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Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:
In August, Milwaukee's Lake Park saw swarms of Pokémon Go players, some of whom trampled and trashed the area, making a general nuisance of themselves. Not everyone behaved badly, as John Dargle, Jr, director of the Milwaukee County Department of Parks, Recreation & Culture, acknowledged in a letter [PDF] at the time. But a subset of thoughtless gamers created enough of a burden that Milwaukee County Supervisor Sheldon Wasserman proposed an ordinance [PDF] to require augmented reality game makers to obtain a permit to use county parks in their apps.
The ordinance was approved and took effect in January. It has become a solution waiting for a problem – according to a spokesperson for Milwaukee County, no game maker has bothered to apply for a permit since then.
[...] Nonetheless, in April, Candy Lab, a maker of augmented reality games based in Nevada, filed a lawsuit "out of genuine fear and apprehension that this ordinance, conceptually and as written, poses a mortal threat not only to Candy Lab AR's new location-based augmented reality game, but also to its entire business model, and, indeed, to the emerging medium of augmented reality as a whole."
-- submitted from IRC
(Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Saturday June 10 2017, @08:20PM (17 children)
Oh, to be clear -- I'm not saying that I agree all such restrictions are necessarily a good idea, even for physical businesses operating partly in the park. But I do think the starting place should be equivalence of regulation between online and offline. Uber and Airbnb, etc. have sometimes correctly drawn attention to overly bureaucratic restrictions or even outright corruption. But that's not the argument the plaintiff appears to be making in this lawsuit, which is apparently centered on how this is burdensome on "augmented reality" apps and such.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 10 2017, @08:31PM (9 children)
But there is no commercial use of the parks in these circumstances. The difference between a person walking through the park sending texts on their phone and looking for Pokémon on their phone is which app is currently the active/front-most app on their phone.
(Score: 4, Informative) by AthanasiusKircher on Saturday June 10 2017, @08:43PM (8 children)
Pokemon Go crossed the billion-dollar revenue threshold earlier this year [techcrunch.com]. An essential feature relies on people exploring locations to generate that revenue.
Are you rewarded for sending texts from specific locations in a public park? Does the company earn revenue from your actions happening in a specific location?
Pokemon Go, as I understand it (I've never been even vaguely interested in playing), made a lot of choices about where to locate various things in real life based on how popular such locations might be with users, etc. I assume that's why it chose to "locate" game features in public parks. When texting companies start encouraging people to congregate and send texts in parks for some reason -- to generate PROFIT -- we can have a discussion about what they're doing with their apps too.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 10 2017, @09:08PM
Some texts still result in a charge per text. If someone sends text from a park bench does the city get a piece of that charge? What about someone sitting under a tree in a park who donates money to a charity because the concert they are watching on their phone prompted them with a short code?
Since you don't understand how Pokémon works (I have never played it but I have nieces who have) you don't buy anything at a location. You only discover the Pokémon characters running around and you "capture" them (actually capture a token for that particular type of discovery, similar to an electronic version of geocaching).
(Score: 2) by frojack on Saturday June 10 2017, @09:11PM (5 children)
The Short answer is NO.
The almost as short answer is NO. https://techboomers.com/t/pokemon-go-prices [techboomers.com]
It has nothing to do with WHERE you are when (or if) you decide to spend ANY money in the game. Most players are kids, and most players don't ever spend a single DIME on the game.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Saturday June 10 2017, @09:26PM (4 children)
Let me rephrase: did the company make choices about where to require key events to take place in order to make its product perform better? Did such design choices cause the product to perform better? I think so. If product performance was improved, did revenues increase? Yes.
Anyhow, let's take a step back here, because I actually view the taxation aspect of the permit regulations to be the most controversial. Even IF we conclude that there is no commercial interest here, a company encouraging people to go certain places without adequate planning could definitely create a public nuisance or something. Even non-profit organizations are frequently required to obtain permits if they want to use public parks for their activities.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by frojack on Saturday June 10 2017, @09:37PM (3 children)
You mean like establishing the park in the first place? Then building parking lots and sidewalks near it? Then licensing vendors and pay toilets to make park use more pleasant? All to build an Attractive Nuisance!!
