GAMES
- PS4 to sell 100 million – DFC: Research firm predicts Sony to hold dominant lead in console space; Xbox One and PS4 revenues to be 50% digital by 2019
- PlayStation TV over in North America and Europe too
- Stream PS4 games to your PC or Mac with next system update: PS4 version 3.5 expands the useful feature past Vita, PlayStation TV.
- Moon Studios CEO calls out console firms for hardware secrecy: Thomas Mahler says Nintendo NX will “just not have any software support” at launch due to lack of devkits
- Cratering portable sales can’t prop up Nintendo’s business anymore: With 3DS sales declining rapidly, Nintendo needs NX to succeed fast.
- Microsoft needs to stop forcing console-like restrictions on Windows Store PC games: With the upcoming Quantum Break a Windows Store exclusive, users are up in arms.
- Rock group says Final Fantasy XIV song is “a straight up rip off”
- EA abandons “ghost” trademark application: Ubisoft’s objected due to the existence of its Ghost Recon franchise
- Capcom taking aim at Street Fighter V rage quitters
- Naughty Dog apologizes for Ubisoft art in Uncharted 4 trailer
- Ubisoft seeks Canadian investors to help stave off Vivendi takover
- Gameloft board advises against selling stock to Vivendi
- Harmonix launches Fig campaign for Rock Band 4 on PC
- Halo World Championship sports $2.5 million prize pool
- Valve raises Counter-Strike eSports prize to $1 million
- Valve boss Gabe Newell fires host and production company after problems at the $3 million Dota 2 Shanghai Major
- Lawyer’s perspective: A legal evaluation of Riot’s new competitive penalty policy
- ESL and Intel launch eSports diversity initiative
- YouTube dominating Twitch in gaming videos – Newzoo
- Inside the Artificial Universe That Creates Itself: A team of programmers has built a self-generating cosmos, and even they don’t know what’s hiding in its vast reaches.
- Decades later, players are still unlocking secrets in classic Mortal Kombat: Ed Boon’s arcade diagnostic menus have remained hidden since the early ’90s.
- You wouldn’t be able to pause your video games today without Jerry Lawson: Lawson was a pioneering black engineer back when it was even harder in Silicon Valley.
- McDonald’s is trialling Happy Meals that can turn into VR goggles
- VR could make games a political scapegoat again – Capps
- Second annual Chicago Video Game Law Summit set for April 16th
DIGITAL
- Silk Road 2.0 Court Docs Show US Government Paid Carnegie Mellon Researchers To Unmask Tor Users
- Judge confirms what many suspected: Feds hired CMU to break Tor
- Tidal Sued For Unpaid Royalties And Cooking The Streaming Counts
- Stupid Patent of the Month: 100+ companies sued over “personalized content” – Patent owner says EFF “calls inventors names” to help the “anti-patent movement.”
- China Imposes New Restrictions on Online Publishing
- Saudi Arabia Sentences Twitter User to 10 Years in Prison and 2,000 Lashes for Apostasy
- US military launches cyber attacks on ISIS in Mosul, and announces it: Secretary of defense reveals cyber attacks in advance of ground battle for city.
- White House Asked Google & Facebook To Change Their Algorithms To Fight ISIS; Both Said No
- Patreon Moves To Give Users A Chance To Respond To DMCA Notices Before Taking Down Content
- Can YouTube’s Video Claiming Policy Be Improved?
- YouTube Addresses Concerns About Its Video Claiming Policy, Promises Changes
- Top 100 Most Subscribed YouTube Channels Worldwide • January 2016
- “Privacy Shield” proposed to replace US-EU Safe Harbor, faces scepticism: Unlikely to satisfy Europe’s data protection watchdogs—or the EU’s top court.
- Bitcoin Is “Property,” Rules California Judge in Pivotal Bitcoin Case
- Machinima Pays NYAG $50,000 Over Undisclosed Endorsements
- Clickwrap, Browsewrap and Mixed Media Contracts: A Few Words Can Go a Long Way
- Prize-Winning Novelist’s Facebook ‘Joke About White Guys’ Is Gone—and Back—in Less Than 24 hours
- NLRB Rejects Employer’s Attempt to Restrict Content of Employees’ Emails Sent Over the Employer’s Email System
- Appeals Court Dumps Apple’s Slide To Unlock Patent, Tosses Massive Jury Award Against Samsung In The Trash
- Apple’s $120M jury verdict against Samsung destroyed on appeal: Autocorrect and “slide to unlock” patents are invalid in light of prior art.
