Laws of Play

Former GC Reflects on Immersion’s “Rumble” Suits

Law.com’s In-House Counsel recently published an interesting article about Immersion Corp.’s former general counsel Laura Peter. Peter is probably best known for heading up Immersion’s multi-year campaign to defend its haptic technology patents that were utilized in numerous game controllers. Ultimately, Peter’s crusade resulted in a $26 million settlement with Microsoft, a nine-figure victory over Sony, and countless other multi-million dollar licensing arrangements.

While the reaction to Immersion’s numerous lawsuits have been mixed, it’s interesting to hear the perspective of the in-house attorney on these suits and hear her take on where patent enforcement is headed in the future. Read the whole article here.

President Signs PRO-IP Bill in Law

President Bush on Monday signed the Prioritizing Resources and Organization for Intellectual Property Act (”PRO-IP” Act) into law. The law increases both civil and criminal penalties for copyright and trademark infringement and creates a new executive branch office, the Office of the United States Intellectual Property Enforcement Representative (USIPER). This office — colloquially referred to as the “IP Czar” — will report directly to the president and is charged with protecting copyright and trademarks both domestically and internationally.

The bill originally introduced a controversial provision that allowed the Department of Justice to conduct civil suits on behalf of private copyright holders or, as Electronic Frontier Foundation spokesman Richard Esguerra said, turned Justice Department lawyers into “pro bono personal lawyers for the content industry.”

While the ESA has praised the new law as a “critical step[] that support[s] job growth and investment in the video game industry,” other groups remain skeptical. The Justice Department has expressed concerns that the newly-created “IP Czar” may undermine some of the department’s authority and advocacy group Public Knowledge expressed dismay that the bill did not introduce “something to benefit the public and artists instead of big media companies.”

One Man’s Plea to Reform AU Game Rating System

Ben Croshaw, of PC Gamer and Zero Punctuation fame, recently posted an opinion piece discussing Australian video game censorship over at news.com.au. Ben examines the Australian game rating system, which ranges from “E” — for everyone — to “MA15+” — for gamers 15 and older. Because Australia does not feature an 18+ rating, all games that are inappropriate for an “MA15+” rating are effectively banned.

Ben argues that while there are plenty of mature games that he believes lack any “worthwhile” mature speech, there is no reason that adults should be denied access to these titles. Furthermore, Ben points out that as the gaming medium matures as an art form, many developers find themselves experimenting with more mature themes. As Germany and some other European nations effectively ban games on occasion by refusing to rate them, Ben’s arguments prove interesting on an international level.

Read the full article here.

Mans Kills Newborn for Interrupting His Game

Rene Edward Barrios, 26, of Arizona, pleaded guilty to manslaughter on Thursday after causing the death of an 18-day-old child. Barrios was living with the mother of the child, who was running errands at the time of the incident. When the mother left, the child was asleep and Barrios was playing video games in another room. At some point, the child awoke and began crying. In an effort to silence the child, Barrios entered the bedroom, shook the child, and struck it on the head before returning to his game. After finishing his game, he returned to the room and found the child immobile on the bed and blue in color. Barrios immediately called 911. Unfortunately, the child was pronounced dead at the hospital.

Barrios’s attorney stated that the baby had been crying for hours and Barrios’s actions were out of frustration. He went on to say that Barrios knew that he should not have shaken the child, but he acted irrationally. Barrios faces between ten and one-half and twenty-one years in prison. While the game was described as “assault-like,” it has not yet been implicated as a reason for Barrios’s agitated state. However, as others have pointed out, a good defense attorney will blame everything in sight.

Sorry! Hope You Didn’t Miss Us Too Much!

After a brief hiatus, Law of Play is back in action. Unfortunately, I recently found myself doing some work that required me to briefly stop running Laws of Play. But, now that there is no fear of breaking any promise not to compete, expect plenty of new content.

Now, here are some of the stories across the Internet that you may have missed:

New York Signed a Video Game Bill into Law

Ubisoft was Sued for a Bunch of Money

Denis Dyack is Back and Claiming Epic Defrauded the Entire Industry

A Lot of Gents in the UK are Being Sued for Piracy

Matthew Sweet Wants to Sue the Makers of Guitar Hero II

Some Attorneys and Law Profs Weighed in on the ‘Video Game Defense’

Stardock Published a ‘Gamer Bill of Rights’

A Game Pirate was Sent to Prison…

…and the ESA was Ecstatic About it

UK Appeals Court Overturns Mr. Mod Chips Conviction

A UK Appeals Court overturned the conviction of Neil Higgs, also known as Mr. Mod Chips, on Wednesday. Higgs was initially found guilty of selling thousands of mod chips — devices that allow users to play imported and pirated games on their video game consoles — via his website. An early police raid turned up 3,700 mod chips, imported from Hong Kong, in the home of Higgs’s parents. The lower court held that these devices were illegal, as they allowed users to circumvent copyright protection.

However, Techdirt now reports that the Higgs conviction has been overturned. The UK Appeals Court held that any alleged copyright infringement has already taken place before the use of a mod chip and awarded full costs to Higgs as a result of his successful appeal.

