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Full-Text Articles in Legal History
Copy Game For High Score: The First Video Game Lawsuit, 20 J. Intell. Prop. L. 1 (2012), William K. Ford
Copy Game For High Score: The First Video Game Lawsuit, 20 J. Intell. Prop. L. 1 (2012), William K. Ford
UIC Law Open Access Faculty Scholarship
Commentators and industry historians generally agree that the multi-billion dollar video game industry began forty years ago in November 1972 with Atari's release of Pong. Pong is among the simplest of video games: a version of ping pong or tennis requiring little more to play than a ball, two paddles, a scoring indicator, and a couple of memorable sounds. While it was not the first video game, Pong was the first video game hit. With unauthorized copying of a successful product occurring, it is not surprising that a lawsuit resulted in the fall of 1973, one that predates the more …
Sealand, Havenco, And The Rule Of Law, James Grimmelmann
Sealand, Havenco, And The Rule Of Law, James Grimmelmann
Faculty Scholarship
In 2000, a group of American entrepreneurs moved to a former World War II anti-aircraft platform in the North Sea, seven miles off the British coast, and launched HavenCo, one of the strangest start-ups in Internet history. A former pirate radio broadcaster, Roy Bates, had occupied the platform in the 1960s, moved his family aboard, and declared it to be the sovereign Principality of Sealand. HavenCo's founders were opposed to governmental censorship and control of the Internet; by putting computer servers on Sealand, they planned to create a "data haven" for unpopular speech, safely beyond the reach of any other …