Atlanta’s John Marshall Law School (AJMLS) congratulates Dr. Mitchell Longan on his recent scholarly contribution to the Research Handbook on Interactive Entertainment Law. Professor Longan authored Chapter 4, “Tolerated Use 2.0: User-Generated Content, No Action Policies, and Controlled Monetisation of Fan Works in the Video Game Industry,” which examines how video game companies use informal policies to manage fan-created content and develop new revenue models within evolving copyright frameworks.
The volume provides an interdisciplinary perspective on video games as creative works, social platforms, and commercial ecosystems. Dr. Longan’s chapter explores the growing role of user-generated content (UGC) in the video game industry and the legal mechanisms companies use to govern it. His work focuses on how industry “no-action policies” allow companies to tolerate certain fan uses of copyrighted material while maintaining control over intellectual property and fostering collaboration with gaming communities.
The abstract reads,
This chapter analyzes user-generated content (UGC) in the video game industry, the relevant law governing such creativity, and industry perceptions and responses to it. The law on fair use in the United States and comparable doctrines elsewhere can be ambiguous with respect to user-generated works, and the high cost of defending copyright claims discourages litigation in this area. As a result, companies have increasingly developed informal policies—often referred to as “no-action policies”—that outline the boundaries within which users may create derivative works.
At AJMLS, Dr. Longan teaches Legal Writing and Research & Analysis I. Prior to joining AJMLS, Dr. Mitchell Longan taught at City University of Birmingham (UK), where he delivered courses in Intellectual Property Law, International IP Law, Legal Research and Writing, Constitutional Law, the English Legal System, Business Law, and emerging areas such as Cloud Computing Law.