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Users' Patronage: The Return Of The Gift In The "Crowd Society", Giancarlo F. Frosio Sep 2015

Users' Patronage: The Return Of The Gift In The "Crowd Society", Giancarlo F. Frosio

Giancarlo Francesco Frosio

In this work, I discuss the tension between gift and market economy throughout the history of creativity. For millennia, the production of creative artifacts has lain at the intersection between gift and market economy. From the time of Pindar and Simonides – and until the Romanticism will commence a process leading to the complete commodification of creative artifacts – market exchange models run parallel to gift exchange. From Roman amicitia to the medieval and Renaissance belief that “scientia donum dei est, unde vendi non potest,” creativity has been repeatedly construed as a gift. Again, at the time of the British …


Authors Alliance: A Force To Promote Authorship For Public Good, Michael Wolfe, Adrian K. Ho Jan 2015

Authors Alliance: A Force To Promote Authorship For Public Good, Michael Wolfe, Adrian K. Ho

Adrian K. Ho

No abstract.


Game Over For First Sale, Stephen J. Mcintyre Mar 2013

Game Over For First Sale, Stephen J. Mcintyre

Stephen J McIntyre

Video game companies have long considered secondhand game retailers a threat to their bottom lines. With the next generation of gaming consoles on the horizon, some companies are experimenting with technological tools to discourage and even prevent gamers from buying and selling used games. Most significantly, a recent patent application describes a system for suppressing secondhand sales by permanently identifying game discs with a single video game console. This technology flies in the face of copyright law’s “first sale” doctrine, which gives lawful purchasers the right to sell, lease, and lend DVDs, CDs, and other media. This Article answers a …


Tattoos & Ip Norms, Aaron K. Perzanowski Jan 2013

Tattoos & Ip Norms, Aaron K. Perzanowski

Aaron K. Perzanowski

The U.S. tattoo industry generates billions of dollars in annual revenue. Like the music, film, and publishing industries, it derives value from the creation of new, original works of authorship. But unlike rights holders in those more traditional creative industries, tattoo artists rarely assert formal legal rights in disputes over copying or ownership of the works they create. Instead, tattooing is governed by a set of nuanced, overlapping, and occasionally contradictory social norms enforced through informal sanctions. And in contrast to other creative communities that rely on social norms because of the unavailability of formal intellectual property protection, the tattoo …


Tolerance Is Law: Remixing Homage Parodying Plagiarism, Mathias Klang, Jan Nolin Aug 2012

Tolerance Is Law: Remixing Homage Parodying Plagiarism, Mathias Klang, Jan Nolin

Mathias Klang

Three centuries have passed since copyright law was developed to stimulate creativity and promote learning. The fundamental principles still apply, despite radical developments in the technology of production and distribution of cultural material. In particular the last decades’ developments and adoption of ICTs have drastically lowered barriers, which previously prevented entry into the production and distribution side of the cultural marketplace, and led to a widening of the base at which cultural production occurs and is disseminated. Additionally, digitalisation has made it economically and technically feasible for users to appropriate and manipulate earlier works as method of production. The renegotiation …


Minecraft As Web 2.0: Amateur Creativity In Digital Games, Greg Lastowka Jan 2012

Minecraft As Web 2.0: Amateur Creativity In Digital Games, Greg Lastowka

Greg Lastowka

This book chapter considers how the digital game Minecraft has both enabled and benefited from various Web 2.0 practices. I begin with an explanation of the concept of Web 2.0 and then consider how that concept applies to the space of digital games.


The Creativity Effect (With C. Sprigman), Christopher J. Buccafusco Jan 2011

The Creativity Effect (With C. Sprigman), Christopher J. Buccafusco

Christopher J. Buccafusco

No abstract provided.


The Evolution Of The Us Drm Debate, 1987-2006, Bill D. Herman Jan 2011

The Evolution Of The Us Drm Debate, 1987-2006, Bill D. Herman

Bill D. Herman

Scholars who discuss copyright often observe that the voices for stronger copyright have more financial and political capital than their opponents and thus tend to win in Congress. While the playing field is still quite slanted toward stronger copyright, the politics around the issue are much messier and less predictable. This study, a detailed political and legislative history of the major proposals regarding copyright and digital rights management from 1987 to 2006, illustrates how this policy dynamic has changed so drastically. In 1987, there was no organized opposition to copyright’s expansion. By 2006, however, there was a substantial coalition of …


Decentralizing Culture: The Effect Of Digital Networks On Copyright And Music Distribution, Benjamin Gibert Aug 2010

Decentralizing Culture: The Effect Of Digital Networks On Copyright And Music Distribution, Benjamin Gibert

Benjamin Gibert

The advance of technology profoundly impacts how people interact with culture as the proliferation of digital networks transforms the effects of copyright in modern societies. This paper argues that the oligopolistic conditions of content markets and the legal discourse of intellectual property law have historically enabled copyright holders to promote a limited conception of art and obscure the complexities of copyright theory. While conceptual ambiguity is inevitable in the construction of aesthetic legal categories, current practices impose too many restrictions. The practical choices made concerning copyright in cyberspace will determine the evolution of culture in increasingly networked societies. The music …


Barricading The Digital Frontier: Copyright, Technology And The War On Music Piracy, Benjamin Gibert Aug 2010

Barricading The Digital Frontier: Copyright, Technology And The War On Music Piracy, Benjamin Gibert

Benjamin Gibert

The Internet is changing the way vast numbers of people experience culture today. Providing tools to interact with, manipulate and freely redistribute content, technology is dissolving conventional divisions between creators and consumers of cultural artefacts. As new technological and legislative mechanisms are deployed to stop digital piracy, there is a need to reflect on the meaning of copyright, piracy and culture in the context of digital technologies. This paper discusses the relationship between copyright and cultural participation. It refers to the music industry in order to depict the changing patterns of consumption behavior precipitated by the rise of digital networks …


Looking For Fair Use In The Dmca's Safety Dance, Ira Nathenson Jan 2009

Looking For Fair Use In The Dmca's Safety Dance, Ira Nathenson

Ira Steven Nathenson

Like a ballet, the notice-and-take-down provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act ("DMCA") provide complex procedures to obtain take-downs of online infringement. Copyright owners send notices of infringement to service providers, who in turn remove claimed infringement in exchange for a statutory safe harbor from copyright liability. But like a dance meant for two, the DMCA is less effective in protecting the "third wheel," the users of internet services. Even Senator John McCain - who in 1998 voted for the DMCA - wrote in exasperation to YouTube after some of his presidential campaign videos were removed due to take-downs. McCain …


Guarding Your Company's Intellectual Property Rights: Patents, Trademarks, And Copyright Protection, Douglas J. Swanson Ed.D Apr Jul 1994

Guarding Your Company's Intellectual Property Rights: Patents, Trademarks, And Copyright Protection, Douglas J. Swanson Ed.D Apr

Douglas J. Swanson, Ed.D APR

No abstract provided.