Copyright Protection of Tattoos on Professional Athletes “Reproduced” in Video Games

Mike Tyson (2019) whose tattoo, created by artist S. Victor Whitmill, was reproduced in the ‘The Hangover 2’ (Image Credit: Glenn Francis CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons)
As per s. 3 of the Copyright Act in Canada, the owner of the copyrighted work has the sole right to produce and reproduce work or any substantial part thereof [1].
These works include artistic works, a category which includes tattoos created by tattoo artists and inked on satisfied and unsatisfied customers around the world.
Although, there has been no case to date in Canada ruling on the extent of copyright protection available to tattoo artists, there are a plethora of cases in the US and Europe. What recourse does a tattoo artist have when a client decides to have their likeness reproduced (e.g. magazine, video game) in a manner which displays the tattoo that is subject to copyright protection?
I came across a recent article published on Reuters [2] regarding a US District Court for the Southern District of Illinois judgement that awarded tattoo artist, Catherine Alexander, $3,750 in damages against the World Wrestling Entertainment Inc. and Take-Two Interactive Software Inc. for recreating tattoos she made for wrestler, Randy Orton in the WWE 2K video-games series without her permission.
The Jury rejected WWE and Take-Two’s defence that the game made fair use of the tattoos. However, the Court declined to award Alexander any profits from the games that she said were attributable to her work. Perhaps this is unsurprising given you would be hard pressed to find any would be purchaser of the game that refused to purchase the game because a tattoo was missing. Unfair?
From my perspective once the tattoo is placed on your body, the tattoo resembles something more to a person than say a photograph to a photographer, who has the photograph replicated in a magazine. My take on this is similar to the position that the Belgian Court of Appeal took in JDH v. HM, a 2009 ruling [3]. The Belgian Court ruled that while the tattoo artist did own copyright in his tattoo design, this right was limited by the personality rights of the tattooed person.
The tattoo in this sense essentially becomes a part of your body. How do you feel this form of artistic work should be assessed in balancing artistic incentive to create and the user’s right to display the tattoo in a manner they see fit?
[1] Copyright Act, RSC 1985, c C-42, s 3.
[2] https://www.reuters.com/legal/litigation/wwe-video-game-maker-owe-artist-depicting-wrestlers-tattoos-jury-says-2022-09-30/
[3] JDH v JM, (2009) 2007/AR/912 (Juridat) at para 9 (Ghent CA).
Kyler Murray & Call of Duty: Unprecedented “Independent Study” Contract Addendum
Our discussion last class about the Vancouver Canucks’ leadership banning video games while on the road in 2018 reminded me of a similar development: Kyler Murray’s new NFL contract with the Arizona Cardinals. Murray’s contract, which pays him $230,500,000 over the next five years, contained an unprecedented “independent study” addendum. Specifically, the independent study addendum stated that Murray “shall complete at least four hours of Independent Study each week during each playing season during the term of the contract.” “Independent Study” was later defined as time that Murray spent studying “the material provided to him by the [Cardinals] in order to prepare for the [Cardinals’] next upcoming game”. Most interestingly, the addendum stated that Murray “shall not receive any credit for Independent study with respect to any time periods during which . . . [Murray] is engaged in any other activity that may distract his attention (for example, watching television, playing video games or browsing the internet)”.
Part of the reason that the independent study addendum (and, relatedly, the quasi-prohibition on playing video games) stirred up so much controversy is that Murray is an avid Call of Duty (“COD”) gamer. After the addendum was leaked to the media, a few different statistical analyses revealed two concerning trends: (1) Murray played worse during COD Double Experience Points (“2XP”) weekends and (2) Murray’s statistical output decreases (and continue on a downward trend) every season once the new annual COD edition is released. During 2XP weekends, for example, Murray’s passer rating, passing yards per game, completion percentage, and winning percentage all noticeably decrease. Further, an analysis of Murray’s fantasy football statistics is also concerning (fantasy football statistics provide a metric to assess Murray’s statistical output from a purely individual perspective). Before the annual COD release date, Murray averages 22.5 fantasy points per game. In games played after the annual COD release, however, Murray only averages 17.4 fantasy points per game—a 22.7% decline. Although potentially unrelated, the data over Murray’s three-year career appears to tell an interesting story: on 2XP weekends and following a new COD release, Murray is more worried about his K-D ratio than his upcoming NFL opponent. Thus, it appears that when given an opportunity to play the game he loves, Murray is choosing COD over football.
