The first time I’d ever heard of Richard (Rick) Hoeg was earlier this month when he was a guest on Colin Moriarty’s Sacred Symbols+ Podcast. It turns out he has become somewhat of the go-to attorney for many in the video game industry and has turned his knowledge into a successful and entertaining YouTube channel, with a show called Virtual Legality.

我听说过理查德 吨 他第一次(里克)Hoeg本月初时，他是科林莫里亚蒂的神圣符号+播客嘉宾。 事实证明，他已成为许多视频游戏行业的首选律师，并且通过名为Virtual Legality的节目将他的知识转化为成功且有趣的YouTube频道 。

Rick has a knack for making complex subjects understandable, and it is clear through his success that people care about all aspects of their favorite games beyond just playing them. I knew I wanted to follow up on other subjects with Rick so I reached out and he graciously agreed to interview with us. So read on and enjoy!

里克(Rick)有使复杂的主题易于理解的诀窍，并且通过他的成功很明显，人们不仅在玩他们喜欢的游戏的所有方面。 我知道我想跟Rick一起跟进其他话题，所以我伸出手，他很客气地同意与我们面谈。 因此，请继续阅读并享受！

There is no legal advice in this article, all statements are Rick’s opinions and observations. Anyone needing legal advice should consult with their attorney.

本文没有法律建议，所有声明均为Rick的意见和观察。 任何需要法律咨询的人都应咨询其律师。

SUPERJUMP Good Afternoon Rick, thank you for joining us today. I wanted to start by saying congratulations on the success of your YouTube channel. You started making videos back in 2018, and that has now evolved into your current main show Virtual Legality. You’ve done almost 300 shows now, are you surprised that the show and your channel have had so much success, given that legal issues aren’t usually considered to be entertaining?

SUPERJUMP下午好，瑞克，感谢您今天加入我们。 首先，我要对您的YouTube频道的成功表示祝贺。 您从2018年开始制作视频，现在已经发展成为您当前的主节目“虚拟合法性”。 您现在已经完成了近300场演出，由于法律问题通常不被认为具有娱乐性，您对演出和您的频道取得如此巨大的成功感到惊讶吗？

RICKThanks so much. I am, in fact, surprised, and remain surprised. The whole channel came about, in part, when Kyle Bosman, Brandon Jones, and the rest of the Easy Allies started asking me questions on their show regarding copyright, fan games, mergers that were happening, etc. We got such good feedback on that that we just kept doing it, and since I was also doing some radio at the time, I thought, ‘let’s see if folks are interested in a new channel’. It’s been a lot of fun to give folks who love the things that I love just a bit more understanding of how these giant businesses navigate both commercial and legal matters. As you can tell if you watch the channel, I very much love both, and so that’s been a fun thing to share.

RICK非常感谢。 实际上，我感到惊讶，并且仍然感到惊讶。 整个频道的建立部分是因为凯尔·博斯曼(Kyle Bosman)，布兰登·琼斯(Brandon Jones)和其他“易盟”成员开始在他们的节目中问我有关版权，粉丝游戏，正在发生的合并等问题。我们收到了很好的反馈我们只是一直在做，而且由于我当时也在广播，所以我想，“让我们看看人们是否对新频道感兴趣”。 让热爱我的事物的人们多了解这些巨型企业如何处理商业和法律事务，这真是一件很有趣的事情。 正如您可以告诉您是否观看频道一样，我非常喜欢两者，因此分享是一件很有趣的事情。

SUPERJUMPOne of the things we try to bring to our audience is a look at all the different ways one can have a career in “gaming”. Your law career didn’t start with a focus on the software and gaming industry, so can you tell us a bit about how you realized you could have a practice that really focused on these types of issues and clients?

