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Lawrence Lessig is a well deserved legend in digital media legal circles. See Prof. Lessig’s comments below, but before you do to better understand the background at least scan the introductory article (or many others like it you will find this morning on the web). Prof. Lessig’s comments go to one of the themes of the course and one of most useful filters/tools as we navigate through the challenges and confusion of the law & ethics of digital media  – the double standards test. In this iteration should those who hold others accountable be held accountable (within the law)?

Ironic that this question, here applied to prosecutorial conduct around IP related court actions finds (far less tragic) application in many digital media situations from take-down demands to IP holders being a bit more lax on “borrowing” the constituant elements of what became their IP then ultimately allowing their work to be “borrowed”…but that topic is most certainly for another day….

Tragic web pioneer commits suicide at 26: Co-founder of popular message board Reddit is found dead in New York after battling depression: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2261277/Aaron-Swartz-Co-founder-popular-message-board-Reddit-dead-New-York-battling-depression.html#ixzz2HnhJL9va 

Prof. Lawrence Lessig’s perspective: http://lessig.tumblr.com/post/40347463044/prosecutor-as-bully

Aaron Swartz obituary from The Guardian: http://m.guardian.co.uk/technology/2013/jan/13/aaron-swartz

Aaron Swartz and the Corrupt Practice of Plea Bargaining: http://www.forbes.com/sites/timothylee/2013/01/17/aaron-swartz-and-the-corrupt-practice-of-plea-bargaining/

Opening arguments in the court of public opinion after Aaron Swartz’ death: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/01/opening-arguments-in-the-trial-of-public-opinion-after-aaron-swartz-death/

Eugene Patterson and Aaron Swartz: Ghosts speaking across the page » Nieman Journalism Lab: http://www.niemanlab.org/2013/02/eugene-patterson-and-aaron-swartz-ghosts-speaking-across-the-page/?

jon

…Participation for marks? Bonus points for initiating.

I agree with the comments in class concerning the plateauing trends for previous technologies; though we may note that vinyl is making a comeback with the advent of the newer record players having built in ipod docks. What overtakes video games? I suspect we are reaching the categorical limit of progression for “mediums”. What I mean is, if we’re willing to call an artificial reality (like that of World of Warcraft) a video game, then I can only imagine the inputs/outputs becoming more sophisticated. Should things become so sophisticated that it becomes less reasonable to use the term “video” or even “game”, I would submit that the replacement would be “synthetic reality”.

We use console controllers, mice/keyboards, microphones, webcams etc as input devices to control our digital avatar. These inputs will become increasingly complex in order to allow for better control of our digital system. Our technology is growing though. Soon our dictation won’t require pressing of the ‘B’ button to force our digital representation to jump, we will simply think “jump” and an input device will read our mind [this is old technology not science fiction…http://www.emotiv.com/ ].

As things like Emotiv’s EEG helmet gains a higher resolution of neural processes we may find we can better represent ourselves in a virtual world. Concurrent growth in output devices [http://www.vg247.com/2012/09/11/xbox-720-microsoft-patents-projector-tech-turns-rooms-into-game-worlds/] will inevitably allow for the creation of new artificial worlds for us to explore. The resolution of these artificial worlds may (at some point in the relatively near future) surpass that of our “real life”. Should modern medicine + robotics keep its current trend in progression, I suspect we will spend more time in the artificial reality than the “real world”. You think intellectual property law is archaic now? Imagine the imaginary wars fought over artificial space simply to control attention (the new currency…) of “users”.

The artificial reality will become more “real” to the infinitely connected users (the I/we/us/all of the internet), sharing all knowledge in an introspective frontier of limitless potential stories/lives/worlds/universes. It may not have escaped some of you programmer types that such resolution and potentiality is possible with the usage of fractals and only drawing portions of an artificial reality that are currently relevant – like the direct drawing effort of your graphics card. Everything beyond is “potential”, and won’t be decided upon until the user/observer attends to that portion of reality.

Sort of like the observer effects in quantum physics [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Observer_effect_%28physics%29], or the uncertainty principle with Schrödinger’s cat. All potentials are concurrent until they are attended upon, at which point reality “makes a choice” and is drawn/physically actualized.

For those versed in science in general, it may not have escaped you that OUR reality has a theme of fractal iterations. Everything seems to be connected in some strange way that our finite minds don’t quite comprehend, but we notice that an atom seems similar to a solar system, seems similar to a galaxy; or a cell in some way resembles a metropolitan city in someway resembles a brain in some way resembles etc…

So is the end result us creating our own realities, young deities in our own right taking a shot-gun approach to understanding ourselves by delving further and further into our own minds? Is this not what we call a “game”? Restrict the rules by limiting our own omniscience in an attempt to forget the fact that we’re all alone? Varying the rules of each reality in hopes that something unrecognizable might be produced within ourselves? The infinite path to omniscience paralleling the holy path of self reflection?!?

To quote DMX, one of the greatest poets of our time: “You think it’s a game? You think it’s a F^%$^%ing GAME?”

– TD (gamesprite/god/law student)