News of the Week; March 7, 2018

GAMES

1. Clicker Heroes maker compares new lawsuit from “patent troll” to extortion: “It’s as if someone walked into my home with a knife and asked me for $35,000.”
2. Teen Who Made A Dumb School Shooting Joke On Snapchat Ordered By Judge To Not Play Violent Video Games
3. Judge bars student from violent games after alleged shooting threat: “You can play all the Mario Kart you want,” judge says.
4. Judge bans 16-year-old from violent video games over school shooting threat: Teen had no access to weapons but ‘joke’ Snapchat threat led to criminal charges
5. Trump to meet with game industry Thursday over gun violence: ESA says it will go to the White House later this week.
6. Trump Announces One-Sided Plan To Meet With Video Game Makers Over Gun Violence
7. Opinion: Trump’s alleged video game summit? It’s a trap!
8. Trump’s meeting with the game industry over gun violence may be a debate
9. Trump says violent games are OK for his young son, maybe not for yours: “I look at some of the things he’s watching and I say, ‘How is that possible?'”
10. Rhode Island Legislator Proposes A Tax On Video Games Based On Existing Entirely Voluntary Ratings System
11. Rhode Island Law Would Mandate Porn Filters, Charge You $20 Per Device To Bypass Them
12. Don’t Miss: How working on gross, violent games can mess with developers
13. Don’t Miss: Video games and gun violence, a year after Sandy Hook
14. Five Years After His Arrest, Prosecutors Try To Push Back Justin Carter’s ‘Terroristic Threat’ Trial
15. Trump to meet with gaming execs – report: White House describes the meeting as part of “an ongoing discussion”, but the ESA and its members haven’t received a formal invitation
16. Trump plans to meet with game industry over violent video games 
17. Rainbow Six Siege to ban players who use toxic language 
18. Rainbow Six Siege breaks its Steam concurrent player record two years after launch
19. New report questions World Heath Organisation’s proposed ‘gaming disorder’ classification: Meanwhile, the global games industry’s rejection of the WHO proposal intensifies
20. Researchers push back against WHO’s planned ‘gaming disorder’
21. Tencent plans to introduce in-game contracts between parents and kids
22. Blog: Game level generation using neural networks
23. Clicker Heroes dev speaks out over patent troll threats
24. Playsaurus targeted by “patent trolls” over Clicker Heroes virtual currency: “We absolutely refuse to negotiate license fees with patent holders who make bogus claims,” says Playsaurus CEO
25. Metal Gear Survive: Critical Consensus – Tepid responses to Metal Gear’s first post-Kojima release paint it as a frustrating and tedious affair with occasional flashes of brilliance
26. Can Metal Gear survive?: With weak sales, bad word of mouth and almost zero marketing support, Konami’s first attempt at a post-Kojima Metal Gear suggests a tough road ahead for the franchise
27. Rovio closes London studio after one year
28. Unhappy Rovio says 2017 was its ‘best ever year’: Revenue and Profit rise sharply, but miss analyst expectations
29. Rovio shutters London studio and lays off entire team
30. Rovio’s head of games Wilhelm Taht has left the company
31. Ubisoft acquires Brawlhalla dev Blue Mammoth Games
32. Amazon acquires backend cloud-based game dev platform GameSparks
33. Pokémon toys and trading card sales spike in Europe: €100 million spent on trading cards in 2017 in Europe
34. The Most Shameless Pokemon Go Rip Offs So Far
35. UK enjoys record-breaking year with £5.11bn spent on video games in 2017: Valuation by trade body UKIE shows digital games market exceeded £1.5bn for the first time ever
36. Online retail now accounts for over 40% of UK boxed game sales: Supermarket market share continues to tumble in 2017
37. Mobile interactive story games generated $14m last month: Apps like Choices, Episode and What’s Your Story have generated $52.5m since November
38. UK Charts: No new games as FIFA 18 takes No.1 yet again – Mario Kart leaps up four places
39. UK Data: Over 20% of Call of Duty, Assassin’s Creed and Battlefront II sales were digital – FIFA 18 was 19.9%, while online games like Destiny 2 posts even stronger digital sales
