GAMES
- Sony Settlement Gives PS3 Owners $9 After Company Made Console Less Useful Via Firmware Update
- Optimistic about VR and games, Sony raises its earnings forecast
- Counter-Strike Player Sues Valve Over ‘Illegal’ Weapon Skin Gambling
- Lawsuit Against Valve Over Skin Gambling Could Face Significant Hurdles
- EA Sports won’t be beaten at its own game – Escaping potential liability through successful § 101 motion to dismiss
- EA punts, gives $600k to former football star in Madden NFL rights flap: But EA is fighting a similar suit that could represent thousands of NFL players.
- EA pays $600k to settle legal fight with former NFL star Jim Brown
- Tinybuild: G2A “facilitates a black market economy” – SpeedRunners dev claims $450,000 of its games were sold through unofficial marketplace, “thousands” of which were fraudulent
- Game key reseller G2A offers to pay devs royalties from third-party sales
- G2A now allowing developers to apply for royalties: “This initiative invites developers to become accomplices,” says Alex Nichiporchik
- G2A, Piracy, and the Four Currencies
- Developer claims Valve removed its game from Steam at Activision’s behest
- Game devs weigh in on the ‘Brexit’ decision
- Ukie issues statement on Brexit: “Ukie is committed to ensuring the UK is the best place in the world to make and sell games”
- TIGA calls for government to reassure UK games industry: Post-Brexit Britain will be a harder place to do business, warns body
- Brexit: UK game developers share their concerns – “The negative revolves around skilled talent not wanting or being able to stay, or come to UK.”
- HQ Vancouver: Why global gaming giants set up shop in Vancouver
- PlayStation Plus hits 20.8 million subscribers
- Moore: “We want to make stars of all our players” – EA’s Chief Competition Officer lays out company plans for eSports
- How the law matters in eSports’ Wild West
- Will E-Sports Ever Work on TV?: With eLeague, TBS is going to find out.
- Overwatch tops League as the most-played game in South Korean ‘net cafes
- Report: China is now the global leader in video game revenues
- Xbox Fitness Users Shelled Out Big Bucks For Workout Programs They’ll Soon Be Totally Unable To Use
- Xbox Fitness users will soon lose access to workout videos they bought: Microsoft’s “sunset” plan will cut users off from content they paid for.
- Nintendo is closing servers for Devil’s Third
- Our social network is in another castle: The new face of Nintendo – Response to social-media outrage is latest sign of a very different “gaming” company.
- Action Henk devs would rather you torrented their games than buy from resellers
- New South Park Game Lets You Play as a Girl, Game Reacts to You Differently
- Hands-on with the emulator that adds depth to old 2D NES games: Standalone 3DNES emulator is a promising starting effort with some rough edges.
- Firaxis partners with GlassLab for educational version of Civilization V
- Truth and Protection: Where is the Line When Teaching Kids about the Video Game Community
- Smithsonian to document evolution of game industry with Video Game Pioneers Archive
- Xbox Scorpio, PlayStation Neo an “incredibly positive evolution”: Electronic Arts, Ubisoft and Take-Two discuss why Microsoft and Sony launching new consoles more quickly is a big win
- Microsoft Discontinues Xbox Fitness Programs To The Dismay Of Users
- The Minecraft Movie Has A Release Date!
DIGITAL
- NRA Complaint Takes Down 38,000 Websites
- Digitising public domain images creates a new copyright, rules German court: Wikimedia Foundation says that it intends to appeal against the decision.
- Terrible Ruling In Germany: Digitizing The Public Domain Creates New Copyright
- Leave to Appeal to SCC: Rogers v SOCAN (2016 FCA 28) re Ringtones and Ringbacks
- Woman Sues Microsoft Over Unwanted Windows 10 Upgrade, Wins $10,000
- Researchers Sue the Government Over Computer Hacking Law
- First Look Media Works, Inc., Plaintiffs, -v.- Loretta Lynch, in her official capacity as Attorney General of the United States, In The United States District Court For The District Of Columbia
- Judge Calls Out Malibu Media For Its Attempt To Cut And Run When Faced With Challenge To Its Infringement Claims
- Malibu Media Sues Its Former Lawyer Over Missing Funds, Breach Of Bar Rules
- Porn studio that sued thousands for piracy now fighting its own lawyer
- Two Judges Punch Holes In Copyright Trolls’ Claims That An IP Address Is The Same Thing As A Person
- Web Host Defeats Copyright Liability Despite Mishandled Takedown Notice–Hydrenta v. Luchian (Eric Goldman)
- LOL! OMG. HUH? Court Finds That Text Message Can Form Binding Contract
- Could This Silicon Valley Algorithm Pick Which Homeless People Get Housing?: A new approach seeks to find the most desperate people on the streets—with data.
