Creativity Without IP? Vindication and Challenges in the Video Game Industry

This Article intervenes in the longstanding debate over whether creative production is possible without exhaustive copyright protection. Intellectual property (IP) scholars have identified “negative spaces” like comedy and tattoo art where creativity thrives without IP, but critics dismiss these examples as niche. The video game industry allows for fresh headway. It is now the largest sector in entertainment—with revenues greater than Hollywood, streaming, and music combined—yet IP does not protect key game elements from duplication. Participants navigate this absence using non-IP strategies like those identified in negative-space industries: AAA developers invest in copy-resistant features while indie game developers rely on community norms. The answer to whether creative production is possible within IP’s negative space even in a capital-intensive industry is thus a decisive yes. Studying this industry also compels us to go beyond surface-level questions of whether creative production is possible and to grapple with how the configuration of IP and non-IP protections shapes what is produced and how this configuration favors some creators over others. The industry likewise pushes us to recognize that the stability of these regimes is contingent on broader features of technology, the economy, and society at large. In fact, the industry has come full circle from a sector where copying plagued the industry, to one where it became a non-issue, to one where it has reemerged as a problem in mobile gaming. The video game industry is also crucial for study because it embodies the state of creative production in the information age. Scholarship has long treated legacy industries like Hollywood and music as paradigmatic without attending to the complex realities of modern creative production and the importance of going beyond IP to understand how these industries work. It is time we moved past the conceptual divide between “full IP” and negative spaces to interrogate the overlapping but partial legal protections across both sides of the line

Copyright, protector of photographers

Introduction to the Problem Information obtained from the 1981 Occupational Handbook cites the number of photographers in the employment force of the United States to be over 93,000. Those numbers, increasing at a phenomenal rate necessitates the ability of photographers to become aware and up-to-date to the responsibilities and rights they as professionals must maintain

Impact of Copyright Law on the Photographic Reproduction Services of On-line Photographic Images in Academic Research Library Special Collections Research Centers

This study details a web based survey of special collections research centers within academic research libraries. The survey was conducted to determine whether or not copyright law has had an impact on the participants' photographic reproduction services policy of on-line photographic images. As new technology provides improved access to special collections, broadening their community of researchers, adhering to copyright law is a major issue for universities. Establishing a consistent photographic reproduction policy among institutions as special collections research centers place easily downloadable, published and unpublished digital photographic images, on-line is necessary in order to protect the rights of copyright holders. The responses on the survey were analyzed using descriptive analysis. Additionally, a review of special collections websites was performed to reveal trends in photographic reproduction policies and various levels of accessibility to on-line digital photographic images

Scholarly Electronic Publishing Bibliography: 2008 Annunal Edition

This bibliography lists citations of English-language articles, books and other printed and electronic sources that are useful in understanding scholarly electronic publishing efforts on the Internet. Most sources have been published from 1990 through 2008; however, a limited number of key sources published prior to 1990 are also included

Scholarly Electronic Publishing Bibliography: 2007 Annunal Edition

This bibliography lists citations of English-language articles, books and other printed and electronic sources that are useful in understanding scholarly electronic publishing efforts on the Internet. Most sources have been published from 1990 through 2007; however, a limited number of key sources published prior to 1990 are also included

The Scholarly Electronic Publishing Bibliography: 2008 Annual Edition

The Scholarly Electronic Publishing Bibliography: 2008 Annual Edition presents over 3,350 English-language articles, books, and other printed and electronic sources that are useful in understanding scholarly electronic publishing efforts on the Internet. Most sources have been published from 1990 through 2008; however, a limited number of key sources published prior to 1990 are also included. Where possible, links are provided to works that are freely available on the Internet, including e-prints in disciplinary archives and institutional repositories. It is available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License

Scholarly Electronic Publishing Bibliography 2010

The Scholarly Electronic Publishing Bibliography 2010 presents over 3,800 selected English-language articles, books, and other textual sources that are useful in understanding scholarly electronic publishing efforts on the Internet. It covers digital copyright, digital libraries, digital preservation, digital rights management, digital repositories, economic issues, electronic books and texts, electronic serials, license agreements, metadata, publisher issues, open access, and other related topics. Most sources have been published from 1990 through 2010. Many references have links to freely available copies of included works. It is under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License. Cite as: Bailey, Charles W., Jr. Scholarly Electronic Publishing Bibliography 2010. Houston: Digital Scholarship, 2011

Digital Scholarship 2009

The work is a bibliography of digital scholarship containing citations of articles, books, and technical reports on institutional repositories and scholarly electronic publishin

Is copyright necessary?

Copyright is a legal mechanism for promotion of useful knowledge. However, it is not the only means society could use to encourage information dissemination, and several alternative models have been suggested over the last 200 years. This article provides the results of a dynamic simulation of the publishing industry in the United States from 1800 to 2100, and tests the impact of different protection schemes on the development of authorship, the publishing industry, and reader access. It closes with a discussion of intellectual property information policy decisions that can be currently made, and their likely impacts on domestic and international copyright protection