Legal and Organizational Issues in Collaborative User-Created Content

Introduction In this paper we look into issues that arise when people collaboratively create digital content and want to publicly distribute it. We identify and analyze the issues based on four case studies on amateur content production. In our analysis we discuss the issues both from the amateurs’ point of view, and also, from the game brand owners’ perspective. User-created content (UCC) in games has become popular as demonstrated by game-related skins, mods and extensions, screenshots, gameplay videos, game narratives, walk-throughs, websites, articles, fan art, as well as tools for creating the content. Often UCC is a collaborative activity where people share their expertise and skills, and the organization of groups into larger communities can even more advance the quality and distribution of the created material. Communities of amateur content creators can create an identity and a virtual location around their activity (e.g., a website), which can act as a publicity and distribution channel for the content, as well as a discussion forum, knowledge pool, and a place for socializing. However, as the collaborative work starts to gain popularity and move towards more professional production, legal and organizational issues arise that even amateur content creators should address. These issues include decisions on commercialization of the content creation activity, intellectual property rights within the content creators, the brand image of the content or the group, and managing the liability risks in content production. These issues can be critical for the existence of the content creation community, and are often largely ignored until they manifest themselves with negative consequences. Case Studies Two of the four cases in our study are computer game related: user-created fan websites for Habbo Hotel, and user-created game worlds for Neverwinter Nights. The other two cases are not directly game-related: a micro-movie producer community Blauereiter, and an electronic publication The Melrose Mirror. The last two examples were chosen to illustrate aspects arising from amateur media content production that may become more relevant for game-related UCC in the future. Habbo Hotel is a virtual meeting place on the Internet where the gamers can create their own characters, and a hotel room for their character where other characters can visit. Habbo Hotel is owned and developed by Sulake Inc, and it has 2,3 million users worldwide. Habbo Hotel has a devoted fan community that publishes their own fan web pages that are graphically and thematically similar to the Habbo Hotel. Currently Sulake is strongly controlling the contents of the fan sites by forcing the closing of unwanted fansites because of game brand and IPR issues. Neverwinter Nights is a commercial multi-player adventure game developed by BioWare Inc. The game includes a set of tools for gamers to create their own characters, adventures, and worlds. These user-created worlds are hosted by the creators themselves. For other people to play these worlds they must have the Neverwinter Nights game installed on their PC. BioWare has announced their plan to sell user-created game modules, hence opening questions about the commercialization of UCC. Blauereiter is community for discussing and distributing micromovies. Micromovies are short movies made especially for handheld devices with small screens. The community was established in Finland in 2002 to promote students’ micromovies and to have a knowledge sharing website. The website also has the community rules, where it is stated that the community manages the rights, marketing, and distribution of its members’ movies and potential profits. According to the rules the community makes decisions and changes relating to the rules. However, the rules or the website do not explicitly state what or who are the community, how can members affect the community decision making, or how potential revenues are distributed within the community. The Melrose Mirror is an electronic newspaper collaboratively published by a group of senior citizens in Massachusetts, USA. The community has been active since 1996, and has over the years collaboratively produced several thousands of articles and images about the history and current life in Melrose, as well as personal opinions and stories of the authors. The editorial staff, which consists of a sub-group of all contributors, selects the articles and pictures for publication. However, the group has not decided to formally organize their own activity. The members have decided that the opinions in the publication strictly reflect the views of the individual creators, and the copyrights to the material belong to the individual contributors. The decisions regarding issues such as advertising on the website, usage of computers, and opinions about the website content are debated in the group meetings. Conclusions From the case studies we identified and analyzed the issues these particular examples had in creating and publishing user-created content. Two of the communities had a direct relation to commercial stakeholders and their brands and technology. In the other two communities the media was created independent of direct third party connections. Based on these cases we argue that the main legal issues and concerns in collaborative creation of content are decision making and liability. The decision making issues can be further identified as the distribution of potential revenues, deciding on a licensing policy for the content, and the re-publication of content. The liability issues can be specified as infringement of intellectual property rights (i.e., copyrights, patents, and trademarks), publication of illegal material (i.e., defamatory or racist material, child pornography), and the distribution of technically damaging content (i.e., computer viruses). The liability issues are relevant irrespective whether the act is intentional or not. These issues are especially significant if the created content has commercial value, but the issues must be addressed also in non-profit creation and distribution. Based on the identification and analysis we discuss the solutions that legal systems provide to these issues. Mainly, we look into traditional forms of organization, such as corporation, association, and trust, and discuss how these different legal forms of organizations could be applied to collaborative content creation. We also discuss what further issues arise in applying these legal forms of organization into a novel way of global collaboration using digital technology

