Video Game Law, 2nd Edition

This book addresses the overlapping and emerging issues relating to IP, freedom of speech, employment, defamation, privacy, licensing and torts as they arise within the context of the video games industry, offering unique legal analysis and guidance unavailable elsewhere.

Publisher: LexisNexis Canada
Country: Canada
Format: Softcover Book
Publication Language: English
ISBN: 9780433460756
Publication Date: 2012-04-01

				Price: $80.00

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Foreword by:

Don A. Mattrick
President, Interactive Entertainment Business,
Microsoft Corporation

Video games, the precocious offspring of the Information Age, continue to be the source of some of the most fascinating and challenging questions in law. In the second edition of Video Game Law, Jon Festinger, Q.C., Chris Metcalfe and Roch Ripley reveal how this burgeoning industry is creating more than games – it is posing fresh challenges for legal systems throughout the world. This work provides a comprehensive, clear and well documented overview of this rapidly expanding legal territory.

Video Game Law, 2nd Edition addresses the overlapping and emerging issues relating to IP, freedom of speech, employment, defamation, privacy, licensing and torts as they arise within the context of the video games industry, offering unique legal analysis and guidance unavailable elsewhere.

Whats New in This Edition

Looks at concerns such as the security of transactions and the identification of personal individual and financial information, as well as privacy
Addresses the significant evolutions in the case law relating to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (U.S.) and similar legislation worldwide
Analyzes the case law concerning whether game publishers can prevent gamers from making unauthorized modifications to games
Reviews the free expression cases concerning the correlation between violent behaviour and violent video games
Includes standard forms such as an End User License Agreement, Terms of Use, and Privacy Policy of Electronic Arts (FIFA 2012)

Useful Book Features

Gives lawyers with video game clients the most applicable reference materials available
Provides numerous video game legal cases
Helps practitioners save research time, and formulate clear and practical advice for their video game clients
Identifies possible emerging legal issues including product liability, health issues, tort liability for wrongful death; infringement of copyright and intellectual property
Addresses censorship and protection of children; reviews current legal debates and responses
Covers U.S. and Canadian law, including relevant cases from other jurisdictions

Who Should Read This Book?

Media, IP and IT lawyers - provides practitioners with a sound legal framework for the analysis of legal issues that arise specifically within the video game industry
Corporate Counsel - advise your company on strategies to protect, and advance its legal rights within or for the video gaming sector
Video game executives and publishers - provides a succinct overview of all the pertinent legal issues that arise within the video games and interactive gaming industry
Legal academics and law students - an indispensable reference source or course text for anyone studying and researching current legal developments within the video games sector; this is the only text that takes a comprehensive, historical perspective regarding the evolution of the law in the video games industry, from its inception until now

START GAME

Chapter 1: The Devices
I. The Chicken And The Egg
II. Fundamentals Or Fundamentalism
III. Patent Infringement Cases
     A. Console Wars and the History of Video Gaming
     B. Space War II: The Computer Almost Strikes Back
     C. ROM, RAM, and SuperMario
     D. Side Scrolling
     E. Game Patents: How Far Do We Go?
IV. Reverse Engineering
     A. Atari and Tengen v. Nintendo: Reverse Engineering With Wrongdoing
     B. Sega v. Accolade: Reverse Engineering Without Wrongdoing
     C. Emulations: Sony v. Connectix, Sony v. Bleem
     D. Reverse Engineering in Other Jurisdictions
V. Chipping and Backing Up
     A. The Prom Blaster
     B. The Super UFO
     C. The Stevens Chip
     D. The Messiah 2
     E. Didn’t Someone Say, “Copyright Is Dead”?
VI. Peripherals
VII. The Cloud Console

Chapter 2: The Games
I. Copyright In A Game?
II. Content Originality
     A. Jawbreaker v. Pac-Man; Asteroids v. Meteors
     B. The One and Only Pac-Man: A Higher Standard?
     C. Monkey Business: King Kong v. Donkey Kong
     D. All’s “Faire” in Love and Gaming
     E. Virtually Incredible (“Making the Scene’s a Faire”)
     F. Screen ... Play
     G. Dead vs. Dead
III. Changing The Game
     A. Enhancements
     B. Mods
     C. Davidson & Associates v. Internet Gateway: Pwned by the EULA
     D. iRacing v. Robinson: Open Wheels, Closed Games
     E. MDY Industries, LLC v. Blizzard Entertainment, Inc.: Not Bots
     F. Not Such a Minor Point
IV. Names, Games, and Claims
     A. The Almost-Lost Civilization
     B. Twisted Metal’s Frosty Treats
     C. The Rockstar and the Strip Club
     D. The Source of the Dead
V. This Time It’s Personal
     A. Romantic Rock
     B. Sports Stats
     C. Look-a-Lite
VI. Contracts
     A. Rights and Royalties
     B. Cross-Collateralization
     C. Brand Support
     D. Releases and Identity
     E. Rights Roulette
     F. Non-Compete Clauses
     G. Working Conditions

Chapter 3: The Liabilities
I. Origins
II. Negligence
     A. JAMES V. MEOW
     B. Sanders v. Acclaim
     C. Proximate Cause
III. Products Liability
     A. Content is Not a “Product”
     B. Realism Isn’t a “Product” Either
     C. Other Possible Claims
IV. Protecting Health
V. virtual realities
     A. Virtual Ownership
     B. Continuity
     C. In-Game Torts
     D. Cheating: Eve and the Serpent
     E. Defamation
     F. Jurisdiction
     G. Taxation
VI. Stuck in the Middle
VII. Outside the EULA
IX. Privacy

Chapter 4: The Freedoms
I. John Milton Plays Video Games
II. Censorship: The US Approach
III. The Problem With Regulating Mediums
IV. Are Video Games “Speech”?
V. Children
     A. Protecting Children From Violence and Protecting the World From Violent Children
     B. Invalid in Illinois
     C. Minnesota Mischief
     D. Uh-oh in Oklahoma
     E. Going Nowhere Fast
     F. The Freedom-inator?
     G. Advertising Games to Children
     H. Children’s Rights
VI. Redeeming Qualities
VII. Who Holds the Joystick: Regulatory Constraints
     A. Video Game as Film
     B. Film Boards Take Jurisdiction
     C. A Level Playing Field
     D. Can Video Games be “Broadcasting”?
VIII. Antitrust and Competition Law

END GAME

Appendix “A”
A. End User License Agreement
B. Terms of Service
C. PRIVACY POLICY

Jon Festinger, Q.C., Chris Metcalfe & Roch Ripley

Jon Festinger, Q.C., of Festinger Law & Strategy LLP and the Centre for Digital Media has experience as both a lawyer and executive across the spectrum of media, communications, sports and entertainment including the CTV Television Network & the Vancouver Canucks. Jon was the original author of the first edition of Video Game Law in 2005.

Chris Metcalfe is IP Counsel at SAP Canada Inc., with experience in the areas of intellectual property, technology, new media and video game law.

Roch Ripley is an intellectual property lawyer and patent agent with the Vancouver office of Gowling Lafleur Henderson LLP who focuses on developing corporate intellectual property management strategies, drafting and prosecuting patent applications, opining on patent infringement and validity, technology contracting, and video game law.

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