Making Virtual Copyright Work

This Article proposes measures that attempt to strike the balance between creation and access. The virtual-world community is not likely to persevere with the little copyright protection it currently enjoys. Creativity will dwindle and the rich, energetic settings that make virtual worlds so attractive to businesses and entertainers will follow suit. At the same time, because much of the creativity in virtual worlds is derivative in nature, virtual creators are also unlikely to benefit from strong copyright protections. Therefore, current interpretation of copyright law must be revisited and revised before applying it to virtual worlds. Part I details virtual worlds and, in particular, the features that set Second Life apart. Part II asks whether virtual works are copyrightable at all and answers in the affirmative, and then discusses authorship and ownership issues in virtual worlds. Part III discusses what copyright means for virtual worlds, including just how important creativity and continued incentives to create are for the survival of virtual worlds. Finally, Part IV argues that, while copyright will be imposed on virtual worlds, broadening the scope of fair use in virtual worlds and imposing a compulsory license for virtual derivatives will encourage creativity and more effectively serve the purpose of copyright law

Teaching and learning in virtual worlds: is it worth the effort?

Educators have been quick to spot the enormous potential afforded by virtual worlds for situated and authentic learning, practising tasks with potentially serious consequences in the real world and for bringing geographically dispersed faculty and students together in the same space (Gee, 2007; Johnson and Levine, 2008). Though this potential has largely been realised, it generally isn’t without cost in terms of lack of institutional buy-in, steep learning curves for all participants, and lack of a sound theoretical framework to support learning activities (Campbell, 2009; Cheal, 2007; Kluge & Riley, 2008). This symposium will explore the affordances and issues associated with teaching and learning in virtual worlds, all the time considering the question: is it worth the effort

ISBS 2018 AUCKLAND CONFERENCE CLOSING MIDDLE EARTH BANQUET PROGRAMME

The closing social event is themed. Delegates walk into the “Middle Earth” adorned atrium. Delegates will receive a bubbly, beer, juice or mineral water on entry. Dr Sarah-Kate Millar, will outline the evening’s activities and will provide the Karakia. AUT Group Chef Matthew Farley, AUT Hospitality Services will explain the food and the Sileni wine for the evening. Food is available from the “Middle Earth” themed areas. Prizes for the competitions at the Kiwiana Opening and during the week at the Industry Partner Playing Field will be awarded. Live band “Off the Wall” https://www.offthewallnz.com/ will be the four piece band for the closing banquet party. With the Middle Earth themed dinner and surrounds, the closing banquet is going to be a highlight of the conference for networking and relaxing after the quality academic presentations

Adaptive Optics pre-compensated laser uplink to LEO and GEO

We present the results from a Monte Carlo computer simulation of adaptive optics (AO) pre-compensated laser uplink propagation through the Earth’s atmospheric turbulence from the ground to orbiting satellites. The simulation includes the so-called point-ahead angle and tests several potential AO mitigation modes such as tip/tilt or full AO from the downlink beam, and a laser guide star at the point ahead angle. The performance of these modes, as measured by metrics relevant for free-space optical communication, are compared with no correction and perfect correction. The aim of the study is to investigate fundamental limitations of free-space optical communications with AO pre-compensation and a point-ahead angle, therefore the results represent an upper bound of AO corrected performance, demonstrating the potential of pre-compensation technology. Performance is assessed with varying launch aperture size, wavelength, launch geometry, ground layer turbulence strength (i.e. day/night), elevation angle and satellite orbit (Low-Earth and Geostationary). By exploring this large parameter space we are able examine trends on performance with the aim of informing the design of future optical ground stations and demonstrating and quantifying the potential upper bounds of adaptive optics performance in free-space optical communications