超级跳跃我们试图带给听众的一件事是看一看可以在“游戏”中职业的所有不同方式。 您的法律职业不是从专注于软件和游戏行业开始的，所以您能告诉我们一些您如何意识到自己可以真正专注于这类问题和客户的业务吗？

RICKSo, software in general now represents about a third of my book of business, but I “grew up in the law” doing mergers and acquisitions and venture capital. Though venture capital gets a bit of a bad wrap in some corners, one of the things I always loved about it was the exposure I got to these wonderful new technologies and developments. What I usually call the “James Bond technology” coming out of Universities and research institutions and the like.

RICK因此，软件现在通常约占我业务的三分之一，但我在法律上“成长”，进行并购和风险投资。 尽管风险资本在某些方面有些不好，但是我一直喜欢的一件事是我接触了这些出色的新技术和发展。 我通常所说的“詹姆斯·邦德技术”来自大学，研究机构等。

When in 2008, a lot of that market dried up for a time, I took another piece of what I loved; computers, software, and games, and started developing a practice that focused on areas within those fields that really weren’t carved out just yet. That lead to really focusing on software as a service and ultimately to publisher/developer relationships in games, augmented reality, and beyond.

在2008年，很多市场一度枯竭后，我又买了一份自己喜欢的东西。 计算机，软件和游戏，并开始开发一种针对那些尚未真正确定的领域的实践。 这导致真正专注于软件即服务，并最终关注游戏，增强现实以及其他方面的发行商/开发人员关系。

Then when in 2016 I started my own firm, I knew I wanted to have a presence outside the normal lines of large scale law firm marketing. That lead to a sponsorship with Easy Allies, quotes in major video game outlets, and a growing YouTube channel!

然后，当我在2016年创办自己的律师事务所时，我知道我想在大型律师事务所营销的常规范围之外开展业务。 这导致与Easy Allies的赞助，主要视频游戏商店的报价以及不断增长的YouTube频道！

SUPERJUMPWe have a lot of authors and followers on Medium who are independent game developers, students who are studying development, or individuals who just want to get into that space.

SUPERJUMP我们在Medium上有很多作家和追随者，他们是独立的游戏开发人员，正在研究开发的学生或只是想进入这个领域的个人。

Can you give us an overview of some of the most important legal issues they might need to keep in mind as they work on games and try to bring them to the market?

您能否概述一些在游戏中尝试将它们推向市场时可能需要记住的最重要的法律问题？

RICKObviously tip number one is to consult with a legal professional (and an accountant). It doesn’t have to be me, obviously, but any good one will chat with you about your needs for 15–20 minutes and let you know what your specific circumstances require…for free. Even a family lawyer friend might know who to send you to, and it is always easier (and cheaper) to get things right in the first place than to fix them later on.

RICK显然，第一要诀是咨询法律专业人士(和会计师)。 显然，不一定是我，但是任何一个好人都会在15到20分钟内与您讨论您的需求，并让您知道您的具体情况……免费。 即使是家庭律师朋友也可能知道将您发送给谁，而且首先解决问题总是比以后更容易解决(便宜)。

That said, there are a couple of things you should keep your eye on either way. In almost all instances you are going to want an entity. An entity (even a single-member LLC, which might feel like nothing practically) can afford you certain liability protection and give you a convenient “bucket” in which to store the IP you are developing. Furthermore, in interactions with banks, with App Stores, etc., most will expect you to have an entity in place.

也就是说，无论哪种方式，您都应该注意两件事。 在几乎所有情况下，您都想要一个实体。 一个实体(甚至是一个单人有限责任公司，实际上可能感觉上几乎没有任何东西)可以为您提供一定的责任保护，并为您提供方便的“存储桶”来存储您正在开发的IP。 此外，在与银行，App Store等进行交互时，大多数人会希望您拥有一个实体。

Along that same line, the most important thing for a video game developer to do is to keep track of this asset they are creating. Make sure the IP is the company’s at every turn, that every founder, contractor, and other outside party has assigned the rights to the needed IP to the company. That’s your bread and butter. And when entering into outside contracts of a different sort, whether with a publisher or otherwise, make sure you keep track of what is happening to your IP. Definitions matter. (And this is one of the reasons why having counsel review contracts is so important.)