- Your Favorite Website Might Be Discriminating Against You
- Testing whether the web is discriminating against you shouldn’t be a crime
- EU regulations on algorithmic decision-making and a “right to explanation” (Bryce Goodman & Seth Flaxman)
- On second thought, Facebook doesn’t care so much about news publishers: Says news feed has “far too much information,” will downgrade content from “pages.”
- Twitter Deletes SCOTUSblog Twitter Account Briefly Thinking Its Running Of The Trolls Meant It Was Hacked
- How Brexit affects the global technology industry
- Many UK voters didn’t understand Brexit, Google searches suggest: “What happens if we leave the EU?” and “What is Brexit?” were top search terms.
- Lindsay Lohan gifted us with epic Brexit tweets, and then deleted them mysteriously
- The replies to this idiotic Donald Trump Brexit tweet are beautiful
- Donald Trump Is Not a Troll: Calling him a troll trivializes his repulsive comments.
- Mapping online hate speech: You might think from anecdotal evidence that hate speech on social media by individuals and groups appears quite a lot, but one of first academic studies to examine the empirical data concludes that these extreme forms of speech on Facebook are marginal as compared with total content.
- Exclusive: Google, Facebook quietly move toward automatic blocking of extremist videos
- This Algorithm Could Wipe Out ISIS Propaganda Online: The creators of a new software technology claim it can expunge extremist content from social media. But will a wary Silicon Valley warm to it
- Rather Than Launch A Massive DDoS Attack, This Time China Just Asks GitHub To Take Down Page It Doesn’t Like
- County Attorney’s Deletion of Constituent’s Facebook Comment May Violate First Amendment
- Google secretly deletes inactive YouTube accounts
- Google is Adding a VR Shell to Chrome to Let You Browse the Entire Web in VR
- Microsoft Says It’s in Love With Linux. Now It’s Finally Proving It
- The Sacramento Kings’ New Stadium Is Wired for Virtual Reality: The wireless Internet at the NBA team’s new arena is designed to let fans watch virtual reality replays from any seat in the house.
- Apple Wins Patent For Technology To Disable iPhone Camera And Bar Photography
- FTC Is Cracking Down On Failure To Disclose Influencers’ Connections
- How Sony, Microsoft, and Other Gadget Makers Violate Federal Warranty Law
- Tax Treatment of Bitcoin Has Many Open Questions
- Lessons From The Downfall Of A $150M Crowdfunded Experiment In Decentralized Governance
- Do you trust the government to set morals for AI (Artificial Intelligence) to drive cars?
- Artificial Intelligence Has a ‘Sea of Dudes’ Problem: AI software depends on data sets, and data sets have to be created by computer scientists. What happens when most of those researchers are men?
- Ad firm: It doesn’t matter that migrant app doesn’t work, it’s the idea that counts – “I Sea” claimed its users could help migrants via “real-time” satellite imagery.
- Reverse Engineering The YouTube Algorithm
- Oculus Reverses DRM Course After Public Backlash
- Exclusivity can be a driving force for VR, says Oculus founder
- New VR venture capital supergroup gathers $10B to invest in VR dev
- You can now livestream right from the YouTube app: Press capture, pick a thumbnail, and you’ll be live streaming to the world.
- Take it from a viral media star: Stop signing away your ideas
- Following a period of turmoil, Wikimedia Foundation appoints new director: Tension over a “Knowledge Engine” led to previous director’s resignation.
