Posted in Copyright Law, Trademark Law, Virtual Law on June 30th, 2008 5 Comments »
This one may make your head hurt a little bit, but it highlights a problem that is coming faster than you might think. Three steps to the analysis…
1) 3D games like the upcoming Spore (and, of course, free-form social environments like Second Life) let users create some pretty cool stuff. For example, I created [...]
Posted in Clippings, International Law, Second Life, Virtual Law, Virtual Worlds & Games on June 28th, 2008 3 Comments »
I’m pleased to announce that starting Monday, I will be appearing periodically (in avatar form) as a legal correspondent for the second season of Cornell Professor Robert Bloomfield’s excellent virtual worlds interview show, Metanomics.
My first appearance will be Monday, June 30th, at 12 noon Pacific time. I’ll be starting the hour with a brief [...]
Posted in Civil Procedure, Contract Law, Hernandez v. IGE, Lawsuits, RMT/RCE, Virtual Law, Virtual Worlds & Games, World of Warcraft on June 25th, 2008 4 Comments »
IGE has filed a brief (.pdf) in opposition to last month’s motion for class certification in Hernandez v. IGE. IGE also filed exhibits (.zip) which feature excerpts from the deposition (an out of court proceeding where someone has to answer questions under oath) of plaintiff Hernandez.
IGE’s chief argument is that Hernandez does not have [...]
Posted in VB Administration on June 24th, 2008 5 Comments »
As part of ramping back up to full-time coverage at VB, I’m going to do some minor site updates, and update my virtual world presence.
Nothing drastic re: the site — an updated banner, a few visual tweaks, and some behind-the-scenes WordPress patches that I’ve been putting off. Let me know if you have any [...]
Posted in Clippings, Second Life, Virtual Law, Virtual Law Practice, Virtual Legal Education, Virtual Worlds & Games on June 23rd, 2008 5 Comments »
This is a repost to remind readers that tomorrow, June 24, from 10:00 AM to 12:00 noon Pacific time (1:00 PM to 3:00 PM Eastern) I am moderating a teleconference on “Why Virtual Worlds Matter for Lawyers” sponsored by the American Bar Association’s Section of Science & Technology Law and Section of Intellectual Property Law. [...]
Posted in Blizzard, Copyright Law, Lawsuits, MDY v. Blizzard, Providers, Virtual Law, Virtual Worlds & Games, World of Warcraft on June 20th, 2008 9 Comments »
VB has obtained Blizzard’s response (.pdf) to the amicus curaie (”friend of the court”) brief filed last month by Public Knowledge in the MDY v. Blizzard litigation. For the background of this suit, see VB’s complete coverage of MDY v. Blizzard.
Blizzard’s chief argument in this brief is that making a copy of software into [...]
Posted in Blizzard, Copyright Law, Lawsuits, MDY v. Blizzard, Providers, Virtual Law, Virtual Worlds & Games, World of Warcraft on June 16th, 2008 5 Comments »
VB has obtained an order (.pdf) issued by the judge in MDY v. Blizzard requiring World of Warcraft creator Blizzard to respond to a brief critical of a key argument in its case against bot-maker MDY.
The argument under attack is Blizzard’s claim that software which loads World of Warcraft in a computer’s memory creates a [...]
Posted in VB Administration on June 7th, 2008 28 Comments »
Virtually Blind will be relatively quiet for the next few weeks as my wife and I adjust to being parents. Our first child, a darling little girl we’ve named Charlotte, joined us very early this morning.
She and her mom (who made a rare virtual world appearance last week for this screenshot) are both doing [...]
Posted in Property Law, Reading Room, Second Life, VB Features, Virtual Law, Virtual Legal Education, Virtual Worlds & Games on June 6th, 2008 No Comments »
This edition of VB’s Reading Room features a new, notable paper on virtual property by recent Columbia Law School graduate Daniel Gould. The paper is entitled Virtual Property in MMOGs (.pdf).
In the paper, Gould argues that recognition of a limited set of virtual property rights would benefit both users and virtual world companies, and [...]
Posted in Content Creators, Eros, Second Life, Trademark Law, Virtual Law, Virtual Legal Education, Virtual Worlds & Games on June 4th, 2008 1 Comment »
A post at SLUniverse announces that attorney Frank Taney will be talking about “Trademarks for Virtual World Related Businesses” in Second Life on Friday, June 6 from 2:30 to 4 pm Pacific time at UBM Think Services’ home (SLURL).
From the post:
Frank will address a variety of topics sure to be of interest to Second Life [...]
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