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