€10 million fine removed.
Continue reading “Dutch Court: EA Didn’t Violate Gambling Law”
Tag: Court
World of Warships Lootbox Illegally Advertised
Christmas lootbox ruled illegal by Cyprus advertising agency.
Continue reading “World of Warships Lootbox Illegally Advertised”
Was Jagex’s Sale Legal? A Chinese Asset Manager Says No
And is suing in London to prove it.
Continue reading “Was Jagex’s Sale Legal? A Chinese Asset Manager Says No”
NM: Iranian Government Summons Children of Morta Dev Over Unislamic Content
Here’s something chilling to mull over for your new years.
Dead Mage team lead Amir Fassihi posted a message on Twitter this week revealing that the team behind Children of Morta had been summoned to court over concerns about their game. What was the concern? The game not upholding Islamic tradition. The tweet which has been (poorly) translated for your pleasure, notes that Iranian officials took umbrage with the game including things like dancing and a burial not complying with Islamic law.
“Children of Morta developer is summoned to the court over the complaint that the game includes dancing, lack of hijab, lack of praising for God, use of magic for fighting demons and also a burial not complying with Islamic laws.”
Children of Morta is an RPG rogue-lite where you take control of the Bergsons family who must fight against encroaching corruption in a procedurally generated dungeon. The game takes place in a fantasy world and the female characters do not wear hijabs.
The original tweet by Fassihi has since been deleted. It’s hard to tell where this proceeding will go, but gamers who were considering buying Children of Morta might want to do so now if just to support the developers financially or to get their hands on the title in case it suddenly gets pulled from the Steam store. Dead Mage is an Iran-based indie developer.
Source: Twitter (archive)
In Plain English: Court Throws Out Jagex Ban Lawsuit After Five Days
Today’s In Plain English is going to be a short one, but you’ll understand why when you see that the gist of it is about six sentences long. It comes to us from the Eastern District of Pennsylvania and involves everyone’s favorite developer of RuneScape: Jagex. Along with their parent company Shanghai Fukong, Jagex last week was sued in Pennsylvania court by one Amro Elansari, who is alleging that Jagex muted him without reason. The lawsuit goes on to claim that the UK developer refused to provide an explanation and denied Elansari’s request for an appeal. Elansari’s suit alleges violations of due process, free speech, and human rights.
Elansari was granted leave to proceed in forma pauperis, fancy legal speak for nulling filing fees, however the court took some umbrage with his claims. Judge Kearney noted that Elansari’s claims of constitutional violations were implausible, adding that the first amendment and its constitutional free speech guarantees do not restrict private entities. More so, the fifth amendment due process clause also does not apply to private companies.
As such, Elansari’s lawsuit has been dismissed just five days after being filed. Elansari cannot make any further constitutional or federal claims however if he decides to bring the lawsuit back on state charges in state court, he absolutely may do so.
As always, MMO Fallout is hosting the relevant dockets at our expense at the Google Drive. As the lawsuit was filed pro se, MMO Fallout has removed some personal contact details from the documents for the sake of the plaintiff.
IPE News: VIolating A Terms of Service Is Still Not A Crime
Good news, internet-goers, violating a website’s terms of service isn’t a crime. It hasn’t been for years, but a recent decision by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has gone to solidify and embolden that ruling.
In this case, Oracle USA sued Rimini Street Inc in Nevada District Court over allegations of misuse of their website violating established terms of service. Rimini was brought into court over their use of automated programs downloading support materials from Oracle’s website, which is against the company’s terms of service. Oracle sent a cease and desist, but did not restrict access to said files, and eventually filed suit. The judge ruled in favor of Oracle, stating that violating the terms of service constituted a breach of state computer crime statues.
Rimini appealed the ruling to the Ninth Circuit who overturned the lower judge’s decision, noting that Oracle prohibiting certain methods of collecting material does not constitute a violation if the material is already readily available. In short, it’s not illegal just because the website owner doesn’t like your methods.
More analysis can be found on the Electronic Frontier Foundation website piece linked below.
(Source: EFF.org)
Former Funcom Execs Sentenced To Prison Term In Fraud Investigation
While Kingdoms of Amalur may take the title of the game that Rhode Island paid for, The Secret World will go down as one of the few games to result in criminal convictions. We’ve been covering on and off the tribulations of Funcom’s former executives who have been under investigation since the launch of The Secret World in 2012 (yes it has been five years) and subsequent resignations. For those who have forgotten, then Funcom CEO Trond Aas resigned from his position and sold off a huge chunk of his stocks. Funcom’s offices were raided in 2014 over allegations of insider trading and last year Aas and a few other executives were arrested and charged with market manipulation and insider trading.
