News of the Week; March 23, 2016

By Jon Festinger on March 23, 2016

GAMES

  1. Supreme Court punts in 1st AmendmentMadden NFL legal fight: EA said it was being wrongly punished because its virtual gridiron looked too real.
  2. Supreme Court rejects EA defense in Madden suit: Lawsuit brought by former pros used in games without permission can now proceed as publisher faces familiar setback
  3. Xbox chief: “We justly deserve the criticism” for GDC party with hired dancers
  4. Xbox chief: Company party’s hired dancers “not consistent with our values”
  5. The SXSW Online Harassment Summit Was A Small But Necessary Step Forward: It was a misunderstanding of online harassment that led to the creation of the summit, and there’s still a lot more work to be done.
  6. Gone Home Dev: Look past “the best person for the job”: Steve Gaynor wants industry veterans to open the door to more talented women
  7. GDC panel says that, in games, “Muslim blood is cheap”
  8. Beyond ageism: Industry must think about older gamers
  9. Machinima settles with FTC over undisclosed payments to online ‘influencers’: The network reportedly compensated YouTubers for feature Microsoft’s Xbox in their videos
  10. Pokkén Tournament penalizes players for rage quitting
  11. Angered Game Developer Sues Critic Jim Sterling For $10 Million
  12. Nintendo: Bravely Second localization change due to player feedback
  13. Report: Wii U will be Nintendo’s shortest-lived home console
  14. How the demonization of emulation devalues gaming’s heritage – Or: Why Uncle Buck is easier to buy than Duck Tales for the NES.
  15. Sony: We’re “happy to have the conversation” on cross-platform play – Vague statement hints at case-by-case openness to Microsoft’s invitation.
  16. Report: Sony working on upgraded, 4K-capable PS4 – Development sources say hardware refresh would sport more powerful GPU.
  17. PlayStation VR: Sony is “probably going to reject” games under 60 fps
  18. PlayStation VR launch lineup has five slick Sony-made games: PlayStation VR Worlds and The Playroom VR to become the Wii Sports of PSVR.
  19. PlayStation VR to sell 8m units in 24 months – analyst
  20. Amazon selling out of PSVR across Europe: Supplier limiting second batch of headsets to one per customer
  21. Survey: PlayStation/Xbox gamers more interested in VR than PC players: Exclusive results from Ipsos show PS4/Xbox One owners most engaged group
  22. PlayStation VR Launch Bundle Pre-orders Opening at Amazon Today (Update: Sold Out)
  23. Oculus will launch with 30 VR games—but are they any good?: Launch preview event weirdly focused on future Touch titles, and we think we know why.
  24. Vertigo lives: Oculus Rift preview event suffers from VR tracking woes – Launch game devs admit they’ve seen bug, “can’t repro” it. Will Oculus fix it in time?
  25. Why VR is not the most important trend at GDC: The democratisation of game engines and creative tools is the most exciting and powerful movement in games this decade – and the best is yet to come
  26. Epic looks outside of gaming for new uses of Unreal Engine: Powerful real-time 3D is revolutionizing everything from film to architecture.
  27. Take it from a pro, Street Fighter 5’s changes are for the greater good: One Guinness Worlds Record-holding champ believes the community needs SFV to succeed.
  28. Xbox Survey asks users if they want to sell back digital content: Question suggests potential trade-in price of 10%; analyst downplays potential threat to GameStop
  29. Tencent cleared $3 billion smartphone game revenue in 2015
  30. Game dev reveals correlation between a translation and a region’s piracy: Localization in Western Europe paid off—but Brazilian Portuguese didn’t fare so well.
  31. Valhalla moves HQ to Vancouver: Tomonobu Itagaki believes talented devs more attracted to Western countries than Japan
  32. IGDA to name best companies for crunch: Dev group hopes transparency around uncompensated overtime will improve employers’ behavior, will name-and-shame if it doesn’t
  33. Downtown Grand adds dedicated eSports Lounge
  34. GDC 2016 attracts 27,000 attendees

