News of the Week

GAMES

1. Augmented reality lawsuit provides augmented view of 1st Amendment: “They’re passing two dimensional laws in a three dimensional world.”
2. Class action lawsuit over Xbox 360 defect shut down by court (again)
3. Popular GTA V Modding Tool Shuts Down, Community Explodes
4. GTA Mod Tool Program Shuts Down, After Reported Cease And Desist Letter: OpenIV is no more, apparently.
5. Bethesda announces new mods network, Creation Club
6. Witcher developer: Thieves want ransom for leaked Cyberpunk 2077 docs – Files are from the upcoming Cyberpunk 2077, an open-world RPG based on a 1990 PC title.
7. CD Projekt Red faces extortion over Cyberpunk 2077: Witcher studio says it won’t meet ransom demand to prevent release of early development documents
8. Report: Konami is making life hard for people who leave the company
9. New Cracking Group May Have Delivered Denuvo Its Death Blow
10. GameStop notifies online customers of possible credit card theft
11. Testology founder’s anti-Muslim comments “still far too common” in games industry: Andy Robson apologises for Facebook rant, but Rami Ismail says such attitudes have a “stifling effect” on developers
12. When an Apology is Not an Apology
13. Members of the Games Industry Respond to Testology Founder’s Call to “Get Rid of Every Muslim”
14. Testology owner called out for anti-Muslim comments
15. Double Eleven publicly disavows Testology: “We do not tolerate religious persecution in any form”
16. Ubisoft CEO: Vivendi fight will continue because freedom matters
17. FIFA 18: Football for the many, not the few – “There is no stereotypical FIFA user,” says EA – and that makes development hard.
18. Largest EA Sports FIFA Competition Launching This Fall
19. Season Pass dropped for Star Wars Battlefront II: All content packs will be free, including Force Awakens’ Finn and Captain Phasma by Christmas
20. EA’s press conference showed the danger of relying on influencers: This is not how to use your for-pay talent
21. EA wants to use machine learning to create real-time game narratives
22. EA Boss Andrew Wilson’s Vision of Gaming’s Future Will Blow Your Mind
23. One year later, Pokemon Go has surpassed 750 million downloads
24. Minecraft to receive its first top-engine visual overhaul since 2010 debut: “Super-Duper Graphics Pack” retains blockiness, goes crazy with particles, shadows.
25. Microsoft and Nintendo embrace cross-platform play – but where’s Sony?: PlayStation absent from cross-platform strategy of both Minecraft and Rocket League
26. Sony exec offers an answer for PS4’s absence from Minecraftcross-platform play
27. PlayStation quietly announces smartphone-based PlayLink range: New series connects phones to PS4 for asymmetrical multiplayer games
28. The PS4 has now sold through over 60.4M units
29. PlayStation 4 hits 60.4 million sales: As Microsoft rallies with Xbox One X, SIE’s Andrew House says the PS4 platform is “in its prime”
30. Are 4K-enabled consoles backing into a niche?: With 4K TV adoption still low, crafting a message around console hardware that includes most consumers is a tricky balancing act
31. Xbox Scorpio is now Xbox One X—launches November 7 for $499: Alongside 4K console Microsoft promised 22 exclusive games will launch on Xbox.
32. Xbox One X: Analysts concur that $499 is “a tough sell”: “The price point is the most obvious weakness, giving Sony an opportunity to drop its current PS4 Pro to $350 and raise the stakes”
33. First impressions: Xbox One X doesn’t quite bring the “wow!” factor – Our initial thoughts on the new hardware, plus a look at upcoming Xbox software.
34. The devil from the details: Proper interpretation of our Xbox usage data: Microsoft subtweets aside, we’re sticking to our data until they prove us wrong.
35. Xbox expanding backwards compatibility program to original Xbox games: Actual Xbox “one” on Xbox One! Crimson Skies confirmed now, launching later this year.
36. Xbox One X, PS4 Pro, x86, and the downfall of the PC gaming master race
37. Destiny 2 will launch on PC 46 days after consoles: Console launch dates pushed ahead two days; beta will not require pre-order.
38. Xbox One X Ignored VR—Just Like Everyone Else
39. The state of virtual reality: Microsoft, Sony, Valve, Ready at Dawn all have games in the works
40. Ubisoft VP: ‘We’re trying to figure out what is fun’ about VR
41. The VR Challenger League is a new eSports venture from Oculus, Intel and the ESL
42. Study shows virtual reality has appeal among U.S. game enthusiasts
43. Virtual Reality Video Will Be Worth $3 Billion By 2021: PwC study
44. YouTube Says Esports Tournament Watch Time Has Grown 90% Over Past Year
45. After-school eSports clubs are now a thing in the UK
46. Yahoo eSports is winding down, a casualty of the Yahoo-AOL merger
47. Study: Women Comprise Nearly One-Third Of Esports Audience
48. Riot opens India office to nurture local player base
49. Bandai Namco targets emerging mobile markets with Docomo partnership
50. Docomo partnership to open new mobile markets for Bandai Namco: Japanese publisher will co-create HTML5 games for Africa, Latin America and India
51. Mandatory co-op fuels the storytelling possibilities of new game A Way Out
52. The Pentagon Looks To Videogames For The Future Of War
53. E3 games feature more multi-gender options than ever before: Feminist Frequency’s findings indicate progress, and indeed, the group had a direct impact on Dishonored 2, Harvey Smith revealed
54. Women Play Video Games
55. Everything is the first video game to qualify for an Oscar: Trailer for bizarre indie title on the Academy Award longlist for animated short film
56. To Drive Like A Nascar Star, Break Out The Video Games
57. How Massive Entertainment tries to retain every employee for at least a decade: Managing director Polfeldt on giving junior staff a voice and protecting your workforce from the pressures of AAA development
58. StarCraft Remastered dev analyzes the enduring appeal of StarCraft

DIGITAL

1. Judge: Sure, These Bloggers Are A Bunch Of Jerks, But They’re Not Engaged In Defamation
2. “Offensive, Rude, Annoying, Mean-Spirited & Ill-Advised” Blog Posts Aren’t Defamatory–Milazzo v. Connolly (Eric Goldman)
3. Dangerous Copyright Ruling In Europe Opens The Door To Widespread Censorship
4. Nothing to glOSS over: California court agrees to hear case on open source license enforcement
5. Internet “Framing” Is A Valid Ground For Copyright Infringement In Canada
6. Pirate Bay may finally be sunk after EU copyright ruling: TPB operators delete obsolete torrent files, filter some content—Europe’s top court.
7. Copyright Holders Keep Targeting Dead Torrent Sites
8. Copyright Misuse Emerges as a Political Issue: QP Questions on Notice-and-Notice Abuse
9. Another Day, Another Bogus YouTube Takedown Because Of A Major Label
10. Intel fires warning shots at Microsoft, claims x86 emulation is a patent minefield: Intel doesn’t name names, but Windows 10 on ARM is surely the target of its ire.
11. History by lawsuit: After Gawker’s demise, the “inventor of e-mail” targets Techdirt: “I defined e-mail! And you guys have got to give me that credit.”
12. Should Tumblr Be Forced To Reveal 500 People Who Reblogged A Sex Tape?
13. Tech giants face fines in UK, France over extremism posts—PM May: British MPs likely to rumber-stamp law that punishes firms that fail to take action.
14. EU legislates for portability of online content
15. The Importance Of Defending Section 230 Even When It’s Hard
16. Facebook Isn’t Liable for Fake User Account–Caraccioli v. Facebook (Eric Goldman)
17. Facebook’s First Original Shows Are A Cancelled MTV Comedy And A Nationwide Reality Competition
18. While Commercials Air On TV, Viewers Flock To Facebook
19. Facebook says people can’t stop looking at Facebook during TV commercials
20. Facebook can’t be sued for “jerkingman” revenge porn account
21. Verizon Closes $4.5 Billion Yahoo Deal, Marissa Mayer Resigns
22. SiriusXM Sets $480 Million Investment in Pandora
23. Sirius XM’s Pandora Investment Looks Like A Lifeline – But Feels Like An Invasion
24. Apple and Valve Have Worked Together for Nearly a Year to Bring VR to MacOS: SteamVR and OpenVR available in beta for MacOS ‘High Sierra’ this week
25. How Adobe Got Its Customers Hooked on Subscriptions: The switch to the cloud was risky, but revenue is way up.
26. More than a decade later, how do original YouTube stars feel about the site?: For original YouTubers, their online haven became a media behemoth—but they keep vlogging.
27. Apple’s New Transparency Is Huge For Podcasts Everywhere
28. The Secret Origin Story Of The iPhone
29. Uber’s CEO Travis Kalanick To Take Indefinite Leave: Meanwhile Uber’s board will adopt recommendations to reform culture from within
30. Trump-Style Tactics Finally Stopped Working For Uber: The laws of gravity apply. Even in Silicon Valley. Maybe even in Washington.
31. David Bonderman Resigns From Uber Board After Sexist Remark
32. Uber’s Culture Problems Could Sink Its Self-Driving Future
33. Read the full investigation into Uber’s troubled culture and management: Uber released the findings of an external investigation to its staff at an all-hands meeting today.
34. Uber’s Problems Are Silicon Valley’s Problems
35. A judge is ordering drunken drivers to install Uber, Lyft: “It’s just common sense. It doesn’t cost anybody anything to install.”
36. As Uber Crumbles, Lyft Builds Its Future
37. Policymakers Increasing Their Scrutiny of Virtual Currencies 
38. Instagram’s most-followed celebs failed to label 93 percent of ads, report finds
39. Instagram Adds New Tag To Let Influencers Properly Disclose Brand Partnerships
40. Instagram Will Now Tell You Who’s Getting Paid To Post
41. Instagram Will Add ‘Paid Partnership’ Tag to Sponsored Posts, After FTC’s Warnings to Celebrity Users
42. Making Google the Censor
43. GOOGLE Mark Is Not a Victim of Genericide 
44. Why Is Google Digitising the World’s Fashion Archives?: For years, Google has been digitising the world’s museums, making cultural artefacts accessible in extraordinary detail to millions of internet users. Now it’s turning to fashion.
45. Amazon and Netflix are heading up a new anti-piracy group
46. It Was Inevitable, Really: Netflix Is Turning Into HBO
47. How augmented reality could save tech from itself
48. “Covfefe”—there’s a congressional act for that now: Proposed legislation seeks to bar a US president from deleting tweets.
49. A Running List Of People Donald Trump Has Blocked
50. Schools Tap Secret Spectrum To Beam Free Internet To Students
51. Social media is as harmful as alcohol and drugs for millennials
52. A Brief History of the GIF, From Early Internet Innovation to Ubiquitous Relic: How an image format changed the way we communicate
53. How the Internet Is Getting a Little Nicer, One Meme at a Time
54. Do Androids Dream of Electric Guitars? Exploring the Future of Musical A.I.: New projects by Google and Sony use machine-learning technology to create music that essentially writes itself. Should we be scared—or excited?
55. Advancing to the next level: the quantified self and the gamification of academic research through social networks

CREATIVITY

1. Study Shows Fair Use Industries Make Up One Sixth Of The Economy
2. Fair Use In The U.S. Economy: Economic Contribution of Industries Relying on Fair Use
3.  A legal victory for the kickstarted Star Trek mashup censored by Dr Seuss’s estate
4. Dr. Seuss Enterprises, L.P. v. ComicMix LLC
5. Judge Overturns Jury’s Verdict That ‘Jersey Boys’ Is a Copyright Infringement
6. Monkey Selfie Case Gets Even Weirder, As The Monkey’s ‘Next Friends’ Are In A Criminal Dispute With Each Other
7. Gene Simmons Seeks to Register Trademark on Iconic Rock Hand Gesture: Index and pinky fingers up. Thumb perpendicular. Some say it’s the devil’s horns. The Kiss rocker says it’s his.
8. Gene Simmons Wants to Trademark Spider-Man’s ‘Thwip’ Hand Gesture (UPDATE: Now He Doesn’t)
9. Kellogg’s Takes Australian Tennis Player To Court For Branding Himself ‘Special K’
10. Trademark Bullying Works: Dawa Food Mart Agrees To Name Change After Trademark Suit From Wawa
11. Trademark Registrations for Emojis  (Eric Goldman)
12. Human rights and trademark legislation: the case of offensive marks (Teresa Scassa)
13. Raising Walls Against Overlapping Rights: Preemption And The Right Of Publicity (Rebecca Tushnet)
14. Strategies For Discerning The Boundaries Of Copyright And Patent Protections (Pamela Samuelson)
15. Copyright Trolls… But For Houses
16. Two Big Copyright Cases Sent To Top EU Court: One On Sampling, The Other On Freedom Of The Press
17. Ezra Levant’s libel appeal denied by Supreme Court: Rebel Media co-founder was ordered to pay $80K in damages to Saskatchewan lawyer Khurrum Awan in 2014
18. Reporter Indicted For Covering Trump Inauguration Protests
19. Copyright rules crippling artists
20. Judge Orders MCSK To Cease Collecting Royalties For Kenyan Musicians
21. EU Copyright Proposal: Not Good, But Not As Blatantly Terrible As It Could Have Been
22. Charging Bull v. Fearless Girl: A Brief Overview
23. Two layers of photo ownership in conflict in street photography case
24. Indigenous Activists Are Working To Get the UN To Ban Cultural Appropriation
25. How a ‘Propaganda War’ Overtook Eurovision, the World’s Most Inclusive Song Competition
26. What’s next, after the 2012 copyright overhaul?: With a review months away, improving one of the world’s best copyright regimes calls for modest tweaks, rather than an overhaul. (Michael Geist)
27. The Upcoming 2017 Copyright Act Review: What Next for Canadian Copyright (Michael Geist)
28. Our problem isn’t ‘fake news.’ Our problems are trust and manipulation.
29. In Search of Unbiased Reporting in Light of Brexit, Trump and Other Reporting Challenges in the UK and US
30. How Hollywood Came to Fear and Loathe Rotten Tomatoes: As Wonder Woman soars and Baywatch flops, the power of the review aggregator is looking greater than ever—and studios are looking for a way around it.
31. How Sex Is Orchestrated on Reality Shows Like Bachelor in Paradise
32. The Importance of Adam West’s ‘Bright Knight’ Batman
33. Are Our Pastimes Past Their Time? How Will The Media Industry Disruption And Changes To The Legal Environment Affect The Sports Industry? (David Sussman)
34. Symposium: Is Free Speech Under Threat in the United States?

MEDIA, COMMUNICATIONS & NET NEUTRALITY

1. Liberal MPs to call for broadband Internet tax to fund Canadian media
2. Focus: Judge rules Bell Mobility discriminated
3. Focus: U.S.and Canada diverge on net neutrality
4. How The Death Of Net Neutrality Could Hamstring The Internet Of Things
5. Broadband speeds have soared under net neutrality rules, cable lobby says: The cable lobby’s conflicting arguments about net neutrality and broadband.
6. The Internet needs paid fast lanes, anti-net neutrality senator says: Net neutrality is just a “slogan.”
7. Mozilla Poll Again Shows Net Neutrality Has Broad, Bipartisan Support
8. Reddit, Amazon Push For ‘Day Of Action’ On July 12 To Protest The Killing Of Net Neutrality
9. Frontier Fires State Senate Leader (Who Also Worked For Frontier) For Supporting Attempts To Improve Broadband Competition
10. Frederator’s Parent Company To Launch Canadian Cable Channel Featuring YouTube Content
11. Putting the Internet at the Centre: Taking Stock of Jean-Pierre Blais’ Term as CRTC Chair (Michael Geist)
12. Making Sense of Jean-Pierre Blais (Timothy Denton)
13. Government of Canada repeals July 1, 2017 implementation of private right of action under Canada’s Anti-Spam Legislation (CASL) 
14. TV Cord Cutting Poised To Smash Records During Second Quarter
15. AT&T uses forced arbitration to overcharge customers, senators say: AT&T claims mandatory arbitration is better for customers than lawsuits.
16. BT’s “most powerful Wi-Fi signal” brag is misleading, rules ad watchdog: But Ryan Reynolds dangling from a helicopter is clearly “fantastical” and hey-OK.

SURVEILLANCE & PRIVACY

1. Russian Cyber Hacks on U.S. Electoral System Far Wider Than Previously Known
2. Everything We Know About Russia’s Election-Hacking Playbook
3. Russia struck at election systems and data of 39 US states: Investigators find evidence attackers tried to modify voter data, reports Bloomberg.
4. Al-Jazeera claims to be victim of cyber attack as Qatar crisis continues: Broadcaster targeted after hackers planted “fake news” on Qatar’s state news service.
5. Strong Crypto Is Not The Problem: Manchester And London Attackers Were Known To The Authorities
6. CSIS kept ‘all’ metadata on third parties for a decade, top secret memo says – Top secret memo suggests large scale for CSIS metadata program, Federal Court ruled keeping the data was illegal in 2016.
7. Government Caves to Lobbying Pressure: Bains Blocks Consumer Redress for Spam and Spyware Losses (Michael Geist)
8. Trudeau must do more to promote openness, information czar says
9. Inside the ACLU’s nationwide campaign to curb police surveillance: ‘The only place we face resistance is from the police’
10. Inside the Algorithm That Tries to Predict Gun Violence in Chicago
11. Inspecting Algorithms for Bias
12. Theresa May Tries To Push Forward With Plans To Kill Encryption, While Her Party Plots Via Encrypted Whatsapp
13. Theresa May’s Plan To Regulate The Internet Won’t Stop Terrorism; It Might Make Things Worse
14. Company Lost Secret 2014 Fight Over ‘Expansion’ of N.S.A. Surveillance
15. Another Judge Says The Microsoft Decision Doesn’t Matter; Orders Google To Hand Over Overseas Data
16. Code of Silence: How private companies hide flaws in the software that governments use to decide who goes to prison and who gets out.
17. You Almost Definitely Don’t Know All the Ways Facebook Tracks You
18. Mommy, My Doll is Spying on Me: U.S. Manufacturer’s Doll Labeled an Espionage Device by German Regulators
19. Pacemakers (Think IoT) are not Cybersecure, does that bother you? 
20. College students would give up their friends’ privacy for free pizza: It doesn’t take much to get people to change their security priorities
21. The Next Security Risk May Be Your Vibrator
22. FTC Tracking Of Privacy Complaints
23. The Princeton Web Transparency and Accountability Project (Arvind Narayanan & Dillon Reisman)

Jon

GAMES

1. ESA launches lawsuit against Chicago for its tax on online games
2. ESA sues to overturn Chicago online game service tax: Trade group goes to court over city’s expansion of amusement tax to include game streaming and subscription services
3. Violent video game montages are grounds for demonetization on YouTube
4. YouTube specifies what type of gaming content could face demonetization: Livestreams and let’s play videos should be fine
5. Twitch Now Offering A Cut Of Game Sales To Thousands More Creators
6. Twitch Affiliates will now get a cut of game and IAP sales
7. Valve shuts down Greenlight submissions, dates Steam Direct launch
8. Valve loses fourth writer in 18 months: Jay Pinkerton joined Valve ten years ago, follows Laidlaw, Wolpaw and Faliszek to the door
9. Pokemon Go Decides To Troll Cheaters Instead Of Banning Them
10. The Pokémon Company profits up 2500%: Pokémon Go and Sun/Moon deliver huge growth
11. Klang receives additional funding, strikes a deal with Harvard Law professor: Unity founder David Helgason among backers for studio behind SpatialOS-powered MMO Seed
12. Conflict minerals progress in jeopardy: The games industry has made commendable steps in its sourcing of conflict minerals, but the law that made it possible is facing repeal
13. EA set to donate $1M to anti-bullying efforts via Play to Give
14. EA Play To Give will donate $1m to charity: Gender neutral charity and two anti-bullying organisations to benefit as publisher campaigns for “inclusion and play”
15. Mass Effect: Andromeda devs tell tales of what went wrong during development: “For the last few months of the game, we spent most of our effort just trying to keep it together rather than polishing. Just trying to stay ahead of how quickly it was falling apart.”
16. The Story Behind Mass Effect: Andromeda’s Troubled Five-Year Development
17. Mobile revenue gravity pulls Square Enix inwards: As cash flows in from Final Fantasy titles in the Japanese mobile market, is Square Enix losing its drive to build new IP and conquer overseas markets?
18. Rime allegedly runs faster with Denuvo DRM stripped out: Developer, DRM maker both deny accusations as protection gets removed.
19. Game Developer: Just Wait Until The Game Is Cracked And Then We’ll Patch Denuvo Out; Game Gets Cracked Immediately
20. Rime’s Denuvo Defeated: Developer Gets To Work On DRM Free Version As Performance Hit Details Emerge
21. Denuvo denies claims of Rime slowdown, but publisher removes DRM: Grey Box follows through with promise to drop protection after it’s cracked in five days
22. VMProtect Accuses Denuvo Of Using Unlicensed Software In Its Antipiracy DRM
23. Blizzard avoids China’s loot laws by selling Overwatch in-game currency: In-game currency will now be sold for real money, with loot boxes thrown in for free
24. Blizzard to sell Overwatch credits instead of loot boxes to Chinese players
25. “Releasing your mobile game in China is an absolute necessity”: SuperData CEO Joost van Dreunen discusses the opportunities and challenges of heading East
26. Violent game montages face demonetisation on YouTube: Let’s Plays and livestreams are on safe ground, but “montages where gratuitous violence is the focal point” are not
27. Rocket League to offer cross-platform multiplayer between Xbox One, PC, and Switch
28. Riot overhauls League of Legends eSports: North American League Championship Series will now have more permanent teams with $10 million buy-in, revenue sharing, and a pro players’ association
29. NBA considering Chinese eSports league: Basketball league’s ambitions to expand in the country and competitive gaming could overlap
30. China’s mobile esports revenues to approach $7bn in 2017: Revenues already tripled in 2016, expected to triple again
31. Activision Blizzard Aims for the Big Leagues: Activision Blizzard built a videogame empire around bestselling titles like Call of Duty and Warcraft. Now it wants to become the ESPN of competitive gaming. Will audiences play along?
32. BT Productions teams up with Attention Seekers to produce video games TV shows: Broadcaster says there’s a “legitimate and growing sports season” for video games
33. Zelnick: “We’re probably undermonetising our users” – Despite ongoing success of Grand Theft Auto Online, CEO insists publisher is “not going to grab the last nickel”
34. NPD: Grand Theft Auto V is the US’ best-selling game since 1995 – Market research group confirms Rockstar’s blockbuster is most successful title on record
35. Sony: One in every five PS4s sold is a Pro
36. PS4 Pro accounts for 1-in-5 PS4s sold: Sony says premium-priced console is exceeding its expectations; PS4 family has outsold Xbox 2-to-1 in US, 3-to-1 in Europe
37. PlayStation VR has sold over 1M units worldwide
38. PlayStation sponsoring London Pride 2017: “This is not some kind of corporate step. It means a lot to us”
39. New deep-dive study analyzes the playing habits of Xbox Live users
40. Xbox Unleashed: Our deep-dive study of how millions use Xbox Live – Our follow-up to the Steam Gauge series samples statistics from millions of Gamertags.
41. Xbox One users largely ignore backward-compatible Xbox 360 games
42. Xbox One Exec Responds To Report About Low Backwards Compatibility Usage
43. NES Classic will return (kind of) in updated Nintendo Switch online service: Full service delay to 2018, but $20/year charge will now include more classic games.
44. Nintendo Switch online service pushed back to 2018: Nintendo misses late-2017 launch window, but sets price below competitor services at $19.99
45. Arms review: Nintendo reinvents the fighting game and it’s brilliant – Don’t let the saccharine looks fool you: Arms is deep, challenging, and essential.
46. How will The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild change the open-world paradigm?: We deconstruct the key lessons for developers with the help of Assassin’s Creed and The Witcher designers
47. What went wrong at Mad Catz?: It was once the most powerful peripherals brand in the world, but now it’s in bankruptcy
48. Mad Catz died because it ‘bit off more than it could chew’ says former exec
49. SteamVR is coming to Mac—and Apple says it will actually work: Metal 2 API getting Unreal 4, Unity engine support; Thunderbolt 3 GPU enclosure coming.
50. Crazy VR game lets you explore a world made from 4D mathematical models: 4D Toys also works on iOS, Windows; was borne from upcoming puzzle game Miegakure.
51. Video games in US to grow to $28.5 billion by 2021 – PwC: Latest forecast from PwC estimates 13 million high-end VR headsets in the US with VR content driving $5 billion in sales
52. PwC Report: Esports Revenue In U.S. To Nearly Hit $300 Million In 2021
53. Video gaming’s voice actor strike is ending in slow, small drips: As some publishers hold out, dozens of projects agree to union demands.
54. The Super Nintendo’s Most Valuable Games
55. Everything’s game trailer officially qualifies for an Oscar
56. For The First Time, A Video Game Qualifies For An Oscar: A game that can play itself now counts as an animated film.
57. YouTube Doubles Down On Its Coverage Of Video Game Conference E3
58. Garriott reassures backers after fresh crowdfunding push exposes finances: Portalarium boss says studio tends to operate with $500,000 in the bank despite $11m in donations
59. Why the games industry should not stay neutral this election: With the UK Parliamentary election only days away, there are too many defining policy differences in the parties’ manifestos for the industry to stay mute
60. Taking an IP and making it your own: Cryptic Studios CEO Stephen D’Angelo on how Star Trek Online changed the dev’s approach to licensing
61. Video games aren’t mindless — or heartless — entertainment: Games like “Papers, Please” and “Cart Life” are empathy exercises. Virtual experiences can have real-life impact
62. The quest to save today’s gaming history from being lost forever: Changes in digital distribution, rights management increasingly make preservation tough.
63. Computer scientists quantify just how hard Super Mario Bros. is: Solving an arbitrary level belongs to a class of problems called PSPACE.
64. Ken Rolston speaks to the strengths of Bethesda’s game dev culture

DIGITAL

1. The U.S. Supreme Court Is Reining in Patent Trolls, Which Is a Win for Innovation
2. How one patent troll is desperately trying to stay in East Texas: Uniloc finds plenty of reasons why Google should still be sued in East Texas.
3. Click fraud claim against Google fails:
4. Singh v. Google Inc., 2017 WL 2404986, No. 16-cv-03734 – N.D. Cal. Jun. 2, 2017 (Rebecca Tushnet)
5. Ariana Grande’s ‘One Love Manchester’ Concert To Be Streamed Live On YouTube, Facebook, And Twitter
6. YouTube Takes Down Ariana Grande’s Manchester Benefit Concert On Copyright Grounds
7. Copyright Law In Europe Could Be About To Get Ridiculously Stupidly Bad In Ways That Will Undermine The Internet
8. The Music Licensing Swamp: Spotify Settles Over Failure To Obtain Mechanical Licenses
9. Uber fires 20 employees as fallout from sexual harassment investigation: A law firm is reviewing 215 sexual harassment claims. Uber has about 12,000 workers.
10. Oculus Founder Plots a Comeback With a Virtual Border Wall
11. Top-Secret NSA Report Details Russian Hacking Effort Days Before 2016 Election
12. Leaked NSA report says Russians tried to hack state election officials: Alleged source of leak arrested by FBI after Intercept provided copy to NSA.
13. Russia’s attempt to hack voting systems shows that our elections need better security
14. Feds Charge NSA Contractor Accused of Exposing Russian Hacking
15. How a few yellow dots burned the Intercept’s NSA leaker: By providing copy of leak, Intercept likely accelerated ID of contractor.
16. How Document-Tracking Dots Helped The FBI Track Down Russian Hacking Doc Leaker
17. Intercept Posts NSA Docs On Russian Election Hacking, DOJ Announces Arrest Of Leaker Hours Later
18. The Mysterious Printer Code That Could Have Led the FBI to Reality Winner: Many color printers embed grids of dots that allow law enforcement to track every document they output.
19. Snowden Explains How The Espionage Act Unfairly Stacks The Deck Against Reality Winner
20. Putin: “Patriotic” Russian hackers may have interfered in US election – Comparing hackers to artists, Putin says they may have been inspired by patriotism.
21. How Russian Propaganda Spread From a Parody Website to Fox News
22. You’ll never guess where Russian spies are hiding their control servers: Turla uses social media and clever programming techniques to cover its tracks.
23. Can you commit manslaughter by sending texts? We’re about to find out
24. Wikipedia Seems to Be Winning Its Battle Against Government Censorship
25. 5 Searches That Show Bing Resists Alternative Facts Better Than Google: Breitbart readers really engage with Katy Perry
26. YouTube Spearheads #PowerToDecide Campaign Ahead Of U.K. General Election
27. YouTube Updates Its Guidelines For Advertiser-Friendly Content To Offer More Thorough Info To Creators
28. Philip DeFranco Calls Out What He Sees As YouTube’s Ad Double Standard, Vows To Take Next Show Elsewhere
29. YouTube’s Gossip Vloggers Have Created Their Own Tabloid Industry: There are YouTube celebrities, so of course there are YouTube tabloids
30. Dessert Blogger Files Suit Against Food Network For Copying Recipe Video
31. Confessions of an influencer marketing exec: ‘Micro-influencers are the biggest scam’
32. Late-Night Tweeting Linked To Weaker NBA Performance
33. Covfefe aside, late-night tweets are bad news: Nocturnal Twitter use links to poor performance, according to basketball-player study.
34. Trump Defends Twitter Use as Aides Urge Him to Cut Back
35. President’s Twitter account should not block users, First Amendment lawyers argue
36. Is @RealDonaldTrump violating the First Amendment by blocking some Twitter users?
37. Trump’s Twitter Blocking May Violate First Amendment
38. Twitter users threaten legal action if Trump doesn’t unblock them: Mayors can’t eject city hall critics, so Trump can’t block Twitter critics, either.
39. The Twitter presidency is getting old, according to a new voter survey: “They hate that I can get the honest and unfiltered message out,” Trump tweets.
40. That Lawsuit About A Tweet… Is Both A Publicity Stunt And An Attack On Free Speech
41. Twitter Will Live-Stream James Comey Testimony in Exclusive Bloomberg TV Pact
42. Blaming the Internet for Terrorism Misses the Point
43. Hacking Online Hate Means Talking to the Humans Behind It
44. Google’s Plan to Use Ads to Sway ISIS Recruits
45. Forget far-right populism – crypto-anarchists are the new masters: Many are concerned about the internet’s role in politics. But more worrying is the digital tsunami poised to engulf us, as machine intelligence and a rising tech elite radically restructure life as we know it
46. A Hardware Update for the Human Brain: From Silicon Valley startups to the U.S. Department of Defense, scientists and engineers are hard at work on a brain-computer interface that could turn us into programmable, debuggable machines
47. YouTube clarifies “hate speech” definition and which videos won’t be monetized: h7M bv m,  ore details for creators on what they can and cannot say if they want to make money.
48. An Ad Network That Helps Fake News Sites Earn Money Is Now Asking Users To Report Fake News: In response to queries from BuzzFeed News, Revcontent removed four fake news publishers from its network.
49. Theresa May Calls for International Regulation of Cyberspace in Wake of Attacks
50. Theresa May Blames The Internet For London Bridge Attack; Repeats Demands To Censor It
51. London attack: Internet firms provide safe space for terrorists, claims PM – Home secretary again demands “limit to the amount of end-to-end encryption.”
52. London attack: Tech firms dispute PM’s grandstanding on Internet regulation – Facebook, Twitter, and Google say they’re trying to make sites “hostile” to terrorists.
53. Why not ban cars, Amber Rudd? It’d be more effective than banning encryption – Op-ed: Another terrorist attack, another government attempt at backdooring WhatsApp.
54. Leaving Social Media Taught Me How Broken The News Cycle Is
55. Court Says Facebook Can Block Parents From Deceased Teen’s Account: The page had already been made a “memorial” — blocking them from investigating her death
56. Photographer Sues News Agency For Embedding A Tweet Containing His Photo
57. Social media defamation still a cause for concern
58. The Most Hated Online Advertising Techniques
59. Apple adds ad tracker blocker to desktop Safari
60. Intel & Major League Baseball Partnership Will Bring Free Weekly Games Streamed in VR
61. The Internet Is Where We Share — and Steal — the Best Ideas
62. Can’t Take a Joke? That’s Just Poe’s Law, 2017’s Most Important Internet Phenomenon
63. Women Engineers On The Rampant Sexism Of Silicon Valley
64. Warner Bros and Google using Wonder Woman to get girls into coding: New Made With Code project will use latest superhero firm to introduce skills to young women
65. Google prepares publishers for the release of Chrome ad-blocking: The biggest online advertiser will now block ads; the Web won’t look the same.
66. Amazon’s Antitrust Paradox (Lina Khan)
67. Internet Framing is a Valid Ground for Copyright Infringement in Canada
68. Voltage Pictures Canadian Reverse Class Action – An Update to June 6, 2017 (Howard Knopf)
69. Hanging by a thread: How the online nerdy T-shirt economy exists in an IP world: If big media has legal muscle, why can you buy Link racing Harley Quinn on a shirt?
70. Why Netflix Isn’t Getting Involved In Live Sports Streaming Like Amazon
71. Netflix CEO Offers Eyebrow-Raising Justification As Cancellations Increase
72. App Store revenue breaks $70bn: Downloads have grown by 70% in the last 12 months alone
73. The Rate Of TV Cord Cutting Is Actually Worse Than You Think
74. What Has the Internet Done to Media?
75. Online Marketing to Children – New UK Guidance
76. Toward a Canadian Knowledge Transfer Strategy: My Appearance Before the Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology (Michael Geist)
77. Rise of the machines: who is the ‘internet of things’ good for?: Interconnected technology is now an inescapable reality – ordering our groceries, monitoring our cities and sucking up vast amounts of data along the way. The promise is that it will benefit us all – but how can it?
78. The Internet of Things Connectivity Binge: What Are the Implications?: Despite wide concern about cyberattacks, outages and privacy violations, most experts believe the Internet of Things will continue to expand successfully the next few years, tying machines to machines and linking people to valuable resources, services and opportunities
79. IBM unveils world’s first 5nm chip: Built with a new type of gate-all-around transistor, plus extreme ultraviolet lithography.
80. The Robot Dog Fetches for Whom?
81. The Chatbot Therapist Will See You Now
82. Is language as we know it still relevant for the digital age?
83. Whatever Happened To Our Dream Of An Empowering Internet (And How To Get It Back) (Andres Guadamuz)

CREATIVITY

1. Fair use blocks out copyright claim over LeBron’s tattoo 
2. Drake Winning Sampling Case Over Fair Use Is Big News… But Still Demonstrates The Madness Of Music Licensing
3. In breach of EU copyright law, Paris Court refuses to protect Mankowitz’s photo of Jimi Hendrix
4. Harsh Consequences for Dale Chihuly After Failing to Document IP Rights with Independent Contractor
5. Could Donald Trump Make America Great Again In Canada?
6. The Charging Bull and the Fearless Girl: Moral Rights Protections in Australia and the U.S.
7. The Politics of Political Design: In the UK General Election, support for progressive politics is far more visible in the creative community than pro-Conservative messages are. Yet surveys reveal that not all creative people are left-leaning. Hannah Ellis goes in search of designers on the right and examines the contradiction inherent in an industry predominantly ‘of the left’ that spends much of its time enabling an economic system that is at odds with many leftist ideals.
8. Can America’s moviegoing habit be saved? The past, present and uncertain future of the multiplex
9. Are patents effective brand assets anymore?
10. The Top Hits: Fashion Cases with a Big Impact
11. Top Ten Urban Legends of Intellectual Property
12. How Lego clicked: the super brand that reinvented itself: The revival of Lego has been hailed as the greatest turnaround in corporate history, ousting Ferrari as the world’s most powerful brand. 