同样，视频游戏开发人员要做的最重要的事情就是跟踪他们正在创造的资产。 确保IP随时随地都是公司的，所有创始人，承包商和其他外部方都已将所需IP的权利分配给了公司。 那就是你的面包和黄油。 当签订不同种类的外部合同时，无论是与发布者签订合同还是其他合同，请确保跟踪您的IP发生了什么。 定义很重要。 (这就是拥有律师复审合同如此重要的原因之一。)

SUPERJUMPNow that the Epic vs. Apple legal battle has evolved from just arguing over the payment system to now including a threat to Unreal Engine, how do you see that whole thing playing out? From what I’ve read, the latest injunction has given Epic a couple of weeks protection for Unreal Engine, but it will come to a head again for sure. Could Epic back down to avoid losing the entire Apple ecosystem and putting it’s licensees for the engine in a tough spot as well? Who do you think has more to lose in this fight?

SUPERJUMPNow，Epic与Apple的法律之争已经从争论支付系统发展到现在包括对虚幻引擎的威胁，您如何看待整个过程？ 根据我的阅读，最新的禁令为Epic提供了几周的虚幻引擎保护，但可以肯定的是它将再次浮出水面。 Epic是否可以退缩以避免丢失整个Apple生态系统，并将其引擎的授权商也置于困境之中？ 您认为在这场战斗中谁能输得更多？

RICKSo, those that follow Virtual Legality know I feel that Epic has a relatively weak case. Their theory depends on a court finding a monopoly in a single manufacturer’s control of its own product in a way that really hasn’t been done in US antitrust law. That said, it’s not a crazy theory, it just depends on a novel (and, to my mind, problematic) definition of a monopoly market.

RICK因此，那些遵循虚拟合法性的人知道我觉得Epic的情况相对较弱。 他们的理论取决于法院在美国反托拉斯法中并未真正做到的那样，在单一制造商对自己产品的控制权中发现垄断。 也就是说，这不是一个疯狂的理论，它仅取决于对垄断市场的新颖定义(在我看来，这是有问题的)。

As you say, the current restraining order (not yet an injunction) prevents Apple from acting against Epic’s affiliates (namely their international affiliate in charge of Unreal) for the time being, but the Court reserved the right to be further briefed on the nature of the contracts here in September (when the actual injunction discussion will be had).

如您所说，当前的限制令(尚未发出强制令)阻止Apple暂时对Epic的分支机构(即负责Unreal的国际分支机构)采取行动，但法院保留权利进一步通报9月份的合同(届时将进行实际的禁令讨论)。

Now, I had assumed portions of this outcome, that Epic was never going to be able to force Apple to distribute their modified Fortnite (at least not without a final judgment in their favor), but I had also figured that once this ball got rolling they would restore Fortnite while the litigation was pending. They seem disinclined to do that at present. Could that change after the injunction is issued (or is denied), absolutely. But for now, Epic seems to want to make this as loud and as painful as possible (especially if their current #FreeFortnite page is any indication). I likened this to hostage-taking/threatening, but perhaps if one is more inclined to see Epic’s case as a strong one, you might consider it “using their leverage”.

现在，我已经假设了部分结果，即Epic永远无法迫使苹果派发其改良版的Fortnite (至少在没有最终决定的情况下，他们还是没有这样做)，但我也意识到，一旦这个球滚滚而来他们将在诉讼未决期间恢复Fortnite 。 他们目前似乎不愿意这样做。 发出禁制令后，这种改变是否可以肯定地发生。 但就目前而言，Epic似乎希望使声音尽可能大声和尽可能痛苦(尤其是如果当前的#FreeFortnite页面有任何迹象)。 我将其比作劫持/威胁人质，但也许如果有人更愿意将Epic的案子视为有力的案子，您可能会认为这是“利用他们的杠杆作用”。

In terms of who has the most to lose? Apple (and every other walled garden ecosystem) by far. Epic’s suit here is effectively an existential threat to the walled garden ecosystem and the product Apple wants to sell with their iPhone. An Epic loss likely doesn’t do anything except keep Epic games off of iOS for the foreseeable future.