DIGITAL

  1. 9th Circuit revisits Dancing Baby copyright case: No fair use via algorithm – In a sharp dissent, one judge argues EFF should win its case immediately.
  2. New Decision In Dancing Baby DMCA Takedown Case — And Everything Is Still A Mess
  3. Eight-second videos are long enough to infringe on copyright, says UK judge: High Court rules that sharing sports highlights on Fanatix is not “fair dealing.”
  4. Court Rejects “Browsewrap.” Is That Surprising?–Long v. ProFlowers
  5. Spotify inks “no copyright claim” royalty deal with music publishers: “Only a temporary solution,” says copyright lobby group.
  6. Big Win For Free Speech Online In Backpage Lawsuit (Eric Goldman)
  7. Streetmap seeks to appeal against High Court ruling in Google case: UK-based mapping outfit continues to challenge search giant despite major setback.
  8. EU Court Of Justice Advocate General Says Open WiFi Operators Shouldn’t Be Liable For Infringement
  9. Wikileaks Exaggerates Story About State Department Working With Google To Block Video
  10. Machines That Will Think and Feel: Artificial intelligence is still in its infancy—and that should scare us
  11. DailyDirt: AlphaGo Plays Better Go Than Puny Humans…
  12. ‘Facebook for guns’ app aims to take America’s gun culture online
  13. Live Streaming Virtual Reality Company Receives Investment Of $12.5 Million From Intel Capital, Sacramento Kings, A&E
  14. Why apps like Siri and Cortana need to understand suicide: Study reveals that smartphones respond to emergencies with confusion, bad info.
  15. Netflix rescued “The Little Prince” after it was abruptly dropped from US theaters
  16. Where’s The Money? YouTube Revenues Explained
  17. YouTube was meant to be a video-dating website: Co-founder Steve Chen tells SXSW conference that ‘we thought dating would be the obvious choice’ – but internet users didn’t agree
  18. Twitter in 10 tweets: The social network is celebrating 10 years of letting folks share their thoughts in 140 characters or fewer. Here are the moments that stand out.

CREATIVITY

  1. Copyright Board Ruling Strikes Fair Balance in Heated Education Fight (Michael Geist)
  2. The Copyright Board’s K-12 Tariff: Good, Bad, Retroactive, Mandatory? A Seven Year Itch? (Howrad Knopf)
  3. False Alarms: Examining the Misleading Claims About the State of Canadian Publishers (Michael Geist)
  4. The ‘Monkey Selfie’ Monkey Just Filed an Appeal
  5. Amazon Defeats Lawsuit Over ‘A Gronking To Remember’ Book Cover (Eric Goldman)
  6. As Predicted, Elsevier’s Attempt To Silence Sci-Hub Has Increased Public Awareness Massively
  7. Jim Balsillie: Canada’s intellectual property red tape holding the country back from innovating
  8. Princess Cruises Faces Lawsuit Over Barry Manilow Concert Broadcasts
  9. Authoritarian hold music: How Donald Trump’s banal playlist cultivates danger at his rallies
  10. Donald Trump Thinks Hulk Hogan/Gawker Jury Award Is Good For His Plans To ‘Open Up’ Libel Laws
  11. Supreme Court: 8 Potential Cases That Would Impact Entertainment and Media