MEDIA, COMMUNICATIONS & NET NEUTRALITY

1. Canadian Government on Wireless Services: High Prices, Low Adoption, and Unaffordable For Too Many (Michael Geist)
2. CASL Private Right of Action Delayed Indefinitely
3. FCC security denies that guards pinned journalist against a wall: Chairman Pai promises security changes as reporter stands by allegations.
4. Report Falsely Blames The EFF For Fraudulent Net Neutrality Comments
5. To kill net neutrality rules, FCC says broadband isn’t “telecommunications”
6. Vimeo, Amazon Among Companies Joining Upcoming Protest To Defend Net Neutrality
7. Net Neutrality and the First Amendment
8. The End Of Net Neutrality Could Shackle The Internet Of Things
9. Comcast Pinky Swears That The Death Of Net Neutrality Won’t Hurt In The Slightest
10. Is Antitrust Law a Viable Substitute for Net Neutrality? 
11. Canada to launch subsidized low-income broadband program
12. Focus: CRTC decision a blow to the industry?
13. ISPs denied entry into apartment buildings could get help from FCC: FCC looks at expanding competition rules, but it could preempt local regulations.
14. Sky scolded over shadowy small print in LEGO Batman broadband ad: Superhero claim about “lowest price fibre” turns into caped capped caper.
15. Fox News Gets Mad That Wonder Woman Isn’t in Her American Apparel Underwear
16. YES Network Streams Production Meetings Through Facebook
17. Going gray: Sports TV viewers skew older – Study – Nearly all sports see quick rise in average age of TV viewers as younger fans shift to digital platforms
18. FTC and DOJ Case Results in Historic Decision Awarding $280 Million in Civil Penalties against Dish Network and Strong Injunctive Relief for Do Not Call Violations
19. Radio spectrum, the 5G auction, and the future of mobile computing: Here’s why the UK’s upcoming 5G radio spectrum auction is important.
20. Cable TV “failing” as a business, cable industry lobbyist says: Broadband is the future as TV faces rising costs and online video competition.
21. Transnational over-the-top video distribution as a business and policy disruptor: The case of Netflix in Canada (Emilia Zboralska & Charles Davis)

SURVEILLANCE & PRIVACY

1. Court Says Password Protection Doesn’t Restore An Abandoned Phone’s Privacy Expectations
2. Supreme Court To Consider Fourth Amendment Implications Of Cell Site Location Info
3. Sixth Circuit Appeals Court Latest To Say Real-Time Cellphone Location Tracking Not A Fourth Amendment Issue
4. OneLogin Data Breach May Have Revealed Encrypted Data
5. OneLogin breach: Hacker stole AWS keys, rifled through customer data for 7 hours – Customer info potentially decrypted by “threat actor” who accessed database tables.
6. Internet cameras have hard-coded password that can’t be changed: Cameras with multiple brand names are wide open to remote hacking.
7. How to Create an Anonymous Email Account
8. Trump administration rolls out social media vetting of visa applicants: The new travel screening is for those deemed a national security threat.
9. Trump’s Tougher Visa Vetting Now Asks For Social Media Handles: It also asks for emails addresses and biographical information
10. DHS Steps Up Demands For Visa Applicants’ Social Media Account Info
11. EFF Sues FBI For Refusing To Turn Over Documents About Its Geek Squad Informants
12. WikiLeaks says CIA’s “Pandemic” turns servers into infectious Patient Zero: Latest Vault 7 release exposes operation that infects PCs inside targeted networks.
13. UK police arrest man via automatic face-recognition tech: Camera-equipped van in South Wales apparently spotted man whose face was in database.
14. Got a face-recognition algorithm? Uncle Sam wants to review it: “Face recognition is hard.”
15. The premature quest for AI-powered facial recognition to simplify screening: “This technology at the airport… is premature. It’s not the right way to go.”
16. Digital Privacy Is Making Antitrust Exciting Again

Jon

GAMES

1. Uzbekistan bans video games that ‘threaten stability’: Games barred from sale include Grand Theft Auto and The Sims
2. World Of Tanks Developer Gets Negative Review Video Taken Down Under Threat Of Copyright Claim, Backlash Ensues
3. Hackers jailbreak permanent mods onto Super Mario World save files: Incredible hack perpetually alters game through nothing but controller input.
4. Instead of Banning Cheaters, Pokémon Go Trolls Them Hard
5. More than half of young online gamers are being bullied: Anti-bullying charity calls for better human moderation from publishers and developers
6. The Canadian Nintendo Circumvention Decision – Should it be given “high precedential value”?
7. Sony’s new discovery idea: Curating the curators –
8. Discovery remains the most intractable problem facing the industry in the digital era – Sony’s The Creators system deserves a closer look
9. ‘Rich kid’ Lance Stroll continues to infuriate by blaming Monaco crash on PlayStation game
10. PlayStation’s E3 press conference will be screened in US cinema: Free goodies for those that attend
11. Earnings report roundup: Game industry winners and losers in Q1 2017
12. Far Cry 5 takes series to deadliest land of all: Disenfranchised America – 2018 battle against armed Montana cult is inspired by… the subprime mortgage crisis?
13. Bandai Namco helps form new HTML5 game company: BXD
14. Twitch and Bandai Namco partner up to create Tekken 7eSports league
15. Namco, Twitch tag team Tekken tournament
16. Streaming service continues push into eSports with multi-year deal to manage and broadcast Tekken 7 league
17. League of Legends’ biggest eSports earner highlights gulf with Dota 2: Lee “Faker” Sang-hyeok is the first LoL pro to hit $1m in career winnings – Dota 2 players can rival that in a single tournament victory
18. Player bans in eSports “lack any kind of justice”: eSports Integrity Commission warns publishers over strict rulings based on little evidence
19. Staffordshire University launches UK’s first esports degree: Three-year course is dedicated to the business of esports
20. Nintendo stocks jump to eight-year high following Monster Hunter XX Switch reveal
21. Nintendo Switch helps Best Buy fight off decline:v New console propelled US retailer to record shares high, best entertainment performance since 2014
22. GameStop is very excited about Switch outselling Wii in its first 60 days
23. GameStop’s sales rise on the back of Nintendo’s Switch, even as profits slip
24. Report: Nintendo significantly ramps up Switch production – Company now expects to manufacture 18m consoles this financial year
25. Nintendo fighting over Switch components: Increased production targets pit Mario maker against Apple, other tech giants for limited supplies of memory chips, vibration motors
26. Take-Two acquires Kerbal Space Program: Mexico City based developer Squad will continue supporting and making content for the popular space sim
27. How Google’s Latest VR Moves Are a Major Blow to Oculus’ Mobile Strategy
28. Roam free: A history of open-world gaming – You know the violence, but there were text-adventures, skiing, space, and ants(!) too.
29. Brenda Romero’s plea for unity among game developers: From Phil Fish and Peter Molyneux to the rift between core and casual, Brenda Romero spoke out against the divisions between us
30. Creativity vs. control: How Cuba’s indie devs are finding their voice
31. Top 100 Games Of All Time

DIGITAL

1. Putin Hints at U.S. Election Meddling by ‘Patriotically Minded’ Russians
2. How Twitter Is Being Gamed to Feed Misinformation
3. Nearly Half Of Trump’s Twitter Followers Seem To Be Phony: Fake followers are flocking to Trump, far more than Obama, Clinton, and Pence
4. Twitter Fails E.U. Standard on Removing Hate Speech Online
5. The Internet Defines ‘COVFEFE’
6. Trump has an iPhone with one app: Twitter – Trump retired his trademark Samsung device in March after taunting Schwarzenegger.
7. Twitter and the BBC partner for the first time on live video
8. Ukraine Just Tweeted a Simpsons GIF at Russia Because 2017 Is Weird As Hell
9. Pornhub To Russia: Here’s Your Premium Access For Unblocking Us: A Russian regulator reportedly received a show of thanks, said he would donate free porn accounts to “charity”
10. E-mails phished from Russian critic were “tainted” before being leaked: Campaign targeting more than 200 people also spread disinformation, report says.
11. Florida GOP consultant admits he worked with Guccifer 2.0, analyzing hacked data: Voting models and other leaked data were “worth millions,” consultant told Guccifer 2.0.
12. Facebook Wades Into Another Election
13. Facebook Will Reportedly Pay Up To $250,000 Per Episode For Long-Form Content
14. Facebook’s Not Designed to Create a “Global Community”
15. Music Industry’s Canadian Copyright Reform Goal: “End Tech Companies’ Safe Harbours” (Michael Geist)
16. Cloudflare gets another $50,000 to fight “new breed of patent troll”: Company also seeks state laws to limit attorney-owned patents.
17. Cloudflare Ups The Ante In Search Of Prior Art To Invalidate ALL Patents From Patent Troll Blackbird Tech
18. Creator of SecurID sues Apple, Visa over digital payment patents: A company that couldn’t strike a deal with Visa now seeks patent royalties.
19. A legal tiptoe through the hot world of influencer advertising
20. PayPal Sues Pandora Over Yawn-Inducing Logos And Tweets About People Opening The Wrong App
21. Helping Platforms Protect Speech By Avoiding Bogus Subpoenas
22. Uber Fired Its Robocar Guru, But Its Legal Fight With Google Goes On
23. Google To Tell Advertisers How Often Their YouTube Spots Lead To Store Visits
24. Inside Google’s Global Campaign to Shut Down Phishing
25. Top 100 Most Subscribed YouTube Channels Worldwide • April 2017
26. Text Mining, Non-Expressive Use and the Technological Advantage of Fair Use  (Matthew Sag)
27. Are Copyright and Patent Overlapping or Mutually Exclusive in Protecting Software Innovations? (Pamela Samuelson)
28. Analyzing Accessibility of Wikipedia Projects Around the World
29. Wikipedians Join Push For Fair Use In Australia After Six Government Reports Recommend It
30. Ars tests out Amazon’s first pick-up grocery store in the world: Easy and painless, so long as you like Amazon’s selection (and Prime-exclusive rules).
31. Why Some Digital Companies Should Delay Profitability for as Long as They Can
32. Mark Zuckerberg Should Really Listen to Himself
33. Some starting questions around pervasive autonomous systems
34. Normalisation of sexting: Kaspersky’s ad is criticised by the ASA and the NSPCC
35. This Couple Just Got Hitched In A Surreal Virtual Reality Wedding: Avatars gathered to witness the first couple to legally say “I do” in their headsets. It got a little awkward
36. Internet Trends 2017 – CODE Conference (Mary Meeker)

CREATIVITY

1. Ariana Grande to hold benefit concert for Manchester victims: US pop singer whose show ended with a terrorist attack that killed 22 people says she plans to hold fundraiser in city
2. Primavera De Filippi: “As an artist, I try to challenge the current state of the world…”
3. Spinal Tap vs. Hollywood
4. Everyone Wins When Politicians Body Slam Reporters
5. ‘Citizens United,’ media corporations and other corporations
6. LGBTQ Representation in Hollywood Is Still Scandalously Low
7. Piracy Killing Hollywood So Bad That Disney Made More Money In 2016 Than Any Studio Ever
8. Professional Cheerleader Case Presents Independent Contractor and Joint Employer Lessons 
9. TV Networks Step Away From Pricey Originals Amid Saturation Of Shows 
10. CNIB calls for federal accessible book production strategy
11. Say goodbye to the video store, hello to the non-profit foundation: How one of the last video stores turned non-profit with an eye on preservation.
12. The Force Will Be With Us. Always.: Star Wars And The Quest For The Forever Franchise
13. The Life and Death of the Freestyle Mixtape: The freestyle mixtape wasn’t just a service to the fans, it was a representation of hip-hop’s core. Now it’s dead.
14. How Intellectual Property Rights Shape Neuropsychological Demand for Orange Flavors 
15. Unevenly Cooked: Raw Materials and Fair Use (Christopher Buccafusco)
16. Raw Materials and the Creative Process (Andrew Gilden)

MEDIA, COMMUNICATIONS & NET NEUTRALITY

1. Can Cancon Compete?: A Response to the WGC on The Future of Canadian TV Production (Michael Geist)
2. Victims Of Anti-Net Neutrality Identity Theft Demand Answers: An unknown party has been using names of real people to spam the FCC with fake comments against internet freedom
3. People who were impersonated by anti-net neutrality spammers blast FCC: FCC should investigate and throw out fake comments, impersonation victims say.
4. Congress Busted Using Cable Lobbyist Talking Points In Attacks On Net Neutrality
5. Update – FCC Concludes that the Colbert Broadcast Did Not Violate FCC Indecency Rules 
6. Republicans claim 1st Amendment right to send you robo-voicemails: GOP asks FCC to exempt direct-to-voicemail messages from robocall rules.
7. Despite Claiming It’s Now On Par With Apple, Comcast’s Already Bad Satisfaction Ratings Are Actually Getting Worse
8. Comcast customer satisfaction drops 6% after TV price hikes, ACSI says: Customers unhappy with Comcast TV and Charter’s Time Warner Cable Internet.
9. Some Of The Best Net Neutrality Reporting Is… Coming From Sites Owned By Verizon?

SURVEILLANCE & PRIVACY

1. UK Government Using Manchester Attacks As An Excuse To Kill Encryption
2. Why the NSA Makes Us More Vulnerable to Cyberattacks: The Lessons of WannaCry
3. Is “I forget” a valid defense when court orders demand a smartphone password? 
4. Samsung’s ‘Airtight’ Iris Scanning Technology For The S8 Defeated With A Camera, Printer, And Contact Lens
5. Radio-controlled pacemakers aren’t as hard to hack as you (may) think: The four major makers aren’t properly securing critical cardiac devices, report says.
6. Facial Recognition Cameras Are Now Watching Your Emotions: Systems originally developed to identify people from photos can now detect gender, emotions, and much more
7. Google To Tell Advertisers How Often Their YouTube Spots Lead To Store Visits
8. Cyber breach costs Target more than $220 million! 

Jon

GAMES

1. Does Valve really own Dota? A jury will decide: Federal court case could hinge on 2004 forum post granting “open source” license.
2. Jury to decide whether Valve owns DOTA: Two games studios challenge the company’s ownership to DOTA
3. Valve’s ownership of Dota 2 is set to be decided by a jury
4. Why Texas may have lost its status as a hotbed of game patent lawsuits
5. World of Tanks dev apologizes for threatening YouTuber with a takedown
6. Wargaming apologises for World of Tanks YouTuber row: Developer had threatened to issue a copyright take down against SirFoch
7. Bandai Namco delays Get Even after Manchester Arena attack: Meanwhile, MCM London Comic Con beefs up security ahead of this week’s event
8. Pokémon Go hackers getting put in Pidgey-filled purgatory: Niantic appears to be using machine learning to hide rare Pokémon from bot makers.
9. New ‘creators’ section lets game devs curate the PlayStation Store
10. PlayStation Store introduces developer-led curation: The Creators initiative allows studios to share their favourite games
11. Departed Kerbal Space Program devs now work at Valve
12. How Kona’s devs used the Canada Media Fund, and why they won’t use it again
13. Why Chinese industrial firms are snapping up game studios: ‘You can buy profit’: “Obviously there is little industrial logic in combining a Western mobile games company with a Chinese industrial firm. But people see how much money can be made, so it’s not so strange.”
14. Judge to Decide Vexing Question in Entertainment: License Needed to Show Body Tattoos? – A judge lets Take-Two, publisher of ‘NBA 2K,’ seek declaratory judgment against the owner of a tattoo design featured on LeBron James’ body.
15. Facebook expands eSports coverage with ESL partnership: Social network to host over 5,500 hours of live tournament programming including 1,500 hours of exclusive content
16. Are esports sport?
17. Twitch Adds Speed Controls So You Can Watch Noteworthy Plays In Slow Motion
18. Is Switch what the future of consoles looks like?: Is Nintendo’s new platform a one-time gimmick, or an important reinvention of the console for a new market landscape?
19. Nintendo helps push April US game sales up 10% – NPD: Switch hardware and Mario Kart 8 Deluxe dominated the industry
20. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe devs patch out potentially obscene taunt
21. Anita Sarkeesian: “Games need to tell better stories that don’t oversimplify oppression”: Critic praises “cultural shift” in video game storytelling, but says recent examples are a “band-aid on a deeper wound”
22. Many pet rabbits will die in Second Life on Saturday
23. Lawbreakers dev: PC/console cross-platform play is “dumb” – Bleszinski says developing for keyboard/mouse and console leads to “balance issues.”
24. How Destiny 2 is leading to gold devaluation in World of Warcraft: Real-world value of in-game gold dips 7 percent since Battle.net announcement.
25. “Virtual reality will be our best interface with true AI”: VR expert Dave Ranyard discusses the potential for storytelling with virtual and augmented reality at Nordic Game
26. Oskar Burman: “Free-to-play will grow, but will never dominate VR” – Former Rovio exec believes virtual reality has a lot to learn from mobile, but won’t be ruled by the same type of games
27. Unity takes $400 million investment from Silver Lake: Half of the money will let employees and shareholders cash out of the company
28. For Google, the Future of VR Is on the Open Web with WebVR & WebAR
29. Augment Your Legal Knowledge of Augmented Reality
30. Conservative party’s immigration policy could hurt UK game devs, warns UKIE
31. UKIE warns UK Conservative Party over immigration policy: But Dr Jo Twist welcomes ‘commitments to support the UK games and wider creative industries’
32. Game companies are agreeing to strike terms, say screen actors guild: But they don’t reveal who
33. Janet Murray On Why Some Players And Critics Still Cannot Tolerate Narrative In Games
34. How Alexis Kennedy is writing the next Dragon Age
35. How Cuban game devs balance tense relationship between propaganda and creativity: Gov’t once feared, now starting to embrace games
36. There’s now 45 million people gabbing about games on Discord
37. “This is as important as AI or space travel” – Why Improbable is worth over $1bn: We speak to the CEO of Britain’s most talked about start-up
38. Bioware: Humility and compromise are key to good game design – At Digital Dragons, Bioware design director James Ohlen tackled the differences between the “dream” of game development, and the practical reality
39. Kerbal Space Program developers hired by Valve: Timeframe for the new hires coincides with departure of eight of Squad’s core staff last year
40. Jurgen Post: “The Sega brand will come back and start to flourish again”
41. Humble Bundle has raised over $95 million for charity: Humble Freedom Bundle provided a boost, says co-founder John Graham, but Humble will be careful “not to overstep our bounds” on politics
42. Veteran game developers reveal their childhood creations: When they were kids
43. An Improved AlphaGo Wins Its First Game Against the World’s Top Go Player
44. The Original Monopoly Was Deeply Anti-Landlord: The game of cutthroat capitalism was actually intended as a lesson on wealth inequality.
45. ‘Resident Evil’ Franchise Set for a Reboot
46. Nine Days With an Absurd $9,000 Gaming Laptop

DIGITAL

1. Appeals Court Orders Expedited Hearing in ReDigi Case
2. Apple and Nokia end their patent fight
3. Lawsuits get settled, but what about the companies wielding Nokia patents?
4. Titan Note Continues Trying To Sell Its Questionable Device; Its Own Actions Keep Raising More Questions
5. Apple, Verizon Join Forces To Lobby Against New York’s ‘Right To Repair’ Law
6. Terrorism victims can’t hold Facebook liable for Hamas’ use of the platform: Website immunity holds up against the US Anti-Terrorism Act.
7. Facebook Defeats Lawsuit Over Material Support for Terrorists–Cohen v. Facebook (Eric Goldman)
8. Turkish President Demands Google Delist A Bunch Of Websites Comparing Him To Hitler
9. Malta’s Prime Minister Sues Panama Papers Journalist For Defamation; Gets Facebook To Delete His Reporting
10. Revealed: Facebook’s internal rulebook on sex, terrorism and violence – Leaked policies guiding moderators on what content to allow are likely to fuel debate about social media giant’s ethics
11. Facebook content rules leaked days after Tories vow tougher Internet laws: Facebook mod guidelines are OK with violent death, misogyny; but don’t threaten Trump.
12. A Campus Murder Tests Facebook Clicks as Evidence of Hate
13. EU fines Facebook 110 million euros over WhatsApp deal
14. Facebook fined $122 million for misleading EU over WhatsApp deal: Facebook says it couldn’t automatically match WhatsApp accounts; EC disagrees.
15. Mergers: Commission fines Facebook €110 million for providing misleading information about WhatsApp takeover (European Commission)
16. European Union Proposes Rules To Hold Online Video Platforms Accountable For Hate Speech
17. Social networks face tougher EU oversight on video content: Facebook, Twitter and others may have to abide by same regulations as broadcasters
18. You won’t believe why Facebook will block this headline: Updates to news feed algorithms tweaked to catch spammy and deceptive headlines.
19. How Facebook Sees The World: By acknowledging the existence of an editorial compass, the technology giant tacitly accepts its role as a de facto censorship power—and opens itself to government attack.
20. Facebook Will Begin Streaming One Major League Baseball Game A Week On May 19
21. Facebook Joins Twitter In Live Streaming Major League Baseball Games On Friday Nights
22. ISIS Has A Strategy To Create A Media Frenzy And News Outlets Are Struggling To Disrupt It: Struggling to cover terror in the media age. (Zeynep Tufekci)
23. Twitter And Tear Gas: How Social Media Changed Protest Forever (Zeynep Tufekci)
24. Court of Appeal granted an appeal of the Federal Court’s decision allowing internet service provider to charge a fee for disclosure of suspected infringer
25. Copyright Board Rules Whether YouTube Uploads Constitute “Publication” and “Making Available” Under Copyright Act
26. Four copyright registrations expunged where Respondent was not the author and owner of the works
27. Defense Against the Dark Arts of Copyright Trolling (Matthew Sag)
28. Uber threatens to fire Levandowski if he doesn’t comply with court order: Can Uber engineer be forced to choose between the Fifth Amendment and his job?
29. Objecting to sexual harassment got me fired, says ex-Uber employee
30. The Taking Economy: Uber, Information, and Power (Ryan Calo & Alex Rosenblat)
31. Paypal says Pandora’s logo infringes, starts trademark battle: “The similarities between the logos are striking, obvious, and patently unlawful.”
32. Trademark Has Come To This: Tinder Opposes Dating App With Only One Lonely Dude On Its Dating Roster
33. Shinder, Shinder, Shinder … will you ever be like Tinder?
34. Did eBay Irreparably Injure Trademark Law? (Mark Lemley)
35. How Not to Prove a Mark is Generic. Use of GOOGLE as a Verb Does Not Constitute Genericide
36. A WannaCry Flaw Could Help Some Victims Get Files Back
37. Windows XP PCs infected by WCry can be decrypted without paying ransom: Decryption tool is of limited value, because XP was unaffected by last week’s worm.
38. Hackers Are Trying to Reignite WannaCry With Nonstop Botnet Attacks
39. Windows 7, not XP, was the reason last week’s WCry worm spread so widely
40. How I accidentally stopped a global Wanna Decryptor ransomware attack: A British security researcher found and pulled WannaCrypt’s kill switch.
41. WannaCry Ransomware Cyberattack Raises Legal Issues
42. NSA Was Concerned About Power Of Windows Exploit Long Before It Was Leaked
43. There’s new evidence tying WCry ransomware worm to prolific hacking group: Common tools, techniques, and infrastructure make link “highly likely.”
44. Inside Russia’s Social Media War on America
45. Who Are the Shadow Brokers?: What is—and isn’t—known about the mysterious hackers leaking National Security Agency secrets
46. The Seth Rich Conspiracy Theory: A Tale of Two Filter Bubbles
47. Someone Is Trying to Scrub Trump’s Name From the Wikipedia Page of Lieberman’s Law Firm
48. The Library of Congress Makes 25 Million Records From Its Catalog Free to Download
49. Theresa May Plans To Regulate, Tax And Censor The Internet
50. An EU text and data mining exception: will it deliver what the Digital Single Market Strategy promised?
51. How a Chipmunk Emoji Cost an Israeli Texter $2,200
52. A Pro Flag Football League Is Launching And It Might Be The Most High-Tech League In The World
53. James Corden is getting his own Snapchat show, the first from CBS
54. BostonGlobe.com disables articles when your browser’s in private mode
55. Boston Globe Blocks Readers Using Privacy Modes In Browsers
56. Amid YouTube Ad Plight, Patreon Says It Will Pay Creators $150 Million This Year
57. The Most-Desired Career Among Young People Today Is ‘YouTuber’ (Study)
58. Google Confirms Glass Team is Not Working With AR/VR Team
59. Google’s New AI Is Better at Creating AI Than the Company’s Engineers
60. Google Wants to Apply AI & Machine Learning to All Its Products
61. Intel to make Thunderbolt 3 royalty-free in bid to spur adoption: And the company has promised to put Thunderbolt 3 controllers into its processors.
62. Five Ways Elon Musk’s Brain-Computer Interface Could Transform the World
63. Hear Me Out: Let’s Elect an AI as President
64. How Artificial Intelligence will impact professional writing
65. AI and Robots Will Change the Way We Create and Consume Content
66. An AI invented a bunch of new paint colors that are hilariously wrong: Let’s just say this neural network won’t make you fear the robot uprising.
67. We Are All Kasparov: When Deep Blue beat the world chess champion 20 years ago, we learned a huge lesson. Just not the one we thought.
68. Why Humans Are So Terrified Of Robots With Feelings
69. The value of robotic process automation
70. How Copyright Law Creates Biased Artificial Intelligence (Amanda Levendowski)
71. Plagued by high-profile flops, Kickstarter and Indiegogo are bringing in experts to help inventors fulfill their promises.
72. The Barbarians Are at Etsy’s Hand-Hewn, Responsibly Sourced Gates: The ur-Brooklyn online craft marketplace is under pressure to start acting more like a conventional, shareholder-focused company.
73. Conference Report – ‘Moral Rights and New Technologies: Authorship, Attribution and Integrity in a Digital World’
74. Piece by Piece Review of Digitize-and-Lend Projects Through the Lens of Copyright and Fair Use (Michelle M. Wu)
75. Netflix And Amazon Screenings Are Being Booed At The Cannes Film Festival
76. The A-EON Amiga X5000: An alternate universe where the Amiga platform never died – A new Amiga computer emerges that is both modern and an Amiga.
77. Employee misconduct and social media
78. Eli Pariser Predicted the Future. Now He Can’t Escape It.: Six years after the Upworthy cofounder coined the term “filter bubble,” things are much worse.
79. Tulips, Myths, And Cryptocurrencies

CREATIVITY

1. Supreme Court to decide who owns the 38,000 stories of residential school survivors: The courts say it is up to the survivors to decide what happens to the accounts of their experiences. But a coalition representing the survivors’ children and grandchildren wants to save the stories.
2. Why Is The Far-Right Attacking Ariana Grande After Manchester?: While the world grieves for Manchester, others are taking aim at the pop star’s personal beliefs in a disgusting way.
3. Manchester was an attack on girls: The bombing — and the trolling that followed — show again how females are targeted
4. The Meaning of Ariana Grande: She has one of the most loyal, dedicated fanbases in pop. She represents confidence, empowerment, sexiness, independence. Grownups may never understand, but young women do. Is that what terrorists are afraid of?
5. Conan O’Brien Joke-Stealing Case Gets Green-Lit For Jury Trial
6. A Brief Explainer About What the Heck Is Going On With Rebel Wilson’s Defamation Case
7. Supreme Court urged to clarify law on journalist-source protection
8. Judge Agrees Broadcasters Have First Amendment Right to Refuse Advertisements: SiriusXM wins a lawsuit against a dating company as a result.
9. Music Performing Rights Organizations and the “Full-Work” vs. “Fractional” Licensing Dispute: Government Seeks to Overturn Fractional Licensing Decision
10. RIAA Says Artists Don’t Need “Moral Rights,” Artists Disagree: Major entertainment industry associations often create the impression that they are fighting for the rights of smaller artists, not just their corporate overlords. However, responding to a US Government consultation, both sides are now going head to head over the “moral rights” issue.
11. Sorry East Texas: Supreme Court Slams The Door On Patent Jurisdiction Shopping
12. Supreme Court makes it much harder for patent trolls to sue in East Texas: Folks got sued in East Texas “just because they had a website.” Those days may be over.
13. Lawyer who founded Prenda Law is disbarred: Twenty-one months later, an ethics complaint ends in disbarment.
14. Japanese Music Collection Society Demands Copyright Fees From Music Schools For Teaching Music
15. Trump Allegedly Wants FBI To Look Into Locking Up Journalists Who Publish Leaks
16. News Coverage of Donald Trump’s First 100 Days
17. Burna Boy allegedly stopped from working in US and Canada by New York Supreme Court
18. The Fyre Festival Is Still a Damn Mess, and Now the FBI Is Involved
19. The Fearless Girl who challenges the Charging Bull
20. 17 charts that show the current state of the music industry
21. Time Magazine Rips Off Mad Magazine?
22. Spanish Supreme Court Rules on Originality for Architectural Works
23. The Personal-Essay Boom Is Over
24. The Mad King of Juice: Inside the Dysfunctional Origins of Juicero
25. Is there copyright in the taste of a cheese? Sensory copyright finally makes its way to CJEU
26. Does Fair Use Affect Academic Authors’ Incentive to Write? Some Lessons from Authors of Works from the GSU Course Reserves Case
27. Seeing’s Insight: Toward A Visual Substantial Similarity Test For Copyright Infringement Of Pictorial, Graphic, And Sculptural Works (Moon Hee Lee)
28. The Right to Attention in an Age of Distraction
29. On Bias, Clickbait, And The Future Of Journalism: Insight And Advice From Staffers At The Washington Post

MEDIA, COMMUNICATIONS & NET NEUTRALITY

1. Canadian TV in the Netflix Age: In Defence of the CRTC Television Licensing Decision (Michael Geist)
2. Diversity and competitive equity underline the CRTC’s recent decisions on television services operated by Canada’s large French- and English-language ownership groups
3. Montreal Economic Institute isn’t ready for internet reality: No, cat videos aren’t going to interfere with self-driving cars and the internet of things. (Peter Nowak)
4. Breaking down the FCC’s proposal to destroy net neutrality: The agency is asking if we even need any rules at all
5. Net neutrality going down in flames as FCC votes to kill Title II rules: GOP’s 2-1 majority starts repeal process, with final vote coming later in 2017.
6. The FCC Just Voted. They Are Going to Start Dismantling Net Neutrality.
7. FCC Ignores The Will Of The Public, Votes To Begin Dismantling Net Neutrality
8. FCC Commissioner Wants To Ban States From Protecting Consumer Broadband Privacy
9. Internet Providers Insist They Love Net Neutrality. Seriously?
10. Cable Companies Refuse To Put Their Breathless Love Of Net Neutrality Down In Writing
11. Comcast vendor sent cease-and-desist to operator of anti-Comcast website: Net neutrality website stays online as Comcast agrees to take no further action.
12. The FCC Doesn’t Care That Somebody’s Spamming Its Net Neutrality Proceeding With Fraudulent Comments
13. FCC Refuses to Release Evidence of the ‘DDoS Attack’ on Its Website
14. Examining the FCC claim that DDoS attacks hit net neutrality comment system: Attacks came from either an unusual type of DDoS or poorly written spam bots.
15. Journalist allegedly “manhandled by FCC guards” for asking questions: FCC apologizes, says guards were on “heightened alert” due to threats.
16. FCC Guards ‘Manhandle’ Reporter Just For Asking Questions At Net Neutrality Vote
17. Senators ask FCC why reporter was “manhandled” after net neutrality vote – Senators to FCC: Don’t roughhouse journalists who are trying to ask questions.
18. If Net Neutrality Dies, Comcast Can Just Block A Protest Site Instead Of Sending A Bogus Cease-And-Desist
19. It’s Not Too Late to Save Net Neutrality From a Captured FCC: The Trump-appointed FCC chairman has ushered in a virulent strain of market libertarianism. He can and must be stopped.
20. A Trump FCC advisor’s proposal for bringing free Internet to poor people: Trump advisor says net neutrality hindered free data services for the poor.
21. California Noncommercial TV Station Licensee Faces $20,000 Proposed Fine for Public Inspection File and Related Violations
22. Wireless Data Revenues Dip For First Time in Seventeen Years — Thanks To A Crazy Little Thing Called Competition
23. Viacom wants to leave sports in the dust with future $20 “skinny” TV bundle: How many people really want cable TV with no live sports?
24. The Worldwide Leader in Schadenfreude: For the first time in 40 years, people aren’t just criticizing ESPN. They’re savoring its decline.
25. How Deregulation Gave Us FM Radio, HBO, and the iPhone
26. What toppled Bill O’Reilly? A reporter’s hunch, a cold call, and a Pilates class.
27. A Fox News Host Was Racist Enough to Actually Get Fired
28. Roger Ailes, who built Fox News into a powerhouse, dies at 77
29. Roger Ailes: Brilliant and Destructive – Fox News may be the greatest business investment Rupert Murdoch ever made. It was Roger Ailes who led it to massive success and controversy. Some think he destroyed sane, constructive political dialogue in America and gave birth to a sinister breed of news.
30. Roger Ailes will be remembered as a lecherous, misogynistic and terrible boss — and that’s a good thing: Ailes spent his life fighting for a world where men are free to exploit women — and the good news is, he lost
31. I’m Sorry To Report That Roger Ailes Ever Lived
32. Alex Jones’ InfoWars Claims To Have White House Press Credentials: A guy who thinks Sandy Hook was a ‘hoax’ now has access to the same White House briefing room as ‘fake news’ outlets
33. How the big TV networks are adapting to ad-skipping viewers … and Google, Snapchat and Facebook
34. Upfronts week just concluded, which means it’s time to take stock of the TV business: Ratings are down, live events are up, and IP is more important than ever
35. Federal Judge Triples Damages Against Dish In Telemarketing Lawsuit, Resulting in $61.34m in Damages
36. Plot twist: Cheesy soap opera script is deceptive drug ad, doctors warn – General Hospital character gets rare disease. Drug company has just the pill for that.
37. The Tricky Ethics of Big Pharma Soft-Selling on Soap Operas

SURVEILLANCE & PRIVACY

1. Russian Military Apparently Using Cell Tower Spoofers To Send Propaganda Directly To Ukrainian Soldiers’ Phones
2. Wikimedia wins small victory in challenge to NSA “Upstream” spying: “This surveillance will finally face badly needed scrutiny in our public courts.”
3. Appeals Court Revives Wikimedia’s Lawsuit Against The NSA
4. “Yahoobleed” flaw leaked private e-mail attachments and credentials: Yahoo promptly retired ImageMagic library after failing to install 2-year-old patch.
5. Vermont DMV Caught Using Illegal Facial Recognition Program: Local, state, and federal law enforcement were allowed to search DMV photo database, documents show
6. Get Ready for the Next Big Privacy Backlash Against Facebook
7. Google and Facebook lobbyists try to stop new online privacy protections: Lobbyists try to kill “opt-in” privacy standard before it can be implemented.
8. Facebook whacked with piddly fine after breaching French data law: But free content ad network insists it complies fully with EU data protection rules.
9. British Human Rights Activist Faces Prison For Refusing To Hand Over Passwords At UK Border
10. New EU Lawsuit Claims Google Failed To Forget ‘Sensitive’ Information, Such As Their ‘Political Affiliation’
11. Inspector General’s Report Shows Section 702 Isn’t The Only Thing Being Abused By The NSA
12. Some Android Phones Keep Listening After ‘OK Google’ Is Disabled
13. RNC, Chamber Of Commerce Want Robocallers To Be Able To Spam Your Voicemail Without Your Phone Ringing
14. Something about Trump cybersecurity executive order seems awfully familiar: Trump’s cybersecurity order cribs from his predecessor, despite campaign bluster.
15. GOP lawmaker who helped kill ISP privacy rules proposes new privacy rules: Bill requires opt-in consent, but prohibits states from imposing stricter rules.
16. The everyday habits that reveal our personalities: From dining on spicy food to singing in the shower, seemingly innocuous behaviours may say a lot about your character.
17. Ontario court finds Information and Privacy Commissioner’s decision to order disclosure of a commercial contract between bank and university reasonable
18. Anti-Lawful Access Tide Continues: Security Consultation Finds Public Strongly Opposed to New Reforms (Michael Geist)
19. Corporate Surveillance Is Turning Human Workers Into Fungible Cogs: Emerging technologies are enabling more invasive management practices.
20. Tech Leaders Say You Could Be Storing Data in Your DNA in the Next 10 Years
21. The Organization That’s Tracking People With Mental Illnesses: An experimental Florida program that aims to use big data to treat the mentally ill raises privacy questions
22. Famed Hacker Kevin Mitnick Shows You How to Go Invisible Online

Jon

GAMES

1. Judge Explores Boundaries of Authorship With Nods to ‘Star Wars,’ Spike Lee and ‘Love Actually’: Modded video games get likened to movies in a tour de force of legal writing.
2. Blizzard Entertainment, Inc., and Valve Corporation v. Lilith Games (Shanghai) Co. Ltd. And uCool, Inc. (U.S. Dist. Ct., Northern District of California)
3. ZeniMax extends legal pursuit to Samsung Gear VR: Former id Software employees John Carmack and Matt Hooper involved in fresh VR lawsuit
4. ZeniMax sues Samsung over Gear VR tech: Suit says Oculus’ Mobile SDK used stolen trade secrets, copyrighted code.
5. With a legal win against Oculus, ZeniMax turns to a new target: Samsung’s Gear VR
6. ZeniMax sues Samsung over Oculus-derived Gear VR headset: The lawsuit claims the Gear headset infringes its property rights in the same way as the Oculus Rift.
7. Ruslan Sokolovsky Gets 3 And A Half Years Suspended Sentence And A Conviction For Playing Pokemon In A Church
8. Scientists Still Studying Pokémon Go, Months After We All Moved On: The craze around the augmented reality game offers plenty to study, even if it takes a while
9. In the name of the algorithm, Valve nerfs Steam Trading Cards
10. Steam tries to shut down “fake” games that abuse Trading Card system: Algorithms will detect content-free titles that use bots to resell cards.
11. Alan Wake will be removed from digital stores after this weekend: Expiring music licenses means modern classic can no longer be sold for download.
12. Alan Wake to be removed from sale over music licenses: Renewal is not “in Remedy’s hands” due to Microsoft publishing deal, so the revered game will be pulled from PC and Xbox today
13. Makers Of Payday 2 Donating DLC Profits To Help 2 YouTubers Fight Copyright Lawsuit
14. Nier Automata Modder Includes Piracy Checks In Mod, Causing An Uproar, But Should It?
15. Pirates upset that popular graphics mod won’t work for them: User-made graphical fix for Nier Automata comes with Steam API check
16. Bethesda’s Pete Hines Shrugs His Shoulders About Trademark Dispute With No Matter Studios
17. Is Bethesda’s reviews policy really harming game sales?: We look at the data around Doom, Skyrim Special Edition, Dishonored 2 and Prey
18. Minecraft dev sacrifices Nirvana in-joke to save players’ parrots
19. After uproar, Minecraft maker to stop feeding cookies to in-game parrots: Mojang accepts concerns that children might imitate the game’s dangerous avian diet.
20. UploadVR sued over sexual harassment allegations: Former social media director claims “unbearable” atmosphere for female employees, accuses rising VR company of wrongful dismissal
21. “No region or city is free of the games industry’s gender disparity”: Gram Games calls on companies around the world to push for better diversity, just as it’s doing with The 22% Project
22. Why Bungie overstaffed on Halo: to train its devs for Destiny: “We needed to bring extra people on to Halo to train them up, ready [them] for Destiny.”
23. Glu’s losses widen in Q1 despite revenue gains: Mobile publisher lost $22.8m on $56.8m revenue, but Crowdstar acquisition boosted year-on-year bookings
24. Square Enix posts ‘record-high’ sales and profits as key franchises deliver
25. Square Enix puts Hitman dev IO Interactive up for sale
26. Square Enix drops IO Interactive: “There can be no guarantees,” publisher warns as it hunts for a buyer for Hitman developer
27. Switch Was Best-Selling Console In The Us In April, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe No. 1 Game
28. Switch best-selling console in US for second month: Nintendo says it sold more than 280,000 systems last month and 550,000 copies of Mario Kart 8 Deluxe
29. Two Months In, I’ve Barely Taken My Nintendo Switch Off The Dock
30. Report: Andromeda’s poor reception sees Mass Effect put on hold – Bioware Montreal staff and resources focused elsewhere for now
31. Civilization V designer Jon Shafer joins Paradox – under a cloud: Shafer will be game director on new Paradox projects, but his Kickstarted empire builder At The Gates is still years behind schedule
32. Reported $20m franchise fee is putting esports teams off Overwatch: High costs and scarce events cited as major orgs bide time on OWL
33. MotoGP owner aims to create “the most important racing esport championship”: Dorna Sports, Milestone and Sony unite for ambitious esports project
34. Adelaide Crows First Australian Mainstream Pro Sports Organization To Acquire Esports Team
35. Square Enix posts “record-high” revenue and profits: Full-year results boosted by Final Fantasy XV, weather the storm of IO Interactive withdrawal
36. “There’s a change in the way games are exploited in the market”: Ubisoft execs explain why they cut unit sales projections by 30% while total revenues are virtually unscathed
37. Ubisoft’s operating income grows 40% as digital takes 50% of sales: Ghost Recon Wildlands and For Honor were strong performers for the publisher; Assassin’s Creed and Far Cry confirmed for current fiscal year
38. Google announces support for standalone Daydream VR headsets
39. Google announces untethered, fully tracked, standalone VR headsets – Also: New “visual position system” is an AR Google Maps for indoors.
40. PSVR: Losing Steam, or Gaining Traction? – If Sony really has lost interest in PSVR, it’s a major strategic blunder from a company about to face tough competition for the first time this generation
41. Microsoft intros AR/VR motion controllers: Windows 10 inputs will launch this holiday bundled with an Acer headset for $399
42. Oculus promises developers better communication
43. Inside a Chinese Internet Cafe Where Gamers While Away Their Days
44. Price, scarcity concerns drive a growing bootleg Amiibo scene
45. Yes, Videogames Are Serious Art. This Guy’s Career Proves It
46. Derivière: “Games music needs to emancipate itself from Hollywood”
47. Sega plans to revive ‘major’ franchises by 2020
48. Sega strategy calls for revival of dormant franchises: Sonic publisher looking to boost game sales 50% in next three years partly by bringing back “major IPs”
49. Tom Brady Is On Madden 18’s Cover And Life Is Hell
50. Video games are creating smarter animals: Our relationships to animals in games have evolved, and they just might change the way we treat them in the real world
51. Playground spent 18 months developing the first 10 minutes of Forza Horizon 3: “First impressions change how players perceive a game,” says creative director Ralph Fulton
52. The Witcher coming to Netflix as a TV series: Live-action drama is a new direction for video game adaptations.
53. Characters and Worldbuilding: Analyzing the Strength of Japanese Games
54. Twitch Unity day aims to promote diversity, inclusivity: Streaming platform also selling t-shirt to raise money for Amnesty International
55. Sellers of circumvention devices beware!
56. UKIE lays out new policy manifesto: With an election on the way, UK trade group tells government what the industry needs to succeed in a post-Brexit world

