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Implications of Forthcoming YouTube Policy Updates on Gaming Content

By anna-lisa tie on November 23, 2019

YouTube is looking to update their policies so as to better differentiate between real-world violence and gaming violence. In her quarterly letter, the platform’s CEO said the policy changes look to include fewer restrictions on violence in gaming content and matching interested advertisers with ‘edgier content’.

The existing policy has seen a crackdown on violent and “mature” content, which is often prone to demonetisation or being flagged for removal. At the moment, footage of real-world violence and simulated graphic violence in video games are treated the same on the platforms. This has led to frustration among YouTubers who produce gaming content, as they have been less likely to receive ad revenue unless they were playing something obviously family friendly. Perhaps the new policies to come will be beneficial to YouTubers who want to produce more adult-oriented gaming content.

The quarterly letter also addressed other issues including:

Changes to treatment of data for children’s content as part of a settlement YouTube made back in September with the US FTC over violations of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (‘COPPA’), including requirements for creators to mark videos directed at kids;
Progress in relatino to addressing aggressive copyright claims on the platform by rightsholders, especially for short music clips in monetised videos;
Securing liability protections under the EU Copyright Directive, which is now being implemented into member-states’ national laws;
Expansion of YouTube’s Self Certification pilot to enable content creators to self-report how their videos comply with ad policies.

All in all, quite a few interesting developments look to be coming to YouTube; we’ll have to wait and see how things unfold. Read the CEO’s letter in this blog post.

Video Game Machines Ruled as Slot Machines in Pennsylvania

By anna-lisa tie on November 20, 2019

This just in today: the Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court recently ruled that video game machines called “Pennsylvania Skill”, manufactured and distributed by Pace-O-Matic (POM) are considered “slot machines” under the state law. The Pennsylvania Crime Code, Title 18 Section 5513, provides that it is illegal to manufacture, set up, sell, lease, or own a “slot machine” for gambling purposes, and these machines are subject to confiscation by authorities.

Video game machines/video gaming terminals are machines that allow gamblers to bet on the outcome of a video game. In Pennsylvania, they are found in gas stations and convenience stores. Up until today, they were in a bit of a legal grey area and those who argued in favour of their legality tended to present them as “games of skill”, as distinguished from traditional slot machines, which involve random luck. After this decision, it looks like law enforcement authorities have greater legal justification for seizing these machines and prosecuting those involved in their manufacture and distribution.

About the recent decision of POM of Pennsylvania LLC v Commonwealth of Pennsylvania:

Some links for background context:

Video Game Patent Review Not Time-Barred, Fed. Cir. Says

By yuan kevin shi on November 20, 2019

Key takeaways

Patent challenger never served in infringement case
PTAB should determine proper service before review

A patent validity challenge at the Patent Trial and Appeal Board wasn’t time-barred because the petitioner was never properly served in a related infringement case, the Federal Circuit ruled.

The PTAB should have considered the timeliness of a petition challenging Game & Technology Co.’s U.S. Patent No. 7,682,243 before instituting a review, the court said Nov 19.

But it upheld the board’s decision that the video game technology patent was invalid in light of prior art.

https://news.bloomberglaw.com/ip-law/video-game-patent-review-not-time-barred-fed-cir-says

“Sequels”: No More Game Preservation

By alexander tatti on November 20, 2019

In today’s class we spoke about the evolution of Video Games, especially encompassing the development of streaming through Google’s Stadia or Xbox’s X Cloud, but what about the development of Video Games themselves?

A recent article I read (link below) was discussing Overwatch 2 and highlighted the blurred line between sequels and expansions. Personally, I have always been irritated watching a Video Game release entirely unfinished and unpolished, full of bugs and errors, which is then followed up by an unending torrent of updates being release nearly constantly for months following the game. It’s understandable when a Video Game focuses on its online capabilities and ever-changing mission/loot parameters, but when you have a primarily single-player game – why oh why do we keep updating? It seems that most of the time I purchase a game I can expect massive changes within the upcoming months in order to accommodate some sort of issues in the original. And now we have a new problem: “Sequels” that are just a re-hash of the first one.

Given the trend of the Assassin’s Creed franchise and their monotony of repetitive games, it should be easy enough to change the cover, alter the cosmetics of the map, and add a new campaign and loosely connected story (at least). On the other hand, Overwatch 2 is a “new release” that now has “story missions”, however, the PvP basis of the game is going to be adjusted in tandem with Overwatch 1 players so that there is no divide between the players of each game and eventually the games will apparently be MERGED. That’s right – Overwatch 1 will apparently be fused so that it simply becomes Overwatch 2. So what is the point of a new game? Couldn’t the game just be updated to include story missions?

I doubt this trend will change. We have Path of Exile 2 as well, which is apparently a new campaign based on the original skills and style of the first game – really not much is new. We even have World of Warcraft: Classic, which is a return to the base game without the collection of expansions – while still distinct from WoW, it’s still a return to the beginning. At this point, I fully expect that our favourite franchise games might just get washed out as the same thing with new cosmetics – doubling down on purchasing power for no real developmental changes.

https://www.pcgamer.com/with-overwatch-2-and-path-of-exile-2-sequels-are-really-challenging-the-meaning-of-2/

Presentation Outline: Digital Legacies – Examining the State of Digital Assets Upon Death

By John Kielski on November 18, 2019

Have you ever thought about how much “stuff” you own that resides entirely online?

Do you attach some sort of real-world value to these assets?

Would you feel personal loss if certain digital assets were irretrievably lost?

In the event of death – what happens to these digital assets?

In this week’s presentation, Ellie, John, and Kiana will discuss the current state of succession law in relation to digital assets and how we must look beyond succession law to view the matter of digital inheritance as an intersection between succession, intellectual property, contract, and privacy law.

As an emerging area of law there are many issues that need to be addressed, however, we have narrowed our focus down to the following matters: