NFL Retirees Win Suit Against Players Union

In a surprising turn of events, the NFL Retirees have been awarded $28 million by a jury verdict in their suit against the NFL Players Union. The decision in Maddengate came on Monday, when a jury found that the NFL Players Union had failed in their duty to promote the interests of ALL players, past and present. This opened the floodgate to punitive damages in the amount of $21 million, which, added to the $7 million in compensation awarded by the jury, adds up to over 10% of the union’s net worth. Union is expected to appeal.

A Few Short (And Somewhat Off-Topic) Updates

A few short updates:

You’ll note there are a couple of new blogs on the blogroll. The newest one is Legal Geekery, a law student run blog, though general interest geekery (and not specifically games).
VGXPO in Philly is coming up in a couple weeks. For those of you that are going, please get in touch with me through the contact form and I’ll try to meet up with you while I’m there.
Congratulations those of you who recently took your MPREs!
I am extremely disappointed in this season’s premiere of Top Chef New York. The characters are simply not as interesting as last season, except for team Euro Duo, who are awesome.
For anyone interested in picking up Left4Dead on PC via Steam, please leave a note in …

LittleBigPlanet Censo….I Mean Moderation, Won’t Stop

In a blow to creativity, Sony has decided to continue their controversial yankings of “inappropriate” LittleBigPlanet levels. As you may know, LittleBigPlanet is an almost entirely user-content-created game. Sony is relying on the players to develop new content and levels, and exercise their creative spark — and to a large extent, players have done so,  creating calculators, complex machines, even recreating themes from other games.

The latter is where Sony seems to be coming down the hardest. According to Kotaku, Sony has laid down the following rules to avoid your content being moderated:

*Ensure that the content you share with other users is suitable for all ages - everybody has access to your level if you publish it
*Please respect other people’s intellectual property rights. For example, …

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MMORPG Jurisdiction Comment Nearing Completion

Just a heads up and status report. My comment on jurisdictional analysis in MMORPGs and virtual worlds is nearing completion. I’m expecting the first draft to be completed in about 10 days, and the final version by around December. I’m undecided as to whether to publish the draft online here, or wait until it is finished, but in any event I’ll let you know what happens. The paper addresses points made over the past 15 years or so by industry greats such as Raph Koster, Julian Dibbell, Greg Lastowka, Jack Balkin, and John Barlow. I’m pleased with it so far and I think you will be as well when it’s released.

Analysis of MMORPG Billing Structures

Gene Hoffman, of billing and fraud management powerhouse Vindicia (used by several big-name MMORPG companies), has some commentary and analysis on MMORPG billing structures over at Gamasutra. (Thanks Kotaku for the tip).

It’s a very interesting read as to how the publishers decide to set their pricing structures, and what considerations guide them when choosing between competing offers.

So while the overall game experience plays a major role in player retention, specific payment issues also come into play, says Hoffman: “Our experience has shown that focused attention on minimizing payment failures can lead to a six percentage point increase in retention.”

Assuming 300,000 subscribers who each pay $15 per month for an average 16 months, simply taking additional measures to ensure customers can pay easily — …

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Guitar Hero World Tour Creation Mode v. Copyright Law

Some snags this week for users of Guitar Hero World Tour’s Creation mode.

User-created versions of existing, copyrighted songs are disappearing. This comes as no surprise, as Blactivizzion warned that content would be monitored for infringement. That being said, I think there is a significant legal argument to be made that what people are creating in World Tour is not copyright infringement per se.

A little law first, from the U.S. Copyright Office:

One of the rights accorded to the owner of copyright is the right to reproduce or to authorize others to reproduce the work in copies or phonorecords. This right is subject to certain limitations found in sections 107 through 118 of the Copyright Act (title 17, U. S. Code). One of the …

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EA Sued Again…And Again

GamePolitics reports that two new class action lawsuits against EA have been filed in the US District Court for the Northern District of California. Though both suits involve the same invasive DRM programs being litigated over in September’s Thomas v. Electronic Arts, these two latest class actions concern DRM in The Sims 2: Bon Voyage and Spore Creature Creator: Free Trial Edition.

Blizzard Sued For “Mind Theft”

At least one man is not content to yell, “this boss is going to make me lose my mind” and be done with it while playing MMORPG World of Warcraft.  Jonathan Lee Riches, an inmate “doing business as” the fictional Gordon Gekko, joined by VIncent Dragonetti, Steven Iaria, Mario Cassarino and Moy Industries LLC have filed suit against WoW makers Blizzard in the United States District Court for the District of Arizona.  

The full text of the Complaint is available here, courtesy of virtuallyblind.com.
Riches, et. al. assert that “World of Warcraft caused Riches [sic] mind to live in a virtual universe, where Riches explored the landscape committing Identity theft and fighting rival cybermonster hacker gangs.” Plaintiffs in their pleading “move for amicus curae” and …