在谁损失最大的方面？ 苹果(以及其他所有围墙的花园生态系统)到目前为止。 Epic的诉讼实际上对围墙花园生态系统和苹果希望通过其iPhone销售的产品构成生存威胁。 除了在可预见的未来将Epic游戏从iOS上移除之外，Epic损失可能无济于事。

SUPERJUMPOver the past several years, Chinese companies Tencent and Netease (to a lesser degree), have made investments into Western game studios and publishers. This has lead to fears that games will be censored or changed due to the differing social and political stances between China and Western countries. Do you feel this is a valid concern, and are there any legal issues at play that may validate or downplay those fears?

在过去的几年中，中国公司腾讯和网易(程度较小)已经对西方游戏工作室和发行商进行了投资。 这导致人们担心，由于中国和西方国家之间不同的社会和政治立场，游戏将被审查或改变。 您是否认为这是一个正当的担忧，是否有任何法律问题可以证明或淡化那些恐惧？

RICKI think that there is definitely a valid concern that game companies will make certain choices in an effort to not offend as large a market as China. I talked about that at length in my “A Blizzard of Backlash” series last year, where Blizzard was under fire for taking steps against one of its Hearthstone players who had made a statement in support of Hong Kong.

RICK，我认为游戏公司一定会做出一定的选择，以不冒中国这样大的市场，这确实令人担忧。 我在去年的《反冲的暴雪》系列中谈到了这一点，当时暴雪因采取行动反对其中一位发表支持香港言论的《 炉石传说》玩家而备受抨击。

While investment itself can definitely help get Chinese voices a seat at the table at these companies, I don’t think that the investment itself is something to be overly concerned about. Rather its simply the nature of having such a large market willing to spend money while also demanding certain restrictions on content and speech.

尽管投资本身绝对可以帮助中国人在这些公司中占一席之地，但我认为投资本身并不是值得过分关注的事情。 相反，这仅仅是拥有如此庞大的市场愿意花钱，同时还要求对内容和语音进行某些限制的本质。

I’m a big proponent of the freedom of speech, as you can imagine, and that extends past Constitutional protections to an overall belief in the power of speech (including art) produced by both individuals and entities. That more companies are moving away from support of such freedom in order to secure this additional money should be a concern, I think. Throw on “National Security Laws” and the like, and you start to get into areas of real legal exposure.

正如您可以想象的那样，我是言论自由的坚定支持者，这超出了宪法保护范围，对个人和实体所产生的言论力量(包括艺术)的总体信念。 我认为，更多公司正在摆脱对这种自由的支持以确保获得这笔额外的钱，这是一个令人担忧的问题。 抛出“国家安全法”之类的东西，您便开始涉足真正的法律风险领域。

(It’s worth noting that this conversation is not at all limited to video games, and you see it playing out across industries, including sports and movies. It’s something we’re going to have to address more and more in the very near future.)

(值得注意的是，这种对话并不仅限于视频游戏，而且您会看到它在包括体育和电影在内的各个行业中广泛使用。在不久的将来，我们将不得不对此进行越来越多的探讨。)

SUPERJUMPWhen the big leaks happened with The Last of Us Part 2 earlier this year, Sony responded aggressively and in some cases issued copyright strikes to YouTube channels that had done nothing wrong. Undoubtedly there was some economic impact felt by those channels, so in cases like this, is there any legal recourse those people have?

当今年早些时候《 The Last of Us Part 2》发生大泄漏时，Sony做出了积极React，在某些情况下，向YouTube频道发出了版权警告，但没有做错任何事情。 这些渠道无疑会对经济产生影响，因此在这种情况下，这些人有没有法律追索权？

RICKProbably not. One of the things I’ve talked about a lot in respect of the DMCA takedown notice arena is how ripe they are for abuse. That is because the standard for wrongfully sending a takedown notice is set so high — to be penalized the takedown must be “knowingly” and “materially” wrong. That standard is virtually impossible to establish in most areas of the law, and doubly so in an area as gray as “copyright infringement” and whether or not exemptions like “fair use” should apply.

