The music and movie industries have dominated the discussion on Internet piracy. Both industries ... more The music and movie industries have dominated the discussion on Internet piracy. Both industries have employed the use of technologies that limit the ability to share digital files of their audiovisual works, known as digital rights management technology. In addition, both industries have pursued aggressive legal action campaigns to enforce intellectual property rights against individuals who are illegally downloading files and websites that facilitate piracy. But by all counts, these efforts have failed to control the problem, and arguably damaged their reputations. Though music and movie piracy has received the most headlines, the PC video game industry has similarly suffered The video game industry, too, has pursued the traditional enforcement routes that other industries have used to combat piracy, with the same middling results. Thus, some developers have turned to alternative means of combating piracy, which are primarily aimed at changing the hearts and minds of its gaming co...
Minnesota journal of law, science & technology, 2018
Odds-based microtransactions in video games, or “loot boxes,” offer users a chance to get special... more Odds-based microtransactions in video games, or “loot boxes,” offer users a chance to get special game items for actual money (i.e., legal tender), as opposed to acquiring this “loot” through in-game achievements. This feature provides revenue for game developers and allows users to acquire items that would otherwise require hours of gameplay. But loot boxes threaten to degrade game design and foist addictive mechanics on vulnerable users. Loot-box purchasers, much like pathological gamblers placing a wager, report an initial rush when opening a loot box and then a wave of regret and shame. This problem is especially acute in underage consumers who spend thousands of dollars to gain a desired item. Governments are aware of this disturbing trend and are attempting to regulate or outright ban the practice. Present attempts to constrain game developers are predicated on a finding that selling random virtual items is in fact gambling. That approach is flawed. Loot boxes are unlikely to ...
Page 1. Case-Based Authentic Assessment Applications within Wikis Maya Israel Department of Speci... more Page 1. Case-Based Authentic Assessment Applications within Wikis Maya Israel Department of Special Education University of Kansas mayaosh@ku.edu Andrew Moshirnia Department of Educational Technology University of Kansas amoshirn@ku.edu ...
This Article presents the results of a behavioral experiment we conducted to identify what effect... more This Article presents the results of a behavioral experiment we conducted to identify what effect, if any, expert musicologist testimony has on jurors in a simulated music copyright lawsuit. Forensic musicologists are considered essential to deciding whether one song infringes the copyright of another song. But this conventional wisdom has never been tested or validated. Contrary to this accepted view, our study found that expert musicologists have little to no effect on jurors when presented as a battle of experts of the parties. However, a court-appointed expert had a significant effect on subjects who lacked training or knowledge in music. These findings call into serious question the current approach to expert testimony in music lawsuits. We consider several alternatives as possible reforms, including greater use of court-appointed experts, the courts’ exercise of a greater gatekeeping role in permitting expert testimony, and, more radically, the rejection of expert testimony al...
Recent United States Supreme Court decisions have undermined the viability of campaign public fin... more Recent United States Supreme Court decisions have undermined the viability of campaign public financing systems, a vital tool for fighting political corruption. First, Citizens United v. FEC allowed privately financed candidates and independent groups to spend unlimited amounts of money on campaigning. Publicly financed candidates now risk being vastly outspent. Second, Arizona Free Enterprise Club’s Freedom PAC v. Bennett invalidated a proportional fund matching system whereby privately financed candidates’ or independent groups’ spending triggered funds to publicly funded candidates. These decisions effectuate a libertarian speech doctrine: all speakers, individual or corporate, must be absolutely unburdened. To comply with this approach, public financing must be tailored to reduce its monetary correlation with, and corresponding burden on, privately funded speech. This Article proposes matching broadcast advertising access costs as a measured solution. The proposed system does no...
