1. Game Design, Development, and TechnologyCS
Game Design, Development, and Technology
The Legal Perspective
Intellectual Property Content, Law, and Practice
Content Regulation
Parts

2. Intellectual Property Content, Law, and Practice
The Legal Perspective
The game industry hasn’t been a real stickler for the law…
1978: Mattel releases a licensed Battlestar Galactica game called Space Alert
1979: Mattel develops an unlicensed variation, filled with BG-style ships and Cylons, but is forced to remove the Battlestar Galactica logo and to rename it generically as Space Battle
: Hasbro Interactive purchases the Atari library (Centipede, Missile Command, Asteroids) and licenses the Namco library (Pac-Man, Pole Position, Galaga).
2000: Hasbro Interactive successfully sues six other companies for blatantly copying games to which Hasbro owns the exclusive copyright.
Part 7.5
Intellectual Property Content, Law, and Practice
Page 266

3. Intellectual Property Content, Law, and Practice
Game Software Piracy
Sales in PC-based games have declined, a trend frequently attributed to software piracy.
Game developers increasingly use the PC platform to develop game engines and games before porting everything over to consoles.
Part 7.5
Intellectual Property Content, Law, and Practice
Page 267

4. Content Regulation
Courts have repeatedly ruled that computer and video games are protected speech and that recent legislative efforts to ban or limit access to games violates the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
Illinois, December 2005
Judge: “…if controlling access to allegedly ‘dangerous’ speech is important in promoting the positive psychological development of children, in our society that role is properly accorded to parents and families, not the state.”
Minnesota, July 2006
Judge: “…there is no showing whatsoever that video games, in the absence of other violent media, cause even the slightest injury to children.”
Michigan, April 2006
Judge: “It would be impossible to separate the functional aspects of a video game from the expressive, inasmuch as they are as closely intertwined and dependent on each other in creating the virtual experience.”
Washington, July 2004
Judge: “…there has been no showing that exposure to video games that ‘trivialize violence against law enforcement officers’ is likely to lead to actual violence against such officers.”
Indiana, March 2001
Judge: “To shield children right up to the age of 18 from exposure to violent descriptions and images would not only be quixotic, but deforming; it would leave them unequipped to cope with the world as we know it.”
U.S. Supreme Court, June 2011
Justice: “Video games qualify for First Amendment protection. Like protected books, plays, and movies, they communicate ideas through familiar literary devices and features distinctive to the medium. And “the basic principles of freedom of speech do not vary” with a new and different communication medium.”
California, February 2009
Judge: “…there remain less restrictive means of forwarding the state’s purported interests, such as the improved ESRB rating system, enhanced educational campaigns, and parental controls.”
Missouri, June 2003
Judge: “…the government cannot silence protected speech by wrapping itself in the cloak of parental authority.”
Oklahoma, September 2007
Judge: “…the presence of increased viewer control and interactivity does not remove these games from the release of First Amendment protection.”
Louisiana, November 2006
Judge: “The Court wonders why nobody objected to the enactment of this statute. In this court’s view, the taxpayers deserve more from their elected officials.”
Part 7.6
Content Regulation
Page 268