News of the Week; June 7, 2017

GAMES

1. ESA launches lawsuit against Chicago for its tax on online games
2. ESA sues to overturn Chicago online game service tax: Trade group goes to court over city’s expansion of amusement tax to include game streaming and subscription services
3. Violent video game montages are grounds for demonetization on YouTube
4. YouTube specifies what type of gaming content could face demonetization: Livestreams and let’s play videos should be fine
5. Twitch Now Offering A Cut Of Game Sales To Thousands More Creators
6. Twitch Affiliates will now get a cut of game and IAP sales
7. Valve shuts down Greenlight submissions, dates Steam Direct launch
8. Valve loses fourth writer in 18 months: Jay Pinkerton joined Valve ten years ago, follows Laidlaw, Wolpaw and Faliszek to the door
9. Pokemon Go Decides To Troll Cheaters Instead Of Banning Them
10. The Pokémon Company profits up 2500%: Pokémon Go and Sun/Moon deliver huge growth
11. Klang receives additional funding, strikes a deal with Harvard Law professor: Unity founder David Helgason among backers for studio behind SpatialOS-powered MMO Seed
12. Conflict minerals progress in jeopardy: The games industry has made commendable steps in its sourcing of conflict minerals, but the law that made it possible is facing repeal
13. EA set to donate $1M to anti-bullying efforts via Play to Give
14. EA Play To Give will donate $1m to charity: Gender neutral charity and two anti-bullying organisations to benefit as publisher campaigns for “inclusion and play”
15. Mass Effect: Andromeda devs tell tales of what went wrong during development: “For the last few months of the game, we spent most of our effort just trying to keep it together rather than polishing. Just trying to stay ahead of how quickly it was falling apart.”
16. The Story Behind Mass Effect: Andromeda’s Troubled Five-Year Development
17. Mobile revenue gravity pulls Square Enix inwards: As cash flows in from Final Fantasy titles in the Japanese mobile market, is Square Enix losing its drive to build new IP and conquer overseas markets?
18. Rime allegedly runs faster with Denuvo DRM stripped out: Developer, DRM maker both deny accusations as protection gets removed.
19. Game Developer: Just Wait Until The Game Is Cracked And Then We’ll Patch Denuvo Out; Game Gets Cracked Immediately
20. Rime’s Denuvo Defeated: Developer Gets To Work On DRM Free Version As Performance Hit Details Emerge
21. Denuvo denies claims of Rime slowdown, but publisher removes DRM: Grey Box follows through with promise to drop protection after it’s cracked in five days
22. VMProtect Accuses Denuvo Of Using Unlicensed Software In Its Antipiracy DRM
23. Blizzard avoids China’s loot laws by selling Overwatch in-game currency: In-game currency will now be sold for real money, with loot boxes thrown in for free
24. Blizzard to sell Overwatch credits instead of loot boxes to Chinese players
25. “Releasing your mobile game in China is an absolute necessity”: SuperData CEO Joost van Dreunen discusses the opportunities and challenges of heading East
26. Violent game montages face demonetisation on YouTube: Let’s Plays and livestreams are on safe ground, but “montages where gratuitous violence is the focal point” are not
27. Rocket League to offer cross-platform multiplayer between Xbox One, PC, and Switch
28. Riot overhauls League of Legends eSports: North American League Championship Series will now have more permanent teams with $10 million buy-in, revenue sharing, and a pro players’ association
29. NBA considering Chinese eSports league: Basketball league’s ambitions to expand in the country and competitive gaming could overlap
30. China’s mobile esports revenues to approach $7bn in 2017: Revenues already tripled in 2016, expected to triple again
31. Activision Blizzard Aims for the Big Leagues: Activision Blizzard built a videogame empire around bestselling titles like Call of Duty and Warcraft. Now it wants to become the ESPN of competitive gaming. Will audiences play along?
32. BT Productions teams up with Attention Seekers to produce video games TV shows: Broadcaster says there’s a “legitimate and growing sports season” for video games
33. Zelnick: “We’re probably undermonetising our users” – Despite ongoing success of Grand Theft Auto Online, CEO insists publisher is “not going to grab the last nickel”
34. NPD: Grand Theft Auto V is the US’ best-selling game since 1995 – Market research group confirms Rockstar’s blockbuster is most successful title on record
35. Sony: One in every five PS4s sold is a Pro
36. PS4 Pro accounts for 1-in-5 PS4s sold: Sony says premium-priced console is exceeding its expectations; PS4 family has outsold Xbox 2-to-1 in US, 3-to-1 in Europe
37. PlayStation VR has sold over 1M units worldwide
38. PlayStation sponsoring London Pride 2017: “This is not some kind of corporate step. It means a lot to us”
39. New deep-dive study analyzes the playing habits of Xbox Live users
40. Xbox Unleashed: Our deep-dive study of how millions use Xbox Live – Our follow-up to the Steam Gauge series samples statistics from millions of Gamertags.
41. Xbox One users largely ignore backward-compatible Xbox 360 games
42. Xbox One Exec Responds To Report About Low Backwards Compatibility Usage
43. NES Classic will return (kind of) in updated Nintendo Switch online service: Full service delay to 2018, but $20/year charge will now include more classic games.
44. Nintendo Switch online service pushed back to 2018: Nintendo misses late-2017 launch window, but sets price below competitor services at $19.99
45. Arms review: Nintendo reinvents the fighting game and it’s brilliant – Don’t let the saccharine looks fool you: Arms is deep, challenging, and essential.
46. How will The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild change the open-world paradigm?: We deconstruct the key lessons for developers with the help of Assassin’s Creed and The Witcher designers
47. What went wrong at Mad Catz?: It was once the most powerful peripherals brand in the world, but now it’s in bankruptcy
48. Mad Catz died because it ‘bit off more than it could chew’ says former exec
49. SteamVR is coming to Mac—and Apple says it will actually work: Metal 2 API getting Unreal 4, Unity engine support; Thunderbolt 3 GPU enclosure coming.
50. Crazy VR game lets you explore a world made from 4D mathematical models: 4D Toys also works on iOS, Windows; was borne from upcoming puzzle game Miegakure.
51. Video games in US to grow to $28.5 billion by 2021 – PwC: Latest forecast from PwC estimates 13 million high-end VR headsets in the US with VR content driving $5 billion in sales
52. PwC Report: Esports Revenue In U.S. To Nearly Hit $300 Million In 2021
53. Video gaming’s voice actor strike is ending in slow, small drips: As some publishers hold out, dozens of projects agree to union demands.
54. The Super Nintendo’s Most Valuable Games
55. Everything’s game trailer officially qualifies for an Oscar
56. For The First Time, A Video Game Qualifies For An Oscar: A game that can play itself now counts as an animated film.
57. YouTube Doubles Down On Its Coverage Of Video Game Conference E3
58. Garriott reassures backers after fresh crowdfunding push exposes finances: Portalarium boss says studio tends to operate with $500,000 in the bank despite $11m in donations
59. Why the games industry should not stay neutral this election: With the UK Parliamentary election only days away, there are too many defining policy differences in the parties’ manifestos for the industry to stay mute
60. Taking an IP and making it your own: Cryptic Studios CEO Stephen D’Angelo on how Star Trek Online changed the dev’s approach to licensing
61. Video games aren’t mindless — or heartless — entertainment: Games like “Papers, Please” and “Cart Life” are empathy exercises. Virtual experiences can have real-life impact
62. The quest to save today’s gaming history from being lost forever: Changes in digital distribution, rights management increasingly make preservation tough.
63. Computer scientists quantify just how hard Super Mario Bros. is: Solving an arbitrary level belongs to a class of problems called PSPACE.
64. Ken Rolston speaks to the strengths of Bethesda’s game dev culture

