News of the Week; January 2, 2019

GAMES

  1. Star Control: Origins pulled from sale following DMCA takedown notice
  2. Star Control creators block Origins release: Stardock denied injunction against Ford and Reiche’s DMCA notice, title removed from GOG and Steam
  3. Original Star Control creators deploy nuclear option against Stardock [Updated]
  4. China issues 80 new game licenses, Tencent not included
  5. China lifts a freeze on new video games but excludes its biggest player: It allows 80 new titles to be released but none from Tencent
  6. Tencent and Netease absent in first wave of China game approvals: 80 titles given the green light in December, but none from nation’s market leaders
  7. Creators Of Dance Moves Suing Creators Of Fortnite Over Copyright Infringement That Can’t Possibly Have Happened
  8. Moments of 2018: When Fortnite stopped everything for a butterfly
  9. Fortnite Dance, Potato Roll Recipe Clip Are BuzzFeed’s Most Viral Videos Of 2018
  10. BioWare co-founders inducted into the Order of Canada
  11. Rebellion’s Chris Kingsley receives OBE
  12. Rebellion co-founder Chris Kingsley to receive OBE
  13. Game Workers Unite working with devs from a dozen studios towards unionization
  14. Steel Division dev Eugen Systems fires six employees involved in pay dispute
  15. CIS region game devs hit with 7.4% decline in median salary last year: Women lost 10% of their salary as gender pay gap increased to $6,000
  16. Blizzard hopes linked Battle.net accounts will solve toxic Twitch chats
  17. Fired Activision Blizzard CFO picked up by Netflix as chief financial officer
  18. Activision Blizzard terminates CFO Spencer Neumann: Previous CFO Denis Durkin returns to position effective immediately
  19. Killing in the name of: The US Army and video games
  20. Video: Astronaut Scott Kelly teaches orbital mechanics with Kerbal Space Program
  21. Caltech scientists use DNA tiles to play tic-tac-toe at the nanoscale
  22. A bewildered, far-from-conclusive look at the state of public gaming in Tokyo
  23. Twitch Star DrLupo Raised $1.3 Million For St. Jude Children’s Hospital This Year 
  24. PlayStation Classic Gets Huge Price Cut, Which Says A Lot
  25. Sony: Home of the Whopper – 10 Years Ago This Month –  Kaz Hirai discovers heretofore unexplored levels of spin in promoting the PS3 as the global economic meltdown ripples through the industry
  26. Gumi Inc. acquires stake in blockchain game developer Double Jump.Tokyo: Investment follows launch of publisher’s $30 million blockchain fund in May last year
  27. Rami Ismail launches game-a-day collection Meditations: Free downloadable launcher will offer a different five-minute experience every day
  28. A game studio with zero hardware experience is building a VR-ready console
  29. Project Cars dev Slightly Mad Studios is working on a VR-friendly game console  
  30. Valve Reveals Top Selling VR Games on Steam in 2018
  31. Valve shares data on Steam’s most popular game/controller pairings  
  32. Steam rounds up 2018’s best sellers, top new releases, and more  
  33. Ninja To Stream ‘Fortnite’ For 12 Hours On New Year’s Eve In Times Square
  34. Twitch Viewers Watched 226.85 Million Hours’ Worth Of Ninja’s Content This Year
  35. Pro-PewDiePie Printer Hacker Returns, Making 5,500+ Smart TVs, Google Devices Urge Users To Subscribe
  36. UK boxed software sales slip in 2018, but hardware is up: PS4 dominates the market, as Switch rises sharply
  37. Best of 2018: How Baldi’s Basics taps into the real horror of ’90s edutainment
  38. Best of 2018: The Heartbeat Symposium – Exploring love, sex, and intimacy in games
  39. Eurogamer’s game of the year 2018 is Tetris Effect
  40. Gamasutra’s Best of 2018: The top 10 game developers of the year
  41. Gamasutra’s Best of 2018: The top 10 games of the year
  42. Best of 2018: Gamasutra’s top games, devs, events and trends
  43. What is the industry looking forward to in 2019?: Most anticipated games, sporting victories, disruption, innovation and more on leaders’ wishlists
  44. What lies ahead? Analysts make 2019 predictions: Industry watchers assess the likelihood of new console hardware, the growth potential of streaming, AR or esports breakthroughs, and more 

