September 2014

News of the Week; September 24, 2014

GAMES

1. Activision moves to dismiss Manuel Noriega’s “absurd lawsuit”

+ Why Rudy Giuliani wants Noriega to get his bloody hands off Activision’s Call of Duty profits

2. FTC Begins Cracking Down on COPPA Violators

3. Developers Spar Over ‘Grimoire’ Name

4. Reclaiming ‘Gamer’ and Defending Our Tribe

+ Sexism, Lies and Video Games: The Culture War Nobody Is Winning

+ Addressing allegations of “collusion” among gaming journalists: An apology and an apologia for private discussions among peers.

+ Truth In Gaming: An Interview With The Fine Young Capitalists

+ EA Teams With White House for Sexual Assault Prevention Campaign

+ The reactionaries are just plain wrong about gaming’s future

5. Objective: Impossible?: An objective approach to games journalism is a noble goal, but black-and-white reporting still has a lot of gray area

6. Report: Terror Group Reportedly Releases Promotional Video for Upcoming Game

7. PlayStation TV launches with 700 games in US on October 14

8. Destiny sales top $325 million in five days

9. Titan cancellation cost Blizzard $50m or more, say analysts

10. Kickstarter-Funded Sword Fighting Game ‘Clang’ is Officially Cancelled

11. Beyond the microtransaction: how players spend

12. The Minecraft Parent

13. The Assassin’s Creed curriculum: can video games teach us history?: Reprogramming the past from the Oregon Trail to Columbine

14. The Cargo Cult of Game Mechanics: Form without Function

15. Goat Simulator Selling Absurdly Well On iOS, Android

16. There And Back Again: A History Of The Lord Of The Rings In Video Games

17. The Fight Rages On In 38 Studios Lobbying Case

DIGITAL

18. “The Letter” Is Still The Best Story To Explain Why Copyright Monopoly Must Be Reduced

19. Could Taking A Selfie In A Museum Violate Copyright Law?

20. The Internet of Things and Canadian Copyright Law

21. MIT Students Battle State’s Demand for Their Bitcoin Miner’s Source Code

22. Illegal, Immoral, and Mood-Altering: How Facebook and OkCupid Broke the Law When They Experimented on Users (James Grimmelman)

23. A message from Tim Cook about Apple’s commitment to your privacy.

+ iOS 8’s One More Thing: It Prevents Apple from Complying With Search Warrants

24. The Solace of Oblivion: In Europe, the right to be forgotten trumps the Internet.

25. Litigation Alert: California Bans Non-Disparagement Clauses in Consumer Contracts

26. Kickstarter Updates Terms Of Use Section Related To Failed Projects

27.Trademark use: an important shift in Canada

28. ‘Digital Amnesia’, A Documentary About the Limited Shelf Life of Digital Data 

CONSTRAINTS

29.  Anti-Piracy is Class Privilege

30. Can Graffiti Be Copyrighted?: Some of the most public artists want to keep their work a bit more private.

31. Does the CRTC Have the Power Regulate Online Video?: Internet Companies Set to Challenge Its Authority (Michael Geist)

32. News for the Minecraft generation: Gannett experiments with virtual reality

jon

News of the Week; September 17, 2014

GAMES

1. Bomb Threat Targeted Anita Sarkeesian, Gaming Awards Last March

+ FBI investigating death threats against Feminist Frequency creator Sarkeesian

2. Georgia Man Murdered for PS4

3. King Settles Lawsuit with 6Waves Over Game Clones

4. Davis v. EA Argued Before Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals

+ Legal Scholar: ‘Davis v. Electronic Arts’ Perfect for Supreme Court Review

5. Xbox Live Privacy Case Dismissed by U.S. District Court in Seattle

6. Video Games: Computer Programs or Creative Works?

7. The Gray Market of Game Emulators

8. SimBin declares bankruptcy and reforms as Sector 3 Studios

9. Real Jail For Wow-Crimes?

10. Microsoft Buys ‘Minecraft’ Maker for $2.5 Billion

+ Microsoft to break even on Mojang this fiscal year

+ Hey Microsoft, Acquiring A Hit Game Is Stupid

+ Microsoft-Mojang is about the future not the money

11. ‘Minecraft’ CraftBukkit Mod Developer Becomes Victim of Swatting

12. Nintendo of Japan Apologizes for Banning ‘Super Smash Bros.’ 3DS Players

13. EA kept quiet on Real Racing dev’s forum hack

14. EA Prototyping Game Concepts for Apple Watch: Exec explains how iPhone games can expand onto Apple’s new smartwatch; Talks up potential of wearables.