里克可能不会。 关于DMCA移除通知竞技场，我经常谈论的一件事是滥用行为的成熟程度。 那是因为错误地发送删除通知的标准设置得太高了—要受到惩罚，删除必须是“明知”和“实质性”错误的。 该标准在法律的大多数领域中几乎是不可能建立的，而在“侵犯版权”这样的灰色领域以及是否应适用“合理使用”之类的豁免方面则是双重的。

It’s one of the reasons I covered Sony’s actions on this score so thoroughly. They were issuing takedown notices for things like tweets, with no assets or content from the leaks used whatsoever. The DMCA needs to be reformed to require copyright holders to really think through what they want to do in a takedown scenario. Alas, I fear it will be reformed in the opposite direction.

这是我如此详尽地报道索尼在此方面的行为的原因之一。 他们发布了诸如tweet之类的删除通知，没有任何资产或内容来自泄漏。 需要对数字千年版权法案(DMCA)进行改革，以要求版权所有者在删除方案中认真考虑他们想做的事情。 las，我担心它会朝相反的方向改革。

SUPERJUMPPirating video games and IP has been a problem to varying degrees for 30+ years, and it seemingly peaked with the shutdown of Pirate Bay in late 2014. Is the problem of pirated games still widespread, and if it is, are game studios and publishers aggressively going after pirating operations?

超级视频游戏和IP的发展已在30多年间不同程度地成为问题，并且在2014年底海盗湾关闭时似乎达到了顶峰。盗版游戏的问题是否仍然普遍存在？在进行盗版操作后会积极进行吗？

RICKIt is certainly the case that piracy is simply a state of being in the game industry for now, as any small App developer would be more than happy to tell you. But different publishers and developers have different approaches here. On the one hand, publishers often don’t wish to look too draconian in their protective actions, as gaming is one of those industries where you can lose market share simply due to a mercurial social media audience deciding that you are the “litigious” one. On the other hand, a publisher may want to “make an example” of pirates and other bad actors (cheaters, hackers) so as to present as the company that you don’t want to “mess with”. There are various strategies at play here.

RICK可以肯定的是，盗版目前仅是游戏行业的一种情况，因为任何小型App开发人员都非常乐意告诉您。 但是，不同的发布者和开发者在这里有不同的方法。 一方面，出版商通常不希望他们采取过分严厉的保护措施，因为游戏业是您可能会失去市场份额的行业之一，仅仅是因为众多的社交媒体观众认为您是“诉讼人” 。 另一方面，发布者可能希望“模仿”海盗和其他不良行为者(作弊者，黑客)，以便将不想与之交往的公司介绍给公司。 这里有各种策略在起作用。

Frankly, it’s one of the (many) reasons you are seeing more and more GAAS (games as a service). Because those products require access to publisher controlled infrastructure, they are significantly more difficult to pirate in a reasonable fashion. And even if they are pirated, they often represent just another market to sell V-Bucks or Gems or what have you.

坦白地说，这是您看到越来越多的GAAS(游戏即服务)的众多原因之一。 由于这些产品需要访问由发布者控制的基础结构，因此以合理的方式盗版的难度大大增加。 即使它们是盗版产品，它们也通常只是销售V-Bucks或Gems或您拥有的东西的另一个市场。

SUPERJUMPI wrote recently about the possibility of a new NCAA Football game ever happening, which seems unlikely due to the NCAA’s stance against athletes being considered as employees of the school. With COVID seemingly pushing player safety and overall rights into the limelight, do you think the NCAA will ever back off that stance, or that players will eventually be able to force the issue to be allowed to unionize or otherwise gain full control of those rights?

