[Air-L] Video Game Research - Fair Use?

Patricia Aufderheide paufder at american.edu
Fri May 6 06:14:28 PDT 2016


Well, said, Dan, thank you for the nuances and the help to Ben! And I do
hope that US researchers can gain greater awareness of their resources
through this exchange, and that Ben gets to do his research with the hope
that Dan holds out!

On Thu, May 5, 2016 at 10:10 PM, Dan L. Burk <dburk at uci.edu> wrote:

> Benjamin's question is rather more complicated than that.
>
> I was on a panel in London a few weeks ago, and was surprised to learn
> that UK courts do not treat video games as audiovisual works, as they would
> be in the U.S.  The concept is not available to them, which has produced
> some fairly "dodgy" (as my UK colleagues would say) jurisprudence regarding
> computer games.
>
> My instinct is that what Benjamin wants to do, display and/or performance
> of a lawfully owned copy of a game, is probably outside the exclusive
> rights of the copyright holder, and you would never need to reach the fair
> dealing issue.  But I am poignantly aware of my own limitations on the
> subject, which is why I recommended talking to some actual experts.
>
> One of the benefits of an international organization (and an international
> listserv) is that one learns to become somewhat more modest about the reach
> of one's localized knowledge.  Which is a valuable thing.
>
> DLB
>
>
>
> On 2016-05-05 15:50, Patricia Aufderheide wrote:
>
> So true that copyright law is nationally based! Thank you for that
> reminder, Dan! So use the copyright law where you are based. In some
> nations, fair dealing can either be ample (Canada's fair dealing in some
> cases allows for more amplitude than US fair use!), specifically exempt
> research, or have unsuspected crevices. Some nations have a "right of
> quotation" clause that can be filled with practice--among them South
> Africa, and all the Scandinavian nations. So definitely explore your
> options!
>
> On Thu, May 5, 2016 at 6:46 PM, Dan L. Burk <dburk at uci.edu> wrote:
>
>> Please see my previous message regarding fair dealing in the UK.
>>
>> I am a big fan of the fair use best practices project for the U.S., and
>> possibly for jurisdictions like Israel that have emulated the U.S., but the
>> doctrine is not universal.  YMMV.
>>
>> Regards, DLB
>>
>>
>>
>> On 2016-05-05 15:05, Patricia Aufderheide wrote:
>>
>> Delighted to share with you clear guidance from communication researchers,
>> where you can see the practices that will put you squarely within fair use
>> for your research:http://archive.cmsimpact.org/fair-use/related-materials/codes/code-best-practices-fair-use-scholarly-research-communication
>> (look at the third category)
>> Created by ICA scholars and endorsed as well by NCA. On their websites,
>> it's only a PDF but if you want to be assured that a national association
>> of scholars has vetted this, here are the two websites:http://www.icahdq.org/pubs/reports/fairuse.pdfhttps://www.natcom.org/uploadedFiles/More_Scholarly_Resources/Publishing_Primer/PDF-publishingprimer-fair_use.pdf
>>
>>
>> On Thu, May 5, 2016 at 6:02 PM, Benjamin Turpin <b.turpin at outlook.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>> Hello all, I'm in the process of planning a research project that will
>> involve recording how players emotionally and cognitively respond to
>> particular types of video games. I'm hoping to allow participants to play a
>> commercially available game for 60-90 minutes in lab conditions. There will
>> be three different games with ten participants for each game. I had
>> intended to use my personal copies of these games (purchased on Steam) for
>> the experiment, but am unsure if this would make me legally vulnerable
>> without seeking permission of the developers. Does anyone have any
>> knowledge of whether this type of distribution would be considered 'fair
>> use' of copyrighted materials? Any advice much appreciated! Ben Turpin PhD
>> Student, Sociology University of Essex
>> _______________________________________________ The
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>>
>>
>> --
>> Patricia Aufderheide, University Professor and Founder
>> Center for Media & Social Impact, School of Communication
>> American University
>> 4400 Massachusetts Av., NW
>> American University, Washington, DC 20016-8017
>> McKinley Hall 323
>> @paufder @cmsimpactwww.cmsimpact.org <http://www.centerforsocialmedia.org/>paufder at american.edu202-643-5356
>>
>> Sample *Reclaiming Fair Use! * <http://cmsimpact.org/reclaiming>
>>
>> Order Reclaiming Fair Use: How to Put Balance Back in Copyright, University
>> of Chicago Press, 2011.
>> <http://www.amazon.com/Reclaiming-Fair-Use-Balance-Copyright/dp/0226032280/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1321544105&sr=8-2>
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>>
>>
>
> --
> School of Law
> University of California, Irvine
> 4500 Berkeley Place
> Irvine, CA  92697-8000
> Voice: (949) 824-9325
> Fax: (949)824-7336
> bits: dburk at uci.edu
>
>



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