COMMUNICATIONS & BROADCASTING

  1. Canadian Cable Companies Make A Mockery Of Government’s Push For Cheaper TV
  2. CRTC flooded with complaints about new $25 skinny basic TV package: The commission has already received nearly 600 complaints about the mandated TV deals
  3. John Doyle: Canadian TV is a place of squalor and neglect
  4. FCC’s cable box rules won’t prohibit extra ads around TV channels: Ban unneeded as companies like TiVo “are not disrupting advertising,” FCC says.
  5. Racial and Ethnic Discrimination Charges Fly in TV Distribution Fights
  6. T-Mobile and YouTube compromise on video throttling and zero-rating: YouTube joins Binge On, videos won’t count against T-Mobile data caps.
  7. Prison phone company says rate caps will make inmates angry and dangerous: Confusion about prices could lead to damage in prisons, CEO tells court.
  8. Despite Gigabit Hype, U.S. Broadband’s Actually Getting Less Competitive Than Ever
  9. FCC Chairman Calls For New Consumer Privacy Regulations Of Internet Service Providers
  10. Why Tom Wheeler rejected broadband price caps and last-mile unbundling: FCC chairman has hammered ISPs, but he could have gone even further.
  11. Tennessee kills muni-broadband expansion bill after AT&T opposition: Lawmakers caved to lobbyists, disappointed rep says.
  12. ISPs Are Blocking Google Fiber’s Access To Utility Poles In California
  13. AT&T Uses Binding Arbitration Mouse Print To Kill Throttling Class Action
  14. Government announces media ownership law changes: The changes recognise that traditional media platforms need greater freedom to restructure and rescale the ownership of their businesses to respond to competition from new forms of media. (Australia)

SURVEILLANCE & PRIVACY

  1. Hulk Hogan Awarded $115 Million in Privacy Suit Against Gawker
  2. $115 million verdict in Hulk Hogan sex-tape lawsuit could wipe out Gawker – Hogan’s lawyer: Gawker editor was “playing God” with my client’s privacy.
  3. Facebook’s ad platform now guesses at your race based on your behaviour: Company profiles users so Facebook can sell against their “ethnic affinity.”
  4. Facebook explains that it is totally not doing racial profiling: It just wants to assign you an “ethnic affinity” based on what you do and like.
  5. Another FBI Filing on the San Bernardino iPhone Case (Bruce Schneier)
  6. Apple Tells Court That The DOJ Is Lying About It Advertising The Fact That Encryption Keeps Out Law Enforcement
  7. US government pushed tech firms to hand over source code: Obtaining a company’s source code makes it radically easier to find security flaws and vulnerabilities for surveillance and intelligence-gathering operations.
  8. US Government Has Apparently Demanded, And Obtained, Tech Companies’ Source Code In The Past
  9. Apple’s VP Of Software Engineering: No, We Have Never Given A Backdoor To Any Government
  10. Apple Encryption Engineers, if Ordered to Unlock iPhone, Might Resist
  11. How Apple Could Lose By Winning: The DOJ’s Next Move Could Be Worse
  12. Former Presidential Cybersecurity ‘Czar’ Slams DOJ/FBI For Its Position On Apple Encryption
  13. Apple defends crypto fight against government during launch event – Cook: “We did not expect to be in this position at odds with our own government.”
  14. FBI says it might be able to break into seized iPhone, judge cancels order to aid decryption: “If the method is viable, it should eliminate the need for the assistance of Apple.”
  15. DOJ To Court: Hey, Can We Postpone Tomorrow’s Hearing? We Want To See If We Can Use This New Hole To Hack In
  16. Apple gets short-term win, but new mysterious FBI unlocking method looms
  17. Government keeping its method to crack San Bernardino iPhone ‘classified’
  18. Gov’t accidentally publishes target of Lavabit probe: It’s Snowden
  19. Apparent Redaction Failure Leads To Government Confirming Target Of Lavabit Investigation
  20. We need stronger limits on Apple-style court orders
  21. Burner phones, not encryption, kept Paris terrorists off the authorities’ radar: Terrorists not using encryption undermines gov’t calls for it to be backdoored, weakened.
  22. French Police Report On Paris Attacks Shows No Evidence Of Encryption… So NY Times Invents Evidence Itself
  23. Google Searches & Jury Selection: What Role Should Social Media Have in Voir Dire?

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