In seeking to more effectively wage the war on terror, the United States government has come clos... more In seeking to more effectively wage the war on terror, the United States government has come close to declaring war on speech related to terrorism. The Government has taken steps to silence and punish foreign propagandists, foreign reporters, and even Americans who have produced “coordinated” speech with foreign terrorist organizations. While this latter attempt to chill speech raises serious constitutional concerns, the United States Supreme Court has seen little wrong with this approach. Indeed, the Court contorted existing First Amendment jurisprudence in Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project so as to uphold 18 U.S.C. § 2339B, an expansive material support statute encompassing “coordinated” speech. These positions, no doubt taken with American safety in mind, not only damage our First Amendment jurisprudence, but also threaten to choke off the supply of open source intelligence, which derives from publicly available sources. This intelligence is especially vital in the modern war on...
ion. The goal of this nested taxonomy and hierarchical derivation of interactionspecific rules fr... more ion. The goal of this nested taxonomy and hierarchical derivation of interactionspecific rules from abstract principles was to “approach gaplessness” in the law. Though this could be achieved without a codification of law, several European nations adopted Classical Legal Thought by drafting systematized, internally coherent, principlederived legal codes. The German Civil Code of 1900 and later the Swiss Civil Code embodied the central principles of Classical Legal Thought, with a focus on the preeminence of individual will. A useful indicator of the reception of Classical Legal Thought in other countries is the adoption of these codes, or the drafting of derivative law codes. 161 See id.; see, e.g., the case method. 162 Kennedy, Three Globalizations, supra note 146, at, 26. 163 Indeed, Carl Von Savigny, the luminary behind CLT was against codification with its attendant ossification. See FRIEDRICH CARL VON SAVIGNY, SYSTEM OF THE MODERN ROMAN LAW (1839, Holloway trans. 1867). 164 Dun...
... wikis are so different, it is unrealistic to assume that the hallmarks of many open source wi... more ... wikis are so different, it is unrealistic to assume that the hallmarks of many open source wikis (eg exponential growth, extensive peer revision) will ... An empirical exploration of using wiki in an english as a second language course, Advanced Learning Technologies, 2005. ...
This Essay sets out the need for disciplined fact-checking networks and the likely counterattacks... more This Essay sets out the need for disciplined fact-checking networks and the likely counterattacks of domestic and foreign propagandists. Part I sets out the continuing social media disinformation campaigns infecting elections worldwide, which stoke internal divisions and undermine public discourse. Part II details factchecking efforts and their effectiveness, with specific attention paid to the neutralization of memes designed to inflame racial hatred. Part III examines disturbing trends that threaten the fact-checking mission, including an internally driven tendency towards false equivalence and foreign-directed efforts to create imposter fact-checkers. Part IV offers an overview of potential solutions and areas for future study.
Russian disinformation attacks through social media increasingly involve genuine photos paired wi... more Russian disinformation attacks through social media increasingly involve genuine photos paired with inaccurate captions to create false news. The relative ease and devastating impact of this meme-based (memetic) method have led domestic actors to adopt these same informational warfare tactics. This is apparent in an examination of the conservative effort to demonize the migrant caravan in the month before the 2018 midterm elections. Posters used misidentified images to push xenophobic tropes that the caravan was violent, rapacious, diseased, unpatriotic, and supported by outside funding groups including wealthy Jews. This Article is the first to systematically document these propagandist threads and present a legal countermeasure based on existing intellectual property and First Amendment doctrines. Tracing the development of memetic misattribution reveals a powerful avenue for defense. Falsely captioned photographs in these memes typically originate from previously published news a...
DePaul Journal of Art, Technology & Intellectual Property Law, 2016
The music and movie industries have dominated the discussion on Internet piracy. Both industries ... more The music and movie industries have dominated the discussion on Internet piracy. Both industries have employed the use of technologies that limit the ability to share digital files of their audiovisual works, known as digital rights management technology. In addition, both industries have pursued aggressive legal action campaigns to enforce intellectual property rights against individuals who are illegally downloading files and websites that facilitate piracy. But by all counts, these efforts have failed to control the problem, and arguably damaged their reputations. Though music and movie piracy has received the most headlines, the PC video game industry has similarly suffered The video game industry, too, has pursued the traditional enforcement routes that other industries have used to combat piracy, with the same middling results. Thus, some developers have turned to alternative means of combating piracy, which are primarily aimed at changing the hearts and minds of its gaming co...
