Games Industry Law Summit VilniusAgenda 2024

 Dr. Evelina Georgiades (Chrysostomides)

A relaxed community run for those who arrive early. This run follows the river into the park, with a return through the Old Town. Difficulty level: easy.

More info HERE.

 Prof. Dr. Henner Hentsch (game)
 Dr. Claas Oehler (IHDE & Partner)
 Kai Bodensiek (Brehm & v. Moers)

An update on the state of the German games industry in 2024: its footprint, currently available incentives, and the initiatives of the national association.

The workshop is open to all the attendees of the Summit. Please use this form to reserve a seat.

 Dr. Evelina Georgiades (Chrysostomides)

An energizing community run for the counsels who like to start their conference day early. This run is timed to finish at 08:00 at the Art Museum – right when we start serving breakfast there. Difficulty level: normal. This is a social, rather than a sports, event.

More info HERE.

 Sergei Klimov (Charlie Oscar)

Thanks for coming, and for setting a new community record. An overview of this year’s program, and the Summit’s Social Game.

 Konni Ewald (Osborne Clarke)
 Leonie Schneider (Osborne Clarke)
 Katya Nemova (Wargaming)
 Eric Weiss (Perkins Coie)

Consumer protection law dictates what game designers, as well as marketing and business development teams, can use in their products. When and how this law is enforced, has a huge impact on the revenue of the studio. The risk thresholds are often unclear. This session looks at how consumer law is enforced in the key regions, and what are the risk thresholds for attracting enforcement action.

 Karin Pagnanelli (MSK)
 Marc Mayer (MSK)

Copyright and trademark fair use one year after Warhol and Jack Daniels, where we are with the litigation around the issue of game addiction, updates on mass arbitration and Terms of Service litigation. Bonus: developments in international anti-piracy/anti-cheat litigation, including AimJunkies and EngineOwning cases (and perhaps a bit about the Dark and Darker case) – time permitting.

 Sergei Klimov (Charlie Oscar)
 Katya Nemova (Wargaming)
 George Mountis (Chrysostomides)
 Prof. Dr. Pieter Koornhof (24Bit Games)

Six more counsels inducted into the Summit’s Hall of Fame, awards for the finalists of Legal Challenge VII issued, the case and the judge panel for Legal Challenge VIII announced.

 Brian Chung (Kim & Chang)
 Mike Turner (Latham & Watkins)
 Prof. Dr. Pieter Koornhof (24Bit Games)
 George Mountis (Chrysostomides)

We see that the EC, CMA, the DOJ/FTC scrutinize more mergers, take longer to review, and bring new challenges based on previously unused/under-used theories of harm. The governments are also utilizing foreign direct investment review process and foreign subsidies regulation to review mergers that they could not catch through merger control. This trend has been lending less visibility into deal certainty, regardless of whether the transaction involves large global conglomerates and PEFs or small independent studios. For both large and small game studios, it has become more difficult to negotiate the long-stop date, the amount of the break-up fee, hell-or-high-water provision, and allocation of risks. This session looks at how the trends in application of competition law and foreign investment control complicate mergers, and how do negotiations change as a result.

 Peter Lewin (Wiggin)
 Jennifer Stanley (Fenwick)
 Dr. Gregor Schmid (Taylor Wessing)
 Andrea Dufaure (A&O Shearman)
 Xuyang Zhu (Taylor Wessing)

This session will look at the what kind of litigation around AI is currently happening in the major regions, at how the upcoming regulation (EU AI Act, California AI Regulation, etc.) may affect production teams, and at whether there are ways to protect your studio’s content from being crawled upon.

 Vanessa Pareja Lerner (Dias Carneiro Advogados)
 Efraín Olmedo (Santamarina y Steta)
 Jorge Bedoya C (IE Law Group)
 José Manuel Muñiz Herrera (ALMMA Abogados)
 Cristian Elbert (ECIJA)

South America is already a pretty big games market, and its population dynamics makes it even more important in the near future. The challenge of the region is in staying compliant by prioritizing the issues that are important for each jurisdiction, based on the practical experience. While the region is not as harmonized as the EU, its shared history provides a lot of common ground between different countries. This panel provides a structured, practical, comparative overview of the regional legislation that’s relevant to the games industry, highlighting all the major issues that studios and their law firms should pay attention to.