DIGITAL

1. WannaCry Ransomware That’s Hitting World Right Now Uses NSA Windows Exploit
2. An NSA-derived ransomware worm is shutting down computers worldwide: Wcry uses weapons-grade exploit published by the NSA-leaking Shadow Brokers.
3. Leaked NSA Hacking Tool On Global Ransomware Rampage
4. Massive ransomware attack hits UK hospitals, Spanish banks: Ransomware attack appears to be targeting institutions in several European countries.
5. Massive cryptocurrency botnet used leaked NSA exploits weeks before WCry: Campaign that flew under the radar used hacked computers to mine Monero currency.
6. Fearing Shadow Brokers leak, NSA reported critical flaw to Microsoft: WaPo confirms long-held suspicions as NSA cyberweapons crisis threatens to grow worse.
7. Two days after WCry worm, Microsoft decries exploit stockpiling by governments: Company president specifically notes role of NSA code used by Ransomware worm.
8. Microsoft Is P___ED OFF At The NSA Over WannaCry Attack
9. Microsoft Says The NSA Shares Blame For Ransomware Attacks: The WannaCry authors used a stolen NSA vulnerability to hurt Windows users — should the NSA take responsibility?
10. The Ransomware Meltdown Experts Warned About Is Here
11. Today’s Massive Ransomware Attack Was Mostly Preventable—Here’s How To Avoid It
12. Global Ransomware Attack ‘Accidentally’ Halted But It’s Probably Not Over
13. ‘Accidental hero’ halts ransomware attack and warns: this is not over – Expert who stopped spread of attack by activating software’s ‘kill switch’ says criminals will ‘change the code and start again’
14. Hackers Behind Massive Ransomware Attack Have Made an Embarrassingly Small Amount of Money
15. WCry is so mean Microsoft issues patch for 3 unsupported Windows versions: Decommissioned for years, Windows XP, 8, and Server 2003 get emergency update.
16. FBI Gives Hollywood Hacking Victims Surprising Advice: “Pay the Ransom” – Netflix isn’t alone – Agencies and others are balancing demands for money against the fears of stolen data ending up online.
17. New Netflix DRM Blocks Rooted Phone Owners From Downloading The Netflix App
18. Two days after WCry worm, Microsoft decries exploit stockpiling by governments: Company president specifically notes role of NSA code used by Ransomware worm.
19. The WannaCry Ransomware Hackers Made Some Real Amateur Mistakes
20. Microsoft Says The NSA Shares Blame For Ransomware Attacks: The WannaCry authors used a stolen NSA vulnerability to hurt Windows users — should the NSA take responsibility?
21. The WannaCry Ransomware Has a Link to Suspected North Korean Hackers
22. What the Rise of Russian Hackers Means for Your Business
23. Thailand Demands More Proxy Censorship From Facebook
24. Well, Duh: Facebook’s System To Stop ‘Fake News’ Isn’t Working — Because Facebook Isn’t The Problem
25. Abortion Pill Organization Temporarily Booted Off Facebook
26. Austrian Court’s ‘Hate Speech’ Ruling Says Facebook Must Remove Perfectly Legal Posts All Over The World
27. US Court Upholds Enforceability Of GNU GPL As Both A License And A Contract
28. “Genericide” legal assault to nullify the Google trademark fails: Google doesn’t lose trademark even if it is a generic term for searching the Web.
29. Google Gets Big Ninth Circuit Win That Its Eponymous Trademark Isn’t Generic–Elliott v. Google (Eric Goldman)
30. A focus on digital habits could help news publishers fight Facebook
31. Facebook’s plan to disrupt TV advertising may have hit a wall
32. Bleacher Report CEO Dave Finocchio Doesn’t Buy That Facebook Isn’t Avid About Securing Sports Rights
33. Texas Court Orders Sports Streaming Sites To Be Blocked In Anticipation Of Piracy
34. Facebook Warrant Case: Stark Debate and a Divided Court
35. The MP3 Is About As ‘Dead’ As Pepe The Frog
36. Recording Industry Claims Imaginary Value Gap As A Bigger Threat Than Piracy (EFF)
37. SoundExchange Acquires CMRRA
38. The Real Threat to Our Government Is Tech Illiteracy
39. Cambridge Analytica Explained: Data and Elections
40. Media Manipulation and Disinformation Online
41. The Apophenic Machine: The conspiratorial mode and the internet’s data hoard were made for each other (Molly Sauter)
42. Maybe the Internet Isn’t Tearing Us Apart After All
43. Can These Apps Really Help You Escape Your Filter Bubble?: New tech products offer some tiny first steps toward shaking up our social networks
44. We Recorded VCs’ Conversations and Analyzed How Differently They Talk About Female Entrepreneurs
45. Cloudflare, sued by its first “patent troll,” hits back hard: Blackbird Technologies, owned by its own lawyers, has filed over 100 lawsuits.
46. Patent Trolling Lawyers May Have Picked With The Wrong Company To Shake Down: Cloudflare Hits Back
47. Dear Google, You Could Start Fixing Content ID By Taking Down Dozens Of YouTube Videos On How To Defeat It
48. YouTube still has full albums on its platform, and that’s a problem
49. When a Picture is Worth… Thousands of Dollars: Ontario Court decides Ground-breaking Online Copyright Case
50. The Kardashians Can’t Keep up with Copyright Law 
51. Now Canceled Crowdfunding Project Sent DMCA Notice Following Skeptical Review
52. Story About Ex-Sony Pictures Boss Magically Disappears From Gawker; His Lawyer Tells Reporters Not To Talk About It
53. Class action against computer manufacturer proceeds
54. MySpace Tries To Play Dead To Avoid Lawsuits
55. Trademarks in a “Social” World: A Canadian Perspective
56. Snap Blows First Earnings—But That’s Not the Whole Story
57. Magic Leap settles discrimination lawsuit with former exec
58. Magic Leap settles sexual discrimination case: Terms of the out of court settlement with Tannen Campbell were not disclosed
59. Magic Leap, and the Troubles In Sexism Valley
60. Clashing With Second Circuit, Court Orders Google to Turn Over Foreign-Stored Data
61. Internet providers ordered to block streaming of Premier League
62. Google’s Fight Against Uber Takes a Turn for the Criminal
63. Judge refers Waymo v. Uber lawsuit to criminal investigators: Also, Uber’s bid to move the case into arbitration fails.
64. Judge’s order bars Uber engineer from Lidar work, demands return of stolen files: “Misuse of that treasure trove remains an ever-present danger wholly at his whim.”
65. Waymo and Lyft team up against Uber: In the self-driving world, the enemy of my enemy is my friend.
66. Uber not just a dumb app, must comply with EU transport rules—top law adviser: Taxi-hailing app faces a tough ride from regulators in Europe.
67. Lawsuit: VR Company Had a ‘Kink Room,’ Pressured Female Employees to ‘Microdose’
68. Judge Alsup Threatens To Block Malibu Media From Any More Copyright Trolling In Northern California
69. A new tool to further deter smartphone theft: “Think of it as Carfax for phones.”
70. Spotify and – no joke – iTunes are coming to the Windows Store: Apple’s music app is a major get for Microsoft and Windows 10 S.
71. One More Thing: Inside Apple’s Insanely Great (Or Just Insane) New Mothership
72. 15-second ads coming to Amazon’s Alexa: Ads at the start and end of Alexa conversations, thanks to third-party company.
73. Twitter, NFL Announce New Multi-Year Partnership To Include Live Pre-Game Coverage
74. Lululemon Turns To Vice Media For Big Ad Push
75. Vice Media Said to Be Raising More Cash as Prelude to Possible IPO
76. How Amazon Go (probably) makes “just walk out” groceries a reality: Amazon’s new age grocery likely wasn’t possible even five years ago.
77. Can Ticketmaster’s Anti-Bot Assault Fix Its Most Infuriating Problem?: “Verified Fan” fights scalper bots to make those Harry Styles tickets easier to snag—but there’s still room for improvement.
78. Google Rattles the Tech World With a New AI Chip for All
79. The Surprising Repercussions of Making AI Assistants Sound Human
80. AI, Deep Learning, and Machine Learning: A Primer
81. Autonomous Systems — Is it time for empirical research?
82. Scientists 3-D Print Mouse Ovaries That Actually Make Babies
83. Fashion visionaries are using 3D printing to create mind-bending textiles that are nearly impossible to wear.
84. Archive digitization: a coordinated effort by CBC/Radio-Canada to preserve and showcase our heritage
85. Startup culture’s obsession with “side hustle” gets more unsettling the closer you look
86. Google’s AI Invents Sounds Humans Have Never Heard Before
87. Website Blocking, Injunctions and Beyond: View on the Harmonization from the Netherlands (Martin Husovec & Lisa Van Dongen)
88. Digital copies, exhaustion, and blockchains: lack of legal clarity to be offset by technological advancement and evolving consumption patterns? (Eleonora Rosati)
89. How 4 Agencies Are Using Artificial Intelligence as Part of the Creative Process: Can algorithms replace humans?
90. Sorry, Westworld: We Should Be Able to Torture Robots
91. Cristiano Ronaldo Goes Shirtless On Instagram Live To Celebrate Hitting 100 Million Followers
92. French Theater Owners Freak Out; Get Netflix Booted From Cannes Film Festival

CREATIVITY

1. Conan O’Brien Will Go to Court Over Joke Theft Allegations: A lawsuit claims that the late night host stole five monologue jokes from a comedy writer’s blog.
2. Conan O’Brien Headed to Trial Over Claims of Stealing Jokes: Alex Kaseberg overcomes a summary judgment motion and moves forward on jokes about Caitlyn Jenner, Tom Brady and the Washington Monument.
3. Here we laugh again! The eternal controversy over parody scope in Copyright law
4. Latest Attack On A Free Press: Reporter Arrested For Asking Questions To Trump Administration Officials
5. Does the Media Have a Right to Private Communications?
6. Cartoonist who claimed to be Kung Fu Panda creator jailed for two years: Jayme Gordon also ordered to repay $3m in legal fees to DreamWorks Animation after filing spurious copyright lawsuit in 2011
7. Court Finds Infringement of THE KRUSTY KRAB Mark
8. Paul Levy Hoping To Wake Up Maryland Courts To The Numerous Fraudulent Libel Lawsuits Filed There
9. Mathew v. The Walt Disney Co.
10. ITN Flix, LLC v. Univision Television Group, Inc.
11. Higher Costs Awards for the Winning Party in Federal Court IP Cases
12. How Pixar Lost Its Way: For 15 years, the animation studio was the best on the planet. Then Disney bought it.
13. A Candid Conversation About Rap Culture’s Pervasive Disrespect Against Black Women: How do you cope when your social feed reflects how much the world devalues you?
14. Marvel’s Cancelling Black Panther & The Crew, One of Its Most Important Comics Right Now
15. Why Drag Is the Ultimate Retort to Trump: RuPaul versus the White House
16. Kentucky court rejects government attempt to punish printer for refusing to print ‘Lexington [Gay] Pride Festival’ T-shirt
17. KitKat loses bid to copyright four-finger chocolate bars
18. Why Photos of President Trump Are So Aggressively Boring
19. How Amanda Palmer Gave The Music Industry The Finger With Crowdfunding
20. As Cannes turns 70, must cinema adapt to survive in new digital era?: Festival bosses are welcoming TV shows but have banned Netflix films from the Palme d’Or
21. Are Your Nails Gucci? Why the Breakout Trend of the Moment Is a Logo Manicure
22. Revising Non-compete Law to Eliminate Unfair Competition
23. How Noncompete Clauses Keep Workers Locked In
24. New Copyright Law declared constitutional (Brazil)
25. Legal Guide to Music Licensing Contracts
26. Osgoode Hall Law School appoints two Journalists in Residence

MEDIA, COMMUNICATIONS & NET NEUTRALITY

1. Internet, TV providers focus on new video packages as 1 million Canadians watch unlicensed content on Android boxes
2. FCC Temporarily Stops Taking Net Neutrality Comments So FCC Can ‘Reflect’
3. The FCC Spent Last Week Trying To Make Net Neutrality Supporters Seem Unreasonable, Racist & Unhinged
4. Flooded with thoughtful net neutrality comments, FCC highlights “mean tweets”: Facing extensive net neutrality support, FCC is ready to gut open Internet rules.
5. Ajit Pai accidentally supports utility rules and open-access networks: Pai praises Clinton, whose FCC enforced open networks and boosted competition.
6. Title II hasn’t hurt network investment, according to the ISPs themselves: ISPs continue to invest and tell investors that net neutrality hasn’t hurt them.
7. Cable lobby conducts survey, finds that Americans want net neutrality
8. Cable Industry’s Own Survey Shows Majority Support Net Neutrality Rules
9. It’s Time For The FCC To Actually Listen: The Vast Majority Of FCC Commenters Support Net Neutrality
10. Cisco And Oracle Applaud The Looming Death Of Net Neutrality
11. Sprint sues government over elimination of broadband price caps: Business Internet price caps were removed by FCC despite lack of competition.
12. Verizon outbids AT&T for nationwide “5G” spectrum: Verizon to buy Straight Path and its millimeter-wave spectrum for $3.1 billion.
13. PSA Leads to Threatened Criminal Investigation for Arizona Radio Station
14. The Widening Blast Radius of the Fox News Scandal: The metastasizing Ailes affair is spilling over into the politics of New York, Virginia and the White House.
15. Canada’s Anti-Spam Legislation (CASL): A Statistical Analysis from the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) 

SURVEILLANCE & PRIVACY

1. Latest FISA Court Order Details Why NSA Didn’t Get Any 702 Requests Approved Last Year
2. NSA Boss: Section 702 Should Be Renewed Because It Helped Prove Russia Hacked Election
3. Police Body Camera Giant Made Lawyers Sign Away Client Footage: Fearing for their clients, defense attorneys are refusing to hit ‘agree’ to access the company’s cloud-based body cam footage
4. America Reloaded: The Bizarre Story Behind the FBI’s Fake Documentary About the Bundy Family
5. Hollywood Helps China Set Up National Surveillance And Censorship System To Tackle Copyright Infringement
6. Google collected NHS records of 1.6M patients on “inappropriate legal basis”: “We haven’t shared patient data with other Google products, services,” says DeepMind boss.
7. Google Lens knows more about what’s in your photos than you do: What flower are you snapping a photo of? Google can tell you that.
8. Here’s How Facebook Knows Who You Meet In Real Life: It may seem like Mark Zuckerburg is personally tracking your every move — but there’s another explanation for those creepy friend requests you’re getting
9. Revisiting the Discoverability of Facebook Account Activity–Gordon v. TGR (Eric Goldman)
10. HP laptops covertly log user keystrokes, researchers warn
11. Cockpit access codes for United Airlines spill online: “The safety of our customers and crew is our top priority,” United says.
12. Amazon’s Alexa Is Getting Smarter, But Potentially More Intrusive: Users will be able to opt-in to weather and news notifications with the A.I. home assistant
13. EU regulators welcome stricter rules on cookies and direct marketing: The European Commission has published a draft Regulation regarding cookies and electronic direct marketing. EU regulators have publicly welcomed the proposal, which has potentially significant consequences for all businesses that engage in online commerce or electronic direct marketing.

Jon

GAMES

1. Russian Who Played Pokemon Go in Church Is Convicted of Inciting Hatred
2. Diego Maradona settles with Konami over likeness dispute: As part of the settlement, the legendary player will sign a deal this month to promote Pro Evolution Soccer
3. Bethesda Trademark Bullying Results In Indie Game Adding A Whole Letter To Its Name, But Not Its Logo
4. ZeniMax trademark forces indie to rename Prey for the Gods: “We could’ve fought this but we didn’t want to spend our precious Kickstarter funds”
5. Oculus Story Studio is getting shut down
6. Why the Closure of Oculus Story Studio is Good News for VR Filmmakers
7. ‘Antisocial VR’ and the power of isolation: How Recluse Industries is embracing the power of minimalism to offer a refuge for the solitary gamer
8. Half Of NBA Teams Jump Into The NBA’s New eSports NBA2K League, FIFA League To Start Soon
9. 17 NBA Teams Buy In For Startup NBA 2K Esports League
10. Here Are The 17 Teams Participating In NBA 2K Esports League’s Inaugural Season
11. Blizzard’s new MLG eSports division to focus on Overwatch: Major League Gaming now fully integrated into Blizzard, will also handle Call of Duty World League
12. eSports broadcasting – a difficult balance to strike
13. With streaming sites like YouTube and Twitch now serving as popular hubs for professional gamers, both game developers and the platforms themselves are struggling to forge new rules
14. ‘Skin economy is a good thing,’ says Playerunknown’s Battlegrounds creator
15. Activision Blizzard sees record Q1 earnings — 80% of which came from digital sales
16. Nintendo Switch boosts Nvidia revenues by up to $192m: Graphics hardware firm reports Q1 revenues of $1.94bn, aided by new console’s use of Tegra processor
17. Minecraft on Nintendo Switch does the trick, hides most of its compromises: Visual and rendering compromises are totally fine, but do you have enough controllers?
18. EA goes from cautious to “bullish” on Nintendo Switch support: Mega-publisher is “looking at other titles” to bring to hot-selling hardware.
19. EA Responds To Mass Effect: Andromeda’s Mixed Reaction, Talks BioWare New IP Delay: CEO Andrew Wilson says Mass Effect still has a bright future.
20. Zynga CEO: “We’ll be profitable in the very near future”
21. NaturalMotion founder Torsten Reil leaves Zynga
22. Chinese games market to hit $35bn by 2021 – Niko Partners: Mobile revenue to account for 58% of the market
23. EA expects console game sales to be 40% digital this year: And that the install base of PS4/Xbox One will hit 105m
24. YouTubers struggling to make money from Call of Duty: WWII – Depictions of real-war are seeing videos demonetised
25. TIGA aiming to increase employment in UK games industry by 40 percent
26. Things to Learn from 2016 Global Mobile Market and Actions to Take in 2017
27. The Extremes of Mental Presence: Cognitive Enhancement, Biohacking, Psychedelics, & Transhumanism
28. Top 5 VR Racing Sims for Oculus Rift and HTC Vive
29. Gear VR far and away the leader with almost 7m expected to be sold in 2017: SuperData’s latest figures show 782,000 units sold in Q1; HTC Vive continues to outpace Oculus Rift despite price cut
30. Microsoft Technical Evangelist on Presence in VR Game Design
31. This Pulsating ‘Haptic Skin’ is Somewhat Creepy, Mostly Awesome
32. Fan buys box of Blizzard stuff on eBay, finds StarCraft source code
33. Four games, including Pokemon and Halo, join World Video Game Hall of Fame
34. How Moral Panics Can Turn Into Therapeutic Tools: The Dungeons And Dragons Edition
35. Arcade group promises ticket and claw games will no longer be “rigged”: “Fair Play Pledge” says all redemption games can be “won by the application of skill.”
36. Rapidly Deflating Pikachu Rushed To Safety By Small Horde Of Suited Men
37. Vice Will Bring More Of Its Brands To Twitch After Successful Gaming Stream
38. Execution Labs wraps up with fund “fully deployed”: Indie incubator has a portfolio of 19 active studios; Jason Della Rocca, Keith Katz and support team are all moving on

DIGITAL

1. Trump administration to Supreme Court: Don’t hear EFF “Dancing Baby” case: Copyright fight over 29 seconds of a toddler dancing to Prince is now a decade old.
2. The Trump Admin’s Advice to Supreme Court in Copyright Case Is a True Mind-Bender
3. Hackers Hit Macron With Huge Email Leak Ahead of French Election
4. Evidence suggests Russia behind hack of French president-elect: Russian security firms’ metadata found in files, according to WikiLeaks and others.
5. Dear France: You Just Got Hacked. Don’t Make The Same Mistakes We Did. – A brief guide to the information wars. (Zeynep Tufekci)
6. Here’s How Far-Right Trolls Are Spreading Hoaxes About French Presidential Candidate Emmanuel Macron
7. Why the Macron Hacking Attack Landed With a Thud in France
8. Macron campaign team used honeypot accounts to fake out Fancy Bear: Digital team filled fake accounts with garbage data to slow information operation.
9. A Last Minute Influence Op by Data DDoS: Where there’s smoke, there’s a smoke machine!
10. As France becomes latest target, are election hacks the new normal?: After the hacking of the Democratic party in the US, governments have been braced for similar attacks. The onslaught has arrived
11. The great British Brexit robbery: how our democracy was hijacked – A shadowy global operation involving big data, billionaire friends of Trump and the disparate forces of the Leave campaign influenced the result of the EU referendum. As Britain heads to the polls again, is our electoral process still fit for purpose?
12. We are not done with state-sponsored hacking. Far from it.
13. Russians Say They’re Sick Of Hacking Accusations
14. China’s New Online Encyclopedia Aims To Surpass Wikipedia, And To ‘Guide And Lead’ The Public
15. UK Parliament Takes First Step Towards Making Google & Facebook Censor Everything
16. Dear Europe: Please Don’t Kill Free Speech In The Name Of ‘Privacy Protection’
17. Cisco kills leaked CIA 0-day that let attackers commandeer 318 switch models: Fix neutralizes attack code that was put into the wild in early March.
18. Trump’s Campaign Can’t Just Erase History on the Internet
19. Activists Are Pushing Back Against Tech Platforms That Quietly Empower Hate Groups
20. No More Trolls: Austria Rules Facebook Must Remove Hate Speech: An Austrian court case aimed at making Facebook responsible for policing vitriolic posts could have an international ripple effect.
21. Will Facebook actually hire 3,000 content moderators, or will they outsource?: The company refuses to comment on where those 3,000 workers will be employed.
22. Facebook Sees Video Views Rise By 32% In Q1 2017, Doubles Down On Long-Form Content
23. Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg: Paying For Live Sports Video Content Isn’t A ‘Long-Term Goal’
24. How Sheryl Sandberg’s Sharing Manifesto Drives Facebook: The COO inspires her fans, and her employees, to talk about sadness, even tragedy, at work. That can be healing—and very good for business.
25. Don’t Let Facebook Make You Miserable
26. On Facebook: Why won’t the company let us truly filter our feeds?
27. Facebook Tweaks News Feed to Crack Down on ‘Low Quality’ Sites
28. Facebook takes to newspapers to teach UK users how to spot “fake news”: Social network claims to have killed “tens of thousands of fake UK accounts.”
29. Ridiculous Lawsuit Looks To Hold Social Media Companies Responsible For The San Bernandino Shooting
30. Norwich orders: who pays under the notice and notice regime? Voltage v Doe
31. Microsoft’s bid to bring AI to every developer is starting to make sense: The APIs are getting good enough to be built into production systems.
32. The Commodification of People
33. Kodi: Open source TV app inspires full-blown copyright panic in the UK – Descended from Xbox Media Center software, it’s a crime wave to copyright cops.
34. AG Szpunar says that Uber is a transport activity, not an information society service
35. Warner Music Inks New Deal With YouTube, But Does Not Cease Its Complaints
36. The Premier League Kindly Requests Google De-List All Of Facebook Over Copyright Infringement Claims
37. Creator of infamous Playpen website sentenced to 30 years in prison
38. Kardashian lumped with lawsuit over Instagram snap
39. Third verse same as the first – Will Richard Prince’s transformation defense work yet again?
40. 5th Circuit: ISP Not Liable for Infringement Due to Lack of Volitional Conduct, Despite Ineligibility for DMCA Safe Harbor
41. Megaupload users still can’t get data back: The answer for users waiting five years for their seized data? Keep waiting.
42. YouTube taps creators, celebrities for new original shows on ad-supported site: Fitness with Kevin Hart, behind-the-scenes with Ellen, and more.
43. Lyor Cohen, YouTube’s music ambassador, makes his case to the big music labels: Warner Music Group signed a deal with YouTube and then complained about it. Here’s the video site’s response
44. Maker Studios wrapped up in new, more ‘curated’ Disney YouTube network
45. Disney rebrands all Youtube content under Disney Digital Network: Maker Studios output subsumed into new ‘Polaris’ channel
46. Time Inc. To Launch ‘Sports Illustrated’ SVOD Service, Slew Of Social Video Brands
47. What’s Wrong With Twitter’s Live-Video Strategy
48. Anti-Authoritarian Book Club: Twitter And Tear Gas (James Grimmelmann)
49. Report: Uber faces federal criminal probe over regulator-evading software
50. Imagination Technologies can’t resolve Apple IP spat, opens formal dispute: Starting in 2019, Apple will no longer use firm’s designs.
51. Tim Cook announces $1 billion investment in “advanced” US manufacturing: Apple also created a page highlighting the jobs it already supports in the US.
52. When Internet Memes Infiltrate the Physical World: Deplorable frogs and “nasty women” aren’t just online for comic relief. They’re central to how people engage with political issues.
53. What You Need to Know About Emoji Law (Yes, That’s a Thing)
54. Surveying the Law of Emojis (Eric Goldman)
55. Copyright Considerations for using Emoji in Commercial Ads
56. Data is giving rise to a new economy
57. Why Do Gas Station Prices Constantly Change? Blame the Algorithm: Retailers are using artificial-intelligence software to set optimal prices, testing textbook theories of competition; antitrust officials worry such systems raise prices for consumers
58. SpaceX Just Laid out a Plan to Give Everyone Internet Access
59. US Legislators Form VR-centric “Reality Caucus” to Guide Immersive Technology Policy
60. Verizon Is Paying the NFL $21 Million for Exclusive Streaming Rights to One Football Game
61. Premier League scores a big win against illegal streaming
62. Snapchat lines up media companies to produce original shows for Snap TV: Could your next favorite show be a Snapchat exclusive?
63. Amazon Alexa Will Now Wait On Seattle Mariners Fans In Private Suites At Safeco Field
64. Alexa, is Amazon poised to control the connected ecosystem of the future?
65. Social media and personal injury lawsuits
66. Libel in the age of the Internet: click with caution
67. Building a Better Loom: How technology might serve, rather than hinder, democracy
68. How Vladimir Putin mastered the art of ‘online Judo’ – and why the west should be worried: Russia is using the internet’s idealistic freedom as a hybrid-warfare weapon against the west
69. The inventor of the web Tim Berners-Lee on the future of the internet, ‘fake news,’ and why net neutrality is so important
70. Google and Facebook aren’t fighting fake news with the right weapons
71. Facing digital reality: Regulation, product complexity, and insurers’ large balance sheets have kept digital attackers from insurers’ gates. That is changing, but in ways incumbents should embrace. They can flourish in the digital age—if they move swiftly and decisively.
72. The meaning of life in a world without work
73. As technology renders jobs obsolete, what will keep us busy? Sapiens author Yuval Noah Harari examines ‘the useless class’ and a new quest for purpose
74. University Of Alberta Develops Smallest-Ever Edmonton Oilers Logo Via Nanotechnology

CREATIVITY

1. Spanish Citizen Sentenced To Jail For Creating ‘Unhealthy Humoristic Environment’
2. Police Union Sues Toy Gun Maker For Not Doing Enough To Keep Cleveland Cops From Killing 12-Year-Old Boys
3. Rome Court of Appeal confirms that mere indication of a work’s title is enough to trigger hosting provider’s liability
4. CJEU to rule on enforceability of German press publishers’ right
5. Molteni and Cassina duke it out over Gio Ponti chair design
6. “Turn Down for What” Becomes Latest Target for “Blurred Lines” Lawyer
7. US Entertainment Firm Milks Croatian Concert Promoter With Trademark Rights It May Never Have Owned
8. Sad Raiders Fans Fail To Keep Team In Oakland By Squatting On Trademark
9. A Photographer Sued a Student Over a School Project. Guess How That Turned Out–Reiner v. Nishimori (Eric Goldman)
10. How Zeke Smith’s Being Outed as Trans May Have Gotten Him Kicked Off Survivor
11. “Digital Is Cheaper” & Other Bogus Arguments
12. Illinois right of publicity allows truthful statements about performers in ads (Rebecca Tushnet)
13. Engineered To Deceive: Many of today’s visual artists are technological innovators, using advanced materials, industrial design, and sophisticated light manipulation to build experiences that trick your brain. Look inside their imaginations—and allow them to expand your own.
14. Is It “Fake News” To Call The Media “Fake News?”
15. The Local News Business Model
16. Vogue India Celebrated Its 10th Anniversary by Getting Kendall Jenner Into Even More Trouble
17. Coca-Cola and Music: A Case Study
18. The New Intellectuals: Political wars on college campuses aren’t really about free speech. They’re about what it means to be a student.
19. The Art Market’s Modigliani Forgery Epidemic: A skyrocketing interest in Amedeo Modigliani’s work is producing Picasso-level price tags, with major museum shows stoking the flame. Buyers are wary, though: the mystery surrounding one of the world’s most-faked artists has led to death threats, lawsuits, and hoaxes.
20. Branding “Vaverisms”: All I Really Need To Know I Learned From His Quips 

MEDIA, COMMUNICATIONS & NET NEUTRALITY

1. Lawsuit depicts Fox News as not just sexist. Not just misogynistic. Barbaric.
2. FCC to investigate, ‘take appropriate action’ on Colbert’s Trump rant
3. Opening up broadcast indecency
4. The FCC ‘Investigation’ Into Stephen Colbert Is A Complete Non-Story
5. FCC to Investigate Steven Colbert? – Much Ado About Nothing
6. A John Oliver Net Neutrality Rant Has Crippled The FCC Website A Second Time
7. FCC: John Oliver Didn’t Bring Down Our Site, Attackers Did – Just as the comedian sent a flood of people to support net neutrality, attackers brought commenting site down
8. After net neutrality comment system fails, senators demand answers: John Oliver caused big comment increase, but FCC blames DDoS attacks.
9. The FCC Claims A DDoS Attack — Not John Oliver — Crashed Its Website. But Nobody Seems To Believe Them
10. The FCC has received 128,000 identical anti-net neutrality comments: There might be a bot faking widespread net neutrality opposition.
11. The FCC Is Using Garbage Lobbyist Data To Defend Its Assault On Net Neutrality
12. AT&T Takes Heat For Avoiding Broadband Upgrades For Poor Areas
13. AT&T could be punished for unlimited data throttling after all: Ajit Pai cheers court decision, says case to overturn Title II is strengthened.
14. Comcast, Charter Join Forces In Wireless, Agree Not To Compete
15. Plan to kill municipal broadband fails in state legislature: Angry constituents convince Maine lawmakers to vote against Republican bill.
16. UK’s New ‘Digital Economy’ Law Somehow Now Gives Police The Power To Remotely Kill Phone Service
17. How the NFL is Crippling ESPN and Harming the Future of TV Sports
18. Only Connect

SURVEILLANCE & PRIVACY

1. Massive vulnerability in Windows Defender leaves most Windows PCs vulnerable: PCs can be compromised when Defender scans an e-mail or IM; patch has been issued.
2. Google phishing attack was foretold by researchers—and it may have used their code: A potential threat from spoofing Google applications was cited in 2011.
3. Security News This Week: Oh Good, Hackers Beat Two-Factor to Rob Bank Accounts
4. Man: Border agents threatened to “be dicks,” take my phone if I didn’t unlock it – “I believe strongly in the Constitution and in my right to privacy.”
5. Privacy, Poverty and Big Data: A Matrix of Vulnerabilities for Poor Americans
6. How Privacy Became a Commodity for the Rich and Powerful
7. Lawyers: How can we scrutinize surveillance records that remain sealed?: Stanford attorneys make unusual request to a federal court itself, DOJ opposes.
8. Lawyer: Cops “deliberately misled” judge who seemingly signed off on stingray – “Any system that is not transparent is inherently corrupt.”
9. Watch a cop’s staged body cam footage made “to look like it was done in real-time”: “The staging was done in such a way to make it look like it was done in real-time.”
10. Ahead Of His Senate Hearing, James Comey Pushes His ‘Going Dark’ Theory
11. James Comey Says Real Journalists Check With The Government Before Publication
12. Feds propose heightened social media vetting of visa applicants: Plan applies to applicants “who have been determined to warrant additional scrutiny.”
13. Investigatory Powers Act: Back doors, black boxes, and tech capability regs: Expert legal analysis of the UK’s spy law and what it could mean for end-to-end crypto.
14. Hidden Cameras And Zoom Lenses: Meet The Voyeur Pornographers: Revenge porn gets all the attention, but other forms of nonconsensual adult content are thriving under the radar
15. Is Facebook Taking Its First Steps Into VR Surveillance?: With new ‘Spaces’ app, privacy advocates warn it could one day offer a wealth of new data to advertisers
16. More Android phones than ever are covertly listening for inaudible sounds in ads: Your Android phone may be listening to ultrasonic ad beacons without your knowledge.
17. Your Keystrokes Can Reveal Who You Are — And How You Feel: An NYU researcher is using machine learning to show how easy it is to identify people and emotions from typing patterns
18. Happy or sad? Your future car might know the difference: Using deep learning technology, Affectiva developed an emotion recognition engine, and it promises to make cars much more human.
19. How Facial Recognition Will Help Doctors Take Better Care Of Babies: Medical researchers are developing facial analysis apps that diagnose genetic disorders and monitor babies’ pain
20. Facial Recognition Helps Parents Find Son 27 Years After Abduction: Tens of thousands of Chinese children are kidnapped every year, but artificial intelligence is helping families reunite
21. Internet Privacy – ISP Snooping and U.S. Surveillance Laws 

Jon

GAMES

1. ZeniMax pressures Prey for the Gods devs to make a name change
2. Prey developer: Go ahead, use Steam refunds to demo our game – Colantonio – “Steam players can just return the game” before playing for two hours.
3. Nintendo issues unsurprising take down notice for fan-made Zelda: “Breath of the NES” developer publishes email from NoA attorney
4. Nintendo comes out on top in Mii patent infringement case
5. Copyright claim yanks fan-made Breath of the Wild 2D adaptation: Creator vows it will be back ‘bigger and better than ever.’
6. Nintendo sold 2.3 million NES Classic Editions
7. Nintendo Switch sold 2.74 million units in March alone: Profits up 5x in the last fiscal year, with Nintendo expecting a further 10 million Switch sales in the year ahead
8. Switch shipments selling out same day – GameStop: Specialty retailer can’t keep console stocked nearly two months after launch
9. Switch boasts 2:1 software tie ratio: Sales not limited to Zelda, as Nintendo touts figures for 1-2 Switch, Super Bomberman R, and Snipperclips
10. Nintendo president: Switch can approach ‘relative parity’ with Wii
11. Super Mario Run nearing 150m downloads: Nintendo’s mobile platformer has been installed on nearly 72m devices since January
12. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe becomes fastest-selling title in franchise history
13. Nintendo now believes Switch can reach Wii sales levels: “We have greatly increased the quantity we can produce in a single month,” says Tatsumi Kimishima
14. 4 interesting comments from Nintendo’s Q&A session
15. Epic, near-EVE-worthy troll sabotages Elite: Dangerous community event – “Smiling Dog Crew” shows how you should never let a wolf guard your chickens.
16. Sarkeesian finishes Tropes vs. Women in Video Games: Feminist Frequency founder reflects on five years of harassment and progress as she brings video series to a “bittersweet” close
17. Breathing In: The Industry in Consolidation – Vivendi, Tencent, Softbank, Activision; the list of companies with billion-dollar shopping lists continues to grow. Is Disney next?
18. 20 million PlayStation 4 consoles were sold in just the last year
19. Profits up in Sony’s games division as PS4 sales near 60M
20. Hearthstone gains 20M players in a year, surpassing 70M to date
21. Some advice for modders from the creator of Playerunknown’s Battlegrounds
22. Game Maker Sues Milwaukee Over Permit Requirement To Make Augmented Reality Games
23. VR exclusivity should be a last resort – Owlchemy: Job Simulator studio boss Alex Schwartz talks about his approach to the VR market, where it’s headed and why AR is much further away
24. You Can Catch A Real Ball While Immersed In Virtual Reality, So What Comes Next?
25. Unity CEO: VR Will Get Huge, But Devs Need to Survive and Avoid Hype Until it Does
26. VR/AR to “rival the internet” – Riccitiello: Unity boss kicks off the Vision Summit, noting the success and opportunity in the burgeoning VR/AR market
27. Oculus VR is the latest company to forgo paying for a booth at E3
28. The Story of NESticle, the Ambitious Emulator That Redefined Retro Gaming: The product of a talented programmer who designed a hit shareware game while he was still in high school, NESticle was so good that everyone looked past the fact its name was basically a dick joke.
29. Online games in China are now required to disclose random loot box odds
30. Was Uber’s CEO really the second-best Wii Sports tennis player? – Short answer: “Yes, with an if…” Long answer: “No, with a but…
31. NBA COO Mark Tatum Reaffirms Global Vision For New NBA 2K Esports League
32. eSports investments need a 10-year view – Hi-Rez: Smite and Paladins studio co-founder says competitive gaming is more about community than revenue, takes stock of console platforms’ changing attitudes on free-to-play
33. “2022 Asian Games is another step towards mainstream acceptance of esports”: Pro-gaming leaders discuss the recent introduction of esports in the Asian games
34. The Rock Hilariously Reveals Rampage Movie’s Plot: “And when I find them, I will not lick them.”
35. Mental Models: The reality that we sense in front of us is a fiction created by our brains. A host of modules process information in various ways and the end result is a mental model of the outside world. Knowing how this works is crucial to game development as the shape of these mental simulations has a huge effect on how a game feels and plays.
36. The AI revolution is making game characters move more realistically: Neural network makes for smarter-looking avatars, not just smarter enemies
37. Video Games Are Better Without Stories: Film, television, and literature all tell them better. So why are games still obsessed with narrative? (Ian Bogost)
38. A Dream of Embodied Experience: On Ian Bogost, Epistemological Gatekeeping, and the Holodeck (Bianca Batti & Alisha Karabinus)

DIGITAL

1. Report: Facebook helped advertisers target teens who feel “worthless”: Leaked 2017 document reveals FB Australia’s intent to exploit teens’ words, images.
2. Facebook Told Advertisers How It Could Target Vulnerable Teens: “Anxious” and “overwhelmed” Australians as young as 14 were swept up by algorithm, though Facebook said it was never used to target ads
3. Facebook: leaking info about gender bias damages our ‘recruiting brand’ – Tech company is disputing analysis that female engineers have code rejected 35% more than male engineers and said such leaks make it harder to hire women
4. Facebook To Target Fake News “Information Operations”: The social media giant is getting serious about its role in global civics
5. Facebook enters war against “information operations,” acknowledges election hijinx: Facebook no longer wants to be a tool for enlisting “useful idiots.”
6. Facebook will hire 3,000 more moderators to keep deaths and crimes from being streamed
7. Response To Facebook Video Of Murder Is The Call For An Actual ‘Godwin’s Law’
8. Mounting Privacy Problems In Europe For Facebook’s Acquisition Of WhatsApp
9. The Age of Misinformation: Facebook, Twitter, Google, and Microsoft must recognize a special responsibility for the parts of their services that host or inform public discourse. (Jonathan Zittrain)
10. A Look at Government Censorship in the Age of Facebook
11. The Terrible History Of Using Biased Technology To Lock People Up: Courts are relying on racist algorithms in judicial decisions — apparently we’ve learned nothing from the rise and fall of the polygraph
12. More penalties for digital “drip pricing” 
13. New Tools Allow Voice Patterns To Be Cloned To Produce Realistic But Fake Sounds Of Anyone Saying Anything
14. Zillow Sued By Homeowner Because Its Estimate Is Lower Than The Seller Wants To Sell The House For
15. New Private Right of Action in Canada for False or Misleading Electronic Advertising
16. Companies Don’t Really Want You to Read Their Terms of Service: As the uproar over Unroll.me shows, being opaque is part of their business model.
17. Brands and Influencers Continue to Flout Disclosure Rules Despite FTC Warning
18. Your Newest Instagram Follower, the FTC: Agency Reminds Endorsers and Marketers to #Disclose with Over 90 Warning Letters
19. Website/App Provider in Hot Water for Ambiguous Privacy Policy
20. Neo-Nazi website unleashed Internet trolls against a Jewish woman, lawsuit says
21. Suing the trolls: A woman’s lawsuit against a neo-Nazi’s “troll storm” could change how to fight back against online harassment
22. White Supremacists, Brought To You By Squarespace: Website building service Squarespace’s acceptable use policy bans bigotry. So why does it allow prominent white nationalists to use it to create their websites?
23. ‘Troll Army’ Raises $24K In One Day For Neo-Nazi Leader’s Legal Fund: Andrew Anglin’s trolls are emptying their pockets to preserve his neo-Nazi blog
24. 20,000 Chinese writers will create their own Wikipedia competitor
25. Prior Exposure Increases Perceived Accuracy of Fake News (Gordon Pennycock, Tyrone Cannon, David Rand)
26. Combating Fake News: An Agenda for Research and Action
27. Copyright Troll Sends DMCA Notices Targeting Anti-Troll Websites & Lawyers
28. DMCA and monitoring – damned if you do, damned if you don’t?
29. Kodi: The copyright cops want to lock up this free and legal TV app – Fully loaded Kodi boxes, the future of home entertainment, are a thorn in the side of Big Content 
30. Italian court finds Google and YouTube liable for failing to remove unlicensed content (but confirms eligibility for safe harbour protection)
31. When a ‘Remix’ Is Plain Ole Plagiarism: Digital technologies make it easier for people to copy the work of other artists—yet the same tools make it more likely for them to get caught.
32. Lawyering at the Edge of Innovation: A Conversation with Kent Walker, Google’s General Counsel and Senior Vice President
33. Filmspeler, the right of communication to the public, and unlawful streams: a landmark decision
34. You Can’t Be Fired For a Facebook Post Calling Your Boss a “LOSER”–NLRB v. Pier Sixty
35. Google rater fired after speaking to Ars about work conditions: After public revelations, workers report chaos, layoffs, and at least one firing.
36. Internal Uber e-mail reveals Levandowski stepping down from self-driving car job: “I will be recused from all LiDAR-related work and management at Uber.”
37. Sent to Prison by a Software Program’s Secret Algorithms
38. Washington State Enacts Law Defining Licensing Requirements for Transmitters of Money and Virtual Currency
39. The Internet of Things Needs a Code of Ethics: Technology is evolving faster than the legal and moral frameworks needed to manage it.
40. Catching Up On Some Recent Click Fraud Rulings (Eric Goldman)
41. Will Technology Destroy Our Democracy–or Save It? A Series of Papers at The Atlantic (Eric Goldman)
42. European Court Of Justice Tightens Screws On “Streaming”
43. Twitter Goes Bigger On Video With 16 New Streaming Partnerships
44. Twitter Announces New Sports Live Streaming Initiatives With 24-Hour Sports Channel, NFL, WNBA, PGA TOUR
45. Hulu’s Live TV Service Launches To Save You From Your Cable Bill
46. Hulu debuts $40-per-month live TV streaming service with over 50 channels: And it includes Hulu’s regular subscription content, too.
47. Yik Yak is finally relegated to the dustbin of Internet history: Founders not totally closing up shop, will “start tinkering around” for a while.
48. Why is Microsoft trying to turn its Surface business into the next Nokia?: Microsoft is developing a worrying habit of neglecting its hardware products.
49. Samsung could displace Intel as the world’s biggest chip company in 2017
50. Dating App Lets You Flirt With Coworkers On Slack: Feeld introduces a Slack bot to encourage workplace romances
51. DARPA Is Planning to Hack the Human Brain to Let Us “Upload” Skills
52. The Google Assistant SDK will let you run the Assistant on anything: Build your own Google Home out of whatever you want.
53. YouTube Says Its Six-Second Ads Result In “Significant” Lift In 70% Of Cases
54. Apple Music To Supply Songs For Musical.ly As Part Of Larger Partnership
55. This Week In Creative Commons History 