After much public scrutiny, the addendum was unsurprisingly removed from Murray’s contract less than two weeks after the contract was initially signed. Including the addendum was questionable from the outset for three primary reasons. First, why would a professional NFL franchise invest over $230 million in a player whom they believed was not dedicated enough to study his opponent before each game? Second, why would Murray’s agent (Erik Burkardt) allow an addendum that questions his client’s work ethic be included in the contract? Lastly, who leaked the addendum to the media? Such details are not commonly available to the general public, and public discourse seemingly believes it was the Cardinals who leaked the addendum to “motivate” (embarrass?) Murray to be a better student of the game for the 2022 season. Four games into his colossal new contract, Murray’s individual performance has been strong, but he has led the Cardinals to a mediocre 2–2 start to the 2022 season. With the new COD (Modern Warfare 2) set to release on October 28, 2022 (a mere two days before Murray’s Cardinals play the Vikings in Minnesota), it will be interesting to see if Murray and the Cardinals regress over the second half of the 2022 NFL season.
Sources:
- General Story Details: https://www.insider.com/kyler-murray-contract-homework-clause-removed-cardinals-2022-7
- Vancouver Canucks Video Game Ban: https://theprovince.com/sports/hockey/nhl/vancouver-canucks/canucks-players-put-in-video-game-ban-on-the-road
- Independent Study Addendum: https://twitter.com/RapSheet/status/1551661427949174784/photo/1
- Call of Duty Statistics (2XP Weekends): https://ftw.usatoday.com/lists/cardinals-kyler-murray-call-of-duty-stats
- Call of Duty Statistics (New Release): https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/07/26/kyler-murray-cardinals-homework/
- Addendum Removed: https://www.nfl.com/news/cardinals-remove-independent-study-clause-from-kyler-murray-s-contract
News of the Week; February 24, 2021
GAMES
- Oxford University Study Shows Small Correlation Between Playing Video Games And ‘Well Being’
- Illinois politician proposes a Grand Theft Auto ban
- New Illinois Bill Would Expand Restrictions on Video Games
- Case Study: How ADL Used Custom Consumer Research to Measure Harassment & Disruptive Behavior in Online Games
- Epic giving out virtual currency after loot box settlement
- Epic Games settlement awards in-game cash to Fortnite, Rocket League players
- Epic will pay off class-action loot-box settlement with in-game currency
- UK antitrust tribunal blocks Epic’s case against Apple
- Epic Games attacks Apple in antitrust complaint to EU: Apple’s position as a gatekeeper for what apps can appear on iPhones or iPads has already attracted EU antitrust scrutiny
- Valve gets dragged into Apple and Epic’s legal fight over Fortnite
- Apple turns to Valve for information in legal battle with Epic
- Valve pushes back against Apple’s attempt to rope it into the big Epic v. Apple dispute
- Bethesda faces lawsuit over Fallout 4 DLC: The company faces charges of deceit for not including its Creation Club in the game’s Season Pass, which could delay Microsoft’s ZeniMax takeover
- Class-action suit takes aim at Google Stadia’s 4K claims
- Google Faces Class Action Over Claims that all Stadia Games Support 4K
- Google Disbands Stadia Game Developers And Signals Potential For More Trouble Ahead
- Stadia Fallout: Nobody Can Address Stadia Games’ Bugs Because Google Fired All The Developers
- Luna, Amazon’s cloud gaming service, is no longer invite-only on some devices
- WallStreetBets agitator Keith Gill faces class action lawsuit over Gamestop Reddit Rally
- Robinhood says GameStop volatility was a “1 in 3.5 million” black swan
- GameStop, Musk, and the threat to decentralization (Andres Guadamuz)
- GameStop CFO resigns
- GameStop CFO Jim Bell resigns
