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Around the Virtual World

A weekly wrap up of interesting news about virtual worlds, virtual goods and other social media.

 

Will 2012 be the year of virtual worlds?

What got me thinking about this was a blog post by Maria Korlova over at the HyperGrid Business Blog. In it, she maintains her firm conviction that businesses will soon come around to using these virtual worlds as business tools. Just as the nay-sayers were wrong about the Internet, Software as a Service, and Lady Gaga, we will eventually integrate this technology into how we work.

Courts, Sports And Videogames:
What’s In A Game?

Although one of the clearest legal thinkers, Louis Brandeis, conceived the modern right of publicity,[1]
“unclear” would be an adjective all lawyers would apply to the current state of right of publicity law, regardless of which side of the issue they usually argue. Indeed, although the right of publicity concept was further developed by another very clear legal thinker, William Prosser,[2] he himself alluded to it as the concept “that launched a thousand lawsuits,”[3] few of which can be reconciled with one another.

Insurers Can’t Join Coverage Suit Over Athlete Image Use

A Georgia federal judge said Wednesday that four insurers can’t intervene in a coverage suit in California over underlying antitrust class actions concerning the use of college athletes’ likenesses in video games.

What the Copycat Saw: Creative Theft in Mobile and Social Games

The distinction between theft and inspiration is often unclear in video games. Traditions are formed,
broken down, and remade every few years. The most successful ideas are eagerly absorbed by others, from regenerative health in first person shooters to the subdivision of platformer levels into world and stage.

Virtual worlds training for federal cyber pros in the works

After finishing a successful year of training the federal cyber workforce, the government is taking another step toward cultivating better-prepared digital defenders.