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Minecraft as a Teaching Tool: Online Experiential Learning for the Law School Classroom
Maria Jose Schimdt-Kessen, Stina Teilmann-Lock, Florence Villesèche, Andrea Wallace
Article

  The full text of this Article may be found here.

35 Fordham Intell. Prop. Media & Ent. L.J. 1 (2024).

Article by Maria Jose Schmidt-Kessen, Stina Teilmann-Lock, Florence Villesèche, Andrea Wallace*

 

ABSTRACT

 

[T]

he Article explores the potential use of Minecraft for experiential learning in higher education. In theory and in practice, intellectual property (IP) questions increasingly arise around if or how digital art can be owned, shared, and reused, as well as how digital realities interact with the various legal regimes. In its sandbox environment, Minecraft allows players to explore these questions through collective co-creation and creative decision-making pertaining to the subsequent re-use of their digital creations. Players become better equipped to reflect on the process of copying, creating, and exploiting their digital creations using the legal tools offered by IP law, while also engaging with contractual limitations imposed by the game’s terms and conditions. Taken together, this approach enables normative discussions about the legal provisions governing digital copyright and the arts, as well as the technological or contractual fences surrounding digital creations on digital platforms. Most importantly, as we argue, it also enables teachers to become learners again, and alongside their students. In doing so, educators observe how interdisciplinary and experiential learning enables them to re-examine pedagogy, and practice, in addition to the substantive and theoretical concepts underlying the foundation of IP law.

 

* Assistant Professor, Central European University, Legal Studies Department; Associate Professor, Copenhagen Business School, Department of Law and Business Humanities; Associate Professor of Law & Technology, University of Exeter, Law School. Thank you to our excellent research assistant Josefine Lykkegaard. Thank you also to our ArTechLaw collaborators and colleagues, especially Isabella Alexander, Cristina Martinez, Cynthia Roman, Leonardo Impett, and Joy Twemlow. Lastly, a huge thank you to our Minecraft facilitators, Maia Lorentzen, Henrik Chulu, and Antonio Roberts. This research was supported by two grant-funded projects: the “Research Network on the Histories of Art, Technology and Law,” funded by the Danish Independent Research Fund, grant no. 9055-00075B, and “Hacking Copyright in the 21st Century: Art, Law, History and Technology,” funded by the Australian Research Council, grant no. ARCDP200101046.