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Reductio ad absurdem (clown edition)
Not too long ago I was engaging with my academic colleague and professional clown (some of the more witless from my former business lives might ask “is there a difference?”) Patrick Pennefather (http://thecdm.ca/people/faculty/patrick-pennefather). Our topic of choice, as it frequently is, was the inadequacies of intellectual property as a concept, and how those inadequacies are […]
Basic Human Rights Versus Copyright
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
Games as Art & Expression Examined.
In “Games Are Not Coffee Mugs Ep#1” Prof. William K. Ford of John Marshall Law School and an expert panel delve into the history of games and legal decisions which did not and then did recognize the expressive aspects of the medium. For additional context check out Nostalgia Critic’s analysis “Are Video Games Art?” and Paola Antonelli’s […]
Cafe where you can hire waitress to play with you
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/
Greg Lastowka on Publicity Rights, EA & Ryan Hart
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? […]
Andy Baio on Remix Culture & the Law
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 […]
Pennsylvania stadium adds video games to bathrooms
How do we feel about “hands-free” urinal video games? http://www.torontosun.com/2013/03/27/pennsylvania-stadium-aims-to-please-fans-with-urinal-video-games I guess my concern is, how does a hands-free game publish top scorer names without players touching anything?
Intel Web TV & Privacy
Following up on our class discussions Wednesday, Alan Bruggeman sent up this story with video in the link suggesting that we watch especially 7:40 – 12:12. http://allthingsd.com/20130212/erik-huggers-makes-his-case-for-intels-web-tv-service/ jon (for Alan)
Donkey Kong: Pauline Edition
Following up on this week’s class, here is an example of an inspired dad. He modded Donkey Kong in response to a question from his 3 year old daughter. Now the Princess saves Mario…. jon
Natural Violence
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 […]