Class 5 – 10/10/18; “Connecting Ourselves: Gamer Vulnerability in Virtual Realities” + ” Are You in Control of Your Mind?”
Video and slides below. Sorry that my slides had to be divided into two parts due to the size of the file.
Jon
Class 4 – 10/3/18; “Right to CreaTE or Rights to the Creation” + “Our Virtual Rights: Virtually Non-Existent?”
Slides & video below…
Jon
Discussion Outline October 3rd
Discussion Topic
How does our regulation of rights in the real world compare to our regulation of rights in video games? What can game creators do to fill the in-game legal void – and what are the consequences if they fail?
Issues Covered
Below are the sub-topics our presentation will consider, as well as some focusing questions.
- The regulation of electronic property as compared to physical property
- What are the tangible (or intangible) differences between electronic and physical property?
- What is the legal difference between purchasing a digital copy of a game, compared to buying it as a disc?
- In-game trading and virtual theft
- What are the rights of a game owner when it comes to real-world trading? Can you sell products obtained in-game for real-world money?
- What property rights do virtual goods attract, and how can the law account for virtual theft?
- How the law can address virtual sexual assault
- What role should (or could) the law play in addressing sexual assault perpetrated virtually? What obstacles to regulation might arise?
- What other approaches can game designers take to protect their players?
- The law’s role in regulating real-world crimes (against a person) in a virtual world
- Can defamation exist in video games and virtual realities?
- How can the law address issues of defamation in video games?
Preparation
Please watch the video attached to this interview with the CEO of EA games, and consider what legal implications will result from the increased integration of video games into our daily lives that he’s predicting: https://www.theverge.com/a/verge-2021/ea-ceo-andrew-wilson-interview-virtual-video-games
Video & Slides from talk at the Emerging Media Lab Lecture Series
On Tuesday September 25, 2018, I was privileged to give a talk which navigated the legal corrolories to the technological path from video-game mods through advanced VR all the way to completely personalized worlds powered by advanced artificial intelligence. It’s a long and winding road that ends with raising questions regarding how Rule of Law principles might themselves be transformed at some point in in the future.
If you are interested, video and slides can be found below.
Jon
Class 3 – 9/26/18; “John Milton Plays Grand Prix Legends”
Slides and video from class below. Be forewarned that there are still some minor video outages here and there that the tech are trying to figure out. Those are not particularly a big deal where there is video and the slides still remain viewable. That said by far the bigger problem is that the microphone ran out of batteries ten seconds after the one hour mark. So unless you are a lip-reader you will probably not want to venture past that point.
Jon
Class 2 – 9/12/18; “If Picasso had painted a round object…” + Ian Verchere
Slides and video are below. There were a few scary moments where we thought the video had disappeared but it was found. Thanks to Tom Dudas for all his hard work on this. There is some missing video, but audio throughout – which is more important. Also for some reason I don’t understand Ian’s slides didn’t show up in the video, but are available below.
Jon
Class 1 – 9/5/18; “Introduction”
Here is video and the slides from the first class with a few edits to each. Looking forward to learning together.
Jon
“Life As A Game: Legal Consequences of A.I. Individuated MEdia” @ More Than Just Game lV, April 5, 2018, London U.K.
This past week I once again had the pleasure of giving a talk at fourth annual “More Than A Game ” conference in the U.K. As seems to always be the case, the ideas for the talk were germinated during this course, especially during our various collective musings about Artificial intelligence in video-games. Thanks are also due to the students in this spring’s just completed Communications Law course. So considerable thanks are in order. Here are video & slides from the presentation.
Jon
Class 11 – 12/1/17; “Relating Technology, Originality & Identity” + “YouTube ‘Let’s Play’ videos and the Defence of Fair Comment”
Video and PowerPoints from the final class of the year below. We did not follow our usual sequencing, and you will have to turn your speakers way up for the last 2/3’s of the video – but there is sound.
Jon
Class 10 – 11/24/17; “Do We Really Need EULA’s?” + “Loot Box Special”
Video & two sets of slides below…
Jon
Check out theVideos of Interest to Law 423 on YouTube 
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