DIGITAL

1. The U.S. Supreme Court Is Reining in Patent Trolls, Which Is a Win for Innovation
2. How one patent troll is desperately trying to stay in East Texas: Uniloc finds plenty of reasons why Google should still be sued in East Texas.
3. Click fraud claim against Google fails:
4. Singh v. Google Inc., 2017 WL 2404986, No. 16-cv-03734 – N.D. Cal. Jun. 2, 2017 (Rebecca Tushnet)
5. Ariana Grande’s ‘One Love Manchester’ Concert To Be Streamed Live On YouTube, Facebook, And Twitter
6. YouTube Takes Down Ariana Grande’s Manchester Benefit Concert On Copyright Grounds
7. Copyright Law In Europe Could Be About To Get Ridiculously Stupidly Bad In Ways That Will Undermine The Internet
8. The Music Licensing Swamp: Spotify Settles Over Failure To Obtain Mechanical Licenses
9. Uber fires 20 employees as fallout from sexual harassment investigation: A law firm is reviewing 215 sexual harassment claims. Uber has about 12,000 workers.
10. Oculus Founder Plots a Comeback With a Virtual Border Wall
11. Top-Secret NSA Report Details Russian Hacking Effort Days Before 2016 Election
12. Leaked NSA report says Russians tried to hack state election officials: Alleged source of leak arrested by FBI after Intercept provided copy to NSA.
13. Russia’s attempt to hack voting systems shows that our elections need better security
14. Feds Charge NSA Contractor Accused of Exposing Russian Hacking
15. How a few yellow dots burned the Intercept’s NSA leaker: By providing copy of leak, Intercept likely accelerated ID of contractor.
16. How Document-Tracking Dots Helped The FBI Track Down Russian Hacking Doc Leaker
17. Intercept Posts NSA Docs On Russian Election Hacking, DOJ Announces Arrest Of Leaker Hours Later
18. The Mysterious Printer Code That Could Have Led the FBI to Reality Winner: Many color printers embed grids of dots that allow law enforcement to track every document they output.
19. Snowden Explains How The Espionage Act Unfairly Stacks The Deck Against Reality Winner
20. Putin: “Patriotic” Russian hackers may have interfered in US election – Comparing hackers to artists, Putin says they may have been inspired by patriotism.
21. How Russian Propaganda Spread From a Parody Website to Fox News
22. You’ll never guess where Russian spies are hiding their control servers: Turla uses social media and clever programming techniques to cover its tracks.
23. Can you commit manslaughter by sending texts? We’re about to find out
24. Wikipedia Seems to Be Winning Its Battle Against Government Censorship
25. 5 Searches That Show Bing Resists Alternative Facts Better Than Google: Breitbart readers really engage with Katy Perry
26. YouTube Spearheads #PowerToDecide Campaign Ahead Of U.K. General Election
27. YouTube Updates Its Guidelines For Advertiser-Friendly Content To Offer More Thorough Info To Creators
28. Philip DeFranco Calls Out What He Sees As YouTube’s Ad Double Standard, Vows To Take Next Show Elsewhere
29. YouTube’s Gossip Vloggers Have Created Their Own Tabloid Industry: There are YouTube celebrities, so of course there are YouTube tabloids
30. Dessert Blogger Files Suit Against Food Network For Copying Recipe Video
31. Confessions of an influencer marketing exec: ‘Micro-influencers are the biggest scam’
32. Late-Night Tweeting Linked To Weaker NBA Performance
33. Covfefe aside, late-night tweets are bad news: Nocturnal Twitter use links to poor performance, according to basketball-player study.
34. Trump Defends Twitter Use as Aides Urge Him to Cut Back
35. President’s Twitter account should not block users, First Amendment lawyers argue
36. Is @RealDonaldTrump violating the First Amendment by blocking some Twitter users?
37. Trump’s Twitter Blocking May Violate First Amendment
38. Twitter users threaten legal action if Trump doesn’t unblock them: Mayors can’t eject city hall critics, so Trump can’t block Twitter critics, either.
39. The Twitter presidency is getting old, according to a new voter survey: “They hate that I can get the honest and unfiltered message out,” Trump tweets.
40. That Lawsuit About A Tweet… Is Both A Publicity Stunt And An Attack On Free Speech
41. Twitter Will Live-Stream James Comey Testimony in Exclusive Bloomberg TV Pact
42. Blaming the Internet for Terrorism Misses the Point
43. Hacking Online Hate Means Talking to the Humans Behind It
44. Google’s Plan to Use Ads to Sway ISIS Recruits
