GAMES
- Popular YouTubers plead not guilty to FIFA gambling offences
- eSports taking viewership away from real sports – Newzoo: Research firm finds that 76% of eSports enthusiasts state that their eSports viewing is taking away from hours they used to spend on viewing sports
- CCP cracking down on EVE Online gambling sites: CCP has updated its EULA to stress its anti-gambling policy and has issued account suspensions
- CCP clamping down on EVE gambling sites with freemium switch in sight
- Valve refutes Washington State accusations over CS:GOgambling
- Valve pushes back against Washington State skin gambling claims: “As we have explained on multiple occasions, Valve is not engaged in gambling or the promotion of gambling, and we do not ‘facilitate gambling'”
- Starcraft Proleague, Longest Running ESports League, Discontinued
- Shadow Warrior 2 developers say DRM is a waste of time: “There isn’t a good way to stop [piracy] without hurting our customers.”
- “Gotta Catch ‘Em All!”™ – Pokémon™ Go Gives Rise to New Class Action Suits
- Pokémon Go is just the beginning of an absurd copyright struggle in AR
- DLC and Microtransactions: New Study Shows How Gamers Feel About Them
- The merits of Star Citizen’s development openness: Chris Roberts and his team take a lot of flak for the delays to their ambitious game, but their openness has earned the forgiveness of core fans
- See how Girls Make Games supports girls who want to be game makers
- “Making your games inclusive is complicated and fraught with frustration”: Beamdog creative director David Gaider on the importance, and pitfalls, of promoting diversity
- “There are not as many questions. We have more freedom now”: Dontnod CEO Oskar Guilbert believes the industry has changed since Remember Me’s problems over its female lead – and changed for the better
- PlayStation VR selling out at GameStop after ‘tremendous demand’
- PlayStation VR had “many hundreds of thousands” of pre-orders: Sony Interactive Entertainment’s Jim Ryan has some good news for the emerging VR market
- PlayStation VR launch demonstrates Sony’s PR expertise – ICO: Analysis by ICO Partners reveals that PSVR dominated media coverage compared to the launches of Rift and Vive
- PlayStation VR’s Killer App Is … Music
- How Video Games Are Changing the Way Soccer Is Played: Games like FIFA that were designed to reflect the sport’s reality have helped alter it, influencing professional players and front offices.
- $850m raised towards Tencent’s Supercell acquisition
- Tencent raises $850M from Chinese investors to fund Supercell purchase
- Mobile-Game Maker Kabam Evaluating Multiple Offers for Canada Studio – Vancouver studio makes ‘Marvel: Contest of Champions,’ draws bids of up to $800 million from Asian, U.S. companies
- Kabam offered $800 million for Vancouver studio – Report: Marvel Contest of Champions studio has attracted multiple bids, according to VentureBeat
- MTG acquires 35% of InnoGames for €90 million: Swedish entertainment firm expands interest in games beyond eSports, could raise its stake in InnoGames to 51% next year
- Analyst: Game sales could reach $98 billion by 2020
- Candy Crush is becoming a TV game show for some reason – Or: How can you tell when a mobile gaming phenomenon is totally played out?
- How does storytelling differ between video games and literature?
DIGITAL
- Samsung doesn’t want you to see video of this GTA V exploding phone mod: YouTube takedown notice is a pretty clear abuse of the DMCA.
- Consumer deception? That ‘Buy Now’ button on Amazon or iTunes may not mean you own what you paid for
- Ownership and Deception in the Digital Marketplace: What really happens when you click “buy now.”
- Backup copies of software can’t be re-sold, rules top EU court: But original media and unlimited user licence is fine to sell on.
- European Court Revisits Resale Of Software
- New French Act: Google Images will have to pay royalties
- New York Fashion Company Sued Over Use of Photograph on Instagram
- A Weekend Full Of The NFL Violating Its Own Social Media Video Content Rules
- Trump’s been called almost everything—let’s add IP “pirate” to the list: Photog says use of his image by Trump campaign is “reprehensibly offensive.”
- Electronic Frontier Foundation brings suit over anti-circumvention provisions in the DMCA
- George Orwell never dreamed of advertising as invasive as Yahoo’s proposal: Yahoo’s outdoor, public advertising scheme relies on what it calls “grouplization.”
- We Must Remake Society in the Coming Age of AI: Obama
- White House Releases Reports on Future of Artificial Intelligence
- Robot journalists to start writing news and sports stories for Britain and Ireland’s national news agency
- AI needs a watchdog and UK gov’t must do better on robotics, MPs warn: Ethical, legal, and societal ramifications of AI systems must be probed, says committee
- Humans need new skills for post-AI world, say MPs: Robotics and AI have “huge potential” to reshape the way people work and live, but the government needs to do more to address the issues raised by such technology, says a report.
