The fact is lawyers have been “specializing” in videogame law since the 1980s. When I began working as General Counsel for a multimedia developer in the early 1990s, the basic legal issues of videogame law already had been well established. What was still unclear was the appropriate business model/licensing structure for such games – particularly when a videogame was to be based on a movie, or when a multimedia product was going to include pre-existing content (music, video clips, text) from other sources. And while entertainment companies and videogame developers are still debating which entity provides the most “value” to a given interactive product, the basic legal issues surrounding their relationship are well settled.

When the Internet emerged as a burgeoning field in the mid-1990s, a lot of young lawyers touted “Internet law” as the next big thing. However, except for a few areas, such as domain names as trademarks and privacy issues, most of the bread-and-butter legal issues (copyright infringement, licensing, business deals) were merely variations on what had gone before.

And while it is true that the emergence of MMOs (Massive Multiplayer Online games) have given rise to several interesting new issues (particularly ownership of “virtual property”), most of what lawyers do in the videogame arena is well-settled.

The fact is that “Videogame Law” is so well established that law schools are offering courses (see here and here) in the field to law students.

In light of these facts, it is hard to understanding why two well-respected newspapers would run articles on this issue as if it was something brand new. Perhaps a slow news day?

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Here are the show notes for this week’s episode:

Shownotes for The Singularity Law Podcast: Episode 3 for October 12, 2008

Our Panel for Today:

• Josh Kagan, author of The Josh Kagan Blog
• Prof. Michael Scott of The Singularity Law Blog
• Tigran Palyan, author of “Common Law Privacy in a Not So Common World: Prospects for the Tort of Intrusion upon Seclusion in Virtual Worlds”

Privacy in Virtual Worlds – Tigran tells Michael and Josh about his new article

• “Common Law Privacy in a Not So Common World: Prospects for the Tort of Intrusion upon Seclusion in Virtual Worlds” by Tigran Palyan

Kentucky Seizes Gambling Domains

• Ars Technica: “Kentucky seizes two gambling domains, sites fight back”
• Ars Technica: “Kentucky tries to seize gambling site domain name”

Talking Point of the Week: A EULA to End All EULAs

• BoingBoing: “Sleeping Beauty Blu-Ray requires viewers to agree to 57 page EULA”