15. How ‘Planetary Annihilation’ Made Money for Some Backers

16. Seizing Destiny: A great launch for Bungie’s latest will please Activision investors – but Sony is the real winner, with PS4 positioned to reap the rewards.

+ Destiny Review Scores May Cost Bungie A $2.5 Million Bonus

+ Eight days later, Bungie leaving disconnected Destiny players stranded: Customer service is currently limited to a forum with few official responses.

17. Licensed to thrill?: Roadhouse Interactive COO Ian Verchere explains what brands can–and can’t–do to ensure success in the mobile market

18. Garry’s Mod has sold 6 million copies

19. Steam adds 11 new currencies

20. Video game degrees in the US increase by 50% in five years

21. How Pong changed the world

22. Racking Focus: The Collision Of Cinema, Video Games And Virtual Reality

23. Fact or Fiction?: Video Games Are the Future of Education

24. If The NFL Has Become So Inhuman, Then Let’s Get Rid Of The Humans: Could the future of the NFL be as a video game league?

25. City of Alamogordo votes to auction off 800 Atari cartridges

26. Marin County, Calif. DA’s Office Co-Sponsors Toy Gun and Video Game Trade-In Program in Oct.

27. The ESRB: Twenty Years of Sex and Violence

+ 20 years, 20 questionable game ratings: A timeline of ESRB oddities

28. Watch The Director Of Id@Xbox Deliver An Exuberant Love-Letter To Modern Videogames 

DIGITAL

29. Yahoo Threatened With A Secret $250,000 Per Day Fine If It Didn’t Comply With NSA PRISM Demands

+ More Yahoo vs. The NSA: Government Tried To Deny Standing, Filed Supporting Documents Yahoo Never Got To See

30. Google Report Shows Governments’ Increasing Demands for Users’ Data

31. Twitter, Reddit, Netflix join in net neutrality protest

32. These companies spend the most money to kill net neutrality

33. Software patents are crumbling, thanks to the Supreme Court

+ SCOTUS Decision in ‘Alice v. CLS Bank’ Having Profound Effect on Computer-Related Patents

+ Patent trolls reel as court smackdowns lead to collapse in share price

34. Jury finds CBS infringes podcasting patent, awards $1.3 million

35. The regulation of virtual currencies in Canada

36. Innovations in payment technologies and the emergence of digital currencies

37. Amazon, Publishers, and Readers (Clay Shirky)

38. MCNs—why they matter (and what they represent … the fundamental digital media transformation)

39. The rise of the anti-facial recognition movement

40. Privacy in Public (by Joel Reidenberg)

41. google it: verb status doesn’t mean Google is generic (Rebecca Tushnet)

42. In a Study, Text Messages Add Up to a Balance Sheet of Everyday Morality

43. Meet the McGill professor who got inside Anonymous

44. Glossary of Canadian provincial and federal Canadian statutes and codes may apply to social media issues   

CONSTRAINTS

45. TV monitoring service is fair use, judge rules: Fox News sued TVEyes, which records television 24/7/365—but it’s fair use.

46. Conan Doyle Estate Asks Supreme Court To Put Sherlock Holmes Back Under Copyright

47. In Latest Volley Against Amazon, Hachette’s Writers Target Its Board

48. Just Kidding? Celebrity Hacked Photograph Exhibition Scuttled

49. The Music Piracy Complex – Part 1

+ The Music Piracy Complex – Part 2

50. Since Copyright Is So Handy For Censorship, It’s Tempting To Use It To Censor Lots Of Content

+ IP’s “Immigration” Policy

51. The Law Society of Upper Canada expresses grave concerns about the ongoing detention of Tang Jingling and his colleagues in China