CREATIVITY

1. French Court Finds Jeff Koons Appropriated Copyrighted Photograph That “Saved Him Creative Work”
2. Khloé Kardashian sued by paparazzi agency for copyright infringement
3. Kardashian #copyright saga
4. Andy Warhol Foundation Asks SDNY to Declare Prince Series Not Infringing
5. The Michelle Obama Mural Controversy, Explained
6. Myth: Fair use decimated educational publishing in Canada
7. Can You Copyright Infringe Anonymously?
8. This Is The Story About Robert Kraft’s Casino Holdings That Rupert Murdoch’s Paper Never Ran
9. Game of Thrones-inspired SodaStream advert banned for being offensive
10. Without Volitional Conduct, Establishing Direct Copyright Infringement Gets Hairy
11. Australia’s Copyright Agency Keeps $11 Million Meant For Authors, Uses It To Fight Introduction Of Fair Use
12. Hacker leaks Orange is the New Black new season after ransom demands ignored: Breach of post-production company poses potential threat to many networks’ shows.
13. That Orange Is the New Black Leak Was Never Going to Pay Off
14. Hacker Extortion Attempt Falls Flat Because Netflix Actually Competes With Piracy
15. The Company Behind “The National Enquirer” Just Bought “Us Weekly” — Here’s Why That Matters: American Media — the company behind the National Enquirer, Radar Online, and a handful of others — recently acquired Us Weekly. Its editorial director, Dylan Howard, has an old-fashioned newfangled vision for the future of the tabloid in the era of Trump.
16. Is ‘Wonder Woman’ receiving the same advertising treatment as her Justice League peers?
17. Parody Protection For Fair Use Is Important: Taiwanese Man Faces Jail Time Over Parody Videos Of Movies
18. Exclusive: The Leaked Fyre Festival Pitch Deck Is Beyond Parody – But it’s also the latest chapter in the battle between consumers and advertisers in the digital age.
19. ‘Hot Girls Wanted’ Producers Deny Outing Sex Workers: They also mock their accusers and allege that sex workers were pressured into making claims against the Netflix series
20. Mac DeMarco Tells Concert Goers To Go Pirate His Music
21. The Reports Of The Record Industry’s Rebirth Are Greatly Exaggerated
22. New York City’s Museum of Trash Rescued by a Sanitation Worker: Tucked away on the second floor of an East Harlem garage, the Treasures in the Trash Museum features items saved from the landfill over three decades by Nelson Molina.
23. Could libel laws change under Trump?
24. No, President Trump Isn’t Ditching The First Amendment, But He Is Undermining Free Speech
25. Is It Time To Examine The Concept Of Originality In Musical Works? (Andres Guadamuz)
26. Is Trademark Dilution a Unicorn? An Experimental Investigation (Barton Beebe, Roy Germano, Christopher Jon Sprigman & Joel Steckel)
27. What does a counterfeit look like? (Rebecca Tushnet)
28. US companies can be enjoined from false advertising in China (Rebecca Tushnet) 

MEDIA, COMMUNICATIONS & NET NEUTRALITY

1. Ex-CRTC commissioner claims victory following Federal Court ruling
2. Why Canada’s Net Neutrality Commitment Places Consumers in Control (Michael Geist)
3. Too little, too late? FCC wins net neutrality court case: Wheeler’s court win over ISPs reaffirmed, but Pai plans to overturn the rules.
4. ISPs Lose En Banc Appeal, Current Net Neutrality Rules Remain Intact…For Now
5. GOP’s “Internet Freedom Act” permanently guts net neutrality authority: ISPs would gain the freedom to block and throttle websites and applications.
6. Don’t Get Fooled: The Plan Is To Kill Net Neutrality While Pretending It’s Being Protected
7. F.C.C. Invokes Internet Freedom While Trying to Kill It
8. Verizon and AT&T both launched misleading services this week — and it points to a larger problem
9. Verizon’s bizarre claim that the FCC isn’t killing net neutrality rules: Verizon says it supports open Internet rules despite its role in ending them.
10. New Verizon Video Blatantly Lies About What’s Happening To Net Neutrality
11. Net neutrality rules took away your Internet freedom, FCC chair claims: It’s not clear exactly which “freedoms” ordinary consumers lost.
12. Soundboard Technology Calls Qualify as Robocalls Under TCPA
13. Google Fiber building in Louisville despite lawsuit from AT&T and Charter: Google Fiber filing permit to begin construction in Louisville.
14. ESPN Axes Long-Standing Reporters, But Not The Execs That Failed To See Cord Cutting Coming
15. How ESPN Became A Conservative Cause: Conservative media has seen ESPN’s business problems through the prism of politics. But the network’s struggles are much more straightforward.
16. Choosing which cable channels to provide is speech, but offering Internet access is not
17. Broadband Internet Service Providers In Regulatory Limbo After Repeal of FCC Privacy and Data Security Rules

SURVEILLANCE & PRIVACY

1. Public Safety Committee Recommends Against Lawful Access Reforms (Michael Geist)
2. MPs calling on federal government to boost protection of Canadian civil liberties: Liberals on the Commons public safety committee have made 41 recommendations designed to increase oversight.
3. A Feast of Commons Reports: National Security Studies by ETHI and SECU Released (Craig Forcese)
4. VPPA Still Doesn’t Protect App Downloaders–Perry v. CNN
5. Russian-controlled telecom hijacks financial services’ Internet traffic: Visa, MasterCard, and Symantec among dozens affected by “suspicious” BGP mishap.
6. Russia Tries To Deliver The Killing Blow To VPN Use
7. Personal Security Takes A Hit With Public Release Of NSA’s Hacking Toolkit
8. Facebook Reports More Than Half Of Gov’t Demands For Content And Data Come With Gag Orders Attached
9. US Intelligence “transparency report” reveals breadth of surveillance by NSA, others: Over 151 million call records collected to track 42 targets under new “limited” access arrangement.
10. The Email Collection The NSA Shut Down Has Been Abused For Years
11. Surprise: NSA Stops Collecting Americans’ Emails ‘About’ Foreign Targets
12. The NSA’s 702 Shutdown Is Good News, But There Are A Whole Lot Of Caveats
13. NSA ends spying on messages Americans send about foreign surveillance targets: FISA court narrows what NSA can collect, because NSA can’t stop “incidental” collection.
14. Sextortion suspect must unlock her seized iPhone, judge rules: “For me, this is like turning over a key to a safety deposit box.”
15. Sketchy Bogus Crowdfunding Campaigns To ‘Buy’ Congress’s Private Web Browsing… Only Now Realize That’s Impossible
16. Punching holes in nomx, the world’s “most secure” communications protocol: Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof, and nomx implodes under scrutiny.
17. Miami sextortion case asks if a suspect can be forced to decrypt an iPhone: Does the Fifth Amendment mean you don’t have to hand over your password?
18. A False Facial Recognition Match Cost This Man Everything: Denver resident Steve Talley files $10 million lawsuit after face-matching technology ruined his life
19. All your Googles are belong to us: Look out for the Google Docs phishing worm: An e-mail disguised as a Google Docs share is ingenious bit of malicious phishing.
20. Don’t trust OAuth: Why the “Google Docs” worm was so convincing – You really think someone would just go on the Internet and tell lies?
21. The spammer who logged into my PC and installed Microsoft Office: Spam text made a tempting offer—so I let the spammer take control of my PC.
22. A Cloud Over the Microsoft Warrant Case
23. Babies and Baby-making, or Not… Privacy and Security Lessons for the Internet of Things

Jon

GAMES

1. Two-year jail sentence for teen who hacked Xbox: Convict carried out more than 1.7m cyber attacks and enabled further crimes globally
2. Teenager behind Microsoft and Sony hacks jailed for two years: “I have a duty to the public who are worried about this,” says judge.
3. Creator of DDoS program used against Minecraft and RuneScape sentenced to prison
4. Game over for Canadian game copier and Mod chip seller
5. UK Crime Agency’s Latest Moral Panic: Kids Modding Videogames May Be A Gateway To Becoming Criminal Hackers
6. Game localization shenanigans in the Chinese-speaking world
7. Overwatch Pro’s Racist Tirade Ends His Career
8. Pro Overwatch player dropped for racial slurs: Toronto Esports cuts ties with Matt “Dellor” Vaughn for prolonged outburst during Twitch stream; Vaughn says he’s quitting competitive gaming
9. Stephens College is now the first all-women’s school to offer eSports scholarships
10. To create a quality Final Fantasy V translation, fans reworked the game’s code
11. NPD has been underestimating digital game sales since at least 2010
12. We’ve been missing a big part of game industry’s digital revolution: NPD “restatement” shows consistent spending growth as digital sales dominate.
13. Report: Vivendi’s takeover of Ubisoft planned for this year
14. Vivendi to attempt hostile bid for Ubisoft this year: Reuters’ sources claim that this is the year that the French media giant will accelerate its expansion into video games
15. Palmer Luckey funds Trump through Chrono Trigger shell companies: Oculus co-founder continues his support for US President, despite controversy over involvement with “s***posting” group
16. Valve asks for phone numbers to confirm Dota 2 player identities: Move should cut down on expert players intentionally smurfing noobs.
17. Bleszinski: “AAA is a nearly unsustainable model” – The Gears of War creator discusses why blockbuster games often feel repetitive, and looks ahead to VR
18. The ESA figures 67% of U.S. households play games
19. Esports Will Join Real Sports At 2022 Asian Games
20. Number of college varsity e-sports programs quadruple in 9 months
21. Stephens College is now the first all-women’s school to offer eSports scholarships
22. Nintendo Switch drives March games sales to $1.36B in US – NPD: The hardware category nearly doubled year-over-year thanks to Nintendo’s record-breaking Switch launch
23. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe: Critical Consensus: Switch software lineup gets a turbo boost with Nintendo racer’s victory lap
24. A major Nintendo policy change has saved at least one Switch game: Third major patch for Nintendo Switch exclusive Bomberman does the unexpected.
25. Nintendo, Ever the Toy Company: The fate of NES Classic is a reminder that while Nintendo may be a console firm, its DNA remains that of a toy maker
26. This Zelda fan game takes the fun of Breath of the Wild to 2D: Forget emulating, you can experience a small sliver of Breath of the Wild right now.
27. FTC Warns: That Nintendo Switch Emulator Is A Scam: Play ‘Breath of the Wild’ on your computer for free? That download is probably malware
28. G2A’s reputation can still be fixed, indies say – “Just stop being s***”: Rami Ismail, Mike Bithell and Dan Da Rocha on the art of managing reputation in the games business
29. G2A: “We’re not a grey marketplace, people just don’t understand our business” – It is the video games industry vs G2A at Reboot Develop
30. Shopify enables devs to sell physical merchandise in-game: SDK opens potential revenue source for developers, Alto’s Adventure the first to use new tool
31. Disabled Streamer Receives Hundreds In Donations After Bullies Kick Him From Match
32. We need game design tools that work for everyone
33. Early Nintendo programmer worked without a keyboard: Sakurai programmed a Game Boy classic with a trackball and a Famicom Twin.
34. Unity devs can now sell actual hats (and other merch) in-game via new Shopify SDK
35. Video Games Help Model Brain’s Neurons
36. Transactions of the Digital Games Research Association Volume 3, issue 1

a. Introduction (Christy Dena, Brendan Keogh)

b. Ways of Being: Pervasive Game Design Ethos in Urban Codemakers (Steven Conway, Troy Innocent)

c. Finding a Way: Techniques to Avoid Schema Tension in Narrative Design (Christy Dena)

d. Scarcity and Survival Horror: Trade as an Instrument of Terror in Pathologic (Julian Novitz)

e. Adolescents as Game Designers: Developing New Literacies (Pilar Lacasa, Sara Cortés, María Ruth García-Pernía)

DIGITAL

1. Can Facebook Fix Its Own Worst Bug?
2. Father in Thailand Kills 11-Month-Old Daughter Live on Facebook
3. Facebook shows Related Articles and fact checkers before you open links
4. Facebook To Reportedly Pay Publishers To Create Videos That Feature New Mid-Roll Ads
5. The Weird Antitrust Questions Of A Google Chrome Ad Blocker
6. Torching the Modern-Day Library of Alexandria: “Somewhere at Google there is a database containing 25 million books and nobody is allowed to read them.”
7. Google pushes fake news, hate-speech workshops (and YouTube) on UK teens: After backlash over censored LGBTQ+ content, Google debuts “Internet Citizens” project.
8. Wikitribune is Jimmy Wales’ attempt to wage war on fake news: Wikipedia cofounder says pages won’t go live until trusted volunteers verify stories.
9. Palantir settles US charges that it discriminated against Asian engineers
10. The Surprising Speed with Which We Become Polarized Online: Users isolate themselves in social media echo chambers, even when they start out looking at a variety of posts.
11. Instagram Now Has 700 Million Users
12. Khloe Kardashian Sued for Posting a Photo of Khloe Kardashian on Instagram: This follows a lawsuit focused on Tom Holland republishing an image of Tom Holland on Instagram.
13. More Shady Libel Lawsuits Resulting In Dubious Delisting Court Orders Uncovered
14. Feds Say Jewelry Company CEO Scrubbed Google Results With Fake Court Orders And Forged Judge’s Signatures
15. Five years later, legal Megaupload data is still trapped on dead servers: EFF lawyers head to appeals court to demand one man’s data.
16. Dutch Court Rules That Freely Given Fan-Subtitles Are Copyright Infringement
17. Fansubs for TV shows and movies are illegal, court rules: Anti-piracy group tells Dutch court they damage the industry.
18. CJEU in Filmspeler rules that the sale of a multimedia player is a ‘communication to the public’
19. Higher Regional Court of Düsseldorf applies CJEU McFadden decision
20. Car Ad Websites Slightly “Scraped” in Copyright Case, Court Puts Brakes on Statutory Damages Minimums
21. After Bill Gates Backs Open Access, Steve Ballmer Discovers The Joys Of Open Data
22. Silicon Valley Losing Ground in Washington
23. Oh Yes They Did! – Ninth Circuit Holds that Use of Moderators May Impact DMCA Safe Harbor Shield
24. Dozen Amicus Briefs Oppose the Worst Section 230 Ruling of 2016 (and One Supports It)–Hassell v. Bird (Eric Goldman)
25. Can Your Employer Fire You For Posting Vacation Photos to Facebook?-Jones v. Accentia (Eric Goldman)
26. Faulty Mobile Device User Interface Jeopardizes Uber’s Contract Formation–Metter v. Uber (Eric Goldman)
27. Uber’s app fingerprinted iPhone hardware, breaking App Store rules 
28. Man sues Confide: I wouldn’t have spent $7/month if I’d known it was flawed
29. Patent-holding company uses ex-Nokia patents to sue Apple, phone carriers: Nokia has spread its patents around widely, and they keep popping up in lawsuits.
30. Singapore Court Tosses Copyright Troll Cases Because IP Addresses Aren’t Good Enough Evidence
31. He Tweeted About Chinese Government Corruption. Twitter Suspended His Account.
32. Russia Is Trying to Copy China’s Approach to Internet Censorship
33. Russian man gets longest-ever US hacking sentence, 27 years in prison: Roman Seleznev bankrupted businesses, did $170 million in damage.
34. Internet Censorship Is Advancing Under Trump: We expect attacks on internet speech in Zimbabwe and Russia. Under Trump, it’s hitting home.
35. Russian DNC Hackers Are Now Targeting Germany’s Merkel — Report
36. Russia’s Fake News Crusade Is Still Pushing For Le Pen: Kremlin-backed news sites at home and abroad have long favored the pro-Russia French presidential candidate
37. NY Judge Says Prior Restraint Is America’s Best Defense Against Internet ‘Chaos’
38. North Korean Media: A Story of Language, Censorship, and Tech
39. Governing body declares: No IP addresses for governments that shut down internet access
40. Netflix Hits 100 Million Subscribers, Vows To Raise Another Billion Dollars Of Debt
41. Cord Cutting Is Very Real, And 25% Of Americans Won’t Subscribe To Traditional Cable By Next Year
42. Here Comes The Attempt To Reframe Silicon Valley As Modern Robber Barons
43. Here’s Everything You Need to Know about Elon Musk’s Human/AI Brain Merge
44. With Neuralink, Elon Musk Promises Human-to-Human Telepathy. Don’t Believe It.: Why the billionaire is wrong that telepathy technology will be available in a few short years.
45. How Garry Kasparov Learned To Stop Worrying & Love The Machines That Beat Him At His Job
46. YouTube TV review: Not a game-changer out of the gate, but it could be soon – Using it is easy, but it doesn’t offer multiple tiers or apps for many platforms.
47. Twitter: PGA TOUR LIVE Averages Almost 500,000 Unique Viewers Daily
48. Regulation of Fintech in Canada
49. 162 Tech Companies Tell Appeals Court That Trump’s 2nd Travel Ban Is Illegal
50. Make America Troll Again (James Grimmelmann)
51. Programming is Forgetting: Toward a New Hacker Ethic
52. Picture this: Senate staffers’ ID cards have photo of smart chip, no security: Senate employees just use passwords, and their badges sport a picture of an alternative.
53. Senate ID Cards Use A Photo Of A Chip Rather Than An Actual Smart Chip
54. How Should a Lawyer Respond to a Yelp Review Calling Him “Worst. Ever.”?–Spencer v. Glover (Eric Goldman)
55. Rubbing Elbows and Blowing Smoke: Gender, Class, and Science in the Nineteenth-Century Patent Office (Kara Swanson)
56. An AI wrote all of David Hasselhoff’s lines in this bizarre short film – Ars film debut: Watch It’s No Game and meet the Hoffbot, written by an algorithm.

CREATIVITY

1. This Lawsuit Goes to 11: The creators of This is Spinal Tap, the most influential mockumentary ever made, have been paid almost nothing. The rock gods are angry.
2. Beyoncé Aims to End Copyright Suit Against “Formation”: The singer says the claims against her are “grossly overstated.”
3. Copyright Law Precludes Athletes’ Publicity Rights Suit, Ninth Circuit Rules
4. Artist Sues Church For Moving His 9/11 Memorial Sculpture
5. Texas Lawmaker Wants To Decide Who’s A Real Journalist, Make It Easier To Sue Them
6. Charging Bull, Fearless Girl and comparative moral rights
7. Horizon’s Copyright Claim Against Marvel’s Iron Man Promotional Poster Survives Motion to Dismiss 
8. Sixth Circuit has nominative fair use sans la letter: Oaklawn Jockey Club, Inc. v. Kentucky Downs, LLC, No. 16-5582 (6th Cir. Apr. 19, 2017)
9. Is France Right To Criminalize Online Hate Speech?: Facebook says it’s wary of crossing the boundary into censorship but minorities say France’s muscular approach on the ground is the bigger problem
10. The Reel Story: Why Changing How We Measure a “Canadian Film” is Long Overdue (Michael Geist)
11. A Chicago Artist is Under Fire For Plagiarizing a Black Woman’s Artwork For His Michelle Obama Mural
12. Australian Copyright Scandal Points to the Need for Greater Oversight of Copyright Collectives (Michael Geist)
13. Duke Ellington And Copyright: Five Things You Should Know

MEDIA, COMMUNICATIONS & NET NEUTRALITY

1. As US prepares to gut net neutrality rules, Canada strengthens them: Canada cracks down on zero-rating while FCC allows paid data cap exemptions.
2. Canada Rushes To Defend Net Neutrality As The U.S. Moves To Dismantle It
3. As U.S. gears up for Internet fight, Canada sees an opportunity
4. A very Canadian approach: How net neutrality rules reflect a country’s true nature: Reasonable, fair, no-nonsense. Typical Canucks
5. Canada Just Took a Major Stand for Net Neutrality
6. Win for citizens as CRTC framework will help prevent telecoms from engaging in differential pricing practices: Today’s ruling strengthens Net Neutrality protections by discouraging telecom providers from zero-rating certain apps and services and not others
7. Net Neutrality is alive and well in Canada (Scott Prescott)
8. Net Neutrality Alive and Well in Canada: CRTC Crafts Full Code With Zero Rating Decision (Michael Geist)
9. CRTC’s Zero Rating Ruling Kills Proposals for Preferential Treatment for Cancon Online (Michael Geist)
10. Dispelling the net neutrality and zero rating FUD (Peter Nowak)
11. CRTC Chair Blais Calls Out Telcos For Double-Talk on Internet Fibre Investment (Michael Geist)
12. Telecom Regulatory Policy CRTC 2017-104: Framework for assessing the differential pricing practices of Internet service providers
13. Ajit Pai announces plan to eliminate Title II net neutrality rules: Vote to begin net neutrality rollback scheduled for May 18.
14. FCC Chair Ajit Pai Announces Plan to Destroy Net Neutrality
15. FCC Boss Unveils Ingenious Plan To Replace Net Neutrality Rules With Fluff & Nonsense
16. Comcast and other ISPs celebrate imminent death of net neutrality rules: ISPs say they support net neutrality—but oppose FCC’s authority to enforce it.
17. FCC helps AT&T and Verizon charge more by ending broadband price caps: Business Internet price caps eliminated even when customers have only one choice.
18. FCC Moves To Make Life Easier For Business Broadband Monopolies
19. Mobile industry loses its bid to stop Berkeley’s cellphone warning law – 9th Circuit: Local law actually “complements and reinforces” federal law, policy.
20. Verizon lost 400,000 customers in the 6 weeks before it launched unlimited data: Verizon turned things around but still lost 289,000 phone subscribers.
21. FCC Changes in Rules on Computation of Foreign Ownership of Broadcast Stations Now Effective 
22. In Trump era, Rachel Maddow starts beating Fox News
23. CTV Toronto (CFTO-DT) & CP24 re promos for CHUM-FM (CBSC decision)
24. Another Reminder to Comply with CASL: The CRTC Imposes $15,000 Penalty for Non-Compliance 

SURVEILLANCE & PRIVACY

1. Search Warrant Gag Order Successfully Challenged In Court
2. The U.S. government’s ‘witch hunt’ to root out a Trump critic has now sparked an investigation
3. Man suspected in wife’s murder after her Fitbit data doesn’t match his alibi: Officials say the timeline given by Richard Dabate, accused of killing his wife in their Connecticut home, is at odds with data collected by her wearable device
4. IoT Privacy Lawsuit- Bose sued for taking headphone data without consent!
5. Silicon Valley security robot beat up in parking lot, police say: The droid can scan 300 license plates a minute.
6. A vigilante is putting a huge amount of work into infecting IoT devices: When it comes to features and robustness, Hajime surpasses its blackhat rivals.
7. Malware Hunts And Kills Poorly Secured Internet Of Things Devices Before They Can Be Integrated Into Botnets
8. Lessons from the FTC’s First Enforcement Action Against an IoT Company 
9. Amazon’s Echo Look takes outfit photos and suggests the best styles for you: Is the mirror-selfie dead?
10. Amazon Wants To Put A Camera In Your Bedroom To Watch You Dress: The Echo Look will mine your mirror selfies and judge your style. What’s unclear is how else this data will be used
11. Amazon Wants to Put a Camera and Microphone in Your Bedroom: Echo Look will use machine learning to decide if you look fat in that shirt.
12. Activist’s protest against practice of ‘carding’ derails Toronto police board meeting: Meeting adjourned after journalist Desmond Cole refuses to leave following deputation. Of data collected on citizens by police, Cole said: “It was never your information to take in the first place.”
13. >10,000 Windows computers may be infected by advanced NSA backdoor: Did script kiddies use DoublePulsar code released by NSA-leaking Shadow Brokers?
14. NSA backdoor detected on >55,000 Windows boxes can now be remotely removed: Microsoft dismisses DoublePulsar infection estimates, but otherwise remains silent.
15. Tanium CEO admits using real hospital data in sales demos
16. Windows bug used to spread Stuxnet remains world’s most exploited: Code-execution flaw is triggered by plugging a booby-trapped USB into vulnerable PCs.
17. Taking Trust Seriously In Privacy Law (Neil Richards & Woodrow Hartzog)

Jon

GAMES

1. Sweeney: “The future of the games industry? Make everyone a creator” – The Epic Games CEO discusses the importance of open platforms, the benefits of non-games projects and why he’s preserving a forest
2. Twitch Builds Innovative Features For Its Most Popular Game, ‘League Of Legends’
3. 2022 Asian Games adds eSports as medal sport: Professional gaming will also feature in next year’s event in Indonesia
4. “We want to be the global community for people to play, watch and share games”: Facebook is rolling out new features for Instant Games, Gameroom and its gaming videos
5. Nintendo Ended Up Creating A Competitor After DMCAing Fan-Game It Decided It Didn’t Want To Make Itself
6. Nintendo Switch becomes fastest-selling system in Nintendo history: NPD reports that 906,000 units were sold in March, and Zelda broke records as well
7. Nintendo Switch Tops PS4, Xbox One In US March Sales – Report: The new Nintendo console was No. 1 in March.
8. Why Zelda: Breath of the Wild is the biggest system seller in history: The game is actually selling better than the system it runs on, somehow.
9. Nintendo Discontinues The NES Classic
10. Why Did Nintendo Just Kill One of Its Coolest Products in Years?
11. One-upping the NES Classic Edition with the Raspberry Pi 3 and RetroPie: NES Classic is no more, but luckily cheap hobbyist boards are great for little projects.
12. Sony is cutting online support for Kill Strain and 5 other games this summer
13. In Australia, Microsoft offers free in-store game dev classes
14. Ricky Gervais Says Magic Leap Will “Change the World,” as Company Courts Celebs
15. Andre Iguodala has tried Magic Leap. What’s it like?: The Golden State Warrior and 2015 NBA Finals MVP talks about his favorite tech and the mixed-reality eyewear that blew his mind.
16. Xbox chief Phil Spencer is not a fan of VR game exclusivity deals: “I do not like that people are having to say, which of these VR verticals do I go pick right now, as a developer? Because I don’t think any of them are really big enough yet to support a single experience.”
17. Global Virtual Reality Industry to Reach $7.2 Billion in Revenues in 2017
18. Original StarCraft is finally free-as-in-beer after delayed patch: Version 1.18 now live for Windows and Mac, will be compatible with summer remaster.
19. Gaming video to generate $4.6 billion this year – SuperData: Research firm says there are now 665 million viewers of gaming video content worldwide
20. That Was Fast: Denuvo’s Version 3 Update Has Been Cracked
21. Digital sales now represent 74% of the US game market: The games industry added $11.7 billion to the US GDP in 2016, according to ESA’s new Essential Facts report

DIGITAL

1. Facebook video of elderly man being murdered gets over 1.6 million views: Grandson urges the public to stop sharing footage of his grandfather being killed.
2. Moral Panics: Don’t Blame Facebook Because Some Guy Posted His Murder Video There
3. The man behind the neo-Nazi Daily Stormer website is being sued by one of his ‘troll storm’ targets
4. Lawsuit: Neo-Nazi website owner is liable for harassing Montana real estate agent: “It’s that time, fam… ready for an old fashioned Troll Storm?”
5. China’s Precision Censorship Machine Allows Some Controversial Keywords, But Blocks Combinations Of Them
6. Facebook highlights its fight against “Fake News” in print: The 10 tips are basic news literacy, but Facebook wants the world to know.
7. Facebook Launches New Camera Tools as a Foundation for Advanced Augmented Reality
8. Video Calling, 3D Drawing, and Shared Experiences Inside Facebook’s Social VR App
9. Facebook’s first VR app surprises, lets us collaborate and be juvenile: Has serious issues, but hand tracking, doodling, media sharing work great in VR “Spaces.”
10. Facebook Finally Released Details on Their Top Secret Brain-Computer Interface
11. Facebook is Researching Brain-Computer Interfaces, “Just the Kind of Interface AR Needs”
12. Tumblr Is The Latest Platform To Launch A Co-Viewing App
13. ‘Alien’, ‘Blade Runner’ Director Ridley Scott Launches VR Film Division
14. Social Media Is Not Contributing Significantly to Political Polarization, Paper Says
15. Secret Sorority Handshakes, Questionable Lawsuits, Free Speech, The Right To Be Forgotten And Section 230
16. IoT garage door opener maker bricks customer’s product after bad review: Startup tells customer “Your unit will be denied server connection.”
17. The Strange Story Of Why Millions Of Indians Are Furious At Snapchat: The social media company’s CEO allegedly said India and Spain were too poor to care about expanding there.
18. How Opioid Addicts Are Using Social Media To Get Clean: Facebook groups and other online forums offer many addicts a digital path to recovery
19. Everything on the Dark Web is not illegal, only half!
20. FTC Staff Reminds Brands and Influencers About Disclosure Requirements
21. Kim Kardashian West promotes morning sickness drug on Instagram despite previous FDA warning
22. Top 100 Most Viewed YouTube Channels Worldwide • March 2017
23. Music industry goes to war with YouTube: Record labels are angry about the relatively small fees the platform pays for music videos compared with streaming services
24. Patent troll with an “Internet Drink Mixer” and a nonexistent office could be in trouble
25. EFF Goes To Court To Stop Australian Patent Troll From Stifling Free Speech
26. How a Law School Is Preparing Its Students to Compete Against AI
27. Machines Learn To Stereotype Humans Just Like Humans: Researchers find AI systems are ready and willing to adopt racial and gender biases
28. Princeton researchers discover why AI become racist and sexist: Study of language bias has implications for AI as well as human cognition.
29. Report: Google will add an ad blocker to all versions of Chrome Web browser – The owner of the Web’s biggest advertising platform is building an ad blocker?
30. FTC Explains Why It Thinks 1-800 Contacts’ Keyword Ad Settlements Were Anti-Competitive–FTC v. 1-800 Contacts (Eric Goldman)
31. The Future of Ad Blocking: An Analytical Framework and New Techniques (Grant Storey, Dillon Reisman, Jonathan Mayer & Arvind Narayanan Princeton University)
32. How Copyright Law Creates Biased Artificial Intelligence (Amanda Levendowski)

CREATIVITY

1. Legal Threat From Creator Of Wall St. Bull Statue Even More Full Of Bull Than Expected
2. No, The ‘Charging Bull’ Artist Can’t Force Anyone To Take Down ‘Fearless Girl’
3. ‘Fearless Girl’ and ‘Charging Bull’ lurch towards courtroom showdown
4. Public Art Installations: Is Fearless Girl ’s girl power trampling moral rights in Charging Bull ? We say no.
5. On Fearless Girl, women & public art; or, no, seriously, the guy does not have a point.
6. Separating Art from Function: Supreme Court Creates Copyright Test for Designs
7. Asos Accused Of Ripping Off Indie Brand After Visiting Its Showroom
8. My Other Bag Seeks Nearly $1 Million in Legal Fees in Louis Vuitton Case
9. Bushwick Street Artists Threaten Legal Action Against McDonald’s for Using Their Work: The work appeared in a Dutch ad titled “McDonald’s Presents the Vibe of Bushwick NY.”
10. Copyright Society’s ‘World IP Day’ Lesson: Give Us Your Copyrights For Nothing
11. An interview with Michael Geist: copyright reform in Canada and beyond
12. Fair Dealing in Canada: Dry Erase Boards and Overhead Projectors – Believe It Or Not?
13. European Court Of Human Rights Revisits Once More Intermediary Liability
14. Cara Delevingne Rimmel mascara ad banned for airbrushing: Watchdog pulls TV campaign promising ‘dangerously bold lashes’ for using inserts and redrawing to exaggerate effects
15. How Artists Push Social Change
16. Copyright in the Public Interest: How Canada Can Establish a Pro-Innovation Reform Agenda
17. Someone tried to own ‘take off, eh’: Secrets from the Canadian trademarks database
18. Copyright’s missing voices
19. Copyright Reform in Canada and Beyond (Michael Geist)

MEDIA, COMMUNICATIONS & NET NEUTRALITY

1. Bill O’Reilly out at Fox after harassment allegations
2. Fox News Found the Perfect Woman-Hater to Replace Bill O’Reilly 
3. Alex Jones’ Defense in Upcoming Custody Battle Is That He’s a Fake
4. When Is An Insane Conspiracy Theorist A Bad Parent?: Bizarre strategy in Alex Jones case.
5. FTC Commissioner: If The FCC Kills Net Neutrality, Don’t Expect Our Help
6. Web Firms Urge FCC to Preserve Open Internet Order
7. Don’t Wait For Google, Netflix Or Facebook’s Help If You Want To Save Net Neutrality
8. Roku Hires DC Lobbyists For First Time To Fight For Net Neutrality
9. Verizon CEO: We’d consider merger with almost anyone, including Comcast: No deal is imminent as Verizon CEO claims no one has the fiber to match Verizon.
10. FCC helps AT&T and Time Warner avoid lengthy merger review: Time Warner sells a TV station to avoid public interest review of AT&T deal.
11. One broadband choice counts as “competition” in new FCC proposal: Price caps would be eliminated when there’s one more ISP within half a mile.
12. Future of FCC Privacy Rules Unclear
13. NBC Reaches Deal With TV Affiliates for Opting in to Internet Video Distribution Agreements
14. T-Mobile dominates spectrum auction, will boost LTE network across US: Dish, Comcast, and US Cellular also bought plenty of 600MHz spectrum.
15. Ofcom fine BT a record breaking £42 million: A move to a more punitive approach?
16. The Internet as Cable: The Risk of Treating Telecommunications as Cultural Policy (Michael Geist)
17. Canada’s analog broadcasting policy makes no sense in a digital world

SURVEILLANCE & PRIVACY

1. Plaintiff Can’t Erase Court Order From the Internet–Nelson v. Social Security Commissioner (Eric Goldman)
2. Lawyers, malware, and money: The antivirus market’s nasty fight over Cylance – On the front lines of the antivirus industry’s “testing wars.”
3. Massachusetts AG Settles Geofencing Case 
4. Geotargeting Medical Facilities? Massachusetts Says ‘No Snoop For You!’ 
5. These Popular Headphones Spy on Users, Lawsuit Says
6. Bose headphones spy on listeners: lawsuit
7. German Consumers Face $26,500 Fine If They Don’t Destroy Poorly-Secured ‘Smart’ Doll
8. Microsoft Latest Service Provider To Pry A National Security Letter Free From Its Gag Order
9. Apple Takes Heat For Software Lock That Prevents iPhone 7 Home Button Replacement By Third-Party Vendors
10. The Teddy Bear And Toaster Act Is Device Regulation Done Wrong
11. The Illicit Aura of Information
12. NSA-leaking Shadow Brokers just dumped its most damaging release yet: Windows zero-days, SWIFT bank hacks, slick exploit loader among the contents.
13. Liberal inaction frustrates Canada’s exiting information watchdog: Stepping down, but not quietly, Suzanne Legault urges reforms to open up Ottawa
14. Hypocritical CIA Director Goes On Rant About Wikileaks, Free Speech
15. Vigilante botnet infects IoT devices before blackhats can hijack them: Hajime battles with Mirai for control over the Internet of poorly secured things.
16. Legislation allowing warrantless student phone searches dies for now – Proponent: California law aimed to bolster student safety, help investigate cyberbullying.
17. Why one Republican voted to kill privacy rules: “Nobody has to use the Internet”: Republicans encounter angry citizens after killing online privacy rules.
18. Trump Privacy Rollback Continues, States Step Up 
19. Claims under the Data Protection Act can be linked with defamation claims (U.K.)