40. Monster Hunter: World ships 7.5M units in under two months
41. Monster Hunter: World is the best-selling game in Capcom’s history – Breakout hit’s 7.5 million shipped units is the highest ever for the Japanese publisher
42. Final Fantasy XV for Windows should have been a mess, but it’s the opposite: Square Enix mostly delivers the scalable, tweakable performance that PC gamers crave.
43. Modders try to fix what Square Enix broke with PC Chrono Trigger port: Removing ugly HD filtering and other unneeded tinkering is an uphill battle.
44. Video: How Gone Home was localized by fans
45. Celeste devs release player movement code for the tough-as-pitons platformer
46. Check out the now open-source code powering UI layout inHeaven’s Vault
47. New indie publisher Graffiti Games announces three titles for 2018: Vancouver-based publisher unveils its first-year plans
48. Nintendo expected to overtake Microsoft in 2018: IHS Markit’s 2017 full-year figures also show console market enjoyed biggest growth in six years
49. No Switch hardware revision this year – Report: Wall Street Journal says company will focus on peripherals to drive sales for hybrid system’s second year
50. Boutique publishers are the future of the indie games market: Devolver, Double Fine, Raw Fury and Buried Signal’s Jason Roberts on how publisher identity can help indie games to rise above the noise
51. The quiet need for Chinese indie games: Spotlightor Interactive founder Gao Ming on the fight for originality within a developing games scene
52. Report: Gameloft has shut down Gameloft Madrid
53. Gameloft closes Madrid studio: Closure marks seventh significant cut to a Gameloft studio in less than three years
54. Largest charity tournament in mobile esports history kicks off on March 3: Mobile esports platform Skillz sets itself $100,000 target
55. Esports Held Its Own Upfront In New York City, As Brands Like L’Oreal Carefully Plan Their Entry
56. Florence Is A Mobile Game That Captures The Power Of Touch
57. Optimism at Atari?: 10 Years Ago This Month – With a high-profile hire, a new vision, and an anticipated Alone in the Dark reboot, gaming’s original titan was poised for a comeback
58. Review: Sony Playstation 4 Pro – A year after its release, one question remains – Is it finally time to go Pro?
59. Space Ape teams with London universities on free games masterclasses: Six-session course will cover game design, community engagement and more, classes will also be livestreamed
60. Video games graduates have more than doubled in five years: “We need to continue to increase the supply of highly skilled games graduates,” says TIGA CEO
61. Bandai Namco’s VR Zone Arcade Lowers Age Restriction to 7 Years Old
62. Kongregate to launch dev-friendly digital games platform, Kartridge
63. Kongregate launching new download games store Kartridge this summer: Publisher readies its own Steam rival with no upload fees and support for pay-what-you-want games
64. Oculus Rifts stop working
65. Software error causes mass Oculus Rift outage
66. A rift in VR: Critical error shuts down Oculus headsets worldwide – A small software update may be required to address the issue.
67. For the first time, the Oculus Rift is the leading VR headset on Steam
68. Oculus Rift becomes leading VR headset on Steam: Latest hardware and software survey puts Oculus Rift two points ahead of HTC Vive
69. Oculus Rift is now the most popular VR headset on Steam: But PC gaming’s most popular platform still has a relatively tiny VR userbase.
70. Nicolas Cage’s ‘The Humanity Bureau’ VR Experience is Another Strike Against VR Film Promos
71. Virtual reality is coming to a courtroom near you: ABA Techshow panel explores use of VR in law
72. Magic Leap raises $461 million in funding from Saudi Arabian investment arm
73. HQ Trivia app secures $15 million in funding 
74. How an injured dev learned to make games without using his hands
75. Blog: Learning more about your audience
76. Blog: Dealing with love and hate from your fans 
77. Devs reflect on the impact and legacy of Burnout Paradise
78. Cataloguing soda machines in games throughout the ages 

