professors
Gamers confront copyright law
Professor Greg Lastowka of Rutgers-Camden Law School, in a press release earlier this week about his current research:
User-generated content can make a game very valuable, but developers have a legal obligation to look out for copyright infringement. I’m interested to hear from developers how concerns about copyright infringement affect the kind of games they create.
I’m interested, too, and glad someone is looking into it. I look forward to reading about his findings.
Temple Law Profs Feed
I used Yahoo Pipes to make a feed that unites all posts by Temple profs writing at their various law blogs. The feed still needs some work, specifically to ensure that the author name, and preferably the name of the blog at which they’re writing, is published in every entry. But overall I’m very happy with it.
I didn’t get permission from them or from their respective blogs, but since the stuff is posted publicly, all the content in my united feed is available freely in each separate feed, and all the entries in my united feed link directly out to the source posts, I don’t see why anyone would object.
But, of course, if anyone does object, I’ll remove them from the feed immediately. In fact, at any point in time, and without warning, I may need to delete the feed altogether, so consider yourselves warned.
For now, though, it’s a convenient way to follow what interests Temple Law professors on a day-to-day basis, particularly with regard to current events in their respective areas of expertise.
So, here’s the feed, and here’s the Yahoo Pipes URL so you can see how I did it.
David Hoffman on quotation approval
David Hoffman on quotation approval
Two days ago, I mentioned a piece by David Carr on quotation approval. This morning, I found that Professor David Hoffman, whose corporate law class I took at Temple Law, had posted his own thoughts at Concurring Opinions.
Specifically, this part stuck out to me:
There’s a simple reason that most sources (including me) ask for quote approval: we don’t trust reporters to avoid making a hash out of our comments, pulling quotes selectively to fit a pre-existing narrative, and consequently turning the source into the reporter’s sock puppet.
Professor Hoffman’s reaction illustrates an important distinction that we need to make in thinking about the integrity of quote approval. I think that experts have a right to approve not only their quotes, but the context in which those quotes will appear.
After all, a journalist’s use of an expert extends beyond the quote, and can be honest or manipulative depending on the integrity of the journalist in question. The press seeks quotes from experts like Professor Hoffman, and I believe their seeking creates an obligation to accurately report not only the words but the context.
However, David Carr’s thesis on the problem with quote approval holds true when those approvals are coming from public relations departments or firms, campaigns, or others who actively seek press coverage. The difference is between controlling the narrative (in the case of PR) and ensuring accurate context (in the case of experts).