DIGITAL

  1. Ninth Lawsuit Against Social Media Providers for “Materially Supporting Terrorists” Fails–Clayborn v. Twitter (Eric Goldman)
  2. Jake Paul, RiceGum Called Out For Promoting Mystery Box ‘Gambling’ Site To Kids
  3. Antipiracy Outfits Routinely Claim Copyright Infringement Against Sites That Simply Report When Torrents Are Released 
  4. Jack Black’s YouTube Channel Nabs 2.5 Million Subscribers In Less Than Two Weeks
  5. Jack Black Launches YouTube Channel, Nabbing 600,000 Subscribers In 5 Days
  6. Pentatonix, Mariah Carey, ‘Frozen’ Top YouTube’s Top 10 Christmas Songs Of 2018 
  7. Famebit, YouTube’s Influencer Marketing Platform, Says It Can Measure Organic Views Like They’re Ads 
  8. MrBeast Has Given Away $1 Million On His Ascent To Digital Stardom: “YouTube Pays Better Than You Think”
  9. YouTube Science Star Mark Rober Apologizes After Unwittingly Including Fake Footage In Viral Glitter Bomb Video
  10. YouTube Apologizes For Repurposing Creator’s Video Without Credit In Corporate Tweet
  11. Facebook’s worst year ever is now over. Here’s how its scandals affected the stock: After a year of scandals, Facebook’s stock ended the year lower than the previous one for the first time since its debut on the public market in 2012 – The stock tanked 25
  12. Trump may ban U.S. companies from buying Huawei tech: report
  13. UK defense minister admits ‘grave concerns’ over Huawei 5G equipment
  14. China releases Canadian teacher but others still held in Huawei row 
  15. An App That Does Your Homework For You Is Now Worth $3 Billion
  16. Disney World Fans Demand Justice for Animatronic Robot Robbed of His Hands and Clothes 
  17. LinkedIn Co-Founder Apologizes for the Mess He’s Made
  18. Big Tech’s net loss: How governments can turn anger into action (Taylor Owen)
  19. UK Cops Have Decided Impolite Online Speech Is Worth A Visit From An Officer
  20. It Is Both Ridiculous And Dangerous To Make Domain Registrars Liable For Content On Domains
  21. Iranian Government To Ban Instagram, Citing National Security Concerns
  22. Oh God What Did They Just Do to Instagram [Updated]
  23. Instagram Swipes Back On Horizontal Test After It Deploys To More Users Than Expected
  24. Instagram Network Doing Things Acquires Three New Accounts, Boosting Follower Base To 33 Million 
  25. FTC Warns of Sketchy Netflix Phishing Scam Asking for Payment Details 
  26. Netflix Pulls American TV Episode in Saudi Arabia That Criticizes Khashoggi Murder and Silicon Valley Investment
  27. Saudi Arabia Discovers The Streisand Effect; Gets Netflix To Take Down Hasan Minhaj’s Show About MBS’s Atrocities 
  28. Black Mirror creators broke Netflix’s script writing tool with Bandersnatch
  29. Netflix’s Choose-Your-Own-Adventure Film ‘Black Mirror: Bandersnatch’ Has More Than 1 Trillion Potential Story Arrangements
  30. Netflix’s Bandersnatch Teases The Future Of Entertainment
  31. The Hidden Beauty of Black Mirror: Bandersnatch’s Best Ending
  32. That New Black Mirror Interactive Film From Netflix Doesn’t Work on Apple TV
  33. Netflix is curbing a $256 million revenue stream for Apple by circumventing iTunes billing
  34. Netflix delivers a blow to Apple’s services story by ending in-app subscriptions
  35. Apple Reveals It Underestimated Challenges in China, Revises Guidance for Holiday Quarter
  36. The Silver Lining In Apple’s Very Bad iPhone News 
  37. Apple’s Stock Decline Is Bringing Out All of the Opinions 
  38. Judge Approves $20.4 Million Attorneys’ Fee Award in Continuing Dish Network Saga  
  39. Millions Upon Millions Of ‘Takedown’ Notices To Google… For Links That Aren’t Even In Google 
  40. Google is Reportedly Rolling Out a Feature to Fight Spam in Your Texts
  41. Microsoft closes out 2018 as the top public company
  42. Why Copyright Will Be The Biggest Issue For Youtube In 2019
  43. How Much of the Internet Is Fake? Turns Out, a Lot of It, Actually.
  44. There’s Something Sinister Afoot In Macaulay Culkin’s Yule Log Video 
  45. The Unlikely Origins of the First Quantum Computer
  46. The hype around driverless cars came crashing down in 2018
  47. How Chip Makers Are Circumventing Moore’s Law to Build Super-Fast CPUs of Tomorrow
  48. The Ongoing Saga of the Florida Bar’s Angst About Competitive Keyword Advertising (Eric Goldman)
  49. CanLII Top Ten Accessed Cases from 2018
  50. Looking Back at 2018: My Top Ten Posts (Michael Geist)
  51. 35 years ago, Isaac Asimov was asked by the Star to predict the world of 2019. Here is what he wrote
  52. Technology, Ranked 