SUPERJUMPI最近写了一篇新的NCAA足球比赛的可能性的报道，由于NCAA反对将运动员视为学校雇员的立场，这种可能性似乎不太大。 随着COVID似乎将球员的安全和整体权利推到了风口浪尖，您认为NCAA会否放弃这种立场，或者说球员最终将能够迫使该问题成立工会或完全控制这些权利？

RICKThe NCAA will lose on the likeness rights question, it’s only a matter of time. One of the reasons you see them fighting in Congress so hard right now is that a number of states have already passed likeness rights legislation.

RICK NCAA将在相像权问题上迷失方向，这只是时间问题。 您看到他们现在在国会如此激烈地战斗的原因之一是，许多州已经通过了肖像权法案。

Once likeness rights are in place across the country, there is little question in my mind that the players will figure out some kind of joint marketing initiative that will allow for things like the very lucrative NCAA video game.

在全国各地都拥有相像权后，我心中就毫不怀疑，玩家会想出某种联合营销计划，以实现利润丰厚的NCAA视频游戏之类的东西。

(Worth noting that I don’t think that the likeness rights question entirely overlaps with the employees/unions one. I would expect likeness rights to lead to most of what everyone wants here and for the NCAA to head the employee question off at the pass.)

(值得一提的是，我并不认为相似权问题与员工/工会完全重叠。我希望相似权会导致大多数人在这里想要的东西，而NCAA会在通过时解决员工问题)

SUPERJUMPYou said on Colin’s show that you are a hardcore gamer; are you console only or do you get into PC gaming as well? What are you playing these days, and what games are you most looking forward to in the next year?

您在Colin的节目中说您是硬核游戏玩家； 您仅是控制台，还是也可以玩PC游戏？ 这些天你在玩什么，明年你最期待什么游戏？

RICKAbsolutely, my brother and I used to say that “we play everything worth playing”, but with the game industry exploding its been a long time since that has been true.

RICK绝对，我和我兄弟曾经说过“我们玩所有值得玩的游戏”，但是随着游戏行业的爆炸式发展已经很长时间了。

I’m currently playing Ghost of Tsushima (about 2/3 through) which is looking like a pretty strong contender for my personal game of the year. I finished Last of Us Part 2, of course, and while I thought it had major narrative and structural issues, I’ve been able to have wonderful conversations on the channel with folks that felt similarly or differently. It’s pretty interesting to be able to put video game review videos on the firm’s channel after all.

我目前正在玩《对马的鬼魂》 (大约2/3以上)，这对我本年度的个人游戏来说是一个非常有力的竞争者。 我当然完成了《 Last of Us》第2部分 ，尽管我认为它存在重大的叙事和结构性问题，但我仍然可以在频道上与同志或异同的人们进行精彩的对话。 毕竟能够将视频游戏评论视频放到公司的频道上是很有趣的。

I absolutely play PC games as well, and it’s there where I mostly focus on strategy. I’ve been playing a fair amount of mainstays like Civilization VI and Two Point Hospital over there, and am very much looking forward to Crusader Kings III.

我也绝对玩PC游戏，在那儿我主要专注于策略。 我一直在玩大量的中流VI柱，例如《 文明六号》和《 两点医院》 ，我非常期待《 十字军之王III》 。

In terms of what I am looking forward to, I think everyone is looking forward to Cyberpunk 2077. Witcher 3 is perhaps my favorite or second favorite game of all time, so I am looking forward to seeing what CDPR does with that world. I’m also perhaps in the minority pretty excited to play Avengers. There’s a place for beating up robots with shiny bits flying everywhere.

就我所期待的而言，我认为每个人都期待着《 赛博朋克2077》 。 《巫师3》也许一直是我最喜欢或第二喜欢的游戏，所以我期待看到CDPR对这个世界的影响。 在少数族裔中，我也许也很兴奋扮演复仇者联盟 。 有一个地方可以击败到处飞舞的机器人。

SUPERJUMPThank you again Rick for your time and thoughts, best of luck with your practice and YouTube channel, we hope to check back in with you again soon!

SUPERJUMPT再次感谢您瑞克(Rick)的宝贵时间和想法，祝您练习和YouTube频道事事如意，我们希望很快能再次与您联系！