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VR/AR/MR Articles

VR lawyer
Taking Privacy and VR Seriously
 1000 648 David Hoppe
By:

They’re Watching You. Really. One of the most vital, yet elusive, legal issues surrounding VR is privacy. The concept has its roots in the oldest, most basic elements of American law. It’s enshrined, ultimately, in the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution, which has been defined to include issues such as birth control,…

Squirtle Goes to Washington
 1000 647 David Hoppe
By:

Jefferson Smith: I-I-I don’t think I’ve ever been so thrilled in my whole life. And that Lincoln Memorial! Gee whiz. That Mr. Lincoln, there he is. He just lookin’ right straight at you as you come right up those steps. Just – just sitting there, like he was waiting for somebody to…

VR lawyer
What Can You Legally Do With A Celebrity In VR?
 1000 648 David Hoppe
By:

When the first Harry Potter movie came out, Emma Watson, the actress who played Hermione Granger, looked like this: She was ten years old, and it was 1999. The final movie came out in 2010, and Watson was 20. She looked more like this: The internet being, ah, the Internet, apparently a…

copyright lawyer
Copyright, VR and MOOCs
 1000 648 David Hoppe
By:

One of the things that makes technology different from many other businesses is that in order for a product to succeed, you need partners. More specifically, you need developers. Whether it’s Microsoft Windows, or Linux, or whatever, you need people out there who are going to write code for your technology, and…

video games lawyer
VR Advertising and Mr. Evil
 1000 648 David Hoppe
By:

You’re in the middle of a virtual reality game. As part of the game, you end up chasing the bad guy (or one of them) down the long, long jetway onto a Cathay Pacific Airbus A380 that’s sitting at the gate, virtually scheduled to leave for Hong Kong. You go through the…

VR lawyer
The VR Shooting Range and the Law of Unintended Consequences
 1000 648 David Hoppe
By:

The Law of Unintended Consequences is an informal, but widely known, observation that when people do something, there are almost always unforeseeable consequences — both positive and negative. This principle applies especially to governments (and laws) and particularly to emerging technologies. Like virtual reality, as (very) vividly demonstrated by a company in…

video games lawyer
Pokémon Go: Privacy, Trespass and Liability
 1000 648 David Hoppe
By:

Reaching more than 10 million downloads in the United States alone during just its first week, Pokémon Go demonstrates the potential for mixed-reality games, not only for the game business but for the retail world generally. Merchants can pay the app daily fees for “lures” that attract users, thereby drawing traffic to…

VR lawyer
Virtual Reality, Copyright Law, and the DMCA: Part 2
 1000 648 David Hoppe
By:

Part 1 of this article examined a case in which the DMCA was used in an attempt to remove a virtual animal from a virtual world. However, the bar for copyright infringement is high, and courts may be less likely to allow removal of a virtual item if it will cause damage…

VR lawyer
Virtual Reality, Copyright Law, and the DMCA: Part 1
 1000 648 David Hoppe
By:

Few cases to date have addressed the application of copyright legal principles to virtual reality games specifically.  This two-part article will explore the application of Copyright Law and the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA) specifically to virtual reality games, and will  offer recommendations to virtual reality developers on avoiding copyright problems with their…