DIGITAL

1. In US v. Microsoft, A Decades-Old Law Leaves Few Good Options
2. Is Trump’s Twitter behavior constitutional? A court will decide.
3. Clarifying Outer Bounds of Copyright Fair Use, Second Circuit Finds Video Monitoring Service Infringing
4. Do Memes Infringe Copyright? (Andres Guadamuz) 
5. Protecting human rights online: new guidelines on internet intermediaries (Council of Europe)
6. China Briefly Bans The Letter ‘N’ On Social Media After Anger Over Plans To Make Xi Jinping ‘Dictator For Life’
7. African Union Bugged by China: Cyber Espionage as Evidence of Strategic Shifts
8. Singer/Professor Tries To Sue Student For Bad Internet Ratings, Fails, Appeals, Fails Again
9. EU Commission Says Social Media Companies Must Take Down ‘Terrorist Content’ Within One Hour
10. News in a disintegrating reality: Tow’s Jonathan Albright on what to do as things crash around us: “The kinds of things that I often see could literally be stopped by one person. I mean: 4chan trending on Google during the Las Vegas shooting? How that eve
11. New Foils for the Right: Google and Facebook
12. Wall Street Journal Explains Why SESTA Is A Terrible Idea And Is Unnecessary
13. Can Someone Explain How SESTA Will Stop Sex Trafficking?
14. Blame the Computer: The fake science that keeps threatening to kill us
15. The Podcasting Juggernaut Has (Finally) Arrived: How publishers are racing to own the money-printing machine that is the daily news podcast.
16. Publishers Could Get A New Weapon Against Facebook And Google
17. Could Soap-Cutting Videos Be The Successor To YouTube’s Massive Slime Craze?
18. YouTube Doesn’t Know Where Its Own Line Is
19. YouTube Says New Human Moderators Mistakenly Punished Some Far Right And Pro-Gun Creators
20. YouTube Stars Chomp On Some Lemons To Promote Bone Marrow Donations For Leukemia Patients
21. YouTube’s Next Music Service Looks As If It Will Debut Later Than First Anticipated
22. Insights: Stuck Between YouTube And A Hard Place, Being An Influencer Is Tougher Than Ever
23. As Advertisers Flee, Alex Jones Claims His YouTube Ban Will Come Today
24. InfoWars’ conspiracy theories have advertisers ditching YouTube channels: Even YouTube’s existing advertiser tools didn’t prevent this from happening.
25. Angry Pick-Up Artist Says He Won’t Issue Bogus YouTube Claim On Critic’s Video; Issues Bogus Claim On Critic’s Video
26. Top Marketers Nike, Paramount, More Pull Ads From InfoWars YouTube Channel
27. Platform Changes Cause Influencer Anxiety
28. Project Gutenberg Blocks Access In Germany To All Its Public Domain Books Because Of Local Copyright Claim On 18 Of Them
29. Unprompted, creepy laughter from Alexa is freaking out Echo users: Amazon knows about the bug and is working to fix it.
30. Amazon and Google Are Back to Feuding, This Time Over Smart Homes and Nest
31. Google ends major OS support for Nexus phones and Pixel tablet: The two years of major OS updates is over for the Nexus 6P, 5X, and Pixel C.
32. Google helps Pentagon analyze military drone footage – employees “outraged”: “Project Maven” applies Google’s image recognition tech to drone footage.
33. Female Google engineer says she faced “frequent sexual harassment”: Woman charges “Google was fully aware” of sexist behavior but didn’t stop it.
34. New Lawsuit Exposes Google’s Desperation To Improve Diversity
35. Ex-Google recruiter: I was fired because I resisted “illegal” diversity efforts – Google vows to defend lawsuit, says it hires “candidates based on their merit.”
36. Why Are There Few Women In Tech? Watch A Recruiting Session
37. Facebook’s Equal Time Quandary: The social media giant could even the playing field for political ads. But is that what candidates really want? 
38. Censoring a Facebook Post Showing a Naked Statuette? 
39. Facebook survey: Should we let men ask 14-year-old girls for sexual pictures? – “This content should be allowed on Facebook” was an option for something beyond illegal. 
40. BlackBerry weaponizes instant messaging patents, sues Facebook: BlackBerry continues shift to patent litigation with Facebook lawsuit.
41. Twitter CEO wants to study platform’s “health,” but is he ignoring the cancer?: Anecdotal data makes us wonder when a terrifying Twitter botnet will take over.
42. What Would A ‘Healthy’ Twitter Even Look Like?
43. Famous Racist Sues Twitter Claiming It Violates His Civil Rights As A Racist To Be Kicked Off The Platform
44. Netflix To Display MPAA Ratings As Part Of Plan To Enhance Parental Controls
45. Snap Layoffs: Snapchat Parent Said to Be Axing 100 Engineering Employees
46. The Limits Of Explainability: Academics, economists, and AI researchers often undervalue the role of intuition in science. Here’s why they’re wrong.
47. Algorithms Are Creating A “Digital Poorhouse” That Makes Inequality Worse
48. Robot smashes Rubik’s Cube record with 0.38-second solve: “The machine can definitely go faster,” inventor says.
49. The Subtle Nudges That Could Unhook Us From Our Phones
50. After Just 6 Months, the Phone Notch Is Already Deeply Uncool
51. Got Crypto? Be Careful How You File Your Taxes
52. At This Crypto Event, The Attendees Really Were High 
53. Hackers exploiting rTorrent to install Unix coin miner have netted $4k so far: Ongoing attacks give complete control and require no user interaction.
54. Angry Coinbase users sue over claimed security failings, insider trading
55. Bitcoin falls 10 percent after SEC warns about unregulated exchanges: Bitcoin falls 10 percent after regulators signal crackdown on exchanges.
56. Lamar Smith says Russian bots are trying to cripple US energy production: Russian bots stirred pipeline trouble. Was it sowing divisions or targeting energy?
57. Mind Games: The Tortured Lives Of ‘Targeted Individuals’ – Thousands of people think that the government is using implanted chips and electronic beams to control their minds. They are desperate to prove they aren’t delusional.
58. Wireless Carriers, Hardware Companies Use Flimsy IOT Security To Justify Attacks On Right To Repair Laws
59. 911 recordings reveal Apple’s problem of employees walking into walls: Apple was warned by a city official about the danger of employees walking into walls.
60. Here Are 911 Transcripts of Some of the Times Apple Employees Walked Directly Into Glass Walls
61. Youth Gun Violence Prevention in a Digital Age (Desmond Upton Patton, Kyle McGregor, & Gary Slutkin)
62. Your Data Is Crucial to a Robotic Age. Shouldn’t You Be Paid for It?
63. EU Adopts Ban on Unjustified Geo-Blocking: The new EU geo-blocking regulation prohibits unjustified geo-blocking.

