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Legal Contradictions Manifest in Video Game Worlds: Copyright through the Post-Structuralist Looking Glass

By zenracer on October 3, 2016

In the spring I was invited by my colleague Gaetano Dimita (http://www.law.qmul.ac.uk/staff/dimita.html) of The School of Law, Queen Mary University of London to participate in the second edition of an academic conference he organizes called “More Than Just A Game: Interactive Entertainment & Intellectual Property Law”. The conference, which took place on April 8, 2016 was a great success, and I presented on “Legal Contradictions in Video Game Worlds: Copyright through the Post-Structuralist Looking Glass.” My core message was that video game mods should be presumptively legal. I explored the reasons why and suggested some possible mechanisms to, in the words of Captain Picard, make it so.

In preparation for my London adventure I was privileged to present a draft iteration at a Faculty Seminar at the Allard School of Law, UBC on March 16, 2016. Thanks to Natasha Affolder and Janine Benedet for the invitation, and Joe Weiler for moderating. Thanks as well as to everyone who came, asked questions and helped me “sharpen the saw” through their questions.

There was no video of the QMUL conference while the Allard Faculty Seminar was recorded and edited thanks to Dan Silverman. As a result, below you will find the slides from the final presentation in London, video from Vancouver, and some bonus memorabilia from both.

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jon

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Pitblado Lectures talk

By zenracer on November 19, 2015

On Friday November 6, 2015 I was honoured to be invited to be on a panel and give a talk at the Pitblado Lectures  in Winnipeg, Manitoba. This 55th edition of the Pitblado Lectures was put on by the Law Society of Manitoba, The Manitoba Bar Association, and The University of Manitoba Faculty of Law (http://www.pitbladolectures.com/). This years theme was “From Blackacre to Blackberry: Redefining Property and Ownership”.

Attached are a set of post-final slides from my presentation as well as a short written piece. Thanks to Professors Doug Harris and Graham Reynolds of the UBC Faculty of Law and Professor Katie Sykes of the TRU Faculty of Law for their comments on a draft of the latter.

Both the slides and the short writing take on the utility of defining virtual goods as property, particularly in a “Post I.P.” world effectively ruled by contracts. The slides also go on to explore the contradictions between patent law and copyright law which seem to favour innovators over creators for (IMHO) no particular or particularly good reason.

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jon

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UNESCO Convention Roundtable Video

By zenracer on October 4, 2015

The video of my short presentation on “Relevance for Creative Digitization & the Internet” at the “Roundtable on the Diversity of Cultural Expressions – Impacts and Implications of the UNESCO Convention Ten Years After and Ten Years Ahead: The View From BC” at Simon Fraser University, February 25, 2014 has been posted and can be accessed by clicking below.

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Previous reference to the proceedings and my slides can be found here: http://creativity.law.ubc.ca/2015/03/02/slides-from-impacts-implications-of-the-2005-unesco-convention-on-the-protection-and-promotion-of-the-diversity-of-cultural-expressions/

jon

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News of the Week Top 5; May 6, 2015

By zenracer on May 26, 2015

1. “Homophobe” brings Ireland’s first “right to be forgotten” court case

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2. Homophobic game gets pulled from Steam Greenlight, developer issues statement

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3. Secret Shuts Down

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4. Apple pushing music labels to kill free Spotify streaming ahead of Beats relaunch: Aggressive tactics from the music giant have garnered scrutiny from the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission

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5. FBI Spent Years ‘Researching’ The Lyrics To ‘Louie, Louie’ Before Realizing The Copyright Office Must Have Them

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jon

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News of the Week Top 5; April 29, 2015

By zenracer on May 4, 2015

1. Carmakers Want To Use Copyright Law To Make Working On Your Car Illegal

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2. DVD Makers Say That You Don’t Really Own The DVDs You Bought… Thanks To Copyright

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3. Competition Killer: Why the Copyright Term Extension For Sound Recordings Will Limit Consumer Choice and Increase Costs (Michael Geist)

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4. Woman behind Pakistan’s first hackathon, Sabeen Mahmud, shot dead by unknown gunmen

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5. Streaming Overtakes Live TV Among Consumer Viewing Preferences: Study

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jon

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News of the Week Top 5; April 22, 2015

By zenracer on April 28, 2015

1. Op-ed: What if MLK’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail” had been on Facebook?: Under current Alabama law, it would have been a crime. Other states feel similar.

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2. Copyright For Sale: How the Sony Documents Illustrate the Link Between the MPAA and Political Donations (Michael Geist)

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+ As Sony Continues Threatening Reporters, NY Times Reporter Wins Pulitzer For Reporting On Sony’s Emails

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3. A Robot That Bought Drugs Online Is Now Free From Police Custody

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4. Bell faces $750M lawsuit over advertising program: Bell Canada is facing a $750 million class action lawsuit over a program that tracked its users’ internet usage to sell advertising

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5. Race to the Bottom: Why Government Tax Credits For Film and TV Production Don’t Pay (Michael Geist)

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jon

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Monetization of Modding

By Michael Jud on April 25, 2015

There has been a very interesting and controversial development in the world of video games:

Valve’s Paid ‘Skyrim’ Mods Are A Legal, Ethical And Creative Disaster

To put it briefly, we seem to be witnessing the first major push to turn freely available video game mods into a commodity, and into a revenue stream for game publishers. The new arrangement allows mod developers to sell their work through the Steam service while channeling 75% of the revenue to Steam and the publisher.