- There is a blind spot in AI research (Kate Crawford & Ryan Calo)
- YouTube points the way forward for monetising video content
- Samsung Galaxy Note 7s are exploding and everyone has a theory as to why: Poor design? Fast-charge problems? Theories emerge to explain the Note 7 debacle.
- What’s In A Design? A Smartphone Battle In The Highest Court
- Breaking Down Arguments in Samsung v. Apple
- The Surprising Backbone of the Internet of Things: Cities need to be blanketed with internet — and streetlights fit the bill. (Susan Crawford)
- We Need to Save the Internet from the Internet of Things (Bruce Schneier)
- The Soviet InterNyet: Soviet scientists tried for decades to network their nation. What stalemated them is now fracturing the global internet
- Twitter has failed at controlling horrifying anti-Semitism
- Anti-Semitic Twitter trolls are disproportionately likely to be Trump supporters
- Twitter’s ‘Juggernaut of Bigotry’: Five takeaways from the ADL’s report on anti-Semitic targeting of journalists during the 2016 presidential campaign
- …And Here Come The Device-Restricted Music Subscriptions
- The Musical Twitter Bot: Who Has the Copyright for AI-Facilitated Works?
- Snapchat Glasses – Are Spectacles The Future Of Wearables?
- College student 3D prints his own braces
- The remix wars: Copyright and the Socially Awkward Penguin
- Uber’s Ad-Toting Drones Are Heckling Drivers Stuck in Traffic: Forget billboards—motorists now have ads buzzing a few feet above their windshields.
- Assault With a Deadly Tweet?
- Theater Association Boss Reminds Theater Owners, Netflix To Stay In Their Own Lanes
- France Is Pushing For a Tax on YouTube and Netflix
- Ongoing PC sales downturn is the longest yet, says analyst
- New England Patriots Coach Bill Belichick: ‘I’m Done With The (Microsoft) Tablets’
- After Yahoo data breach, Verizon hints that it could pull out of $4.83B deal: “I think we have a reasonable basis to believe right now that the impact is material.”
- Verizon Wants $1 Billion Discount After Yahoo Scandals, Still Fancies Itself The New Google
- A decentralized web would give power back to the people online
- Inside Intellectual Ventures’ Portfolio: Nearly 500 University Patents
CREATIVITY
- Who’s On (The) Second (Circuit)… And Why Are They Screwing Up Copyright Law?
- Rome Court of First Instance rules that copyright exceptions for news reporting and criticism/review do not apply to entertainment TV programmes
- Bob Dylan Makes the Case Against Today’s Copyright Climate
- Bob Dylan’s Full MusiCares Speech: How He Wrote the Songs, a Master Class Must Read
- 10 Copyright Cases Every Fan Fiction Writer Should Know About
- McDonald’s facing copyright lawsuits from graffiti artists
- Copyright war: Street artists accuse big corporations of stealing their artworks – The family of the deceased artist Dash Snow have accused McDonald’s of stealing Snow’s graffiti signature to decorate the walls of hundreds of their restaurants – and his case is not the only one
- Harry Shearer Files $125M ‘Spinal Tap’ Fraud Suit, Copyright Termination
- North Dakota gives up attempt to charge journalist who filmed pipeline protest
- Charges against Amy Goodman bring national attention to a little-noticed protest.
- Cleveland Indians can use name and ‘Chief Wahoo’ logo during ALCS games in Toronto, judge rules
- Disney’s Lucasfilm Sues Academy That Teaches People How to Use Lightsabers
- Lucasfilm unleashes legal Death Star on lightsaber schools: School logo looks “confusingly similar” to the Star Wars “Jedi Order” logo.
- Disney Sued by ‘Doc McStuffins’ Actress Over Merchandise Revenue
- Usher Sues Sony for Right of Publicity Violation for Use of Voice
- I Hardly Expected My Letter to Donald Trump to Go Viral
- Activist seeks injunction against use of ‘Cleveland Indians’ name and logo
- Sanity: MasterCard Loses Absolutely Idiotic Trademark Challenge Against An Athletic Competition
- Mediaset vs Gruppo L’Espresso: il Tribunale di Roma giudica inapplicabili le eccezioni e limitazioni ai diritti autorali e condanna il gruppo romano per illecito utilizzo di contenuti audiovisivi
- Why the Knight Foundation president thinks we’re living through the biggest disruption since Gutenberg and the printing press
- New York Times lawyer: Donald Trump has no reputation to protect
- Donald Trump’s Media Threats Are Why a Free Speech Protection Law Is Needed
- As Donald Trump Ramps Up Threats To Sue Newspapers, A Reminder Of Why We Need Free Speech Protections
- ‘Apprentice’ Producer Denounces Trump but Won’t Release Possibly Damning Tapes
- If Trump Outtakes Are Leaked, It Won’t Be A Copyright Violation
- Horrified by Trump, Silicon Valley Leaders Debate Cutting Ties to Peter Thiel
- Still A Bad Idea: Gawker Exploring Lawsuit Against Peter Thiel
- Who’s the pirate? Lawyers join forces to fight allegedly bogus claims of pay-TV theft
- Does Advertising Ruin Everything?: “We have to get over our addiction to free stuff. Suck it up and pay,” says Tim Wu, the author of a new book on the history of ads.
