An Alaskan law that goes into effect on July 1, and deals with the electronic distribution of indecent material to minors, has come under fire by free speech advocates.

Section 11.61.128 of the Alaska Statutes, signed into law by Governor Sean Parnell (pictured hugging his predecessor) in May, calls for parties to be criminally liable for media transmissions (or hosting) of material that is considered “harmful to minors.” Additionally, violators can face up to two years in prison, could be forced to forfeit their business and would have to register as sex offenders.

Those in opposition label the law as “broad censorship,” and claim that “it bans from the Internet anything that may be ‘harmful to minors,’ including material adults have a First Amendment right to view.”
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The flurry of actions between Edge Games, its CEO Tim Langdell and Electronic Arts continues with a new entry in the pair’s battle—EA has filed a countersuit against an action brought by Edge earlier this year, which involved the game Mirror’s Edge.

In June, Edge filed a trademark infringement lawsuit against EA, alleging “willful infringement and unfair competition” over the use of the Mirror’s Edge name. This action followed a Consolidated Petition for Cancellation filed by EA in September of 2009 against Edge trademarks, including “The Edge,” “Gamer’s Edge,” “Edge” and “Cutting Edge.”
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As a court case in the District of Columbia court against 14,000 "john doe" defendants filed by the US Copyright Group over file sharing movies continues, increasingly defendants and ISPs are saying that the court has no jurisdiction over them.

One John Doe defendant in the D.C. case sent a letter to the court saying that he has never traded files, nor lived, used an ISP, or worked in the D.C area and that adding him as a defendant is improper because he has nothing in common with the "co-defendants." Here's what he wrote to the court: Read More

Australia's Federal Court has temporarily barred the import and sale of a USB device that gives its users the power to hack the PlayStation 3 (it's described as a plug-in copy protection bypass). No doubt Sony is delighted by the temporary injunction against the PSJailbreak USB modchip, but now the company must convince the court that the PSJailbreak is illegal. If Sony can’t convince the court, then the device will hit retail shelves in Australia sometime in Sept.

Expect a ruling sometime early next week as Sony's clock runs down to its August 31 deadline. While Sony is believed to be pursuing legal action in other countries besides Australia in an attempt to fight the PSJailbreak, it faces another problem: cheap knock offs of the device that have already been created - which means more court action.

With America basically making jailbreaking some devices legal, it will be interesting to see how a lawsuit against such a device here might play out. Chances are we'll get to see a this new device turns up all over the world.

Source: gi.biz

A law blog contributor believes that the Hawaii man suing Lineage II creator NCsoft for making the game so addictive has an uphill battle in order prove his case.

Craig Smallwood sued the game maker after reportedly spending 20,000 hours playing Lineage II between 2004 and 2009. He claimed that NCsoft neglected “to warn or instruct or adequately warn or instruct plaintiff and other players of Lineage II of its dangerous and defective characteristics, and of the safe and proper method of using the game.”

In a column on the blog LegalMatch.com, "Rusty Shackleford" asks if such a case demonstrates the need for tort reform, or if the plaintiff and court are “on to something.”

On Smallwood’s chances: Read More

Take-Two Interactive fought the good fight but failed to prevail in a lawsuit against a company that specializes in domain squatting - the practice of buying up and sitting on domains for potentially popular products. A company called NA Media grabbed the domain name in early 2004 after word slipped out that BioShock was in the works at Irrational Games. Unfortunately for Take-Two, the company hadn't trademarked "BioShock" before NA Media registered "www.bioshock.com."

That had a profound impact on Take-Two's court case, according to Gamer/Law, which reported today that the company had lost in court. The simple fact that Take-Two hadn't managed to register the trademarks at the time of the URL's registration really weakened the publisher's case, but Name Administration also argued in court that Bioshock had other meanings separate from Take-Two's business - even citing interest from Johnson & Johnson to use it for some odd line of skincare products. Read More

Following threats from the city of San Francisco earlier this week over an “illegal and actionable” Mafia Wars II marketing stunt which littered the streets of that city, a bad stretch continues to get worse for social game maker Zynga.

Venture Beat reports that Zynga is now the target of a trademark suit from mobile game developer Digital Chocolate. The Trip Hawkins-helmed company claims that it owns the exclusive rights to the name Mafia Wars and that it notified Zynga of the infringement last year, after which it was informed by Zynga that it would stop using the name.

