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Money Laundering Using Video Game Loot Boxes
Valve has shut down the ability for players to buy and re-sell keys to access in-game loot boxes in the popular game Counter Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO) in a bid to combat money laundering. Only recently, the company announced in a blog post that the online marketplace has been taken over by large fraud networks […]
Planting Trees with Minecraft, Fortnite, and “Treelon” Musk
If you haven’t heard, TeamTrees charity drive is attempting to raise money for the Arbor Day Foundation in order to plant 20 million trees at $1/tree. This charity drive was organized by a known YouTuber known as “MrBeart”, who donated $100,000 himself. One cool Videogame-based response is Seán William “Jacksepticeye” McLoughlin, who held a Minecraft […]
Fashion Firms Are Entering Video Games
Louis Vuitton has just unveiled their newly designed skins for League of Legends. Louis Vuitton’s involvement in designing skins has ben known for a while, but the first skin is now official. This shows the development in the industri and its commercialisation on a whole new level. Link for the skin and the history behind: […]
News of the Week; October 23, 2019
GAMES In These Partisan Times, The Only Thing That Gets Bi-Partisan Agreement Is That Blizzard Sucks Legislators condemn action against Hearthstone pro in letter to Activision Blizzard CEO Lawmakers express “deep concern” over Blizzard’s Hong Kong protest response US legislators: Blitzchung ban could have “chilling effect” on free speech – Bipartisan letter urges Blizzard to reverse decision […]
UBC Open Education Champions
On Tuesday October 22, 2019, the UBC Vancouver Alma Mater Society, the VP Academic and Provost, and the UBC Library held a reception to congratulate faculty and staff for being nominated as UBC Open Education Resource Champions. An open education champion was defined as someone who has made a significant contribution to the use of […]
Presentation Outline: Legal Issues of Valve (Digital Game Reselling + Geoblocking)
Dear Class, We would like to briefly inform you about the topic of our presentation next Wednesday. We will discuss the very current and important decision from France in the matter of UFC Que Choisir v. S.A.R.L. Valve. The topic is the resale of digital video games by customers of the Steam platform. According […]
Class 7 – 10/23/19; “Connecting Ourselves: Gamer Vulnerability in Virtual Realities Part 3” + “Copyright Law and YouTube/Twitch Gameplay” + “Patenting AI-Generated Inventions”
Slides and video (such as it is) below. Unfortunately only the first 2/3’s (roughly) of my talk was recorded, nor were either of the student presentations. The lecture capture team has advised it looks like there was a network interruption in the recording system. We would not have noticed any interruption because the recording system […]
Advertising in Video Games
I’ll be presenting on legal issues arising from advertising in video games, which include the aspects of video game advertising, in-game advertisements and “advergames”. I’ll begin with an overview of the three, then I’ll examine the issues of protection of vulnerable audiences, disclosure and false advertising by looking at Canadian, the U.S. and the U.K. […]
Better Protection from Loot Boxes?
There has been much talk regarding Fortnite in recent weeks, particularly given the recent class-action lawsuit by a Montreal legal firm on behalf of two minors, to sue the company for producing such an addictive game. Now, a new report in the UK has been released, investigating the relationship young people in the UK have […]
Patenting AI-generated inventions
Hi all On Wednesday I’ll do a presentation on patenting software and the problems when trying to patent AI-generated inventions. I’ll do an overview of how software patents are treated in different juridictions (Europe, USA, Canada), and then I’ll go through some of the problems that arises when trying to patent AI-generated inventions. Here are […]