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What Is an Athlete's Publicity Right in a Video Game?
As technology has evolved, video game auteurs have opted for a hyper-realistic rendering of the subjects/participants of their games, including games modeled on real-world sports. Commercial viability for a video game no longer equates with the representation of a quarterback as a red LED dash, as it did in the days of Mattel/Coleco's Electronic Quarterback. Today's game designers and consumers demand a sports game experience that is as close to the real world, and real players, as possible. Consumers will pay more for a game that meets this objective and less for one that does not.
Game manufacturers have largely succeeded in delivering on this demand. For instance, a large number of professional league-licensed video games contain playable teams and characters whose names, images, statistics and even play abilities correspond with a great degree of accuracy to their real-world counterparts in the National Football League, National Basketball Association and Major League Baseball. It would seem that everyone is a winner in this scenario: The gamers need never leave the basement for want of new sports titles; the leagues and players' unions, which license the use of team and player names and likenesses on a collective basis, have a new and significant revenue stream for their respective constituencies; and the game companies have lucrative titles to offer year in and year out.
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Bankruptcy Sales: Finding a Diamond In the Rough
There is no efficient market for the sale of bankruptcy assets. Inefficient markets yield a transactional drag, potentially dampening the ability of debtors and trustees to maximize value for creditors. This article identifies ways in which investors may more easily discover bankruptcy asset sales.
Judge Rules Shaquille O'Neal Will Face Securities Lawsuit for Promotion, Sale of NFTs
A federal district court in Miami, FL, has ruled that former National Basketball Association star Shaquille O'Neal will have to face a lawsuit over his promotion of unregistered securities in the form of cryptocurrency tokens and that he was a "seller" of these unregistered securities.
Removing Restrictive Covenants In New York
In Rockwell v. Despart, the New York Supreme Court, Third Department, recently revisited a recurring question: When may a landowner seek judicial removal of a covenant restricting use of her land?
Why So Many Great Lawyers Stink at Business Development and What Law Firms Are Doing About It
Why is it that those who are best skilled at advocating for others are ill-equipped at advocating for their own skills and what to do about it?
Blockchain Domains: New Developments for Brand Owners
Blockchain domain names offer decentralized alternatives to traditional DNS-based domain names, promising enhanced security, privacy and censorship resistance. However, these benefits come with significant challenges, particularly for brand owners seeking to protect their trademarks in these new digital spaces.