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Source: US Global Legal Monitor
Join us this Thursday, September 7, at 1:00 p.m. EDT, as senior legal reference librarian Ann Hemmens provides an Orientation to Legal Research Webinar focusing on U.S. Case Law. This entry in the series will provide an overview of U.S. case law research, including information about the U.S. federal court system, the publication of court opinions, methods for researching case law, and information about locating records and briefs.
Please register here.
Source: US Global Legal Monitor
The Law Library of Congress is proud to present the report, Regulation of artificial intelligence around the world.
This report, prepared by the research staff of the Law Library of Congress, provides a list of jurisdictions in the world where legislation that specifically refers to artificial intelligence (AI) or systems utilizing AI have been adopted or proposed. (Aug. 2023)
Source: US Global Legal Monitor
The following is a guest post by Sabrina Holecko, a former intern with the Digital Resources Division of the Law Library of Congress. She is a graduate of the library and information science program at San Jose State University.
In honor of the Library of Congress Friends’ Choice Civics Video Game Challenge, we are bringing you a post about how video games interact with the law.
As technology advances, video games have moved from pixelated table tennis to characters making ethical choices in role-playing games (RPGs). Virtual reality has added another component to the immersive video game experience. These technological advancements have led to detailed graphics in all sorts of games, including games with violent story lines. When it comes to video game ratings, attempts have been made to balance free speech with parental concerns about exposing their children to certain imagery. Controversies have arisen over the years surrounding the Grand Theft Auto and Mortal Kombat series, for example, which has led to questions about who makes video game ratings. One source is the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB).
The Entertainment Software Rating Board
Established in 1994, this non-profit organization states that its “primary responsibility is to help consumers – especially parents – make informed choices about the games their families play.” One component of its work is creating the lettered rating labels you may have seen on game cases, but what those letters mean might be less clear.
ESRB has three different components included in the rating box found on the back corner of physical game cases. The first component is the rating category, which ranges from everyone (E) to adults only (AO). The second part of the rating highlights content parents may be interested in, such as language and sexual themes. Lastly, the ESRB provides information about interactive elements, such as in-app purchases. The video game industry has adopted this rating system voluntarily, but attempts have been made previously to regulate this process.
United States Legislation on Video Games
The issue of violence and video games is not new. Nearly 30 years ago, the Senate introduced the Video Game Rating Act of 1994, which called for establishing an agency called the Interactive Entertainment Rating Commission. According to the bill’s text, this commission was intended to “coordinate with the video game industry in the development of a voluntary system for providing information concerning the contents of video games to purchasers and users,” and create regulations related to video game ratings. No further action was taken on this measure after it was referred to a committee.
In the House, several bills have been introduced on this topic, but few have made significant strides in the legislative process. The Children Protection from Video Game Violence and Sexual Content Act of 2007 called for the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to research the ESRB’s system and report to Congress on whether it exposed children to excessive sexual and violent content. It also required the Comptroller General to research the impact that video games may have on children’s mental stability and growth. A few years later, in 2013, the Video Games Rating Enforcement Act was introduced. Among other stipulations, its text prohibited minors from renting, selling, or buying a video game with an AO label, with monetary penalties for people or businesses who violated these provisions. Most recently, legislation was introduced in the House “to address the effects of new technologies on children’s mental health,” although that bill did not identify video games directly.
Video Game Case Law
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled on one aspect of video game ratings and sales in Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Association. This case arose in 2005, when video game and software companies fought a California law restricting the sale of violent video games to minors. The video game producers prevailed, and the Court found that the California law was prohibited under the First Amendment. Several other states across America, such as Minnesota and Connecticut, have tried to pass similar legislation, but these measures have been struck down by federal courts. As video game improvements lead to realistic immersive experiences, more cases surrounding age restrictions in these formats could arise.
Subscribe to In Custodia Legis – it’s free! – to receive interesting posts drawn from the Law Library of Congress’s vast collections and our staff’s expertise in U.S., foreign, and international law.
Source: US Global Legal Monitor
The mission of the Law Library of Congress is to provide authoritative legal research, reference and instruction services, and access to an unrivaled collection of U.S., foreign, comparative, and international law. Here are some of the new resources you may have missed recently.
In August, we published 6 Guide to Law Online: Nations of the World:
In August, we published 13 posts to our blog, In Custodia Legis. Here are some highlights:
Sympathy for the Devil– Pic of the Week
Congress.gov New, Tip, and Top – August 2023 – Browse back to the First Congress
The Law Library’s New Report on Public Prosecution Reform in South Korea
The Smithsonian Institution: The History of the World’s Largest Museum and Research Complex
What’s in a Name? The Four U.S. States That Are Technically Commonwealths
New Law Library Report on Safety and Security of Artificial Intelligence Systems Published
Join Us for a Congress.gov Public Forum on September 13th!
