News of the Week; December 23, 2015

GAMES

1. Lilith Games (Shanghai) Co. Ltd. v. Ucool, Inc. and Ucool Ltd., Case No. 15-CV-01267-SC., United States District Court, N.D. California., September 23, 2015.
2. Nintendo Wins Mii Patent Suit
3. Russian man sues Bethesda for ‘Fallout 4’ being so addictive
4. Extra Credits Tackles China’s Propaganda Game Sesame Credit
5. Propaganda Games: Sesame Credit – The True Danger of Gamification – Extra Credits
6. Xbox Live pummelled by DDoS attack; hacker group claims responsibility: Phantom Squad had threatened to mimic Lizard Squad, take down gaming services.
7. Two App Developers Settle FTC Charges They Violated Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act: Companies’ Apps Shared Kids’ Information with Ad Networks; Will Pay $360K In Civil Penalties
8. FTC announces settlements with LAI Systems and Retro Dreamer: Devs will pay a combined $360,000 in civil penalties for violating COPPA
9. New Research Suggests Compulsive Gamers’ Brains Are Wired Differently
10. When Does A Parody Twitter Account Constitute Criminal Identity Theft?–Sims v. Monaghan
11. One More Ruling in the O’Bannon v. NCAA Saga
12. eSports still waiting for its big “Supercell moment” (Jas Purewal & Peter Lewin)
13. Turner Is Giving Away $2.4 Million to Gamers in 2016
14. Tencent purchases remaining shares in Riot Games to hold 100% of equity
15. League of Legends now owned entirely by Chinese giant Tencent: Chinese conglomerate buys Riot Games’ remaining equity.
16. Rocket League revenues nearly $50 million: Psyonix’s $2 million bet on soccer-with-cars game is paying off in a big way
17. CastAR to pay back Kickstarter backers: “We want to do right by our backers and think that this is the right way to do that”
18. Twitter hires first ever director of game partnerships
19. Research: opinions on gaming differ among races
20. Staten Island man claims video games inspired his statements to police about a double murder
21. Curt Schilling will not testify before RI House Oversight Committee
22. Japan’s console market: Lost in Transition?
23. The Year that Handhelds Died 

DIGITAL

1. Rightscorp wins landmark ruling, Cox hit with $25M verdict in copyright case: Case marks the first time an ISP has been held liable for user piracy.
2. $25 Million Jury Verdict In Rightscorp Case Raises Serious Questions About Copyright Law
3. BMG Rights Management (US) LLC, and Round Hill Music LP, v. Cox Communications, Inc., United States District Court, E.D. Virginia, December 1, 2015.
4. Bank of America gets Twitter to delete journalist’s joke, says he violated copyright: “I have no way of guessing what the objection was really about.”
5. Judge, siding with Google, refuses to shut down Waze in wake of alleged theft
6. Fox News Heads to a Jury Trial to Defend Its Use of 9/11 Photos on Facebook
7. Netflix, Technological Neutrality, Fair Dealing, Procedural Fairness and the Copyright Board of Canada
8. CRB Announces Webcasting Royalty Rates for 2016-2020 – Lower Rates for Broadcasters Who Stream, Minimal Change for Pureplay Webcasters 
9. Kim Dotcom to be finally extradited to the US, New Zealand judge rules: Megaupload founder promises new appeal in case that’s dragged on for nearly 4 years.
10. 42 percent of cord-cutters don’t even subscribe to home broadband
11. Russian Activist Gets Two-Year Sentence for ‘Calls to Extremism’ on Social Networks
12. Streaming TV Isn’t Just a New Way to Watch. It’s a New Genre.
13. Influencer Marketing: Tips for a Successful (and Legal) Advertising Campaign
14. The end for the Dallas Buyers Club Dispute and Speculative Invoicing? Or is it Just the Beginning
15. UK police busts karaoke “gang” for sharing songs that aren’t commercially available: Three old guys giving away karaoke tunes is now a “commercial-scale gang.”
16. Laws need a technology update: Tim Hudak makes some logical points about the sharing economy
17. How Our Digital Obsession With Artists Has Created A New Blueprint For Success
18. Google’s Move Toward Fair Use Comes In Anticipation Of YouTube Red
19. Amazon UK found selling illegal weapons including stun guns and pepper sprays: Guardian investigation finds third-party sellers and Amazon itself guilty of illegal sales.
20. Nova Scotia Court Strikes Down Province’s ‘Unconstitutional’ Cyberbullying Law
21. Trump Calls For Partial Shutdown Of The Internet, Doesn’t Understand What He’s Saying
22. WhatsApp blocked in Brazil for 48 hours by court: Unknown petitioner gains injunction blocking Facebook’s popular messaging service used daily by 93 million users in the country
23. As Venezuelan economy collapses further, gov’t targets US-based currency news site: Pres. Nicolas Maduro said he’d ask US to extradite “bandits” behind DolarToday.com.
24. The Multiverse – AR + VR + More
25. A Timeline of Fashion’s Early Experiments With Virtual Reality
26. New York Times CEO Mark Thompson says there will still be a print paper in 10 years, but he’s really into virtual reality
27. BBC to machine-translate TV news into Japanese and Russian: Content will still be checked by human journalists before it’s uploaded online.
28. Appeals Court Rejects Prior Restraint In Defamation Case; Could Have Gone Further
29. In a first, East Texas judge hits patent troll with attorneys’ fees: eDekka LLC had a patent that “teaches someone… a new way of doing things.”
30. 16 mobile theses
31. The Star Wars social network
32. Pricing Algorithms and the Digital “Smoke-Filled Room”
33. EFF releases 2015 Holiday Wishlist 

