A powerful Final Statement on June 27, 2013 from Pranesh Prakash of the Center for Internet and Society on the WIPO Treaty for the Blind focussing on the increasing tensions between intellectual property and human rights.

jbf

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I am always interested in cosplay cafes. Not only males can enjoy this kind of service, I also enjoy playing it with girlfriends. Indeed, when I was in junior high, I played RPG’s with my girlfriends. We discussed strategies and that was fun.

http://www.ubergizmo.com/2013/04/pay-women-to-play-video-games-with-you-in-china/

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Terrific Gamasutra article which ties to the topics from Week 9 from Prof. Greg Lastowka of Rutgers Law School. He argues that EA should prevail in defending Ryan Hart’s legal action arising from not be compensated for use of aspects of his image in EA’s NCAA Football. As his title “The Erosion of Creative Freedom? The Battle Over Publicity Rights” suggests, the danger Prof. Lastowka sees are the impacts on creative freedom, and he suggests that the inequities suffered by Hart are for best for the NCAA to deal with, not the Courts. A highly recommended read. Find it here: http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/173890/the_erosion_of_creative_freedom_.php

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jon

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http://vimeo.com/62839607

An interesting and articulate piece regarding the real world impacts of copyright on “remix” creators was recently posted. The talk was given in Portland in January by Andy Baio, a writer and coder who had some particularly interesting experiences involving litigation initiated by the photographer Steven Meisel. All of which relates directly to one of the key questions in the course – whether even reforming fair dealing/use would be enough or whether something akin to a “Right to Create” needs to be established?

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jon

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To supplement my point that video games CAN teach violent tactics, here’s an example of a practice among FPS “camping”. Yes this is also taught in movies, but with games, you reiterate the same thing over and over – sniping people in a bottle neck from an angle they weren’t prepared for. “It certainly works in paintball”  It’s not just “camping” though, it’s anticipating where the other guy is going to set up shop. Knowing that a melee weapon might not alert other members of the opposite faction that anything is out of the ordinary (the Assassin’s Creed franchise makes teaching this tactic a substantial portion of the game). No, I don’t think the average gamer is incited to go on a melee weapon rampage in the office/school, but if they were to do so, I think it’s safe to say they are a more “weaponized” version of themselves after playing 500 hours on an FPS with sprites programmed to behave more and more human.

[viewer discretion – depictions of death ‘R’ rating, it’s a scene from Saving Private Ryan] https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=bwBkQy9CpS0#t=1080s

Don’t get me wrong, I think the benefits of video games far outweigh the detriments, but I’m not going to pretend that watching a violent movie, or immersing myself fully in a highly realistic video game where I happen to learn advanced combat tactics doesn’t have any effect on me at all…

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