CREATIVITY

  1. Mickey Mouse will be public domain soon—here’s what that means
  2. Announcing The Public Domain Game Jam: Gaming Like It’s 1923
  3. ‘Fake News’ Results In Real Jail Time For Ohio Woman
  4. Why does flat Earth belief still exist?: Our latest video looks at what can motivate people to believe the impossible.
  5. People adopt made-up social rules to be part of a group: It happens when the rule is useless and nobody will ever meet anyone affected by it.
  6. When a $1M+ Publicity Rights Damages Award Isn’t a Win–Olive v. GNC
  7. Students Make A Video Depicting A School Shooting; Sheriff Decides Everyone Needs To Have Their Rights Violated
  8. Thanks to higher resolution image, American Airlines has eventually managed to register its logo with the US Copyright Office
  9. 100 Year Old Trademarks In 2019
  10. Hopepunk, the latest storytelling trend, is all about weaponized optimism: In the era of Trump and apocalyptic change, Hopepunk is a storytelling template for #resistance – and hanging onto your humanity at all costs.

MEDIA, COMMUNICATIONS & NET NEUTRALITY 

  1. CRTC Issues Guidance for Avoiding Indirect Liability for CASL Violations
  2. Minnesota AG Just The Latest To Ding Comcast For Shady Fees 
  3. Ajit Pai thanks Congress for helping him kill net neutrality rules 
  4. The FCC Is Closing, So Hold Your Cell Phone Service Gripes
  5. CBS Eyes Ditching Nielsen As Streaming, Cord Cutting Change The Game
  6. AT&T Attempts A Head Fake With ‘Fake 5G’
  7. Who is leading the 5G patent race? 

 SURVEILLANCE & PRIVACY

  1. Google Photos Defeats Privacy Lawsuit Over Face Scans–Rivera v. Google (Eric Goldman)
  2. Foreign Cyberattack Cripples Major U.S. Newspapers
  3. EFF Wins FOIA Lawsuit Against DEA, Forces The Release Of More Info About Its Hemisphere Program
  4. Personal Data of Nearly 1,000 North Korean Defectors Reportedly Stolen in Hack
  5. Indian Government Wants Tech Companies To Give Law Enforcement 24-Hour Access To User Data And Broken Encryption
  6. Once Again, GDPR Is A Potential Privacy Nightmare: Amazon Sends 1,700 Voice Recordings To The Wrong User In GDPR Request

Jon