45. Forget far-right populism – crypto-anarchists are the new masters: Many are concerned about the internet’s role in politics. But more worrying is the digital tsunami poised to engulf us, as machine intelligence and a rising tech elite radically restructure life as we know it
46. A Hardware Update for the Human Brain: From Silicon Valley startups to the U.S. Department of Defense, scientists and engineers are hard at work on a brain-computer interface that could turn us into programmable, debuggable machines
47. YouTube clarifies “hate speech” definition and which videos won’t be monetized: h7M bv m,  ore details for creators on what they can and cannot say if they want to make money.
48. An Ad Network That Helps Fake News Sites Earn Money Is Now Asking Users To Report Fake News: In response to queries from BuzzFeed News, Revcontent removed four fake news publishers from its network.
49. Theresa May Calls for International Regulation of Cyberspace in Wake of Attacks
50. Theresa May Blames The Internet For London Bridge Attack; Repeats Demands To Censor It
51. London attack: Internet firms provide safe space for terrorists, claims PM – Home secretary again demands “limit to the amount of end-to-end encryption.”
52. London attack: Tech firms dispute PM’s grandstanding on Internet regulation – Facebook, Twitter, and Google say they’re trying to make sites “hostile” to terrorists.
53. Why not ban cars, Amber Rudd? It’d be more effective than banning encryption – Op-ed: Another terrorist attack, another government attempt at backdooring WhatsApp.
54. Leaving Social Media Taught Me How Broken The News Cycle Is
55. Court Says Facebook Can Block Parents From Deceased Teen’s Account: The page had already been made a “memorial” — blocking them from investigating her death
56. Photographer Sues News Agency For Embedding A Tweet Containing His Photo
57. Social media defamation still a cause for concern
58. The Most Hated Online Advertising Techniques
59. Apple adds ad tracker blocker to desktop Safari
60. Intel & Major League Baseball Partnership Will Bring Free Weekly Games Streamed in VR
61. The Internet Is Where We Share — and Steal — the Best Ideas
62. Can’t Take a Joke? That’s Just Poe’s Law, 2017’s Most Important Internet Phenomenon
63. Women Engineers On The Rampant Sexism Of Silicon Valley
64. Warner Bros and Google using Wonder Woman to get girls into coding: New Made With Code project will use latest superhero firm to introduce skills to young women
65. Google prepares publishers for the release of Chrome ad-blocking: The biggest online advertiser will now block ads; the Web won’t look the same.
66. Amazon’s Antitrust Paradox (Lina Khan)
67. Internet Framing is a Valid Ground for Copyright Infringement in Canada
68. Voltage Pictures Canadian Reverse Class Action – An Update to June 6, 2017 (Howard Knopf)
69. Hanging by a thread: How the online nerdy T-shirt economy exists in an IP world: If big media has legal muscle, why can you buy Link racing Harley Quinn on a shirt?
70. Why Netflix Isn’t Getting Involved In Live Sports Streaming Like Amazon
71. Netflix CEO Offers Eyebrow-Raising Justification As Cancellations Increase
72. App Store revenue breaks $70bn: Downloads have grown by 70% in the last 12 months alone
73. The Rate Of TV Cord Cutting Is Actually Worse Than You Think
74. What Has the Internet Done to Media?
75. Online Marketing to Children – New UK Guidance
76. Toward a Canadian Knowledge Transfer Strategy: My Appearance Before the Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology (Michael Geist)
77. Rise of the machines: who is the ‘internet of things’ good for?: Interconnected technology is now an inescapable reality – ordering our groceries, monitoring our cities and sucking up vast amounts of data along the way. The promise is that it will benefit us all – but how can it?
78. The Internet of Things Connectivity Binge: What Are the Implications?: Despite wide concern about cyberattacks, outages and privacy violations, most experts believe the Internet of Things will continue to expand successfully the next few years, tying machines to machines and linking people to valuable resources, services and opportunities
79. IBM unveils world’s first 5nm chip: Built with a new type of gate-all-around transistor, plus extreme ultraviolet lithography.
80. The Robot Dog Fetches for Whom?
81. The Chatbot Therapist Will See You Now
82. Is language as we know it still relevant for the digital age?
83. Whatever Happened To Our Dream Of An Empowering Internet (And How To Get It Back) (Andres Guadamuz)