- SEC Commissioner Peirce Reaffirms Agency Mission in Light of GameStop
- Microsoft Unveils Xbox Accessibility Guidelines Version 2.0
- Biden admin plans executive order to address chip-shortage woes
- Semiconductor shortage hitting console production to be investigated by White House
- Chip shortage may threaten PlayStation 5 supplies at Christmas
- PS5 DualSense drift — this teardown just revealed the cause
- Gran Turismo 7 for PS5 just hit a major delay
- Gran Turismo 7 delayed to 2022
- CD Projekt Red issues DMCA to prevent spread of stolen Gwent code
- CD Projekt issues DMCA takedowns to halt spread of illegally obtained source code
- Report: Some CD Projekt devs unable to work after ransomware attack
- Take-Two DMCA takes down reverse-engineered GTA source code
- Take-Two reportedly takes down reverse-engineered GTA3, Vice City source code
- What a woman games journalist experiences in a week
- Developer banned from Steam for naming studio Very Positive
- Steam’s new controller reporting lets devs know how their games are played
- Burning Crusade Classic leaks ahead of BlizzCon
- Diablo II Resurrected tops BlizzCon announcement flurry
- Hardsuit Labs dropped as Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines 2 developer
- Microsoft’s accessibility guidelines are a great start — but we can go further | Opinion
- Nvidia nerfs cryptocurrency mining capabilities on newest graphics card
- Here’s why Glu is an excellent strategic fit for EA
- EA, BioWare cancel Anthem’s sweeping overhaul
- BioWare cancels plans for Anthem rework, shifts focus to Dragon Age and Mass Effect
- Crusader Kings III helps Paradox to best financial year in history
- Paradox reports best year ever in 2020
- Paradox removes Hardsuit Labs as Bloodlines 2 developer, title delayed indefinitely
- Unity report shows mobile games ad revenue grew 8% in 2020
- January digital games spending reaches $11.6bn
- Super Mario 3D World holds off FIFA resurgence | UK Boxed Charts
- Valheim tops 500,000 concurrent players on Steam in under three weeks
- Valheim has sold over 3 million copies in 17 days
- Paradox reveals new subscription service for Crusader Kings 2
- Paradox rolls out Crusader Kings II subscription plan to make DLC more accessible
- Nintendo delivered a strong Direct, but fan impatience grows | Opinion
- GameMaker to add next-gen support
- HP acquires HyperX
- Soccer Manager gets £3m investment
- Notre Dame sitting out of EA Sports College Football for now
- EA completes $1.2 billion acquisition of Dirt developer Codemasters
- EA completes $1.2bn Codemasters acquisition and hopes to “revolutionise” racing games
- Thunderful acquires Bridge Constructor publisher Headup in €11m deal
- Thunderful acquires Bridge Constructor publisher Headup for $13.3 million
- Thunderful Group full-year revenues rise to $374m despite Q4 profit drop
- Bandai Namco take minority stake in Might & Magic dev Limbic Entertainment
- Roblox to begin trading shares in March
- VSPN reportedly considering IPO
- Bungie scaling up to expand Destiny ‘into additional media’ and create new IPs
- Bungie opening Amsterdam publishing office
- Instant mobile game platform Artie raises $10m seed fund
- Instant mobile game platform Artie secures $10 million in funding
- ‘LinkedIn for gamers’ Efuse raises $6m
- BebopBee lands $2m in funding
- Netmarble acquires Kung Fu Factory
- Netmarble US to acquire NBA Ball Stars dev Kung Fu Factory
- Lucid Sight acquires multiplayer engine Colyseus
- Fandom acquires digital games marketplace Fanatical
- Larian opens UK development studio to work on Baldur’s Gate 3
- IronSource acquires playable and video advertisement platform Luna Labs
- Tencent grabs minority stake in TerraTech developer Payload Studios
- Saudi sovereign fund invests over $3 billion in major game publishers
- Saudi investment fund acquires shares in Activision Blizzard, Take-Two, and EA
- Live-action Twisted Metal TV series moving forward
