Article: Moore, Christopher. 2005. “Commonising The Enclosure: Online Games And Reforming Intellectual Property Regimes.” Australian Journal of Emerging Technologies and Society 3(2).

We missed this important essay when it appeared, but it seems important enough to mention again, here is the abstract:

“The purpose is to examine the potential for computer game studies to contribute to an understanding of an alternative intellectual property regime known as the commons. This paper will explore how computer games users establish commons-like formations, specific to the digital environment, that extend the confines of current intellectual property rights. It will argue that the productive activities of online gamers are not motivated by the traditional logic of market-based incentives. This represents a new condition which may contribute to a reformation of the privatising enclosure of the intellectual property system.”

In the Gaming section of our wiki, we have references to some other important articles related to gaming as a peer to peer activity:

*Games as P2P Utopia: Alexander Galloway on the World of Warcraft and Utopia

*Game Modding and Education: excerpts of a thesis on using entertainment for education, that goes beyond the failed edutainment model.

*The Power of Play: essay by Pat Kane for Soundings magazine. In conversation with Ephemara in Dialoguing Play

*Play Struggle, excerpts of the book Hacking Capitalism by Johan Soderbergh.

*Considering Participatory Design and Governance in Player Culture by T.L. Taylor: Players are central productive agents in game culture and more progressive models are needed for understanding and integrating their work in these spaces. Drawing on the long tradition of participatory design this piece explores some alternative frameworks for understanding the designer/player relationship.

*The Governance of Virtual Worlds. Thomas M. Malaby (focuses on Second Life as case study)
Inequality in Synthetic Worlds. Edward Castronova.

*Video Games for Politics, Activism and Advocacy. Ian Bogost.

*Klang, Mathias, “Avatar: From Deity to Corporate Property – A Philosophical Inquiry into Digital Property in Online Games

*Contrasting Proprietary and Free/Open Source Game Development, Alessandro Rossi & Marco Zamarian

Of particular interest to us are the activities of the Virtual Citizens Association, and of the Organization for Transformative Works

There’s a lot more in that section, thanks for checking it out and telling us what we’re missing about open and free gaming.