CREATIVITY

1. Fair use blocks out copyright claim over LeBron’s tattoo 
2. Drake Winning Sampling Case Over Fair Use Is Big News… But Still Demonstrates The Madness Of Music Licensing
3. In breach of EU copyright law, Paris Court refuses to protect Mankowitz’s photo of Jimi Hendrix
4. Harsh Consequences for Dale Chihuly After Failing to Document IP Rights with Independent Contractor
5. Could Donald Trump Make America Great Again In Canada?
6. The Charging Bull and the Fearless Girl: Moral Rights Protections in Australia and the U.S.
7. The Politics of Political Design: In the UK General Election, support for progressive politics is far more visible in the creative community than pro-Conservative messages are. Yet surveys reveal that not all creative people are left-leaning. Hannah Ellis goes in search of designers on the right and examines the contradiction inherent in an industry predominantly ‘of the left’ that spends much of its time enabling an economic system that is at odds with many leftist ideals.
8. Can America’s moviegoing habit be saved? The past, present and uncertain future of the multiplex
9. Are patents effective brand assets anymore?
10. The Top Hits: Fashion Cases with a Big Impact
11. Top Ten Urban Legends of Intellectual Property
12. How Lego clicked: the super brand that reinvented itself: The revival of Lego has been hailed as the greatest turnaround in corporate history, ousting Ferrari as the world’s most powerful brand. 