Structure and magnetic fabric of the Quetico metasedimentary rocks in the Calm Lake - Perch Lake area, near Atikokan, Northwestern Ontario

The Quetico metasedimentary rocks are the metamorphosed equivalents of a turbidite sequence, comprised of a repetative interstratification of sandstones and mudstones. The rocks are metamorphosed to lower greenschist facies, but metamorphic grade increases progressively from north to south. Anchimetamorphosed phyllites and slates in the north part of the present study area grade progressively into biotite schists in the south part. Interpretation of structural features in the study area, mainly bedding(S0) -cleavage(S1) relationships and structural facing directions, has led to the delineation of a number of major folds. These are tight to isoclinal, asymmetric sheath folds, with axial planes arranged en echelon and slightly oblique to the dominant eastwest, vertically-dipping, structural trend. The orientation, geometry and disposition of the F1 folds suggest the Quetico rocks of the present study area have experienced a regional dextral transpressional tectonic evolution, with components of north-south regional shortening and east-west regional dextral shear, with a possible component of vertical (south side up) displacement. The Quetico metasedimentary rocks have a polyminerallic magnetic mineralogy comprised of significant proportions of a ferrimagnetic (magnetite and pyrrhotite) and a paramagnetic (chlorite, biotite, muscovite) component. The rocks possess a predominantly tectonic magnetic fabric, which consists of a deformational, and a metamorphic, magnetic fabric. In some rocks (especially coarse-grained sandstones with wide-spaced cleavage planes) a depositional magnetic fabric is partially preserved. The complexities involved in having component deformational, metamorphic and depositional magnetic fabrics Indicate that the principal magnetic susceptibility directions of the rock's magnetic susceptibility anisotropy cannot be considered reliable Indicators of principal finite strain directions in the Quetico metasedimentary rocks. Great care must be taken in interpreting the significance of principal magnetic susceptibility directions

