By: Mikela Gassert
Modifications to video games, typically called mods, are a staple of gaming communities. These derivative works are not always supported or authorized by the original game publishers. In the absence of a legal method to paywall mods, developers have turned to crowdsourcing tools to fund the upkeep or creation costs for mods. The ramifications of this practice are unclear. Publishers and mod creators may soon become caught between the desire to provide freedom to players and the need to protect intellectual property rights. This post explains why the uncertainty should be resolved in favor of permitting crowdfunding. As a further remedy, video game mod creators and industry decisionmakers could adopt industry standards in the absence of legislation to the same effect.

By: Shivani Patel

While the right to be forgotten is an understood legal right in Europe and many other countries, it is also a right that does not align with the values of the United States, specifically our First Amendment values. With privacy laws becoming a more commonplace discussion, it seems that this is inevitable conversation. How do we in United States deal with the clash between our First Amendment rights and a potentially necessary right to be forgotten? In Europe, the right to be forgotten allows people to have search engines remove links or information about them. Are there not times that this right could be a necessary evil? In this blog, I will explore this right as it functions in Europe and other countries, as well as how this right clashes with the First Amendment. I will then analyze how and why the right to be forgotten can be reconciled with the First Amendment in the United States. Also, I will explore how the United States can benefit from this right and what the implications of not having this right are.

By: Eddy Atallah
Since the inception of the Hatch-Waxman Amendments, the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) determination for three-year clinical investigations exclusivity was generally unquestioned. However, Braeburn v. FDA brought about significant interpretive challenges to the provision and questions about agency deference. This Blog considers the “double-edged sword” in trying to mitigate ambiguity within the Hatch-Waxman act. This Blog proposes a legal and scientific standard that should suffice the Court’s new requirement over the exclusivity determination process, a standard already firmly rooted in intellectual property law. Finally, this Blog also proposes changes to the FDA’s drug approval process which will help the agency fend off interpretive challenges.
Hopefully, with these suggestions, litigation surrounding this inherently ambiguous statute will diminish. But importantly, these suggestions hope to maintain the overall purpose of the three-year clinical investigation’s exclusivity provision; incentivize the development of new drugs, albeit in forms such as a new indication, a new route of administration, or new dosage forms, while still enabling the approval of lower-cost generic copies or competitive therapies.

By: Sam Hayes
The Supreme Court left the government edicts doctrine untouched for nearly 130 years until last year, when the Court revisited the doctrine in Georgia v. Public.Resource.Org, Inc. The central issue in Georgia v PRO concerned the copyrightability of the Official Code of Georgia Annotated, which included the text of every Georgia statute, as well as various non-binding annotations. The Court concluded that the Code’s annotations were not copyrightable because they were authored by legislators who have the authority to make the law. Particularly, although the annotations were drafted by a private company in a work-for-hire agreement with the Code Revision Commission, the Court nevertheless found that the Commission functioned as an arm of the Georgia Legislature. Despite the favorable judgment for the public, the standard developed by the Court, one in which the government edicts doctrine bars copyright protection based on authorship, remains too narrow to protect the public. It is unclear how the newly explained doctrine would apply in situations where works are authored by private parties, and then referenced or incorporated after the fact by lawmaking officials. Lower court decisions present two possible solutions for the Supreme Court to take in order to protect the public from this problem: (1) treating lawmaking officials as the authors of works that were produced by private parties when those lawmaking officials publicly incorporate them in their own works, or (2) adopt a case-by-case framework for when to consider lawmaking officials as authors of privately authored works on a case-by-case basis.

By: Raj Shah, Senior Regulatory Attorney & Policyholder Advisor, MagMutual Insurance Company & Nicholas Forsyth, Risk Intern, MagMutual Insurance Company

This blog involves data protection and privacy law and addresses the difference in outcomes of the Georgia Supreme Court case of Collins and the 11th Circuit case of Captiva. The work discusses whether Georgia law and the 11th Circuit have different pleading standards in a class action regarding negligence in a data breach. The work lays out the probable future implications these two court cases will have on healthcare organizations located within Georgia. The work offers our thoughts and opinions and related advice to healthcare organizations and their counsel on reducing the likelihood of a class action suit regarding negligence in a data breach.