MEDIA, COMMUNICATIONS & NET NEUTRALITY

1. Canadian Government on Wireless Services: High Prices, Low Adoption, and Unaffordable For Too Many (Michael Geist)
2. CASL Private Right of Action Delayed Indefinitely
3. FCC security denies that guards pinned journalist against a wall: Chairman Pai promises security changes as reporter stands by allegations.
4. Report Falsely Blames The EFF For Fraudulent Net Neutrality Comments
5. To kill net neutrality rules, FCC says broadband isn’t “telecommunications”
6. Vimeo, Amazon Among Companies Joining Upcoming Protest To Defend Net Neutrality
7. Net Neutrality and the First Amendment
8. The End Of Net Neutrality Could Shackle The Internet Of Things
9. Comcast Pinky Swears That The Death Of Net Neutrality Won’t Hurt In The Slightest
10. Is Antitrust Law a Viable Substitute for Net Neutrality? 
11. Canada to launch subsidized low-income broadband program
12. Focus: CRTC decision a blow to the industry?
13. ISPs denied entry into apartment buildings could get help from FCC: FCC looks at expanding competition rules, but it could preempt local regulations.
14. Sky scolded over shadowy small print in LEGO Batman broadband ad: Superhero claim about “lowest price fibre” turns into caped capped caper.
15. Fox News Gets Mad That Wonder Woman Isn’t in Her American Apparel Underwear
16. YES Network Streams Production Meetings Through Facebook
17. Going gray: Sports TV viewers skew older – Study – Nearly all sports see quick rise in average age of TV viewers as younger fans shift to digital platforms
18. FTC and DOJ Case Results in Historic Decision Awarding $280 Million in Civil Penalties against Dish Network and Strong Injunctive Relief for Do Not Call Violations
19. Radio spectrum, the 5G auction, and the future of mobile computing: Here’s why the UK’s upcoming 5G radio spectrum auction is important.
20. Cable TV “failing” as a business, cable industry lobbyist says: Broadband is the future as TV faces rising costs and online video competition.
21. Transnational over-the-top video distribution as a business and policy disruptor: The case of Netflix in Canada (Emilia Zboralska & Charles Davis)

SURVEILLANCE & PRIVACY

1. Court Says Password Protection Doesn’t Restore An Abandoned Phone’s Privacy Expectations
2. Supreme Court To Consider Fourth Amendment Implications Of Cell Site Location Info
3. Sixth Circuit Appeals Court Latest To Say Real-Time Cellphone Location Tracking Not A Fourth Amendment Issue
4. OneLogin Data Breach May Have Revealed Encrypted Data
5. OneLogin breach: Hacker stole AWS keys, rifled through customer data for 7 hours – Customer info potentially decrypted by “threat actor” who accessed database tables.
6. Internet cameras have hard-coded password that can’t be changed: Cameras with multiple brand names are wide open to remote hacking.
7. How to Create an Anonymous Email Account
8. Trump administration rolls out social media vetting of visa applicants: The new travel screening is for those deemed a national security threat.
9. Trump’s Tougher Visa Vetting Now Asks For Social Media Handles: It also asks for emails addresses and biographical information
10. DHS Steps Up Demands For Visa Applicants’ Social Media Account Info
11. EFF Sues FBI For Refusing To Turn Over Documents About Its Geek Squad Informants
12. WikiLeaks says CIA’s “Pandemic” turns servers into infectious Patient Zero: Latest Vault 7 release exposes operation that infects PCs inside targeted networks.
13. UK police arrest man via automatic face-recognition tech: Camera-equipped van in South Wales apparently spotted man whose face was in database.
14. Got a face-recognition algorithm? Uncle Sam wants to review it: “Face recognition is hard.”
15. The premature quest for AI-powered facial recognition to simplify screening: “This technology at the airport… is premature. It’s not the right way to go.”
16. Digital Privacy Is Making Antitrust Exciting Again

Jon