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Video-Blog News of the Week; November 12, 2014
This week – Is it violent video-games that make some #gamergater’s act the way they do. Most unlikely. But the better answer from an academic/research perspective may well be much more troubling. jon
Audio of VIFF Panel Discussion on Orphan works
As noted in an earlier post, on October 10, 2014 I had the pleasure of appearing on a panel with Professor Joel Bakan of UBC Law and Professor Colin Browne of SFU as part of the Vancouver International Film Festival to discuss the subject of “orphan works” The connection to VIFF was that the […]
Why we Game: Simulations
While researching for my paper, I ran across the idea that there is a spectrum of gaming. On one side is simulation, which attempts to be as real as possible. On the other side is fantasy, which takes advantage of the medium to allow people to enjoy situations and worlds not confined by social, physical […]
Second hand sales of Video Games
In today’s guest lecture with Jas Purewal, one of the topics we explored was the legality of second hand sales of video games. It was an interesting topic. On my first impression, it seemed only logical that we should be able to resell video games we have purchased. We can resell cars, bikes, houses, chairs, […]
Project Oculus: Our Virtual Reality Classroom
Our class experiment with Oculus Rift DK2’s went smoothly thanks Jesse Joudray of VRChat LLC. Seven participating students equipped with Oculus Rifts’ took in the class from an entirely different part of the law school, while the rest of […]
Video-Blog News of the Week; November 5, 2014
This week a brief exploration of the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s petition for DMCA exemptions including one for users who want to play abandoned video games. jon
Jack Thompson is Never Coming Back
For those not in the know, Jack Thompson is a former lawyer and demagogue who argued that video games directly caused violence. He was eventually disbarred for the unethical actions taken during his anti-gaming crusade. Thompson was around at the same time politicians like Joe Lieberman and Hilary Clinton were arguing for restrictions on the […]
Video-Blog News of the Week; October 29, 2014
This week I wander (carefully) into tender territory reflecting on possible common denominators IMHO among the #gamergate, Jian Gohmeshi and TWU Law situations. If anyone is interested, the slides from a talk to my Media Law class at the UBC Graduate School of Journalism regarding the Gohmeshi situation can be found here: http://medialaw.journalism.ubc.ca/2014/10/29/class-9-partial-slides-ghomeshi/ Unfortunately, for […]
Remaking the Media: Remaking Democracy
This coming Saturday, 8 November 2014, there is a free talk by Dr. Michael Geist, the Canada Research Chair in Internet and E-commerce Law, at the Vancouver Public Library Central Branch (350 W. Georgia Street), Alice MacKay Room. It is entitled “Remaking the Media: Remaking Democracy”. It goes from 12:00-1:00, and the library warns that […]
Video-Blog News of the Week; October 22, 2014
This week EULA’s, citizens and double standards of literalism. jon