Institute for Information Law & Policy

5th Annual State of Play Conference on Law & Virtual Worlds to examine "Building the Global Metaverse"

PRESS CONTACT: Nancy Guida, nguida@nyls.edu

Fifth Annual State of Play Conference on Law and Virtual Worlds to examine "Building the Global Metaverse"

Participants will explore the transnational dimensions of the metaverse and the impact of virtual
environments on education, law, politics, and society.

DATE: August 19-22, 2007

EVENT: State of Play V: Building the Global Metaverse

DESCRIPTION: The State of Play Conference is a pioneering global conference that takes place annually. Focusing on virtual worlds, the conference convenes experts across disciplines to discuss the future of cyberspace and the impact of these new immersive, social online environments on education, law, politics and society. The hallmark of the conference is its multi-disciplinary perspective.

CONVENED BY: New York Law School in partnership with Harvard Law School, Yale Law School, Trinity University, and Nanyang Technological University in Singapore.

SPEAKERS INCLUDE:

• John Seely Brown, Author of "The Social Life of Information"
• Mike Wilson, CEO, Makena Technologies, There.com
• Hui Xu, Founder and CEO, HiPiHi, China
• Andy Zaffron, EVP/General Counsel, Sony Online Entertainment Everquest
• Guntram Graef, Co-Founder, Anshe Chung Studios, China
• Cory Ondrejka, Chief Technology Officer, Linden Lab
• Peng Hwa Ang, Chairperson, School of Communication and Information, Nanyang Technological University
• Jeffrey Paffendorf,  Futurist-in-residence, Electric Sheep Foundation and Research Director,    Accelerating Change Foundation
• Richard Bartle, Creator of MUD1
• Herbert Burkert, Professor of Public Law, Information and Communication Law, Research Centre for Information Law, University of St. Gallen, Switzerland

PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS:
Experts from around the world speaking about:

• Cross-cultural communication and avatar-to-avatar diplomacy
• Strategies for understanding behaviors and values of virtual world residents
• Regulating speech, property, and addiction in the metaverse
• Building transnational businesses in virtual worlds
• Using virtual environments to teach students of all ages
• Space, place, and virtual world cultures

Two new documentaries about how global virtual worlds intersect with real-world economies and social structures will be presented:

• GOLD FARMERS (Ge Jin, 2007)
• IDEAL WORLD (Snyder, Thomas, and Portocarrero, 2007).

SPONSORS: Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore, Media Development Authority of Singapore, Ministry of Information, Communications and the Arts (Singapore), MacArthur Foundation, Sony Online Entertainment, Kenyon & Kenyon, and There.com

LOCATION: The Marina Mandarin hotel, Singapore. Learn more about hotel accommodations and the program at www.nyls.edu/stateofplay

***NO ATTENDANCE CHARGE FOR MEMBERS OF THE PRESS***

State of Play Academy - Spring 2007 Semester

We are delighted to announce the State of Play Academy (SOPA) Spring Semester will start Monday April 23 2007 and run thru June 8, 2007.  SOPA is a virtual space for conversations about law and technology located in There.com.

We are offering conversations in three tracks:
* Paper Workshops- presentations by scholars of papers related to law and technology.
* Issue Conversations- group discussions of current events and emerging issues in law and technology.
* How-to's- practical advise on all sorts issues that confront ordinary Internet users.

More information, including how to log on and participate in SOPA classes at: http://stateofplayacademy.com/

We will be adding more classes as the semester progresses. We will add them to the website and post them on our blog. You can also join our mailing list to get regular updates to our schedule.
http://stateofplayacademy.com/mod/resource/view.php?id=20

Please let us know if you are interested in leading one of our conversations this semester as we have some slots available.

Hope to see you in There!

-Lauren Gelman
Dean, State of Play Academy
Gelman at Stanford dot edu
______________________________

SCHEDULED CONVERSATIONS

(listed by track, a calender view is available at http://stateofplayacademy.com/)

(1) Paper Workshops- presentation by scholars of papers related to law and technology.

