Thanks to Kabam Inc. for hosting the Video Game Bar Association breakfast at this year`s Game Developers Conference! This certainly was a great opportunity to mingle with other lawyers who are active in the gaming industry! And the panel discussion was food for thought indeed – who would have imagined that both the European moral rights concept as well as the unjust enrichment/balancing of interests test, seem appealing to our US colleagues when using the likeness of celebrities in games, e.g., the likeness of a famous football player in a football game.
The Austrian equivalent, by the way, is the so-called “right to one`s own image” laid down in section 78 of the Austrian Copyright Act. Although the statute only speaks of one`s image, the scope of protection under this section equally extends to other characteristics identifying a specific individual – such as the human voice. And here the circle is complete: Another hot topic of today`s discussion were “sound-alikes”, be it sound-alikes of (famous) voices or even sound-alikes of the ways how specific musicians play their instruments.
Finally, and most importantly, the VGBA meeting not only clearly showed that lawyering indeed is fun, but also that lawyers are fun people!