Zynga, responding to the lawsuit, stated, “We are surprised and disappointed by Digital Chocolate’s lawsuit. The timing of the action appears to be opportunistic, and we plan to defend ourselves vigorously.”

Digital Chocolate used the Mafia Wars name for a mobile game, which VB writes, “wasn’t very popular.

In what could be a preview of what might happen when the Supreme Court finally addresses the Schwarzenegger v. Entertainment Merchants Association case this fall or early next year, the Institute of Bill of Rights Law (IBRL) at William & Mary Law School will run through the violent videogame case as part of its 2010-2011 Supreme Court Preview.

The two-day event kicks off on Friday night, September 24 and will feature experienced Supreme Court advocates presenting arguments before the IBRL’s mock panel of Supreme Court Justices. Events will conclude in a 9am to 4pm session on Saturday, September 25.

This year’s participants include Lyle Denniston from the SCOTUS Blog, USA Today’s Joan Biskupic, The Wall Street Journal’s Jess Bravin, the New York Times’ Adam Liptak, University of California, Irvine School of Law Dean Erwin Chemrinsky, U.S. Department of Justice Deputy Assistant Attorney General Beth Brinkman and William & Mary School of Law Dean Davison Douglas.
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Craig Smallwood of Hawaii has a lawsuit in the works against the creator of Lineage II, claiming that he became so addicted to the game he became “unable to function independently in usual daily activities such as getting up, getting dressed, bathing or communicating with family and friends.”

In a Wired piece on the suit, Smallwood, in his proceedings, claims to have spent 20,000 hours playing the game between 2004 and 2009. He claimed that developer NCsoft is negligent because it failed “to warn or instruct or adequately warn or instruct plaintiff and other players of Lineage II of its dangerous and defective characteristics, and of the safe and proper method of using the game.”

The suit appears to be moving forward as the presiding judge refused to dismiss some of Smallwood’s claims earlier this month.
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A Japanese IP court has ruled against Sony Corp. today in a lawsuit with a former employee who claimed that the company didn't compensate him properly for technology he created that was used in the PlayStation. Japan's Intellectual Property High Court has ordered Sony to pay former employee Hidehiro Kume approximately 5.1 million yen for his invention; "a technology used in PlayStation game consoles."

The decision reverses a lower court decision ruling that rejected Kume's demand. The 58-year old former employee of Sony was seeking 100 million yen. Kume invented a "small optical pickup" used to play and record data on optical discs for the PlayStation sold prior to and during 2003.

Kume expressed his thanks to the court for the decision, which Sony says it will review as it considers an appeal. Read More

In case you missed it, World of Warcraft developer Blizzard recently scored a whopping $88,594,539 judgment against a company that was operating and charging players to access World of Warcraft emulator servers.

The ruling was handed down on August 10 by the U.S. District Court of the Central District of California and targeted Alyson Reeves, who was operating under the business name of ScapeGaming. The huge dollar figure was calculated by combining the $3,052,339 the defendant received from users of her service via Paypal, statutory damages of $85,478,600 (calculated by multiplying ScapeGaming’s 427,393 users times the statutory minimum of $200 per “act of circumvention and/or performance of service”) and another $63,600 in attorney’s fees.

Additionally, if Reeves has trouble paying, she will see post-judgment interest accumulate at the “rate provided by law” until the entire sum is recovered.

Court documents reveal that up to 32,000 players were using the organization’s servers each day.

A statement from Blizzard on its victory read: Read More

Former Apple global supply manager Paul Shin Devine plead not guilty Monday in the U.S. District Court in San Jose, California. A bail hearing is scheduled for Wednesday. Devine was indicted by a federal grand jury last week on 23 counts of wire fraud, money laundering, conspiracy, and accepting kickbacks, according to court documents obtained by C|Net.

Devine also faces the wrath of Steve Jobs; Apple has filed a civil suit against him for allegedly accepting more than $1 million in bribes from suppliers over the past few years in return for inside information that was then used to give those companies a better position in bargaining lucrative contracts.

