By Jon Festinger on June 9, 2014
On June 5, 2014 I participated in a terrific session moderated by Christina Hendricks of the UBC Department of Philosophy. It was part of the annual “CTLT Institute” put on by the UBC Centre for Teaching, Learning and Technology. Prof. Hendricks Wiki page on the session can be found by clicking on the image below.
What is worth briefly ruminating on is the fact that I keep on being invited to sessions like this to talk about the website for Video Game Law. When this started happening, I was just stunned and it was difficult to get my head around why this was occuring. Now that with the passage of time I must accept the reality of the situation, I have moved from perplexed to mildly disturbed.
What’s the problem you may justifiably wonder?
It never ocurred to me that having an open website for a course was any big deal. It seems obvious. After all education (at least in Canada) is publicly funded. The goal of education is to benefit the world. Law itself honours and encourages openness and transparency. So forgive me for failing to understand why this course website is anything special. Bottom line: it shouldn’t be – it should be a dime a dozen, one of hundreds of thousands like it. Inevitably it will be when a sense of congruence around education, openness and law is fully established.
All of which just makes me appreciate all the more UBC CTLT and the UBC Faculty of Law for encouraging this experiment.
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By Jon Festinger on June 1, 2014
A little over a month ago on Tuesday April 29, 2014, I had a great time speaking at one of Vancouver’s regular Full Indie events. Full Indie as an organization exists to provide a platform for independent game developers of all types to come together in a network of shared experiences, opportunities, knowledge and moral support. And clearly to have a blast while doing so.
Usually I would post an event like this on the site in advance. However the limited tickets to the monthly Full Indie events are essentially sold out as soon as they appear on-line. So there would have been little point to an advance post even if I had been totally on top of the timing (which I clearly was not). Fortunately there is an upcoming Full Indie Summit on August 9 & 10, 2014 (where I will also be speaking) at the Stanley Stage. Information on tickets etc. are available by clicking the image below.
So somewhat belatedly, here is the video of my April presentation on originality in games as well as the related slides . Would like to acknowledge friend of the course Jennifer Kelly of Fenwick & West LLP who generously allowed me to remix and add to some of her slides in preparing this presentation.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7m0iiWDnqZU
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By Jon Festinger on May 24, 2014
Thrilled to have been asked by the University of Auckland (New Zealand) Video Game Club to give a talk – remotely, wish I had been there – on Video Game Law. The event happened on Wednesday May 21 at The Business School, The University of Auckland. Had a great time doing it.
The talk was live-streamed and also recorded.
Click on the image to link to the event’s Facebook page.
The captured livestream is available below:
Slides are here:
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By Jon Festinger on May 4, 2014
Will be moderating an SFU Philosphers’ Cafe event associated with the DOXA Documentary Film Festival. The seesion is called “Even Bigger Brother” and is on May 5, 2014, 7 PM at The Vancity Theatre, 1181 Seymour Street.
More details below:
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By Jon Festinger on May 4, 2014
Was thrilled to be among many old friends while speaking at the Law Society of Upper Canada’s biennial communications law and policy conference, which this year was in Ottawa. Every time I attend this conference, am reminded of how important it is to bring together lawyers of diverse perspectives and focus us on finding ways to move law and policy constructively forward. Appeared on a panel called “And Now For A Word…With the Audience. Social Media: Disruption and Opportunity“. The panel description was “Social media is an agile, immediate source of news, information, opinion and content. It has the ability to break down areas of interest more finely than the narrowest niche broadcast services. To what extent is social media displacing TV and radio as the “mass media middleman”? To what extent is social media enhancing “traditional” broadcasting, or even integrating into it? The CR TC has suggested that social media can be leveraged to help support its policy objectives. Is regulation far behind? This panel will look at how social media is changing the conversation, for broadcasters, their audiences, and the Commission. Moderator: Margot Patterson, C.S. , Counsel, Dentons Canada LLP. Paper: Jonathan Festinger Festinger Law & Strategy. Panellists: Raja Khanna , CEO , Television & Digital, Blue Ant Media Inc.; Jason Kee , Public Policy & Government Relations Counsel, Google Inc.; Bryan Segal , Vice President, comScore Inc.” The link to the conference site is here: https://ecom.lsuc.on.ca/cpd/product.jsp?id=CLE14-0050199 As you will see there were many amazing panels including a plenary session moderated by Sheridan Scott who was a guest in our course this past year. A version of my background paper (more of a graphic novel styled survey of issues really) is below. The connections to Video Game Law lie within – more proof that what appear to be the pressing issues of today are often questions navigated by and through video games years ago.
Thanks to Larry Bafia, my colleague at the Centre for Digital Media, for his help and suggestions (all of which are reflected). The somewhat updated (& shorter) Presentation Notes that I actually spoke to can be found here:
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