Jon

GAMES

1. Maradona sees red as he sues ProEvo over image rights
2. Oculus has filed a motion to request a new trial against ZeniMax
3. Oculus wants a new trial in ZeniMax case: VR company says initial verdict was “tainted” and the $500 million damages “excessive”
4. New report delves into the dodgy world of PSN account reselling
5. Xbox Scorpio: Are its 4K chops masking a change of VR heart?: Some unanswered questions leave us perplexed.
6. Sony will struggle with location-based VR: PSVR is the biggest success story of consumer VR; but Sony’s location-based plans will leave it a long way outside its comfort zone
7. Mass Effect update leaves pirates with rough facial animation: BioWare patches in new, uncracked Denuvo version alongside improvements.
8. The MASSive Mass Effect: Andromeda writing contest: Send in a 500-word fic and you could win a copy of Andromeda for PC and an RC Nomad.
9. Nintendo v. King: Answering Questions, and Raising New Ones, About Technological Protection Measures
10. Court Strikes Probation Restrictions Banning Teen From Using Encryption, Accessing Internet For Personal Reasons
11. First-gen VR won’t live up to hype – Report: IDATE DigiWorld expects 60 million headsets worldwide by 2020, with mobile VR losing share to PC/console
12. Dear CD Projekt Red: Please Stop Trying To Get Trademarks On The Common Name Of A Genre
13. Microsoft formally bans emulators on Xbox, Windows 10 download shops: Rules change comes ahead of formal Xbox Live Creators Program unveil.
14. Microsoft bans and removes emulators from Windows Store: Updated policies blocks all games emulation across PC, mobile and Xbox
15. The Xbox One loses another exclusive third-party developer: As Remedy goes multi-platform, Microsoft’s exclusive slate looks worse and worse.
16. Microsoft opening new Minecraft marketplace to sell user-made content
17. Pokemon Go pulling in over 65M monthly active users
18. Nintendo will pay up to $20,000 for Switch security information: The scheme started to find 3DS vulnerabilities now includes Nintendo’s new console
19. Creating a game that is appealing to Youtubers
20. Twitch unleashes scorched-earth attack to unveil malicious spambot creator: PayPal, Cloudflare, Shaw, and Whois “are involved” in attacks, Twitch claims.
21. Pewdiepie starts crowdsourced channel on Twitch with new weekly show: YouTube’s biggest star looks elsewhere for livestreaming.
22. PewDiePie launches weekly show on Twitch: Popular YouTuber is branching out, at the very moment that major advertisers are walking away from YouTube
23. Why Peter Moore once told Sega’s Yuji Naka to “f*** off”
24. Peter Moore swears it wasn’t his idea to kill the Dreamcast
25. Minecraft introduces in-app purchases: New Marketplace feature and Minecraft Coins virtual currency will be used for community creators to sell their own work
26. Electronic Arts pledges to invest $500 million in Montreal’s game industry over 10 years
27. Report: GameStop customer information at risk following possible breach
28. The battle for fair game prices—and Gearbox’s attempt to ruin it: What would you pay for an identical 2011 game with a badly shoehorned Duke Nukem cameo?
29. Gearbox partners with G2A, then vows to back out unless G2A takes steps to fight fraud
30. Gearbox backs out of deal with controversial online marketplace G2A
31. Gearbox severs ties with G2A over fraud backlash: Bulletstorm deal falls apart as reseller fails to comply with developer’s ultimatum to change how it does business
32. What impact is outsourcing having on the video game industry?
33. Why Sega is obsessed with Humble Bundle: The Sonic maker has raised over $2m via the charity retailer
34. Luxor Hotel to get Las Vegas Strip’s first dedicated eSports arena: eSports Arena Las Vegas to be built on the site of a 30,000 square-foot nightclub, will open in 2018
35. Why Aren’t NFL Owners, Teams Investing In Esports?
36. University of Utah becomes first top sports school to offer eSports scholarships
37. eSports Gets An Introduction To Major College Sports At The University Of Utah
38. University Of Utah Becomes First Power Five School To Offer Varsity Esports
39. Kansas City Chiefs’ Eric Berry: Video Gaming Kept Him ‘Mentally Sharp’ During Hodgkin’s Lymphoma Battle
40. I’m Dying to Play
41. This Dark Souls 3 video is bananas, literally: Like someone actually made a controller out of bananas.
42. “Play is universal, even more universal than humanity”: Pioneer Raph Koster reflects on metrics, VR and the human need to play

DIGITAL

1. Appeals Court Rules Website Moderators Can Potentially Undercut Copyright Defense
2. DMCA “safe harbor” up in the air for online sites that use moderators: Etsy, Kickstarter, Pinterest, and Tumblr say site moderation hangs in the balance.
3. Dangerous Ruling On DMCA Safe Harbors May Backfire On Hollywood
4. DMCA, Moral Rights and Photography
5. Narcissism, Social Media and Power
6. Yahoo Is Sued Over $17 Million Fund for Chinese Dissidents
7. Qualcomm loses legal battle with Blackberry, must pay $815M: Huge, non-appealable award makes BlackBerry stock jump 15%.
8. Qualcomm accuses Apple of Intel chip foul play, egging on regulatory attacks: Chipmaker demands “fair value for our technological contributions to the industry.”
9. Amazon to refund $70m in IAP after year of legal appeals: Both Amazon and the FTC appealed aspects of a ruling made by the federal court in April 2016
10. If Facebook Becomes The Internet’s Authentication System, Can Citizen Scores Around The World Be Far Behind?
11. We Need More Alternatives to Facebook: Chastened by the negative effects of social media, Mark Zuckerberg says he will tweak his service and upgrade society in the process. Should any company be that powerful?
12. Google expands automatic “fact check” insertion into search results: You’ll want to phrase your searches very carefully to trigger it.
13. Uber said to use “sophisticated” software to defraud drivers, passengers: Class action says Uber’s “methodical scheme” manipulates rider fares, driver pay.
14. Burger King’s new ad forces Google Home to advertise the Whopper
15. Burger King ‘O.K. Google’ Ad Doesn’t Seem O.K. With Google
16. Google Brings Fake News Fact-Checking to Search Results: Search giant is letting partners and publishers decide what’s true, what’s false and what’s in between.
17. New York Attorney General Enters Digital Health App and Privacy Enforcement Fray: Announces Three Settlements with Health and Fitness App Providers’ Due to Efficacy Claims and Privacy Practices
18. MPA Gets Ireland To Crack Open The Site-Blocking Door It Plans To Bust Through
19. Ubuntu Unity is dead: Desktop will switch back to GNOME next year – Ubuntu phones and tablets also dead, but the desktop, server, and cloud live on.
20. YouTube nixes monetization until channels hit 10,000 views: Video giant says move is an effort to crack down on impersonating channels
21. Technology is a marvel – now let’s make it moral: If Britain is bold after Brexit, we can lead the way in demanding more control over our digital destiny
22. Utah to treat certain virtual currency as abandoned property 
23. What Do the SEC’s Recent Bitcoin Disapproval Orders Really Mean for Investors?
24. Portugal Pushes Law To Partially Ban DRM, Allow Circumvention
25. India Learns The Hard Way That Equating Patents And Innovation Comes At A Price
26. Italian Court Says Due Process Isn’t Necessary For Blocking Sites Over Copyright Infringement
27. Who Owns the Copyright in an Instagram Image?
28. Sketchy Copyright Takedown Kills Bad Lip Reading’s Force Awakens Remix
29. Revenge Pornster Craig Brittain Issues DMCA Notices Demanding Google Delist Entire Websites, Including Wikipedia
30. Why Jian Ghomeshi’s New Podcast Is Absolutely Guaranteed to Fail: A friend recently asked me if his firm should consider representing the former CBC Radio host’s media business. Here’s what I told him
31. You Are Almost Definitely Sharing Memes Made By Nazis
32. Is Instagram Killing The Graffiti Artist?
33. Study Claims To Know What Was Going On With That Stupid Dress
34. Emotional Chatting Machine Assesses Your Emotion and Copies It: Chatbots have never been able to empathize. That looks set to change, thanks to a Chinese team that has built a chatbot capable of conveying specific emotions.
35. How Trolls Are Stifling Innovators, Gamers and Netflix Junkies: Copyright policy in the public interest
36. Insurers Scramble to Put a Price on a Cyber Catastrophe: Trying to estimate the maximum cost of a devastating cyber event before one actually happens.
37. How a Browser Extension Could Shake Up Academic Publishing
38. Adidas wants to sell 100,000 3-D printed sneakers: A personalized shoe that can “adjust the strength, durability, and the shape.”
39. Disney files patent for “huggable and interactive” humanoid robots: Robots have already been tested, described as “robust to playful, physical interaction.”
40. The legal issues of robotics
41. Deciphering the U.S. NAFTA Digital Demands, Part Two: Digital Economy, Services and Transparency (Michael Geist)

CREATIVITY

1. Universal wins copyright case over sample in Justin Timberlake hit
2. Andy Warhol Estate Sues over Image of Prince
3. U.S. Supreme Court Clarifies Separability Analysis in its Ruling on Star Athletica, LLC v. Varsity Brands, Inc.
4. Lombardo v. Dr. Seuss Enterprises, L.P.
5. No evidence of harm means no disgorgement in false advertising case (Rebecca Tushnet)
6. Copyright preemption and the right of publicity in the 9th Circuit (Rebecca Tushnet)
7. Statutory Damages Awarded in Copyright Infringement Case
8. First judicial consideration of information location tool under the Copyright Act- Trader Corporation v. CarGurus Inc.
9. Can a public domain artwork be registered as a trade mark or would that be contrary to public policy and morality?
10. Irish Burger Chain Accuses McDonald’s of Trademarking Every Word That Starts With ‘Mc’
11. Defamation Law Series: Melania Trump Settles Her Libel Lawsuit Against Daily Mail 
12. Author of Wall Street Charging Bull is raging over Fearless Girl, but does he have a valid moral right claim?
13. ‘Charging Bull’ sculptor says New York’s ‘Fearless Girl’ statue violates his rights: Arturo Di Modica says ‘advertising trick’ placed in Wall Street before international women’s day infringed artistic copyright
14. The Bull Statue Copyright Claim Is Ridiculous… But Here’s Why It Just Might Work
15. UK supreme court denies tobacco firms permission for plain packaging appeal: Final legal decision in UK means that all cigarettes sold after 20 May must come in standardised packaging
16. Marvel Comics Responds To X-Men Gold Art Controversy
17. How much dough are smells worth?: Hasbro files a scent mark in the US
18. Copyright as Medium: Art and law might seem like polar opposites. But in the wake of Conceptual Art’s challenge to the traditional operations of the art market, the law—and copyright in particular—has become an increasingly popular subject, and even a medium, for artists. 
19. Bigger Picture, Bigger Frame? Dr. Saptarishi Bandopadhyay’s Recast of Narrative in Copyright and Disaster Photography
20. Copyright Protection of Street Art and Graffiti under UK Law (Enrico Bonadio)
21. The Uncoordinated Public Domain (Robert Spoo)

MEDIA, COMMUNICATIONS & NET NEUTRALITY

1. Paul, Weiss Investigating Bill O’Reilly
2. Yochai Benkler: The Right-Wing Media Ecosystem
3. FCC Kills Charter Merger Condition That Would Have Forced ISPs To Compete
4. President Trump Nullifies FCC Broadband Consumer Privacy Rules 
5. Yes, There Are Other Laws That Protect Privacy, But FCC’s Rules Were Still Helpful
6. FCC chair wants to replace net neutrality with “voluntary” commitments: “Voluntary” net neutrality commitments may not be so easy to enforce.
7. FCC Boss Wants ‘Voluntary’ ISP Net Neutrality Promises Instead Of Real Rules
8. “Unenforceable”: How voluntary net neutrality lets ISPs call the shots – Pai’s plan would “tilt everything in favor of the incumbents,” regulator says.
9. Ajit Pai can’t convince websites that killing net neutrality is a good idea: Reps for Amazon, Google, Facebook, Netflix lobby to keep net neutrality rules.
10. Comcast to sell “unlimited” mobile plans that get throttled after 20GB: The good news is throttled speeds aren’t horrible at 1.5Mbps.
11. 70% Support Letting Cities Build Their Own Broadband Networks, So Why Are We Still Passing State Laws Banning It?
12. Murdoch’s multi-billion pound Sky/Fox merger bid gets thumbs up from EU – Brussels: Murdoch’s grab for full control of Sky isn’t a competition concern in Europe.

SURVEILLANCE & PRIVACY

1. U.S. Gov Demanded Twitter Unmask Mean Anti-Trump Account: Twitter has filed a lawsuit to protect this user
2. Twitter Sues Government Over Attempts to Unmask Anti-Trump Account
3. Twitter Sues Homeland Security Over Attempt To Unmask ‘Alt’ Immigration Twitter Account: Twitter brings in Biglaw to sue government.
4. Well, That Was Quick: Twitter Dismisses Lawsuit After Feds Drop Attempt To Unmask Rogue Tweeter
5. Oh, Sure, Now Congress Is Serious About Asking NSA About Surveillance On Americans
6. WikiLeaks just dropped the CIA’s secret how-to for infecting Windows: Latest batch of documents details how CIA infects targets’ Windows-based computers.
7. New York Appeals Court Says Facebook Can’t Challenge The 381 Broad Warrants Handed To It By New York Prosecutors
8. State Appeals Court Says There’s An Expectation Of Privacy In Vehicle Data Recorders
9. Named Plaintiff Drops Claims Against Gannett as the Definition of “Personally Identifiable Information” Under the Video Privacy Protection Act Evolves
10. Researcher: 90% Of ‘Smart’ TVs Can Be Compromised Remotely
11. Booby-trapped Word documents in the wild exploit critical Microsoft 0-day: There’s currently no patch for the bug, which affects most or all versions of Word.
12. Hacking Attack Woke Up Dallas With Emergency Sirens, Officials Say
13. Canada’s National Police Force Officially Confirms Ownership, Use Of Stingray Devices
14. Lenovo and Superfish: Proposed Class Action Proceeds on Privacy Tort and Statutes 
15. Rash of in-the-wild attacks permanently destroys poorly secured IoT devices: Ongoing “BrickerBot” attacks might be trying to kill devices before they can join a botnet.
16. The U.S. Congress Is Not the Leader in Privacy or Data Security Law (Daniel Solove)
17. This Teen’s Story Is Your Worst ‘Predictive Policing’ Nightmare: Crime-prediction algorithms remain unproven and problematic — but that hasn’t stopped police departments across the country from using them
18. The Ghost in the Algorithm: The necessary struggle to reject “technology first” and develop an ethical framework for the automated era

Jon

GAMES

1. Blizzard awarded $8.5M in damages following copyright infringement lawsuit
2. Blizzard awarded $8.6m in Bossland lawsuit: German cheatbot company failed to appear in court, ordered to halt sale of Blizzard related products in the US
3. Nintendo v. King: Answering Questions, and Raising New Ones, About Technological Protection Measures
4. UK ad authority rules against Liberators dev for misleading images in ads
5. ASA Ruling on Mutant Box Interactive Ltd
6. ASA bans Mobile Strike ad for objectifying women: Machine Zone’s latest YouTube video shows women playing the game by the pool in bikinis
7. ASA Ruling on Machine Zone Inc
8. How do you deal with CS:GO gambling? Legitimize it: Faceit’s ECS league partners with Genius Sports to provide data to regulated bookmakers.
9. HTC: There will be no escaping ads in VR, either – Gaze-based technology “can also track whether the users have viewed them.”
10. HTC introduces eye-tracking VR ads: It can track when players look away to judge ad effectiveness
11. CCP CEO: “I would call the VR installed base huge” – CCP’s Hilmar Pétursson explains how the EVE developer got into sports with Sparc and why the VR space isn’t as tough as some might think
12. Sony looking for new markets for PSVR
13. Sony going commercial with PlayStation VR after making slow progress with consumers
14. 1-in-4 VR pros say biz growth disappointed in 2016 – Survey: 26% expected more from their VR business last year, but 46% of respondents said they saw strong or very strong growth
15. Oculus Founder Palmer Luckey Out at Facebook
16. Palmer Luckey to leave Facebook: Company declined to say if Oculus co-founder is leaving voluntarily
17. BioWare devs respond to Andromeda criticism with ambitious patch plan
18. Bioware Apologizes For How It Handled Mass Effect: Andromeda’s Transgender Character
19. Struggling peripheral maker Mad Catz files for bankruptcy
20. Mad Catz enters bankruptcy: Peripheral company halts operations as it enters liquidation process
21. Nintendo’s soul-searching on F2P: Super Mario Run was a bold experiment in mobile business models – but the company may not have realised the enormity of the task it was undertaking
22. Mobile game spend will double to $105 billion by 2021: App Annie’s forecast shows massive gains for games over five years, with China representing 41% of all spending on mobile apps
23. Activision plans many years of ‘Marvel-esque’ film/TV based on game IP
24. Would you consider a disc-free console option?: Some gamers may be ready to ditch the disc drive to save on hardware.
25. BAFTA-winning Brenda Romero: “We need to expand the range of voices making games”: Long-running games designer advocates teaching kids to code, broadening the scope of development and learning from board games
26. Women In Games launches Ambassador programme: New initiative designed to double the number of women working in games over 10 years
27. Why depicting gruesome historical moments in games can be a tough call
28. 16 years later, Blizzard is still patching Diablo II: New update helps the game run on modern operating systems
29. Two-fifths of gaming firms ‘could relocate over Brexit’
30. Devs Answer: What are the best ways to trick players?
31. Indie Games Scene – 2017 Overview
32. Historians aim to recover, restore, and archive video game media assets

DIGITAL

1. Use Of VPNs Banned Completely For Millions Of People By Chinese Authorities
2. New Regulations Appear To Authorize Chinese Law Enforcement To Hack Into Computers Anywhere In The World
3. A Pic Of Putin In Makeup Is Now ‘Extremist’ Material: Disseminating the image could lead to a fine and even jail time, but some Russians don’t care
4. Where Speech Goes, Repression Follows: The Global Trend of Criminalizing Online Speech
5. Social media firms faces huge hate speech fines in Germany
6. How YouTube Can Fix Its White Nationalism and Anti-Semitism Problem: The Google-run video giant is losing advertisers due to its inability to police its own content. Here’s how it can turn things around.
7. Netizen Report: India Had 31 Internet Shutdowns in 2016. How Many Did Your Country Have? – The quiet cost of regional Internet shutdowns in India, China and beyond.
8. Here’s Why Facebook and Google Can’t Fix the Fake News Problem
9. Study: Fake election news flooded Mich. Twitter feeds
10. Lawyers win again in latest privacy class-action settlement: iOS address book deal, if split evenly among class members, pays 53 cents each.
11. German Court Rules Parents Must Out Their Family Members For Copyright Trolls Or Pay Fines Themselves
12. Microsoft sued for millions over Windows 10 upgrades: Class action accuses operating system of causing hard drive failures and other problems.
13. 8,000 aspiring Uber and Lyft drivers fail state background check
14. Uber exec accused of stealing IP from Google made $120M, but worked on the side: Google hammers on Levandowski, who remains in charge of Uber’s self-driving cars.
15. Judge orders Uber to search servers, work harder to find Waymo’s 14,000 files: “In 42 years, I’ve never seen a record this strong. You are up against it.”
16. YouTube TV goes live today in five US cities, gears up to add more networks: AMC, BBC World News, Sundance TV, and more to come at no extra cost.
17. Top 100 Most Subscribed YouTube Channels Worldwide • February 2017
18. ASA orders takedown of Instagrammer’s post for not having #ad: A promotional post by Instagrammer Sheikhbeauty for the brand Flat Tummy Tea failed to comply with CAP rulings as it lacked any disclosure that the post was an ad.
19. IoT garage door opener maker bricks customer’s product after bad review: Startup tells customer “Your unit will be denied server connection.”
20. You Can Now Beg for Money on Facebook
21. Facebook plans a free version of its Slack competitor 
22. Spotify finally lets artists restrict new albums to premium subscribers: Plus Kanye West is the first artist to have an album go Platinum on streams alone.
23. Amazon – Not Twitter – To Stream Thursday Night NFL Games As League Is ‘Expanding Reach’
24. Amazon outbids Twitter for rights to livestream Thursday Night Football games
25. But you must be a Prime member to watch.
26. Amazon agrees to refund up to $70 million worth of in-app purchases made by kids
27. Amazon’s Kodi Box Ban And Copyright Liability For Device Distributors
28. Kim Dotcom’s Canadian connection: Servers in Ontario could be key in case against alleged Internet pirate
29. A kitten becomes Exhibit 41 in defamation suit against Buzzfeed over Trump dossier: “Six ways Buzzfeed has misled the court… and a picture of a kitten.”
30. Bad Copyright Laws Are Creating Junky, Biased AI: Machine learning systems need lots of data to overcome bias — but copyright limits their menu
31. Can AI Ever Be as Curious as Humans?
32. A.I. Versus M.D.: What happens when diagnosis is automated?
33. Hologram Calls Could Be The Future FaceTime: Verizon and Korean Telecom held the first international live 5G hologram chat
34. Within the Next Decade, You Could Be Living in a Post-Smartphone World
35. Golden State Warriors, Philips Lighting Bring Oracle Arena Experience Inside Fans’ Homes
36. Brazil Proposes New Digital Copyright Rules for the WTO
37. Attention Markets & the Law (Tim Wu)

CREATIVITY

1. Jeff Koons Parody Defense Fails in French Copyright Infringement Case
2. Horizon Comics Productions, Inc. v. Marvel Entertainment, LLC
3. 5 Pointz Graffiti Artists’ Major Win in Suit against Developers, Explained
4. If you publish Georgia’s state laws, you’ll get sued for copyright and lose: In some states, you can’t read the law without paying a corporation.
5. Newly Leaked Documents Expose Stunning Waste And Incompetence At The Copyright Office
6. Another Major Scandal At The Copyright Office: $25 Million ‘Fake Budget’ Line Item
7. How to make Millennials hate you, The Pepsi Way.
8. Pepsi Pulls Controversial Kendall Jenner Ad Following Twitter Uproar
9. How Pepsi Got It So Wrong: Unpacking One of the Most Reviled Ads in Recent Memory: Experts weigh in on the soda-maker’s tone-deaf debacle
10. Pepsi’s New Ad Is a Total Success: Every feature of the “Jump In” ad benefits the company—even the act of pulling it from the airwaves.
11. Moral Rights in America: “the only thing we have to fear is…fear itself”
12. Myths and Legends of Copyright Reform: A New Hope
13. Bleistein, the Problem of Aesthetic Progress, and the Making of American Copyright Law (Barton Beebe)
14. The Terminator Comes to Hollywood to Destroy Old Copyright Grants
15. Canadian Copyright: Year in Review 2016
16. Deciphering the U.S. NAFTA Digital Demands, Part One: Intellectual Property (Michael Geist)
17. The Relative Virtues of Bottom-Up and TopDown Theories of Fair Use (Pamela Samuelson)
18. Monster Energy Attempts To Run From Laughable Trademark Spat It Started With Thunder Beast Root Beer
19. Brewery Looks To Reform Trademark Practices After Its Lawyers Bully A Pub Over Its Name
20. Brexit: what might change Intellectual Property
21. Law review article ‘Defining Hate Speech’ attempts the impossible
22. Did Reddit’s April Fool’s gag solve the issue of online hate speech?: Nations battled, voids came and went, and one million pixels said a lot about humanity.
23. The Platform Press: How Silicon Valley reengineered journalism (Emily Bell & Taylor Owen) 

MEDIA, COMMUNICATIONS & NET NEUTRALITY

1. Net Neutrality Is Trump’s Next Target, Administration Says
2. Ajit Pai says broadband market too competitive for strict privacy rules: FCC Chair ignores lack of home Internet competition in argument against privacy rules.
3. FCC, FTC Bosses Pen Misleading Editorial Falsely Claiming The Best Way To Protect Your Privacy Moving Forward… Is To Gut Net Neutrality
4. FCC Boss Takes Aim At Efforts To Bring Broadband To The Poor
5. Fox serves up a fetid reminder that when you’re a star, you can still do anything
6. Free Market Does What The Court System Could Not: Hurt Bill O’Reilly – This is the PR debacle that pulled the advertiser’s dollars.
7. Understanding the Role of the BBC as a Provider of Public Infrastructure (Brett Frischmann)
8. Tweeting #Justice: Audio-Visual Coverage Of Court Proceedings In A World Of Shifting Technology (Itay Ravid)

SURVEILLANCE & PRIVACY

1. Canadian Appeals Court Says Vice Media Must Turn Over Communications With Source To Law Enforcement
2. RCMP reveals use of secretive cellphone surveillance technology for the first time: After CBC investigation into suspicious signals in Ottawa, police offer new insight into their own tactics
3. Taser stuns law enforcement world, offers free body cameras to all US police: Company also changes name to Axon to reflect its primary body-camera product.
4. Why Warrantless Access to Internet Subscriber Information is Back on the Legislative Agenda (Michael Geist)
5. Snoops may soon be able to buy your browsing history. Thank the US Congress: Not only did they vote to violate your privacy for their own profit – they are seeking to make it illegal for a key watchdog to protect your privacy online (Bruce Schneier)
6. Want to Stop Your Internet Provider From Selling Your Browsing Data? It Ain’t Easy
7. President Trump delivers final blow to Web browsing privacy rules: ISP privacy rules are dead as Trump signs repeal instead of issuing veto.
8. Trump move to kill privacy rules opposed by 72% of Republicans, survey says: Privacy is partisan for lawmakers, but not necessarily for the rest of us.
9. Trump’s Internet Brigades Shocked To Realize The Government Just Sold Them Out On Privacy
10. After vote to kill privacy rules, users try to “pollute” their Web history: “ISP Data Pollution” fills browsing history with noise to protect your privacy.
11. Tim Berners-Lee: selling private citizens’ browsing data is ‘disgusting’
12. The NYPD Posed as Black Lives Matter Protesters and Spied on Their Text Messages
13. Samsung’s Tizen is riddled with security flaws, amateurishly written: Researcher calls it the “worst code [he’s] ever seen.”
14. ISP privacy rules could be resurrected by states, starting in Minnesota: Minnesota could prevent ISPs from collecting personal data without consent.
15. Comcast Paid Civil Rights Groups To Support Killing Broadband Privacy Rules
16. AT&T, Comcast & Verizon Pretend They Didn’t Just Pay Congress To Sell You Out On Privacy
17. Comcast: We won’t sell browser history, and you can opt out of targeted ads
18. Congress’s vote to eviscerate Internet privacy could give the FBI massive power
19. Russia’s hack of State Department was “hand-to-hand” combat: State-sponsored hackers are going increasingly brazen and confrontational.
20. Wikileaks releases code that could unmask CIA hacking operations: “Marble” libraries include code used to obfuscate—and unscramble— CIA malware.
21. DOJ Refuses FOIA Request On Emails, Claiming ‘Personal Privacy’
22. Oversight Committee Finds FBI’s Facial Recognition Database Still Filled With Innocent People, Still Wrong 15% Of The Time
23. FBI Arrests Creator Of Remote Access Tool, Rather Than Those Abusing It To Commit Crime
24. How A Little Metadata Made It Possible To Find FBI Director James Comey’s Secret Twitter Account
25. Smart TV hack embeds attack code into broadcast signal—no access required: Demo exploit is inexpensive, remote, scalable—and opens door to more advanced hacks.
26. Pennsylvania Court Says Bloggers Protected By Journalist Shield Law; Don’t Have To Reveal Commenter IP Addresses
27. If A Phone’s Facial Recognition Security Can Be Defeated By A Picture Of A Face, What Good Is It?
28. Canadian Prosecutors Cut Loose 35 Mafia Suspects Rather Than Turn Over Info On Stingray Devices
29. Microsoft opens up on Windows telemetry, tells us most of what data it collects: Windows telemetry is getting a lot more transparent.
30. Privacy, Poverty And Big Data: A Matrix Of Vulnerabilities For Poor Americans (Mary Madden, Michele Gilman, Karen Levy & Alice Marwick)

Jon

GAMES

1. Playtonic removes controversial YouTuber JonTron from Yooka-Laylee: “We do not endorse or support JonTron’s personal viewpoints”
2. JonTron Loses Out On Video Game Role After Racist Rant
3. JonTron Out As Voice In ‘Yooka-Laylee’
4. Australian Classication Board reverses Outlast 2 ban: After refusing to rate survival horror game, regulators have now cleared it to launch as R18+ title
5. Red Barrels made a mistake with Outlast 2 classification: Australian Classification Board’s refusal based on content never intended for game’s final build
6. Psyonix disapproves of Rocket League gambling: Developer speaks out after betting platform Unikrn adds its hit title to line-up
7. StarCraft remaster unveiled, and original SD version becomes free-as-in-beer: Original version’s patch to 1.18 will make it free; remastered gameplay revealed.
8. Take a look at how Blizzard decides which mods live and die
9. Nintendo Flags YouTuber For Using Switch Sound
10. GameStop: Switch demand ‘incredibly strong’, Zelda attach rate ‘almost 1:1’
11. GameStop expects Switch shortages all year: Executives tell investors each shipment sells out in hours, “we’re going to be chasing supply this entire year”
12. UK retailer GAME blames falling profits on lacklustre console sales
13. Twitch to start selling video games this week
14. Super Mario Run revenue fell short of expectations, says Nintendo
15. Nintendo disappointed by Super Mario Run revenues: However, company says it still prefers pay-once model to free-to-play formulas like the one used in Fire Emblem Heroes
16. PS4 is clear leader in media coverage despite Switch hype: According to ICO Partners, Switch is seeing around 40% of the coverage that Sony’s console gets on a weekly basis
17. Overwatch League could bring in $720 million annually – Analyst: Most bullish scenario from Morgan Stanley researchers puts game’s eSports revenues on par with WWE, 20% larger than MLS
18. Blizzard’s Overwatch League could see $100M in its first year, says analyst
19. Boston Celtics Co-Owner Wyc Grousbeck: ‘There Will Be An eCeltics’
20. The Future of Sport—An eSports Epiphany
21. British Esports Association: ‘Esports Is Not A Sport, But A Credible Activity’
22. Hearthstone is killing itself – Superdata: Research firm’s monthly digital revenue report says Blizzard’s card game hits new low on mobile as worldwide digital sales growth slows
23. BioWare Releases Statement On Mass Effect: Andromeda Criticism, Says Improvements Are Coming: “We’ve received quite a bit of feedback, some of it positive and some of it critical.”
24. Mad Catz to be delisted over “abnormally low” share price: NYSE has already started a process, and Mad Catz does not intend to appeal
25. Four years later, Xbox exec admits how Microsoft screwed up disc resale plan: Compare and contrast with Mehdi’s marketing push for the plan back in 2013.
26. Mobile Games’ Booming Market: Opportunity for Hollywood and IP Owners
27. Devs can now reply directly to user reviews on the Apple App Store
28. The strange case of the phantom Pokemon: In August 2016, a woman claimed to have been attacked by a real Pokemon. Her terrifying hallucination reveals the mysterious ‘twilight zone’ between waking and sleep — a strange state of consciousness that may also lie behind various phenomena, from the Salem Witch Trials to alien abductions. Psychologist Matthew Tompkins explains.
29. Roam free: A history of open-world gaming – You know the violence, but there were text-adventures, skiing, space, and ants(!) too.
30. The Video Game That Claims Everything Is Connected: Instead, it shows how individual and unique things really are.
31. Pokemon, Halo, and Donkey Kong among 2017 World Video Game Hall of Fame finalists
32. Check out the handwritten game design doc for Asteroids
33. 1975-2015 – Building a timeline of computer and video game history

DIGITAL

1. Supreme Court Says You Can Copyright Elements Of ‘Useful Articles’ — Which May Spell Disaster For 3D Printing & More
2. Victory for Varsity! But Also for Fashion? Supreme Court Rules in Star Athletica v. Varsity Brands
3. Ruffled feathers or serious harm? Controversial UK personality sued for libellous tweets 
4. Man sentenced to 3 years for Facebook threat to kill Obama loses appeal
5. Judge: eBay can’t be sued over seller accused of patent infringement
6. Will the Supreme Court end the East Texas patent scam?: Tech companies and interest groups seek to alter the geography of litigation.
7. Supreme Court Won’t Hear Case About Copyright Protection Of Pre-1972 Sound Recordings
8. Supreme Court of Canada to address jurisdiction issues in online defamation case
9. CD, DVD pirate sentenced to 5 years in prison: FBI investigated piracy ring with assistance from the RIAA and MPAA.
10. In settlement, app makers change their tune on health benefits and privacy: NY Attorney General says three popular app makers over promised and misled.
11. Consumer Law Group announces the filing of a Canadian class action against Amazon for the collection of undue sales tax
12. Streaming Video Competition Slowly Begins Killing The Bloated, Pricey Cable Bundle
13. Big US companies pull YouTube ads after extremist content sparks uncertainty: The ads might not have run over hateful videos, but they’re not taking any chances.
14. YouTube’s Better-Than-TV Pitch Undermined by Offensive Video
15. YouTube faces exodus of advertisers: Latest example highlights hidden perils of online ads.
16. AT&T, Verizon Feign Ethical Outrage, Pile On Google’s ‘Extremist’ Ad Woes
17. Google and Facebook Can’t Just Make Fake News Disappear: Fake news is too big and messy to solve with algorithms or editors — because the problem is….us.
18. Trolling Scholars Debunk the Idea That the Alt-Right’s Sh**posters Have Magic Powers: Asserting that alt-right “trolls” were a deciding factor in Trump’s victory minimizes the broader trends that amplified their influence. (Whitney Phillips, Jessica Beyer & Gabriella Coleman)
19. We’ve Heard All about Fake News—Now What?
20. Tell California Assembly Not To Ignore The First Amendment As It Tries To Ban Fake News
21. Real Talk About Fake News
22. Facebook Officially Toying With Snap Stock Price Like A Sadistic Cat Playing With A Captured Mouse
23. Elon Musk is setting up a company that will link brains and computers: The ultimate goal would be a “neural lace” to enhance people’s cognitive abilities.
24. Germany’s Flawed Plan to Fight Hate Speech by Fining Tech Giants Millions
25. Netflix: The Monster That’s Eating Hollywood: The streaming-video service is hogging talent and pushing up prices, spurring pushback from rival TV producers who once saw it as a partner; 70 new titles this year
26. Tractor Owners Using Pirated Firmware To Dodge John Deere’s Ham-Fisted Attempt To Monopolize Repair
27. Guy Who Wants Everyone To Believe He Created Bitcoin, Now Patenting Everything Bitcoin With An Online Gambling Fugitive
28. How AI Can Aid Authoritarians—And How Humans Fight Back: Hidden algorithms reflect and amplify racism and other human biases, but researchers hope to fix them
29. Google reportedly removing SMS texting from Hangouts on May 22: But Google Voice users won’t be affected as much.
30. The Death of Advertising: And what will rise from its ashes.
31. Creativity and the Internet
32. In Support of Untargeted Ads
33. Kerr: What if your ‘doctor’ were a robot? How Artificial Intelligence is challenging our ethics
34. Australian Govt.: Just Kidding On That Whole Safe Harbors Reform Thing, Guys
35. What Would a Digital Economy-Era NAFTA Mean for Canada? (Michael Geist)
36. On computational ethics: Is it possible to imagine an AI that can compute ethics?
37. Whack a Meme: Is It Possible to Contain (Let Alone Stop) the “Crying Jordan”?
38. Man who claims he invented e-mail is now running for US Senate: Shiva Ayyadurai, who sued the Techdirt blog for libel, will run in Massachusetts.
39. Intel is keeping Moore’s Law alive by making bigger improvements less often

CREATIVITY

1. Supreme Court Clarifies Test For Determining Whether Designs On Useful Articles Are Eligible For Copyright Protection: Star Athletica, L.L.C. v. Varsity Brands, Inc.
2. Supreme Court Clarifies Copyright Eligibility for Useful Articles
3. Supreme Court Seeks to Clarify Copyrightability of Design Features on Useful Articles in Cheerleading Uniform Case
4. Supreme Court Resolves Split on Design Copyright Eligibility
5. Supreme Court Finds Cheerleading Uniform Designs Copyrightable
6. Cheering on the Fashion Industry: U.S Supreme Court Issues Landmark Copyright Decision That Will Have Deep Implications for Fashion and Sports Industries
7. More Financial Scandals Involving A Collecting Society: Remind Me Again Why They Are Credible Representatives Of Artists?
8. The Future of Copyright post Brexit
9. GS Media and its implications for the construction of the right of communication to the public within EU copyright architecture: a new article
10. Your Periodic Reminder That Initial Interest Confusion Lawsuits Are Stupid–Epic v. YourCareUniverse
11. Archie Comics Is Trying to Trademark the Cute Couple Names for Betty and Jughead
12. Broadway Play Changes Set Design Over Cafe Trademark Threat And, No, That Doesn’t Make Any Damned Sense
13. Does “Raiders Fancast” Infringe the “Fancaster” Trademark? (Eric Goldman)
14. Trademark Lawsuit Claiming Organic Search Results Create Initial Interest Confusion Falls Apart–Larsen v. Larson (Eric Goldman)
15. Higher Costs Likely to be the Norm in Federal Court IP Cases
16. Social Media Erupts as the Art World Splits in Two Over Dana Schutz Controversy: The art world is not a monolith, social media posts reveal.
17. “Fearless Girl” Sculpture Near Wall Street Prompts Copyright Allegation That is More Bull than Bear 
18. Hugo, Inc.: Les Misérables was born of one of the riskiest—and shrewdest—deals in publishing history.
19. Why Hollywood As We Know It Is Already Over
20. Bibliodiscotheque: Array of Events Planned to Celebrate Disco Culture (Library of Congress)
21. Extremist Speech and Compelled Conformity (Danielle Keats Citron)

MEDIA, COMMUNICATIONS & NET NEUTRALITY

1. Germany wants to regulate a 24-hour livestream as a broadcaster: Running a non-stop Twitch channel could be expensive.
2. Consumer Broadband Privacy Protections Are Dead
3. Senate votes to let ISPs sell your Web browsing history to advertisers: ISP now stands for “invading subscriber privacy,” Democratic senator says.
4. U.S. Senate Approves Resolution to Repeal FCC’s Broadband Privacy Rules; Resolution Heads to U.S. House of Representatives for Consideration
5. Congress Just Voted To Kill Consumer Broadband Privacy Protections
6. How ISPs can sell your Web history—and how to stop them: How the Senate’s vote to kill privacy rules affects you.
7. No, You Can’t Buy Congress’s Internet Data, Or Anyone Else’s
8. With U.S. Retreat from Online Privacy, Canada Needs to Safeguard the Internet in NAFTA Talks (Michaele Geist)
9. AT&T/DirecTV give in to government demands in collusion lawsuit settlement: Customers lost when pay-TV companies illegally shared information, DOJ says.
10. AT&T Settles With DOJ Over LA Dodgers Channel Collusion Allegations
11. In New CASL Case, CRTC Sends $15,000 Message 
12. FCC to halt expansion of broadband subsidies for poor people: Pai won’t approve new applications, drops court defense of Lifeline broadband order.
13. Netflix Is No Longer Worried About Net Neutrality Now That It’s Massive And Successful
14. Does a sales tax on Uber pave way for a ‘Netflix tax’ in Canada? Probably
15. Cable retransmission within reception area copyright free?!
16. Alex Jones Apologizes For Pizzagate Coverage, Blames Other Media Outlets
17. Charter promises Trump a broadband push, but no extra Internet connections: Charter’s $25 billion promise is vague and includes stuff it already planned.
18. Warner Bros., Trademark Lawyers Target “Golden Ticket” Beer Brand

SURVEILLANCE & PRIVACY

1. Key priorities of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada in 2017
2. Fixing PIPEDA: My Appearance Before the Access to Information, Privacy & Ethics Committee (Michael Geist)
3. Appeal court says reporter must hand over material to RCMP
4. Secretly recorded Planned Parenthood tapes barred from publication: Two activists criminally charged with allegedly violating privacy of people filmed.
5. Oculus’ VR Privacy Policy Serves the Needs of Facebook, Not Users
6. Whistleblower Says UK Police Worked With Hackers To Access Activists’ Email Accounts
7. Someone is putting lots of work into hacking Github developers: Dimnie recon trojan has flown under the radar for three years… until now.
8. Doxed by Microsoft’s Docs.com: Users unwittingly shared sensitive docs publicly: Thousands of docs with sensitive data still reachable from search engines, including health data.
9. Vizio Must Face VPPA Suit Over Smart TVs, Court Rules
10. Dish Network Seeks New Trial After $20 Million TCPA Jury Verdict
11. US Senate votes to let internet providers share your web browsing history without permission: Just what no consumer asked for
12. Encryption Workarounds Paper Shows Why ‘Going Dark’ Is Not A Problem, And In Fact Is As Old As Humanity Itself
13. Google takes Symantec to the woodshed for mis-issuing 30,000 HTTPS certs 
14. NY Senator Pulls Sponsorship From ‘Right To Be Forgotten’ Bill, Effectively Killing It
15. NSA Official Says It Might Have Been Nice If The Agency Had Handled The Public Disclosure Of The Section 215 Program
16. Judge rules in favor of “Drone Slayer,” dismisses lawsuit filed by pilot: Is it trespassing if you fly over your neighbor’s land? The answer remains unclear.
17. Cybersecurity and the Yahoo experience – Legal pays the price
18. Goldilocks and the Interactive Bear: The Privacy Nightmare 
19. “Samsung Connect” wrangles all the insecure Things in your Internet of Things: Controlling your home—or the security-nightmare “smart” parts of it—with your voice.