CREATIVITY

1.  And the Oscar goes to… Freedom of Contract! March 2018: Morality clauses are back in the spotlight after a spate of high-profile scandals in Hollywood.
2. Pepe the Frog Artist Suing InfoWars for Copyright Infringement
3. Pepe’s creator sues Infowars, claiming new poster infringes copyright: Infowars founder Alex Jones maintains that the poster is protected under fair use.
4. Thelonious Monk Estate Hornin’ In on Right of Publicity Trial: Jazz great’s heir sues craft brewery for using dad’s likeness on merchandise
5. TVEyes Inc. Crosses the Boundary of Fair Use Defense in Copyright Infringement Case Against Fox News Network, LLC
6. All Eyes on Fair Use: The Second Circuit Delivers a Victory for Copyright Owners 
7. Fox News Network, LLC v. TVEyes, Inc.: Second Circuit reverses district court’s finding of fair use, holding that while TVEyes’ “Watch” function is transformative, it is not fair use in that it provides virtually all of Fox’s content to subscribers.
8. The 2nd Circuit Contributes To Fair Use Week With An Odd And Problematic Ruling On TVEyes
9. California Court Dismisses Copyright Suit Against BBC Over Cosby Documentary Over Lack Of Jurisdiction
10. MPAA Opposes Several Filmmaker Associations Request For Expanded Circumvention Exemptions
11. Fair Dealing Support for News Reporting and Public Debate: The Case of Warman and National Post v. Fournier (Michael Geist)
12. Fair Dealing and the Right to Read: The Case of Blacklock’s Reporter v. Canada (Attorney General) (Michael Geist)
13. Update: Ontario Court Upholds That Professional Hockey Player Did Not Breach Morals Clause in Endorsement Contract
14. French Government Wants To Toss Far-Right Political Leader In Jail For Posting Images Of Terrorist Atrocities
15. Why the roots of patent trolling may be in the patent office: Trolls love patents from examiners who are “lenient” about patent vetting.
16. ‘Dr. Strangelove’ Is Basically a Documentary

