Today on the Consumerist, a reader writes to complain of the ToS Death Penalty – a draconian punishment for purported ToS violations that is becoming all too common. The ToS Death Penalty is the seemingly arbitrary execution of a user’s online account with a company, with no explanation of what actually happened and without right of appeal.
In this case, a user lost not only his primary email address and cloud storage, but also access to Windows Live games that he had paid for. From Microsoft’s response:
“I’m happy to assist you with your concern that you could not access your email account.
Please be informed that we have reviewed your account and determined that it was closed due to violation of our Terms of Use.
Microsoft isn’t the only bad guy here. Steam has been known to kill users’ accounts without recourse. Same for Amazon.
The ToS Death Penalty is becoming increasing problematic as more and more of our lives are being moved into the cloud. This is especially true when a single account spans multiple services, and violations of the terms of one service could result in the termination of all your account as a whole.
Cheating in Medal of Honor should get you banned from the game for a few days. It shouldn’t cost you your email account and cloud documents. The ToS Death Penalty must be abolished.
“Your Children are not Your Children: Why NYT public editor is Wrong on Children’s Right to Privacy” by Zeynep Tufekci is a must read after our class this past week. Ordinarily would just include in the weekly News of the Week round-up. However this piece deserves special mention at the very least for its relevant to us timing – and as you will read – for a good deal more then that: http://technosociology.org/?p=1234
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.
1. We talked about Netflix using personal information to create House of Cards and whether this was okay. For both practical and legal reasons, I think an important consideration is whether Netflix is using your information in a reasonable way. For me, I think it is reasonable for Netflix to use my information internally to develop and refine it’s products, particularly if it’s first anonymized, but that a practical (if not legal) line is crossed when Netflix starts to use my information in a way that disrupts the integrity of its service.
For example, if Netflix has used my information to determine with a certain algorithm what shows to recommend to me and has built up significant goodwill with me by doing so correctly, I do not think it is reasonable to then recommend House of Cards to me even if the algorithm says I will not like it. If House of Cards is flagged as an advertisement, fine; but if it’s not and it’s presented like all the other recommendations I think there’s a problem.
Netflix is free to use any comments, information, ideas, concepts, reviews, or techniques or any other material contained in any communication you may send to us (“Feedback”), including responses to questionnaires or through postings to the Netflix service, including the Netflix website and user interfaces, without further compensation, acknowledgement or payment to you for any purpose whatsoever including, but not limited to, developing, manufacturing and marketing products and creating, modifying or improving the Netflix service. Furthermore, by posting any Feedback on our site, submitting Feedback to us, or in responding to questionnaires, you grant us a perpetual, worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free irrevocable license, including the right to sublicense such right, and right to display, use, reproduce or modify the Feedback submitted in any media, software or technology of any kind now existing or developed in the future.
Alan Bruggeman is a Senior Attorney in Microsoft’s Interactive Entertainment division. At Microsoft, Alan has provided legal counsel on a variety of entertainment devices and services, including the Xbox 360 console and accessories, the now-defunct (but still awesome) Zune media player, Microsoft Studios, and Xbox LIVE. Prior to his work at Microsoft, Alan worked as an associate at Seattle’s Preston Gates and Ellis (now K&L Gates). Alan received his J.D. from Columbia University.
We are very fortunate indeed to have Alan joining us in person this week. Alan will be driving up from Redmond, Washington Wednesday morning so we should appreciate him all the more. He will be covering a diverse range of topics including privacy, online safety and issues in and around the console universe.
In preparation for Alan’s talk please take a look through Sections 8, 10, 11(5) and any other anti-spyware provisions you identify, in CASL (“An Act to promote the efficiency and adaptability of the Canadian economy by regulating certain activities that discourage reliance on electronic means of carrying out commercial activities, and to amend the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission Act, the Competition Act, the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act and the Telecommunications Act” – S.C. 2010, c. 23): http://lois-laws.justice.gc.ca/eng/AnnualStatutes/2010_23/FullText.html
Could go on and on explaining how this video relates to our course by way of the legal issues around mods, parody, machinima and user created content. But that wouldn’t fool you, would it? Watch & enjoy…
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….
You may have noticed a “Resources” button now added to the top menu. It itself divides into a series of subsections: Copyright & IP; Freedom of Speech & Expression; Privacy & Social Issues; Web & Online Content; International; & Technology & Hardware. There is also a link to Electronic Reserve Materials available to students in the class.
Under the main six headings you will find videos of relevance to different aspects of the course. Some/many of the videos have been mentioned in the class. Hopefully you will find all the materials helpful, but two absolutely must-sees are Bruce Springsteen’s Keynote at SXSW 2012 and Lawrence Lessig’s Lecture on “Aaron’s Law’s: Law and Justice in a Digital Age”. Both can be found under the subheading of “Freedom of Speech & Expression”.
Arising out of a lengthy and interesting discussion this week in Law 449C Media and Entertainment Law, am adding two videos to the Resources Page. They are: 1. A lecture by Joseph Reagle of Northeastern titled “Free as in Sexist? The Gender Gap in Free Culture”; & 2. Video of the March 3, 2013 “Location Tracking and Biometrics Conference” from Yale Law School; all under the “Privacy & Social Issues” subheading.
Both videos are equally relevant to Law450. We had some discussion of the issue of sexism in and around games during our most recent class. Privacy is a main topic of the upcoming one. Location tracking is increasingly a part of video gaming. Inevitably there will be more future “real world” location tracked/cloud related gaming models like “Ingress”. Concerns and questions will, equally inevitably, accompany them.
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