Law and Search Engines
Wednesday, 2 May (04:00 PM » 05:00 PM)
James Grimmelmann
NYLS

Public disclosure and the Fourth Amendment
Monday, 7 May (03:00 PM » 04:00 PM)
Jennifer Granick
Stanford Law School

Revolving Door No More: Inevitable Disclosure and Its Potential Impact on Technological Public Infrastructure
Tuesday, 8 May (11:30 AM » 12:30 PM)
David Levine
Stanford law School

Indirect Enforcement of the Intellectual Property Clause
Tuesday, 8 May (01:00 PM » 02:00 PM)
Chris Sprigman
University of Virginia Law School

Why Privacy Injuries are the Environmental Damage of the Information Age, and What This Can Tell Us About How to Protect Privacy
Tuesday, 15 May (01:10 PM » 02:10 PM)
Dennis D. Hirsch, Associate Dean and Professor, Capital University Law School

Keywording Advertising in Search Engines and Trademark infringement: Challenges to the 'Trademark Use' Doctrine
Thursday, 17 May (10:00 AM » 11:00 AM)
Zohar Efroni, Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Intellectual Property, Competition and Tax Law

Claims of Copyright Misuse based on First Amendment Interests
Wednesday, 30 May (12:00 PM » 01:00 PM)
David Olson
Stanford Law School

(2) Issue Conversations- group discussions of current events and emerging issues in law and technology.

The Viacom-Youtube Lawsuit
Monday, 23 April (02:00 PM » 03:00 PM)
David Post, I. Herman Stern Professor of Law, Temple University Law School

Using Second Life and the Concept of Virtual Property in a First Year Property Law Course
Monday, 30 April (12:00 PM » 01:00 PM)
Elizabeth Townsend Gard, visiting assistant professor at Seattle University School of Law

A SOPA Panel on Local cultures in the global media space
Thursday, 3 May (10:00 AM » 11:00 AM)
In cooperation with the Budapest University of Technology - Center for Media Research and Education.

Current Trends in Interoperability
Monday, 21 May (01:00 PM » 02:00 PM)
Stefan Bechtold, Senior Research Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods

Every Move You Make: Location Tracking and the Law
Wednesday, 23 May (04:00 PM » 05:00 PM)
Kevin Bankston, staff attorney, Electronic Frontier Foundation

IP policies of the US in free trade agreeements with developing countries
Friday, 1 June (04:30 PM » 05:30 PM)
Andres F Umana, Brigard & Urrutia (a Colombian law firm).

(3) How-to's- practical advise on all sorts issues that confront ordinary Internet users.

Privacy Policies: Why Cookie Cutter Won't Cut It
Wednesday, 25 April (11:00 AM » 12:00 PM)
Jonathan I. Ezor, Touro Law

Election 2008 and the Remix Culture
Friday, 11 May (12:00 PM » 01:00 PM)
Lauren Gelman, Dean of State of Play Academy
Associate Director of the Center for Internet and Society at Stanford Law School.

The P2P Patent Project
Beth Noveck, NYLS

The FCC CPNI Order
Chris Hoofnagle, Boalt, Samuelson Clinic

State of Play/Terra Nova Symposium 2006

New York Law School hosted the State of Play/Terra Nova Symposium over the December 1-2, 2006 weekend.  Sponsored by Makena Technologies/There.com, this academic Symposium was allied with Terra Nova, the blog about the serious study of virtual worlds.  The Symposium gathered researchers, scholars, and industry professionals together to discuss research related to virtual worlds.  Panel topics included: How Did we Get Here?, Governance and Groups, Methodologies and Metrics, Gender and Diversity, Tax and Finance, and Virtual Worlds & Learning.  The Symposium was intentionally designed to be a small event, with attendance capped at 60 participants.

Coverage of the 2006 State of Play/Terra Nova Symposium

General Coverage

• Webcast on iTunes available here
• CNET article Who Governs Virtual Worlds? by Daniel Terdiman
• Jesper Juul discusses at The Ludologist.com
• Ralph Koster discusses on his website
• Mark Wallace discusses at 3pointD.com

Panel on Taxing Virtual Gaming Assets

• Read the Slashdot post on Taxing Virtual Gaming Assets
• CNET article IRS Taxation of Online Game Virtual Assets Inevitable by Daniel Terdiman

Panel Webcasts

State of Play/Terra Nova Symposium – Welcome by Dean Matasar

State of Play/Terra Nova Symposium – How Did We Get Here?