CREATIVITY

1. In the War of Music vs. Terror, Bet on Music
2. When a Quirk of Copyright Law Creates a Christmas Classic: It’s a Wonderful Life and the Public Domain 
3. Copyright Lawsuit Over ‘Who’s On First’ Doesn’t Get Past First Base
4. A dreaded sunny day for Abbott & Costello heirs: play made fair use of Who’s On First – TCA Television Corp. v. McCollum, No. 15 Civ. 4325 (S.D.N.Y. Dec. 17, 2105)
5. Famed Artist Jeffrey Koons Sued For Alleged Copyright Infringement…Again 
6. Photographer Sues Artist Jeff Koons for Infringement of Gin Ad
7. Copyright: No Longer a Property Right? (Jane Ginsburg)
8. This season, a notorious pirate gives the music industry an expensive gift: It’s a little machine that’s already “cost” the music industry millions of dollars.
9. Appeals Court Says US Government Cannot Deny Trademarks For Being ‘Disparaging’
10. Are Legal Restrictions On Disparaging Personal Names Unconstitutional?–In re The Slants
11. Asian-American band “The Slants” overturns USPTO rule on “disparaging” trademarks: Federal Circuit ruling arrives as Washington Redskins fight a similar battle.
12. Defendant can’t take advantage of TM abandonment it created
13. Fears for Hong Kong’s Press Freedom Follow Alibaba’s Purchase of the South China Morning Post
14. News: Court of Appeal dismiss Mirror Phone Hacking Appeals on all grounds
15. How “Homeland” Helps Justify the War on Terror
16. The American Papers that Praised Hitler: They fell hard for the job-creating Führer with eyes that were like ‘blue larkspur.’ Why did so many journalists spend years dismissing the evidence of his atrocities?
17. The New Breed of Newspaper Mogul? On Sheldon Adelson’s Purchase of the Las Vegas Review-Journal
18. Star Wars’ Legacy II: An Architect Of Hollywood’s Greatest Deal Recalls How George Lucas Won Sequel Rights
19. How #BlackLivesMatter Changed Hip-Hop and R&B in 2015: Kendrick Lamar and D’Angelo spoke to the struggle — but so did Black Twitter, the most radical hip-hop voice of all
20. Music In 2030
21. How Art Became Irrelevant: A chronological survey of the demise of art
22. Diverse movies are a huge business. Why doesn’t Hollywood make more?
23. An Oral History of Transgender Representation on Scripted TV

COMMUNICATIONS

1. Shaw Communications buying Wind Mobile in deal valued at $1.6 billion
2. YouTube mad at T-Mobile for throttling video traffic: T-Mobile’s “Binge On” reduces quality to 480p to reduce data usage.
3. AT&T, DirecTV Deliver ‘Merger Synergies’ By Raising Rates In Perfect Unison
4. Comcast customer discovers huge mistake in company’s data cap meter: Comcast said he used 120GB of data while on a multi-week vacation.
5. TPP Ratification Process Grinding To A Halt As Canada Launches ‘Widespread Consultations’ On The Deal
6. FCC Bureau Extends Open Internet Order’s Small Provider Exemption Until December 2016; Table Set for Full Commission Review in December 2016 
7. Is CHCH newsroom now operated by ‘related employer?’ 

SURVEILLANCE & PRIVACY

1. EU Broadens Right To Be Forgotten In Dangerously Vague Ways With New ‘Data Protection’ Directive
2. Final Draft of Europe’s “Right to be Forgotten” Law – Daphne Keller
3. NY Times Warns About Europe Expanding The ‘Right To Be Forgotten’
4. Using Law Against Technology (Bruce Schneier)
5. Appeal In EFF’s Big Lawsuit Against NSA Dismissed For ‘Lack Of Jurisdiction’; Heads Back To Lower Court Again
6. Why The New CISA Is So Bad For Privacy
7. Congress approves surveillance legislation tucked into budget package
8. RCMP pushes for new law to get Canadians’ private information without a warrant
9. The US Gov’t Says Backdoors Are Great For You — But A Serious Security Risk For Them
10. Australian government tells citizens to turn off two-factor authentication: When going abroad, turn off additional security. What could possibly go wrong?
11. Manhattan District Attorney Still Totally Ignorant About Encryption, Slams Tim Cook & Demands Legislation To Wipe Out Encryption
12. It Must Be Christmas Time, Because Target Is Losing People’s Personal Information Again
13. From Hello Kitty To Major League Baseball, Companies Are Leaking Kids’ Data All Over The Web
14. The Return of the Privacy Injunction? Some Practical Considerations
15. Bahamas man accused of hacking celebs, stealing movie scripts & sex tapes
16. “The Medieval Origins of Mass Surveillance” (Bruce Schneier)
17. More Writings on the Second Crypto Wars (Bruce Schneier)

jon