- The Trouble With the TPP, Day 37: Breaking Digital Locks For Personal Purposes (Michael Geist)
- Tyler, TX Brags About Its “Friendliness” to Patent Trolls
- Deadpool face-animation tech now embroiled in Hollywood legal battle: Company hopes to block distribution of films using Mova, a tech it claims to own.
- Op-ed: The international politics of VPN regulation – Repressive nations are pursuing increasingly diverse strategies for curbing VPN use.
- Wikimedia Foundation Executive Director Resigns Amid a Community Revolt
- 50 Cent Breaks the Golden Rule of Social Media Posting
- NY Times recommends ad blockers after CEO mulls ad-block ban: CEO says apps “ask for extortion to allow for ads;” paper says they conserve battery.
- Can a Blind Person Read Your Website?
- The nightmare of watching Netflix while battling PTSD
- Google’s Artificial Brain Is Pumping Out Trippy—And Pricey—Art
CREATIVITY
- Fairness Confirmed: Copyright Board Deals Another Blow to Access Copyright (Michael Geist)
- Access Copyright and Absent Universities & Colleges – As the Mandatory Elephant in the Room Patiently Waits and Watches (Howard Knopf)
- Quebec Court Dismisses Copibec Copyright Class Action Against Laval University (Michael Geist)
- Why Kesha’s Case Is About More Than Kesha: Lena Dunham + Lenny stand with Kesha, because we will not “accept shame and fear as the status quo.”
- The Saddest Thing About the Kesha/Dr. Luke Lawsuit: It’s how familiar it all is.
- Pop music desperately needs more female producers
- This is everything Chris Rock said about race during his Oscars monologue
- Disney CEO asks employees to chip in to pay copyright lobbyists: Letter boasts of beating Aereo, getting TPP—and wants workers’ help in 2016.
- OMDC Response Confirms Minister Coteau’s Music Fund Claims Inaccurate (Michael Geist)
- Same Fears, Different Century: Stage Adaptation Of Orwell’s ‘1984’ Still Ominously Relevant
- China Won’t Broadcast the Hong Kong Film Awards Because of Dystopian Nominee ‘Ten Years’
- Egyptian Writer Ahmed Naji Sentenced to Two Years in Prison for his “Sexually Explicit” Novel
- Democracy warning as Canadian media outlets merge and papers close: Federal minister convenes talks as union calls for action over increasingly centralised ownership and publishers warn of threat to public interest journalism
- Court Beats Down Another Competitive Keyword Advertising Lawsuit–Beast Sports v. BPI (Eric Goldman)
- The Trouble With the TPP, Day 38: Limits on Canadian Digital Lock Safeguards (Michael Geist)
- The Trouble With the TPP, Day 39: Quiet Expansion of Criminal Copyright Provisions (Michael Geist)
- Canadian Libraries’ Response to Chapter 18 of the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement
- Disney CEO asks employees to chip in to pay copyright lobbyists: Letter boasts of beating Aereo, getting TPP—and wants workers’ help in 2016.
- Statutory rights to terminate copyright grants
- As Netflix Soars, HBO Comes Under Increasing Pressure
- 19 Reasons to be Thankful for “Fair Use”
- MashUp: The Birth of Modern Culture (Vancouver Art Gallery)
- Measuring Creativity: Learning from Innovation Measurement (WIPO)
COMMUNICATIONS
- Bell tells staff to downplay new $25 basic TV package ordered by CRTC: Company is trying to make new, cheap TV package unattractive, Bell employee believes
- CBS Broadcasting Inc. v. FilmOn.com, Inc.
- ‘Wireless propaganda’ and the lame denials it inspires: Cellphone industry supporters and executives are trumpeting price studies that don’t mean anything. (Peter Nowak)
- Canada Forcing Cheaper, More Flexible Pricing On TV Industry March 1. Will It Work?