The music and movie industries have dominated the discussion on Internet piracy. Both industries ... more The music and movie industries have dominated the discussion on Internet piracy. Both industries have employed the use of technologies that limit the ability to share digital files of their audiovisual works, known as digital rights management technology. In addition, both industries have pursued aggressive legal action campaigns to enforce intellectual property rights against individuals who are illegally downloading files and websites that facilitate piracy. But by all counts, these efforts have failed to control the problem, and arguably damaged their reputations. Though music and movie piracy has received the most headlines, the PC video game industry has similarly suffered The video game industry, too, has pursued the traditional enforcement routes that other industries have used to combat piracy, with the same middling results. Thus, some developers have turned to alternative means of combating piracy, which are primarily aimed at changing the hearts and minds of its gaming co...
Minnesota journal of law, science & technology, 2018
Odds-based microtransactions in video games, or “loot boxes,” offer users a chance to get special... more Odds-based microtransactions in video games, or “loot boxes,” offer users a chance to get special game items for actual money (i.e., legal tender), as opposed to acquiring this “loot” through in-game achievements. This feature provides revenue for game developers and allows users to acquire items that would otherwise require hours of gameplay. But loot boxes threaten to degrade game design and foist addictive mechanics on vulnerable users. Loot-box purchasers, much like pathological gamblers placing a wager, report an initial rush when opening a loot box and then a wave of regret and shame. This problem is especially acute in underage consumers who spend thousands of dollars to gain a desired item. Governments are aware of this disturbing trend and are attempting to regulate or outright ban the practice. Present attempts to constrain game developers are predicated on a finding that selling random virtual items is in fact gambling. That approach is flawed. Loot boxes are unlikely to ...
Page 1. Case-Based Authentic Assessment Applications within Wikis Maya Israel Department of Speci... more Page 1. Case-Based Authentic Assessment Applications within Wikis Maya Israel Department of Special Education University of Kansas mayaosh@ku.edu Andrew Moshirnia Department of Educational Technology University of Kansas amoshirn@ku.edu ...
This Article presents the results of a behavioral experiment we conducted to identify what effect... more This Article presents the results of a behavioral experiment we conducted to identify what effect, if any, expert musicologist testimony has on jurors in a simulated music copyright lawsuit. Forensic musicologists are considered essential to deciding whether one song infringes the copyright of another song. But this conventional wisdom has never been tested or validated. Contrary to this accepted view, our study found that expert musicologists have little to no effect on jurors when presented as a battle of experts of the parties. However, a court-appointed expert had a significant effect on subjects who lacked training or knowledge in music. These findings call into serious question the current approach to expert testimony in music lawsuits. We consider several alternatives as possible reforms, including greater use of court-appointed experts, the courts’ exercise of a greater gatekeeping role in permitting expert testimony, and, more radically, the rejection of expert testimony al...
Recent United States Supreme Court decisions have undermined the viability of campaign public fin... more Recent United States Supreme Court decisions have undermined the viability of campaign public financing systems, a vital tool for fighting political corruption. First, Citizens United v. FEC allowed privately financed candidates and independent groups to spend unlimited amounts of money on campaigning. Publicly financed candidates now risk being vastly outspent. Second, Arizona Free Enterprise Club’s Freedom PAC v. Bennett invalidated a proportional fund matching system whereby privately financed candidates’ or independent groups’ spending triggered funds to publicly funded candidates. These decisions effectuate a libertarian speech doctrine: all speakers, individual or corporate, must be absolutely unburdened. To comply with this approach, public financing must be tailored to reduce its monetary correlation with, and corresponding burden on, privately funded speech. This Article proposes matching broadcast advertising access costs as a measured solution. The proposed system does no...
