Laws of Play

Copyright and Virtual Worlds

Ross Dannenberg, of Banner & Witcoff and Patent Arcade, recently posted the final installment of his The Rocky Legal Landscape of Virtual Worlds series. This time Dannenberg explores the interaction of copyright and virtual worlds, which is becoming an increasingly important area of intellectual property law as user-generated content is featured more prevalently in modern games. The article tends to focus on Second Life and discusses the application of basic copyright principles to virtual creations. While the article is quite brief and only touches upon a few of the myriad issues in this field, it is certainly worth a read. Be sure to check out Part 1 and Part 2 if you missed them previously.

Nintendo Faces Another Patent Infringement Suit for Wii Controller

At this point, one must ask how many pre-existing patents could have possibly covered different elements of Nintendo’s “revolutionary” Wii controller. After getting hammered with a $21 million patent infringement verdict in May, Nintendo will once again find itself in court defending its motion controller. This time, Motiva, LLC claims that it owns a 2004 patent (U.S. Patent No. 7,292,151) that protects technology used in the Nintendo Wii. A press release from The Lanier Law Firm, Motiva’s representation, states:

The asserted patent involves technology used to create a “Human Movement Measurement System” comprising a hand-held tracking device in communication with a base station that can be used to create an interactive gaming experience, among other capabilities. Nintendo’s Wii video game system uses an interactive hand-held remote in communication with a base station to reproduce users’ movements on televisions and other display screens.

I will be interested to see how this one pans out. Honestly, Nintendo has made enough money off of the Wii that settling this case would be wise. The full press release is available here.

IP and Virtual Worlds

Ross Dannenberg, of Banner & Witcoff, is in the middle of a 3-part series discussing the interaction of intellectual property law and virtual worlds. Part 2, discussing patents, was posted today and provides interesting reading for those who are not well acquainted with intellectual property law. The article covers the basics of patent law, provides examples of some typical virtual world patents, and discusses some of the legal complications inherent with enforcing patents in a virtual world. If you enjoy the article, be sure to check out Part 1, which discusses trademarks.

One Law Student’s Take on Video Game Copyright

As I was browsing the web and doing my best to avoid fretting over looming exams, I came across the curiously named blog Banana Pepper Martinis. Banana Pepper Martinis is apparently the personal blog of L. B. Jeffries, a pseudonymous game reviewer at www.popmatters.com. It would appear that L. B. Jeffries is also a law student and recently completed a note on the interaction of video games with copyright law. An excerpt of the introduction follows:

Video games and copyright law have always had a tenuous relationship. The problem is threefold. First, players significantly alter the content of video games and keep them from ever being a fixed series of images. Second, the software used to generate the images has rarely been considered a protectable asset by the courts unless it is copied in its entirety. Third, courts have typically relied on the audio visual display clause of the Lanham Act to protect the images produced by the software and to dismiss the player input as a relevant aspect. Although this system worked when video game disputes were first coming about and well into today, a new trend in video games may upset this method. The culture of player modifications and improvements to pre-existing games that have traditionally been viewed as fair use by the courts creates a new problem for copyrights and video games. Do these qualify as fair use, a derivative work, or both? If the player is increasing the value of someone’s product without compensation, what rights do they have to their original work and what rights do the companies have to these improvements? The first part of this essay will outline the Legal Background that was established during the eighties that people rely on to demonstrate their copyrights and the rulings that create a loophole for player modifications. Then it will discuss the current trends in video games that are leading to this problem. Finally, it will go into the Legal Analysis courts use for copyrights and how those can best be applied to video games.

Head over to Banana Pepper Martinis to read the paper in its entirety.

More on the First Amendment in Virtual Worlds

If you found the previous post concerning First Amendment rights in virtual worlds interesting, a new article in Volume 30 of the Cardozo Law Review may be worth your time. The article, The Freedom of 3D Thought: The First Amendment in Virtual Reality, was written by Marc Jonathan Blitz of Oklahoma City University and presents the following question in its abstract:

This article seeks to understand its place in First Amendment law. My question, in short, is whether the actions we take in our personal Holodeck would count as “speech” or other First Amendment-protected activity. The First Amendment right to freedom of speech generally protects expression, not non-expressive conduct, such as driving a car, flying an airplane, or having sex. So where in this familiar First Amendment dichotomy does one place the convincing replica of non-expressive conduct that becomes possible inside a fully immersive VR world? Are we engaging in First Amendment “speech” when we drive a phantom car, pilot an illusory plane, or have virtual sex, and if so, why do activities such as these - which generally count as “non-expressive” conduct, unprotected by the First Amendment, in the physical world - suddenly become “expressive” in a 3D virtual world? In short, courts confronting such questions will have to decide whether VR’s convincing illusions are First Amendment “speech,” like the movies or video games of which they are arguably three-dimensional analogues, or “conduct” like the actions they mimic.

Download the entire article here.

[Hat tip to Media Law Prof Blog]