52. California Tells Businesses: Stop Trying To Ban Consumer Reviews

53. Jay Z Steps Up To The Plate To Argue That Tiny Music Samples Are Unprotected By Copyright

54. Public Enemy’s Former Lawyer Talks Cultural Appropriation And Copyrights In Hip-Hop

jon

News of the Week; September 10, 2014

GAMES

1. As The Mod Turns: The Latest In The Ongoing Minecraft ‘Bukkit’ Saga

2. Report: Microsoft in Talks to Buy Mojang for $2 Billion

3. Destiny day-one shipments top $500 million

4. Sega Takes Aim at Gearbox in Latest ‘Aliens: Colonial Marines’ Court Filing

+ Sega Also Has Copyright Complaints Against Hi Score Girl Manga

5. Pro Music Artists/Reps Force Shutdown Of Awesome Fan-Music Contest For Video Game

6. IGDA Working With FBI to Combat Developer Harassment

7. The #Gamergate Question

+ Death to the Gamer

+ Not All Gamers

+ To fair-minded proponents of #GamerGate:

+ The steel man of #GamerGate

+ Losing our voices

+ #GamerGate: Here’s why everybody in the video game world is fighting

+ Chat logs show how 4chan users created #GamerGate controversy: “I think all the sleeper cells are hard at work.”

8. Zoe Quinn’s Depression Quest (The New Yorker)

9. EA working to fix block on gay name sharing in The Sims 4: Overzealous filter blocks players from sharing names with LGBT terms online

10. EA Sports to Remove Ray Rice from ‘Madden NFL 15′ Roster in Future Update

11. Microsoft to replace noisy Xbox One units

12. Rovio: Leading the way on gender balance

13. How ‘Minecraft’ is Encouraging Children to Read More

14. What Does a Hermit Do While Living in the Woods for 27 Years? Steal Pokemon Games: Christopher Knight lived without human contact in the woods of Maine for almost three decades

15. Study: Swedish Children Learn English Better Through Playing Games

16. Engines of Horror: How Video Games Are Confronting Our Darkest Subconscious

17. First-Person Temple Run Makes Samsung’s VR Headset Terrifying

18. The US Army Has a New Laser Cannon, And It Works With an Xbox Controller

19. ESPN boss declares eSports is “Not A Sport”

+ eSports will be bigger than hockey – ESL CEO

20. Research: Winning Isn’t Everything

21. Downloading Games Might Not Be Better for the Environment After All, Study Finds: New study looks at the carbon emissions generated from downloading a game versus buying a physical copy at a store.

22. New research suggests deep learning could improve AI in video games

23. EA: We Never Want to Be Named Worst U.S. Company Again

24. Several Robin Williams NPCs Spotted in ‘Warlords of Draenor’ Beta

25. Epic on Unreal Engine 4: “It’s the right time to be democratic”

26. Unreal Engine 4 free for schools, students

27. The evolution of the role-playing game: from table top to video games, and back again

28. Games Law History: the first ever games patent

29. Exploring The Psychology Of Civil Forfeiture Through Video Games

DIGITAL

30. Parents to get full refund for kids’ app purchases under $19M Google Play settlement

31. App Store revenue up 70 YoY

32. Verizon pays record fine for violating phone customers’ privacy rights: For seven years, Verizon marketed to customers without seeking their permission.

33. Judge mulls contempt charges in Microsoft’s e-mail privacy fight with US: US claims it has rightful access to data stored on servers anywhere in the world

+ Microsoft agrees to contempt order so e-mail privacy case can be appealed: The contempt order doesn’t include any sanctions, but those could be sought later.

34. Meet the shadowy tech brokers that deliver your data to the NSA

35. Does obtaining leaked data from a misconfigured website violate the CFAA?

36. How to make sure your app complies with the Safe Harbor rules

37. Horizon: The defenders of anonymity on the internet

38. Google plans debates on ‘right to be forgotten’

39. Infamous “podcast patent” heads to trial: Personal Audio LLC has sued Apple, SiriusXM, and podcasters. CBS is up next.

40. Leak Of Complete CETA Text Shows Canada Fought Off EU Demands For More Extreme Copyright Rules

41. NLRB protects Facebook “Like” and signals standard for analyzing social media posts

42. NVIDIA Sues Samsung and Qualcomm, Tries To Get Samsung Galaxy Devices Blocked From The U.S.

43. The Ramifications of Alice: A Conversation with Mark Lemley

44. When does an employer own copyright in a photograph made by an employee?

45. Apple Denies Any Breach Of Its Systems In Celebrity Photo Leak

+ Inside AnonIB, Where Hacking Is a Sport and Women’s Bodies Are the Prize

+ A Letter To Jennifer Lawrence

+ reddit shuts down subreddit that showcased celebrities’ stolen nude photos: System admin says taking down the images became “a game of whack-a-mole.”

