The Roundtable
Welcome to the Roundtable, a forum for incisive commentary and analysis
on cases and developments in law and the legal system.
on cases and developments in law and the legal system.
 By Jonathan Stahl
Jonathan Stahl is a rising senior at the University of Pennsylvania majoring in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics (PPE) with a minor in American Public Policy. On July 9th, 2013, the eve of the largest American fighting video game tournament, tournament organizers received a message from Nintendo of America, owners of the 2001 GameCube best seller, Super Smash Bros. Melee. [1] The letter explained Nintendo’s intention to prevent the event from being held. In the end, after intense blowback by fans on social media and gaming news sites, Nintendo reversed its decision and granted the Evolution 2013 tournament permission to host and stream the event. [2] Although the tournament was a smash hit and the Melee stream garnered a record breaking 134,000 simultaneous live viewers, the message from Nintendo remained a stark reminder to video game streamers that their ability use video game content to entertain viewers is ultimately at the discretion of the video game publishers under current copyright law. The current Copyright Law of the United States dictates that copyright violation occurs when one “publicly performs” copyrighted content without a license. [3] The code explains that public performances include not only displaying copyrighted content in public to a substantial number of individuals, but also disseminating electronic copies of the content. With these copyright protections in place, video game publishers have legal authority to ban public tournaments and online video makers from featuring content from their games. Given the explosive popularity and profitability of video game live streaming and uploading onto game-sharing sites, the legal issues of copyright and video game footage has become a salient discussion in recent years.
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By Jonathan Stahl
Jonathan Stahl is a junior at the University of Pennsylvania majoring in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics (PPE) with a minor in American Public Policy. On October 6th, Brittnay Maynard was featured in a YouTube video uploaded by the advocacy group Compassion & Choices, in which she explained on that November 1st she would exercise her right to physician-assisted suicide. She would do so in the comfort of her own home, surrounded by friends and family. Maynard was diagnosed with an aggressive form of brain cancer in early 2014; in April, she was told that she had six months to live. Given her bleak prognosis and deteriorating quality of life, which included violent, frequent seizures and painfully debilitating headaches, Maynard and her husband decided that it would be best for her to seek physician-assisted suicide rather than let the disease run its course. [1]  By Jonathan Stahl
Jonathan Stahl is a junior at the University of Pennsylvania majoring in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics (PPE) with a minor in American Public Policy. Jeffrey Deskovic was a 16-year-old student at Peekskill High School in 1989 when one of his classmates, Angela Correa, was brutally raped and murdered in a forest nearby. Jeffrey caught the attention of local investigators when he seemed suspiciously emotional at a memorial service for Angela and fit the psychological profile of the perpetrator that an NYPD specialist had created. [1] Peekskill officers then visited the high school during the school day, asked Jeffrey to come with them to a nearby county’s police station where they interrogated him for at least six hours. Deskovic was subjected to abrasive behavior and intimidation by the officers, as well as a polygraph test. He eventually confessed to the crime while crying on the floor in the fetal position, after one interrogator told him that if he did not confess the other officers were going to enter the room and assault him. Deskovic was promised that after he confessed he could go home and would receive psychological counseling rather than jail time. [2] |