State of Play/Terra Nova Symposium – Governance & Groups

State of Play/Terra Nova Symposium – Methodologies & Metrics

State of Play/Terra Nova Symposium – Gender & Diversity

State of Play/Terra Nova Symposium – Virtual Worlds & Learning

State of Play/Terra Nova Symposium – Where To Now?

Upcoming State of Play Academy Classes

Details at: http://stateofplayacademy.com/course/view.php?id=11

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Thursday Oct 5, 2006 5:30-6:30 PM PST
Campaigns Caught in the Web

Teacher: Jennifer Granick, Wired News Columnist and Executive Director, Center for Internet and Society

Elected officials, and those who wish to be elected, can't seem to figure out how to use this darn "internet". This class will look at recent campaign foibles, from the "hacking" of the Joe Lieberman for Senate website, California Governor Arnold Schwartzenegger's uploading his unguarded conversations with his speech writers to a webserver, the resignation of Democrat Amy Klobuchar's communications director after a blogger sent her an unaired TV attack ad from the opponent's campaign for the Minnesota Senate seat, and the resignation of New Hampshire Congressman Charles Bass' aide after disclosures that he posed as a supporter of the Republican's opponent in blog messages intended to convince people that the race was not competitive. We will look at the laws that govern access to andpublication of information, and how those laws apply in the crucibleof the American campaign season.

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Tuesday Oct 10, 2006 5:30-6:30 PM PST
Patentable Subject Matter: The Problem of the Absent Gatekeeper

Teacher: David Olson, Center for Internet and Society Fellow

The federal courts used to act as gatekeepers who determined which sorts of inventions (which "subject matter" in patent-speak) should be patentable and which should not. The clear theory underlying this role was that some sorts of inventions simply should not be patentable. With the advent of computer software and the information age, however, the courts faced an assault on their old tests for whether a type of subject matter should be patentable. The courts reacted to this assault by abandoning the barricades and allowing patentability for virtually any sort of invention.

David Olson will present a lecture based on his paper arguing that the courts should have kept to the barricades, and that if they won'tremount them, then Congress should delegate the patentable subject matter gatekeeper role to someone who will.

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Thursday October 12, 2006 5:30-6:30 PM PST
NSA Warrentless Surveillance Cases and the Impact of New Legislation

Teacher: Kevin Bankston,  Electronic Frontier Foundation

Kevin Bankston will discuss the law and technology of the National Security Agency's domestic surveillance program, giving updates on EFF's current lawsuit against AT&T for cooperating with the NSA and on the progress of other litigation and legislation relevant to the government's telephone and Internet surveillance powers.

NYLS and IILP's Democracy Island Featured on NY1 TV

On July 19, 2006, New York 1 Television covered New York Law School's Democracy Island in a feature story.  The webcast and transcript of Reporter Adam Balkin's interview with Prof. Beth Noveck and Democracy Island architect, Hiro Pendragon aka Ron Blechner, discussing the Landing Lights Park project are available on-line.  As the story reports: "In the actual world, Landing Lights Park near LaGuardia in Queens is slated for redevelopment, but to save some money on cost, the local planning board picked up the park, so to speak, and dropped it into Democracy Island."  The virtual world, with its tools to re-create physical spaces, is ideal for such planning projects, not only because it makes it easy to experiment with urban and lanscape design and architecture but because it makes it easy to do so collaboratively.  Democracy Island is a place where people can come together to plan the future of their communities together.

State of Play Time Capsules

The State of Play Time Capsules, video interviews with leading thinkers on the future of virtual worlds, law and society, are now up on the web at: http://www.nyls.edu/stateofplay.

David Johnson on Radio Show

Professor David Johnson appeared on the Kojo Namdi radio show program regarding avatars and virtual worlds, along with Ed Castronova (the leading economist in this area) and Philip Rosedale (CEO, Second Life), both State of Play regulars. The show generated heavy call in traffic. The Democracy Island project undertaken by New York Law School students was mentioned as an example of the application of this new technology to the real world problems of eDemocracy.