A detailed article on www.eahockey.com (which is not an official EA web site) describes a licensing tangle involving EA, the NHL, the NHL Players' Association, and Take-Two Interactive. Shortly [read more]Wednesday, 21 December 2005 | David Spratley |
| A recent article in the journalNaturediscusses a cancer-causing gene that called the POK erythroid myeloid ontogenic gene. The article refers to the gene as Pokemon (understandable when you [read more]Monday, 19 December 2005 | David Spratley |
| TThe lawsuit against Take-Two brought by the families of police personnel murdered by a GTA-playing teen will continue to trial. An Alabama judge has dismissed Take-Two's motion to dismiss [read more]Friday, 16 December 2005 | David Spratley |
| A year ago Marvel sued NCsoft Corp. and Cryptic Studios Inc. over "City of Heroes", claiming that the game's character customization function allowed players to create superheroes that [read more]Thursday, 15 December 2005 | David Spratley |
| As previously reported (see here ), EA has entered into an agreement to acquire mobile gaming provider Jamdat for an estimated US $680 million. However, a Jamdat shareholder is suing to [read more]Tuesday, 13 December 2005 | Chris Bennett |
| Jack Thompson, the notorious anti-video game lawyer, claims that a 16-year old boy has been arrested for making threatening and harassing phone calls to Thompson. Thompson implies that the threats [read more]Tuesday, 13 December 2005 | David Spratley |
| Just when you thought monolithic publishing emperor EA couldn't get any bigger, it goes and purchases mobile gaming company Jamdat for a reported $680 million, or USD $27 per share. Jamdat [read more]Friday, 9 December 2005 | Chris Bennett |
| When Acclaim Games went belly-up in September 2004, it left scads of vaunted intellectual property like 'The Adventures of Mary Kate& Ashley"? in legal limbo. Howard Marks, a former [read more]Friday, 9 December 2005 | Chris Bennett |
| Vivendi Universal Games, the holder of the rights to the King's Quest games (which were created by Sierra in the 1980s), has allegedly granted a 'fan license"? to Phoenix Online Studios [read more]Friday, 9 December 2005 | Chris Bennett |
| Renowned skateboarder Alan 'Ollie"? Gelfand (the guy who invented the 'Ollie"? skateboard move in 1976) has sued Disney, Sega and others for more than $20million, claiming the companies [read more]Thursday, 8 December 2005 | Chris Bennett |
| The trustee for the bankrupt publisher Acclaim Entertainment, Allan B. Mendelsohn, has put the rights to more than 200 video game titles up for auction in Oceanside, New York. Famous titles [read more]Wednesday, 7 December 2005 | Chris Bennett |
| Sony Computer Entertainment Worldwide Studios has announced that it has acquired developer Guerrilla Games from its parent, Media Republic. Guerrilla Games, known for its creatively-named Playstation [read more]Wednesday, 7 December 2005 | Chris Bennett |
| As reported in an earlier posting , U.S. District Court Judge Kennelly has ruled that the proposed Illinois law, which sought to ban the sale of violent or sexual video games to minors, is unconstitutional [read more]Wednesday, 7 December 2005 | Chris Bennett |
| A Chicago man is suing Microsoft over an alleged design flaw that causes his new 360 to overheat and freeze. (In case that seems oxymoronic, it means the console gets too hot and causes games [read more]Monday, 5 December 2005 | Chris Bennett |
| The US District Court for the Northern District of Illinois has just declared Illinois' Violent Video Game Law and Sexually Explicit Video Game Law unconstitutional.
The Violent Video [read more]Friday, 2 December 2005 | Chris Bennett |
| A game developer has sued EA, claiming EA incorporated some of his ideas into Madden 2006. The developer met with EA in 2003 and disclosed an idea for a football game where the gamer develops [read more]Friday, 2 December 2005 | Chris Bennett |
| This is a December 2, 2005 decision of the U.S. District Court, District of Illinois, Eastern Division, granting a permanent injunction against the implementation by the Illinois state government [read more]Friday, 2 December 2005 | Dani Lemon |
| Someone has been vandalizing buildings in San Francisco, New York, L.A. and Chicago with similar images of characters playing with their PSPs. There's speculation that Sony is supporting [read more]Thursday, 1 December 2005 | Chris Bennett |
| The heat has suddenly been turned up with respect to video game legislation in the United States Senators Hilary Clinton and Joe Lieberman have written a federal bill (the "Family Entertainment [read more]Wednesday, 30 November 2005 | David Spratley |
| The US Patents and Trademarks Office granted Nintendo a new patent earlier this month US Patent No. 6,955,606, with the catchy title 'Game information storage medium and game system using the [read more]Tuesday, 29 November 2005 | David Spratley |
| Sony has announced that its next-generation Playstation 3 will contain controls which allow parents to restrict their children's access to video games or movies with certain ratings, and to control [read more]Tuesday, 29 November 2005 | David Spratley |
| The internet is rife with rumours that xbox 360s are overheating, and xbox 360 games are freezing. Currently, the word is that the 360's brick-sized power supply units may be to blame the [read more]Monday, 28 November 2005 | Chris Bennett |
| David Allison runs cheatcc.com, a site dedicated to posting cheat codes for video games. He recently sued a competitor, Crave Online Media, for copying his postings and replicating them on their [read more]Monday, 28 November 2005 | Chris Bennett |
| We reported earlier this year ( here and here ) about a patent lawsuit between Yahoo! and Xfire concerning instant messaging technology. Xfire had a summary judgment motion scheduled for December [read more]Friday, 25 November 2005 | David Spratley |
| Back in 1997, game publisher Running With Scissors released a PC game called 'Postal"?, a violent shoot-em-up featuring a postal worker on a rampage. Unsurprisingly, Postal caused controversy [read more]Friday, 25 November 2005 | David Spratley |
| Earlier in November, Florida attorney Jack Thompson attempted to withdraw as counsel from an Alabama civil suit against members of the gaming industry. However, judge James Moore has rejected [read more]Wednesday, 23 November 2005 | Chris Bennett |
| Parents of a 13 year-old boy have sued Blizzard Entertainment, claiming that World of Warcraft caused the boy to jump to his death from a 24 story building. The parents are also planning to turn this [read more]Sunday, 20 November 2005 | Chris Bennett |
| No, not on the streets, but in their video games! Proposed amendments to Germany's child protection laws could serve to ban any game which depicts lethal violence. Following trends [read more]Friday, 18 November 2005 | Chris Bennett |
| We just published an article in theLawyers Weeklyregarding unexpected potential liability in the online gaming world.
Here's the link http://www.shorl.com/gorufebradrome [read more]Thursday, 17 November 2005 | Chris Bennett |
| Eidos Interactive announced recently that its soon-to-be-released shooter 'Roll Call"? is being re-named 'Zero Tolerance City Under Fire"?. This move did not sit well with Randel [read more]Wednesday, 16 November 2005 | David Spratley |
| In an earlier posting , we reported that Michigan's violent game legislation had been temporarily suspended after the US District Court granted an injunction preventing the legislation from taking [read more]Wednesday, 16 November 2005 | Chris Bennett |
| This is a completely gratuitous posting. It has nothing to do with video game law. It also has nothing to do with our Star Wars vs. Star Trek category (even though the postings in that [read more]Friday, 11 November 2005 | Chris Bennett |
| The case involved a dispute between a video game developer and a group of publishers and distributors. The Plaintiffs are the publishers; the Defendant is the developer.
The Defendant claimed [read more]Friday, 11 November 2005 | Chris Bennett |
| Sony agreed to settle its 'disc read error"? lawsuit by paying affected gamers US$25 (which is CDN$31"? wooo-hoo!), giving them a free game from a specified list, and by repairing or [read more]Thursday, 10 November 2005 | Chris Bennett |
| Michigan's legislation (which bans the sale of video games to minors) has suffered a setback. The US District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan has granted a preliminary injunction [read more]Thursday, 10 November 2005 | Chris Bennett |
| DogTag developer, KaosKontrol, has terminated its publishing agreement with Digital Jesters and is trying to wind-up Digital Jesters (i.e., shut it down). This follows yesterday's allegations [read more]Wednesday, 9 November 2005 | Chris Bennett |
| Roller Coaster Tycoon developer Chris Sawyer has sued Atari for US$5 million in respect of royalties he claims to be owed by Atari. Sawyer also claims Atari failed to give him access to Atari's [read more]Wednesday, 9 November 2005 | Chris Bennett |
| (This is an archived case summary.)
This November 9, 2005 decision of the U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Michigan, Southern Division, grants a preliminary injunction that prevents the [read more]Wednesday, 9 November 2005 | Chris Bennett |
| This decision of the U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Michigan, Southern Division, grants a preliminary injunction that prevents the Michigan state government from enforcing Michigan Public [read more]Wednesday, 9 November 2005 | Dani Lemon |
| At least two three developers (Frogwares, Cyanide and Nadeo) and one publisher (Focus Home Interactive) have publicly claimed that UK publisher Digital Jesters have engaged in 'highly suspicious"? [read more]Monday, 7 November 2005 | Chris Bennett |
| Ifinium Labs, which trades on the over-the-counter market, is in the midst of one of its biggest challenges to date. Infinium's Chairman Timothy Roberts, who resigned from the posts [read more]Friday, 4 November 2005 | Chris Bennett |
| The US patent office recently granted a US patent (#6,932,341) for a 'video game system auxiliary cover system"?. The system allows gamers to change the appearance of their consoles [read more]Thursday, 3 November 2005 | Chris Bennett |
| The province of New Brunswick is expected to introduce legislation which will require retailers to place ratings on all video games which are available for sale or rental in the province. The [read more]Wednesday, 2 November 2005 | Chris Bennett |
| EA Japan has decided to stop supporting Star Wars Galaxies in Japan. Gamers in Japan can apparently transfer their accounts to other servers; however, the shut-down still raises an interesting [read more]Tuesday, 1 November 2005 | Chris Bennett |
| Florida now has a draft bill to ban the sale and rental of violent video games to minors. The bill is very similar to the recently-passed California legislation.