In seeking to more effectively wage the war on terror, the United States government has come clos... more In seeking to more effectively wage the war on terror, the United States government has come close to declaring war on speech related to terrorism. The Government has taken steps to silence and punish foreign propagandists, foreign reporters, and even Americans who have produced “coordinated” speech with foreign terrorist organizations. While this latter attempt to chill speech raises serious constitutional concerns, the United States Supreme Court has seen little wrong with this approach. Indeed, the Court contorted existing First Amendment jurisprudence in Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project so as to uphold 18 U.S.C. § 2339B, an expansive material support statute encompassing “coordinated” speech. These positions, no doubt taken with American safety in mind, not only damage our First Amendment jurisprudence, but also threaten to choke off the supply of open source intelligence, which derives from publicly available sources. This intelligence is especially vital in the modern war on...
ion. The goal of this nested taxonomy and hierarchical derivation of interactionspecific rules fr... more ion. The goal of this nested taxonomy and hierarchical derivation of interactionspecific rules from abstract principles was to “approach gaplessness” in the law. Though this could be achieved without a codification of law, several European nations adopted Classical Legal Thought by drafting systematized, internally coherent, principlederived legal codes. The German Civil Code of 1900 and later the Swiss Civil Code embodied the central principles of Classical Legal Thought, with a focus on the preeminence of individual will. A useful indicator of the reception of Classical Legal Thought in other countries is the adoption of these codes, or the drafting of derivative law codes. 161 See id.; see, e.g., the case method. 162 Kennedy, Three Globalizations, supra note 146, at, 26. 163 Indeed, Carl Von Savigny, the luminary behind CLT was against codification with its attendant ossification. See FRIEDRICH CARL VON SAVIGNY, SYSTEM OF THE MODERN ROMAN LAW (1839, Holloway trans. 1867). 164 Dun...
... wikis are so different, it is unrealistic to assume that the hallmarks of many open source wi... more ... wikis are so different, it is unrealistic to assume that the hallmarks of many open source wikis (eg exponential growth, extensive peer revision) will ... An empirical exploration of using wiki in an english as a second language course, Advanced Learning Technologies, 2005. ...
This Essay sets out the need for disciplined fact-checking networks and the likely counterattacks... more This Essay sets out the need for disciplined fact-checking networks and the likely counterattacks of domestic and foreign propagandists. Part I sets out the continuing social media disinformation campaigns infecting elections worldwide, which stoke internal divisions and undermine public discourse. Part II details factchecking efforts and their effectiveness, with specific attention paid to the neutralization of memes designed to inflame racial hatred. Part III examines disturbing trends that threaten the fact-checking mission, including an internally driven tendency towards false equivalence and foreign-directed efforts to create imposter fact-checkers. Part IV offers an overview of potential solutions and areas for future study.
Russian disinformation attacks through social media increasingly involve genuine photos paired wi... more Russian disinformation attacks through social media increasingly involve genuine photos paired with inaccurate captions to create false news. The relative ease and devastating impact of this meme-based (memetic) method have led domestic actors to adopt these same informational warfare tactics. This is apparent in an examination of the conservative effort to demonize the migrant caravan in the month before the 2018 midterm elections. Posters used misidentified images to push xenophobic tropes that the caravan was violent, rapacious, diseased, unpatriotic, and supported by outside funding groups including wealthy Jews. This Article is the first to systematically document these propagandist threads and present a legal countermeasure based on existing intellectual property and First Amendment doctrines. Tracing the development of memetic misattribution reveals a powerful avenue for defense. Falsely captioned photographs in these memes typically originate from previously published news a...
DePaul Journal of Art, Technology & Intellectual Property Law, 2016
The music and movie industries have dominated the discussion on Internet piracy. Both industries ... more The music and movie industries have dominated the discussion on Internet piracy. Both industries have employed the use of technologies that limit the ability to share digital files of their audiovisual works, known as digital rights management technology. In addition, both industries have pursued aggressive legal action campaigns to enforce intellectual property rights against individuals who are illegally downloading files and websites that facilitate piracy. But by all counts, these efforts have failed to control the problem, and arguably damaged their reputations. Though music and movie piracy has received the most headlines, the PC video game industry has similarly suffered The video game industry, too, has pursued the traditional enforcement routes that other industries have used to combat piracy, with the same middling results. Thus, some developers have turned to alternative means of combating piracy, which are primarily aimed at changing the hearts and minds of its gaming co...
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