So we should prosecute the cities themselves, or the citizens who demanded (and paid for) those parks? Where was their planning? Where was their fences and gates and posted hours and police? How irresponsible!
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by AthanasiusKircher on Saturday June 10 2017, @10:42PM (2 children)
You seem to be unfamiliar with the notion of the tragedy of the commons [wikipedia.org].
As it was once explained by a philosophy professor, let's say you REALLY love to walk around on grass in your bare feet. So you do down to the public park every night, and take off your shoes, and walk around on the grass -- and you enjoy yourself. Fantastic.
Now imagine if every single person in the city went to the park and did the same thing every day. After a couple months, there is no grass left, and thus no resource for ANYONE to enjoy.
Public parks ARE a public resource. But they are designed with specific use cases in mind, including specific volumes of people, specific kinds of events, perhaps specific design issues to either encourage or discourage crowds in certain locations. If you violate those use cases, you may make the park less valuable as a resource for everyone. People DID complain about the crowds created by Pokemon Go. Are all of their complaints about the use of public resources invalid?
So, what does the city have to do if the grass starts to die in the above scenario? It passes regulations over the use of the grass in the parks. That's its right to protect the appropriate use of the park as determined by voters for all citizens of the city. That's what it's doing here. If citizens of the city disagree with the necessity for such permits, let them take that up with their elected representatives.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Sunday June 11 2017, @12:37AM (1 child)
On the contrary, you are clearly unfamiliar with it. This has NOTHING to do with that.
There exists no commons in modern cities. Certainly not American cities. BLM lands are the closest example in the US, but even those lands have usage regulations.
The parks are already maintained by city government, with regulations and a budget and a maintenance staff, and hours of operation, and police patrols. NOTHING at all like the tragedy of the commons.
Stay in school!
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Sunday June 11 2017, @04:41PM
Etymological fallacy combined with a variant of No True Scotsman.
(Score: 2) by edIII on Saturday June 10 2017, @09:26PM
You've nailed the distinction. Profit.
There will be some sort of "Fair Use" augmentation to prevent 1st Amendment issues from arising, but any commercial augmentation provider would need to cover the usage fees that their customers cause. No different than parks hosting county fairs and whatnot, or even a private road. If one person starts running a business with 50 people showing up to work each day, they cause 50 more cars to be on the road with the associated wear and tear. Their share of road costs is no longer equal with everyone else.
Causing hundreds of people to enter the park, running around hysterically like idiots, is in fact a usage and resource issue. Organizers need to play by the rules, and when augmented reality is explicitly designed to interact with reality, there is functionally no difference between a real event hosted on public grounds. If the augmented reality is not designed to host events, play games, or as a matter of design entice and reward people for accessing an area, then it should be free to do whatever it wants.
I dunno about some of the points. The bathrooms and parking fees seem to be a bit extreme, but again, that should just conform with what any other organizer would experience in an event like a fair where roads and businesses are impacted. Of course, it would be determined on a local basis.
There is a degree of nuance that is missing here, but the law can evolve to address it. It would be interesting to study it first and determine the impact on public resources before deciding that a law is required. As for the vandalism and other undesirable behavior, enforce existing laws.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by frojack on Saturday June 10 2017, @08:51PM (6 children)
You're very far from clear. I don't believe you've thought this through at all.
Pokémon Go is world wide in scope, no more focused on this one park than any other location world wide. It does not Schedule events. It does not control where people go. Further more it is statically and dynamically crowd sourced, the more people go someplace the more that place becomes interesting for a period of time.
Just how many permits should a company have to get for any activity they MAY "generate?" depending on the WHIM of thousands of individuals world wide?. From how many such authorities? How long in advance? At what price?
Does google maps need to apply for permits to show roads, parks, beaches? What about post cards saying Wish You Were Here, and showing beaches on Waikiki? Does NASA need a permit to publicize a Solar Eclipse on Aug 21 simply because the track of totality is known in advance and every hotel room in that track is already booked?
This borders on absurdity, and equating it with a scheduled event is not helpful. Neither is being an apologist for yet another government money grab.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Saturday June 10 2017, @09:32PM (5 children)
I've thought it through a lot.
