Technology’s inexorable march means that the graphics, audio and narrative content of video games becomes more realistic with every passing year.  It can now sometimes be hard to distinguish an in-game screenshot from a photograph in these immersive virtual worlds.  Game designers have often set video games within the real world or recreated real-world buildings, people, cars, guns, clothing, dance moves, tattoos and more in their fictional worlds.  This trend is only increasing and questions often arise over intellectual property, whether licences or disputes.

Which real-world assets can you include in a game without permission and when might you need to take a licence?  How does this vary by game type, asset type, IP right, jurisdiction and how you do it?  What are the unsettled areas of law and what have been the key cases in this area?

Nick Allan (Partner at Lewis Silkin) will take you on a tour through some of the key considerations with plenty of visual aids.  The talk will focus primarily on UK law with some thoughts on US, EU and other legal systems.

The session may assist you if you are ever asked to provide IP clearance advice for a video game you are asked to provide clearance advice for a video game or advise a games studio or an IP rightsholder on whether a licence is appropriate.