- Op-Ed: Why notice-and-takedown is a bit of copyright law worth saving (Chris Springman & Mark Lemley)
- Computer-Generated Works Outside The Box (James Grimmelmann)
- How Google Is Remaking Itself As a “Machine Learning First” Company: If you want to build artificial intelligence into every product, you better retrain your army of coders. Check.
- Chatbot lawyer overturns 160,000 parking tickets in London and New York: Free service DoNotPay helps appeal over $4m in parking fines in just 21 months, but is just the tip of the legal AI iceberg for its 19-year-old creator
- The New Yorker, BuzzFeed, and the push for digital credibility
- Inside ‘The Next Rembrandt’: How JWT Got a Computer to Paint Like the Old Master – The project leaders explain their brilliant, troubling masterpiece
- The Laws of Mixed Reality: A vision of the future, without the rose-colored glasses
- The Partnership of the Future: Microsoft’s CEO explores how humans and A.I. can work together to solve society’s greatest challenges.
- Instagram and the Fantasy of Mastery: A “look” is a kind of instant style – quickly executed and dispatched, immediately understood and overcharged with incident. It is time for a new view.
- The Fintech Bubble (Joi Ito)
- AI bests Air Force combat tactics experts in simulated dogfights
- Alchemy Can’t Save Moore’s Law
- My friend, the bot: How our friendships change over time — and technology
- Man Marries His Smartphone
- From file-sharing to prison: A Megaupload programmer tells his story
CREATIVITY
- Led Zeppelin didn’t steal music for ‘Stairway to Heaven,’ jury finds
- ‘Stairway’ Verdict May Rein in Lawsuits Claiming Song Ripoffs
- VMG Salsoul, LLC v. Madonna Louise Ciccone, et al.: Why a Bright Line Infringement Rule for Sound Recordings is no Longer in Vogue
- This Song Belongs To You And Me: Lawsuit Filed To Declare Woodie Guthrie’s Classic In The Public Domain
- Copyright does not monopolize facts – documentary filmmakers’ claim against book author and publisher fails
- Historical Facts and Copyright: the Maltz v. Witterick Case
- Fictional Claims: Why Kids Are Not Suffering With Canada’s Copyright Fair Dealing Rules (Michael Geist)
- Copyright Small Claims Court: Not Just a Dream
- Apple’s Patent Could Finally Put a Stop to iPhone Concert Photography
- MPAA Boss: Actually Being Good To Consumers Would Be Horrible For Hollywood
- The Official Star Trek Fan Film Guidelines Are Here and They Are Onerous
- As CBS/Paramount Continue Lawsuit Over Fan Film, It Releases Ridiculous & Impossible ‘Fan Film Guidelines’
- Unswayed by Axanar, CBS and Paramount offer 10 rules for fan film makers: New rules forbid unofficial merchandise, alcohol use, long episodes.
- Airbnb Faces Suit for Using Julia Child’s Name in a Contest
- Boiler Plate Inked: Copyright Actions Brought by Tattooists Threaten Athlete Endorser Publicity Rights
- Kirtsaeng v. Wiley And The Purpose Of Copyright
- Censorship In The Guise Of Authorship: Harmonizing Copyright And The First Amendment (Hon. M. Margaret Mckeown)
- Trump Promises to Restore Washington Redskins’ Trademark on Day One of Presidency
- 5 Questions for Simon Tam, Founder of The Slants: Tam wants the Supreme Court to join his band’s case to the Redskins’ case. Curiously, he still thinks the Redskins’ name is racist.
- Brexit and IP: A Primer
- On the Charter, Freedom of Expression, and Scientific Research (Stephen Armstrong)
- Reading List: The Copyright Wars (Rebecca Tushnet)
- Hillary Clinton’s Intellectual Property Platform: Too Vague & Confusing
- New York Times reports plagiarism in Trump textbooks
- CafePress Takes Down T-Shirt Calling Donald Trump A Cheeto-Faced S—gibbon, Saying It Violates Frito-Lay’s Trademark
- Huckabee’s anti-gay-marriage rally leads to copyright suit, $25,000 payment: Huckabee’s still paying for a copyright snafu from his campaign’s early days.