Coverage at http://www [read more]Friday, 28 October 2005 | Chris Bennett |
| KQIX, the unofficial ninth sequel to the King's Quest series was recently shut down after developers received a demand letter from Vivendi Universal Inc.
The legality of unofficial sequels [read more]Wednesday, 26 October 2005 | Chris Bennett |
| The ESA has released a compilation of studies which suggest that video games don't lead to real world violence. Not surprisingly, the ESA didn't mention any of the studies that came to [read more]Tuesday, 25 October 2005 | Chris Bennett |
| Leland Yee, who wrote and sponsored California's new bill prohibiting the sale of violent video games to children, and Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, who recently signed the bill into law, have [read more]Wednesday, 19 October 2005 | David Spratley |
| As expected, the Video Software Dealers Association and the Entertainment Software Association have started a lawsuit challenging California's new game legislation. The bill, which comes [read more]Tuesday, 18 October 2005 | David Spratley |
| In an earlier posting , we mentioned studies which concluded that violent video games (a) incite violence in youths and (b) have absolutely no effect on youths. A new study from Michigan State [read more]Tuesday, 18 October 2005 | Chris Bennett |
| Director Steven Spielberg, who has directed such movies asET,JawsandSaving Private Ryan, has agreed to develop three video with for EA. This move demonstrates again the increasing ties between [read more]Friday, 14 October 2005 | David Spratley |
| In an earlier post we reported that Microsoft was awarded a temporary injunction preventing a former Microsoft executive (named Kai-Fu Lee) from working for Google on certain products and services [read more]Friday, 14 October 2005 | Chris Bennett |
| No, not the 16thcentury explorer. Dashiell Ponce de Leon of Richmond, Texas has been convicted of criminal copyright infringement by the US District Court of the District of Columbia, for selling [read more]Thursday, 13 October 2005 | Chris Bennett |
| Reports from Germany are that 10 Xbox 360 development kits have been stolen from a German warehouse. The kits, which are used by game developers to create software for the next-generation platform, [read more]Thursday, 13 October 2005 | David Spratley |
| Microsoft and RealNetworks have settled their antitrust dispute (to the tune of US $761 million moving from Microsoft to RealNetworks) and have created a new partnership to innovate and promote consumer [read more]Tuesday, 11 October 2005 | David Spratley |
| Sounds like somebody smells an opportunity last week we reported that EA settled an employee lawsuit in California for $15.6 million. Gamepolitics.com is reporting that another employee [read more]Tuesday, 11 October 2005 | Chris Bennett |
| Governor Arnold Schwartzenegger has approved California's legislation banning the sale and rental of violent video games to anyone under the age of 18. The legislationalso requires a label [read more]Sunday, 9 October 2005 | Chris Bennett |
| A recent lawsuit filed against Rockstar and Take Two in Illinois has been transferred to US District Court because of the Class Action Fairness Act, which requires that claims seeking more than $5 [read more]Friday, 7 October 2005 | David Spratley |
| The High Court of Australia has allowed Mr. Eddy Stevens' appeal of an Australian Full Court decision, which ruled that mod chips sold by Mr. Stevens in Australia were illegal because they [read more]Thursday, 6 October 2005 | Chris Bennett |
| Looks like the giant woke up. As previously reported, Spark Unlimited launched a lawsuit against Activision, alleging that Activisionfailed to pay promised royalties for the first title developed [read more]Thursday, 6 October 2005 | Chris Bennett |
| If all goes according to plan, on October 22ndAmerican gamers will finally be able to get their hands on Tiger Telematics' handheld gaming system, 'Gizmondo,"? which launched in [read more]Thursday, 6 October 2005 | Chris Bennett |
| In July 2004, a group of Electronic Arts employees sued EA for overtime wages. Under California law, some employees in high-tech jobs are not entitled to overtime pay. The EA employees in [read more]Wednesday, 5 October 2005 | Chris Bennett |
| This isn't exactly a video game law story, but it's close enough. The reason we're reporting it is because it provides a great laundry list for counsel who are drafting counterstatements [read more]Monday, 3 October 2005 | Chris Bennett |
| Earlier this week, Microsoft and Intel declared their support for the HD-DVD format for next-generation DVDs (see earlier post ). Dell and HP have now reiterated their support for the competing [read more]Friday, 30 September 2005 | David Spratley |
| Sony has issued another patch for the PSP, this time to fix a bug that allows hackers to crack the PSP and run their own apps on it. Sony isn't currently setting its lawyers loose on PSP [read more]Friday, 30 September 2005 | Chris Bennett |
| ..but the Gizmondo is still not on North American retail shelves.
Tiger Telematics Inc. has announced its intention to become a public company by seeking a listing on the Nasdaq stock exchange. The [read more]Thursday, 29 September 2005 | Chris Bennett |
| Earlier this year Adrian Carmack, one of the founders of id Software (but no relation to co-founder John Carmack), left the company, and it was presumed that he had retired voluntarily. That [read more]Wednesday, 28 September 2005 | David Spratley |
| There are apparently several online hunting websites in the US which allow users to remotely target and shoot various weapons (including rifles, bows, blades and harpoons) at caged animals. In [read more]Wednesday, 28 September 2005 | Chris Bennett |
| Here's an perspective on game legislation from Dennis McCauley, the editor of GamePolitics.com. In his view, "It is no longer sufficient for the industry to sit quietly back, ignoring [read more]Wednesday, 28 September 2005 | Chris Bennett |
| Tech giants Microsoft and Intel have picked sides in the battle over the standard format for next-generation DVDs. Both companies have sided with Toshiba's HD-DVD format in preference over [read more]Tuesday, 27 September 2005 | David Spratley |
| Earlier this month, Blizzard added a new dungeon (Zul'Gurub) to World of Warcraft. Dwelling in the dungeon is a monster called Hakkar, who has the ability to infect players with a virus called [read more]Monday, 26 September 2005 | Chris Bennett |
| We reported a while ago about a grandmother in New York who sued Rockstar Games and Take Two Interactive Software Inc. over the hidden sexual content in GTA San Andreas. A similar class action [read more]Wednesday, 21 September 2005 | David Spratley |
| You may recall that Japanese prefecture Kanagawa labelled GTA III as 'harmful"?, such that it could not be sold or rented to minors (see previous post ). Another Japanese prefecture, [read more]Wednesday, 21 September 2005 | David Spratley |
| In an earlier posting we reported that an anonymous teenager had won a temporary injunction against Topheavy for including topless footage of her in The Guy Game. She had been videotaped while competing [read more]Wednesday, 21 September 2005 | Chris Bennett |
| There are reports that Glud and Marstrand, a Scandinavian packaging company, has sued Microsoft for breaching non-disclosure agreements and misappropriating confidential information.
G&M [read more]Friday, 16 September 2005 | David Spratley |
| The Entertainment Software Association has announced that the owner of the Pandora's Cube chain has been sentenced to 5 months in prison and three years of supervised release (including 5 months [read more]Friday, 16 September 2005 | David Spratley |
| Or should I say, launch dates? Though originally it was at least heavily implied that Xbox 360 would launch in North America, Europe, and Japan on the same date, that's now the same [read more]Thursday, 15 September 2005 | Chris Bennett |
| The Entertainment Software Association has come out swinging against Michigan's new video game legislation, announcing that it will bring a lawsuit challenging that law's constitutionality [read more]Wednesday, 14 September 2005 | David Spratley |
| Microsoft just won a temporary injunction preventing a former Microsoft executive (named Kai-Fu Lee) from working for Google on certain products and services. Mr. Lee was previously the 'face [read more]Tuesday, 13 September 2005 | Chris Bennett |
| The ESRB is trying to clean up the mess that resulted from the Hot Coffee incident. The ESRB has sent a strongly-worded email to US publishers requiring a full audit of all titles released in [read more]Tuesday, 13 September 2005 | David Spratley |
| Tiger Telematics Inc., whose subsidiary and main business enterprise is Gizmondo Europe (the maker of the handheld Gizmondo game console) has put one lawsuit to rest and started another.