The UK now joins Australia as one of a few countries to legalize the distribution of mod chips. Countries such as Italy and the United States — under the DMCA — continue to hold that mod chips are illegal tools designed to circumvent copyright protections.

Ohio’s Tic-Tac-Fruit Under Review Once Again

The state of Ohio is once again engaged in battle with bar owners and distributors of a popular bar-top video game known as “Tic-Tac-Fruit.” Tic-Tac-Fruit first ran into trouble with the state in 2006 when police raided more than a dozen bars, unplugging the slot machine-like video games and confiscating thousands of dollars in cash.

In Ohio, slots gambling is illegal, but distributors of Tic-Tac-Fruit previously claimed that the game is based on skill, which put it outside the reach of laws targeted at games of chance. However, current Ohio law states that a player’s ability must have at least a “50 percent” bearing on the outcome to be considered a game of skill. Ohio state prosecutors earlier proved that even a perfectly played game of Tic-Tac-Fruit can result in the loss of money.

According to the Pittsburg Post-Gazette:

The game works like this — you feed in your money, then video fruit strips spin, as they would in a regular slot machine. When they stop, you’re left with a nine-square box that resembles a tic-tac-toe board.

The “skill” comes in deciding, as a clock ticks, which of the squares to turn into a wild card in order to produce three in a row of a certain fruit. Rows of lemons and cherries drain your account. Plums and oranges fatten it. If you’re ahead when you quit, you can redeem points for cash.

In order to circumvent Ohio’s gambling laws, Tic-Tac-Fruit machines no longer provide cash payouts. Instead, the machines allow players to redeem “points” for $10 Speedway gas cards, which distributors claim are “prizes” well within the realm of safe rewards. However, Matt Lampke, an assistant Ohio attorney general, said that the gas cards are prohibited as prizes under a law passed last year.

The first decision by the Ohio Liquor Control Commission for the new “gas card cases” is due this month.

British Push for Mandatory Photosensitivity Testing for Games

The Weston & Somerset Mercury reports that parents, public officials, and a “major video games manufacturer” are pushing for a new law that will require games to be screened for photosensitivity compliance before being sold.

Support for the new law comes following an epileptic seizure triggered in a ten year old boy by Ubisoft’s Rayman Raving Rabbids on the Nintendo DS. The seizure was a result of the boy’s dormant photosensitive epilepsy, an incurable life-long condition that afflicts thousands and is triggered by bright flashing lights and colors.

While most games currently provide warnings about potential epileptic seizures as a result of play, Parliament Member John Penrose argues that these warnings are insufficient because those suffering from dormant photosensitive epilepsy do not realize that the warnings even apply to them until it is too late.

New Zealand “Rampage” Blamed on GTA

Twenty-five year old Tim Reid of New Zealand was recently on trial for his December 29, 2007 assault on a police officer followed by the theft of the officer’s car. What makes Reid’s case interesting is that his attorney, Chris Nicholls, claimed that Reid’s actions were the result of his upbringing, which included compulsively playing Grand Theft Auto.

Reid pleaded guilty to “aggravated wounding, escaping custody, reckless driving, dangerous driving, unlawfully taking a motor vehicle and two charges of failing to stop, breach of supervision orders and being an unlicensed driver.” A New Zealand District Court judge sentenced Reid to five years in jail and disqualified him from driving for two years. The judge reportedly said that “Reid was hardwired for violence and anti-social behaviour and programmed by his recreational pursuits.”

New Zealand’s Family First national director Bob McCoskrie, spoke out concerning the case, stating his belief that violent video games pose a far greater threat than violent television shows and films:

Rather than observing the law breaker you take on the role of the lawbreaker …we think it desensitises certain people.

It is interesting to see the media jump on video games as the main culprit in this case, particularly when Reid’s upbringing also included sexual and physical abuse, marijuana use at the age of five, and chronic alcohol and substance abuse.

Our Courts: A Sandra Day O’Connor Game

Retired Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor revealed Wednesday that she will be working on a new video game designed to teach children how United States courts work. The game, currently titled Our Courts, will consist of two distinct parts and will be released in stages beginning this September.

The first part of the game is a free online civics program developed with the Georgetown University Law Center and Arizona State University. The interactive online program is designed for students in grades seven through nine and is intended to supplement existing courses or act as a standalone program. The website, www.ourcourts.org, hopes to engage students by forcing them to consider real legal issues. For instance, Reuters summarized a hypothetical game scenario presented by O’Connor: “one element would focus on … a school attempting to stop students wearing a T-shirt with a controversial slogan — a free speech issue designed to elicit argument about the 1st Amendment.”

O’Connor was scant on details concerning the second part of Our Courts, but stated that it would be designed for children to use in their free time. O’Connor realized the value of reaching children through modern technology by interaction with her grandchildren. Citing statistics that children typically spend forty hours a week using media, including video games, O’Connor stated:

If we can capture just a little bit of that time to get them thinking about government and civic engagement rather than playing shoot-’em-up video games, that’s a huge step in the right direction.

Read the rest of this entry »