Six Asian companies were named in the indictment including Kaedar Electronics - a division of Asus owned Pegatron (Taiwan), Singapore-based JLJ Holdings's Jin Li Mold Manufacturing, Singapore-based Glocom/Lateral Solutions and Fastening Technologies, Taiwanese company Nishoku Technology and earphone and headset maker Cresyn. Read More

Bannco Corp. has lost the first round in a legal battle with SplitFish AG, SplitFish Gameware, Inc., and Nabon Corp., in a U.S. District court this week over video game controllers. The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia has ruled in favor of SplitFish and partners, granting a preliminary injunction against Bannco that stops the company from selling video game controllers that allegedly use software code copied from SplitFish's "FragFX" video game controllers.

The video game controllers at the heart of this legal battle are the "FRAGNSTEIN" and "SCORCH" which Bannco produced to "mimic the SPLITFISH FRAGFX design and function" - according to SplitFish.

The judge overseeing the case, T.S. Ellis, ruled that Nabon was the original owner of the software code that the plaintiffs are likely to succeed on the merits of their copyright infringement claim against Nabon. Ellis also ruled that the plaintiffs had made a "sufficient showing that failure to enjoin Bannco's conduct would result in irreparable harm to the plaintiff. Read More

While not overly game-related, the testimony of the founder of 4chan.org before the U.S. District Court Knoxville, Tennessee in regards to the hacking of Sarah Palin’s Yahoo email account in 2008 features a treasure trove of entertainment.

Chris Poole’s testimony (PDF) was given on April 22, 2010 as part of the investigation into David Kernell’s hacking of Palin’s account, and was released by The Smoking Gun. Kernell posted images from Palin’s account on 4Chan’s /b/ board, which eventually led to his conviction on two felony counts.

In the best part of the testimony, Kernell defines the “specialized” language that 4chan users have adopted. Examples below.

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Uniloc, which specializes in computer security and copy protection initiatives, has filed a lawsuit against Sony Corp. of America, Activision Blizzard, Aspy Media—and a handful of other software companies—alleging that the defendants infringed on a Uniloc patent which centers on a system for registering software.

The Orange County Business Journal pointed us towards the lawsuit, which was filed in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, Tyler Division, on July 29. Additional defendants include Borland Software corp., McAfee, Inc. and Quark, Inc.
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In litigation very similar to one brought previously by NFL Hall of Fame member Jim Brown, another ex-professional football player has filed a lawsuit against Electronic Arts, alleging that the game maker used the likenesses of retired NFL players illegally in its Madden NFL series of videogames.

The new suit, filed by Michael E. Davis (pictured in his playing days), aka Tony Davis, was filed in the United States District Court of the Northern District of California on July 29, and is of the class action variety, seeking damages on behalf of the “approximately 6,000 retired NFL players whose likenesses were included in the ‘historic teams’ in all versions and editions of Madden” sold between July 29, 2008 and the present.
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Noted space travel enthusiast and legendary videogame developer Richard Garriott (aka Lord British) can now afford a few more trips into orbit following a $28 million win resulting from a lawsuit brought against former employer NCsoft Corp.

Garriott was issued stock options (valid through May 30, 2011) when NCsoft bought his company Destination Games in 2001. A clause, however, dictated that the options would expire in the event he voluntarily left the company.

A news release from Garriott’s attorney firm Fish & Richardson claims that Garriott took a leave of absence in order to travel aboard the Russian Soyuz spacecraft to the International Space Station. During his post-flight quarantine, however, “Garriott was informed by NCsoft that his time with the company was over.” NCsoft argued that his termination was a voluntary resignation.
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A new study in Australia, commissioned by Village Roadshow and conducted by the University of Ballarat Internet Commerce Security Laboratory, has come to the conclusion that 89.9 percent of all torrents offer copyrighted materials.

Village Roadshow is suing Australian ISP iiNet for allegedly allowing its customers to share copyrighted films and television shows. Unfortunately for Village Roadshow, a Federal Court has already ruled that the ISP is not liable because it didn't "infringe copyright itself." The Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft, of which Village Roadshow is a member of, is appealing the decision.

So with that kind of court action as a backdrop, the results of the study commissioned by Village Roadshow seem skewed to support its current and future legal action. Here's some more information about the study: Read More

A probe into the misuse of city funds by management information systems employees vendors of the Wisconsin city of Fond du Lac turned up money spent on videogames and will result in criminal charges.