In 2004, [read more]Tuesday, 13 September 2005 | David Spratley |
| Earlier this year we reported that Microsoft had recalled more than 14 million XBOX power cables because they were a potential smoke or fire hazard. Now Sony has issued a similar recall for certain [read more]Tuesday, 13 September 2005 | Chris Bennett |
| North Carolina's proposed legislation to criminalize the sale of violent video games to minors has died in committee. Apparently North Carolina's legislators plan to give it a go again [read more]Monday, 12 September 2005 | Chris Bennett |
| Michigan has now passed legislation which (a) requires retailers to display game rating info, and (b) restricts the sale of sexually explicit games to minors. Additional legislation will likely [read more]Monday, 12 September 2005 | Chris Bennett |
| In an earlier posting we discussed California's efforts to protect the Girl Scouts by passing legislation to ban the sale of violent video games to kids. The quote of the day came from Assemblyman [read more]Friday, 9 September 2005 | Chris Bennett |
| Earlier this week, the SEC approved the merger of EB Games and Gamestop, which leaves final approval in the hands of shareholders of both companies, to be determined at a simultaneous annual meeting [read more]Friday, 9 September 2005 | Chris Bennett |
| We reported last month about a dispute between developer Perception and publisher JoWood over the development of a Stargate SG-1 game. JoWood terminated Perception's development agreement, [read more]Wednesday, 7 September 2005 | David Spratley |
| Earlier this summer we reported about the sale of Acclaim's assets as part of Acclaim's bankruptcy proceedings. Now Acclaim's trustee is trying to dig up more assets. The trustee [read more]Monday, 5 September 2005 | Chris Bennett |
| Michigan's House of Representatives has passed two bills to help enforce video game content ratings. Bills 416 and 464 would impose fines on people who sell or rent violent or sexually [read more]Friday, 2 September 2005 | Chris Bennett |
| Last year we reported that Blizzard Entertainment had won its lawsuit against Internet Gateway Inc. and various individuals who reverse engineered Blizzard's software and protocols to create the [read more]Friday, 2 September 2005 | Chris Bennett |
| Here's a further update about Nintendo's 'insanity patent' . Another reader brought to our attention the fact that the 'Call of Cthulu"? paper-based RPG, which has been [read more]Thursday, 1 September 2005 | David Spratley |
| Thanks to one of our readers, who followed up on our recent 'insanity patent"? post to point out that Nintendo's 'Eternal Darkness Sanity's Requiem"? used an in-game sanity [read more]Thursday, 1 September 2005 | David Spratley |
| Several of our readers have noticed that our 'comment"? feature is disabled. A recent US lawsuit shows that this is not necessarily a bad thing a blog operator has been sued for comments [read more]Wednesday, 31 August 2005 | David Spratley |
| In April 2003, Spark Unlimited announced that it and Activision Inc. had entered into an exclusive publishing deal pursuant to which Activision would publish three console games developed by Spark [read more]Tuesday, 30 August 2005 | Chris Bennett |
| An astute Slashdot contributor has called attention to US patent no. 6,935,954, which issued August 30, 2005. The patent, owned by Nintendo, is titled 'Sanity system for video game"? a [read more]Tuesday, 30 August 2005 | David Spratley |
| Namco sued Sony for copyright infringement after one of Sony BMG's recording artists (Lil' Flip) included samples from the Pac Man video game in his 'Game Over"? song. The parties [read more]Monday, 29 August 2005 | Chris Bennett |
| Earlier this year, Japanese toy company Bandai and game publisher Namco announced that they will join forces and create a holding company called Namco Bandai Holdings Inc. The companies have [read more]Friday, 26 August 2005 | Chris Bennett |
| We're pleased to report that our game-savviness (is that a word?) has now been independently verified by the video game media. The proof is on GamePolitics , the blog 'where politics [read more]Wednesday, 24 August 2005 | Chris Bennett |
| A Utah man has been arrested for buying video games and then returning the boxes (re-shrinkwrapped) with blank CDs inside. He would then sell the game CDs on eBay. Authorities say that the [read more]Tuesday, 23 August 2005 | David Spratley |
| Vili the Warrior, a mascot for the University of Hawaii, has sued EA for $75,000. He claims that EA used his character without permission on NCAA Football '06.
Lawsuits such as this [read more]Friday, 19 August 2005 | Chris Bennett |
| We're all aware that people sometimes get mugged for their flashy possessions "? an iPod, say, or an expensive pair of shoes. This sad trend has now made its way into the virtual world [read more]Friday, 19 August 2005 | David Spratley |
| Need to promote or condemn video game legislation? Here's the easy solution pick a study.
Thereare now studies which support both arguments. Video games encourage people to [read more]Friday, 19 August 2005 | Chris Bennett |
| One of our readers asked for an update on the Burke v. Microsoft case. For those of you who don't know about the case, Sean Burke is the gamer who sued Microsoft in October 2004 because his [read more]Wednesday, 17 August 2005 | Chris Bennett |
| Blizzard Entertainment is receiving flack from some players for scanning players' computers for illegal cheats and hacks relating to the massively multiplayer online game World of Warcraft. Some [read more]Monday, 15 August 2005 | David Spratley |
| Video game lawyers around the world are no doubt on stand-by now that Australian developer Perception has accused publisher JoWood of libel. JoWood terminated Perception's development agreement [read more]Friday, 12 August 2005 | Chris Bennett |
| An Alabama jury recently convicted Devin Moore of capital murder. In his defence, the 20 year-old partly blamed his actions on GTA. The jury didn't buy it.
As you might expect, [read more]Thursday, 11 August 2005 | Chris Bennett |
| Microsoft will require 3rd-party accessory manufacturers to obtain a license to make their products function with the upcoming Xbox 360 console, and will enforce this requirement with a security mechanism [read more]Wednesday, 10 August 2005 | Chris Bennett |
| CBC reports that a 28-year-old South Korean man has died after gaming almost continually for 50 hours. South Korean officials say that the man (who apparently quit his job in order to have more [read more]Tuesday, 9 August 2005 | David Spratley |
| Sony has started another lawsuit against an on-line retailer who is selling PSPs in the UK. This time Sony has its sights set on Lik-Sang.com, a well-known Hong Kong video game retailer. Sony [read more]Tuesday, 9 August 2005 | David Spratley |
| Sony has apparently reduced its damages claims against at least one PSP importer from UKP1,000 to UKP500. No word on Sony's reasons for the compromise, especially considering Sony's recent [read more]Monday, 8 August 2005 | Chris Bennett |
| In an earlier post , we reported that a wildlife photographer had sued various companies (including a coin-op game distributor and a software distributor) for copyright infringement. The photographer [read more]Sunday, 7 August 2005 | Chris Bennett |
| The Chinese government has issued several new regulations relating to the on-line gaming industry. Chief among these is a new policy that prohibits minors (under 18) from playing on-line games [read more]Thursday, 4 August 2005 | David Spratley |
| As you know, Rockstar has received a lot of publicity lately regarding the hot coffee fiasco . Some critics say that any publicity is good publicity. Rockstar seems to buy that because they're [read more]Thursday, 4 August 2005 | Chris Bennett |
| The Criminal Code of Canada includes an offence of “counselling”. If you “counsel” someone to commit an offence, you can be convicted regardless of whether the offence is committed [read more]Wednesday, 3 August 2005 | David Spratley |
| Sony recently won round two in its battle with Frosty Treats Inc.
Frosty Treats is one of the largest ice cream vendors in the US. Its trucks are covered with pictures of the various [read more]Wednesday, 3 August 2005 | Chris Bennett |
| Hitesh Patel, a 31-year-old employee of Washington DC-based game retailer Pandora's Cube, has been sentenced to 8 months for selling 'Super Xboxes,"? which are Xboxes modified with larger [read more]Thursday, 28 July 2005 | Chris Bennett |
| It was only a matter of time. An 85-year-old New York woman has filed a lawsuit against Rockstar Games and Take Two Interactive Software Inc., claiming that they engaged in false, misleading [read more]Wednesday, 27 July 2005 | David Spratley |
| Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich has finally signed the Safe Games Illinois Act into force. Illinois will now limit the sale and rental of games with 'violent and sexually explicit"? [read more]Tuesday, 26 July 2005 | David Spratley |
| Rockstar Games, and its parent Take-Two Interactive, are under investigation by the feds. The US House of Representatives has voted 355 to 21 to support a Federal Trade Commission inquiry into [read more]Tuesday, 26 July 2005 | Chris Bennett |
| Massive Inc., a New York-based company which places ads in video games, has developed technology that downloads full-motion video ads from the internet and inserts them automatically into a certain [read more]Monday, 25 July 2005 | Chris Bennett |
| Jack Thompson, the outspoken American lawyer who has many things to say about video games, is turning his sights from Hot Coffee-gate to another game which is so ripe with depravity that even GTA [read more]Friday, 22 July 2005 | David Spratley |
| A Florida attorney has filed a lawsuit and sought an injunction to prohibit retailers such as Best Buy and Walmart from selling GTA San Andreas to minors, in light of the hot coffee scandal. Who [read more]Thursday, 21 July 2005 | Chris Bennett |
| We described in a post last month how Sony is cracking down on retailers who are selling imported PSPs in the UK. As part of this campaign, Sony recently obtained an injunction preventing [read more]Thursday, 21 July 2005 | David Spratley |
| Take Two has now admitted that the 'hot coffee"? sex scenes in GTA San Andreas were created by Rockstar, not a modder. And the ESRB has changed the game's rating from M to AO. Rockstar is working [read more]Wednesday, 20 July 2005 | Chris Bennett |
| Acclaim Entertainment has been liquidating its assets since it filed for bankruptcy in September. Its trustee has now negotiated an agreement to sell the 'ACCLAIM ENTERTAINMENT"? name [read more]Wednesday, 20 July 2005 | Chris Bennett |
| Biggs, a wildlife photographer in Fort Worth, Texas, sued Bass Pro Outdoor World LLC, Incredible Technologies Inc., and Play Mechanix Inc., for copyright infringement, claiming the defendants had [read more]Wednesday, 20 July 2005 | Dani Lemon |
| Biggs, a wildlife photographer in Fort Worth, Texas, sued various companies, including a coin-operated game distributor and a software distributor, for copyright infringement. Biggs claimed [read more]Wednesday, 20 July 2005 | Dani Lemon |
| Amid concerns over recent video-game related violent incidents in Japan, the Japanese gaming industry is rolling out a video game ratings system. The system asks retailers to not sell over-18 [read more]Wednesday, 20 July 2005 | Chris Bennett |
| Here's an article about summer camps that use video games to inspire learning. There's nothing new about computer camps, but this one is obviously special. Here's what 14 year-old [read more]Tuesday, 19 July 2005 | Chris Bennett |
| Several law firms have filed class action lawsuits against Majesco Entertainment Company. The complaints--which were filed on behalf of investors who purchased the publicly traded securities [read more]Tuesday, 19 July 2005 | Chris Bennett |
| The end of June brought sad news for the peer-to-peer (p2p) community, with the US Supreme Court finally deciding MGM v. Grokster. The decision, which holds p2p company Grokster liable for the [read more]Tuesday, 19 July 2005 | Chris Bennett |
| A 22-year old man was recently charged in the UK for modifying and selling Xboxes. The modification of video game consoles is illegal in the UK due to its adoption of the EU Copyright Directive [read more]Tuesday, 19 July 2005 | Chris Bennett |
| In an earlier posting we discussed the recent 'hot coffee"? controversy surrounding GTA San Andreas.