Upcoming U.S. Law Webinars – September 2023
Ibrahim Muteferrika, First Muslim Printer of the Ottoman Empire
Legal Personality for Animals in India and Pakistan
Congress.gov New, Tip, and Top – August 2023, Part 2
The Global Legal Monitor is our online publication covering legal news and developments worldwide. These are the articles from August:
Netherlands: Doxing Criminalized
Uganda: Penal Code Provisions on Sedition, Publication of False News, and Vagrancy Repealed
China: Government Issues First Regulation on Private Investment Funds
Jordan: Two Honor-Killing Cases Transferred to Criminal Court for Trial
Egypt: New Amendments Regulating Child Custody and Alimony Proposed
Netherlands: Bill to Regulate Surrogacy Introduced
Bahrain: New Law Repeals Penal Code Provision Exempting Rapists from Punishment
Germany: Government Publishes Federal Aid Framework for Green Transformation Technologies
Lithuania: Constitutional Court Rules Use of Non-Lithuanian Characters Permissible in Documents
Germany: New “Skilled Workers Immigration Act” Enacted
Germany: Government Proposes Act to Regulate Recreational Cannabis
Iraq: Ministry of Health Faces Difficulties in Implementing Anti-smoking Law
China: Regulation Issued for Consular Protection and Assistance
Tunisia: President Calls for Strict Enforcement of Anti-monopoly Decree
Here are the webinars and events coming up in September:
9/7 at 1:00 PM: Orientation to Legal Research Webinar Series – U.S. Case Law
9/13 at 1:00 – 3:00 PM: a Congress.gov Public Forum
9/19 at 1:00 PM: Orientation to Law Library Collections Webinar Series
9/28 at 2:00 PM: Israel’s Legal Reforms – a Foreign and Comparative Law Webinar
Source: US Global Legal Monitor
Library of Congress Awards 2023-2024 National Stereoscopic Association Research Fellowships
The Library of Congress today announced Rachel Lee Hutcheson, Isabelle Lynch and Lynn Marie Mitchell as its next class of fellows awarded the National Stereoscopic Association Research Fellowship.
Established in 2022 with a generous monetary donation from the National Stereoscopic Association, the fellowship supports research on stereoscopy and the history of photography within the Prints and Photographs Division holdings and the unparalleled photographic history collections at the Library of Congress — including over 15 million photographs, rare publications, manuscript materials and historic newspapers.
Stereographs are paired photographs that provide an illusion of three-dimensionality when placed in a special viewer called a stereoscope. They were among the first photographic entertainment formats that became popular from the Civil War to the early decades of the 20th century when new technologies like motion pictures captured the public’s attention. Recent technical innovations, including virtual reality, have brought renewed focus to both the history and continued use of the stereo format.
The Library’s Prints and Photographs Division is the premier research center for photographs in this format, holding stereographs dating from early daguerreotypes in the 1850s to published sets from the 1930s. Over 52,000 have been digitized and are available online at https://www.loc.gov/pictures/collection/stereo/.
National Stereoscopic Association Research Fellows
Rachel Lee Hutcheson, a Ph.D. candidate in art history and archaeology at Columbia University was awarded $1,000 to conduct research in the Frederic Eugene Ives and Herbert Eugene Ives Papers in the Manuscript Division at the Library in September 2023. Hutcheson’s dissertation explores epistemological shifts in the understanding of early color photography (1890-1920) within contemporaneous scientific and social debates. Frederic Ives was a pivotal figure in the development of color stereoscopic photography and the technology for its presentation through projection.
Isabelle Lynch, a Ph.D. candidate in the history of art at the University of Pennsylvania, was awarded $4,000 for “Subterranean Fire: Artificial Illumination in Underground Photography and Images of the World Under Water,” the third chapter of her dissertation, “Flash Light: Photography and Artificial Illumination c. 1839-1939.” Her work explores the practice of 19th century subterranean photography and its parallels to notions of western expansion through the materials extracted from the earth that made artificial illumination possible. During her fellowship in September 2023, Lynch will explore the Prints and Photographs Division’s collections of artificial light stereographs of Mammoth Cave and textual and photographic material in the Frances Benjamin Johnston collection documenting her exploration of the caverns.
Lynn Marie Mitchell, an independent researcher and former archivist for the National Park Service and Western Archeological and Conservation Center, was awarded $4,000 for “The Interpersonal Relationships Among 19th Century Photographers: Ard G. Emery, Brainard F. Childs, Charles D. Cole and Christian B. Brubaker.” Mitchell will conduct research in November 2023 and March 2024 across the Library’s photographic, manuscript and newspaper collections and the records of the U.S. Copyright Office to identify primary source materials on Ard G. Emery, Brainard F. Childs, Christian B. Brubaker and Charles D. Cole, four photographers from the Upper Peninsula of Michigan who knew each other and worked together for over 15 years.
The National Stereoscopic Association Research Fellowship is awarded annually by the Library. Additional information about the fellowship is available at this link: https://www.loc.gov/rr/print/national_stereoscopic.html.
The Library of Congress is the world’s largest library, offering access to the creative record of the United States — and extensive materials from around the world — both on-site and online. It is the main research arm of the U.S. Congress and the home of the U.S. Copyright Office. Explore collections, reference services and other programs and plan a visit at loc.gov; access the official site for U.S. federal legislative information at congress.gov; and register creative works of authorship at copyright.gov.
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Media Contact: Brett Zongker, bzongker@loc.gov
Public Contact: Micah Messenheimer, stereofellow@loc.gov
PR 23-078
08-31-2023
ISSN 0731-3527