Video Game Law in a Nutshell provides legal practitioners and game developers with a concise, easy-to-use guide for navigating the complexities of developing, publishing and distributing video games. Starting with content creation and ending with esports, this text explores every aspect of a game's life cycle, covering a diverse range of useful topics including monetization, IP protection, game engine licensing, privacy, player management, dealing with malicious actors, and much, much more. Written by industry veterans and adjunct law professors, Dan Nabel and Bill Chang, this work offers unparalleled insights and practical tips derived from actual, real-world experience.
Video Game Law is aimed at game developers and industry professionals who want to better understand the industry or are in need of expert legal guidance. Given the rise in international competition, the increasing complexity of video game features, and the explosive growth of the industry in general, game developers can quickly find themselves in serious trouble, becoming vulnerable to copyright infringement claims, piracy, and even security breaches. Not every video game company has the financial resources to retain in-house counsel–which Video Game Law seeks to address by discussing many of the common pitfalls, legal questions, and scenarios facing the industry. S. Gregory Boyd, Brian Pyne, and Sean F. Kane, the most prominent, sought after, and respected video game attorneys in the country, break down the laws and legal concepts that every game developer and industry professional needs to know in order to better protect their game and grow their company. KEY FEATURES: • Provides a solid understanding of intellectual property (IP) concepts and laws, including copyright, trademark, trade secret, and other protections that apply to video games and how each can be employed to protect a company’s unique and valuable IP • Explores cutting edge legal issues that affect the gaming industry, including gambling, virtual currency, privacy laws, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, tax incentives, and relevant piracy laws • Provides an overview of legal and privacy vocabulary and concepts needed to navigate and succeed in an industry that is constantly growing and evolving • Provides illustrative examples and legal concepts from the video game industry in every chapter
The video game industry is big business, not only in terms of the substantial revenue generated through retail sales of games themselves, but also in terms of the size and value of parallel and secondary markets. Consider any popular video game today, and you most likely are looking at a franchise that includes not only the game itself and all of its variants but also toys, books, movies, and more, with legions of fans that interact with the industry in myriad ways. Surveying the legal landscape of this emergent industry, Ron Gard and Elizabeth Townsend-Gard shed light on the many important topics where law is playing an important role. In examining these issues, Video Games and the Law is both a legal and a cultural look at the development of the video game industry and the role that law has played so far in this industry’s ability to thrive and grow.
Fun and games have become serious business as evidenced by the rapidly expanding, multi-billion dollar, global computer and video game industry. The relatively new entertainment medium has been growing exponentially and so, too, have its legal difficulties. This new casebook, with its problems and exercises, deals with all aspects of this fascinating phenomenon, including: Product History and Development, Intellectual Property, Commercial Exploitation, and Regulation. The cases guide the reader down a colorful path of disputes involving such familiar hardware names and game titles as: Magnavox, Gameboy, Nintendo, Playstation, Pong, Pacman, Space Invaders, Tetris, Tomb Raider, Frogger, Galaxian, Asteroids, Donkey Kong, Pete Rose Baseball, and Doom. The casebook is suitable as a primary text for both classes and seminars. "What this book is and what this book isn't both matter. Computer and Video Game Law is not a collection of regurgitation in which authors explain the minutia of a few big cases to people with a cursory interest. It is a compendium of cases, and an excellent compendium at that. It has big cases with big names like Nintendo and Sony battling over trademarks and copyrights. It has small cases such as the one in which a martial artist sued over the use of his image in a bestselling game. I wish this book had existed when I wrote my book on the history of video games. I spent hundreds of dollars doing the research for my chapter on video game trials and acquired not even a third of the case material contained in this book." -- Steven L. Kent, Game Historian, Author of The Ultimate History of Video Games
The multi-billion-dollar global video game industry has been growing exponentially and so, too, have its legal difficulties. This casebook features problems, exercises, and sample contracts that cover all aspects of this fascinating phenomenon, including: Product History and Development, Intellectual Property, Marketing, Gambling, Sex and Violence, Virtual Worlds, and Regulation. The cases guide the reader down a colorful path of disputes involving familiar hardware names and game titles, including: Game Boy, Wii, PlayStation, Pac-Man, Space Invaders, Tetris, World of Warcraft, Call of Duty, Donkey Kong, and Doom.
This book analyzes the effect of policy on the digital game complex: government, industry, corporations, distributors, players, and the like. Contributors argue that digital games are not created nor consumed outside of the complex power relationships that dictate the full production and distribution cycles, and that we need to consider those relationships in order to effectively "read" and analyze digital games. Through examining a selection of policies, e.g. the Australian government’s refusal (until recently) to allow an R18 rating for digital games, Blizzard’s policy in regards to intellectual property, Electronic Arts’ corporate policy for downloadable content (DLC), they show how policy, that is to say the rules governing the production, distribution and consumption of digital games, has a tangible effect upon our understanding of the digital game medium.
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."--Pub. desc.
This edited volume explores the intersection between the coded realm of the video game and the equally codified space of law through an insightful collection of critical readings. Law is the ultimate multiplayer role-playing game. Involving a process of world-creation, law presents and codifies the parameters of licit and permitted behaviour, requiring individuals to engage their roles as a legal subject – the player-avatar of law – in order to be recognised, perform legal actions, activate rights or fulfil legal duties. Although traditional forms of law (copyright, property, privacy, freedom of expression) externally regulate the permissible content, form, dissemination, rights and behaviours of game designers, publishers, and players, this collection examines how players simulate, relate, and engage with environments and experiences shaped by legality in the realm of video game space. Featuring critical readings of video games as a means of understanding law and justice, this book contributes to the developing field of cultural legal studies, but will also be of interest to other legal theorists, socio-legal scholars, and games theorists.
“Mastering the Game” provides professionals in the videogames industry with practical insights and guidance on legal and business issues related to the use of intellectual property protection in this area. The training material takes the reader through all stages of the game development and distribution process pointing out the role of intellectual property in relation to the various uses of the content.