Käyttäjäkeskeisen metatiedon suunnittelu digitaaliseen näppäilykuvaukseen

With digital cameras, camera phones, and camcorders connected to personal computers and the Internet, people are capturing, sharing, and storing more and more media created by themselves. This has created the organizing challenge called media management problem: how to browse and find media from the growing personal media collections. Metadata is seen as one of the most promising technologies to address this problem. Previous work on metadata design has focused on public or commercially produced media – not on media created by consumers for themselves or their social networks. Taking snapshot photography as a starting point, this dissertation looks into the media management problem from a user-centric design perspective. In this work, three consecutive systems were designed: MMM-1, MobShare, and PhotosToFriends. Each of these systems was evaluated in extensive user trials. The objective of the user trials was to provide a better understanding of the uses people have for mobile photos and metadata. The results gained from constructing the systems and the associated user trials are divided into three. First, they contribute to understanding social uses for mobile photographs: what was photographed, with whom were the photos shared, and what kind of social activity emerged. Second, the results can be applied into designing systems for photo sharing: the use of galleries, control over sharing, support for discussions, and social awareness and notifications. Third, what are the implications for metadata that the social uses and system design have. The main implications are the inherent problem of personal photo information being contextual, dynamic, and highly semantic, and the strong coupling of metadata and its application. To address these problems we propose the concept of social metadata, which takes advantage of the social activity in photo sharing systems. The user-centric design approach also brings forth that content metadata generation should be approached from several angles – social metadata, user tagging and contextual information – in addition to the more traditional content-based analysis.Digitaalikameroiden, kamerapuhelimien ja digitaalisten videokameroiden ollessa nykyään yhdistettynä kotitietokoneiseen ja sitä kautta Internetiin ihmiset luovat, jakavat ja tallentavat entistä enemmän itse tekemäänsä mediaa. Tämän seurauksena on syntynyt organisointihaaste, jota kutsutaan henkilökohtaisen median hallintaongelmaksi: kuinka selata mediaa tai löytää sieltä haluamansa media? Metatietoa pidetään yhtenä lupaavimmista teknologisista ratkaisuista tähän ongelmaan. Aikaisempi tutkimus metatiedon suunnittelussa on keskittynyt julkiseen tai kaupalliseen mediaan – ei mediaan, jonka kuluttajat luovat itselleen tai sosiaaliselle verkostolleen. Tämä väitöskirja tutkii median hallintaongelmaa käyttäjäkeskeisestä näkökulmasta, jossa lähtökohtana on näppäilyvalokuvaus. Tässä työssä rakennettiin kolme peräkkäistä järjestelmää: MMM-1, MobShare ja PhotosToFriends. Kukin näistä järjestelmistä evaluoitiin kattavilla käyttäjäkokeilla, joiden tavoitteena oli laajentaa ymmärrystä ihmisten mobiilikuvien käytöstä sekä metatiedosta. Järjestelmien rakentamisesta ja niihin liittyvistä käyttäjäkokeista saadut tulokset voidaan jakaa kolmeen osaan. Ensiksi, tulosten kautta voidaan paremmin ymmärtää mobiilikuvien sosiaalista käyttöä: mitä kuvattiin, keille kuvia jaettiin ja minkälaista sosiaalista toimintaa syntyi. Toiseksi, tuloksia voidaan käyttää kuvienjakojärjestelmien suunnittelussa: gallerioiden käyttö, jakamisen kontrollointi, keskustelun tukeminen sekä tietoisuus ja tiedottaminen sosiaalisesta aktiivisuudesta. Kolmanneksi, mitä seuraamuksia kahdella edellisellä kohdalla on metatiedon suunnittelulle. Tärkeimmät seuraamukset ovat se, että henkilökohtainen tieto on kontekstuaalista, dynaamista ja semanttista, ja metatiedon sekä sitä käyttävien sovellusten välillä on vahva keskinäinen liitos. Näiden ongelmien ratkaisemiseksi ehdotamme sosiaalisen metatiedon käsitettä, joka käyttää hyväksi kuvienjakojärjestelmien sosiaalista aktiivisuutta. Käyttäjäkeskeinen lähestyminen suunnittelussa nostaa esille myös, että sisältöä kuvaavan metatiedon luomista pitäisi lähestyä useasta eri näkökulmasta – sosiaalinen metatieto, käyttäjien "tägit" ja konteksti-informaatio – perinteisen sisältöpohjaisen analyysin lisäksi.reviewe

Truncated RAP-MUSIC (TRAP-MUSIC) for MEG and EEG source localization

Electrically active brain regions can be located applying MUltiple SIgnal Classification (MUSIC) on magneto-or electroencephalographic (MEG; EEG) data. We introduce a new MUSIC method, called truncated recursively-applied-and-projected MUSIC (TRAP-MUSIC). It corrects a hidden deficiency of the conventional RAP-MUSIC algorithm, which prevents estimation of the true number of brain-signal sources accurately. The correction is done by applying a sequential dimension reduction to the signal-subspace projection. We show that TRAP-MUSIC significantly improves the performance of MUSIC-type localization; in particular, it successfully and robustly locates active brain regions and estimates their number. We compare TRAP-MUSIC and RAP-MUSIC in simulations with varying key parameters, e.g., signal-to-noise ratio, correlation between source time-courses, and initial estimate for the dimension of the signal space. In addition, we validate TRAP-MUSIC with measured MEG data. We suggest that with the proposed TRAP-MUSIC method, MUSIC-type localization could become more reliable and suitable for various online and offline MEG and EEG applications.Peer reviewe