News of the Week; October 28, 2015

GAMES

1. Judge: Losing in Game of War’s virtual casino isn’t a real-world problem: Pinball also isn’t an illegal gambling “device,” court rules.
2. Mind Candy branded non-compliant by ASA for “direct exhortations to children”
3. US gov’t grants limited right to revive games behind “abandoned” servers: Players can circumvent defunct server checks but can’t create their own multiplayer.
4. Harmonix fesses up to reviewing Rock Band 4 on Amazon
5. Report: Ubisoft not pleased with Vivendi investment
6. Activision’s move into eSports belated, but shrewd – Analysts
7. Anita Sarkeesian reviews Assassin’s Creed Syndicate
8. Microsoft stops reporting console sales
9. “The beauty of PSVR is that we have the PS4 to power it”
10. Don’t expect original IP to sustain your studio
11. Activision Hires Former ESPN Boss To Run New eSports Division
12. How Israel’s $1B game business thrives in a cutthroat global industry
13. Bandai Namco expands with Indian subsidiary
14. The spooky, twisted saga of the Deep Web horror game ‘Sad Satan’

DIGITAL

1. My Unsolicited Advice to Prime Minister-designate Justin Trudeau & his Team on TPP, Copyright, CBC, Cabinet & Committees (Howard Knopf)
2. Copyright concessions may be downside of TPP deal
3. Activists urge Trudeau to defend Canada’s copyright regime from TPP changes: Under current laws, copyright holders must convince a court if they want the offending content removed but, under the TPP, content will be blocked or removed as soon as the first complaint is made.
4. Copyright Decision Would Squelch Any Right to Read Paywalled Content in Canada (Teresa Scassa)
5. Canadian Judge Says Asking For A Copy Of A Legally-Obtained But Paywalled Article Is Circumvention
6. Google Books, fair use, and visual art—Second Circuit writes decision that would have helped two years ago 
7. Google seeks to compel studios to respond to third-party subpoenas in case against Mississippi AG alleging speech suppression and retaliation
8. Annotating competitor’s ad is fair use
9. US regulators grant DMCA exemption legalising vehicle software tinkering
10. Pandora will pay RIAA $90 million for playing pre-1972 songs: The maze of state copyright laws is an expensive headache for online music.
11. Internet Radio Copyright Is Bad and Dumb: A Comprehensive Explainer
12. Spotify reduces piracy, but also cuts into digital track sales
13. Netflix sued for streaming Bicycle Thieves ‘without copyright’
14. Judge overturns ban on ballot selfies: Indiana law criminalized posting pictures to social media of your marked ballot.
15. Judge: Pinterest can’t force Pintrips to change names – Pinterest can’t stop a travel app—or anyone else—from “pinning” stuff online.
16. Senate Approves a Cybersecurity Bill Long in the Works and Largely Dated
17. Feds: Since Apple can unlock iPhone 5S running iOS 7, it should – DOJ doesn’t know of “any prior instance in which Apple objected to such an order.”
18. The Darknet: Is the Government Destroying ‘the Wild West of the Internet?’
19. Judge tosses Wikimedia’s anti-NSA lawsuit because Wikipedia isn’t big enough: Not enough facts to “plausibly establish that the NSA is using upstream surveillance.”
20. Safe Harbor was for EU privacy: But how safe is US data in Europe? – While all the talk has been about the now-defunct Safe Harbor deal and protecting European data in the US, a recent case involving Google flips that debate on its head.
21. The Need for Transparency in Surveillance (Bruce Schneir)
22. California law requiring warrant for digital searches is ‘a landmark win for digital privacy’
23. Cars That Talk to Each Other Are Much Easier to Spy On
24. Why the death of the iPod was the end of privacy
25. Right To Be Forgotten Now Lives In Australia: Court Says Google Is The ‘Publisher’ Of Material It Links To
26. With Tim Wu’s Help, New York AG Launches Belated Investigation Into Whether ISPs Intentionally Slowed Netflix
27. Net neutrality: EU votes in favour of Internet fast lanes and slow lanes
28. The European Union’s New Net Neutrality ‘Protections’ Are A Joke
29. After receiving threats, SXSW cancels panel about online harassment: SXSW also cancels “Savepoint” panel about “integrity of gaming’s journalists.”
30. This Is Not a Game: How SXSW Turned GamerGate Abuse Into a Spectator Sport
31. BuzzFeed To Withdraw From SXSW Over Canceled Gaming Panels
32. 6 Experts On How Silicon Valley Can Solve Online Harassment
33. What Snapchat’s High-Profile Exec Departures Really Tell Us About Ceo Evan Spiegel: The Fast-Growing Messaging And Media App Has Seen Star Talent Exit Quickly. What’s Behind Those Buzzy Departures And What They Really Mean.
34. The plan to save Yahoo
35. How the Internet Has Changed Bullying
36. Like it or not, your employees can like it
37. Why one software CEO agreed to meet a patent troll—and then fought it to the end: He seemed sad… but for whatever reason, he decided to take this path.”
38. First ever online-only NFL game draws over 15 million viewers
39. Stanford Researchers Treat Autism With Google Glass
40. How Much Does Venture Capital Drive the U.S. Economy?: Two scholars measure the economic impact of VC-funded companies.
41. The Ethics of Digital Disruption
42. Software Is The New Oil
43. The Rise of the Internet of Things and the Race to a Zero Marginal Cost Society (Jeremy Rifkin)
44. Haunted by hackers: A suburban family’s digital ghost story
45. Autonomous Cars and Their Ethical Conundrum
46. Why Alien Life Will Be Robotic: If life off Earth exists it has probably transitioned to machine intelligence.

CREATIVITY

1. Orwell Estate Sends Copyright Takedown Over The Number “1984”
2. Lego Tells Political Artist To Hit The Bricks, Refusing To Sell Him Legos
3. Artist Ai Weiwei banned from using Lego to build Australian artwork
4. Judge Rules That Egyptian Moral Rights Don’t Provide Standing In Tangled Lawsuit Over Jay-Z’s Big Pimpin’
5. “Desperate Housewives” star’s whistleblower case revived by Court of Appeal
6. Why Is Elton John’s Career Winding Down? The Russian Orthodox Church Has the Answer: It’s not age but his sexuality, the Archpriest reportedly said, and the marginalizing connection is depressingly familiar
7. Gender in the Music Industry

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