Those following the news surrounding development of sci-fi MMO Black Prophecy from Reakktor Media know there's been a significant hurdle to this title seeing the light of day -- the issue of insolvency. When parent company 10Tacle filed for insolvency, this adversely impacted subsidiary Reakktor Media and threatened continued development of Black Prophecy, which Reakktor addressed in an interview with Massively in April.

It was announced today that their restructuring plan has been successful, and that their insolvency plan saved the jobs of all 36 employees at the company. Even better, Black Prophecy is on track for a release next year, according to the press statement released by the HERMANN law firm which oversaw the insolvency proceedings.

Seems that most of what you hear in and about Second Life recently revolves around creator rights, copyrights, trademarks, intellectual property rights, infringement and so forth. It's not that intellectual property infringement is new – you can certainly replicate content with the official viewer if you know how – but it is in the limelight and a major feature of Second Life discussions by virtue of assorted high-profile infringements, and legal actions.

Copyright infringement can't be made to go away. Since the Statute of Anne in 1710 originally codified copyrights in law, infringement has only been somewhat quelled by various means, never practically eliminated. In these predominantly digital times, there are many new tradeoffs could be made that could reduce the incidence of infringement, but at the cost of also reducing functionality.

While Linden Lab allows you to submit a DMCA notice via post or fax, there is a third option that's valid while you're waiting for the promised new DMCA process to come along.

While many service- and platform-providers insist that they do not accept emailed DMCA notices, if you submit them correctly, the provider is lawfully obligated to accept them. Interestingly, a proper DMCA notice by email can actually give the recipient more surety about the identity of the submitter than faxed or posted notices.

You can frequently get asked to prove an awful lot in MMOs -- that you actually know how to beat this boss, that you really have insider access to the game developers, or perhaps most commonly that you are who you say you are. Aurora Technology over in China has apparently decided to cut out the middleman in the equation -- they're banning any male players who play female characters, requiring players to confirm their gender via webcam in order to enforce the ruling.

The ruling currently only affects the Aurora-developed game King of the World, but there's always the possibility that this action could have further-reaching consequences. After all, Aurora is a subsidiary of Shanda, a company responsible for publishing Aion and Dungeons and Dragons Online in the region, which are names slightly more familiar to players on this side of the pond. China is a fair bit more litigious than the US when it comes to its online games, and the country as a whole has taken some surprising moves already. While this ordeal has been going on for over two years now, we can't help but wonder if this will herald the start of some rather restrictive policies. We're assuming that you'll need to provide pictures or it didn't happen.

Remember Kevin Alderman (known in Second Life as Stroker Serpentine), CEO of Eros LLC who is one of the plaintiffs who have filed a lawsuit against Linden Lab for negligence with respect to security and failing to act in accordance with their obligations under the DMCA? Well, it can't be a good week for either him or for the Lab.

During Linden Lab's Burning Life event in Second Life this year (a sort of living pop-art showcase and party that draws many spectators) persons only presently known to the server logs left a cache of copied content, including at least one of Alderman's latest products, and a whole swag of other content belonging to other designers – free for the taking.

It isn't really Burning Life's fault, but if you had to place the stuff somewhere where many people would take it, none-the-wiser that it was unlawful content, that would be the best place at this time of the year.

If you're waiting for a Fallout MMO -- something many fans for the series are, without a doubt -- and you're not getting enough of that itch scratched by Fallen Earth, there's hope on the horizon. Sort of. Assuming that Interplay and Bethesda can sort their problems out in court, where they're currently behaving with all of the maturity you'd expect from two large gaming companies.

The full story can be read here at GamePolitics, but if your head is spinning a bit from all of the legal discussion, here's the short version. Bethesda is angry that Interplay, who sold them the rights to Fallout when in dire need of money, is now trying to back out of licensing the property to develop their promised Fallout MMO. Interplay, on the flipside, is arguing that Bethesda violated the terms of their original agreement and rendered it null and void, which would give them both control of the rights once again as well as meaning that Bethesda might well owe them royalties for the massively successful Fallout 3.

Practical upshot? If things go well for Interplay, they'll have more seed money for developing an MMO based on an immensely popular classic gaming franchise. If they go poorly, of course, Interplay is really up the creek and we'll very likely not see said MMO for quite some time if ever. Take a look at the full story, and start placing your bets.

Online gaming revenues soared in China to 6.18 billion RMB (USD 906 million) in the second quarter of 2009, according to Reuters. They cite data from Analysys International, a research firm which states China's online game revenues for Q2 2009 were up 39.5 percent over last year. Among the top three earners (trailing behind Tencent Holdings and Shanda Games) was NetEase, the company which is presently the licensed operator of World of Warcraft in China. Reuters states that NetEase saw revenues of 780 million RMB (USD 114 million) in the second quarter of this year.

This continual growth of online gaming in China has been a key issue with legislators in recent years. The Chinese media's coverage of internet and gaming addiction has intensified, and there is now increased government scrutiny of the virtual currencies and economies these games have given rise to. It's not just a China issue, as foreign companies are either operating online games in the country or have been eyeing this lucrative market. As we mentioned on Monday, the issue of regulating foreign game operation in China may be coming to a head with the current struggle between the General Administration of Press and Publications (GAPP) and the Ministry of Culture. Whatever agreement is reached between these government agencies will determine the future of foreign online game operations in the country.

