https://archive.org/details/LegalGeekEp110
https://archive.org/details/LegalGeekEp110
As Pokémon Go reaches one year old, there is still a strong player base enjoying the augmented reality hunt, as evidenced by the popularity of the new raid system and recently-released legendaries. While this may be good for Niantic and The Pokémon Company's profits, it also means the legal battles will continue.
We covered the novel virtual trespassing claims brought against Pokémon Go a couple months back, but there are another two lawsuits having recent progress. First, the actual one-year anniversary of the app was celebrated with a Pokémon Go Fest celebration in Chicago. Needless to say, it did not go well as the lines to enter stretched for hours, and the game's servers and local cell networks failed to meet the demand at this event, which was all about playing the game. It went so poorly that Niantic gave all attendees their registration fee back as well as $100 in game currency.
Predictably, that was not enough to avoid a class action lawsuit that was filed this week on behalf of those who spent much more money traveling from far away places to attend the event in Chicago. The theory is simple: Niantic advertised an event where playing the game was the main attraction, and then did not deliver, causing many to spend significant money and time they would not have spent if they knew the problems that were to occur.
Class action lawsuits are a messy tangle of procedure, so we will save those details for another segment. However, this mechanism allows small parties to group together to take on a big company like Niantic when an grievance like this occurs to many people. Given that Niantic tried to quell their consumers with in game currency and refunds, I would strongly suspect this one never goes to a full trial, but instead will be settled so that the plaintiffs all get a small sum of money, and Niantic can move on. It likely won't cover their actual expenses, or anything close to it, but it will likely change Niantic's work in the future to make sure event faux pas like this do not happen again.
In addition to that lawsuit regarding the Chicago Go Fest, another legal conflict ongoing in Wisconsin had a major development this week. As you'll recall, Milwaukee County enacted a regulation in February requiring augmented reality game developers to go through a rigorous approval process with several very expensive requirement to operate in Milwaukee's parks. Although this targeted Niantic and Pokémon Go, another game developer Candy Labs challenged this in court and won an injunction this week from the court against enforcement of the regulation until a full trial, scheduled in early 2018. For now, Niantic and others can operate for players in this area again.
The legal challenge to the regulation based on First Amendment free speech protections is a close call in my initial view. But it's a good sign that the judge entered an injunction, as that typically means there's a good chance to prevail at trial also.
The Bottom Line is, many people may have moved on from Pokémon Go, but the app is still popular enough to have legal conflicts come up, especially in view of the money Niantic is making on the app. These lawsuits have some significant cutting edge issues for VR and augmented reality that will set the table for those types of technology moving forward, so the court battles of Snorlax and Dragonite cannot be ignored!
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Thanks for reading. Please provide feedback and legal-themed questions as segment suggestions to me on Twitter @BuckeyeFitzy
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