Gamespot has done its own investigating and questioned Rockstar's allegations [read more]Monday, 18 July 2005 | Chris Bennett |
| Microsoft has joined forces with Marvel Enterprises to develop a massively multiplayer online game featuring Marvel's cast of superheroes (which includes Spider-Man, the Hulk, the Fantastic Four [read more]Friday, 15 July 2005 | David Spratley |
| We all know that GTA is a fairly violent game. And the main character (CJ) can already have sex in the game (although you don't see any of it). That's why the game is rated M.
But [read more]Thursday, 14 July 2005 | Chris Bennett |
| It may be a dubious honour, but Eidos' '25 to Life"? may have caught up to GTA as the target of choice for concerned lawmakers before it even hits store shelves. A New York Senator [read more]Wednesday, 13 July 2005 | David Spratley |
| Video game company Hip Interactive is now under court receivership. The Ontario Court Superior Court of Justice appointed Ernst& Young as interim receivers. According to reports, [read more]Tuesday, 12 July 2005 | Chris Bennett |
| Biggs, a wildlife photographer, sued various companies (including a coin-op game distributor and a software distributor) for copyright infringement. Biggs claimed that the companies had infringed [read more]Sunday, 10 July 2005 | Chris Bennett |
| Steve Neal is an African American male and former football player for Western Michigan University. He's also a Caucasian player for the New England Patriots.
Oh alright, they're two different [read more]Thursday, 7 July 2005 | Chris Bennett |
| You know all about violence IN games. How about violence for PLAYING games?
China has set up a clinic which (among other things) uses shock therapy to treat video game addiction. Maybe [read more]Thursday, 7 July 2005 | Chris Bennett |
| It looks like the EU's on-again off-again attempt to create a single European-wide method of patenting software is off again, for good. The bill would have given patentees EU-wide protection [read more]Wednesday, 6 July 2005 | David Spratley |
| UK tabloids are reporting that an 11 year old boy appeared in court recently to explain what drove him to stab his baby nephew while playing The Incredibles on his PS2. It's not clear whether [read more]Tuesday, 5 July 2005 | David Spratley |
| Frosty Treats is one of the largest ice cream vendors in the US. Its trucks are covered with pictures of the various products available for sale. The trucks are also labeled with [read more]Tuesday, 5 July 2005 | Dani Lemon |
| Ingenious hackers (is there any other kind?) have found a way to make the PSP play pirated copies of commercial games through the hand-held's Memory Stick slot. The hackers exploited a bug [read more]Monday, 4 July 2005 | David Spratley |
| As mentioned previously , the game industry in Japan is considering various self-regulatory initiatives in order to avoid game content legislation. The main form of self-regulation being considered [read more]Monday, 4 July 2005 | David Spratley |
| Chip-maker AMD recently filed an antitrust lawsuit against Intel in the US District Court in Delaware. AMD claims that Intel threatened AMD's customers and used other unfair tactics in an [read more]Sunday, 3 July 2005 | Chris Bennett |
| Incredible Technologies Inc. created a golf video game called Golden Tee. A competitor created a similar game called PGA Tour Golf. Incredible Technologies sued.
As part of the lawsuit, [read more]Sunday, 3 July 2005 | Chris Bennett |
| In an earlier posting we reported that the Japanese video game industry was considering self-regulation to avoid government imposed regulations. Those regulations already exist in Kanagawa prefecture [read more]Tuesday, 28 June 2005 | Chris Bennett |
| The Japanese video game industry (including Sony and Nintendo) is considering self-regulation to restrict sales of violent games to minors. The hope is to avoid government legislation, in light [read more]Tuesday, 28 June 2005 | Chris Bennett |
| Sony was just granted a temporary injunction against UK retailer ElectricBirdLand. The injunction prohibits the retailer from selling imported PSPs, possibly until the full case is tried in court [read more]Monday, 27 June 2005 | Chris Bennett |
| Last week we reported that Sony said it wasn't planning on suing you if you bought a grey marketed PSP in Europe. (Click here for our coverage on grey marketing / parallel importing).
Now [read more]Monday, 27 June 2005 | Chris Bennett |
| Last week we reported that Sony has started filing lawsuits in the UK regarding the unauthorized importation and sale of PSPs.
Sony has now offered some clarification regarding these lawsuits [read more]Saturday, 25 June 2005 | Chris Bennett |
| A recent UK study has found that people (UK people, at least) do not view downloading copyrighted material as theft. Most people view downloading a copyrighted game as somehow different from [read more]Thursday, 23 June 2005 | David Spratley |
| It appears the EU will not be successful in preventing pure software from being patented in the EU. The legislative amendments that would have done this were rejected this week.
Video [read more]Wednesday, 22 June 2005 | Chris Bennett |
| The Canadian government has tabled amendments to theCopyright Actwhich address various digital and Internet-related issues. Some of these proposed amendments are very relevant to the video game [read more]Wednesday, 22 June 2005 | David Spratley |
| A recent UK survey found that parents tend to let their children play adult-rated video games even though the parents know the games are 18-rated. Parents are aware of the games classification [read more]Wednesday, 22 June 2005 | David Spratley |
| You can stop holding your breath today's the day that the Battlenet appeal gets heard in St. Louis.
As we reported last year, Blizzard Entertainment won its lawsuit against Internet [read more]Monday, 20 June 2005 | Chris Bennett |
| In an earlier posting , we reported that porn will soon be available for the PSP. Sony now says it isn't impressed. The Japanese government probably won't be impressed either, given [read more]Monday, 20 June 2005 | Chris Bennett |
| We've told you before about the potential conflict between next-generation DVD formats. Last time this came up the parties were negotiating with respect to a single standard incorporating the [read more]Monday, 20 June 2005 | David Spratley |
| Sony recently sued several retailers who were selling imported PSPs in the UK. Sony's not happy because the PSP hasn't been officially released in Europe yet.
These unauthorized [read more]Friday, 17 June 2005 | Chris Bennett |
| Microsoft has licensed NVIDIA technology to allow some backwards compatibility in the Xbox 360. The licence is necessary because the ATI chipset isn't compatible with current Xbox games, [read more]Thursday, 16 June 2005 | Chris Bennett |
| The Chinese Ministry of Culture is continuing its campaign to remove offensive content from online games. The campaign is focussed primarily on pornography, violence and gambling.
Coverage [read more]Sunday, 12 June 2005 | Chris Bennett |
| In an earlier post , we reported that Microsoft had recalled 14 million power cables because they were a potential smoke or fire hazard. Turns out the problem is bigger than Microsoft originally [read more]Friday, 10 June 2005 | Chris Bennett |
| Australia has introduced new colourful game rating symbols that must be used in Australia. Although the colours are new, the highest rating available for video games is still '15+"? [read more]Thursday, 9 June 2005 | Chris Bennett |
| Five years after licensing the digital gaming rights to various toy brands to Infogrames in 2005, Hasbro has now re-acquired them in a $65 million deal. In connection with this deal, Hasbro re-licensed [read more]Thursday, 9 June 2005 | Chris Bennett |
| The Screen Actors Guild and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists have agreed to a deal with video game publishers, ending the threat of a strike by video game voice actors. The [read more]Thursday, 9 June 2005 | Chris Bennett |
| A disturbing episode in China highlights how seriously some people take on-line games. Qiu Chengwei spent hours playing Legend of Mir III and eventually obtained one of the game's most powerful [read more]Wednesday, 8 June 2005 | David Spratley |
| Capcom, the Japanese publisher of Grand Theft Auto III, has publicly come out against the Kanagawa Prefect's recent decision to ban the sale of the game to minors. Capcom's statement [read more]Tuesday, 7 June 2005 | Chris Bennett |
| Developer Handheld Games has filed suit in Seattle against Gizmondo Europe and Tiger Telematics for breach of contract. HHG alleges that it entered into an agreement to develop a video game for [read more]Tuesday, 7 June 2005 | David Spratley |
| The 6th Circuit Court of Appeals in the US has confirmed that sampling even three notes from a sound recording can violate US copyright law.