[Via GamePolitics]

Back at the end of January, after we spent months investigating, talking to the Australian Classification Board, and both State and Federal Australian Attorneys General offices, it became clear that an apparent discrepancy in Australian games ratings was no discrepancy.

MMOGs were being sold on store shelves in Australia without the mandatory classification required by law. The whole thing was a tangle of confusing and contradictory information and statements from publishers, developers, industry associations, retailers and government departments. The government departments involved ultimately passed the buck back and forth between State and Federal jurisdictions, until their press-offices simply refused to talk.

Now, at last, the government seems to have gotten its message straight. In the wake of the coverage most MMOGs applied for and received a rating. Even Blizzard's World of Warcraft (a bit of a johnny-come-lately) has a proper rating this month and only Funcom's Age of Conan and Mythic's Warhammer Online seem to be holdouts, as far as we can tell.

Yesterday, the US Federal Trade Commission unanimously ruled that all press outlets be held to disclose any "material connections" to the products they review. This basically means that if you review a product that was given to you for free by the company, you must now disclose that fact in your review. Interestingly enough, this ruling also dictates bloggers as well.

As part of the Joystiq network of blogs, Massively is actually held to an integrity policy that prevents us from accepting gifts valued over $20. This includes everything from airfare for studio visits to the games themselves -- we must turn them down. And while this new FTC ruling is not actually a law, we are excited to see that our long-standing policies safeguard us from any integrity issues. Plus, we simply don't review MMOs.

So now we're curious to hear what you think of this decision by the FTC. Do you think this will bring about a drastic change to all MMO reviewers out there? Can you trust a reviewer, knowing they were given a free game or travel expenses to visit a studio? Let us know what you think about this entire issue in the comments below!

When news broke about Linden Lab sending a takedown notice to the core Second Life education community Web-site, our colleagues over at the Metaverse Journal put a number of questions about the matter to Linden Lab.

The Linden Lab response to those questions yesterday seems to have generated a reaction among educators akin to pouring gasoline on a blaze, coupled with a vigorous fish-slapping. While there's a undeniably a spectrum of reaction to the Lab's response, most of what we've seen seems to cluster around the livid end.

Jokay Wollongong, one of the premier promoters and supporters of the educational uses of Second Life, and keeper of the largest single resource for Second Life educators, suffered something of a reversal this week, when Linden Lab decided that that very same resource, sleducation.wikispaces.com, infringed on their SL trademark (which has now only been registered for nine days), and sent Wollongong a takedown notice.

That's something of a surprise considering Linden Lab's ongoing endorsement of the site on the Second Life Education mailing-list. The site, which has been up since late 2006, documents over 100 case studies of educational projects in Second Life, as well as providing key community resources and information for educators who are just getting started with virtual environments.

With the lawsuit pending against Linden Lab, you'd think now would be a pretty poor time for them to mess up on handling IP rights infringement. You'd think that, wouldn't you?

Second Life user and content-creator, RobbyRacoon Olmstead, recently discovered one of his items had apparently been duplicated in infringement of his creator-rights. He obtained one of the copies, verified the matter to his satisfaction, and reported the matter to Linden Lab who suspended Olmstead's account the following day. Seriously, how much worse could the Lab have mucked that one up?

It seems to be a World of Lawsuits (TM) recently in our industry. Bloggers are being sued for libel, NCsoft is being sued for patent infringement, Linden Labs is being sued for trademark violations, Turbine is suing Atari, and now five companies are all being sued over a patent dispute.

The Boston Globe has reported that Paltalk Holdings Inc. has filed a complaint in Texas against Sony Corp., Activision Blizzard Inc., Turbine Inc., NCsoft Corp., and Jagex Ltd. all for games that violate their patent on computers sharing data so that all users can see the same virtual environment. The games in question are EverQuest, World of Warcraft, Lord of the Rings Online, Guild Wars, and RuneScape (in order of the companies as named above.)

What makes this lawsuit different from the standard patent shakedowns that we've been reporting on is that the patent has already been successfully used in court. Paltalk has already sued, and won against, Microsoft.

Eros LLC, and graphic designer Shannon Grei (Munchflower Zaius) have filed a class-action lawsuit against Linden Research Inc, more commonly known as Linden Lab, developers and operators of popular virtual environment Second Life, on behalf of themselves and of copyright/trademark holders and Second Life content creators.

Filed in the Court of the Northern District of California yesterday, the complaint defines four groups of class action and alleges: four counts of trademark infringement (two direct, one contributory, and one vicarious), four counts of copyright infringement (two direct, one contributory, and one vicarious), a breach of California Business Professional Codes §§ 17200 and 17500, one of Intentional Interference with Economic Relations, and one of Negligent Interference with Economic Relations.

Serve me now, my lord!

Blogger Bruce Everiss, author of the website BruceOnGames.com, has been sued by Evony LLC, the company behind the notorious online webgame Evony, formerly Civony. The suit stems from Bruce's Evony coverage and critical stance towards the game, including his assertions that Evony LLC is a company under the WoWmine.org network (a site that is allegedly part of a World of Warcraft gold farming network), his statements concerning the company being based in China, and that their game has infringed on other game IPs, including Civilization and Age of Empires.

Evony usually comes under fire for their very transparent marketing strategy, which is usually slapping a hot woman (who has nothing to do with their civilization/empire building MMORTS) onto an ad to entice gamers to click. However, as we posted prior, some bloggers have found some content that was directly ripped off from Civilization and Age of Empires, however the Age of Empires assets have been removed from the current iteration of the game.