Up to now, mods have only ever been monetized through development into proper full release titles. I personally have mixed feelings about this new development. On one hand, it will be great if the opportunity to earn an income from modding results in all kinds of new creative efforts that would have been too costly before. But the danger here is that if modding comes to be seen purely as a revenue source for copyright owners then it may be reduced to nothing more than that in the future. It isn’t difficult to imagine companies cut from the same cloth as Nintendo prohibiting mods that aren’t for sale and aren’t paying that 75% tax into the publisher’s pocket. And that would put modders who aspire to make their work freely available in a very strange position.

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Data Mining on Emoji Use

By liris on April 24, 2015

Saw this in the news and thought you guys might enjoy it, if anyone is in need a bit of a laugh/study break today.

“Report finds that Canadians top the world in smiling poop emoji use: Canadian emoji users found to be twice as raunchy and violent as the rest of the world”

“The report’s “findings of note” section indicates that when it comes to romance, French speakers lead the pack by using four times as many heart emojis as speakers of any other language.

Australians were found to use the most alcohol and drug emojis, Arabic speakers love flowers and plants, and Americans hold the top spot in a “random assortment of emoji & categories, including skulls, birthday cake, fire, tech, LGBT, meat and female-oriented emoji.”

http://www.cbc.ca/news/trending/canadians-top-the-world-in-smiling-poop-emoji-use-report-finds-1.3043143

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Proposed change to federal copyright law

By tbud on April 22, 2015

The federal budget, in a section entitled “celebrating our heritage,” proposes to make some changes to the Copyright Act by extending the copyright term to sound recordings and performances for an additional 20 years. Many fear that these changes will undo the 2012 legislative amendments and restrict artistic freedom.

Some have been quick to point out that the proposed changes will largely benefit the music industry, and not the creators themselves.

You can read the full article in the National Post. Michael Geist has also written a piece on it.

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News of the Week Top 5; April 15, 2015

By zenracer on April 22, 2015

1. Photos secretly taken of family through window are art, not invasion of privacy: court

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2. Court Adds Much-Needed Element Of Malice To Nova Scotia’s Terrible Cyberbullying Law

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3. EFF Successfully Challenges Key Claims in “Podcasting Patent”

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4. Russia’s Internet censor reminds citizens that some memes are illegal

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5. Apple and the Self-Surveillance State (Paul Krugman)

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jon

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Check out the UBC Video Game Law Course
LEGAL CONSTRAINTS ON (DIGITAL) CREATIVITY: The Course
This is the website for the course "Legal Constraints on Digital Creativity" being offered at the Allard School of Law, UBC. Among the purposes of this website is near real-time engagement with and about course materials. As well as to solicit additional comments, reactions and thoughts from students as well as academic and creative colleagues regarding the content, pedagogy and delivery of the course. The course is a cousin to Video Game Law which has recently completed its 8th academic year. That course examines how legal constructs apply to a particular advanced form of interactive media. This course is not fixed on any one digital form. It asks how law is altering, circumscribing and entwining our creative instincts and powers. The course description reads: This course examines the implications to the human creative process engendered by law and legalities. The invention of digital worlds has resulted in changes and advancements that could scarcely be imagined, with much more still to come. As significant as was the coming of the Internet, the development of software languages, and the growth of social media, they are only part of the story. Among the most profound changes is a fundamental shift in our conception and understanding of what “creativity” means and how it manifests. With today’s tools it is clearer than ever that everyone is a content creator. It is particularly in this light of the democratization of creativity that this course seeks to understand the content realms. Today many legal perspectives are rights based. Rather than another dialectic on rights, we will catalogue and debate the myriad ways creativity is in fact restrained, shaped, and altered even while “freedom of speech/expression” is acknowledged. Above all we will seek to specifically identify the roles of law & regulation in this process. In so doing we will deepen our understanding of censorship, its conventions and guises. We will travel with the creator on the journey their content traverses. In particular we will focus on how intended and received meanings are altered as a consequence of the constraints we identify. We will in every class proceed from the inside out, from the creation of an idea through stages of gestation, fixation, distribution, communication, reception, comprehension, interpretation, and understanding. Our classes will examine different levels of creative constraint, as well as cataloguing their consequences to creators, the creative process, and democracy itself. We will, employing various methods, survey the following layers of control, moving from purely private to state sponsored: a. Creative Models & Community Constraints (extra-legal) b. Technological & Structural Constraints c. Copyright, Remixing & Modding d. Trademarks, Patents & the IP Business (including "IP trolling”) e. Contractual Constraints (EULA’s, ToS’ and the “Post IP World”) f. Privacy, Defamation, & Personality Rights  g. Industry & Medium Regulation in a Digital Age (net neutrality, neg regulation & the future of “Broadcasting”) h. Consumer Protection (“Big Data” as well as psychological manipulations or “brain-gaming”) i. Criminal/Obscenity/Taxation/Currency/Gambling Law & Regulation j. Internet Governance & Surveillance (and the meanings of “Hacking”) On the site you will find sections for the Syllabus and for the materials. Both are, of necessity in this fast moving digital world, always works in progress. jon


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CONSTRAINTS RELATED TO THIS WEBSITE

You agree that the comments you contribute to this website may find their way into the course, other iterations of the course, other courses, lectures, books, or anywhere at all, without any acknowledgment or obligation to you. That said, you are legally responsible for your comments you make to this site under all applicable laws. This site is not intended and must not be used as a source of legal advice. Please see the Terms of Use referenced at the bottom of the page for additional constraints. As well you will find a version of these words on the submission forms (unless you are a student in the course, in which case you will have full authorship privileges).  And no, the irony of this disclaimer having regard to the subject matter of this website and the course to which it relates, is not lost on the writer.

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Peter A. Allard School of Law, University of British Columbia
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Vancouver, BC Canada V6T 1Z1
Tel 604 822 3151
Fax 604 822 8108
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