The men involved have been convicted and sentenced to serving between 85 days and 13 months in prison. It is important to note that Funcom itself has not been involved in the litigation for quite some time. The developer was fined in 2015 for irregularities and it appears that their involvement ends there.
(Source: Massively)
IPE: Romine V Stanton Lawsuit Dismissed, With Special Caveat
You thought it was over but it wasn’t, or at least it soon will be. James Romine’s lawsuit against Jim Sterling may have hit its final note after a long and rather ridiculous back and forth, with the revelation that the lawsuit has been dismissed. For the course of this lawsuit, you may have been misled to believe that Sterling’s focal point was on the fact that Arizona did not have jurisdiction over the case, and therefore would need to dismiss it. Far be it from me to violate the law by offering legal advice as one without a license. In reality, however, Sterling’s lawyers have focused on whether or not Romine is the proper entity to bring the case.
For instance, a cashier cannot sue a person who damages the store they work at, the store has to do it.
Now the law can look the other way on said rule if the corporate entity can be claimed as an alter ego of the individual. In this case, however, since the two Romine brothers own Digital Homicide, said rule cannot be used, since Romine did not make allegations that the acts of development were carried as an individual rather than as a corporate entity, specifically arguing that the defendant (Sterling) targeted the company itself and claiming damages that were suffered by the company rather than himself as an individual. The court does note that Romine included emotional and financial distress, however.
One issue I’ve been harping on this whole time, to an unnecessary extent, is that James Romine did need, and always will need a lawyer if he’s going to even have a chance of seeing this lawsuit go to trial. You see, while individuals can bring lawsuits pro se (without a lawyer), companies cannot. Digital Homicide would need legal council which nobody is willing to crowdfund, which no lawyer will take without upfront payment, and of which the company cannot afford after destroying their own business by attempting to serve Valve with a subpoena causing their contract to be terminated.
So Romine can’t bring lawsuit against Sterling for damages against DHS’ finances, unless he can prove to the court that he can, but DHS cannot appear in court pro se and needs to be represented through legal council, so the court has granted the defendant’s motion to dismiss, as well as denying Romine’s last two motions to amend as moot. Romine has until February 10, 2017 to file an amended complaint or the case will be dismissed entirely. It is important to note here that said complaint must be filed by a licensed attorney.
Sharing Your RuneScape Account May Be Criminal
Sharing your RuneScape account is risky, but could it be criminal? Technically, probably. Is Jagex going to sue you for sharing your pure defense rush account with your friend on the other side of town? Well, they did once try to sue players for cheating. Who knows?
The premise of the lawsuit is such: David Nosal was accused in 2004 of using login information to gain access to the computer of his ex-employer in order to use the information for his current company. The court ruled that the company that issued the password must give authorization in order for the information to be shared, and that the password holder (in this case, Nosal’s ex-colleague) did not have the legal authority to do so.
As is often the case with these legal proceedings, not even the parties involved agree on what this ruling could mean in the greater picture. Judge Reinhardt has stated that it does not draw a line, and could put millions of users at risk because their activity is not in line with a company’s policy. The majority opinion writer Judge McKeown rebuffed, claiming that the specifics of the case made it irrelevant to a spouse sharing login information to print airline tickets (for example).
The wider implications of this case won’t truly be known until a company brings it up as precedent in a court trial.
(Source: BBC)
Blizzard: Bot Bans And Court Loss
As many as 100,000 bot accounts, possibly more, have been removed from World of Warcraft in a recent mass ban.
We’ve recently taken action against a large number of World of Warcraft accounts that were found to be using third-party programs that automate gameplay, known as “bots.” We’re committed to providing an equal and fair playing field for everyone in World of Warcraft, and will continue to take action against those found in violation of our Terms of Use. Cheating of any form will not be tolerated.
In unrelated news, Blizzard recently lost a case attempting to place an injunction on a gold seller in Diablo. As reported by the Kaesler & Kollegen law firm representing the client, the Civil Division of the Hanseatic Higher Regional Court overturned a previous injunction on a Diablo gold selling website. The judge has reportedly ordered Blizzard to cover the costs of the proceedings.
(Source: Blizzard)
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