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Internet and Gaming Addictions and the Technology that Drives them

By liris on March 23, 2015

For tomorrow’s class I will be presenting on the issue of internet addiction with a focus on addiction to online games. If you have a chance, please check out the following links prior to the presentation (or after if you don’t have a chance before!). The video in particular is a bit long (1hr 30) but it is really interesting all the way through so I highly recommend it.

“I Kept Playing: The Cost of My Gaming Addiction” (Kotaku article)

Jonathan Blow: Video Games and the Human Condition (exploring the development, features, and ethics of addictive games) (video – can start around 5:00 unless you want to learn some interesting facts about parasitic infection of ants)

Cow Clicker –  a satirical take on the addictive cell phone game model (website/game)

 

Additional links:

“In Real Life” – Anthony Rosner – World of Warcraft Addiction Self-Documentary (short video)

For those that have Netflix, I also recommend the documentary “Web Junkies”, which examines the “boot camp” approach to treating youth who are thought to be suffering from video game addiction in China. It demonstrates both the apparent severity of the addiction but also raises questions about the real causes of the problem and what the best way might be to address it.

I look forward to our class discussion tomorrow!

Laura

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Remixing Culture And Why The Art Of The Mash-Up Matters | TechCrunch

By Jon Festinger on March 23, 2015

Screen Shot 2015-03-23 at 11.17.50 AM

The title tells all about the relevance to the course. A thoughtful piece worth the read: Remixing Culture And Why The Art Of The Mash-Up Matters | TechCrunch.

jon

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News of the Week Top 5; March 18, 2015

By Jon Festinger on March 21, 2015

1. It’s time for the FBI to prosecute Gamergate trolls (Brianna Wu)

Screen Shot 2015-03-21 at 3.04.57 PM 

2. Twitter puts trillions of tweets up for sale to data miners: Company plans to make content generated by users available to commerce, academia and even police involved in crowd control

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3. We can’t accept Internet surveillance as the new normal

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4. No copyright and trade-mark rights in most metatags

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5. ‘Blurred Lines’ Verdict: How It Started, Why It Backfired on Robin Thicke and Why Songwriters Should Be Nervous

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jon

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Data and Goliath

By tbud on March 20, 2015

Here is a New York Times book review of ‘Data and Goliath’. I pulled a relevant quote from the article:

“In the corporate realm, Mr. Schneier promotes no less than a fundamental reshaping of the media and technology landscape. Companies with access to large amounts of personal data would be “automatically classified as fiduciaries” and subject to “special legal restrictions and protections. That these limits would render illegal most current business models — under which consumers exchange enhanced access by advertisers for free services – does not seem to bother Mr. Schneier: “If we succeed in raising the cost of surveillance and data collection, new businesses that don’t rely on it will rise up and take the place of the current ones that do.”

One wonders what the future of Facebook will be if the latter statement holds true. As a contrary argument, one might wonder if there is a societal benefit to Facebook’s ability to find insights on human behaviour that otherwise would not be possible on such a wide scale. While it is true that data analysis and technology have no moral imperative, it may also be true that mass data can be used for virtuous purposes if wielded in the proper way. Does the current business model of exchanging personal information to advertisers for free services necessarily diminish or negate such purposes? What alternative business models are possible?

You can read the entire article here: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/17/business/dealbook/book-review-of-data-and-goliath-by-bruce-schneier.html?ref=technology

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Windows 10 Free* Upgrade to Pirates

By aowais on March 20, 2015

The following article describes Microsoft’s announcement that everyone will get a free upgrade to Windows 10, including users with pirated licences. However, upgrades from pirated licences will be deemed “non-genuine”. Although it is not clear what the implications of having a non-genuine license may be, industry experts note that there is greater risk of malware, fraud and malfunctions in pirated versions. This can be associated with the fact that pirated versions may not be able to receive updates for their copies.  The goal of Microsoft is to get everyone on a single, regularly updated platform.  Is Windows using their license agreement to punish pirates by claiming their license as “non-genuine”? While on its face it may seem fair to differentiate between users who bought previous versions of Windows against users who downloaded pirate versions, but is allowing users to upgrade from their pirated copies only to lock them out from security updates which may be vital to their privacy going too far? This relates to a previous talk we had in class about Rebecca Tushnet’s article which described how corporations used their licensing agreements to replace fair use provisions and over-leverage their positions in their agreements.

 

http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2015/03/the-windows-10-free-upgrade-for-pirates-more-confusing-than-it-seems/

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The Price of Shame (Ted Talk)

By aowais on March 20, 2015

Interesting video on the culture of humiliation in case anyone is considering a topic on public shaming, and perhaps would like to link it to how online public shaming, as extra-legal norms, might inhibit creativity.

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Who Owns Your Data (Hint: It’s Not You)

By Ryan Vogt on March 17, 2015

Cool little animation from Jorge Cham, interviewing Irene Ng and David Reynolds from Hub of All Things: http://phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=1788

Cheers!

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17 March Presentation

By lowlevin on March 16, 2015

Hi everyone.

Tomorrow, I’ll be doing a presentation on self-censorship as a result of both legal and extra-legal constraints, and its impact on creativity. Here’s a short blog post to get things started: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/monkey-cage/wp/2015/01/16/charlie-hebdo-meets-the-interview/

Levin

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Class 9 Slides; March 10, 2015

By Jon Festinger on March 15, 2015

Here are the slides from Class 9.

Screen Shot 2015-03-10 at 9.46.35 PM

jon

 

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Class 8 Slides; March 3, 2015

By Jon Festinger on March 15, 2015

A bit belatedly, here are the slides from our Class 8 contextual survey.

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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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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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