Video Games

Someone actually composed a bill of rights for gamers. #foreheadsmack

A trip down memory lane to the early days of video game intellectual property. Dare I say, Techdirt goes ape for this story?

Another day, another effort from the nanny state to restrict violent video games.

* So now, officially, more people have lost their jobs over Benghazi than lost their jobs over 9/11. [New York Times] * Could we sue the NRA out of existence? [Dissident Voice] * Nate Silver makes it clear that gun ownership is a great indication of party affiliation. Guess the liberals would get their asses handed to them in a civil war. [Five Thirty Eight / New York Times] * Should it be harder for a teenager to get his hands on a video game with lots of guns in it, or AN ACTUAL FREAKING GUN? [Huffington Post] * “Fun” law bloggers interview each other, for fun. [Allison Leotta] * Wait, McDonald’s restaurants in Europe have waitresses? [Telegraph] * Former Governor of Florida slams current Governor of Florida while nation wonders why Florida is always such a train wreck. [Blog of the Legal Times] * Bank robbers hail getaway cab. [Chicago Tribune] * Look, the quote of the year is Megyn Kelly’s, “Is this just math that you do as a Republican to make yourself feel better?” But here are some other fun ones from 2012. [The Careerist]

* Sorry, Rob Portman, while you’re very good at making law students flee from commencement ceremonies, you don’t get to be Mitt’s running mate. Instead, you get to pretend to be the president. Dreams do come true. [Recess Appointment] * Just because there was an undergrad rankings scandal at our school doesn’t mean that our law school data isn’t sound. ::pout:: Oh Emory, that’s so precious. [TaxProf Blog] * Breast implants don’t make women healthier?! Damn you, Congress! [New York Magazine] * Scamming insurance companies > scamming dying AIDS patients. [Dealbreaker] * Scott Greenfield is running a book giveaway contest. Well, here’s my submission: The law doesn’t suck; it’s just the week before Labor Day, so writing about the law sucks. [Simple Justice; Legal Blog Watch] * Given the number of men who ignore their girlfriends in favor of video games, it’s surprising that more women haven’t been charged with misdemeanor battery. [Legal Juice]

A college friend of Stephen McDaniel, the Mercer Law School graduate accused of killing a former classmate and neighbor, speaks up in defense of McDaniel.

What is it like to live with someone who later ends up being accused of murder? A former roommate of Stephen McDaniel describes the experience.

* Dewey retired partners with unfunded pensions get a seat at the table for this bankruptcy circus? Yeah, but only because the U.S. Trustee did something unheard of and appointed a committee of former partners as creditors. [WSJ Law Blog]

* Yesterday was definitely a great day to be gay on the east coast. In addition to the First Circuit’s DOMA decision, a New York appellate court ruled that being called gay is no longer defamatory per se. [New York Law Journal]

* Milberg is the latest firm to dump Paul Ceglia of Facebook lawsuit fame, but Dean Boland, his other lawyer, says the Biglaw firm just “serve[d] as a distraction.” Somebody please give this man a dislike button. [Buffalo News]

* Humblebrag of the day by Judge Alsup of Oracle v. Google fame: he’s written lines of code “a hundred times before.” He also squashed Oracle’s API copyright infringement claims like bugs. [Courthouse News Service]

* Remember Kimberly Ireland, the Kansas attorney who falsely accused Judge Kevin Moriarty of waxing his gavel beneath the bench? She got a retroactive two-year suspension. [ABA Journal via Legal Profession Blog]

* Elizabeth Warren has confirmed that she told Harvard Law and Penn Law that she was a Native American, but only after she had been hired. She didn’t get any action of the affirmative variety, no sir. [Associated Press]

* Recent law school graduates are a little more desperate than we thought they were. At least 32 people have already applied for that BC Law job advertising a salary below minimum wage. [Boston Business Journal]

* Activision settled a lawsuit with two Call of Duty developers, but isn’t worried about an effect on its financials due to a strong third quarter performance. And you can thank your damn Elite packages for that. [PCMag]

Thoreau admonished us that we cannot “kill time without injuring eternity.” But what did he know? That proto-hippie pond-fetishist could not have imagined today’s world, where our collective attention spans have shriveled to goldfish levels and so much actual productive white-collar labor can be, to an observer, indistinguishable from simply loitering in front of a […]

* Now that Chicago has bared it all, isn’t it time for other law schools to fall in line? Show us the stats for the class of 2010 already. [Law School Transparency] * And this is why your mother told you not to talk to strangers. [Legal Juice] * If you’re going to send out […]

* Maybe we need law school law firms in the first place because law school professors — the ones who drill law into our heads for 3 years — are “incapable of practicing law.” [Adjunct Law Prof Blog] * “Boss, I’m stuck in traffic. No, I’m literally stuck.” Driving your car into wet concrete is […]

The Supreme Court struck down a California law that prevented "violent" video games from being sold to children. But what was the reasoning behind this decision? The answers might surprise you.

* Criminals and foreclosure victims subject to criminal mortgage rates now have something in common in New York: guaranteed legal representation. [New York Times] * Not getting your fill of Broadway injuries from Spider-Man? Then Billy Elliot’s got a deal for you — tickets now come with a complimentary face smash worth $4M. [New York […]

Does the statute cover depictions of violence against Vulcans? — Justice Sonia Sotomayor, asking whether video violence against “an image of a human being” could be extended to human-like figures, during oral arguments for Schwarzenegger v. Entertainment Merchants Association.

The Supreme Court is on record as being a grand protector of the people’s right to free speech — so long as by “speech” we mean money and by “people” we mean corporations. But when it comes to the right of artists (in this case, video game producers) to do their thing, the Court wants […]

I know a little something about video game addiction. While working in Biglaw, I was a respected guild member in Everquest II — before I realized that I was wasting giant amounts of time and had more than enough money to be able to interact with fellow humans in the flesh. In law school I […]

Virginia is for lovers (of video games). A judge in Wise, Virginia was so enamored of the shooting game Halo that he may have crossed ethical lines to play it. The not-so Wise judge struck up a friendship with a defendant he’d previously sent to jail. Their gaming relationship came to light when Judge Joseph […]