What does the First Amendment say? The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution reads: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for …
The First Amendment and Video Games – Part 2: First Amendment Basics Read More »
For software or software as a service (SaaS) companies, it can be a little confusing to figure out what sort of licensing contracts and legal documents you need. Here’s a brief primer on the differences between three of the more well-known legal agreements. End-user license agreement (EULA) An end-user license agreement, also known as a …
Background Recently, I gave a presentation on video games and the First Amendment at Casual Connect USA. It focused on the importance of pushing boundaries and resilience in the face of adversity. You can see the entire presentation, here: I tried to cover a lot of material in 20 minutes. I didn’t cover everything. Soon, …
The First Amendment and Video Games – Part 1: Introduction Read More »
Given Cambridge Analytica, Wikileaks, and the Sony hacks, the internet is on privacy red alert. The games industry is currently up in arms over “Red Shell,” found in many Steam games, but what is it? If you listen to game developers and Red Shell itself, Red Shell is an innocuous marketing attribution tool. By generating …
The article from Variety details game cloning on mobile storefronts, particularly the latest game Donut County. Here is an excerpt: Game ideas or mechanics are not protectable under copyright law,” says Odin Law and Media founder Brandon Huffman. “Individual assets (like specific art, music, etc.) are. Most clone developers know this and so they avoid …
Back in May, Valve changed its content policy to crack down on visual novels containing adult content. Just a few weeks later, Valve again changed its policy to allow anything that isn’t “illegal” or “straight-up trolling.” This led many developers and consumers down a rabbit hole of questions surrounding what Valve’s role should be in …
Co-founder and former CEO of Telltale Games, Kevin Bruner, has brought suit against his former studio over his ouster last year. Bruner alleges that the company, following his removal as CEO and from the board of directors, deprived him of contractually obligated financial information necessary to sell his stock holdings. Bruner filed suit in California …
The article from GameDaily.biz details Bethesda’s accusations over Warner Bros. and developer Behaviour Interactive’s “rip-off” of Fallout Shelter with their latest game for Westworld. Here is an excerpt: It’s somewhat curious that Bethesda did not attach the development agreement to the complaint,” Huffman said in an email to GameDaily. “In some agreements, there is a differentiation between game …
Brandon J. Huffman quoted on copyrighted source code lawsuit Read More »
If you have created original work/piece of intellectual property and your copyright has been infringed upon, you can report alleged violations and request a take-down on platforms that comply with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) of 1998. Many of these platforms screen or select submissions and a DMCA notice may not be appropriate even …
DMCA Contacts – How to report copyright infringement Read More »
A service-level agreement (SLA) is a a kind of contract or part of a contract between a service provider and a client. Aspects of the service being provided like quality, availability and the responsibilities of the service provider can all be defined in this agreement. The primary piece of an SLA is defining the services …