Over $200,000 in municipal funds was spent illegally by four MIS employees and two city vendors, all of whom have been, or will soon be, charged in the embezzlement scheme according to the FDLReporter. Money was spent on items including an infant kangaroo costume, a Nintendo Wii bundle and even an $87 ham. Additional items seized under the investigation included a copy of Gears of War and 16 guns, “three or four” of which were suspected of being purchased with taxpayer funds.

Checks and balances designed to stave off such improper spending were easily circumvented, in part, because MIS employees new their supervisor’s password.

Items that were able to be physically recovered are being stored at the police department and may be sold at auction so the city can recover some money.

Pro-football Hall of Famer Jim Brown has filed an appeal in his case against Electronic Arts over the inclusion of what he says is his likeness in the publisher’s Madden series of games.

Brown’s case was originally dismissed in September of last year by (now-deceased) U.S. District Court Judge Florence Marie-Cooper, who likened videogames to realistic paintings of athletes and “akin to an expressive painting that depicts celebrity athletes of past and present in a realistic sporting environment.”

The New York Times reports that Brown, in his filing, believes that he did not have a chance to demonstrate the facts of his case before Cooper’s ruling.


Semi-realistic painting of Jim Brown from Larry E Shelton

A charity organization for the homeless has been ordered shut after an investigation into its finances showed that money was not being used to help the disadvantaged, but was instead put towards meals, online purchases, cable TV service and videogames.

Ubiquitous throughout Manhattan, The United Homeless Organization (UHO) charged homeless people $15 to rent a table to be used as a donation center. The homeless were allowed to keep all donations accrued throughout the day (minus the $15 charge). Investigators charge that UHO’s founder Stephen Riley, and its Director, Myra Walker, used the proceeds from the table rentals as a “personal slush fund,” and used the funds to buy a variety of items, including purchases from GameStop.

New York’s Attorney General’s office ordered the organization to close, but AG Andrew Cuomo offered, “This organization's bad behavior should not undermine the public's willingness to donate to legitimate charities.”
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A Circuit Court Judge for the 30th Circuit in Virginia has vacated his seat following a tale of a 2009 car crash following a night of videogames with a former defendant who had appeared before him in court.

TriCities.com carries the story of Circuit Judge Joseph Carico (pictured behind the bench) who crashed his SUV into a tree on November 21, 2009. Passenger Jeremy Hubbard was hurt in the crash, which happened after a night playing Halo 3 on the Xbox 360 and sports games on the Wii, the Judge’s “preferred gaming system,” according to Hubbard.

Hubbard’s and Carico’s paths had crossed in court as a result of a drug case against the former, in which the latter “had signed multiple orders revoking Hubbard’s bond and jailing him on the drug conviction and on a larceny case.” Carico also “signed three separate orders sentencing Hubbard to community service.”
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Movie Gallery filed for Chapter 11 in February of this year, and then announced in April that it would close and liquidate all of its locations, including its Hollywood Video and Game Crazy storefronts. Now a battle is gearing up over the company’s sizeable new and used game inventory.

Movie Gallery asked a bankruptcy court on June 14 to approve a sale of its videogame assets to COKeM International Ltd. for $3.025 million, according to a story on Forbes.  Read More

The US Copyright Group, a fancy name for the group of Virginia lawyers that like to sue file sharers in bulk, has told a federal judge that they "see no problem" with suing 5,000 Bittorrent users as John Does. Lawyers for the EFF and the ACLU have a different take on the matter entirely. The suits were "improperly joined," according to the EFF and ACLU. At least one judge hearing the case wants more information from all parties on the matter.

Yesterday, lawyer Tom Dunlap of the firm Dunlap, Grubb, & Weaver, filed a 29-page document in the Washington, DC District Court. The gist of that brief was that, according to Dunlap, suing 5,000 anonymous users at once is proper because of how Bittorrent works. Dunlap's argument tries to distinguish Bittorrent from all other P2P networks: Read More

Connecticut senatorial candidate Linda McMahon, her husband Vince McMahon Jr., and their company, World Wrestling Entertainment, are being sued by the widow of Owen Hart, according to the Associated Press. McMahon, who is probably the only candidate running in the 2010 election cycle to appear in a WWE videogame, is vying for the senate seat being vacated by Chris Dodd.