Here's the thing: did this company deliberate decide to locate certain "objectives" or whatever at a higher concentration in public parks compared to the distribution across the earth in general? Did it benefit from doing so, directly or indirectly?
They CAN control where people go to a great extent based on where they place objectives. From my understanding -- and please correct me if I'm wrong -- the game frequently locates objectives in prominent public locations because it's easy to draw crowds there. (My sense is that they've also received some corporate sponsorship for some of the locations, or am I just misremembering a news story about that?)
IF the designers of Pokemon Go spread their objectives evenly across the face of the Earth, you could legitimately argue that they had no control over where people went -- since a choice to go to a park and look for Pokemon would be just as likely or unlikely to yield "results" for players as anywhere else. IF -- as I sense -- that's NOT true, and they designed the game in such a way that it would draw crowds to certain locations, THEN they ARE to some extent responsible for where people go.
And yes, this may create a HUGE burden on them. I agree. It may be hard for them to predict crowds, etc. But if they are going to deliberately seek to cause them to promote their product, they should be as responsible as any other company that draws crowds to that location.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Saturday June 10 2017, @09:51PM (4 children)
The spread their objectives WHERE PEOPLE ARE. Its not a driving game.
And none of their revenue depends on you visiting any specific spot. Furthermore it is dynamically crowd sourced and Niantic does not have total control of the locations. 16 kids sitting around a Dairy Queen looking at the game on their way to their next target will attract more players.
Most of the players don't pay a cent for the game or the play time.
Citizens just using their own parks is not a crime or a licensible event. If it were there would be coin operated turnstiles installed.
Maybe health insurance companies should Pay Niantic.
Yes, Niantic made money. So what. They already pay taxes on that. You've got a serious case of Tall Poppy syndrome.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Saturday June 10 2017, @10:22PM (2 children)
Irrelevant. As I already said above, a non-profit corporation holding an event that drew a crowd to a public park may still be required to obtain permits.
I never said it had "total control." But my understanding is that the location of important elements (Pokestops, gyms, spawns, etc.) was at least partly determined by the company, no? If they want to avoid crowds congregating in spaces the city demands permits for, then don't have objectives or major game elements there that will draw crowds. The company has responded to requests to disallow such things in various locations around the world (Auschwitz, Holocaust museums, national cemeteries, etc.). If they don't want to pay for a permit to locate game features within the park, then just disable it.
You're acting like this company has to actually fork over all the money to pay for the stuff listed in the permit list. They DON'T. They can just choose not to use public parks for their game in this city.
Again, while we could argue the commercial interest, even if there isn't any, there's still statutes about creating a public nuisance, etc. Like it or not, cities do have jurisdiction over city parks and what happens there. If some company is encouraging behavior in the park that the city feels is creating problems, it is well within their rights to address it. I'm NOT saying they're necessarily entitled to a share of revenue or whatever it is you think I'm arguing for. But they do have a right to set conditions for the use of the parks, and if a company doesn't agree to said conditions, the city has a right to say that they can't USE the park resources (which they ARE doing) for the company's endeavor.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by frojack on Sunday June 11 2017, @12:54AM
There is no event.
There is no schedule.
Its nothing more than a notation on an electronic map.
People choose when to go to that notation.
They do it in their free time.
The city can choose when to close the park gates.
It doesn't matter how many bone headed arguments you dream up there is no possible way that any mention of the existence of a park needs a permit from the city with fees paid. There is no possible way that could be enforced, there is no possible way anyone could ever fulfill such a requirement to register and pay fees for every frickin park in the world.
You are lobbying (with unfathomable pinheadery) for a police state of ridiculous proportions to seize money from any company that so much as mentions a park when the taxpayers who actually own the park, and pay for it's upkeep, actually use the park.
I suppose I'm going to have to have a corporate sponsor to visit a park now? A badge issued by Pepsi, or Ford?
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 11 2017, @03:18AM
You really have no idea about how the game works, or even what the game is about. And the more you post the less you sound like you know what you are saying.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 11 2017, @07:18AM
And the root of the issue is that there are some players that are disrupting the peace and vandalizing/etc. Ie: being assholes.
There's already laws in place for that. The park is basically looking for a wealthy scapegoat to milk rather than trying to get disruptive people to move on.