This edited volume explores the intersection between the coded realm of the video game and the equally codified space of law through an insightful collection of critical readings. Law is the ultimate multiplayer role-playing game. Involving a process of world-creation, law presents and codifies the parameters of licit and permitted behaviour, requiring individuals to engage their roles as a legal subject – the player-avatar of law – in order to be recognised, perform legal actions, activate rights or fulfil legal duties. Although traditional forms of law (copyright, property, privacy, freedom of expression) externally regulate the permissible content, form, dissemination, rights and behaviours of game designers, publishers, and players, this collection examines how players simulate, relate, and engage with environments and experiences shaped by legality in the realm of video game space. Featuring critical readings of video games as a means of understanding law and justice, this book contributes to the developing field of cultural legal studies, but will also be of interest to other legal theorists, socio-legal scholars, and games theorists.

This book explores and discusses how to obtain traditional intellectual property law rights in the non-traditional settings of video game and virtual world environments, and serves as a primer for researching these emerging legal issues. Each chapter addresses: end user license agreements; copyrights, patents, trademarks; and trade secrets, as addressed by U.S. law. It also covers international legal issues stemming from the multi-national user-base and foreign operation of many virtual worlds.

Virtual and augmented reality raise significant questions for law and policy. When should virtual world activities or augmented reality images count as protected First Amendment ‘speech’, and when are they instead a nuisance or trespass? When does copying them infringe intellectual property laws? When should a person (or computer) face legal consequences for allegedly harmful virtual acts? The Research Handbook on the Law of Virtual and Augmented Reality addresses these questions and others, drawing upon free speech doctrine, criminal law, issues of data protection and privacy, legal rights for increasingly intelligent avatars, and issues of jurisdiction within virtual and augmented reality worlds.

If you are one of the many who have read about and heard about virtual worlds but do not really understand what a virtual world is, or even how to use appropriate terminology when discussing them, then this is the book for you."--Jacket.

Video Game Law, 2nd Edition addresses the overlapping and emerging issues relating to IP, freedom of speech, employment, defamation, privacy, licensing and torts as they arise within the context of the video games industry, offering unique legal analysis and guidance unavailable elsewhere."--Pub. desc.

Video Game Law is aimed at game developers and industry professionals who want to better understand the industry or are in need of expert legal guidance. Given the rise in international competition, the increasing complexity of video game features, and the explosive growth of the industry in general, game developers can quickly find themselves in serious trouble, becoming vulnerable to copyright infringement claims, piracy, and even security breaches. Not every vid- eo game company has the financial resources to retain in-house counsel – Video Game Law addresses many of the common pitfalls, legal questions, and scenarios facing the industry. S. Gregory Boyd, Brian Pyne and Sean F. Kane, the most prominent,sought after, and respected video game attorneys in the country, break down the laws and legal concepts that every game developer and industry professional needs to know to better protect their game and grow their company.

This edited collection provides the first accessible introduction to Law and Humanities. Each chapter explores the nature, development and possible further trajectory of a disciplinary ‘law and’ field. Each chapter is written by an expert in the respective field and addresses how the two disciplines of law and the other respective field operate. This edited work, therefore, fulfils a real and pressing need to provide an accessible, introductory but critical guide to law and humanities as a whole by exploring how each disciplinary ‘law and’ field has developed, contributes to further scrutinizing the content and role of law, and how it can contribute and be enriched by being understood within the law and humanities tradition as a whole.