- Cambrian’s new game design program launches in September
- Top Streamer Dr Disrespect To Release Comedic Memoir On March 30
- Omaken Sports forms “Nordic powerhouse of esports” with Heroic acquisition
- OverActive plans Toronto esports arena: Owner of Toronto Ultra and Toronto Defiant says 7,000-seat, $500 million venue projected to be complete in 2025
- YouTube Millionaires: For 17-Year-Old ‘Fortnite’ Enthusiast Ryft, “The Future Is Looking Very Bright”
- CAA Signs Fast-Growing Facebook Gaming Creator Zack ‘ZLaner’ Lane
- Striker VR raises $4 million for VR gun peripheral
- Sony developing ‘next-generation VR system’ for PlayStation 5
- Sony announces new PSVR hardware for PlayStation 5
- Sony just confirmed PSVR 2 for PS5 — these are the biggest upgrades
- Next-Gen VR Dev Kits for PS5 Shipping Soon with “completely new VR format”
- Sony Confirms Next-Gen PSVR is Coming, New Controllers to Feature DualSense Tech
- PlayStation’s commitment is a huge boost to the VR market | Opinion
- Carmack: Facebook-Oculus Acquisition ‘Not A Perfect Outcome’ But Still ‘Correct’ For The Company
- VR specialist NDreams becomes a third-party publisher with $2 million fund
- Making terms and acquisitions more accessible to users
- The legend of The Legend of Zelda
- The secret to Final Fantasy XIV’s longevity lies in the room its devs are given to innovate
- Let them fight! Mortal Kombat red-band trailer gives fans what they want
- Minit devs launch Minit Fun Racer, with all proceeds to go to charity
- Don’t Miss: In It To Minit – Designing a world of one-minute adventures
- Blog: A market status and design analysis of Autochess
- Blog: How game developers can tackle the climate crisis
- Blog: Urban Japan and megacities expert discusses Cyberpunk 2077
- Blog: Writing slapstick and narrative as one
- Blog: My full time indie developer life – Year 4
- Don’t Miss: Blizzard’s postmortem of Diablo II
- Don’t Miss: Making Oxenfree’s narrative unfold like a free-flowing conversation
DIGITAL
- Ontario Superior Court denies certification of Cambridge Analytica class action
- Ontario Court Sets Out New Tort of “Harassment in Internet Communications”
- Anonymous internet commenter fails to set aside default judgment
- Yet Another Story Shows How Facebook Bent Over Backwards To Put In Place Different Rules For Conservatives
- Facebook to reverse Australia news ban after lawmakers alter bill
- Facebook Caves To Australia: Will Restore Links After Government Gives It More Time To Negotiate Paying For News Links
- Right to post: Australia calls Facebook blocks an assault on a sovereign nation: Health Minister Greg Hunt has turned up the rhetorical dial after Facebook blocked Australian news media this morning.
- Facebook news ban is “arrogant,” Australia will not be “intimidated,” PM says
- The Bizarre Reaction To Facebook’s Decision To Get Out Of The News Business In Australia
- Why Is Facebook’s Decision to Restrict News in Australia So Significant?
- Australian News Sites Shocked & Upset To Learn They Don’t Need To Rely On Facebook For Traffic!
- Facebook’s Australian News Ban Did Demonstrate The Evil Of Zero Rating
- Beware the Unintended Consequences: Some Warning Signs for Canada from the Australian Government Battle With Facebook (Michael Geist)
- The Complexity of Internet Content Regulation – A Conversation with CIPPIC’s Vivek Krishnamurthy (Michael Geist)
- Microsoft throws Google under the bus in European news fight
- The Librarian War Against QAnon
- TikTok Removed Nearly 350,000 Videos For Violating Election Policies
- New ‘TikTok For Black Creatives’ Incubator Unveils Inaugural Class Of 100 Creators
- Arizona’s $24-Million Prison Management Software Is Keeping People Locked Up Past The End Of Their Sentences
- YouTube Removes PewDiePie’s Cocomelon Diss Track, Citing Harassment And Child Safety Policies
- Is Mandated Sideloading The Answer To App Store Deplatforming?
