News of the Week; July 23, 2014

GAMES

1. Manuel Noriega sues Activision over Call of Duty video game character: The former dictator is seeking lost profits and damages over the game Call of Duty: Black Ops II, which featured his likeness

2. Philips Win Patent Infringement Suit Against Nintendo

3. Bungie pays Halo composer $95k over dismissal

4. Grand Theft Likeness: The Story of Lindsay Lohan and Lacey Jonas

5. Riot starts getting tough on toxic LoL players with “instant” bans: Strict penalties for racism, homophobia strengthen attempts at player “reform.”

6. Kickstarter Suspends ‘Areal’ Crowd-Funding Campaign

7. Yogscast to ‘Yogventures’ Backers: We’re Not Obligated To ‘Do Anything’

8. Gamasutra’s Game Developer Salary Survey 2014 Highlights the Gender Gap in Video Games Industry

9. Think the nsa is bad? Games are masters of surveillance.

10. In-app purchases: Joint action by the European Commission and Member States is leading to better protection for consumers in online games

+ Apple scolded by Europe over in-app purchase protections

+ EU regulation of free to play games: hot topic or hot air?

11. Retro revival: Warner Bros. options movie rights to Space Invaders game

12. Hunger Games film studio Lionsgate partners with Finland’s Next Games

13. Why the Kim Kardashian Game Is Legitimately Good

14. ESPN dips its cleats into the e-sports pool with Dota 2 partnership

+ Valve boss Gabe Newell interviewed by ESPN: ‘The Internet is changing what sports is’

+ Dota 2 team pockets $5 million at The International

15. Civilization 5 mod lets you exploit migrant workers in the ‘first true’ FIFA World Cup sim

16. Modders are developers – it’s time to stop treating them differently

17. Key Sony Gaming Websites Go Down Because They Let Their Domains Expire

18. PlayStation 4 still best-selling console, six months running

19. “Consolidation crush”: 5 drivers of $12.5B games acquisitions

20. Eutechnyx restructuring business

21. Games tax relief gets EU greenlight

22. Microsoft Laying Off 18K Employees, Closing Xbox Entertainment Studios

23. Vivendi Considered Firing Kotick Over Buyout

24. The secret of Minecraft

25. How the team behind The Witcher conquered Poland

DIGITAL

26. Pirate Bay traffic has doubled post-ISP blocks

27. Copyright Skeptic: We Don’t Need More Copyright Laws

28. Google processes millions of useless DMCA notices

29. Copyright Board’s new SOCAN user generated content tariff

+ YouTube, Facebook, Netflix liable to pay for music in Canada rules Copyright Board

30. AEREO – Everything Old is New Again (Mark Cuban Blog)

+ Copyright Office To Aereo: Quack All You Want, We Don’t Think You’re A Cable Service

31. The Details About the CIA’s Deal With Amazon

32. Snowden Calls On Developers To Champion Privacy By Design

+ Edward Snowden: ‘If I end up in chains in Guantánamo I can live with that’ – video interview

+ A Convicted Hacker and an Internet Icon Join Forces to Thwart NSA Spying

33. US Supreme Court clarifies law on warrantless cell phone searches. Will the Supreme Court of Canada follow?

34. A manifesto for the future of the ‘right to be forgotten’ debate: The landmark ruling against Google Spain presents the opportunity for a proper debate. Here are five strategies for reframing the ethics of our online lives

35. Over One Million Americans Submit Comments to FCC About Net Neutrality Changes

+ Did Verizon accidentally admit it’s slowing down Netflix traffic? Level 3 thinks so

+ Read Netflix’s plea to ban paid “fast lanes” on the internet

36. Welcome to the Hotel California: ISPs Who Won’t Take No For An Answer

37. The Russian Public Has a Totally Different Understanding of What Happened to Malaysia Airlines Flight 17: And it’s more of a problem than you think.

+  Russia caught editing Wikipedia entry about downed Malaysian airliner

38. New York state proposes sweeping Bitcoin regulations—and they’re strict

39. 3 Years Later, Google+ Drops Its Dumb Real Name Rule And Apologizes

CONSTRAINTS

40. Pete Seeger on Combinatorial Creativity, Originality, Equality, and the Art of Dot-Connecting

jon