- Will ‘skinny packages’ tempt cable customers to stay connected?: Cheaper TV packages, ‘pick-and-pay’ channels available today
- FCC ‘Probing’ Whether Cable Companies Have Sabotaged Internet Video
- AT&T gave $62K to lawmakers months before vote to limit muni broadband: Missouri bill would make it difficult for cities to offer Internet service.
- AT&T Sues To Keep Google Fiber Competition Out Of Louisville
- AT&T sues Louisville to stop Google Fiber from using its utility poles: Lawsuit could delay Google construction, give AT&T head start in fiber race.
- When Comcast’s Business As Usual Turns Out to Limit Minority Access: What happens when a plutocrat’s “rational” decisions wind up affecting minority areas? Take a look at Hartford.
- One year later, net neutrality still faces attacks in court and Congress: FCC’s Title II and muni broadband rulings face uncertain future.
- Like the Internet itself, this policy debate should be open
- It took Verizon seven months to fix Internet outage in NYC building
- The Trouble With the TPP, Day 40: Mobile Roaming Promises Unfulfilled (Michael Geist)
SURVEILLANCE & PRIVACY
- Apple prevails in pre-San Bernardino forced iPhone unlock case in New York: All Writs Act can’t be used to achieve legislative goal that US Congress hasn’t granted.
- Apple prevails in forced iPhone unlock case in New York court – Ruling: All Writs Act can’t be used to achieve goal that Congress hasn’t granted.
- Judge In Different Apple Case Says That All Writs Act Doesn’t Mean Apple Needs To Help Feds Break Into Phone
- Federal Judge Says Third Party Doctrine A Perfectly ‘Good Law;’ No Warrants Needed To Obtain Cell Location Records
- Why the FBI’s Apple iPhone Demands Are Rotten to the Core (Michael Geist)
- We cannot trust our government, so we must trust the technology: Apple’s battle with the FBI is not about privacy v security, but a conflict created by the US failure to legitimately oversee its security service post Snowden (Yochai Benkler)
- Forcing Apple to Hack That iPhone Sets a Dangerous Precedent (Darrell Issa)
- Bill Gates refutes reports that he sided with FBI in Apple privacy fight
- Police chief: There’s a “reasonably good chance” not much is on seized iPhone – Top San Bernardino cop tells NPR there’s “low probability” unlocking it will reveal more.
- John McAfee better prepare to eat a shoe because he doesn’t know how iPhones work
- Apple tells court it would have to create “GovtOS” to comply with ruling: Claims in 65-page motion to vacate that it would have to build on-site FBI forensic lab.
- What’s At Stake In Apple/FBI Fight: Who Gets To Set The Rules That Govern Your Privacy & Security
- Apple CEO prepared to fight the FBI all the way to the Supreme Court
- The technology at the heart of the Apple-FBI debate, explained (Christopher Soghoian)
- FBI vs. Apple Establishes a New Phase of the Crypto Wars (Dan Froomkin & Jenna McLaughlin)
- Preliminary thoughts on the Apple iPhone order in the San Bernardino case: Part 3, the policy question (Orin Kerr)
- FBI is asking courts to legalize crypto backdoors because Congress won’t: The most lawmakers have done is float bill to create a “commission” to study issueApple’s encryption fight against the U.S. government could spill into Canada
- Why Canada isn’t having a policy debate over encryption
- Want To Report A Dangerous Drug Dealer? Just Enter Your Personal Info Into The DEA’s Unsecured Webform
- Most software already has a “golden key” backdoor: the system update – Software updates are just another term for cryptographic single-points-of-failure.
- Courts, DOJ: Using Tor Doesn’t Give You A Greater Expectation Of Privacy
- WikiLeaks Publishes NSA Target List (Bruce Schneier)
- Why Don’t Tech Reviews Discuss Gadget Security and Privacy? (Dan Gillmor)
- Online Privacy and the Invisible Market for Our Data (Rebecca Lipman)
- South Korea Embraces Ridiculous Right To Be Forgotten As Well
- 8th Circuit finds copyright preemption of publicity claim (Rebecca Tushnet)
- Eighth Circuit Tosses NFL Players’ Lawsuit
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