Federal authorities executed a seizure warrant against a bank account associated with one of the leading bitcoin exchanges. The warrant was not based on bitcoins themselves being illegal. Rather, the entity was not registered as a money transmitter. The failure to so register was alleged to be a violation of…
A weekly wrap up of interesting news about virtual worlds, virtual goods and other social media. What’s the Matter With Zynga? This was supposed to be a story about a guy building a highly anticipated mobile game. Instead, it’s a story about a multi-billion-dollar Internet company that is…
A new Manhattan bar has become one of the few brick and mortar operations to accept Bitcoins as a method of payment. What are Bitcoins? They are essentially a form of digital cash or virtual currency. They are unique in that there is no central issuing or regulatory authority (such…
In a 33-1 vote, on May 13, the state Senate approved Senator Mark Leno’s bill that would require state law enforcement officials to obtain a search warrant before asking service providers to disclose the contents of their customers’ emails. This approval came after Senator Leno agreed to allow for…
Pillsbury attorney, Sean F. Kane will be a featured panelist at the upcoming Video Game Bar Association’s inaugural Game Business & Legal Affairs conference. The conference will provide an in-depth analysis of the prevalent and pertinent legal and business issues within the video game industry. Founded in 2011 as an…
Please join us at the Augmented World Expo 2013 (Santa Clara, June 4 – 5) for 2 days of workshops, sessions, and networking dedicated to understanding how to drive behavior in consumers, employees and stakeholders. Now in its 4th year, Augmented World Expo (formerly ARE) is assembling the biggest names…
The Bank of China Hong Kong announced recently that it plans to launch its first credit card that is compatible with Near Field Communication (“NFC) technology this year. NFC is a set of standards for smartphones and similar devices to communicate with each other by either by touching or bringing…
Yesterday a NY court again dismissed Viacom’s $1 billion suit against Google/YouTube for copyright infringement. The court found that the DMCA shielded YouTube from liability after an appellate court (see prior blog post) vacated the prior dismissal. This decision reaffirms the fact that, subject to certain exceptions, the burden of policing copyright…
Please join us April 24-25 at the Social Casino Summit. Pillsbury will be participating in the Global iGaming Summit and Expo as an exhibiting sponsor James Gatto will be presenting a session titled, “Clarifying the blurred legal boundaries between various forms of social, virtual currency, prediction, sweepstakes and other forms…
Check out this Mobile Payments Infographic brought to you by the Mobile Payments Working Group, as part of the Application Developers Alliance. Pillsbury team members Jim Gatto, Deb Thoren-Peden and JiJi Park are all members of the working group and contributed to this effort. If you like to learn more…