Jon Festinger

Jon Festinger, Q.C. (LL.B., B.C.L. 1980 (McGill University)) is a Vancouver, British Columbia based counsel and educator. A faculty member at the Centre for Digital Media (http://thecdm.ca) Jon has taught media, entertainment and communications law topics at the Allard School of Law, UBC, for over two decades, as well as occasionally teaching at the University of Victoria Faculty of Law and the UBC Graduate School of Journalism. He is the author of the first edition of “Video Game Law” published by LexisNexis in 2005, and co-author of the 2nd Edition published in 2012 (http://www.lexisnexis.com/store/ca/catalog/booktemplate/productdetail.jsp?prodId=prd-cad-01004). As a graduate of McGill University’s Faculty of Law, Jon began his legal career in private practice, in turn becoming General Counsel of WIC Western International Communications, Senior Vice President of the CTV Television Network and Executive Vice President, Business & General Counsel of the Vancouver Canucks. Jon practices law through Festinger Law & Strategy, is Past-Chair of Ronald McDonald House British Columbia and a Director of viasport B.C. . Jon is a dedicated fan of auto-racing simulations. Website: http://videogamelaw.allard.ubc.ca Twitter: @jonfestinger PSN: cdmjon

News of the Week; March 4, 2020

By Jon Festinger on March 8, 2020

GAMES Plague Inc. pulled from Chinese App Store over ‘illegal’ content Pandemic simulation game Plague Inc. pulled from iOS App Store in China Statement on The Removal of Plague Inc. From the China App Store Plague Inc. pulled from Chinese App Store: Developer Ndemic Creations says outbreak simulation game removed because it “includes content that is illegal in […]

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News of the Week; February 26, 2020

By Jon Festinger on March 3, 2020

GAMES Crytek’s lawsuit against Star Citizen devs ends in settlement TIGA principles for protecting players are quietly radical | Opinion: UK trade group’s endorsement of common sense best practices shows good faith effort, puts peers to shame NHS’ gaming addiction clinic only needed by ‘a very small percentage’: Founder Dr Bowden-Jones hopes the numbers will remain lower […]

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News of the Week; February 19, 2020

By Jon Festinger on March 2, 2020

GAMES UK Court Finds GTA V Cheat Makers Guilty of Copyright Infringement Rockstar Joins Other Publishers In Misusing Copyright Law To Go After Cheat Developers For GTA5 GTA IV to return to Steam after cutting Games for Windows Live support GTA IV returns to Steam with Complete Edition next month: But transition from Games For Windows […]

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News of the Week; February 12, 2020

By Jon Festinger on February 16, 2020

GAMES Sweeney criticizes “customer adversarial” industry tactics: Epic CEO condemns privacy invasion, pay-to-win, and loot boxes, calls for companies to “divorce ourselves from politics” Epic’s Sweeney: Game companies should be platform agnostic, ‘divorce’ from politics Proposed Washington Gambling Law Changes Aimed at Keeping State Video Gaming Industry Around Mario Kart Just Added Vancouver As A […]

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News of the Week; February 5, 2020

By Jon Festinger on February 9, 2020

GAMES Nintendo switches it up with website blocking injunction FBI catches hacker that stole Nintendo’s secrets for years Appeals Court Tells Serial Litigant Runescape Didn’t Violate His Constitutional Rights By Muting His Account Federal court: Getting muted in RuneScape doesn’t violate your civil rights: Serial litigator in Pennsylvania loses latest appeal First ever UK Games […]

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News of the Week; January 29, 2020

By Jon Festinger on February 2, 2020

GAMES Japanese court ups punishment for unlicensed Mario Kart-themed go-karts: Maricar must change its name, pay out $458k instead of $92k to Nintendo Blizzard automatically owns any and all Warcraft 3: Reforged custom games Blizzard now claims full copyright for player-made “custom game” mods Warcraft 3 Reforged EULA gives Blizzard total ownership of all custom games: With […]

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News of the Week; January 22, 2020

By Jon Festinger on January 26, 2020

GAMES California claims $10 million gender discrimination settlement lets Riot off lightly Nintendo Wins Battle with Pirates on UK Seas Court Sides With Nintendo Over RomUniverse In Atttempt To Dismiss The Former’s Lawsuit Court overturns $10.1 million verdict against Nintendo in Wii Remote lawsuit Court reverses $10.1 million judgement against Nintendo in Wii patent case […]

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News of the Week; January 15, 2020

By Jon Festinger on January 19, 2020

GAMES Report: China to further regulate online games and streaming to curb addiction China reveals new mental health initiative that may further limit violence in games: “Healthy China 2030” includes crackdown on games considered violent, pornographic, or promoting gambling Japanese prefecture considers restrictions on gaming time for minors: Proposed ordinance in Kagawa Prefecture would limit […]

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News of the Week; January 8, 2020

By Jon Festinger on January 12, 2020

GAMES Nintendo wins injunction against seller of Switch mod, pirated games: Defendent allegedly also sold modded NES Classic with over 800 games Nintendo Responds To RomUniverse’s Lame Argument That First Sale Doctrine Makes The Site Non-Infringing Crytek wants to dismiss its own lawsuit against Star Citizen developers Crytek seeks to dismiss its own Star Citizen lawsuit until […]

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News of the Week; January 1, 2020

By Jon Festinger on January 5, 2020

GAMES Running Man Stars Suing Epic Games for Fortnite Dance Fortnite Lawsuit a Battle Over Jack-o’-Lantern Figures Corinna Kopf Leaving Twitch to Stream Exclusively on Facebook Gaming Blog: Scalable content management with Unity addressables The one video game my kids played all year long How much of a genius-level move was using binary space partitioning […]

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