From Lawsuits and Settlements Web site (talking about the California state law factor) ; and story from the Vancouver Sun.

A slightly different take…The Lawsuit and Public Relations, from Gamasutra.  Other lawsuits, after the jump….

Linden Lab “land-owners” sue for the change in Terms of Service over the years

In California… AGAIN… article here at this online mag.

The story from Virtual Worlds News… ; From the Los Angeles Times Business blog;  the always dependable Massively

Linux Users sue for loss of that capability on PS3 (via the latest PSN update “killing” any Linux installation).

Gamespot article here….; and from Kotaku. 

All of these lawsuits are very complicated, and interesting, and I hope to discuss them in full, at a later date.

Jay Moffitt is a Tennessee attorney. This blog is for entertainment and educational purposes only and does not consitute legal advice or create an attorney/client relationship. Jay Moffitt is not certified as a specialist in this area by Tennessee and Tennessee does not certify specialists in this practice area. All comments will be answered promptly and courteously as long as they are germane to the discussion and do not contain specific game names or incidents.

Meanwhile, today’s post centers on the great work that other lawyer-bloggers are doing, as well as a few professional papers I recommend you MUST read. 

The one you absolutely must study is The Global EULA, by the lawyers at  Sheppard Mullin.  I really felt like breaking down the article or doing my own synopsis, but instead, go there, read it, consider it.  Beautifully done.

Other great articles I have found after the jump……

Recently I posted about the separation of work and play.  Great article about hiring practices entitled “Facebook and Privacy” in the Minneapolis Tribune.  It discusses pre-employment checks of Facebook pages by employers.  My favorite quote:  “35 percent found something that caused them to not hire the candidate.”  In my mind this is a soon-to-be-exploding area of practice, based on disappointed job-seekers.

Mumbo Jumbo games won a victory over casual game-manufacturer Popcap Games in a lawsuit.  Here is the link to the original complaint, (via Courthouse News), and the full story  on Gamer/Law(UK). (note: I read almost a dozen summaries of the case, and this British one was the best by far).  My favorite quote: “a jury…  agreed that PopCap breached the contract when it went behind MumboJumbo’s back and decided to market and sell its games on its own.” (from the MumboJumbo PRNewswire Story).  Popcap vehemently denies the claim, and by all indications may choose to appeal.

Yale School of Medicine receives a large grant to make a vide0-game/simulation for children 9-14.  Full story here… usually I would save this for my education/grants posting, but  $3.9 million is just too large a number to postpone posting this, it is reportedly a game to teach children how to avoid HIV-causing behaviors(sex/drugs/alcohol).  Follow-ups posted here as the national news catches up.

As far as important scholarly papers go, I would like to mention The Fair Labor Standards Act in Cyberspace. Please cite as Cherry, Miriam A., Working for (Virtually) Minimum Wage: Applying the Fair Labor Standards Act in Cyberspace (November 4, 2009). Alabama Law Review, Vol. 60, No. 5, pp. 1077-1110, 2009. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1499823.

Jay Moffitt is a Tennessee attorney. This blog is for entertainment and educational purposes only and does not consitute legal advice or create an attorney/client relationship. Jay Moffitt is not certified as a specialist in this area by Tennessee and Tennessee does not certify specialists in this practice area. All comments will be answered promptly and courteously as long as they are germane to the discussion and do not contain specific game names or incidents.

Mysteriously, most of the sites that list EULAs that I use as reference have dropped away over the past year or so.

All of these EULAs that I am sending your way are off the publisher’s front page, no deep-linking, and no commentary at all. Enjoy and use this as a resource for your gaming decisions.