- Russian Culture Minister Claims Netflix A U.S. Mind Control Effort
- Portrait of an artist dying intestate: How a Toronto gallery owner is negotiating the delicate matter of who owns Vivian Maier’s iconic art
- #OscarsLessWhite: the Academy just invited nearly 700 new members to improve diversity — but there’s still a long way to go
- How the Gawker Media Bankruptcy Will Work
- Good News at the Washington Post: Inside the paper Jeff Bezos bought –&– Donald Trump banned.
- No Light Between Diversity and Free Expression (John Palfrey)
- Privilege for patent and trademark agents now in force in Canada
COMMUNICATIONS & BROADCASTING
- CRTC commissioner departs after more than a year of legal battles
- Let’s Talk TV: CRTC Revises Policy Framework for Local and Community Television
- Six companies pay $1.23 million for making telemarketing calls to Canadians
- Bell Canada loses second attempt to limit competitor access to its fibre networks
- FCC Chairman Releases Summary of Media Ownership Reform Proposals – Little Change in Existing Ownership Rules, Reinstatement of JSA Ban
- Dear Landlord: Don’t Rip Me Off When it Comes To Internet Access: When building owners get kickbacks from big providers it’s the tenants who lose (Susan Crawford)
- Comcast took $1,775 from man, only gave it back after he contacted media: Comcast wrongly debited early termination fee, provided no refund for 18 months.
- How Comcast and Charter are trying to fix their awful customer service: Two biggest cable companies pledge improvements at Senate hearing.
- Cable company overcharges might be even worse than you realized: Senate report compares billing and service records, finds massive overcharges.
- Senate Hearing Shows Cable Companies Routinely Overbill Customers, Do Little To Correct Errors
- European supreme court adds to Telefónica’s woes after Brexit slump: Court upholds antitrust decision as O2 owner struggles post UK referendum.
- Why ISPs’ fight against net neutrality probably won’t reach Supreme Court: There are no major questions for the Supreme Court to decide, some experts say.
- New FCC Online Public Inspection File Goes Live Today – Top 50 Market Radio Stations To Start Transition
SURVEILLANCE & PRIVACY
- How a file-sharing lawsuit against Rogers threatens your Internet privacy: Geist – Voltage Pictures asked the court to order Rogers to disclose the identity of one of its subscribers in a reverse class-action lawsuit.
- Canadian File Sharing Lawsuit Could Upend Copyright Privacy Protections (Michael Geist)
- EU-US Privacy Shield sent to national reps for approval—by next week: European Commission sends updated text to Article 31 and demands answer by Monday
- Judge Says FBI Can Hack Computers Without A Warrant Because Computer Users Get Hacked All The Time
- Federal Court: The Fourth Amendment Does Not Protect Your Home Computer (EFF)
- Crook who left his phone at the scene has “no reasonable expectation of privacy”: Judge says it’s OK that a phone found at a burglary leads to kidnapping evidence.
- Post Gag Order, Lavabit Founder Reveals Non-Secret That Feds Were After Ed Snowden’s Emails
- Russia’s new spy law calls for metadata and content to be stored, plus crypto backdoors: Snowden calls it “an unworkable, unjustifiable violation of rights.”
- Russia’s Problem (According To Russian Politicians): Not Enough Mass Surveillance
- EU data flows to China is next fight on privacy warriors hit list: MEPs want answers from Brussels on protecting personal data of EU citizens.
- Brexit. Privacy. What You Need to Know.
- Private right of action under Canada’s Anti-Spam Law (CASL)
- FTC Reaches $950,000 Settlement Over Location Tracking
- FTC Updates Consumer Guidance for Online Tracking
- Facebook Using Physical Location to Suggest Friends (Bruce Schneier)
- Facebook says it did ‘a test’ last year using people’s locations to make friend suggestions
- Facebook is using your phone’s location to suggest new friends—which could be a privacy disaster
- The Freedom of Information Act—and the Hero Who Pioneered It: Celebrating the curious and deeply unpopular political career of John Moss, godfather of the FOIA.
- I, Snowbot: For A Man Accused Of Espionage And Effectively Exiled In Russia, Edward Snowden Is Also, Strangely, Free.
- This paparazzi-proof scarf is the closest thing to an invisibility cloak
jon