Jon

GAMES

1. Appeals Court Affirms Rejection of Gambling Claims Against Machine Zone
2. A real win for a virtual casino: game developer avoids class action liability under gambling loss recovery statute
3. Blizzard files for $8.5m in damages from Bossland: Motion for default judgement filed after German cheatbot company failed to comply with court’s request for response
4. Nintendo seals victory in 3DS tech lawsuit
5. Nintendo says “Mama Mia!” to Tokyo’s Real-Life Mario Kart
6. Australian senator urges censors to “leave gamers alone”: Denying Outlast 2 a certificate sends a message of “censorship, disapproval and discouragement”
7. Australia’s restrictive video game ratings discourage innovation, says senator
8. As white nationalism grows, how are Jewish game developers responding?
9. Unlicensed eSports gambling sites are “parasites feeding off popular video games”: UK Gambling Commission’s official paper gets tough on rise of skin gambling in eSports
10. Inside The Unregulated And Scam-Filled World Of Video Game Betting
11. YouTube’s restricted mode is hurting video game channels and LGBT content creators
12. YouTube Just Made Its Biggest Bet Yet on E-Sports
13. Esports ‘set for £1bn revenue and 600 million audiences by 2020’
14. Sacramento Kings, Miami Heat, Cleveland Cavaliers Discuss New NBA 2K eLeague
15. Toronto Raptors Planning To Be On ‘Ground Floor’ Of New NBA 2K eLeague
16. NHL sizing up eSports opportunity: Commissioner Gary Bettman envisions something like the NBA 2K eLeague, with each team running its own gaming squad
17. Experts say publisher involvement is key to effective eSports regulation
18. Facebook takes on Twitch with its own live gameplay streaming: Social network has expanded its Facebook Live functionality to PC software
19. Escape To Another World: As video games get better and job prospects worse, more young men are dropping out of the job market to spend their time in an alternate reality. Ryan Avent suspects this is the beginning of something big
20. BioWare: “Attacking individuals is never acceptable” – Mass Effect dev disputes false reports after woman is harrassed over Andromeda animations
21. Game developers react to abusive tweets by donating to Girls Make Games: Positive fallout from recent Mass Effect: Andromeda attacks
22. Hard-to-find Nintendo Switch sees 47% resale markup: $300 system selling for up to $810 on eBay.
23. Nintendo set to double Switch production – report: Total raised to 16 million units for next fiscal year, on expectation of 10 million sales
24. Report: Nintendo plans to double Switch production for coming year: Shipping 16 million units in 12 months would approach Wii-level numbers.
25. Why Breath Of The Wild Is The Future Of Blockbuster Games
26. Zelda: Breath Of The Wild Easter Egg May Pay Tribute To Late Nintendo President Saturo Iwata
27. Nintendo increasing US Switch shipments: GameStop confirms new stock inbound this week, although not enough for online sales
28. Switch “could possibly eclipse” Wii – GameStop: Specialty retailer rep says Nintendo’s latest has phenomenal start, soaring attach rates for games and accessories
29. Tencent cleared $10 billion game revenue in 2016: Chinese company pulls away from rival publishers with new and old hits and Supercell acquisition
30. Tencent grows online game business, makes gains in mobile
31. EVE Online devs cause a kerfuffle over in-game currency revamp
32. The worldwide console market shrank by 2.5 percent in 2016
33. A taste for Adventure: TIGA CEO Dr Richard Wilson considers new data on which genres UK developers specialise in
34. Zynga buys four Solitaire games for $42.5 million: Harpan’s two-man team is richly rewarded for its social card titles
35. House of cards: Zynga splashes $42.5M on solitaire apps
36. Why A Secretive Company Wants To Make A Smartphone For Gamers
37. The sorry saga of the crowdfunded Sinclair Vega+ console
38. How Forza overtook Need for Speed to become the world’s biggest racing IP: Playground and Turn10 directors discuss where the series goes from here
39. Proposed presidential budget cuts could hurt game development and education
40. Oculus spending $500M+ on funding VR devs because ‘we don’t want this to take decades’
41. Oculus not doing developers a service, says HTC Vive: Rikard Steiber and Joel Breton explain the HTC Vive approach to VR, which differs quite a bit from Oculus
42. Netmarble to raise $2.4 billion with an IPO: Around $1.3 billion will be used for deals and acquisitions as Korean publisher strides towards global top five
43. Ed Fries uncovers earliest known arcade game Easter egg in Starship 1

DIGITAL

1. Appeals Court Rules TV Streamers Don’t Get Compulsory License to Broadcast Networks
2. YouTube’s Restricted Mode Is Hiding Some LGBT Content
3. How YouTube’s Block Of LGBTQ Videos Could Hurt Kids: The platform has helped many teens come to terms with their sexuality, but lately videos are harder to access
4. YouTube faces social media storm over LGBT-blocking ‘restricted mode’
5. LGBT community anger over YouTube restrictions which make their verideos invisible: #YouTubeIsOverParty trends on Twitter after users say videos referencing same-sex relationships are being filtered out
6. Unless online giants stop the abuse of free speech, democracy and innovation is threatened
7. A Tweet to Kurt Eichenwald, a Strobe and a Seizure. Now, an Arrest.
8. Man accused of sending a seizure-inducing tweet charged with cyberstalking: Allegations are a first for an online attack with an epileptogenic image.
9. Internet warriors: inside the dark world of online haters – Why do people vent such toxic opinions online? Filmmaker Kyrre Lien spent three years travelling the world to find out who these anonymous ‘internet warriors’ are and why they do it
10. How online hate infiltrates social media and politics: For hate groups, there’s unprecedented opportunity to finally plug their fringe movements into a mainstream circuit
11. Dissecting Trump’s Most rabid Online Following
12. Twitter uses software to ban 377,000 accounts advocating violence
13. Fake News and Fake Solutions: How Do We Build a Civics of Trust?
14. ‘Who shared it?’: How Americans decide what news to trust on social media – This research was conducted by the Media Insight Project — an initiative of the American Press Institute and the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research
15. UK government halts its YouTube ads after some appear on extremist videos: Doesn’t like taxpayer-funded ads showing up before David Duke videos.
16. Danger in the internet echo chamber: To combat endless feeds of one-sided data, Sunstein suggests an ‘architecture of serendipity’
17. Platforms, Networks, and Information Literacy
18. It’s Time to Stop Blaming Social Media for Political Polarization: New research shows that spending less time online is just as bad.
19. The Like Button Ruined the Internet: How “engagement” made the web a less engaging place
20. Pope cautions youths about social media’s “false image of reality”: “Don’t let yourselves be led astray,” Francis says.
21. Convicting cybercriminals no easy task, UBC prof says: Amanda Todd case shines light on how Canadian justice system deals with cybercrime
22. Facebook Sued In Israel For Blocking All Links To Site Critical Of Facebook & Suggesting Site Was ‘Unsafe’
23. Google, Facebook, Twitter must amend ToS for EU users or face fines: Trio given one month to clean up fraud, scams, and make other fixes.
24. This Won’t Be Abused At All: Google Offers Tool To Flag And Downrank ‘Offensive’ Search Results
25. Big Hollywood Studios Win Injunction Against Streamer VidAngel in Copyright Infringement Case 
26. Hey That’s Me Drinking That Beer! UGC Rights at Issue in Beer/Photo Lawsuit 
27. eBook Pirates Tend To Be Older And Well Off, Which Means They Pirate Because Of Human Intuition On Economics
28. University Puts 20,000 Lectures Behind A Registration Wall In Response To DOJ Pressure On Website Accessibility Compliance
29. Judge Balks At Section 230 Protection For Email Forwarding–Samsel v. DeSoto County School District (Eric Goldman)
30. Chinese Website Operator Dismissed from Copyright Infringement Suit in United States
31. Australia’s Prime Minister Supports Expanded Safe Harbor Protections Down Under
32. Bill Gates And Other Major Investors Put $52.6 Million Into Site Sharing Unauthorized Copies Of Academic Papers
33. Ed Sheeran Vs. The CopyBots: Artist Goes To Bat For Musician That Covered His Song On Facebook
34. How Drones Help Transparency Activists To See Things The Hungarian Government Wants To Hide
35. Class-action lawsuit targets LG over legendary G4, V10 bootloop issues – Suit: LG replaced phones with faulty ones—didn’t replace out-of-warranty devices.
36. Keyword ads — Only infringing if they’re confusing
37. Apple illegally fixed prices of iPhones in Russia, investigation finds: Apple contacted retailers who were selling the iPhone at “inappropriate” prices.
38. Apple sold $4.2 billion of product in New Zealand, paid $0 local taxes: “Their tax department is even more innovative than their product designers.”
39. 10 media trends for 2017 and beyond
40. I used YouTube Red for months—here’s why I cancelled my subscription: Another $10-per-month service that isn’t totally worth it yet.
41. Insights: The Great SVOD Land Rush – British Invasions And The OTT Channel Grab
42. Researchers Just Unveiled a New Li-Fi System That’s 100 Times Faster Than Wi-Fi
43. Netflix CEO Reed Hastings: Movie Theaters Haven’t Innovated Beyond Popcorn
44. Tim League Refutes Netflix’s Reed Hastings On Movie Theater Innovation
45. The Corrupt Personalization of Netflix: The company embodies one of the most seductive myths of the algorithmic age.
46. Tech and Entertainment in the ‘Era of Mass Customization’
47. Microsoft and Sony set sights on the Netflix model: A subscription service providing ongoing revenue could be a win-win for creators and platform holders; can MS or Sony make this model work?
48. MLB Network Launches On PlayStation Vue With Exclusive World Baseball Classic Coverage
49. Microsoft’s silence over unprecedented patch delay doesn’t smell right: Canceling Patch Tuesday at the last minute warrants an explanation, not platitudes.
50. Red Flag Windows: Microsoft modifies Windows OS for Chinese government – Chinese government blocked Microsoft product purchases after NSA leaks.
51. NFL ‘Intent On Staying Contemporary’ With Technology After Streaming Games On Twitter
52. What Your Therapist Doesn’t Know: Big Data has transformed everything from sports to politics to education. It could transform mental-health treatment, too—if only psychologists would stop ignoring it.
53. The Long, Weird History Of Companies That Put Your Life Online
54. In 2010, The Social Network was searing — now it looks quaint
55. Software used to predict crime can now be scoured for bias
56. Which lawyers will win or lose in front of which judges? There’s now an app to predict that
57. Transhumanism Is the Next Step in Human Evolution
58. Kurzweil Claims That the Singularity Will Happen by 2045
59. What Rights Should We Give to Sentient Robots?
60. When beauty is in the eye of the (robo)beholder: Beauty.AI saw a lucrative problem and tried solving via algorithms. It ended poorly.
61. IP for AI: can we patent an artificial human expert?
62. SEC Issues Guidance on Robo-Advisers
63. How Aristotle Created the Computer: The philosophers he influenced set the stage for the technological revolution that remade our world.
64. Budget 2017: Why Canada’s Digital Policy Future Is Up For Grabs (Michael Geist)
65. How Navdeep Bains Can Get His #Innovation Groove Back (Michael Geist)
66. Law, Virtual Reality, and Augmented Reality (Mark A. Lemley & Eugene Volokh)

CREATIVITY

1. Supreme Court Says Decorative Fashion Design Elements Protected By Copyright Law
2. Star Athletica, L.L.C. v. Varsity Brands, Inc. (Supreme Court Of The United States)
3. Cheerleading company can get copyrights, pursue competitors, Supreme Court says: The high court ponders copyrighted uniforms, Van Gogh, and cat-shaped lamps.
4. Supreme Court Says Patent Trolls Can Wait A While Before Suing
5. Protect Fair Dealing – Canada’s Upcoming Copyright Act Review
6. Filmmaker challenges court injunction on Vancouver Aquarium documentary: BC Civil Liberties says the injunction could endanger free speech
7. The Media Scores a “Win” at the Texas Supreme Court
8. Judge Decides Free Speech Is Still A Right; Dumps Prior Restraint Order Against Mattress Review Site
9. Appeals Court Says Prior Restraint Is Perfectly Fine, Refuses To Rehear 3D-Printed Guns Case
10. Released Russian Putin Critic Recalls Prison Torture: Ildar Dadin says he was transferred to a penal colony where prison guards tortured inmates while accompanied to music of Putin’s favorite rock group
11. Garry Kasparov on the press and propaganda in Trump’s America
12. China Clamps Down On Another Serious Threat To The Middle Kingdom: Western Animal Cartoon Books For Children
13. Iconic movie scene allows copyright but not TM claim against multimedia installation: Harold Lloyd Entertainment, Inc. v. Moment Factory One, Inc., No. LA CV15-01556, 2015 WL 12765142 (C.D. Cal. Oct. 29, 2015) (Rebecca Tushnet)
14. Disney Hit With Lawsuit Claiming ‘Zootopia’ Ripped Off ‘Total Recall’ Writer
15. Jeff Koons LLC and the Centre Pompidou are both found liable for copyright infringement in Paris court case: The lawsuit concerns the reproduction of a sculpture by Koons that resembles a picture by the French photographer Jean-François Bauret
16. Spain: The battle around the “Kukuxumusu Universe” and the right of transformation, can the artist’s personal style be limited?
17. Copyright case against U2 latest to test boundary of originality and creativity
18. Scare Tactics Down Under: The Ongoing Global Effort to Mislead on Canadian Copyright (Michael Geist)
19. Marrakesh Treaty For Blind Readers Jeopardised By EU Publishing Industry Lobbying, Group Says
20. Mormon Church Tries To Censor MormonLeaks Using Copyright, Streisand Effect Takes Over
21. Sports Photographer: Don’t Mess with My Copyright
22. Photographer hits retailer over photo of player hitting Joey Bats
23. How The Grateful Dead Revolutionized Rock and Created Modern Jam Bands
24. How News Organizations Inadvertently Spread “Alternative Facts”: The way they construct stories makes it likely that readers will believe things that aren’t true
25. How the New York Times’ mobile-first strategy has turned millennials into its biggest audience
26. How TiVo Confronted the Disruptor’s Dilemma
27. SXSW has been s____ing over artists since way before the visa controversy
28. Creating in an Age of Anxiety, Depression, and Dread: Anxiety can lead to better art, but do the two have to be so mutually intertwined?A Transactional Theory of the Reader in Copyright Law (Zahr K. Said)
29. Reading the Readers (Andrew Gilden)

MEDIA, COMMUNICATIONS & NET NEUTRALITY

1. The Netflix Effect?: Foreign Sources Outspend Canadian Broadcasters and Distributors for English TV Production (Michael Geist)
2. Court of Appeals Rules that Over-the-Top Video Service is Not a Cable System Entitled to Statutory License to Retransmit TV Station Programming
3. Hope fades for cheap TV-over-Internet as FilmOn loses copyright fight: TV networks’ expert witness: “The Internet is not a communications channel.”
4. Federal Court of Appeal upholds interlocutory injunction directed at retailers of set-top boxes loaded with copyright-infringing applications
5. Let’s Talk Broadband Fund: The CRTC’s New Initiative
6. Bell and Rogers offer sports bars unpleasant choice: Give us more money or lose TSN and Sportsnet
7. Despite Gigabit Hype, Comcast Is Facing Less Broadband Competition Than Ever
8. FCC Approves First 100% Foreign Owner of US Broadcast Stations
9. ISPs say your Web browsing and app usage history isn’t “sensitive”: ISP lobby groups make case against the FCC’s broadband privacy rules.
10. The Ad Industry Is Really Excited About Plans To Gut Broadband Privacy Protections
11. DirecTV admits screwing up regional sports fees, starts issuing credits: Customers get credits after being charged different prices for the same network.
12. Donald Trump’s presidency is shaped by Fox News.
13. Google Fiber’s About-Face Provides Useful Lessons For A Broken Broadband Industry
14. How Netflix Wants to Rule the World: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at a Global TV Network
15. A timeline of Netflix’s conflicting stances on net neutrality
16. TV’s Dead Zone: How the Cable Sector Is Killing Off Struggling Networks
17. Charter’s Trying To Kill Recent Merger Conditions Banning Usage Caps, Net Neutrality Violations
18. Charter Tries To Tap Dance Out Of Lawsuit Over Substandard Broadband
19. The President’s Regulatory Agenda and the FTC
20. Senators Fighting Online Privacy Rules Take Money From Industry: Analysis shows the 22 Republican senators behind a controversial resolution have received more than $1.7 million from the industry in recent years

SURVEILLANCE & PRIVACY

1. Man jailed indefinitely for refusing to decrypt hard drives loses appeal: “Our client has now been in custody for almost 18 months,” defense attorney says.
2. Third Circuit Appeals Court Says All Writs Orders Can Be Used To Compel Passwords For Decryption
3. California court declines request to unmask author of anonymous post
4. Just Prior To Hearing Over NSL Gag Orders, Court Allows Cloudflare & CREDO Mobile To Be Named As Plaintiffs
5. TSA explains why it won’t allow electronics on some USA-bound flights
6. McDonald’s Says Twitter Account Compromised After Anti-Trump Post
7. Rep. Devin Nunes’ Hypocrisy On Display In ‘Concerns’ Over NSA Surveillance
8. Court Says FBI Doesn’t Have To Hand Over Its Rules For Surveilling Domestic Journalists
9. The New Handbook For Cyberwar Is Being Written By Russia: “It’s not that the Russians are doing something others can’t do,” a US intelligence officer said. “It’s that Russian hackers are willing to go there, to experiment and carry out attacks that others countries would back away from.”
10. Hackers Stole My Website…And I Pulled Off A $30,000 Sting Operation To Get It Back1
11. Smart Vibrator Company To Pay $3.75 Million For Private Data Collection
12. Is New York Poised to Adopt a Right to be Forgotten?
13. Privacy in VR Is Complicated and It’ll Take the Entire VR Community to Figure It Out
14. 6 Great TV Series About Privacy and Security

Jon

GAMES

1. Gamer’s Death Pushes Risks of Live Streaming Into View
2. John Carmack: ZeniMax owes me $22.5M as part of 2009 id Software deal: “Sour grapes is not an affirmative defense to breach of contract.”
3. John Carmack sues ZeniMax for $22.5m from id Software deal: Oculus CTO alleges “sour grapes” as ZeniMax refuses to pay due to the findings of its Oculus VR lawsuit
4. Oculus CTO John Carmack is suing Zenimax for $22.5M
5. Oculus VR breach of contract suit dismissed: Total Recall Technologies’ charges against Palmer Luckey thrown out by Californian court
6. Oculus in the clear of TRT confidentiality lawsuit
7. Facebook may one day have no need for Oculus
8. CITY OF HEROES for Clothing Confusable with Same Mark for Video Games, Says TTAB 
9. China will ban new Korean games from being published – report: Controversial THAAD missile system has sparked a crackdown on Korean products of many kinds
10. How emulation helped save two video game rarities: Primal Rage 2, Dreamcast’s Millennium Racer are now preserved for history.
11. Go Cyber Shopping ordered to stop its activities and pay a $12.7 Million award for selling game copiers and mod chips for Nintendo game systems
12. Nintendo Switch Has Huge Launch At GameStop, Retailer Says
13. Nintendo Switch has sold 1.5m worldwide – SuperData: And 9 out of 10 Switch owners bought Zelda with it
14. Kinda Funny’s Colin Moriarty resigns following controversial tweet: Prominent games media figure was under fire over comments widely regarded as sexist
15. The Future of Sports is Virtual
16. Washington D.C. pushing to be “the capital of eSports”: U.S. city now sponsors NRG Esports, will host live events in new $65 million stadium
17. eSports YouTube star and business partner prosecuted for operating and promoting an unlicensed gambling website 
18. Why the CIA is using games to train its operatives: “The greatest power of simulation games is that players have to operate these games themselves and know the rules.”
19. PlayStation Now to add PS4 games: Streaming service will expand catalog to current-gen console later this year
20. Sony will soon let console haters get their PS4 fix on Windows PCs: Starting with “private test”; we have good guess for PlayStation Now’s upgrade date.
21. Tencent topped mobile revenue charts in 2016 – App Annie: Supercell loses the top spot to Tencent, NetEase climbed six places to finish in third for the year
22. An Epic shift to games-as-a-service: Unreal maker’s worldwide creative director Donald Mustard discusses how changing business models upend the way competition works
23. Australian political party promises $4m games development fund: The Greens plans to “level up Western Australia” after this week’s state election
24. How to Protect Your Online Games in China
25. “Mobile PR doesn’t follow the same path as traditional gaming”
26. The Good and Bad of a Decentralized Game Industry
27. What it’s like making games in Pakistan: From indie political games to mainstream outsourcing
28. War Child Armistice campaign raises $122k through game devs: Positech Games, Wargaming, iNK Stories and BlackMill Games created peaceful playthroughs for the charity
29. Permission to cheat
30. Video: A legal expert’s guide to IP law for game devs

DIGITAL

1. How the Internet Is Saving Culture, Not Killing It (Farhad Manjoo)
2. Kodi crackdown: Premier League wins High Court order to block illegal streams – Sky, TalkTalk, BT, and Virgin will block servers that host pirated footie games.
3. UK ISPs to block set-top boxes that illegally live-stream soccer matches: Premier League wins court injunction requiring server-level blocking.
4. UK Court Grants First Live Blocking Order To Stop New Infringing Streams As Soon As They Start
5. First live blocking order granted in the UK
6. UK Local Government Confirms Surprising EU Position That Viewing Pirated Streams Probably Isn’t Illegal
7. Political Polarization On Twitter Rose Up To 20 Percent In Obama Era: An analysis of 679,000 users over last year 8 years shows how we’re becoming more divided online
8. The social media “echo chamber” is real
9. Active social media users are self-segregated and polarized in news consumption.
10. Facebook—in hate-crime clash with MPs—claims it’s “fixed” abuse review tool: Lawmaker accuses Twitter, Google, and Facebook of “commercial prostitution.”
11. Technology To Blame For Nearly All Serious Crimes: Europol – The main police agency of the EU says its officers need to get more tech-savvy, too
12. Tech’s political impact? “14 people watch me on C-SPAN… 1M on Facebook” – Senator: Social media sites aren’t bad or good—ceding them to hate is the problem.
13. How To Improve Online Comments: Test Whether People Have Read The Article Before Allowing Them To Respond
14. Tim Berners-Lee: I invented the web. Here are three things we need to change to save it – It has taken all of us to build the web we have, and now it is up to all of us to build the web we want – for everyone
15. We didn’t lose control – it was stolen: The Web we have is not broken for Google and Facebook. People farmers are reaping the rewards of their violations into our lives to the tune of tens of billions in revenue every year. How can they possibly be our allies?
16. Biotyranny and its Resistance: Who Owns Your Body?: Inspired by Foucault, Chelsea Manning and techniques like gene editing, artists and activists are taking back power over our bodies from governments and corporations.
17. AI’s PR Problem: Had artificial intelligence been named something less spooky, we’d probably worry about it less.
18. Germany May Fine Social Media Companies For Allowing Hate Speech: New bill could make Facebook and Twitter pay for not policing their platforms
19. Facebook and Twitter Could Face Fines in Germany Over Hate Speech Posts
20. Watch what you tweet! ‘Serious harm’ test clarified
21. Prenda May Be Dead, But Copyright Trolling Still Going Strong
22. The Kim Dotcom film: How to avoid a trial for 5 years and counting: Dotcom’s showmanship throws a small democracy for a loop.
23. Ed Sheeran: Piracy Is What Made Me
24. Ed Sheeran intervenes for fan, saying he will sort out Facebook copyright ban
25. ‘I Don’t See A YouTube Value Gap. Over 45% Of Our Revenue From The Platform Is From UGC’
26. Google’s Uptime App Promotes Collaborative YouTube Viewing
27. How YouTube TV stacks up against DirecTV Now, PlayStation Vue, and Sling TV: Google entered TV streaming with a feature-rich service at an aggressive price.
28. Bad Libel Law Strikes Again: Silly UK Twitter Spat Results In Six Figure Payout
29. Oil Company Files Bogus Libel Lawsuit Over ‘Substantially True’ Facebook Comment By Local Activist
30. Man behind GemCoin, a fake cryptocurrency, settles lawsuit for $71M – Judge: “Defendant has shown no sign of recognition of wrongdoing.”
31. Study: U.S. Ad-Supported Internet Generated $1.21 Trillion, 10.4 Million Jobs In 2016
32. Insights: How Snapchat Is Changing The Way The Web Works And Looks
33. Samsung Shut Out Of Arbitration In Recent Consumer Class Actions
34. EU Parliament Report Recommends Throwing Out Something Even Worse Than The Link Tax: Upload Filtering
35. Uber an avatar of innovation and progress? The economic evidence says otherwise.
36. Uber says it will stop using Greyball to evade authorities: Uber’s chief security officer says the changes won’t be immediate but gradual.
37. Uber’s Going To Follow The Rules Now, Uber Says: The company, bombarded with bad press, has stopped digging in its heels about certain high-profile issues
38. Sharing Economy Giants Are Using Data To Build “The Taking Economy,” Study Warns: Information imbalances benefitting Uber and other services might need new solutions.
39. Google tops Fortune’s 100 Best Companies to Work For: Tech giant tops list that also features NVIDIA at 39 and Activision Blizzard at 66
40. Report: Lack of Mentors, Female Role Models Top List of Barriers Facing Women in Tech
41. Why Is Silicon Valley So Awful to Women?: Tech companies are spending hundreds of millions of dollars to improve conditions for female employees. Here’s why not much has changed—and what might actually work.
42. Yahoo to give Marissa Mayer $23 million parting gift after sale to Verizon: Mayer will leave as what remains of Yahoo becomes Altaba holding company.
43. Marissa Mayer Getting $23 Million For Running Yahoo Into The Ground
44. S.E.C. Rejects Winklevoss Brothers’ Bid to Create Bitcoin E.T.F.
45. US Regulator Makes Important Decision About Bitcoin Derivatives
46. Vice Media Will Produce Original, Exclusive Programming for Snapchat
47. Hologram Sports Broadcasts Of Olympics Competition Being Considered By IT Provider Atos
48. Facebook Scores Major League Soccer Streaming Deal, Continuing Push Into Premium TV Content
49. Facebook signs deal with MLS, Univision to stream live soccer games: Games that were previously Spanish-only will be streamed in English on Facebook.
50. The optimist’s guide to the robot apocalypse
51. A Robot Lawyer Is Officially Assisting With Refugee Applications
52. Canadian firms can’t use social media to report key information, CSA rules
53. Software results in mistaken arrests, jail time? No fix needed, says judge: “Clerical errors… will occur regardless of the case management system used by the court.”
54. One Day You Might Choose The Ending To A Netflix Show: The company experiments with interactive storytelling technology
55. Wowing and washable: Google’s smart jacket wears and works well at first glance: “Blinking on your jacket is uncool”—luckily this looks the part while having its brains.
56. Common Ethical Issues To Consider When Researching Jurors And Witnesses On Social Media
57. Why China’s internet use has overtaken the West
58. Advertising in Windows has reached an exasperating new low
59. ICANN’s Special Privileges for Trademark Owners are The.Worst
60. Trademarks and Digital Goods (Mark P. McKenna & Lucas Osborn)
61. Are Algorithms In Tune With Music?: What impact do algorithms have for music curation and creation? 

CREATIVITY

1. Canada Says It Won’t Attend Special 301 Hearing Because USTR Prefers Industry Allegations To Facts And Data
2. Is Blacklock’s Now Engaging in a Strategy of Start, Stay and Delay? (Howard Knopf)
3. French court finds Jeff Koons guilty of copyright infringement
4. When Morality and Copyright Collide
5. Copyright: the right to exploit vs the right not to exploit
6. Concordia University caught on the wrong side of copyright
7. Who is on the Wrong Side?: Why the Copyright Mistake at Concordia Highlights the Problems with Collective Licensing (Michael Geist)
8. Yes We Scan: Why Concordia Should Not Shelve Its Book Scanner (Michael Geist)
9. Breaking News: OUP and other Publishers Withdraw Copyright Suit Against Delhi University and Photocopier
10. Photocopying Textbooks Is Fair Use In India: Western Publishers Withdraw Copyright Suit Against Delhi University
11. UC Berkley To Remove More Than 20,000 Online Videos From Public Access In Response To DOJ Captioning Demand 
12. Get back to whom you once belonged: Paul McCartney seeks to reclaim ownership of music catalog through interesting provision of copyright act 
13. ‘Fake news’: the best thing that’s happened to journalism – Fake News has upset a lot of people and caused real damage but it’s been good news for journalism analysts like me. I’ve never had more interest in a media issue than this. I’ve never been busier talking and researching a topic and it’s consequences. Here are some notes that I use when I give talks about fake news.
14. How South Korea’s Fake News Hijacked a Democratic Crisis
15. Trump ‘Fake News’ Story Punished In Tanzania: A Tanzanian news outlet suspended nine people after airing a false story claiming that Trump thought its president was an “African hero.”
16. Fixing Fake News Won’t Fix Journalism: Scammers have become a scapegoat for the ailing press. What we really need is a deeper fix.
17. This Article Won’t Change Your Mind: The facts on why facts alone can’t fight false beliefs
18. SXSW has rescinded its incendiary immigration policy after a huge backlash
19. When Art Meets Power
20. Ad Agencies And Accountability
21. China Busily Approving ‘Trump’ Trademarks With Stunning Speed
22. Judge Allows for Possibility “Marilyn Monroe” Is Too Generic for Trademark
23. No Photographs, Please, We Are French
24. The Role Insurance Can Play in Your IP Strategy
25. In liberal Hollywood, a conservative minority faces backlash in the age of Trump
26. Are Black Brits Black Enough to Play Black Americans?: Samuel L. Jackson questioned the casting of black British actors in American roles on Hot 97 earlier this week, but his comments neglect both shared history and the reality of Britain’s entertainment industry
27. The Fate Of The Critic In The Clickbait Age
28. Pi(e) Is Not Protected By Copyright Laws
29. Music as a Matter of Law (Joseph Fishman) 

MEDIA, COMMUNICATIONS & NET NEUTRALITY

1. For the first time, more people subscribe to Netflix than have DVR: The streaming service has dramatically changed how Americans watch TV.
2. The Cord Cutting The Cable Industry Says Isn’t Happening, Keeps Happening
3. USAToday Latest News Outlet To Completely Miss The Point Of Cord Cutting
4. New York City Sues Verizon For Fiber Optic Bait And Switch
5. 1 million NYC homes can’t get Verizon FiOS, so the city just sued Verizon: Verizon wants another four years to cover remaining 1 million households.
6. Is There Any Rhyme or Reason for Which TV Networks are Included in Skinny Bundles?
7. Net neutrality hurts health care and helps porn, Republican senator claims: Does the senator’s argument make any sense? Let’s look at the facts.
8. Senate Democrats question FCC chair’s independence from Trump: Dems want promise that Pai won’t “penalize free speech” to punish Trump enemies.
9. Net neutrality DOA? Here’s what’s next for the internet
10. On Eve of Broadband Privacy Rule’s Effective Date, FCC Pauses Implementation 
11. AT&T allegedly “discriminated” against poor people in broadband upgrades: “Digital redlining” leaves poor people with the slowest Internet, report says.
12. In Dodging FCC Review, AT&T’s Time Warner Mega-Merger Just Got Much Easier Under Trump
13. FCC Chairman Ajit Pai Interview: Media Ownership Rules ‘Quite Antiquated’
14. After escaping net neutrality probe, Verizon expands data cap exemptions: With net neutrality worries gone, FiOS TV goes “data-free” on Verizon Wireless.
15. DirecTV’s ‘Regional Sports Fees’ Make No Coherent Sense, Company Won’t Explain Why
16. Mayors slam AT&T for slow Internet, long phone outages: “AT&T has reneged on its responsibility to customers,” mayor says.
17. Will The Investigation Into Fox News Be Blunted Now That Preet Is Gone
18. Hannity pretends Crowley didn’t plagiarize: Are Monica Crowley and Sean Hannity in denial about Crowley’s plagiarism? Brian Stelter says Hannity hurts his viewers by ignoring real reporting.
19. Law School vs. TV Station: Showdown Over Racial Bias Questions
20. When times get tough, media consolidates. Tech? Not so much.: Code Advisors partner Quincy Smith talks with Recode’s Kara Swisher about the state of M&A on Recode Decode.
21. Compliance and Enforcement Decision CRTC 2017-65: William Rapanos – Violations of Canada’s Anti-Spam Legislation
22. Google Fiber Was Doomed From the Start: The internet access answer won’t come from private markets, but rather from policies that make for competitive networks. (Susan Crawford)
23. Amendments to the Films Act and the Broadcasting Act (Singapore)

SURVEILLANCE & PRIVACY

1. US charges two Russian agents with ordering hack of 500m Yahoo accounts: Russian law enforcement agency that works with FBI hired Yahoo hackers.
2. Russian Agents Were Behind Yahoo Hack, U.S. Says
3. Are White House Officials Breaking the Law by Using Secret Messaging Apps
4. Secretary of State Tillerson used e-mail alias as Exxon CEO: Climate change investigation leads New York AG to request “Wayne Tracker” e-mails.
5. Privacy commissioner investigating Canada Border Services Agency over electronic media searches
6. High Court reserves judgment in Facebook case: Data watchdog wants EU court to decide on European Commission data-transfer rulings
7. Constitution Protects Publication of Politicians’ Home Address/Phone Number–Publius v. Boyer-Vine (Eric Goldman)
8. Advertisers look forward to buying your Web browsing history from ISPs: Ad groups thank Republican lawmakers for move to kill ISP privacy rules.
9. NY Legislators Looking At Installing A Free Speech-Stomping ‘Right To Be Forgotten’
10. French Government Adopts Long-Awaited Decree Compensating ISPs for HADOPI-relatedTasks
11. the internet of (very private) things (Brenda Pritchard)
12. Maker of ‘Smart’ Vibrators Settles Data Collection Lawsuit for $3.75 Million
13. Vibrator maker ordered to pay out C$4m for tracking users’ sexual activity: Canadian manufacturer We-Vibe collected data about temperature and vibration intensity, revealing intimate information without customers’ knowledge
14. Judge Rules For Golden State Warriors, Dismisses Eavesdropping App Lawsuit
15. FBI’s methods to spy on journalists should remain classified, judge rules – Reaction: “It is antithetical to a democracy that supposedly values a free press.”
16. US spies still won’t tell Congress the number of Americans caught in dragnet: Electronic surveillance programs Prism, Upstream hang in the congressional balance.
17. Despite Stream Of Leaks Exposing Tremendous Gov’t Surveillance Capabilities, James Comey Still Complaining About ‘Going Dark’
18. Congressman Introduces Bill That Would Allow People And Companies To ‘Hack Back’ After Attacks
19. Controversial ‘Vigilante’ App Relaunches To Help People Go Film Police
20. Tobii Recommends Explicit Consent for Recording Eye Tracking Data
21. Threat via Whisper prompts FBI to show up: “holy **** I’m… going to get raided”: Seriously, don’t post violent threats on “anonymous” messaging apps.
22. There were more device searches at US border last month than all of 2015: CBP has not answered Ars’ questions; ACLU has heard no explanation.
23. Digital Privacy at the U.S. Border: Protecting the Data On Your Devices and In the Cloud
24. Big data to get intellectual property protection in Japan: Companies would be freer to sell information they now collect and hoard
25. Consumer Reports Proposes Open Source Security Standard To Keep The Internet Of Things From Sucking
26. DeepMind says no quick fix for verifying health data access
27. Data Mining for Personally Targeted Politics
28. Judge Grants Search Warrant Demanding Info On Everyone Who Searched For A Certain Person’s Name
29. Geohot’s new automated-driving device can only be redeemed by coughing up data: Answers questions about NHTSA letter from October, Tesla snafu.
30. Consumer protection & privacy paramount at the FTC Forum on Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Blockchain

Jon

GAMES

1. Canadian DMCA in Action: Court Awards Massive Damages in First Major Anti-Circumvention Copyright Ruling (Michael Geist)
2. Nintendo Of America Inc. v. Jeramie Douglas King And Go Cyber Shopping (2005) Ltd. (Federal Court of Canada March 1, 2017)
3. Nintendo Awarded $12.7 million for Circumvention of Technological Protection Measures in Precedent-Setting Case
4. Nintendo awarded $9.5M in case against flashcart distributor
5. Nintendo claims victory in Canadian case over mods: 3DS maker lauds $12.76 million judgment against Waterloo-based distributor of mod chips and flash carts
6. TPMs Are Alive and Well: Canada’s Federal Court Awards Nintendo $12.7-million in Damages 
7. Canadian Court Chips Away At Anti-Circumvention Exceptions In Massive Win For Nintendo
8. Riot awarded $10 million following lawsuit against LeagueSharp
9. Riot Games wins $10 million in LeagueSharp suit: League of Legends cheat service is now under Riot’s control
10. Digital Homicide’s $10 Million Lawsuit Against Game Critic Gone
11. Ghost Recon lands Ubisoft in trouble with Bolivian government: Wildlands sparks diplomatic incident over depiction of drug problem, with possibility of legal action
12. Ghost Recon Wildlands’ portrayal of Bolivia prompts government complaint
13. Bolivia Initiates Diplomatic Action With France Over Portrayal In Fictional Video Game
14. US giant, Valve Corporation, fined over $US2 million for its no refund policy
15. Elite: Dangerous crowdfunding campaign reinstated after copyright flap – Spidermind Games’ crowdfunding campaign back in business, closes Wednesday morning.
16. Nintendo Switch launches into a storm of expectations: Nintendo’s strategy for its new console is both familiar and brand new; as a result, there are many confused and even conflicting expectations for its first year
17. Nintendo Switch to sell 5 million in 2017 – SuperData: “Investors are looking for a solid win by Nintendo that at least approximates the success of the Wii”
18. Nintendo’s U.S. chief responds to our biggest gripes about the company’s new console
19. Switch will get streaming media “in time”: Nintendo of America president says company in talks with Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon, launch focus was on system as a gaming device
20. Nintendo says dead Switch pixels are “normal,” which isn’t wrong: Industry standards and LCD makers’ warranties generally allow for some leeway.
21. Don’t read too much into the Switch’s successful launch numbers: Strong opening weekend is necessary, but not sufficient, for long-term success.
22. Indies on Nintendo: “We’ve been treated like royalty” – Is the Switch a new home for indies? We speak with Nintendo and multiple developers about the platform’s appeal
23. Oculus drops Rift and Touch price by $200: HTC doesn’t “feel the need” to cut price of the Vive due to “incredible success” so far
24. Is Xbox Game Pass really a threat to physical retail?: GAME and GameStop investors have been frightened by Microsoft’s new digital initiative
25. Microsoft introduces the Xbox Live Creators program: Now anyone can publish Xbox Live-enabled games on Xbox One and Windows 10 PCs, no dev kit needed
26. Twitter agrees to eSports streaming deal with ESL and Dreamhack
27. Twitter will live stream 1,500 hours of eSports, including original content
28. CCP Games: How ‘Sparc’ is Made to be a ‘Real Sport’, Not a ‘Sports Game’
29. Twitch Introduces Pulse – The Gamer News Feed
30. An NBA Star Thinks He Can Help Video Gaming Competitions Grow Up: Video game sports are on the cusp of going mainstream. Can game publishers, team owners, and investors like Rick Fox figure out a business model?
31. No Man’s Sky creator describes issues with launch, crashes, money: “Labs” unveiled at end of No Man’s Sky panel along with acknowledgement of launch woes.
32. Sid Meier tells Civilization’s origin story, cites children’s history books: Lack of mod support was “horribly wrong;” responds to question about remaster.
33. Slouching toward relevant video games: People respond differently to stress, says Brie Code. Design for it
34. How failure, copycats, and flops helped Atari find success: “I thought it was going to be a throwaway… It just turned out to be fun. We were staying after work to play the damn thing.” – Bushnell shared his first impressions and experiences with the game that would eventually become Pong.
35. 16-hour video game binges almost ruined Calgary teen’s life: After an addiction to gaming brought on depression, family problems and a wish to end his life, Cam Adair finally broke free.
36. A second chance for Take-Two – 10 Years Ago This Month: A shareholder revolt rights the ship for the Grand Theft Auto publisher in the wake of Hot Coffee
37. UK games industry voices Brexit concerns in latest UKIE report
38. UK Industry braces for Brexit impact, with 40% considering relocation: UKIE study finds British studios primarily concerned over access to talent
39. Unity Without Borders offers a path to Unite Europe for devs affected by Trump
40. Pokémon Go: augmented reality tests IP (Andres Guadamuz)
41. Report: China halts licensing for South Korea-made games amid political turmoil

