Spoke at this conference at SFU downtown on Wednesday February 25, 2015. My slides as well as a PDF of the 2005 UNESCO Convention can be found below.
jon
Rogers Calls for End to VPNs
At a conference on 26 February 2015, a Rogers executive called for the Canadian government to shut down VPNs. Here is Dr. Michael Geist’s take on the matter.
VPNs, or “virtual private networks”, are a technology used to securely link two physically non-connected networks, and make it is as though the two were one seamless network (where a “network” can be as small as a single computer).
As related to the current Netflix brouhaha, some Canadians are using VPN technology to seamlessly link their Netflix-enabled device to connect to (and, essentially, become part of) an American network. The device then connects to Netflix via the US network, gaining access to the (larger) location-based library of shows available there.
How do VPNs affect creativity and free speech? As just one example, VPNs were used extensively during the Arab Spring to securely send messages, photos, and videos via another location, helping to protect the identity of the people sending the messages.
Or, if we wanted to help this make sense to Rogers, perhaps we could talk in dollars and cents. Businesses use VPNs extensively. Imagine a business with two different offices, in physically different locations. By VPN’ing the networks at the two offices together, it becomes as though the computers are all on one giant shared network. The file server storing all of the company’s documents can be in Building A, and users in Building B can access it seamlessly. Alice in Building A can print a document directly to Bob’s printer in Building B, just as easily as she could print a document directly to Carol’s printer in Building A.
To try to shut down a communications technology because it can be used for a reason that you do not like is not only foolhardy, but a ridiculous concept anyhow.
Cheers!
FCC Votes for Net Neutrality
Just in case Jon forgets to put this little story in News of the Week for next week 😉
FCC votes for net neutrality, a ban on paid fast lanes, and Title II
Cheers!
Tuesday, March 3rd Discussion
Next week, I hope to lead the class through a discussion comparing the differences (if any) between creativity and innovation and how these two terms are applied with reference to computer software and biotechnology.
If you have an opportunity, please skim through:
Dennis S Karjala, “Protecting Innovation in Computer Software, Biotechnology, and Nanotechnology” (2011) 16 Va JL & Tech 42 (Available on HeinOnline)
Cheers,
Andrew
Legal Podcast on UGC
For those of you who haven’t heard of This Week in Law, its a really interesting american legal podcast about technology. This episode seemed particularly relevant to our discussions of UGC, and legal restrictions on it.
http://twit.tv/show/this-week-in-law/288
Data States
http://www.wired.com/2015/02/an-open-conversation-for-facebook-friends/
This article encapsulates a lot of the themes I raised during my presentation on privacy – particularly in the sense of shifting our understanding of tech giants, from mere service/efficiency providers to something more. The author suggests that ‘something more’ is to view these tech giants as Data States. And I think this quote relates that view to what I described as Lessig’s view nicely:
“The Data States have a choice – they can continue to play games with our data. Or they can work with us – Internet users and technology innovators – to create a Web that is social, collaborative and encourages communication, without locking users into services that hold their data hostage.”
Power Rangers & Fair Use
Some of you may have seen the “grimdark” Power Rangers fan film that has been circulating around the internet lately. It was produced by Adi Shankar, who has produced similar fan films involving copyrighted characters like Venom or The Punisher in the past. The underlying legal justification for doing so is fair use, but as this article from Polygon describes, the fact that these are fan films made with no expectation of profit may not be sufficient for the fair use exception to apply. Such films offer an interesting test case for the current scope of fair use in the USA, and hypothetically in Canada as well. A pullquote for you:
So the question is whether the Power Rangers short is providing any commentary or parody. The interesting wrinkle is that people online can’t seem to decide whether the director was poking fun at hyper-dark takes on kiddie subject matter, or being serious. Is this a story in the world of the Power Rangers, or is it making fun of the idea of an ultra-dark Power Rangers story?
“That is as much in the gray area as I could give as an example. One could view this as commentary, taking a broad view of this, you’re taking a kid’s cartoon and making it a much darker short, and you could say well, that’s commentary on the copyrighted work and the characters,” Newberg explained.
“The copyright owner could make a really decent argument as well that no, what you’re really doing is creating a new story with our copyrighted characters, and we are the ones who have the sole right to make derivative works.” While judges may decide issues of fair use if it’s clear cut, this is not one of those cases. It would likely go ahead to a jury.
“This is a law school exam-type question,” Newberg said.
Interesting, then, that the director of the short did not seem to speak to a lawyer before speaking to the press:
“What I really want to accomplish when you watch, is you should really take it seriously. There’s nothing playful except for maybe the Hip-Hop-Kido thing. Maybe a few little like motivational character [things], interactions and stuff. Overall, it’s a very serious thing,” Kahn said in an interview with HitFix.
Or perhaps they did, and this is just another example of the widening chasms between the law, technology and social norms in the digital space:
“The joke isn’t that you’re laughing at each particular scene; the joke is that we did this ‘fuck you’ thing in the first place. You’re going to look at it and you go wow I can’t believe they fucking did that.”
Citizenfour
“Many people I’ve talked to say that they’re careful about what they type into search engines because they know that it’s being recorded. And that limits the boundaries of their intellectual exploration” – Edward Snowden.
The quote above is from Citizenfour, an Oscar-winning documentary that was finally released on iTunes today. I can’t recommend it enough. It’s well worth your time – if not for the relationship to the themes of our course, it is generally just a fascinating perspective.
Amjad
Violation of privacy by government
In class today Jon mentioned one study showing that people now trust their own judgment (online search engine) more than traditional media. I came across with two articles with different views on violation of privacy by the government. We can exercise our own judgment and see which one we agree with more.
In the first article, the author says that the government has a justified purpose for violating our privacy – to protect the public. According to the author, people may be too absolute in demanding privacy from the government, considering how much information we surrender voluntarily. It may be okay if the government is only using the information for that one purpose. However, once the government gains access to people’s personal information, they can certainly do more with it. For example, the second article indicates another purpose of government surveillance may be silencing whistleblowers from disclosing unauthorized spying activities by the government.
1. http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/02/22/the-watergate-snowden-connection.html
Class 7 Slides; February 24, 2015
Here they are…
jon
Check out the UBC Video Game Law Course