The case involved two record companies and two [read more]Monday, 6 June 2005 | Chris Bennett |
| As previously discussed , the Screen Actors Guild is in discussions with video game makers about the proper remuneration for voice actors in video games. The talks have stalled again, and on [read more]Monday, 6 June 2005 | David Spratley |
| This summer, adult publishers Glay'z and H.M.P. will release a total of 8 movies on Sony's UMD disc format, playable on the PSP. Though every PSP game must be approved by Sony prior to publication, [read more]Monday, 6 June 2005 | Chris Bennett |
| California's video game violence legislation has been shelved for now, due to lack of support. However, the Bill will likely be reconsidered in the near future. As discussed in an earlier [read more]Sunday, 5 June 2005 | Chris Bennett |
| Blizzard has shut down over 50,000 Battle.net accounts for cheating. It also suspended over 8,000 CD keys and permanently banned over 3,000 CD keys.
Cheating is no fun for gamers, so it's [read more]Sunday, 5 June 2005 | Chris Bennett |
| The PSP, Sony's handheld answer to the Nintendo GameBoy and DS, has not yet launched in Europe and has had its launch date delayed more than once. ElectricBirdLand is one of the online stores [read more]Friday, 3 June 2005 | Chris Bennett |
| Random House, the publisher of David Kushner's 'Masters of Doom"? is being sued for libel by Michael Wilson, the former Chief Operating Officer of Ion Storm. Mr. Wilson is alleging [read more]Friday, 3 June 2005 | Chris Bennett |
| The Louisiana Senate has a passed a bill which will grant tax credits to video game and interactive entertainment companies who establish a business in the state. Bill 341 gives a credit of [read more]Thursday, 2 June 2005 | David Spratley |
| Kanagawa prefecture, just south of Tokyo, has decided to label Grand Theft Auto III as 'harmful"?, which means the game can't be sold or rented to minors. This is the first time [read more]Wednesday, 1 June 2005 | Chris Bennett |
| A new law passed by the Ontario government eliminates censorship for films while retaining the film classification system. The law also imposes mandatory video game ratings and sets fines for [read more]Tuesday, 31 May 2005 | Chris Bennett |
| Illinois' bill banning the sale of adult video games to minors has rounded third and is coming home. The bill was passed by the house, and now goes back to the Governor who proposed it. So [read more]Sunday, 29 May 2005 | Chris Bennett |
| May 18 was a sad day for video game lawyers, because on that day US Federal Judge Charles Kocoras permitted a settlement of a case between Tecmo and video game modders. NinjaHacker.net, whose [read more]Thursday, 26 May 2005 | Chris Bennett |
| The Kanagawa prefectural government in Japan is planning to submit a proposal to the prefecture's Child Welfare Council which would designate a certain violent video game as 'harmful literature" [read more]Thursday, 26 May 2005 | Chris Bennett |
| Maybe.
For many years, American Needle was a non-exclusive licensee of the NFL and was permitted to sell hats bearing the names and logos of NFL teams. But recently, the NFL stopped [read more]Thursday, 26 May 2005 | Chris Bennett |
| A new report from Nintendo of America describes the company's various anti-piracy efforts in the first quarter of 2005. Nintendo, which is ramping up its anti-piracy efforts, proudly reports [read more]Thursday, 19 May 2005 | David Spratley |
| In an earlier posting we reported that Mobile games publisher Digital Bridges recently rebranded itself as 'I-Play"?. Unfortunately, the new name and logo are similar to the name [read more]Wednesday, 18 May 2005 | Chris Bennett |
| More provinces and states are jumping on the violent-video-game-law bandwagon. Manitoba's new law is set to take effect next month. It follows Nova Scotia's legislation (which took [read more]Friday, 13 May 2005 | Chris Bennett |
| Immersion has settled its patent infringement dispute with Radica over Immersion's patented force feedback technology. The fact that Immersion was awarded $90M in damages against Sony for [read more]Thursday, 12 May 2005 | Chris Bennett |
| Pirates recently released unauthorized copies of PSP games onto the Internet. However, the PSP has great copy protection technology there aren't any UMD burners yet, so the pirated games [read more]Monday, 9 May 2005 | Michael Coburn |
| A recent CBC article reminds us that the mere act of playing a video game (any video game) can cause actual damage to your neck, back, hands and tendons. Playing games for long periods can result [read more]Monday, 9 May 2005 | David Spratley |
| The California Assembly Arts Committee bowed to public pressure and stopped squashing the girl scouts. You can read about our previous coverage on the girl scout sqashing here .
Yesterday [read more]Friday, 6 May 2005 | Chris Bennett |
| The Safe Games Illinois Act (which we have reported on before ) is a step closer to reality, having recently been passed by the state's Senate Housing and Community Affairs Committee. The [read more]Friday, 6 May 2005 | David Spratley |
| California Assembly Bill 450 aims to ban the sale of violent video games to children. The bill failed to pass through committee yesterday, and the author of the bill, Assemblyman Leland Yee, [read more]Wednesday, 4 May 2005 | Chris Bennett |
| After nearly three years of court battles, Valve and Sierra have settled their dispute regarding the distribution of Valve's games. Valve claimed that Sierra had been unlawfully distributing [read more]Wednesday, 4 May 2005 | Chris Bennett |
| Everyone knows about the V-Chip, which gives parents some control over their children's viewing habits. A new program from SMARTGuard Software aims to do the same thing for PCs. The [read more]Wednesday, 4 May 2005 | David Spratley |
| Microsoft is scheduled to unveil its new logo for the XBOX 360 on May 13. There is already plenty of speculation about what the logo will look like. For example, check out the coverage here [read more]Friday, 29 April 2005 | Chris Bennett |
| After months of competition, Elevation Partners has withdrawn from bidding for EIDOS Interactive, leaving SCi alone in the buying battle. EIDOS's shareholders are expected to vote on SCi's [read more]Monday, 25 April 2005 | Chris Bennett |
| Sony has conceded to Bangladeshi demands regarding its upcoming military shooter, 'SOCOM 3"?. The latest instalment of SOCOM, set for release later this year, allegedly included Bangladesh [read more]Monday, 25 April 2005 | Chris Bennett |
| North Carolina's Senate Bill 2 has obtained state senate approval; if it is also passed by the state house and the governor, it could be North Carolina law as early as December, 2005. Bill [read more]Monday, 25 April 2005 | Chris Bennett |
| We reported last year about the looming war over next-generation DVD formats "? with Sony and Blu-Ray on one side and Toshiba's HD-DVD on the other. Well, take hope various reports [read more]Friday, 22 April 2005 | David Spratley |
| A recent post mentioned that the actors who provide voices in video games may soon be on strike, and that the old contract expired last Friday, April 15. Gamerswill be relieved to know there [read more]Tuesday, 19 April 2005 | David Spratley |
| In an earlier posting , we reported that Play-It Ltd. had sought legal advice regarding Digital Bridges' decision to rebrand itself as 'I-Play"? and adopt a logo which is similar to Play-It' [read more]Monday, 18 April 2005 | Chris Bennett |
| When the law stops working, it's time to create a dummy hash file.
Finnish Company Viralg Oy claims to have engineered digital rights protection software that generates such a file, which [read more]Monday, 18 April 2005 | Chris Bennett |
| A few years ago, PC game boxes were shrunk and standardized so game stores could cram more of them onto their tiny shelves. But today, one game retailer has grown so large that its inven [read more]Monday, 18 April 2005 | Chris Bennett |
| OK, so Nintendo didn't really say that. What they really said was 'Nintendo applauds the actions taken by the FBI. U.S. law enforcement authorities have played an instrumental role [read more]Saturday, 16 April 2005 | Michael Coburn |
| The FBI busted video game pirates trying to distribute a cache of more than 60,000 illegal Nintendo games, which were seized by the authorities in raids in New York and New Jersey. Perhaps even [read more]Friday, 15 April 2005 | Chris Bennett |
| ...is apparently a portable video game with ads. The Tiger Telematics' portable video game console "Gizmondo," which is expected to be released in North America later this year, [read more]Friday, 15 April 2005 | Chris Bennett |
| They're tough. They're smart. They have cool earpieces and sunglasses. They pack heat. And they can get secret court orders under the USA PATRIOT Act.
No, they're [read more]Thursday, 14 April 2005 | Chris Bennett |
| As if labour problems in the hockey world weren't enough! US video game voice actors, who are represented by two different unions (the Screen Actors Guild and the American Federation [read more]Thursday, 14 April 2005 | David Spratley |
| The Australian Office of Film and Literature Classification has refused to classify NARC, the VIS Interactive game which allows players to be good cops or take drugs and be bad cops. Accordingly, [read more]Thursday, 14 April 2005 | Chris Bennett |
| Massive Inc., the company that is taking the lead in in-game advertising, has just announced its first group of advertisers and brands. The list includes Verizon and RealNetworks (previously [read more]Tuesday, 12 April 2005 | David Spratley |
| Electronic Arts has shored up the long-term exclusive video game rights to yet another major sports licence, adding to its impressive roster which includes the NFL, Arena Football League, and ESPN [read more]Monday, 11 April 2005 | Chris Bennett |
| In almost no time, the new PSP has been hacked to allow web browsing additions, IM and TiVo playback abilities (among other things).