DIGITAL

1. Snap explodes another 14% on second day of trading
2. NBCUniversal invests $500 million in Snapchat maker’s IPO
3. Snapchat says 42 million people are watching its NFL content
4. Shares of Snapchat Are Way Higher Than Expected
5. How Mobile Dominates YouTube Viewership
6. Uber and Airbnb are not the future of capitalism
7. Uber Maybe Not Taking Its COO Search Very Seriously
8. Important Ruling On Perennially-Problematic Creative Commons Non-Commercial License
9. Italian firm thinks Facebook’s “Nearby Places” is a copycat, gets feature shut down: Court ordered Facebook to suspend the feature or pay 5,000 euros per day.
10. Zuckerberg World President: From a Harvard dormitory at the ripe age of 20, Mark Zuckerberg created one of the most successful companies of the Internet Age. He is liked and respected by his employees and leads what is probably the Valley’s best run organization. Today, Facebook has become so powerful that it challenges established political structures and threatens to undemocratically twist the will of The People.
11. Massive Internet Outage Had A Pretty Dumb Cause: A Typo – Pity the poor Amazon programmer and their errant finger
12. Terms and Conditions (Rebecca Tushnet)
13. Industry, and Apple, opposing “right to repair” laws: Apple claimed jailbreaking would embolden hackers—says same about right to repair.
14. A right to repair: why Nebraska farmers are taking on John Deere and Apple – Farmers like fixing their own equipment, but rules imposed by big corporations are making it impossible. Now this small showdown could have a big impact
15. The Art Of Manipulating Algorithms:
16. Joy Buolamwini: How I’m fighting bias in algorithms
17. Patent-holding company’s $533M verdict against Apple is dust on appeal: Massive verdict would have been largest ever for a non-practicing entity.
18. Copyright Troll Sues Tor Exit Node, Gets Partial Win
19. Why Canada is Now Home to Some of the Toughest Anti-Piracy Rules in the World…And What Should Come Next (Michael Geist)
20. UK: Search engines agree to demote pirate sites in search result listings 
21. German Judge Fines Father Because He Didn’t Tell His Kid Not To Engage In Piracy
22. UK government publishes digital strategy to create and support a secure and thriving data economy 
23. The UK Government Digital Strategy is out, and it’s rubbish
24. “Save The Meme” Campaign Protests EU’s Proposed Piracy Filters
25. Politico publishes (part of) draft copyright report by MEP Comodini Cachia
26. Electronic marketing and internet use in Canada
27. 4chan: The Skeleton Key to the Rise of Trump – Trump’s younger supporters know he’s an incompetent joke; in fact, that’s why they support him.
28. The Golden State of Hate: How the Internet Made Hate Respectable
29. South Africa Introduces Revised Cybercrime Legislation, Acknowledging Criticism
30. PR-Stupid JetSmarter Will Charge Journalists $2000 If They Don’t Write Positive Reviews
31. Soundcloud Tells Guy It Needs To Kill His Account Of 8 Years Because Someone Else Trademarked His Name
32. Silicon Valley Needs To Get Its Act Together On Sexual Harassment & Discrimination
33. Google’s Artificial Brain Learns to Find Cat Videos
34. Robots’ Legal Personality (Horst Eidenmuller)
35. Going for Gold: 3D Printing, Jewellery and the Future of Intellectual Property Law
36. Why the biggest challenge facing AI is an ethical one
37. How Artificial Intelligence Will Change Everything: Baidu’s Andrew Ng and Singularity’s Neil Jacobstein say this time, the hype about artificial intelligence is real
38. Why Netflix Lets You Subtitle All Your Shows In Comic Sans
39. Alcatel A5 LED: Because someone, somewhere wants a phone that doubles up as a mobile disco. Maybe.
40. Virtual Reality: How to protect your IP rights in a virtual world
41. Blockchain applications may be caught by Ontario’s securities law 
42. Blockchain and Secured Lending in Canada
43. Bitcoin Is A Chaotic Bedlam Of Manipulation And Deceit And That’s Just The Way We Like It
44. A Single Bitcoin Transaction Takes Thousands of Times More Energy Than a Credit Card Swipe
45. Mossberg: Tech’s ruling class casts a big shadow 

CREATIVITY

1. Audiences no longer care about platforms. The content creator is ‘king.’: Sweet Paul, Cheddar and Axios are proof that media consumers will change their behavior and go where a creator has produced interesting content.
2. Andrews v Sony ATV Music Publishing
3. SXSW Faces Heavy Criticism For Immigration Clause In Artist Contract: Downtown Boys, PWR BTTM, Priests, and more have signed an open letter demanding that SXSW retract the clause.
4. Downtown Boys, Priests, Sheer Mag, More Sign Open Letter Demanding SXSW Rescind Deportation Clause: “We are calling on SXSW to immediately drop this clause from their contract, and cease any collusion with immigration officials that puts performers in danger”
5. State Rep Diego Bernal pulls out of SXSW panel amid immigration controversy: “I will not in good conscience participate in a festival that uses the threat of deportation as part of it’s business practices.”
6. Federal Law Now Prohibits Censoring of Unfavorable Reviews
7. Careful clearing photos from social media for news reporting
8. Focus: Appropriation of personality after death issue in estates
9. Canadian Government on U.S. Special 301: We Don’t Recognize Validity of Flawed Report (Michael Geist)
10. Text Protecting Indigenous Cultural Expressions Streamlined At WIPO, But Divergence Persists
11. Why newspaper subscriptions are on the rise
12. How Disaster Science Explains the Oscars Mix-Up: Major errors don’t cause disasters. Banal mistakes and human nature do.
13. Why does anybody own CRISPR? An argument against academic IP
14. The Racist Legacy of NYC’s Anti-Dancing Law
15. The Defend Trade Secrets Act Isn’t An “Intellectual Property” Law (Eric Goldman)

MEDIA, COMMUNICATIONS & NET NEUTRALITY

1. Study: Breitbart-led right-wing media ecosystem altered broader media agenda (Yochai Benkler, Robert Faris, Hal Roberts & Ethan Zuckerman)
2. I Tried Trump’s Media Diet. Now Nothing Surprises Me Anymore
3. Trump’s FCC chairman says he won’t just do what Trump tells him to: Ajit Pai met with Trump Monday but won’t say what they discussed.
4. Trump renominates FCC Chair Ajit Pai for another five-year term: Cable lobby hails Pai for pushing “pro-consumer agenda” and “Internet freedom.”
5. The FCC Helped Make the Internet Great: Now, It’s Walking Away
6. Op-ed: The Internet belongs to the people, not powerful corporate interests – Senator Chuck Schumer writes for Ars – Keep net neutrality rules in place.
7. Op-ed: Protect the Open Internet with a bipartisan law – Senator John Thune writes for Ars – Time for a new approach on net neutrality.
8. Charter CEO Touts Pro-Industry Cable Deregulation Under Trump
9. FCC Boss Calls Net Neutrality A ‘Mistake,’ Repeats Debunked Claim It Stifled Broadband Investment
10. FCC Partially Kills Rules Requiring ISPs Be Clear About Usage Caps, Hidden Fees
11. Broadband lobbyists celebrate as FCC halts data security requirements: Data security rule would have confused Internet users, FCC chair claims.
12. FCC Broadband Privacy Rule On Hold, Likely Dead
13. Sprint’s long VoIP patent war leads to $140M verdict against Time Warner Cable: Can Sprint’s patent lawyers force competitors to pay up for VoIP?
14. CRTC says No to “backdoor MVNO” Sugar Mobile
15. Why proper MVNOs, unlimited data won’t happen in Canada
16. Brad Wall says people have spoken and they don’t want SaskTel sold
17. CRTC releases data on device unlock revenue made by Canadian carriers
18. YouTube TV Improves Outlook For AT&T Time Warner Merger
19. Report: Sprint “betting big on Trump,” could merge with T-Mobile or Comcast – Sprint owner weighs a few possible mergers, makes case to Trump administration.

SURVEILLANCE & PRIVACY

1. WikiLeaks says it has obtained trove of CIA hacking tools
2. Helpful(?) coding tips from the CIA’s school of hacks: WikiLeaks dump includes a best (and worst) practices guide for exploit developers.
3. How the CIA Can Hack Your Phone, PC, and TV (Says WikiLeaks)
4. CIA Leak Shows Mobile Phones Vulnerable, Not Encryption
5. Trump Administration Wants A Clean Reauthorization For NSA Surveillance
6. Selfie With Merkel by Refugee Became a Legal Case, but Facebook Won in German Court
7. Court Tells Cops They Can’t Use GPS Data Gathered After Suspect They Were Tracking Sold The Vehicle
8. DARPA’s Brain Chip Implants Could Be the Next Big Mental Health Breakthrough—Or a Total Disaster
9. Master spy behind Snoopers’ Charter wants to gag leakers, journalists: Cabinet office refuses to deny that ex-MI6 man Charles Farr is behind espionage law review.
10. To keep Tor hack source code secret, DOJ dismisses child porn case
11. Yahoo’s data breach costs general counsel his job
12. The cost of Yahoo’s data breach
13. BBC screenshots child abuse images on Facebook—Facebook reports it to cops: “Probe shouldn’t involve making more images,” say CPS rules. Did BBC follow them?
14. Prenda’s John Steele Pleads Guilty, Admits To Basically Everything
15. VP Who Thought Clinton Private Emails Were Bad Also Had Private Emails: Mike Pence used an AOL account to conduct official business, which was hacked
16. The Vatican Announces Plan To Protect Pope Francis’ Publicity Rights
17. India Opening Up World’s Largest Biometric Database For Commercial Applications, Despite Inadequate Privacy Protection
18. Court Refuses to Dismiss Biometric Privacy Action over Facial Recognition Technology Used by Google Photos 
19. EFF: Data Collected From Utility Smart Meters Should Be Protected By The Fourth Amendment
20. CIA Leaks Unsurprisingly Show The Internet Of Broken Things Is A Spy’s Best Friend
21. GOP senators’ new bill would let ISPs sell your Web browsing data: Senate resolution would throw out FCC’s entire privacy rulemaking.
22. Body Cameras Used By UK Local Government To Catch People Dropping Litter And Walking Dogs
23. The Validity of EU-U.S. Personal Data Export Tools: A Pending Issue 
24. Hacker George Hotz cancels Model S order after Tesla reminds him about IP theft: Was set to receive a car last week, then came a last-minute call from Tesla legal.
25. Vizio Fails To Dodge Class Action Over Its Spying ‘Smart’ Televisions
26. Uber’s “Greyball” tool helped company evade authorities in Portland, Paris
27. Here’s A Tip: If You’re Desiging Special Apps To Hide From Regulators, You’re Going To Get In Trouble

Jon

GAMES

1. ZeniMax Seeks Injunction to Halt Oculus’ Use Rift & Gear VR SDK and More
2. ZeniMax files for injunction over Oculus code: If granted, it would apply to games on sale for Oculus Rift and Gear VR
3. Zenimax files to halt sales of Oculus tech containing stolen code
4. Lindsay Lohan Won’t Put Her GTA5 Lawsuit Out Of Its Misery
5. Ark: Survival Evolved program will pay 15 modders $4k a month – Selection will be evaluated and refreshed each month, with best modders paid until their content is finished
6. Studio Wildcard will pay modders $4K a month to create Ark mods
7. Peter Moore leaving EA to join Liverpool Football Club as CEO
8. EA’s Peter Moore named CEO of Liverpool FC: Sega, Xbox and EA exec obtains dream job at the club he has supported his whole life
9. EA’s Ultimate Team now worth $800 million annually: CFO Blake Jorgensen says EA spends “a lot of time thinking about” how to add similar mechanics to Battlefield and Battlefront
10. EA Competitive FIFA Competitions To Air On BT Sport, Adding U.K. Market To TV Coverage
11. FIFA 17 matches to be broadcast live on TV for the first time ever
12. Xbox apes Netflix with $10 per month, 100-game unlimited “Pass”: Gamestop stock dips as Microsoft offers free legacy downloads for one monthly price.
13. Twitch Will Soon Start Selling Games
14. Twitch will take on Steam by selling PC games: Streamers will receive 5% cut of all games sold
15. Official: Sony Sold Nearly 1 Million PlayStation VR Headsets in 4.5 Months, Despite Limited Stock
16. Sony Reveals Playstation VR Sales So Far: Over 900,000 people have purchased the headset.
17. Lifetime Minecraft sales hit 122 million
18. Overwatch named Game of the Year at the DICE Awards: Blizzard and Naughty Dog collected four awards each, Playdead took home three
19. Blizzard’s Overwatch lands game of the year at DICE Awards
20. “Everything I said was wrong”: At GDC, a panel of industry veterans fessed up to years of giving bad advice
21. 10 most influential games consoles – in pictures
22. 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.

DIGITAL

1. Uber might genuinely be worried that #DeleteUber is working: “Everyone at Uber is deeply hurting after reading Susan Fowler’s blog post.”
2. Uber Case Could Be a Watershed for Women in Tech
3. Travis Kalanick, Uber Chief, Apologizes After Fight With Driver
4. Hootsuite CEO Directs Comment-Seeking Reporter To Phone Sex Line: Hootsuite CEO Ryan Holmes, responding to a story published by Bloomberg Business today, publicly asked the reporter call him at a number that’s actually a paid sex hotline.
5. Milo Yiannopoulos apologizes to abuse victims: After comments surfaced in which he seemed to endorse sex between younger boys and men, Milo Yiannopoulos resigned from Breitbart News and apologized to abuse victims, saying that he was also sexually abused as a child.
6. Meet the 16-year-old Canadian girl who took down Milo Yiannopoulos: This is the real story of how the video that took down Milo surfaced.
7. Do Sex Offenders Have A Free Speech Right To Use Facebook?: The U.S. Supreme Court considers whether social media is a privilege or a right in modern society
8. Section 230 Protects Grindr From Harrassed User’s Claims–Herrick v. Grindr (Eric Goldman)
9. Does Donald Trump Open The Way For Sex Offenders To Get Back On Twitter?
10. Twitter to police abuse in major shift
11. Case Preview: Jack Monroe v Katie Hopkins, Twitter libel trial about meaning and serious harm
12. Federal Judge Says Providing Web Hosting Isn’t Even Close To The Same Thing As Contributory Infringement
13. Odd lawsuit fails to ding FedEx for allowing copies of CC-licensed material: Judge dismisses case that could have upended Creative Commons copyright model.
14. Amazon to pay $1,000,000 to Competition Bureau for Unsubstantiated Sales Prices
15. Google Report: 99.95 Percent Of DMCA Takedown Notices Are Bot-Generated BS Buckshot
16. Why The DMCA’s Notice & Takedown Already Has First Amendment Problems… And RIAA/MPAA Want To Make That Worse
17. Revisiting If Suing Bloggers For Copyright Infringement Can Be Profitable–BWP v. Mishka
18. Tim Berners-Lee Endorses DRM In HTML5, Offers Depressingly Weak Defense Of His Decision
19. Tim Berners-Lee Endorses DRM In HTML5, Offers Depressingly Weak Defense Of His Decision
20. ICANN Is Moving Toward Copyright Enforcement, Academic Says
21. Kobo’s Quest for Status Quo in the E-books Market: A Never Ending Story
22. Copyright Law Versus Internet Culture (EFF)
23. Famous patent “troll’s” lawsuit against Google booted out of East Texas: Eolas has new patents, even after an epic trial loss.
24. Encryption patent that roiled Newegg is dead on appeal: Another Newegg patent victory, though Lee Cheng has moved on.
25. Disappointing To See Google’s Waymo Sue Over Patents
26. IBM gets a patent on “out-of-office” e-mail messages—in 2017: The US Patent Office sees no history, hears no history—unless it’s in patents.
27. Sony, Microsoft Lobby Against Right To Repair Bills (Yet Refuse To Talk About It)
28. Report: Disney lays off ~80 as it pulls back on supporting YouTubers
29. People now watch 1 billion hours of YouTube per day
30. YouTube Tops 1 Billion Hours of Video a Day, on Pace to Eclipse TV: Google unit posts 10-fold increase in viewership since 2012, boosted by algorithms personalizing user lineups
31. YouTube TV is the company’s new live TV subscription service: $35 per month for six accounts and access to live broadcast and cable networks.
32. Inside Another Internet Troll Factory: This Time In Sweden, But With Russian Connections
33. Russians Want To Make Wikipedia More ‘Truthful’ And Patriotic: Russia’s ‘youth parliament’ is trying to flood the site with thousands of articles to repair Russia’s image
34. Everything Is F’d And I’m Pretty Sure It’s The Internet’s Fault
35. Will Democracy Survive Big Data and Artificial Intelligence?: We are in the middle of a technological upheaval that will transform the way society is organized. We must make the right decisions now
36. Using VR as a Tool to Cultivate Compassion with Condition One
37. Google has shipped 10M Cardboard VR viewers, 160M Cardboard app downloads
38. New $10 Raspberry Pi Zero comes with Wi-Fi and Bluetooth
39. Post Cable Networks
40. The Future of Shopping Is More Discrimination: For you, a very special price indeed.
41. Notice and Takedown in the Domain Name System: ICANN’s Ambivalent Drift into Online Content Regulation (Annemarie Bridy)

CREATIVITY

1. The Internet Is Silencing Artists, According To An Artist On The Internet
2. Fan Creation & Copyright Survey: Preliminary Results
3. Pierce v. Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc.: District court dismisses real estate agent’s suit against Warner Bros. over “Ellen DeGeneres Show” segment on funny signs that resulted in harassing phone calls and messages, rejecting claims for false light invasion of privacy, defamation and intentional infliction of emotional distress.
4. Who Has All the Content?
5. Remix Culture Meets the Scolds
6. The Copyrightability of Yoga Poses, Dance Moves and Exercise Routines 
7. No Swiss protection for Louboutin’s red-soled shoes
8. Parties in Star Trek Fan Litigation Don’t Boldly Go Into the Unknown; Settle Claims
9. IP Scholars Warn About Stringent Copyright Rules In Asian RCEP Agreement
10. Industrial Design Registration In Canada – Everything You Need To Know about CIPO’s Six New Practice Notices
11. Blacklock’s Litany of Litigation Lengthens (Howard Knopf)
12. Tiffany & Co., Defenders Of Intellectual Property, Sued For Copyright Infringement
13. Liam O’Melinn, ‘The Ghost of Millar v Taylor: The Mythical Origins of Copyright’
14. Canadian Trademark Cases 2016 – And the awards go to…
15. What’s in a hangtag? that which we call Coach
16. The First Sale Doctrine and Establishing Legal Claims to Overcome It 
17. The 10 Current Scent Trademarks Currently Recognized by the U.S. Patent Office
18. ‘Fake News’ Now Means Whatever People Want It To Mean, And Legislating It Away Is A Slippery Slope Toward Censorship
19. Journalism can’t afford for corrections to be next victim of ‘fake news’ frenzy 

MEDIA, COMMUNICATIONS & NET NEUTRALITY

1. YouTube launches its own streaming TV service: Another way to cut the cord
2. YouTube Unveils Live TV Bundle for $35 Per Month With 40 Channels
3. FCC head Ajit Pai: You can thank me for carriers’ new unlimited data plans – But there are good reasons to believe he’s wrong.
4. FCC Boss Falsely Claims His Attacks On Net Neutrality Have Already Made The Wireless Sector More Competitive
5. Under Ajit Pai’s FCC, mobile ISPs can charge tolls to bypass data caps: Plenty of customers still have data caps, and FCC won’t halt zero-rating.
6. FCC chief doesn’t plan to review AT&T–Time Warner merger
7. FCC lets “billion-dollar” ISPs hide fees and data caps, Democrat says: Even small ISPs owned by conglomerates exempt from billing rules after FCC vote.
8. ISPs who don’t want competition get good news from FCC chair: FCC to kill merger condition that required competition in 1 million locations.
9. The FCC’s new chairman just had his first real interview – here’s what it tells us about him
10. FCC to halt rule that protects your private data from security breaches: FCC chair plans to halt security rule and set up vote to kill privacy regime.
11. New FCC Chairman Moves to Roll Back Privacy Rules for Internet Service Providers 
12. Joint Statement Of FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn And FTC Commissioner Terrell Mcsweeny On Indefinite Suspension Of Data Security Rules
13. FCC Resolves Investigation of Improper Billing and Other Violations by Two TRS Providers
14. FCC Adopts Broader Exemption from Enhanced Open Internet Transparency Disclosure Requirements for Small Providers
15. FCC Boss Moves To Kill Broadband Privacy Protections. You Know, To Help The Little Guy.
16. Hack of Wireless Carrier Leads to Admonishment by FCC
17. FCC Approves For the First Time 100% Foreign Ownership of US Broadcast Stations
18. FCC Announces Details for Mobility Fund Phase II
19. FCC Finalizes Criteria for CAF Phase II Auction
20. FCC Approves ILEC Shift to GAAP Accounting, Mitigates Pole Rate Impact
21. The Alternative Facts of Cable Companies: A state attorney general sues Spectrum for ripping off customers. It won’t force change, but it could start a movement. (Susan Crawford)
22. Comcast’s Decision To Charge Roku Users A Bogus Fee Highlights Its Uncanny Ability To Shoot Innovation In The Foot

SURVEILLANCE & PRIVACY

1. CSIS saw ‘no high privacy risks’ with keeping personal data on Canadians
2. Judge: No, feds can’t nab all Apple devices and try everyone’s fingerprints – “Such Fourth Amendment intrusions are [not] justified based on the facts articulated.”
3. Judge Rejects Warrant Seeking To Force Everyone At A Searched Location To Unlock Seized Electronic Devices
4. Judge: FBI’s NIT Warrant Invalid And IP Addresses Do Have An Expectation Of Privacy, But No Suppression Granted
5. Judge Rules Against California Law Allowing Actors to Hide Age on IMDB: Federal judge granted an injunction against the law, saying it almost certainly violates the First Amendment and may not be enforced for now
6. Speaker’s Corner: Hidden camera has implications for privacy law
7. China Orders Every Vehicle In Region Troubled By Ethnic Unrest To Be Fitted With Satnav Tracker
8. Amazon Formally Resists Warrant For Echo Recordings In Murder Case: People have a First Amendment right to privacy when they ask Alexa for stuff, Amazon says
9. Amazon refusing to hand over data on whether Alexa overheard a murder – Amazon: Alexa and its users have a First Amendment right of protected speech.
10. Sean Spicer Launches Witch Hunt Over The ‘Secure’ App He Just Said Was No Big Deal
11. Internet of Things Teddy Bear Leaked 2 Million Parent and Kids Message Recordings: A company that sells “smart” teddy bears leaked 800,000 user account credentials—and then hackers locked it and held it for ransom.
12. Creepy IoT teddy bear leaks >2 million parents’ and kids’ voice messages: Publicly accessible database wasn’t even protected by a password.
13. German Regulators Urge Parents To Destroy WiFi Connected Doll Over Surveillance Fears
14. Yahoo cookie hacks affected 32 million accounts, CEO foregoes bonus: Nation-sponsored attackers targeted 26 specific accounts.
15. Jury Acquits Restaurant Owner Of Obstruction Charges For Tweeting Out Photo Of Teens Involved In Police Alcohol Sting
16. UK forced to derail Snoopers’ Charter blanket data slurp after EU ruling: Key provisions in Investigatory Powers law put on ice after DRIPA judgment.
17. Netherlands Looks To Join The Super-Snooper Club With New Mass Surveillance Law
18. Welfare Agency Responds To Criticism By Feeding Complainant’s Personal Info To Obliging Journalist
19. Winterville woman sues beer company over use of Facebook photo
20. The Global Reach of Canadian Privacy Law: Federal Court Issues Landmark Ruling in Globe24h
21. Serious Cloudflare bug exposed a potpourri of secret customer data: Service used by 5.5 million websites may have leaked passwords and authentication tokens.
22. Federal Trade Commission Delivers Cross-Device Tracking Report Recommendations
23. Cloud And Clear: What Canadian Lawyers Need To Know About Cloud Server Location
24. The Undue Influence Of Surveillance Technology Companies On Policing (Elizabeth Joh)

jon

GAMES

1. FBI’s ‘Gamergate’ file says prosecutors declined to charge men believed to have sent death threats – even when they confessed on video
2. Developer’s lawsuit against games critic Jim Sterling is dismissed ‘with prejudice’: He was being sued for ‘libel, slander and assault’
3. How the Prison Architect developers broke the Geneva Conventions
4. Switch game downloads can’t be shared across multiple systems: Purchases can apparently only be on one system at a time.
5. World of Warcraft’s gold rush has upended Blizzard’s economy: What happens when auction house goblins can buy Hearthstone cards?
6. Ongoing SAG-AFTRA strike raises fresh questions about game dev unions
7. Female Gamers Want To Kill You, Just Not With Guns
8. Navigating the Regulatory Landscape in China’s US$25 Billion Gaming Market
9. China’s Government may ban under-18s from playing video games late at night
10. Improving our games through subversive diversity
11. Adam Silver Calls eSports Gamers Athletes After They Trounced Real NBA Stars In NBA 2K
12. Super Channel, GINX eSportsTV To Launch First 24-Hour eSports Channel In Canada
13. Indie future is unclear as Greenlight goes dark: Shuttering Greenlight was long overdue – but its replacement, Direct, is no panacea for problems facing digital storefronts
14. The Untold Story of Atari Founder Nolan Bushnell’s Visionary 1980s Tech Incubator
15. Homeworld: Deserts of Kharak dev partners with NASA to build interactive Mars colony
16. An AI watchdog could be the solution to Counter-Strike’s cheater problem
17. Nintendo might not have flourished without help from the Yakuza
18. Should GDC Move to Canada?: Is a nation under Trump, that makes it increasingly difficult for Muslims to enter, the right location to hold a game developer conference?
19. Game Theory: U.K. law firm tests whether computer game can assess potential hires
20. Why Ever Stop Playing Video Games: Many Americans have replaced work hours with game play — and Ended Up Happier. Which wouldn’t surprise most gamers.

DIGITAL

1. The State of the Internet 2017: All Statistics Here
2. A court order blocked pirate sites that weren’t supposed to be blocked: Poorly crafted court orders threaten the open Internet, Cloudflare says.
3. Court Says Google Has A First Amendment Right To Delist Competitor’s ‘Spammy’ Content
4. Google v. Oracle: Fair Use of a Copyrighted API
5. What developers can learn from PewDiePie: YouTube star’s explanation for anti-Semitic jokes may be familiar to those who follow the AAA scene
6. Advice For Rookie Comedian PewDiePie: Quit Whining And Write Some Damn Jokes – The world’s biggest YouTuber, fired by Disney, needs to start putting actual thought into his material.
7. PewDiePie taught YouTube a valuable lesson
8. Trump and PewDiePie are using the same playbook: Why is everybody always picking on me?
9. PewDiePie responds to Disney dismissal by attacking media
10. YouTube’s Monster: PewDiePie and His Populist Revolt
11. The three reasons YouTubers keep imploding, from a YouTuber: The deck is stacked very heavily against us
12. YouTube killing its most annoying ad format: The 30-second unskippable: The unpopular ads will be gone in 2018.
13. New Zealand appeals court upholds Kim Dotcom extradition ruling – Case is far from over: Dotcom’s lawyers vow to press on to Court of Appeal.
14. New Zealand Court Says Kim Dotcom Still Eligible For Extradition… But Not Over Copyright
15. Judge Splits $750 Piracy Penalty Between BitTorrent Peers
16. Dangerous: Judge Says It Was ‘Objectively Unreasonable’ For Cox To Claim DMCA Safe Harbors
17. Pirate Site With No Traffic Attracts 49m Mainly Bogus DMCA Notices
18. Five More Questions About Digital Copyright Law
19. Google and Microsoft agree to demote piracy search results in the UK: Deal struck after lengthy spat between search engines and entertainment industry.
20. Samsung’s Reputation Burned Down With The Galaxy Note 7: It’s now as popular as the United States Postal Service, which is not all that popular
21. Bogus Claims: Google Submission Points to Massive Fraud in Search Index Takedown Notices (Michael Geist)
22. Cox must pay $8M in fees on top of $25M jury verdict for violating DMCA – Judge: “Cox knew… its behavior was wrong, and continued in spite of that.”
23. Techdirt lawyers ask judge to throw out suit over “Inventor of E-mail”: Tech blog’s founder says lawsuit seeks “to stifle debate, silence criticism.”
24. European News Publishers Still Believe They Have The Right To Make Google Pay For Sending Traffic Their Way
25. Fighting Fake News: Can Technology Stem The Tide?
26. Building Global Community (Mark Zuckerberg)
27. Op-ed: Mark Zuckerberg’s manifesto is a political trainwreck – He says that Facebook is developing AI to create a global democracy – kind of.
28. Facebook Plans to Rewire Your Life. Be Afraid.
29. Cheddar’s Jon Steinberg: Media should beware of Facebook
30. Don’t trust Facebook’s shifting line on controversy
31. Surfing, metrics and creation: Facebook and Snap
32. Manifestos And Monopolies
33. Code-Dependent: Pros and Cons of the Algorithm Age – Algorithms are aimed at optimizing everything. They can save lives, make things easier and conquer chaos. Still, experts worry they can also put too much control in the hands of corporations and governments, perpetuate bias, create filter bubbles, cut choices, creativity and serendipity, and could result in greater unemployment (Pew Research Center)
34. Hollywood Has No Idea What to Do with VR
35. Valve’s Gabe Newell: VR could “turn out to be a complete failure” – Rare interview tempers long-term optimism with tech/content/price realism.
36. Virtual legality: Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality – legal issues
37. IMAX continues VR expansion, partners with HTC Vive and more: The company will open four new pilot IMAX VR centers in the coming months across the US and China
38. Apple Vowed to Revolutionize Television. An Inside Look at Why It Hasn’t: The company is testing a new Apple TV capable of streaming ultra-high-definition 4K. It may not be enough to take on Amazon and Roku.
39. Dad who live-streamed his son’s birth on Facebook loses in court: Man filmed his partner’s labor, then sued TV companies that picked up the video.
40. Google Opens Up YouTube and Ad Platforms for Measurement Audit
41. Samsung chief Lee Jae-yong arrested on charges of bribery: Prosecutors claim that Samsung paid over $37M in bribes to help facilitate a merger.
42. Uber Investigating Sexual Harassment Claims by Ex-Employee
43. Ex-Uber engineer alleges sexual harassment, CEO reacts by promising investigation
44. Apple accuses EU of a litany of “breaches” in defense of Irish tax deal: Tech giant claims the EC isn’t playing fair over its demands to pay Ireland $13.7 billion.
45. Cyberbullying & Revenge Porn: An Update on Canadian Law 
46. Book-Smart, Not Street-Smart: Blockchain-Based Smart Contracts and The Social Workings of Law (Karen Levy) 

CREATIVITY

1. The Copyright Lobby’s IIPA Report: Fake News About the State of Canadian Copyright (Michael Geist)
2. Former RIAA Executive Attacks Fair Use
3. Court declines to apply fair dealing copyright exemption in news reporting case
4. SiriusXM Wins New York Case Over Pre-1972 Sound Recordings: The 2nd Circuit rules that the satcaster deserves summary judgment and the lawsuit from Flo & Eddie should be dismissed.
5. Flo and Eddie NY Suit on Pre-1972 Sound Recordings Ordered Dismissed By Court of Appeals – No Issues with Copies Made in the Transmission Process 
6. Australia’s Battle Over Fair Use Boils Over
7. Trademarks and music: No longer living it up at ‘The Hotel California’
8. Pro-Marijuana Student Organization Wins Court Case Over Using School Logos
9. University Rejection of Students’ Marijuana – Themed T-Shirt Violates First Amendment – Gerlich v. Leath (Eric Goldman)
10. Keeping up with the Kylies’ trade mark wars – dispute no longer Spinning Around
11. Ellen DeGeneres Defeats Lawsuit Over Breast Pun (Eric Goldman)
12. Chinese Trademarks And The Emoluments Clause: Do They Intersect In The Trump Presidency
13. China violated its own law to grant Trump a trademark: China’s Valentine’s Day present to Trump could put him in legal jeopardy.
14. Hollywood’s Greatest Wall: The fastest-growing movie market of this decade has been China. But projections about its future — and the decisions that Hollywood has made to take advantage, like the Matt Damon vehicle ‘The Great Wall’ — may have been shortsighted.
15. Jimmy Choo stomps on cybersquatting
16. Apple Says Nebraska Will Become A ‘Mecca For Hackers’ If Right To Repair Bill Passes
17. Vogue’s Race Problem Is Bigger Than Karlie Kloss: Even if the model featured in the magazine’s latest controversial spread had been Asian, it would still have been offensive.
18. Theater Group President: No, Netflix Isn’t Killing the Multiplex
19. Theft! A History of Music
20. You Can’t Have Your Cake and Eat It Too: Why Trump Copying Obama’s Cake Is Not Infringement
21. Sportswriting Has Become a Liberal Profession  –  Here’s How It Happened: Donald Trump’s election was merely an accelerant for a change that was already sweeping across sports journalism

MEDIA, COMMUNICATIONS & NET NEUTRALITY

1. The Shattered Mirror, Part Three: Why Income Tax Changes for Digital Advertising Won’t Save Local Media (Michael Geist)
2. CRTC Extends Direct Regulation to Resellers of Telecommunications Services 
3. Bains Gives Bell-MTS Merger a Pass Despite Competition Bureau Finding Serious Wireless Market Problems (Michael Geist)
4. ‘Last night in Sweden’ was a figment of Trump’s Fox News-inspired imagination
5. Fox News is now forging U.S. foreign policy
6. How Trump’s obsession with the media endangers his presidency — and all of us
7. Huntsville, Alabama Is Suddenly Awash In Broadband Competition, Showing Why Comcast Is So Afraid Of Municipal Broadband
8. AT&T says its merger with Time Warner is exactly what customers want: AT&T says you’ll love “more relevant” ads, but senators warn of higher prices.
9. The implications of the end of net neutrality
10. If New FCC Boss Ajit Pai Is So ‘Pro Consumer,’ Why Does The Telecom Industry Need To Pay People To Say So?
11. Overwhelming OTT: Telcos’ growth strategy in a digital world – Incumbents are now asking if digital is a threat to or an opportunity for their business model. Beyond operational efficiency, they will need to focus on excellence in execution.
12. The Alternative Facts of Cable Companies: A state attorney general sues Spectrum for ripping off customers. It won’t force change, but it could start a movement.
13. After Losing 10,000 Viewers Per Day, ESPN Finally Buckles To Offering Standalone Streaming Video Service

SURVEILLANCE & PRIVACY

1. Divided federal appeals court rules you have the right to film the police: Filming cops, 2-1 court rules, ensures that they “are not abusing their power.”
2. The doll banned by Germany for being a transmitting device
3. German parents told to destroy Cayla dolls over hacking fears
4. How Peter Thiel’s Palantir Helped The NSA Spy On The Whole World
5. Coalition Slams DHS Plans To Demand Social Media Passwords
6. Data Protection Commissioner urged to halt EU data transfers to US
7. Court Allows Microsoft to Challenge Secrecy of User Data Requests
8. Judge In Twitter Lawsuit Over Surveillance Disclosure Dings DOJ For Cut-And-Paste Legal Argument
9. Court: Unsupported Assertions And Broad Language Aren’t Enough To Support Cell Phone Searches
10. The Ousting Of Trump’s National Security Advisor Shows Just How Dangerous ‘Lawful’ Domestic Surveillance Is
11. Hacks all the time. Engineers recently found Yahoo systems remained compromised: Company knocks $350 million off its purchase price.
12. Computer hacking charges brought against four of Gordon Ramsay’s in-laws: Celebrity chef alleges that Chris Hutcheson and three others hacked into his e-mails.
13. Marathon runner’s tracked data exposes phony time, cover-up attempt: A cut corner, a retraced route on a bike, and the Garmin tracker that exposed the lies.
14. Snapchat Spectacles are now available to buy online for $129: But they’re only available in the US for now.
15. The need for a Digital Geneva Convention (Brad Smith)
16. Microsoft President Calls for A “Digital Geneva Convention”
17. Cop filmed telling motorist he wanted to beat him, sic dog on him: New Jersey officer becomes enraged that he is being filmed during traffic stop.
18. The Fifth Amendment Vs. Indefinite Jailing: Court Still No Closer To Deciding On Compelled Decryption
19. Italy Proposes Astonishingly Sensible Rules To Regulate Government Hacking Using Trojans
20. Kernel Is Trying To Hack The Human Brain — But Neuroscience Has A Long Way To Go: The future of computing may be inside our skulls

jon

GAMES

1. New York sues Time Warner over throttled League of Legends speeds
2. Elite: Dangerous pen-and-paper RPG stymied by intellectual property dispute – Complaint alleges infringement of 1984 Elite game’s copyright.
3. Prosecutors Score a Goal in FIFA 17 Gambling Case
4. Steve Bannon sunk $60M of Goldman Sachs’ money into a failed World of Warcraft goldfarming scheme
5. Trump’s Campaign CEO’s Little Known World of Warcraft Career
6. Political chaos threatens the whole games business: From Trump to Brexit to the rise of anti-globalisation rhetoric, the conditions that allow games companies to do business are under attack
7. ESA calls Trump’s immigration stance “reckless and misinformed”: US industry trade group promises vigilance against “misguided efforts that dim our frontiers”
8. “Any pressure on visas getting into the US is worrisome” – Valve: Erik Johnson and Gabe Newell explain how Trump’s immigration policies could prompt The International to be moved out of the country
9. Dozens of game makers contribute games to fight Trump on immigration: Freedom Bundle offers dozens of games, e-books for $30 donation to worthy causes.
10. The long and troubled history of Apocalypse Now, the video game
11. The Strong Museum seeks to explore the impact women have had on game dev
12. Games in the media in 2016 – Overwatch comes out on top
13. US games industry adds $11.7 billion to GDP – ESA
14. Trade group’s economic impact report says: gaming supports more than 220,000 jobs, average compensation tops $97,000 a year
15. eSports market to hit $696 million this year – Report: Newzoo projects total eSports market to reach $1.5 billion by 2020, with brand sponsorship and advertising leading the way
16. Valve’s Gabe Newell: VR could “turn out to be a complete failure”: Rare interview tempers long-term optimism with tech/content/price realism.
17. A Sliver Of The Future: How Virtual Reality Pushes Esports’ Boundaries
18. EA fines Madden Bowl winner: Tournament winner loses $3,000 for posting offensive tweets despite warnings from publisher
19. Madden Bowl winner represents latest black eye for EA Sports and eSports
20. NBA 2K eLeague To Debut As First eSports League Operated By U.S. Pro Sports League
21. NBA and Take-Two form NBA 2K eSports League
22. The NBA Announces Plan To Start Its Own eSports NBA League
23. NBA 2K’s ELeague Could Change The Competitive Gaming Scene
24. Gabe Newell explains Valve’s budgeting process: there is none
25. Virtual Reality, Facebook, and a Costly Non-Disclosure Agreement
26. Facebook removing 200 Oculus Rift demo units from Best Buy stores
27. Virtual Reality Becomes a $500 Million Actual Reality for Facebook
28. Ubisoft’s 3rd quarter saw a rise in engagement, but a decrease in sales
29. Activision Blizzard posts big sales, but Call of Duty fails to connect with fans
30. Sony discontinues PlayStation Now on PS3, Vita, and most other devices
31. Sony patents Vive-like tracking system, hints at wireless PSVR: Application shows Lighthouse-style set-up to counteract current light interference
32. Kabam cuts Beijing team: Legacy of Zeus developers let go as company narrows list of key assets left to sell
33. Counterpoint: As Denuvo Lauds Its Weeks-Long Control, 20 Year Old Game Still Selling Due To Its Modding Community
34. Evolving Steam
35. Steam kills Greenlight: Steam Direct will have devs pay an application fee for each game “to decrease the noise in the submission pipeline”
36. Valve says goodbye to Steam Greenlight, hello to “Direct” publishing: Soon, anyone with paperwork and a fee payment will be able to sell on Steam.
37. Konami’s profits up 70% in nine-month financials
38. Activision Publishing cuts staff: Disappointing year prompts layoffs at studios including Infinity Ward and Beenox
39. The Quest for the First FDA-Approved Video Game
40. How a robot got Super Mario 64 and Portal “running” on an SNES – Or: How to stream video using 1.2 million console button presses per second.
41. ASA Ruling on Queens Solitaire Games
42. Why won’t the games industry share its digital data?: NPD, SuperData and Steam Spy offer up their thoughts