MEDIA, COMMUNICATIONS & NET NEUTRALITY

1.  The Case Against the Bell Coalition’s Website Blocking Plan, Part 12: Increasing Privacy Risks for Canadians (Michael Geist)
2. The Case Against the Bell Coalition’s Website Blocking Plan, Part 13: It is Inconsistent With the CRTC Policy Direction (Michael Geist)
3. The Case Against the Bell Coalition’s Website Blocking Plan, Part 14: Failure To Further the Telecommunications Act Policy Objectives (Michael Geist)
4. The Case Against the Bell Coalition’s Website Blocking Plan, Part 15: It Undermines the Telecommunications Act Policy Objectives (Michael Geist) 
5. The Case Against the Bell Coalition’s Website Blocking Plan, Part 16: The CRTC as the Internet Content Regulatory Authority (Michael Geist)
6. Comcast Protected Browsing Blocks TorrentFreak, Showing Why Site-Blocking Sucks Out Loud Always
7. Washington State Passes Law Protecting Net Neutrality
8. Washington State Enacts Net Neutrality Law, In Clash With FCC
9. Washington state passes net neutrality: Governor signs bipartisan legislation seeking to restore measures recently scrapped by FCC decision
10. Washington State Laughs In The Face Of FCC Attempts To Ban States From Protecting Net Neutrality
11. Middle Schoolers Cheer As Oregon Passes A Net Neutrality Law
12. $20 porn-unblocking fee could hit Internet users if state bill becomes law: The opposite of net neutrality: R.I. bill requires ISPs to block sexual content.
13. GOP tries to block state net neutrality laws and allow paid prioritization: GOP bill would outlaw blocking and throttling but give major concession to ISPs.
14. The Wired Guide To Net Neutrality: Everything you need to know about the struggle to treat information on the internet the same – ISPs shouldn’t be able to block some sorts of data and prioritize others.
15. AT&T has good and bad news for users of its limit-ridden unlimited plans: AT&T ends one speed limit but introduces a new one; some prices are going up.
16. Charter appeals court loss, still claims it can’t be punished for slow speeds: New York AG alleges that Charter promised speeds it knew it couldn’t deliver. 
17. Oregon Winds Up Giving Comcast A Huge Tax Break For Doing Nothing Differently
18. Sprint’s CEO Thinks This Whole Killing Net Neutrality Thing Is Pretty Nifty
19. Telecom Sector Can’t Stop Falsely Claiming That Net Neutrality Will Harm The Sick, Derail Smart Cars
20. Ajit Pai won’t get his gun – FCC chair rejects NRA award after ethics review: NRA honored Pai for killing net neutrality, tried to give him handmade long gun.
21. After Chat With Ethics Lawyers, FCC Boss Declines NRA Gun Award For Killing Net Neutrality 
22. Ajit Pai’s supporters say he’s gone too far with plan that hurts poor people: Pai takes heat from all sides over plan to evict resellers from Lifeline program.
23. Nobody (Even His Industry BFFs) Likes Ajit Pai’s Latest Attack On Low Income Broadband Programs
24. “Dig Once” rule requiring fiber deployment is finally set to become US law: Dig Once mandates fiber conduit installation in government-funded road projects.

SURVEILLANCE & PRIVACY

1. No Longer Fit for Purpose: Why Canadian Privacy Law Needs an Update (Michael Geist)
2. Proposed changes to Canadian privacy laws influenced by changes coming from EU
3. Facebook Loses Second Attempt to Dismiss Biometric Data Class Action 
4. Government Says FISA Court Should Stop Wasting Time Considering The ACLU’s Request For Greater Transparency
5. Best Buy defends practice of informing FBI about child porn it finds: New documents produced as a result of FOIA lawsuit brought by EFF.
6. Uber ‘Surprised’ By Totally Unsurprising Pennsylvania Data Breach Lawsuit
7. US service provider survives the biggest recorded DDoS in history: Nearly 100,000 memcached servers are imperiling the stability of the Internet.
8. Github Survived The Biggest DDOS Attack Ever Recorded
9. It just got much easier to wage record-breaking DDoSes: Exploits that abuse memcached servers threaten the stability of the Internet.
10. 23,000 HTTPS certificates axed after CEO emails private keys: Flap that goes public renews troubling questions about issuance of certificates.
11. Trustico website goes dark after someone drops critical flaw on Twitter: Outage comes a day after CEO admitted emailing private keys for 23k HTTPS certs.
12. FBI again calls for magical solution to break into encrypted phones – FBI chief: “I don’t buy the claim that it’s impossible” to solve “Going Dark.”
13. Spoof, Jam, Destroy: Why We Need A Backup For GPS
14. Uh Oh: Blockchain May Not Be as Secure as We Thought
15. Customer information compromised following NIS America storefront breach: “We have identified the issue, removed it from our website, and taken steps to prevent this issue from recurring,” says NIS America
16. The Leaked NSA Spy Tool That Hacked The World
17. Spy v. Spy: An NSA Leak Reveals The Agency’s List Of Enemy Hackers

Jon