- YouTube Will Begin Letting Underage Users Onto Its Flagship Platform — With Parental Supervision
- Five Things Platforms Can Do Today to Fight Disinformation
- Indian Government Requires Educational Establishments To Obtain Its Approval For The Subject Matter And Participants Of International Online Conferences And Seminars
- Tech groups sue Maryland to block new digital-ad tax from going into effect
- How Oregon’s Top Wildlife Official Got Sued Over His State’s Hunting App
- Is Section 230 Just For Start-ups? History Says Nope
- North Dakota’s New Anti-230 Bill Would Let Nazis Sue You For Reporting Their Content To Twitter
- Attacks On Internet Free Speech In Malaysia And Indonesia Demonstrate Why Section 230 Is So Important
- Content Moderation Case Study: Senator Asks YouTube To Block Al Qaeda Videos (2008)
- Content Moderation Case Study: Chatroulette Leverages New AI To Combat Unwanted Nudity (2020)
- The Grim Consequences of a Misleading Study on Disinformation: An influential study relies too heavily on news reporting – which has only recently acknowledged the social media manipulation problem at all.
- Social media manipulation by political actors now an industrial scale problem prevalent in over 80 countries – annual Oxford report
- Congressional Jawboning of Internet Services Isn’t Actionable–AAPS v. Schiff (Eric Goldman)
- Doctor Can’t Win Default Judgment Over Patient’s Yelp Review–Mirza v. Amar (Eric Goldman)
- An Account Suspension Case Fails Again–Perez v. LinkedIn (Eric Goldman)
- UK Supreme Court says Uber drivers are not independent contractors
- Uber: Bankrupt engineer Levandowski is hiding millions from creditors
- Maryland First State to Adopt Digital Ad Tax
- Hosts Of Gimlet Media’s ‘Reply All’ Step Down After Allegations Of Toxic, Anti-Union Behavior
- Can YouTube Teach Facebook A Better Way To Handle News Content In Australia And Beyond?
- YouTube Shutters 7 Remaining ‘YouTube Spaces’ Globally, Doubling Down On Pop-ups And Virtual Programming
- YouTube launches new destination for sports fans and expands its YouTube Select CTV offering
- YouTube Announces 2021 Slate Of More Than 30 Kids’ Originals
- YouTube TV To Offer $30 Add-On Bundle Comprising HBO Max, Showtime, And Starz
- This Week In Social Video: Mars Landing, Rick Lax, Happy Gilmore
- Spotify Will Enable Podcasters To Charge For Monthly Subscriptions, Slates Broader Rollout For Video Podcasts
- TikTok without filters
- TikTok Locks In Multiyear Partnership With UFC
- David Dobrik’s ‘Dispo’ App Reportedly Eyeing Series A Funding Round At $100 Million Valuation
- Logan Paul Sells $5 Million Worth Of NFTs Ahead Of His Pokémon Box Break
- MrBeast Says His Burger Brand Sold One Million Sandwiches In 2 Months
- Creator Community Standard Launches In-House Studio Offering Production Resources To All Digital Creators
- A Teenaged Tech CEO Tries To Sneak In After Curfew And Finds His Mom Waited Up For Him
- Internationalized domain names: definition, challenges, and status
- The bitcoin blockchain is helping keep a botnet from being taken down
- Virtual Currency Platform Settles NY AG Charges for Unlawful Trading
- Treasury Secretary Skeptical of Bitcoin
- SEC halts trading of iced tea company that pivoted to blockchain
- SEC Delists the Iced-Tea Company that Added “Blockchain” to Its Name
- The rise of the online divorce
- Another route for resolving technology disputes?
- Is Quantum Computing about to actually become useable – even useful?
- Roundup of Some Influential 1990s Internet Law Articles (Eric Goldman)
A.I.