DIGITAL

1. A battle rages for the future of the Web: Should the WWW be locked down with DRM? Tim Berners-Lee needs to decide, and soon.
2. Maker Studios Braces for More Layoffs as Disney Plans to Shrink Creator Network
3. Maker Studios Reportedly Slashing Its Creator Network Of “Thousands” To Just 300
4. PewDiePie dropped by Maker & YouTube ad platform over antisemitic content: PewDiePie calls out “old school media” for attempt to “decrease my influence and my economic worth”
5. YouTube Cancels PewDiePie Show After Disney Cuts Ties With Star Over Anti-Semitic Posts
6. When did fascism become so cool? PewDiePie’s antics are the thin end of the wedge: A white guy with a net worth of $124m making poor brown people hold up a sign calling for genocide is pure banter, isn’t it?
7. Pewdiepie Dropped By Disney Following Offensive Video Content
8. Disney drops YouTube star PewDiePie over anti-Semitic content
9. PewDiePie Incident Means More Scrutiny for Influencers: But ad buyers doubt marketers will pull budgets from all YouTube influencers
10. How Wikipedia Is Cultivating an Army of Fact Checkers to Battle Fake News: The online encyclopedia has been fact checking the Internet for more than 15 years. Now it wants to bring its skeptical eye to the masses.
11. Oracle refuses to accept pro-Google “fair use” verdict in API battle: Oracle insinuates Google was “a plagiarist” that committed “classic unfair use.”
12. Oracle Files Its Opening Brief As It Tries (Again) To Overturn Google’s Fair Use Win On Java APIs
13. Authors Alliance Amicus Brief Supports Fair Use Defense In Georgia State Case
14. Wikipedia bans Daily Mail for “poor fact checking, sensationalism, flat-out fabrication”: Daily Mail is too unreliable and can’t be used as a source, Wikipedia editors rule.
15. Handful of “highly toxic” Wikipedia editors cause 9% of abuse on the site: New study of Wikipedia comments reveals most attackers aren’t anonymous.
16. PayPal Kills Canadian Paper’s Submission To Media Awards Because Article Had Word ‘Syrian’ In The Title
17. Shopify’s Breitbart Fight Proves It: These Days, Tech Has to Take a Side
18. Lawsuit alleges Magic Leap workplace is ‘misogynistic,’ ‘dysfunctional’
19. Hedge funds reportedly want to buy Mt. Gox bankruptcy claims: A US lawyer has even set up a website to make this process easier.
20. Women filmed by Ottawa ‘pick-up artist’ may have no legal remedy
21. Maniac Killers of the Bangalore IT Department: Why is India obsessed with crimes committed by software engineers?
22. First Amendment Protects Google’s De-Indexing of “Pure Spam” Websites–e-ventures v. Google (Eric Goldman)
23. Internet firms’ legal immunity is under threat: Platforms have benefited greatly from special legal and regulatory treatment
24. UK Search Engines Will Sign Up To A ‘Voluntary’ Code On Piracy — Or Face The Consequences
25. Is the Internet a wilderness of commodity news?
26. Can Snapchat really save news? More than half of users don’t follow outlets on the platform
27. Don’t fear artificial intelligence: experts
28. Artificial Intelligence forges ahead of the law
29. It’s not as simple as man versus machine. (Sara Watson)
30. Netflix Cheating Is Common, But Is It Really All That Bad?: Almost half of couples that binge-watch together have been disloyal
31. Patent Troll Sues Netflix, Soundcloud, Vimeo And More For Allowing Offline Viewing
32. I Helped Create the Milo Trolling Playbook. You Should Stop Playing Right Into It.
33. NHL’s First Games In Live VR To Be Seen By Canadians With Headsets Found In Cases Of Beer
34. Manchester United set to launch worldwide premium streaming app costing up to £4.99 per month with services in over 160 countries
35. 200 Coders and Hackers United to Save NASA’s Climate Data From Deletion

CREATIVITY

1. Kesha releases emails allegedly sent by Dr. Luke
2. The Moral Rights in a Banksy?
3. The Met Goes Public Domain With CC0, But It Shouldn’t Have To
4. How the copyright industry works methodically to erode your civil liberties and human rights
5. The Need Right Now for Subversive Photography: What does it mean for a photograph to challenge what we know about the world and reveal new aspects of it?
6. Maasai people of East Africa fighting against cultural appropriation by luxury fashion labels: Their name and image is estimated to be worth billions of dollars 
7. Beyoncé to Get Lawyers in “Formation”
8. Paul McCartney chants ‘Get Back’ again – The Future of Copyright Termination 
9. Is There Copyright Infringement in Whoville?
10. Prince’s music will be on Spotify and other services starting Sunday: When you’re facing a $100M tax bill, it’s time to make a deal.
11. University Rejection of Students’ Marijuana – Themed T-Shirt Violates First Amendment – Gerlich v. Leath (Eric Goldman)
12. Use of P’s photos to advertise D’s goods must be challenged via copyright, not Lanham Act, under Dastar (Rebecca Tushnet)
13. Back To Basics: Acting Chairman Maureen K. Ohlhausen Presents Near-Term FTC Reforms
14. Not Everyone Is Geeking Out Over Saudi Arabia’s First Comic Con: The cosplay fest is headed to the religious kingdom, but certain restrictions apply — especially for women
15. How Ancient Legends Gave Birth to Modern Superheroes
16. Can AI Make Musicians More Creative?: Google And Sony Want To Change The Way Artists Think About Artificial Intelligence
17. 2016 Copyright Year in Review
18. Robots As Legal Metaphors (Ryan Calo)
19. What Intellectual Property Can Learn From Informational Privacy, And Vice Versa (Diana Liebenau)

MEDIA, COMMUNICATIONS & NET NEUTRALITY

1. Fuss over American Super Bowl ads ignores reality of Internet TV
2. CRTC wireless code review generates regulatory risk: Desjardins analyst
3. Why the Wireless Industry Fears Bill Transparency and Bans on Unlocking Fees (Michael Geist)
4. Comcast, AT&T Are Paying Minority Groups To Support Killing Net Neutrality
5. Wyden, Other Senators Warn That Net Neutrality Repeal Will Make SOPA Backlash Look Like A Fireside Snuggle
6. Tom Wheeler: Trump, GOP Plan To ‘Modernize’ The FCC A ‘Fraud’
7. The Trump administration’s other war on the media
8. FCC Commissioner Thinks Ultra-Fast Broadband Just a ‘Novelty’
9. ISPs ask lawmakers to kill privacy rules, and they’re happily obliging: Wheeler-era FCC rules that protect Web browsing data could be overturned.
10. “Broadband death star bill” blown up by municipal Internet advocates: Virginia anti-municipal broadband bill replaced by minor record-keeping change.
11. Yahoo reveals more breachiness to users victimized by forged cookies: Some accounts may have been accessed with forged cookies as recently as 2016.
12. Verizon Finally Gets Around To Telling Yahoo That It Ain’t All That
13. A Little Something Called Competition Forces Verizon To Bring Back Unlimited Data
14. Verizon offers unlimited data and won’t throttle video (unlike T-Mobile): Verizon’s $80 plan has unlimited phone data and 10GB of 4G LTE tethering.
15. Charter wrongly charged customers $10 “Wi-Fi Activation” fee, gets sued: Charter admits billing mistake in former Bright House area but faces a lawsuit.
16. Sewer broadband fraudsters handed lengthy prison terms: Bogus $200 million fiber network racket leads to collective 44 years in the slammer.
17. Lawyer’s claim: Feds issued a subpoena regarding Fox News sexual harassment scandal
18. A century and a half of Northern telecom innovations: Tracing 150 years of Canadian technological contributions to communication, from Bell to BlackBerry
19. The global media landscape: in eight charts
20. What does The Queen Mary International Dispute Resolution 2016 Survey tell us about the future direction of TMT disputes?
21. 2016 International Dispute Resolution Survey: An insight into resolving Technology, Media and Telecoms Disputes

SURVEILLANCE & PRIVACY

1. Canada’s Federal Court awards damages against a foreign website for breach of privacy laws
2. Oh, Sure, Suddenly Now The House Intelligence Boss Is Concerned About Surveillance… Of Mike Flynn
3. Judge sides with Microsoft, allows “gag order” challenge to advance – Court: “First Amendment rights may outweigh the Government interest in secrecy.”
4. Court Says Microsoft Can Sue Government Over First Amendment-Violating Gag Orders
5. What could happen if you refuse to unlock your phone at the US border?: DHS says agents are in the right to ask for passwords, decryption help.
6. Twitter to judge: Let us tell everyone exactly how many secret orders we get: Government fights Twitter’s attempts at transparency with generic filing.
7. Canada will soon force companies to disclose hacking attempts, data breaches
8. Amnesty International uncovers phishing campaign against human rights activists: Attacker targeted groups in Qatar, Nepal using extensive fake social media profile.
9. Russia Considers Returning Snowden to U.S. to ‘Curry Favor’ With Trump: Official
10. Landmark Court Decision Means Canada Has Now Joined The ‘Right To Be Forgotten Globally’ Club
11. Man jailed 16 months, and counting, for refusing to decrypt hard drives: He’s not charged with a crime. Judge demands he help prosecutors build their case.
12. After Passing Worst Surveillance Law In A Democracy, UK Now Proposes Worst Anti-Whistleblowing Law
13. UK government’s huge citizen data grab is go – where are the legal safeguards? – Analysis: Whitehall’s digital strategy lands a day after peers debate Digital Economy Bill.
14. UK Police Spy On Journalists At Small Town Paper, Gather One Million Minutes Worth Of Call Data
15. UK Train Operators Plan To Charge Passengers Using Their Biometrics
16. UK gov’t hit by 188 serious cyberattacks in the past three months: NCSC claims that Russia and China have stepped up the game.
17. DHS Secretary Says Agency Is Planning On Demanding Foreigners’ Social Media Account Passwords
18. Ohio Arsonist Gets Busted By His Own Pacemaker
19. Now sites can fingerprint you online even when you use multiple browsers: Online tracking gets more accurate and harder to evade.
20. Does Facebook Have the Right to Challenge Search Warrants Seeking Facebook Users’ Data? New York’s Highest Court Hears Argument 
21. Republican senators concerned about Yahoo’s “candor” concerning data breaches: In new letter, two GOP senators say company has been “unable to provide answers.”
22. Digital star chamber: Algorithms are producing profiles of you. What do they say? You probably don’t have the right to know (Frank Pasquale)
23. Get To Know Me: Protecting Privacy And Autonomy Under Big Data’s Penetrating Gaze (Sheri B. Pan)
24. Online Shaming and the Right to Privacy (Emily B. Laidlaw)

jon

GAMES

1. Oculus lawsuit ends with half billion dollar judgment awarded to ZeniMax: Luckey pays $50M, Iribe pays $150M
2. Verdict Analysis: Why the Jury Awarded ZeniMax $500 Million in Oculus Lawsuit
3. Zenimax vs. Oculus: Carmack denies allegations, slams expert analysis
4. John Carmack refutes “misdirection” of ZeniMax lawyers: The Oculus chief technology officer has taken to Facebook to complain about the $500 million verdict
5. Doom co-creator defends his code against ZeniMax copying accusations: During expert testimony, Oculus CTO John Carmack “just wanted to shout ‘You lie!'”
6. Exactly how and why Zenimax was awarded $500M in lawsuit against Oculus
7. Facebook CEO Asks for Investor Patience on VR, ‘it’s not going to be really profitable for us for quite a while’
8. How Is ‘Non-Literally Copying’ Code Still Copyright Infringement?
9. Full Disclosure on Non Disclosure Agreements
10. Lots of Best Buys are losing their Oculus demo stations due to low demand
11. YouTuber behind FIFA gambling site avoids jail time: Craig “Nepenthez” Douglas and Dylan Rigby plead guilty, are ordered to pay a total of £265,000 in prosecution costs and fines
12. YouTubers fined for running illegal FIFA 17 gambling site: Allowed kids as young as 12 to gamble on games of FIFA 17.
13. YouTubers switch to guilty plea in FIFA 17 online gambling case
14. Regulatory Risks of In-Game and In-App Virtual Currency
15. Blizzard greenlights World of Warcraft gold being spent in its other games
16. World of Warcraft gold can now be used to buy other Blizzard items: In-game gold pieces are now worth a fraction of a penny across Battle.net.
17. Game over for PS3 Linux settlement—judge concerned gamers won’t get paid: Judge has no “confidence” that the deal “fairly, adequately compensates” console owners.
18. Court Tosses Lawsuit Brought By Brother And Sister Against Take-Two Interactive Over NBA2K Face Scans
19. Biometrics, Gaming & Privacy Laws: Facial scanning features can help put players in the game, but they can also put game makers in court if they aren’t implemented carefully
20. Milwaukee County requires parks permit for Pokémon Go: Rubbish dropped by players leaves Niantic liable
21. Making an AR game? You’ll need a permit to include some county parks
22. Cloud Bottlenecks: How Pokémon Go (and other game dev teams) caught them all – Lesson – “Something that works with two million users doesn’t always work with 10 million.”
23. EA Sports Partners With ESPN For FIFA Broadcasts
24. EA Sports Increases E-Sports Exposure By Partnering With ESPN, NFL Media, Univision
25. Esports Players As Employees: What European Teams And Players Need To Know: There’s lots of talk of players being ‘employees’ or ‘contractors’, accelerated by big moves planned by Riot, but what does that actually mean for players, teams and beyond?  (Jas Purwal, Pete Lewin)
26. Valve under investigation by EU Commission over geo-blocking concerns
27. Valve under investigation by European Commission for Steam geo-blocking: Bandai Namco, Capcom, Focus Home Interactive, Koch Media and ZeniMax also named in antitrust investigation
28. Valve is still frustrated with console game development: But many of the Steam maker’s console complaints seem outdated.
29. GameStop employees report harmful ‘Circle of Life’ policies: GameStop CEO responds to accusations of staff pressured into misleading customers – “nothing could be further from the truth”
30. Denuvo forgets to secure server, leaks years of messages from game makers: Massive log file includes user complaints, apparently legitimate developer requests.
31. Risky Nintendo spooks the markets
32. Cash, random chance almost ruin Nintendo’s first smartphone Fire Emblem
33. Physical game releases on the rise following 5 year decline
34. Crowdfunding for video games was way down in 2016
35. Mad Catz investors pour water on strategy to avoid delisting: Rock Band 4’s legacy looms large as shareholders question the company’s financial stability
36. The Light ahead: PlayStation’s UK boss on why PS4 hasn’t peaked
37. Sony’s games division in good health thanks to strong PS4 sales
38. Sony’s Q3 game profits up 24% on strong Network sales: Combined PS4 and PS4 Pro sales reached 9.7 million, division revenue topped $5 billion
39. Analysis: PS4 Pro’s “Boost Mode” bumps frame rates up to 38 percent
40. Take-Two pushes sales up, misses bottom line guidance: Mafia III, Civilization VI, NBA 2K17, GTA V continue selling as publisher’s first VR efforts justify CEO Zelnick’s previous skepticism
41. Warner Bros. sees full-year game sales dip: Publisher blames decline on tough comparison against 2015 hits Mortal Kombat X and Batman: Arkham Knight
42. Starbreeze invests $8 million in Double Fine’s Psychonauts 2: Swedish publisher will take 85% of revenue until investment is recouped, and 60% thereafter
43. Facts and Trends You Want to Know About China Game Market 2016 to 2017 
44. Blizzard and Harmonix joins studios opposing Trump immigration ban: Executive order drawing more criticism; Devolver Digital offers to show games for devs who can’t make it to GDC
45. Tech and gaming giants challenge Trump’s immigration order: Apple, Facebook, Microsoft, among 97 companies filing amicus brief over recent ban, say new rules already hurting US businesses
46. Unity puts money where its mouth is in fight against Trump immigration ban
47. Unity takes stand against Trumpian immigration ban: Flying affected devs to Amsterdam Unite for free and matching charitable donations
48. The Travel Ban and Your Studio: What You Can and Can’t Do to Protect Your Employees
49. Copyright Protection in Virtual Reality
50. Releasing your first game at 12 years old: We speak to Donovan Brathwaite-Romero about the making of his first hit Gunman Taco Truck and living up to the family legacy
51. You need a lawyer even if you are the most “indie” game developer ever

DIGITAL

1. Breitbart loses advertising deals with 818 companies due to grassroots campaign
2. Alt-Right Website, Breitbart, Loses Over 800 Advertisers For Offensive Content
3. Playpen moderator sentenced to 20 years in prison
4. The art of the troll: New tool reveals egg users’—and Trump’s—posting patterns: When an account makes 500 posts a day, that’s a sure sign that there’s something amiss.
5. Ahead Of France’s Elections, Facebook Tries To Stop Fake News: With a new filter, it’s working with French media companies to fact check stories
6. Want to post a discriminatory ad? Facebook may try to stop you automatically: Follows November outcry over targeted FB ads’ possible violations of Fair Housing Act.
7. “Fake news is bad, but the ministry of truth is even worse”: Europe Considers Regulation for the Post-Truth Era
8. Refugee who took selfie with German chancellor has had enough of “fake news”: Anas Modamani says Facebook should do more to stop misuse of his image.
9. ‘Fake news’ highlights much bigger problems at play
10. Judge rules against DOJ in Amazon, Expedia case against Trump travel ban – Washington AG: “No one is above the law—not even the president.”
11. Apple, Google, and 95 other tech firms join forces to fight Trump travel ban: Companies say executive order is “overbroad…lacks any basis in precedent.”
12. Basically The Entire Tech Industry Signs Onto A Legal Brief Opposing Trump’s Exec Order
13. BT backs Google in EU’s Android antitrust spat: “We welcome Google’s anti-fragmentation initiatives,” says BT in snub to Brussels.
14. How Iranian authorities have been fighting the ‘Soft War’ online
15. Netflix abroad set for showtime after EU strikes a “portability” deal: But Brexit Brits’ beach-based boxset binges could be short-lived.
16. Pirate Party’s Pirate Site Was Legal Under EU Law, Court Rules: Six years ago the Czech branch of the Pirate Party declared open war on a local anti-piracy outfit, opening several ‘pirate’ sites to draw fire from copyright holders. But, after being prosecuted in a criminal court last year, the matter has now been dropped after it was deemed the Pirates acted in accordance with a recent landmark EU ruling.
17. Amazon Defeats Lawsuit Over Its Keyword Ad Purchases–Lasoff v. Amazon (Eric Goldman)
18. Patent troll sues Netflix over offline downloads: Patent for “CD-Rs by mail” service—perhaps inspired by old-school Netflix—used to sue.
19. HP patents, sold off to a troll, are used to sue Cisco and Facebook: Patents went from 3Com to HP to East Texas-based Plectrum LLC.
20. Kanye West caught using Pirate Bay to download music software
21. Music Industry Majors Sue Hip-Hop Streaming Site Spinrilla
22. A Word of Caution: File Wrapper Contents Can Come Back to Haunt You
23. How a former editor allegedly used Vice Canada to recruit drug mules for a global smuggling ring
24. The Codification Of Web DRM As A Censorship Tool
25. Google Brain super-resolution image tech makes “zoom, enhance!” real: Google Brain creates new image details out of thin air.
26. YouTube now lets creators with 10,000 subscribers live-stream video on mobile: And new “Super Chat” lets viewers pay to get noticed.
27. Facebook Plans To Be Like YouTube, Not Netflix
28. Facebook is focusing on shorter content, YouTube model for its video strategy
29. GoPro reports 35% lift in YouTube uploads
30. The Problem With Snapchat’s IPO
31. Snapchat parent warns of Brexit anxiety and sexting confusion in IPO filing: First public prospectus reveals a $405 million ad biz—and a net loss of $515 million…
32. Majority Stake Owner Wants to Sell BroadbandTV – Or Take It Public
33. Snapchat Stacks New York Times on Media Pile
34. Something Happened: The origin of day-one patches – Canadian software houses were fast and loose places in the 1980s.

CREATIVITY

1. Prof: “Can you sue the President based on his tweets? We’re about to find out” – Lawsuit joins at least 15 other cases challenging president’s executive order.
2. BuzzFeed Sued for Naming Tech CEO in Story About Trump’s Alleged Russian Ties
3. Court Tells Melania Trump She Can’t Sue The Daily Mail In Maryland, So She Refiles In New York
4. Recent Law School Grad Sues Twitter Because Someone Made A Parody Twitter Account
5. Bad Idea Or The Worst Idea? Having The FTC Regulate ‘Fake News’
6. Liberals Won’t Bail Out Canada’s News Industry, Sources Say
7. Time Inc. begins shopping for potential buyers
8. Feds must take action on copyright trolls
9. HowStuffWorks Attempts To Explain Why Advertisers Use Super Bowl Euphemisms, But I Have A Simpler Explanation
10. New National “Right to Work” Bill Threatens Hollywood Unions
11. ESPN Settles Lawsuit Over Reporter’s Tweet Revealing an NFL Star’s Amputated Finger
12. Nine Years Later, Patriots Get ’19-0′ And ‘Perfect Season’ Trademarks, Despite Doing Neither
13. Former NFL star Shawne Merriman sues Under Armour for trademark infringement
14. Federal Court Basically Says It’s Okay To Copyright Parts Of Our Laws
15. The Kylie Jenner–Kylie Minogue Trademark Dispute Was a Battle of the Old School vs. the New
16. Investors pour another $8.5M into Star Trek Timelines dev Disruptor Beam
17. Employers, employees and consultants – who owns what when it comes to intellectual property?
18. How being replaced by a machine turned this graphic artist into an activist
19. Political ad isn’t commercial, can’t be basis of Lanham Act claim (Rebecca Tushnet)

MEDIA, COMMUNICATIONS & NET NEUTRALITY

1. The Future of Simsub Post-Super Bowl: Why Canadian Viewership Data Vindicated the CRTC (Michael Geist)
2. Bell Media adopts new tactics in bid to lure Super Bowl viewers
3. Poll: Vast majority of Canadians oppose Internet Tax, prefer funding CanCon by extending GST/HST to foreign online companies
4. Focus: Is shutting down TV service victory for broadcasters?
5. Trump’s F.C.C. Pick Quickly Targets Net Neutrality Rules
6. FCC chair stuns consumer advocates with move that could hurt poor people: Ajit Pai “walk[ed] back the stated goal of his chairmanship,” advocate says.
7. New FCC Boss Ajit Pai Insists He’s All About Helping The Poor, Gets Right To Work Harming Them Instead
8. FCC makes it harder for poor people to get subsidized broadband: Some might pay $9.25 more as ISPs lose ability to sell low-cost Internet plans.
9. Ajit Pai defends decision to revoke low-cost broadband designations
10. FCC rescinds claim that AT&T and Verizon violated net neutrality: Republican Ajit Pai halts Wheeler’s net neutrality investigation of zero-rating.
11. New FCC Boss Kills Zero Rating Inquiry, Signals Death Of Net Neutrality Enforcement
12. Undoing the Past – New FCC Rescinds Rulings on Noncommercial Ownership Reports, Political Broadcasting Sponsorship Disclosure and Shared Services Agreements
13. FCC opens radio and television broadcasting to foreign entities
14. New FCC Boss Decides It’s Cool If Phone Monopolies Want To Rip Off Inmate Families
15. FCC Chairman Pai Promotes Transparency – Releases Draft Orders on Next-Generation TV and FM Translators for AM Stations – What Will Be Considered for Radio at February FCC Meeting? 
16. FCC tries something new: Making proposals public before voting on them: Wheeler said releasing text before vote would cripple process—now we’ll find out.
17. “Lipstick on a pig”: Time Warner Cable “deceived the FCC” in speed tests – “We just have to make it work temporarily,” TWC said of FCC speed tests.
18. Not so fast—Comcast told to stop claiming it has “fastest Internet”: Verizon wins challenge of Comcast’s fastest Internet and “in-home Wi-Fi” claims.
19. How Comcast’s Growing Broadband Monopoly Is Helping It Temporarily Fend Off The TV Cord Cutting Threat
20. Here’s Exactly How the Internet Is Now Under Threat: Obama’s FCC head Tom Wheeler talks candidly about the open internet — and why, in Trumpworld, four companies could lock it up.
21. Comcast, Verizon, T-Mobile & AT&T Issue Breathless Love Letter To Privacy With One Hand, Lobby To Kill All Privacy Protections With The Other
22. The Shattered Mirror, Part Two: The Underwhelming Recommendation for Open Licensing at the CBC (Michael Geist)

SURVEILLANCE & PRIVACY

1. Did a Canadian court just establish a new right to be forgotten online? (Michael Geist)
2. Did a Canadian Court Just Establish a New Right to be Forgotten? (Michael Geist)
3. When are public documents too public?: A.T. v. Globe24h.com tests the limits
4. Goodale orders review into illegal CSIS metadata program: The CSIS Operational Data Analysis Centre had stored “associated data” — usually called metadata — on innocent Canadians for nearly a decade.
5. US visitors may have to reveal social media passwords to enter country: “If they don’t want to cooperate, then you don’t come in.”
6. Ohio man’s pacemaker data may betray him in arson, insurance fraud case: Man describes quickly packing and fleeing; heart data shows otherwise, doctor says.
7. Vizio Agrees To Pay $2.2 Million To Settle Too-Smart TV Lawsuit: The TVs were tracking viewership habits and selling the information to advertisers
8. Vizio Fined $2.2 Million For Not Telling Customers Their TVs Were Spying On Them
9. Vizio TVs secretly tracked viewership in U.S. without consent: Canadian units excluded from system that set screens to report what people watched — without them knowing
10. Superior Court of Quebec Authorizes Privacy Class Action in Zuckerman v. Target Corporation
11. Jason Pierre-Paul and ESPN reach settlement in invasion-of-privacy lawsuit
12. Baseball team pays a big price for hacking
13. Major privacy case to open before High Court in Dublin: Facebook and privacy campaigner party to action by Data Protection Commissioner
14. The Ninth Circuit Holds That a Telephone Consumer Protection Act Violation Alone Is Sufficient To Establish Standing
15. Maybe the US does have the right to seize data from the world’s servers: Until Supreme Court resolves this, we’ll likely see many conflicting rulings.
16. The FBI Can Engage In All Sorts Of Surveillance And Snooping Without Actually Placing Someone Under Investigation
17. How Google fought back against a crippling IoT-powered botnet and won: Behind the scenes defending KrebsOnSecurity against record-setting DDoS attacks.
18. Privacy Tort Update – Not So Fast on Public Disclosure of Embarrassing Private Stuff 
19. FTC Will Consider Spying Toy Privacy Concerns 
20. Windows DRM: Now An (Unwitting) Ally In Efforts To Expose Anonymous Tor Users
21. Former NSA contractor may have stolen 75% of TAO’s elite hacking tools: Prosecutors reportedly plan to charge Harold T. Martin with espionage.
22. A rash of invisible, fileless malware is infecting banks around the globe: Once the province of nation-sponsored hackers, in-memory malware goes mainstream.
23. Keys Under Doormats: Mandating insecurity by requiring government access to all data and communications
24. Ron Deibert’s Lab Is the ‘Robin Hood’ of Cyber Security
25. It’s Too Complicated: How The Internet Upends Katz, Smith, And Electronic Surveillance Law (Steven M. Bellovin, Matt Blaze, Susan Landau, & Stephanie K. Pell)

jon

GAMES

1. Oculus verdict: Judge awards ZeniMax $500 million: Facebook owned VR company did not misappropriate trade secrets as ZeniMax alleged, however
2. Oculus, execs liable for $500 million in ZeniMax VR trial: Court finds Rift maker broke NDA but didn’t steal trade secrets.
3. Lawsuit over NBA 2K facial scanning privacy concerns falls flat
4. Ohio State researcher’s study retracted from journal: Research from an Ohio State communication professor was retracted from a scientific journal after two outside researchers found discrepancies in variables from the original experiment when they replicated the study.
5. A Professor Claimed Video Games Make People Better Shooters — Then His Study Got Retracted: Brad Bushman has some explaining to do
6. 2012 Research Paper Linking Video Games And Violence Finally Retracted Over Massaged Data Accusation
7. Report: GameStop staff under fresh pressure to sell used games over new ones
8. ‘NBA 2K’ Video Game Maker Beats Lawsuit Over Biometric Face-Scanning: A judge rejects gamers’ privacy complaint because they haven’t alleged a concrete injury.
9. FBI reveals 173-page Gamergate file
10. EA’s earnings show revenues are up, losses are better than expected
11. Nintendo’s nine-month profits soar on Pokémon and Seattle Mariners sale: Pokémon Sun & Moon sold 14.7m units worldwide, full-year profit forecast almost doubled to ¥‎90 billion
12. Nintendo addresses “weak” Switch launch lineup: President Tatsumi Kimishima says company wants to avoid long gaps without new games, pledges continued support for 3DS
13. Two speed market drove over $30 billion in games deals in 2016: Tim Merel of Digi-Capital on how 2016 broke the industry M&A record by 77%
14. Deep dive in the data of Games on Kickstarter in 2016
15. Mad Catz threatened with stock market delisting
16. Microsoft’s games revenue continues to slip due to falling hardware sales
17. Microsoft fails to impress tech media by selling thousands of HoloLenses: $3,000 enterprise headsets experience lower sales than mass-market consumer devices.
18. Disney shuts down Club Penguin: Original kid-friendly virtual world going dark, to be replaced by mobile-exclusive Club Penguin Island in March
19. Devs, don’t post positive Steam reviews of your game under fake names
20. Valve to start blocking accounts that gamble Team Fortress 2 gear
21. eSports: The missed billion-dollar opportunity for publishers and platforms
22. Resident Evil 7’s Denuvo protections cracked in under a week: Quick turnaround by hackers could have profound business implications.
23. Hackers unlock NES Classic, upload new games via USB cable: It’s not as simple as drag-and-drop, but no screwdriver or hardware mods needed.
24. The Founder’s Dilemma: A terrifying new video game is a little too real.
25. Kojima says games and movies must ‘converge’ to survive
26. Working with influencers: “The internet can smell disingenuity a mile off”: Space Ape’s Simon Hade discusses the perks and pitfalls of working with YouTubers and streamers
27. In Berlin, refugees become friends—through board games: Building bridges with board games.
28. The Radical Environmentalism of the Sega Genesis
29. King on diversity: “No company will succeed on its own here.” – Diversity and culture manager Natalie Mellin says more firms need to “show role models together” in order to address gender imbalance
30. How closing borders kills understanding, and censors art
31. GDC responds to Trump’s travel ban, refunds affected attendees: Organisers of upcoming developer conference says they are “horrified” by President’s decision
32. ESA urges caution on US immigration policy: Trade group tells Trump administration that foreign workers are vital to domestic game industry
33. ‘It breaks my heart’: Engaredev responds to U.S. travel ban: “What makes me sad is that I hear in the game industry that there are all these diversity programs, but then, if you’re looking for diversity, for new perspectives, there are really a lot of new perspectives in those countries the US is blocking.”
34. “Immigration ban will harm us as a company” – Insomniac: Ratchet and Clank and Spider-Man maker joins chorus of game developers condemning executive order
35. Trump is bad for the US games industry: An isolationist, nationalist administration can’t help but harm an increasingly diverse and global industry
36. 1979 Revolution proceeds to benefit ACLU in wake of immigration ban
37. 2017 Trends in Mobile Gaming
38. PETA demands plastic Warhammerfigures stop wearing fur: In the grim darkness of the far future, it’s the animals that have it worst.
39. Namco founder and “Father of Pac-Man” has died: Masaya Nakamura was instrumental in kickstarting the video game revolution of the 1980s

DIGITAL

1. Intellectual Property Owner Awarded Control of Infringer’s Social Media Accounts
2. Perfect 10, Inc. v. Giganews, Inc.
3. Facebook Live Is the Right Wing’s New Fox News: How the rough-around-the-edges live-streaming tool became the perfect incubator for conservative news in the Trump age.
4. The Data That Turned the World Upside Down
5. Axel Springer CEO: Facebook should not fact check ‘fake news’ — it is not a news organization
6. Flush with anti-Trump donations, ACLU gets Y Combinator’s mentorship
7. China’s Response To Study Confirms It Uses ‘Strategic Distraction’ To Prevent Collective Action. Sound Familiar?
8. Copyright Trolls Overplay Their Hand In Finland, Bringing A Government Microscope To Their Practices
9. RIP, “Six Strikes” Copyright Alert System: The anti-piracy accord between ISPs and entertainment industry meets its demise.
10. Ding Dong: Silly Six Strikes Copyright Infringement Scheme Is Dead
11. Internet Service Providers, Studios and Record Labels Call It Quits on Copyright Alert System
12. The US ‘Six Strikes’ Anti-Piracy Scheme is Dead: The “six-strikes” Copyright Alert System is no more. In a brief announcement, MPAA, RIAA, and several major US ISPs said that the effort to educate online pirates has stopped. It’s unclear why the parties ended their voluntary agreement, but the lack of progress reports in recent years indicates that it wasn’t as successful as they had hoped
13. Venezuelan officials arrest four Bitcoin miners on charges of stealing electricity: With the economy in shambles, Bitcoin miners have tried to side-step currency woes.
14. Monero, the Drug Dealer’s Cryptocurrency of Choice, Is on Fire
15. Sony missed writing on the wall for DVD sales, takes nearly $1B writedown: Or, in corporate-speak, loss was “mainly driven by an acceleration of market decline.”
16. Thanks to YouTube, Vevo Nears 100 Million Active Monthly Users
17. Lawyer for “inventor of e-mail” sends threat letter over social media posts: Shiva Ayyadurai’s attorney, who sued Techdirt, goes after another blogger.
18. Thousands of College Kids Are Powering a Clickbait Empire: How a 29-year-old built Odyssey, a vast network of college students happy to fuel multi-million dollar marketing campaigns for peanuts.
19. The internet of toys
20. Robot knows when to hold ‘em, wins huge in poker tournament: 120,000 hands and a $1.7 million margin of victory later, Carnegie Mellon’s AI wins out.
21. Click Here to Kill Everyone: With the Internet of Things, we’re building a world-size robot. How are we going to control it? (Bruce Schneier)
22. The merging of humans and machines is happening now: Her organisation invented the internet. It gave us the self-driving car. And now DARPA’s former boss sees us crossing a new technological boundary
23. Tech Leaders Are Just Now Getting Serious About the Threats of AI: Apple joins a leading AI ethics group, one of several tech-led initiatives preparing for a highly automated future.
24. The Gates Foundation Emerges As A Leader In The Fight For Full Open Access And Open Data
25. Apple will move its entire international iTunes business to Ireland: International HQ will move from one tax haven to another.
26. Apple sets revenue and iPhone sales records in Q1 of 2017
27. TV shows go into overdrive on Snapchat
28. Can One App Revolutionize TV Ratings For The Streaming And Binge-Watching Era?
29. Causality in machine learning
30. Canada’s Supreme Court Is Preserving Every Website Mentioned In Its Rulings
31. What We Buy When We Buy Now (Aaron Perzanowski & Chris Hoofnagle)

CREATIVITY

1. Fairness Confirmed Again: Federal Court of Appeal Upholds Copyright Board’s Fair Dealing Ruling (Michael Geist)
2. Supreme Court rejects appeal against B.C. Election Act: Registration rules for political ad sponsors don’t restrict individual political expression, court finds
3. Back To The Stampede: Court Upholds Forum Selection Clause Requiring Copyright Action To Return to Alberta
4. Actress in Viral Video Can’t Prevent Video From Being Made Into an Advertisement–Roberts v. Bliss (Eric Goldman)
5. Ninth Circuit Finds First Amendment Protects Against Right-of-Publicity Claim Involving Film “The Hurt Locker” 
6. Woman Claims Her Picture is Worth $2 Billion in Right of Publicity Suit
7. Court of Appeal endorses Data Protection Act as alternative to defamation claim
8. The Federal Court of Appeal Rules on Access Copyright’s K-12 Tariff
9. The New Joint DOJ/FTC Antitrust Guidelines for the Licensing of Intellectual Property 
10. Judge Gorsuch On Copyright And Technology (James Grimmelmann)
11. Apple sued over singer’s right of publicity in iPhone ad singing: No copyright, but can an artist’s voice sustain a “right of publicity” case?
12. Mac Repair Company iGeniuses Sends Legal Threats To Unhappy Customers, Demanding $2500 Per Negative Review
13. Michael Jackson Is Worth More Than Ever, and the IRS Wants Its Cut: Jackson’s star lawyer made a mint for his heirs, so now the government has to be startin’ somethin’.
14. Germany Finally Dumps Law That Says It’s A Crime To Insult Foreign Leaders
15. Jose Cuervo Loses Bid To Block Trademark Registration For Il Corvo Wine
16. The Shattered Mirror, Part One: Fair Dealing Reform Isn’t the Answer for News in the Digital Age (Michael Geist)
17. How the arts helped kill off the NEA — by trying to play the conservative “economic value” game: Our strategy of ditching “Art for Art’s Sake” in favor of “ArtWorks” hasn’t saved the arts — and it never will
18. Trump Advisor Pens Almost Totally Clueless Piece About ‘Intellectual Property Theft’
19. How True Advertising Can Save Journalism From Drowning in a Sea of Content
20. Strategies for Discerning the Boundaries of Copyright and Patent Protections (Pamela Samuelson)
21. Freeing Buskers’ Free Speech Rights: Impact of Regulations on Buskers’ Right to Free Speech and Expression (John Jurich)

MEDIA, COMMUNICATIONS & NET NEUTRALITY

1. Ajit Pai on net neutrality: “I favor an open Internet and I oppose Title II”: New FCC chairman won’t say whether he’ll enforce net neutrality rules.
2. FCC Chairman Pai takes Wheeler’s set-top box plan off the table: Cable industry was open to compromise, but no Republican plan has been offered.
3. FCC exempts small ISPs from broadband truth-in-billing rules: Rule requiring disclosure of hidden fees won’t benefit customers of small ISPs.
4. Pai FCC’s First Commission-Level Vote Targets Rural Broadband Access 
5. Sen. Franken asks AT&T to prove Time Warner merger is good for customers: AT&T won’t commit to public interest statement as it tries to avoid FCC review.
6. Eliminating Net Neutrality likely to raise the cost of using the Internet
7. New York AG Sues Charter For Slow Broadband Speeds, Says Company ‘Ripping Off’ Users With Substandard Service
8. Republican-led FCC drops court defense of inmate calling rate cap: FCC lawyers no longer authorized to defend intrastate calling caps.
9. Verizon Eyes Charter Megamerger, Because Who Likes Broadband Competition Anyway?
10. Comcast will charge extra fee for watching TV on Roku boxes: Xfinity beta app is now on Roku; for now, customers still need a Comcast TV box.
11. 13 Years Ago at the Last Houston Super Bowl – Janet Jackson’s Impact on FCC Indecency Rules 

SURVEILLANCE & PRIVACY

1. Suspecting arson, cops subpoena homeowner’s pacemaker logs, then charge him with multiple felonies
2. Trump’s Executive Order Eliminates Privacy Act Protections for Foreigners (Michael Geist)
3. New Trump Executive Order Says Federal Agencies Should Exclude Foreigners From Privacy Protections
4. President Trump’s Executive Order May Impact the Privacy Shield 
5. Already Under Attack In Top EU Court, Privacy Shield Framework For Transatlantic Data Flows Further Undermined By Trump
6. Trump Orders The Cyber To Be Fixed In The Next Sixty Days
7. Twitter Reveals Two National Security Letters After Gag Orders Lifted; Rightly Complains About Gag Orders
8. Court Says Location Of FBI’s Utility Pole-Piggybacking Surveillance Cameras Can Remain Secret
9. Bodycam footage leaks, resisting arrest charges dropped – Girl screams: “I just recorded everything.” Police officer responds: “Me too.”
10. Appeals court rules that stolen laptops class action against payer can proceed
11. Live Streaming: The Privacy Concerns of Behind-the-Scenes Access
12. Site that sold access to 3.1 billion passwords vanishes after reported raid: LeakedSource garnered criticism for actively cracking the passwords it sold.
13. Majority of Android VPNs can’t be trusted to make users more secure: Study of nearly 300 apps finds shocking omissions, including a failure to encrypt.
14. St. Louis Cardinals Hacking Scandal: A Real-World Example of the Importance of Password Management 
15. Amidst Increased Government Surveillance, Chinese Internet Users Finally Gain Important Online Privacy Protections
16. One More Time With Feeling: ‘Anonymized’ User Data Not Really Anonymous
17. FTC Report Reinforces the Rules for Cross-Device Tracking
18. “You took so much time to joke me”—two hours trolling a Windows support scammer: “Albert Morris” and team get taken for a ride while we tried to track their tradecraft.
19. Blue Lies Matter: BuzzFeed News reviewed 62 incidents of video footage contradicting an officer’s statement in a police report or testimony. From traffic stops to fatal force, these cases reveal how cops are incentivized to lie — and why they get away with it.
20. In not-too-distant future, brain hackers could steal your deepest secrets: Religious beliefs, political leanings, and medical conditions are up for grabs.

jon