Hacks such as these often violate copyright law. They [read more]Monday, 11 April 2005 | Chris Bennett |
| Jim Stallings, vice-president intellectual property and standards, revealed IBM's position on the patent process, particularly that of the United States. Stallings alleges that due to the [read more]Monday, 11 April 2005 | Chris Bennett |
| Mobile games publisher Digital Bridges recently rebranded itself as 'I-Play"?. Unfortunately, the new name and logo are similar to the name and logo of rival publisher Play it. Appare [read more]Saturday, 9 April 2005 | Chris Bennett |
| A local radio station from Gainesville, Florida, reports that a 14-year-old Gainesville boy has been arrested and charged with aggravated child abuse for severely beating his 2-year-old cousin. Apparent [read more]Friday, 8 April 2005 | David Spratley |
| You can't have any PlayStation if you don't eat yer meat! How can you have any PlayStation if you don't eat yer meat???
Sony was just awarded US patent #6,729,337 for a method [read more]Thursday, 7 April 2005 | Chris Bennett |
| Sony's new PSP has barely been released, and already various modifications are springing up that extend the handheld's capabilities. Various hacks seen thus far include ones that allow [read more]Thursday, 7 April 2005 | David Spratley |
| Actor Sean Connery is providing the voice for EA's latest James Bond game, From Russia With Love. The game will also feature the likeness of Connery as he was at the age of 33 when the film [read more]Wednesday, 6 April 2005 | Michael Coburn |
| WWE sued publisher THQ and its joint-venture partner Jakks Pacific Inc. last fall . Early this week, WWE came off the top rope to body slam THQ CEO Brian Farrell by adding him as an individual [read more]Wednesday, 6 April 2005 | David Spratley |
| We just learned that Ubisoft signed an advertising deal with several companies including Nokia. Under the agreement, Ubisoft agreed to place the companies' products in Ubisoft's latest release, [read more]Tuesday, 5 April 2005 | Chris Bennett |
| EA announced last week that it expects its current quarter's revenues to be well below (maybe as much as $200 million below) earlier estimates. EA's share price immediately dropped more [read more]Thursday, 31 March 2005 | David Spratley |
| The Business Software Alliance (BSA) has withdrawn its lawsuit against Project Entropia creator MindArk Studios. The lawsuit alleged that MindArk used unlicensed versions of Microsoft, [read more]Wednesday, 30 March 2005 | Chris Bennett |
| New York Senator Hillary Clinton has added her voice to those who oppose violent video games, and has specifically mentioned the Grand Theft Auto series as a major threat to morality. Clinton [read more]Tuesday, 29 March 2005 | David Spratley |
| A US District Court has confirmed a jury's decision requiring Sony to pay damages for patent infringement to Immersion Corp. The jury ordered Sony to pay $82 million in damages (see previous [read more]Tuesday, 29 March 2005 | David Spratley |
| Purchasers are swarming as EIDOS Interactive is on the block. Although the board of directors of EIDOS has approved a cash bid of $144 million for the company, just 25% of EIDOS's shareholders [read more]Monday, 28 March 2005 | Chris Bennett |
| On March 22, 2005, Electronic Arts' share price fell a precipitous $11.20 per share, or 16.88%. If that injury weren't enough, a Philadelphia law firm has added insult by filing [read more]Sunday, 27 March 2005 | Chris Bennett |
| Earlier this month, we reported that some Xbox gamers were getting all fired up over their Xbox power cables. Literally.
Microsoft recalled 14 million of the cables, but it appears that wasn't [read more]Thursday, 24 March 2005 | Chris Bennett |
| The NBA is the most recent professional sports league to enter into new large-scale licensing arrangements with game publishers. However, instead of giving one publisher exclusive rights to use [read more]Wednesday, 23 March 2005 | David Spratley |
| ...at least if a certain Illinois bill comes into force, that is. Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich's proposal seeks to criminalize the sale of violent or sexually explicit video games to [read more]Monday, 21 March 2005 | Chris Bennett |
| Blizzard Entertainment, the publisher and developer of the hit massively multiplayer "World of Warcraft," has permanently suspended more than one thousand "gold farming" users [read more]Monday, 21 March 2005 | Chris Bennett |
| Activision and Viacom recently settled their Star Trek dispute. Sadly, the dispute has nothing to do with whether the USS Enterprise could defeat an imperial Star Destroyer. We would have [read more]Sunday, 20 March 2005 | Chris Bennett |
| Last month we reported that Yahoo! had sued online gaming company Xfire for patent infringement. Yahoo! claimed that a former Yahoo employee (who now works for Xfire) developed online messaging [read more]Sunday, 20 March 2005 | Chris Bennett |
| Last year, in an article (brilliantly, we think) entitled 'Maybe Modding Isn't So Marvellous"?) we reported that Marvel Comics had sued the publisher and developer of City of Heros. Marvel [read more]Sunday, 20 March 2005 | Chris Bennett |
| The Entertainment Software Rating Board recently announced the new rating category "E10+" for games suitable for children approaching their teens. The new category is meant to fill a gap [read more]Saturday, 19 March 2005 | David Spratley |
| A recent survey by Macrovision, a California-based anti-piracy firm, shows that 21 percent of console gamers use pirated software (mostly from peer to peer networks). Obviously such gamers also use [read more]Saturday, 19 March 2005 | David Spratley |
| Australia's position on mod chips just became more interesting. In 2002, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission intervened in a case launched by Sony Computer Entertainment Australia [read more]Saturday, 19 March 2005 | Chris Bennett |
| Peter Jackson, who directed the Lord of the Rings movie trilogy and is currently remaking King Kong, has sued New Line Cinema for a greater share of licensing profits from the LotR movies. One of [read more]Saturday, 19 March 2005 | David Spratley |
| The families of three police officers killed in 2003 have sued Take Two, Wal-Mart, Sony and various video game stores. The lawsuit claims the teenaged killer was motivated and trained to kill [read more]Tuesday, 8 March 2005 | Chris Bennett |
| An employee of Electronic Arts has filed a class-action lawsuit for overtime. The lawsuit follows an earlier lawsuit launched against EA by another employee. To be successful, the employees [read more]Tuesday, 8 March 2005 | Chris Bennett |
| Yes, we caught the pun. Here's the story the anonymous plaintiff who sued Topheavy for including topless footage of her in The Guy Game has been awarded a temporary injunction against [read more]Tuesday, 8 March 2005 | Chris Bennett |
| More than 800 Final Fantasy XI players have had their on-line accounts permanently deleted for violating the game's user agreement. For example, some of the players monopolized monsters [read more]Tuesday, 8 March 2005 | David Spratley |
| Nintendo has warned Webzen (the publisher of MU Online) that some of the characters in Webzen's new online game, Wiki, are similar to those in The Legend of Zelda The Wind Waker. Nintendo [read more]Tuesday, 8 March 2005 | Chris Bennett |
| A growing number of US jurisdictions are proposing legislation that restricts the sale of violent video games. California proposes a ban on youth access to games with graphic depictions [read more]Tuesday, 8 March 2005 | David Spratley |
| Microsoft has promised to replace more than 14 million Xbox power cables due to safety concerns, citing reports of minor injury or property damage due to faulty cables. This serves as a reminder [read more]Tuesday, 8 March 2005 | David Spratley |
| A Japanese student was arrested recently after threatening to kill his friend during an argument over - wait for it - which version of Dragon Quest was the best. The game series is so popular [read more]Tuesday, 8 March 2005 | David Spratley |
| Two recent stories address the development of in-game advertising and product tie-ins. First, Sony's new Everquest II on-line multiplayer game has a built-in function that lets players access [read more]Tuesday, 8 March 2005 | David Spratley |
| Yahoo! recently sued start-up Xfire for patent infringement. Yahoo! claims Xfire's online chat application for gamers violates Yahoo!'s GameProwler instant messenger application. Both [read more]Monday, 14 February 2005 | Chris Bennett |
| n an ongoing lawsuit between Sony and a video game salesman who installed modchips into Playstations, Sony projected a racing game on the walls of the court to demonstrate how the mod chips worked [read more]Monday, 14 February 2005 | Chris Bennett |
| The hacker who roasted 50,000 computers with his variant of the Blaster worm was recently sentenced to one and a half years in prison for his actions. His punishment could have been much more [read more]Monday, 14 February 2005 | Chris Bennett |
| Take this story, for example. Michigan police recently arrested a 4-year-old boy who borrowed his parents' car in the middle of the night to rent a video game. Seriously. (We didn't [read more]Monday, 14 February 2005 | Chris Bennett |
| Tecmo Inc. recently sued the website administrators of a site dedicated to hacking into video games including some of Tecmo's games. Tecmo was particularly upset about modifications of the [read more]Monday, 14 February 2005 | Chris Bennett |
| Those who enjoy speculation are intrigued by two Japanese trade-mark applications filed by Nintendo in late 2004. The marks are V-POCKET and PCGP, and the applications refer to a wide range of [read more]Monday, 14 February 2005 | David Spratley |
| In a clear case of art imitating art, the February 8 episode of Law& Order Special Victims Unit dealt with teenagers who were apparently inspired by their favourite gangster-lifestyle video game [read more]Monday, 14 February 2005 | David Spratley |
| Citing links between juvenile violence and video games, Washington D.C.'s municipal government has announced that it wants to ban sales of violent and sexually explicit video games to minors. Stores [read more]Monday, 14 February 2005 | David Spratley |
| Take Two Interactive has entered into further semi-exclusive baseball agreements by signing long-term deals with MLB Properties and MLB Advanced Media, two key Major League Baseball licensing firms [read more]Monday, 14 February 2005 | David Spratley |