- Technological Neutrality: Recalibrating Copyright in the Information Age (Carys Craig)
- Reconsidering Copyright’s Constitutionality (Graham Reynolds)
- Should it be copyright’s role to fill houses with books? (Rebecca Giblin)
COMMUNICATIONS & BROADCASTING
- New digital taxes may be the future of Cancon (Michael Geist)
- Stop the federal government before it taxes everything on the Internet
- Non-cable Internet providers offer faster speeds to the wealthy: For many, the choice is between slow DSL and high-priced cable.
- Verizon Punishes Techs That Try To Repair DSL Customers It No Longer Wants
- FCC: Comcast Routinely Charges Customers For Hardware, Services Never Ordered
- The FCC Responds to Comcast’s Negative Option
- Comcast customers sue over fees that push price above advertised rate: Proposed class action takes aim at Broadcast TV Fee and Regional Sports Fee.
- Comcast Sued For Misleading Fees It Claims Are Just Its Way Of Being ‘Transparent’
- T-Mobile punished by FCC for hidden limits on unlimited data: Carrier to pay $7.5 million fine, provide small discounts, and improve disclosures.
- Trump hires Bell, Telus consultant for telecom advice
- Trump Says SNL Sketches Show Media Is Rigging the Election
- Trump’s son-in-law held talks to set up Trump TV network: source
- The FCC and the ‘Pre-Internet’ (John Blevins)
- FCC Liberalizes Rules for Foreign Investment in U.S. Broadcast Licensees
- FCC Chairman Moves to Regulate Broadband Consumer Privacy
- FTC says it may be unable to regulate Comcast, Google, and Verizon: FTC seeks to reverse AT&T ruling that may gut consumer protection authority.
SURVEILLANCE & PRIVACY
- Clinton blasts Russian cyber-attacks as bid to install Trump as a “puppet”: “Will Donald Trump admit and condemn that the Russians are doing this?”
- Civil liberties groups ask for ‘moratoriums’ on face recognition tech
- Granted Warrant Allowed Feds To Force Everyone At Searched Residence To Unlock Devices With Their Fingerprints
- Appeals Court Affirms NSA Surveillance Can Be Used To Investigate Domestic Criminal Suspects
- Your dynamic IP address is now protected personal data under EU law: CJEU rules that personal IPs can’t be stored, unless to thwart cybernetic attacks or similar.
- House wants “briefing as soon as possible” to grok how Yahoo spied
- Akamai Finds Longtime Security Flaw in 2 Million Devices
- Half of American adults appear in facial recognition databases — and police are using them with almost no oversight
- US renews fight for the right to seize content from the world’s servers: No access to world’s servers thwarts “criminal and national security investigations.”
- EFF’s Challenge Of NSL Gag Orders Reaches The Ninth Circuit Court Of Appeals
- Appeal Court Revives Lawyer’s Lawsuit Against The NSA’s Email Dragnet
- Documents Show Chicago PD Secretly Using Forfeiture Funds To Buy Surveillance Equipment
- Bangladesh Brings In Nationwide Digital Identity Cards Linking Biometrics To Mobile Phone Numbers
- Nokchan v Lyft: Since the Spokeo Decision Privacy Continues to be a Hot Topic as Circuit Courts Fracture
- British spooks’ secret citizen data slurp broke ECHR rules, says tribunal: IPT finds spymasters only complied after government’s avowal of covert snooping.
- On WikiLeaks, Journalism, and Privacy: Reporting on the Podesta Archive Is an Easy Call
- Prosecutors Changing Charges Against Reporter To ‘Rioting’ Because Her Coverage Was Sympathetic To Protestors
- Mass Hacks of Private Email Aren’t Whistleblowing, They are at Odds With It. (Jonathan Zittrain)
- FBI: Czech police arrest suspected Russian hacker
- The State Department Has Taken Over Three Years On A FOIA Request About How Long It Takes To Process FOIA Requests
- Court Says Deleting Browser History To ‘Avoid Embarrassment’ Isn’t Destruction Of Evidence
- Sony Wants Lawsuit Over Alleged Failure to Prevent Movie Piracy Under Arbitration Cloak
- Who gets your selfies when you die? States seek to fill privacy law gaps
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