Owen's widow, Martha Hart, is suing the McMahons and the WWE because the company continues to use her husband's image to promote the WWE. Martha does not want Owen Hart's name associated with the WWE in any way. Martha Hart planned to file her lawsuit Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Hartford.

Owen Hart, brother of Brett "The Hitman" Hart, died when he fell 78 feet from a harness as it lowered him into a wrestling ring in Kansas City, Mo., on May 23, 1999. He was 34. Martha settled a lawsuit with the WWE concerning Owen's death in 2000. In a written statement Martha explained why she is suing the WWE now: Read More

A copyright infringement lawsuit filed over a Flash game that appeared on Facebook outlines “the slipperiness of enforcing intellectual property rights in a world where creating and dispersing infringing material to the public via social networking websites has become all too easy.”

After creating the Flash game Boomshine, Plaintiff Daniel Miller discovered a too similar, though differently named, game on Facebook entitled ChainRxn. Miller then filed suit, against developer Yao Wei Yeo (accused of direct infringement) and Facebook (accused of contributorily infringing). Miller alleged that ChainRxn incorporated the “same look and feel” of Boomshine, in addition to featuring “almost every visual element of the game.”

Unfortunately for Miller, Yeo could not be located in order to be served with a summons. Miller’s original complaint charged both defendants with copyright infringement, but after the complaint was dismissed, Miller amended his complaint to carry the currently stated charges.
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Entertainment Software Association (ESA) President Michael Gallagher is “humble” about how trade group might fare in front of the U.S. Supreme Court, as the nation’s highest court prepares to rule on Entertainment Merchants Association (EMA) v. Schwarzenegger, which centers on a California law that attempts to make it illegal to rent or sell violent videogames to underage consumers.

In a pre-E3 briefing recounted by Joystiq, Gallagher said about the case, “We believe we're on the side of right here. We've believed that for 10 years. That hasn't wavered one iota. You go into this preparing to win, but also very prepared to handle the other conclusions as well”
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Tim Langdell and Edge Games are at it again, launching another lawsuit, this time claiming trademark infringement against videogame giant Electronic Arts.

The lawsuit revolves around what Edge terms “willful infringement and unfair competition” in regards to EA’s Mirror’s Edge franchise. The suit seeks a court injunction against EA’s “continued infringement” and includes claims for treble damages.

From a press release announcing the lawsuit:

…Edge Games sent a cease-and-desist letter in July 2007 after learning of EA’s intentions to launch Mirror’s Edge. Rather than responding to the letter, the lawsuit states, EA instead filed a trademark application with the United States Patent and Trademark Office in an attempt to register the Mirror’s Edge name. The USPTO denied the application in early 2008, stating that EA’s planned use of Mirror’s Edge would likely cause confusion with several registered trademarks maintained by Edge Games. Read More

Take-Two Interactive and Apogee Software have dismissed lawsuits against each other over the long in development Duke Nukem Forever.

Attorneys for Apogee signed the document on May 18 of this year (thanks ShackNews), while Take-Two’s law firm affixed its signature on May 28. The document stipulates that plaintiff Take-Two, counterclaim-defendant 2K Games and counterclaim plaintiff Apogee agreed to dismiss with prejudice all claims within per a May 14, 2010 agreement. Each party will pay for its own costs of the litigation.

The lawsuits erupted following developer 3D Realms letting go its staff in May of 2009, which Take-Two took as indicating that the game they had partially funded since 1998 was no longer in development. The 3D Realms and Apogee countersuit claimed that, despite a full roster of employees, the game was still in the works.
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The provincial court of Madrid has concluded that popular file sharing site, CVCDGO.com, did not " transfer or host any copyrighted works" and therefore did not violate any laws. This ruling falls in line with other cases in Spain involving file sharing, to the chagrin of police and organizations like the EGEDA and Columbia Tristar.

The case has been tangled up in court since 2005; in early 2005 Spanish police under its Intellectual Property Crime Squad, or "Operation CVCD," and the audiovisual rights collecting society EGEDA conducted an investigation, collecting evidence on the web site. Shortly thereafter police conducted a raid in multiple cities (Malaga, Seville and Madrid) arresting the four male operators of the site.

According to published reports prosecutors allege that the site shared movies with users - many of which hadn't even a theatrical release in the region. Since its launch in 2004 CVCDGO.com made its money off of ads on the site from an estimated 11 million visits. Read More