- Copyright in works created by artificial intelligence: issues and Perspectives
- Artificial Intelligence and Patents: Inventing Inventors
- Takeaways | Requiring Human Inventorship – Opportunities to Advise Whether to Prohibit, Permit, or Require Listing an AI Algorithm as an Inventor – Eastern District of Virginia & European Patent Office
- Legal Aspects of Artificial Intelligence (v3.0)
- The AI research paper was real. The “co-author” wasn’t
- Google fires top ethical AI expert Margaret Mitchell: The tech giant claims Mitchell violated staff codes of conduct.
- AI and Privacy Are on a Collision Course
- AI can write a passing college paper in 20 minutes: Natural language processing is on the cusp of changing our relationship with machines forever.
- CMA continues its focus on digital markets with a call for evidence on the use of algorithms
- Will the Final Chapter Come? FDA’s Action Plan for Oversight of Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning-Based Medical Software
- Trust, transparency and meaning: success factors in effective AI projects
- Video: Improving the AI of Mafia III
COMMUNICATIONS
- Court Tosses Devin Nunes’ Silly SLAPP Lawsuit Against CNN
- California can enforce net neutrality law, judge rules in loss for ISPs
- California Poised To Defeat Broadband Industry In Scrum Over Net Neutrality
- ‘Net Neutrality Hurt Internet Infrastructure Investment’ Is The Bad Faith Lie That Simply Won’t Die
- Comcast reluctantly drops data-cap enforcement in 12 states for rest of 2021
- AT&T and Frontier have let phone networks fall apart, Calif. regulator finds
- Cox’s bad customer service stymies users who don’t want upload speeds cut
- The DOJ/FCC ‘Fix’ For The T-Mobile Merger Is Looking More And More Like Theater
- Chattanooga Built Its Own Broadband Network. Now It’s The Top Ranked ‘Work From Home’ City In The US
- New Bill Tries To Ban Community Broadband. During A Pandemic.
- FCC Pressured To Let Libraries Bridge Broadband Access During The Pandemic
- Apple is already working on developing 6G wireless technology
- Apple beats Samsung in phone sales for first time since 2016
- Maryland Electric Cooperative Launches Broadband Subsidiary
- House Republicans propose nationwide ban on municipal broadband networks
- LG enters fray with Google, Amazon, Roku for TV operating system dominance
- China blocks BBC World News in Tit-for-tat move following CGTN Ban in UK
- ASA rejects a complaint that a Johnnie Walker ad encouraged immoderate drinking
- CARU Encourages Advertisers to Focus on Diversity and Inclusion
- Broadening the Definition of Express and Implicit Representation in Children’s Advertising
INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY
- Canadian consultation on extending the general term of copyright open through March 12
- Extra, extra, read all about it: new Canadian Bill proposes remuneration for use of journalistic works online
- Time to Pay the Copyright Piper? A Digital Media Platform Copyright Reckoning for Journalists is Upon Us!
- Meghan Markle gets summary judgment – but is she the sole author of her letter?
- Duchess of Sussex wins summary judgment in copyright and privacy claims
- Duchess of Sussex v Mail on Sunday & MailOnline
- HHJ Hacon decides ownership of Virtual Forensic Computing software created during course of employment.
- Karma: Twitch Replaces Live Metallica Concert With 8-Bit Music To Avoid Copyright Madness
- Understanding the Boundaries of Using Copyrighted Learning Materials in Distance Learning
- Hooray for the Public Domain: A prequel to The Great Gatsby sees the light of day!