| The Governor of Missouri recently banned video games from Missouri prisons. He didn't like the idea of allowing Missouri's most violent inmates to play games simulating murders and carjackings [read more]Thursday, 27 January 2005 | Chris Bennett |
| China has banned the sale and distribution of 50 video games. Some of the games are pirated and others violate Chinese gaming regulations which outlaw games that "hurt national dignity" [read more]Thursday, 27 January 2005 | Chris Bennett |
| Talk about bad break-ups. A woman is facing criminal charges in Japan after deleting her ex-boyfriend's data on "Lineage", a popular online fantasy game. The woman wasn't [read more]Thursday, 27 January 2005 | Chris Bennett |
| There's more to watch out for online than upset ex-girlfriends. A new Trojan horse called "LegMir-Y" is also out to steal usernames and passwords for Lineage. And as it turns [read more]Thursday, 27 January 2005 | Chris Bennett |
| 3D Realms has shut down development of an amateur mod for Half-Life 2 which was meant to recreate Duke Nukem 3D. 3D Realms, which developed the classic Duke Nukem 3D, is currently working on [read more]Thursday, 27 January 2005 | David Spratley |
| Take 2 Interactive has reached an agreement in principle with the Major League Baseball Players Association to develop and publish baseball video games. Under this seven-year deal, Take 2 will [read more]Thursday, 27 January 2005 | David Spratley |
| Microsoft has filed a US patent application for a system that will help consumers determine whether their PCs can run a particular piece of software. The system involves a "capability tool", [read more]Thursday, 27 January 2005 | David Spratley |
| Sony has also filed a US patent application, this one to do with wirelessly connecting portable game machines (ie Sony's new handheld PSP) with various Internet-connected devices. The application [read more]Thursday, 27 January 2005 | David Spratley |
| A new US patent might describe key elements of the XBOX2, including a system of multiple processors which work together to generate realistic geometry while simultaneously managing other routine [read more]Tuesday, 18 January 2005 | Chris Bennett |
| A jury has awarded Immersion Corp. $82 million in damages after deciding that the rumble feature in Sony's Dual Shock controllers violates two US patents owned by Immersion. Sony was also [read more]Tuesday, 18 January 2005 | Chris Bennett |
| A Texas court has ordered that Microsoft, Sony and others temporarily stop selling "The Guy Game", which contains topless images of the plaintiff. At the time the photos were taken, [read more]Tuesday, 18 January 2005 | Chris Bennett |
| The governor of Illinois has proposed new state legislation prohibiting the sale or rental of excessively violent and sexually explicit video games to children younger than 18. The proposed legislation [read more]Tuesday, 18 January 2005 | David Spratley |
| Electronic Arts continued its trend of signing exlusive licence agreements with everyone under the sun (except for us, apparently, but we haven't given up hope) by announcing an unprecedented [read more]Tuesday, 18 January 2005 | David Spratley |
| Sports giant Reebok has signed a multi-title sponsorship agreement with Electronic Arts, under which Reebok's products will be included in various EA sports games. Reebok sees this as a natural [read more]Tuesday, 18 January 2005 | David Spratley |
| (This is an archived case summary)
Davidson & Associates v. Internet Gateway, et al
US Court of Appeal for the 8th Circuit (2005) No. 04-3654
The plaintiffs do business as Blizzard Entertainmen [read more]Saturday, 1 January 2005 | David Spratley |
| First-person shooter "Postal 2" has been banned by the Office of Film and Literature Classification in New Zealand, in part because of the game's use of urine in association with degrading [read more]Thursday, 16 December 2004 | Chris Bennett |
| On a similar note, Illinois is considering legislation to regulate the sale and rental of explicit video games. The legislation would make it a crime to sell or rent such games to minors.
Coverage [read more]Thursday, 16 December 2004 | Chris Bennett |
| Blizzard Entertainment recently won its lawsuit against Internet Gateway Inc. and various individuals who reverse engineered Blizzard's software and protocols to create the bnetd project, a free [read more]Thursday, 16 December 2004 | Chris Bennett |
| 321 Studios Inc., whose Games X Copy software allowed users to make backup copies of copy-protected PC games, has agreed never to make or sell software that lets users create copies of computer games [read more]Thursday, 16 December 2004 | David Spratley |
| Three DC-area video game stores were raided recently, resulting in the seizure of equipment and the arrest of two employees. The charge modifying Xbox consoles so that they could play pirated [read more]Thursday, 16 December 2004 | David Spratley |
| Half-Life 2 maker Valve has hit back at players who obtained pirated copies of its popular new game. To be able to play, players must set up an account on Steam, Valve's online gaming community [read more]Thursday, 16 December 2004 | David Spratley |
| Several major video game publishers have been sued for patent infringement in respect of their 3D graphics display techniques. The U.S. patent in question protects a system for 3D spherical panning [read more]Tuesday, 23 November 2004 | Chris Bennett |
| Microsoft has begun checking its Xbox Live users' consoles for mods, refusing to let modified consoles participate in online games. Microsoft says the purpose of this new policy is to reduce [read more]Tuesday, 23 November 2004 | Chris Bennett |
| Marvel Enterprises Inc. sued NcSoft Corp. and Cryptic Studios Inc. in regard to their massively multiplayer game "City of Heroes". Marvel claims that the character customization functionality [read more]Tuesday, 23 November 2004 | Chris Bennett |
| The Supreme Court of India recently ruled that off-the-shelf computer software is a "good", which means it's subject to sales tax in India. The plaintiff unsuccessfully argued that [read more]Tuesday, 23 November 2004 | Chris Bennett |
| Scottish publisher Traffic Management recently released JFK Reloaded, a game that allows the player to recreate the assassination of JFK. We suspect people's opinions about the game may divide [read more]Tuesday, 23 November 2004 | Chris Bennett |
| Screenwriter Roger Avary has sued Microsoft Corp. and games publisher ResponDesign Inc. for $30 million plus punitive damages. Avary claims that the yoga game "Yourself! Fitness", recently [read more]Tuesday, 23 November 2004 | David Spratley |
| EA has made an offer to buy all the outstanding shares of Swedish developer Digital Illusions CE, known for its Battlefield and Rallisport Challenge series.
Coverage at http://shorl.com/balimytetuta [read more]Tuesday, 23 November 2004 | David Spratley |
| Two new rival DVD formats are preparing for hostilities similar to those that occurred between VHS and Beta in the 1980s. Both formats -- "Blu Ray", which is backed by Sony, and "HD [read more]Tuesday, 23 November 2004 | David Spratley |
| A California law firm is attempting to certify a class action on behalf of Electronic Arts employees who claim that EA owes them unpaid overtime pay. The dispute revolves around whether EA improperly [read more]Tuesday, 23 November 2004 | David Spratley |
| The Beijing Haidian District People's Court has heard its first lawsuit brought by game developers against their employers. Two game developers who worked on a game but were not listed as [read more]Tuesday, 23 November 2004 | David Spratley |
| A disgruntled Xbox owner has started an action against Microsoft in the Los Angeles Superior Court, claiming that his Xbox lost its ability to read discs after less than a year of use. The action [read more]Thursday, 4 November 2004 | David Spratley |
| Video games are growing in popularity and pulling audiences away from more traditional forms of entertainment such as movies and television. And where audiences go, advertisers are quick to follow [read more]Wednesday, 3 November 2004 | David Spratley |
| World Wrestling Entertainment has sued video game publisher THQ and its joint-venture partner Jakks Pacific Inc. in response to what the WWE calls a "commercial bribery scheme". WWE [read more]Wednesday, 3 November 2004 | Chris Bennett |
| (This is an archived case summary)
Washington State introduced legislation penalizing the distribution of violent video games to minors. Video game manufacturers, distributors, retailers and software [read more]Thursday, 15 July 2004 | David Spratley |
| (This is an archived case summary)
Sony manufactured and sold PlayStation games on CD-ROMs for which it owned the copyright. To protect its copyright, Sony imbedded an "access code" [read more]Thursday, 24 June 2004 | David Spratley |
| (This is an archived case summary)
The Court considered whether a licence authorizing the use of a patent to make and sell a product protected a third party purchaser from liability for patent [read more]Friday, 28 May 2004 | David Spratley |
| (This is an archived case summary.)
321 Studios is the maker of “DVD Copy Plus”, a product that makes backup personal copies of movies on DVD. A U.S. federal court in California ruled [read more]Thursday, 19 February 2004 | Chris Bennett |
| (This is an archived case summary.)
This case challenged the constitutionality of an ordinance of St.Louis County, which made it unlawful to knowingly sell, rent, make available, or permit the [read more]Tuesday, 3 June 2003 | Chris Bennett |
| A long running dispute between the World Wresting Federation (the "Federation") and the World Wide Fund for Nature(the "Fund") over the use of the initials "WWF," in a logo referred to as the "Scratch" [read more]Thursday, 27 March 2003 | Dani Lemon |
| (This is an archived case summary.)
Morrison alleged that the POKEMON trade-mark caused reverse confusion with its MONSTER IN MY POCKET mark, and applied for summary judgment. That application [read more]Wednesday, 1 January 2003 | David Spratley |
| (This is an archived case summary)
James et al.v.Meow Media et al.,
2002 FED App. 0270P (6thCir.),
US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, No. 00-5922 (August 13, 2002)
On December [read more]Tuesday, 13 August 2002 | David Spratley |
| (This is an archived case summary)
Sony manufactured and sold PlayStation games on CD-ROMs for which it owned the copyright. To protect its copyright, Sony imbedded an "access code" [read more]Friday, 26 July 2002 | David Spratley |
| (This is an archived case summary.)
