Lawsuits That Changed the Games Industry

Gamasutra has up a piece looking at litigation that changed the way the games industry works. Deep, interesting questions like "Is modding legal?", "Are games covered by the 1st amendment?", and "Are games protected by copyright laws?" have all been decided in legal cases within the last 20 years. The site explores these issues, and ponders issues that are likely to affect the business of the games hobby in the future. From the article: "A variety of laws have been put forth by state legislature to act toward censoring game content or controlling the sale of games. As a rule, be immediately suspicious of any legislation proposed in the name of 'security' or 'protecting our children.' The result is often a jumbo size bite taken out of artistic expression and individual liberty. To date, the ESA has fought and won nine out of nine cases on these issues, having the state laws declared unconstitutional. Furthermore, the ESA has sought and won more than $1.5 million dollars in attorneys fees."

Comments

Does not cover modding

[Thansal]

Is modding legal?

The article does not cover that question, the only thing related was the case of idiots that tried to gather up a bunch of user generated maps for Duke 3D and sell it as a product (with out permission from the mappers or from 3D realms).

Now the interestign one is if there ARE any precidents on modding being legal/illegal. Obviously games where they give you the tools then it is legal (most FPS games these days, Warcraft, etc etc). But what about games that don't give you the tools? (GTA? Hot coffee?) or where it is actively fought (later versions of GTA). Or hardware type mods?