+ Every Man Is Responsible For His Own Soul (Reddit CEO)

+ Why We’re Winning: Social Justice Warriors And The New Culture War

46. Etsy CEO to Businesses: If Net Neutrality Perishes, We Will Too

47. How Should We Program Computers to Deceive?

48. Our Cyborg Future: Law and Policy Implications (The Brookings Institution)

49. There’s Something Rotten In The State Of Social Media

50. Error Correction in the Digital Age

51. When A Machine Learning Algorithm Studied Fine Art Paintings, It Saw Things Art Historians Had Never Noticed: Artificial intelligence reveals previously unrecognised influences between great artists

52. Brain-to-brain ‘telepathic’ communication achieved for first time: Team of US-led researchers successfully achieves brain-to-brain communication between humans from India to France

+ Brain-to-brain communication is finally possible. It’s just very clunky.

53. When We Play Video Games, Who Are We?

CONSTRAINTS

54. Disney Officially Seeks To Block Deadmau5′s Trademark Claim

55. Court says Facebook “likes” not a form of IP right

56. Hacked naked celebrity photos to be exhibited by artist in Florida

57. Reddit at a crossroads: The inevitable clash between free speech and a desire for funding

58. Zappos is going holacratic: no job titles, no managers, no hierarchy

59. The New Luddites: Why Former Digital Prophets Are Turning Against Tech

60. How YouTube inspired a new generation of DIY makers

61. Software is Eating the Camera: How software is changing the form and substance of cameras and photos

62. Canadian Internet TV Is Starting To Beat the CBC

jon

News of the Week; September 3, 2014

GAMES

1. Game developer group condemns ‘morally reprehensible’ harassment

+ The End of Gamers

+ It’s Dangerous to Go Alone: Why Are Gamers So Angry?: The subset of entitled, belligerent gamers convinced that being ‘objectively’ right entitles them to defend their rightness by any means necessary is overwhelmingly male.

+ Saints Row developer: ‘Sarkeesian is right’

2. Australian Consumer Watch Dog Group Sues Valve Over Steam Refund Policy

3. Ban hammer: Korea’s game rating committee shuts down Facebook gaming

4. ‘Left 4 Dead 2′ Finally Gets R18+ Rating in Australia

5. Media Bias in Michael Brown Shooting Coverage Inspires Video Game

6. SWAT Team Detains Popular Gamer Who Was Live-Streaming ‘Counter-Strike’

7. Rhode Island Receives First Settlement Payment in 38 Studios Lawsuit

8. A New Madden Ignores and Confronts All the NFL’s Problems

9. Racism, Video Games, And The Ukraine: Teaching Children How Think About The World

10. Can buying video games make you happier? Science says yes

11. NYT Report: Twitch Has More Primetime Viewers Than E!, MSNBC, and Other Cable Networks

12. Why I Wrote a Book About an Obscure ’90s Computer Game: Many forces combine to shepherd a video game from conception to completion, but rarely are they acknowledged.

13. Destiny: behind the scenes of the world’s most expensive video game

14. 1st Video Game Patent (found by @gamerlaw)

DIGITAL

15. Microsoft Continues Its Campaign Against A US Warrant Demanding Overseas Data

+  No, Microsoft Is Not Suddenly ‘Defying’ A Court Order To Turn Over Emails

16. The violent truth behind Reddit’s trolling problem

17. Investor Pavel Curda Dumped By Euro Accelerators After Sleazy Emails

18. Here’s What We Know So Far About The Celebrity Photo Hack

19. The Next-Generation Copyright Monopoly Wars Will Be Much Worse

20. How the Internet Saved Handmade Goods

21. Aaron Swartz’s Work, Computer Crime Law, and “The Internet’s Own Boy”

CONSTRAINTS

22. The Star Wars George Lucas Doesn’t Want You To See

+ Fans Reconstruct Authentic Version of Star Wars, As It Was Shown in Theaters in 1977

23. Why we’re living in the golden age of investigative journalism: Newspapers might be a dying breed. But investigative reporting on injustices around the world is prospering 

24. The Conservatism of Emoji (Luke Stark & Kate Crawford)

25. The Economics of Netflix: How to Make a $100 Million Show

26. Journalism and the internet: Is it the best of times? No — but it’s not the worst of times either

27. Can Outdoor Art Revitalize Outdoor Advertising?

jon