In this case the court denied a summary judgment application on the grounds that the defendant required full discovery in order to defend itself against [read more]Tuesday, 1 January 2002 | David Spratley |
| On November 22, 1997, thirteen-year-old Noah Wilson died when his friend Yancy stabbed him in the chest with a kitchen knife. Noah's mother, Andrea Wilson, sued Midway Games, Inc., alleging that [read more]Tuesday, 1 January 2002 | David Spratley |
| (This is an archived case summary)
Nintendo wanted to have an opportunity to question the family doctor of a child who allegedly developed epileptic seizures after playing Nintendo games. The [read more]Wednesday, 28 November 2001 | David Spratley |
| (This is an archived case summary)
The plaintiff association brought a freedom of speech challenge to an Indianapolis ordinance that restricted access to anyone under 18 to arcade games that were [read more]Wednesday, 21 March 2001 | David Spratley |
| (This is an archived case summary.)
Nintendo produces the GameBoy as well as a number of accessories including the GameLink, GameCamera and the GameBoy Printer. Battery Technology Inc. ('BTI”) [read more]Monday, 1 January 2001 | Chris Bennett |
| (This is an archived case summary.)
GE sued Nintendo, claiming that several of Nintendo's game systems (including the Gameboy) infringed GE's patents. The lower court ruled in favour of [read more]Friday, 1 January 1999 | Chris Bennett |
| (This is an archived case summary.)
Duke Nukem 3-D (DN 3-D) was shipped with a Build Editor which allowed fans to create their own levels for DN 3-D. Players were encouraged to build their own [read more]Thursday, 1 January 1998 | Chris Bennett |
| (This is an archived case summary.)
In this 1997 Pennsylvania case, the plaintiff, who had created an unpublished manuscript called “Awesome Possum,” brought a copyright infringement [read more]Friday, 20 June 1997 | Dani Lemon |
| (This is an archived case summary.)
Three individuals modelled for Midway, which designs, manufactures, and sells video games including “Mortal Kombat” and “Mortal Kombat II” [read more]Wednesday, 28 May 1997 | Chris Bennett |
| (This is an archived case summary.)
Nintendo alleged that Prima Communications had infringed its copyright in the "GoldenEye 007" video game by publishing the "GoldenEye 007 Unauthorized [read more]Wednesday, 1 January 1997 | David Spratley |
| (This is an archived case summary)
MAPHIA was a San Francisco-based BBS provider whose users had been uploading and downloading Sega video games without authorization. SEGA was able to prove that [read more]Wednesday, 18 December 1996 |
| (This is an archived case summary)
The Court of Appeal affirmed the District Court's decision enjoining Brown from selling video game cartridges that infringed copyrights and trade-marks owned [read more]Monday, 1 January 1996 | David Spratley |
| (This is an archived case summary)
Nintendo appealed a District Court ruling that awarded Alpex Computer Corporation $253 million in damages (equivalent to a 6% royalty) for patent infringement [read more]Monday, 1 January 1996 | David Spratley |
| (This is an archived case summary.)
C&E Inc. produced the SuperUFO, a device which plugs into Nintendo game consoles and allows the user to format disks, copy games and play copied games. [read more]Monday, 1 January 1996 | Chris Bennett |
| (This is an archived case summary)
Edward Gussin, who had invented an electronic drawing and colouring system, tried to claim that Nintendo's “Mario Paint” infringed his patent [read more]Thursday, 3 August 1995 | David Spratley |
| (This is an archived case summary)
NTN developed an interactive game played in conjunction with televised football called "QB1", which it licensed to Interactive to sell together with [read more]Sunday, 1 January 1995 | David Spratley |
| (This is an archived case summary.)
The defendants, NTDEC and Megasoff Inc., appealed a default judgment issued by the District Court to Nintendo on the basis of copyright and trade-mark infringement [read more]Sunday, 1 January 1995 | David Spratley |
| (This is an archived case summary.)
In 1994, Capcom sought a preliminary injunction to prevent Data East from producing, marketing or selling “Fighter's History” anywhere in the [read more]Friday, 18 March 1994 | Chris Bennett |
| (This is an archived case summary)
Midway owned the copyright and related trade-marks for the video game “Mortal Kombat". PIL published a book entitled “Strategies for Mortal [read more]Saturday, 1 January 1994 | David Spratley |
| (This is an archived case summary.)
Dragon Pacific International was a Taiwanese business which produced and distributed multi-game cartridges for the Nintendo game console. The games stored on [read more]Saturday, 1 January 1994 | David Spratley |
| (This is an archived case summary)
Nintendo appealed a District Court ruling that the Game Genie does not violate any Nintendo copyrights. The Game Genie is a device that is placed between the [read more]Thursday, 21 May 1992 | David Spratley |
| (This is an archived case summary)
In the course of a copyright infringement suit alleging Omni Video Games had infringed its copyrights in “Pac-Man", “Rally X", and “Galaxian" Midway Manufacturing [read more]Monday, 4 November 1991 | Dani Lemon |
| (This is an archived case summary.)
Nintendo applied for a preliminary injunction prohibiting the sale of Game Genies in Canada. Nintendo argued that Camerica was depreciating the goodwill of [read more]Tuesday, 1 January 1991 | Chris Bennett |
| (This is an archived case summary.)
Nintendo sought an order declaring the defendants to be in contempt of a court order restraining them from trading in an infringing multi-game video game [read more]Tuesday, 1 January 1991 | David Spratley |
| (This is an archived case summary.)
The plaintiffs objected to the notice to consumers and terms of a proposed settlement between Nintendo and the fifty state attorneys general over a national [read more]Tuesday, 1 January 1991 | David Spratley |
| (This is an archived case summary)
Numerous states sued Nintendo under antitrust laws. The parties agreed to settle, and drafted a settlement agreement. The Attorneys General of all 50 states [read more]Tuesday, 1 January 1991 | David Spratley |
| (This is an archived case summary.)
On behalf of retail purchasers in California, the plaintiffs alleged that Nintendo had violated California antitrust laws through its monopoly on video game [read more]Monday, 1 January 1990 | David Spratley |
| (This is an archived case summary)
Accolade and the defendants entered into a licence agreement under which the defendants were to develop the video game "The Duel -- Test Drive II" [read more]Monday, 1 January 1990 | David Spratley |
| (This is an archived case summary)
A mother brought a wrongful death action against TSR, the manufacturer of the pen-and-paper roleplaying game “Dungeons& Dragons”, for the suicide [read more]Monday, 1 January 1990 | David Spratley |
| (This is an archived case summary)
This case addressed the constitutionality of Quebec legislation prohibiting commercial advertising directed at persons less than thirteen years of age. A key [read more]Thursday, 27 April 1989 | David Spratley |
| (This is an archived case summary)
This was an action by Nintendo challenging the validity of Magnavox's “Television Gaming Apparatus” patent, issued in 1972, and the infringement [read more]Sunday, 1 January 1989 | Dani Lemon |
| (This is an archived case summary)
This was an appeal from a judgment of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York in favour of counterclaims brought by the defendants, [read more]Wednesday, 1 January 1986 | David Spratley |
| (This is an archived case summary)
This case involved two gorillas, King Kong and Donkey Kong, and the rights of their respective owners, plaintiff Universal City Studios, Inc. (“Universal”), [read more]Tuesday, 1 January 1985 | David Spratley |
| (This is an archived case summary)
Universal City Studios (“Universal”), claiming ownership of the trade-mark “King Kong”, sued Nintendo Co. Ltd. and Nintendo of America, [read more]Sunday, 1 January 1984 | David Spratley |
| (This is an archived case summary)
Atari and Midway obtained an injunction against Tryom, whose game “Gobbleman” or “Nibbleman” embodied characters, symbols, and non-functional [read more]Thursday, 17 November 1983 | David Spratley |
| (This is an archived case summary)
This 1983 judgment of the District Court of Nebraska found the defendants liable for copyright and trademark infringement of three Midway coin-operated arcade [read more]Thursday, 1 September 1983 | Dani Lemon |
| (This is an archived case summary.)
Arctic International sold two types of circuit boards for coin-operated video games. The first increased the rate of play of "Galaxian" a video [read more]Saturday, 1 January 1983 | Chris Bennett |
| (This is an archived case summary)
This was one of the first Canadian cases to consider whether copyright could attach to the source code of a game. The defendant's game units would flash [read more]Wednesday, 8 December 1982 | David Spratley |
| (This is an archived case summary)
Magnavox claimed that Mattel had, through the manufacture, use and sale of Intellivision video games, infringed Magnavox's “Television Gaming Apparatus” [read more]Wednesday, 21 July 1982 | Dani Lemon |
| (This is an archived case summary)
The plaintiff wanted to open a restaurant with forty tables equipped with built-in coin-operated video games, thus allowing patrons to dine and blast space invaders [read more]Friday, 1 January 1982 | David Spratley |
| (This is an archived case summary)
Nintendo sought and received an injunction against Elcon, who had been importing circuit boards manufactured by Falcon into the United States. Falcon was a past [read more]Friday, 1 January 1982 | David Spratley |
| Williams Electronics Inc. v. Artic International is a key case which established that copyright exists in video games.
Williams Electronics manufactured and sold a coin-operated electronic video [read more]Friday, 1 January 1982 | Chris Bennett |
| The defendant published a game called “Jawbreaker” which was created by John Harris. Harris admitted to getting the idea from “Pac-Man”. Jawbreaker was already being marketed [read more]Monday, 28 December 1981 | David Spratley |
|
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