1st Part:

http://secondlife.com/corporate/tos.php Second Life Terms of Service

http://www.lotro.com/support/policies/218-eula (Lord of the Rings Online)

http://www.ea.com/1/product-eulas (All major EA games)

http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/legal/eula.html (World of Warcraft)

http://help.station.sony.com/cgi-bin/soe.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=12248 (Everquest)

http://www.eveonline.com/pnp/eula.asp (Eve Online)

http://us.ncsoft.com/en/legal/user-agreements/aion-user-agreement.html (Aion)

http://us.ncsoft.com/en/legal/user-agreements/city-of-heroes-user-agreement.html (City of Heroes)

http://us.ncsoft.com/en/legal/user-agreements/lineage-2-user-agreement.html (Lineage 2)

http://www.habbo.com/papers/termsAndConditions (Habbo Hotel)

2nd Part: Choice of law and choice of forum (as of late 2007) (stolen with impunity from Benjamin Duranske’s excellent blog Virtually Blind- I did write the article that he excellently edited)

Online World Choice of Law Choice of Forum

IMVU State of California San Francisco County

Second Life State of California San Francisco County for all matters over $10k. Binding Non-Appearance Arbitration (Phone, Teleconference, Avatar) for Matters Under $10k.

There.com State of California California

The Sims Online England (for EU residents), State of California (for everyone else). England (for European Union residents), Northern California (for everyone else).

Active Worlds State of Massachusetts Arbitration required – either “on-line before the Active Worlds Tribunal” or before a panel of the American Arbitration Association Boston, Massachusetts.

Entropia Universe Sweden Sweden

World of Warcraft State of Delaware Arbitration required except for IP cases, computer crime, and claims for injunctive relieve. Arbitration to be initiated in Los Angeles, California (for international players), or at “any location convenient to you” (for U.S. players). All non-arbitration claims to be filed in Los Angeles, California.

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I’d request that my readers send in the Terms of Service links for any major games or virtual worlds that I have left out. Help me please keep this post strictly informational and not editorialize, I plan to write a short piece about EULAs in the near future where I will invite your excellent opinions…

Jay Moffitt is a Tennessee attorney. This blog is for entertainment and educational purposes only and does not consitute legal advice or create an attorney/client relationship. Jay Moffitt is not certified as a specialist in this area by Tennessee and Tennessee does not certify specialists in this practice area. All comments will be answered promptly and courteously as long as they are germane to the discussion and do not contain specific game names or incidents.

Earlier this year World of Warcraft was suspended in China. The Chinese government administration did not license the continuation of a server for WOW.
This online game has about five million active users in China, accounting for about 30% of its total users worldwide. In April 2009, Blizzard Entertainment terminated its operating contract with the game’s former Chinese operator, The9, and selected Chinese portal and online game provider NetEase.com as its new operator in China. Since the operator replacement, the operation of the game in China has been suspended and users of the game have consistently complained to get the game restarted.

World of Warcraft in China has seen some six weeks of downtime as government regulators process their approval of the transition to operator NetEase…According to the MMOSite report, the lack of specific age ratings for games in China make issues like showing bones or the undead a gray area. You should read this story to see the difficulties of running a worldwide game across multiple government environments.(legal and cultural)

Here are other links pointing to this monumental story in the MMO world.

The Escapist Magazine

Softpedia talks about the small section of China to the entire WOW market

MMORPQ discusses WOW online again

Gamasutra discusses WOW reopens

Article for background about WOW opening in China, 2005
Another excellent article by same author; great discussion about difference in subscription plans China to US

For the full scope of the story to the World of Warcraft community, read a couple of the stories linked in this article;
WoW shutting down one server in China (GREAT LINKS)

And just these last two; to show the extent of World of Warcraft’s growth.

Blizzard reveals WOW operations

WOW Audience Grows (Gamasutra)

Technically, I know this is a Chinese government administrative decision, and not a legal decision. But it shows the tremendous worldwide reach of these games, and the jurisdictional nightmares if a user wants to file suit against an entity spanning dozens of countries, and thus dozens of different legal environments. It’s also important to have this background when reviewing individual lawsuits against multinational games. Hopefully you’ll read these and have a little empathy for those writing End User License Agreements(EULA) to span five continents’ scrutiny, or a little sympathy for the players or even the lawyers trying to make sense of them.

Jay Moffitt is a TN attorney. The words do not constitute legal advice, and do not create an attorney/client relationship. Jay Moffitt is not certified as a specialist in the subject matter by the Tennessee Bar, and the Tennessee bar does not have a certification in this specialty. Copyright October 2, 2009.