 Alexandre Rudoni (A&O Shearman)
 Artem Shchuiko (SNEG)
 Andy Macdonald (Jagex)
 Prof. Dr. Christian Rauda (ARTANA)
 Joseph Schenck (Fenwick)
 Brian Chung (Kim & Chang)
 Sebastian Scholl (Nintendo of Europe)
 Mark Humphrey (MSK)

Communities are at the core of our industry: passionate people who spread the word around and help dev teams improve their products. The same communities, though, sometimes engage in activities that are out of control for the IP owner – rebooting old games on different platforms, and creating unapproved modifications, and even unauthorized servers. The session looks at the extent to which we can we control such actions, and at how to balance the benefits and the risks of unauthorized use of IP.

 Dr. Evelina Georgiades (Chrysostomides)
 Andy Ramos (Pérez-Llorca)
 Przemysław Walasek (Taylor Wessing)

A 15 km run for the very few who want a challenge. The route follows the river, enters the forest, and circles back. The finish is 90 minutes before the sessions begin, with enough time to shower and change.

More info HERE.

 Anna Morgan (Bird & Bird)
  Dr. Anselm Rodenhausen (Video Games Europe)
 Nic Murfett (Take-Two Interactive)
 Shanna Pearce (Epic Games)
 Timothy Ma (k-ID)
 Amy Lawrence (SuperAwesome)

All the major regions are currently implementing a stricter form of protection of minors, both through the updated regulation and through its enforcement. Given how central the issue is to the revenue, and how high are the risks of non-compliance, studios need to anticipate the changes and work with the development and operations teams to implement tools and protocols earlier in the production pipeline. This session looks at the the key issues that studios focus on right now, at where is the regulation moving globally, and at how can we make our services age-appropriate by design.

 Paul Gardner (Wiggin)
 Cam Rogers (Cam Rogers Legal)
  Ann Becker (Video Games Europe)
 Ryan Black (DLA Piper)
 Isabel Davies (Wiggin)
 Kayla Page (Epic Games)

A growing number of countries have introduced, or are in the process of introducing, legislation focused on protecting online users from illegal and harmful content. This session will look at the implications for the games industry, drawing on the experience from four jurisdictions that are at the forefront of these developments.

 Dr. Tobias Schelinski (Taylor Wessing)
 Dr. Christoph Ritzer (Norton Rose Fulbright)
 Peter Fischer (FTI Cybersecurity)
 Ana Bastos (Antas da Cunha Ecija)

The importance of cybersecurity can hardly be underestimated. In the last years, cyber security threats have significantly increased in level, complexity, and scale. In this session, we will look at the most common cyber attack types from a technical standpoint, use a games industry related case study to explain the role of a lawyer and the internal processes that are triggered once an attack happens, and will also show what a legal team can do to be prepared for the future cyber attacks.

 Kirk Soderquist (Perkins Coie)
  Ann Becker (Video Games Europe)
 Prof. Dr. Henner Hentsch (game)
 Brian Chadwick (Devolver Digital)
 Katya Nemova (Wargaming)
 Isabel Davies (Wiggin)

Monetization is an extremely sensitive area of production and operation, often overlapping with the consumer protection, online safety and protection of minors. In this session, we will explore the challenges of communicating regulatory risks to the design teams, address the risk of having a few studios which abuse aggresive approach trigger new regional regulation for the whole industry, and argue for an ethical approach to monetization as the foundation for the long-term success based on loyalty and trust of the player community.

 Vikram Jeet Singh (BTG Advaya)
  Murtaza Somjee (Jerome Merchant + Partners)
 Surbhi Kejriwal (Khaitan & Co)
 Sneha Jain(Saikrishna & Associates)

This panel introduces India within the context of the international games industry. From corporate and regulation, and from transactions and litigation, we will look at the key risks and opportunities of this country, learning about India first-hand from the experts that already have vast experience working with tech, IP and video games.

 Boğaç Erozan (Riot Games)
 Kinga Palińska (CD PROJEKT RED)
 Brian Chadwick (Devolver Digital)
 Dr. Jan-Peter Ewert (Valve)

Content that’s acceptable in one market, may cause controversy in another – triggering legal and revenue risks for the studio as well as for its individual team members. In-house teams that operate globally can mitigate such situations early, presenting the risk factors internally in a way that empowers business and design teams to be aware of the context, to act early, and to reach their goals in a safer way. This session will explore how to communicate risk assessment internally, and how to compound such experience over time.