A weekly wrap up of interesting news about virtual worlds, virtual goods and other social media. Social network LinkedIn reports stolen passwords Business social network LinkedIn said Wednesday that some of its users’ passwords have been stolen and leaked onto the Internet. LinkedIn Corp. did not say…
A weekly wrap up of interesting news about virtual worlds, virtual goods and other social media. Magid National Study Finds Social Networking Gaming Growth is Slowing The research, conducted as part of the Magid Media Futures 2012 study, found social network gaming user growth has slowed in the United States.…
In one of the most closely followed cases involving the digital millennium copyright act (DMCA), an appeals court punted one of the key issues back to the lower court. The key issue left open relates to what constitutes actual knowledge for purposes of the DMCA. In light of this decision…
As a general rule, the name, image or likeness of a living person–not necessarily just a celebrity–cannot be used for commercial purpose without his/her written consent. Some jurisdictions have extended the coverage to provide additional protection to such elements as signature, voice, mannerisms or even expressions. Unauthorized use of an…
Pinterest is one of the fastest growing social media sites. Pinterest enables users to “pin” interesting things to a virtual pinboard to share with others. A pinboard is largely a collection of images organized by topic (home decorating, wedding planning, etc.). A recent article calls into question the potential risks…
The number of lawsuits alleging copying of games continues to increase. In one of the latest such lawsuits, Seattle-based game developer Spry Fox filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against 6waves Lolapps over Spry Fox’s Triple Town game. What exacerbated the issues here is that, apparently, Spry Fox shared information about…
On December 6, 2011 Zynga settled its copyright suits against Vostu USA Inc. and others. The first suit, case number 5:11-cv-02959, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California back in June, alleged that several of Vostu’s games infringed Zynga’s copyrights. Specifically, Zynga had alleged, that…
The Supreme Court has validated the ability of software developers to prevent customers from owning the copy of software they acquire. Because software developers can limit the customers rights to a mere license, they can impose restrictions that can prevent the customer from reselling the software. This is a huge…
The Digital Millennium Copyright Act, 17 U.S.C. § 512 provides many benefits to copyright holders. Add one more to the list. In Xcentric Ventures LLC v. Karsen Limited et al (2011), the court refused the let the Russian Defendant play hide-and-seek to avoid service of process and authorized the Plaintiff…
A recent lawsuit by SocialApps LLC (d/b/a take(5) social and playSocial) accuses Zynga of copyright infringement, theft of trade secret and various other acts concerning Farmville. Farmville is one of the most widely played and profitable social games, with around 80 million users and was released in June 2009. SocialApps allegedly developed…