'Chaotic Lawful': Teaching Videogames in a Licensing and Permissions Lacuna

ABSTRACT

In theory, the uses outlined above are likely to be covered by fair dealing or fair use exceptions, such as they are provided, for example, in the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, [1] [#N1] and in the US Copyright Act of 1976 [2] [#N2], as well as in various amendments and relevant case law. In practice however, such uses can easily fall prey to the algorithmic Digital Rights Management (DRM) tools now commonly used by popular online platforms to deal with the overwhelming task of monitoring ever-increasing amounts of user-generated content. [...]by 2017 "platforms employing AI-driven, automated copyright enforcement schemes included Scribd, 4shared, Dropbox, YouTube, Facebook, SoundCloud, Twitch, TuneCore, Tumblr, Veoh, and Vimeo." Survey and discussion Some initial impetus behind this paper came from an attempt by Abertay University lecturers and a librarian with subject-area expertise to utilise the Steam PC Café (SPCC) program, which is designed to offer multi-user access to videogames available through the popular Steam platform. [...]the effort was soon put on hold when a number of issues arose hardware requirements were difficult to balance with available resources the platform's frequent updates would require oversight by IT staff;it was not clear how the data collection protocols of the platform would align with the university's data protection policies;and, perhaps most importantly, it was discovered that licenses for many of the games slated for inclusion in the syllabus (such as Return of the Obra Dinn, Dear Esther, What Remains of Edith Finch and Hellblade Senna's Sacrifice) were not available through the program.