- A Closed Book: No Past Infringement, No Reading Between the Lines into the Future
- Third circuit panel revises half-baked trade dress functionality decision
- 9th Circuit swivels on trade dress functionality doctrine in favor of iconic Herman Miller office chairs
- Apple Settles Trademark Opposition With PrePear Recipe App After The Latter Makes A Barely Perceptible Change In Logo
- A Registration is a Trump Card
- Peloton Seeks To Invalidate ‘Spinning’ Trademark Held By Trademark Bully
- FyreTV Porn Service Asks 11th Circuit Panel To Resurrect Dumb Trademark Suit Against Amazon Over FireTV
- USPTO Provides Guidance in View of ‘Booking.com’
- Trademark registrability of generic.com domain names following US Supreme Court decision on Booking.com
- Fairtrade Fortnight
- Protecting product appearance through trademark and design registrations
- Domain Name Dispute Resolution Options: Features, Benefits and Other Considerations for Selecting Between UDRP and URS
- Federal Circuit Clarifies When Appellate Review Triggers Patent Term Adjustment
- Federal Court Dismisses Limitation Period Defence in Patent Infringement Action under Section 8.2 of the PM(NOC) Regulations
- Canadian courts are interpreting supplementary pharmaceutical patent protection more broadly than their EU counterparts
- Lack of enablement in Amgen v Sanofi and Regeneron
- Federal Circuit Axes Amgen Antibody Patents, Finding Lack of Enablement
- Judge Schofield Rejects Application of Rare Equitable Estoppel Defense
- 2G or Not 2G: Patent License Applies to Future Generation Wireless Networks
- Boom in M&A shifts semiconductor patent landscape
- Patent Office Issues Guidance on Indefiniteness
- When is someone “authorised” to use a patented invention for the services of the Crown and therefore immune from patent infringement?
- John Deere Promised To Back Off Monopolizing Repair. It Then Ignored That Promise Completely.
PRIVACY
- Evidence of Harm Required To Advance Class Action Following Data Breach
- Uber Denial of Class Action – Alberta Court Denies Certification of Privacy Class Action
- Alberta court confirms competent Testator’s right to privacy
- Why Transparency Won’t Save Us
- Treasury Oversight Says IRS Should Consider Getting Warrants Before Buying Location Data From Data Brokers
- Ninth Circuit Sends Alexa Surreptitious Recording Case to Arbitration–Tice v. Amazon (Eric Goldman)
- Data Breach Plaintiff Doesn’t Have Standing in the Absence of Fraud or Identity Theft–Tsao v. Captiva
- The First Circuit Court of Appeals confirms government’s expansive authority to search electronic devices
- Think Before You Pack that Laptop—Searches at the U.S. Border May Compromise Personal and Corporate Data
- Microsoft says SolarWinds hackers stole source code for 3 products
- Global social media company should take measures to prevent app developers from transmitter users’ sensitive data
- Private firms can’t protect us from digital attacks. Government must step in.
- Post-IDFA Alliance forms to prepare for Apple privacy changes
- New browser-tracking hack works even when you flush caches or go incognito
- Clearview and Blackbaud – Where are we, how did we get here, and where are we going?
- To pay or not to pay: Another regulator weighs in on the decision to pay a ransom
- GDPR in practice for North American companies: Key takeaways from Jan 21. 2021 Webinar
- LAPD Asked Ring Users To Turn Over Footage Of Anti-Police Brutality Protests
- Firefox 86 brings multiple Picture-in-Picture, “Total Cookie Protection”
Jon
News of the Week; February 17, 2021
GAMES
- Riot Games CEO sued by former assistant for sexual harassment
- Google Wins Motion to Dismiss Loot Box Class Action
- Nintendo reportedly raises damages sought in Colopl lawsuit to $47m
- Nintendo claims additional damages in White Cat Project lawsuit
- Latest Nintendo Direct event led by Zelda: Skyward Sword HD remaster
- Nintendo ends pandemic-driven Nintendo Direct hiatus with a remaster-filled showcase
- First PS5 drift class action lawsuit filed against Sony
- Epic Games’ Case Against Teenage Fortnite Cheater Finally Settles
- Epic files EU antitrust complaint against Apple
- Fortnite vs. Apple continues to escalate with new antitrust complaint
- Fortnite fight expands as Epic claims Apple broke EU competition law
- North Dakota lawmakers jump into Apple/Epic fight with new app store bill
- Coalition for App Fairness behind North Dakota bill against Apple: Money from the organisation co-founded by Epic Games paid for lobbyists to introduce new bill into state senate
- A North Dakota bill aiming to loosen Apple’s tight grip on iOS has failed
- Video Gaming/E-Gaming Law update, February 2021
- One Patent To Rule Them All | Podcast: We discuss the implications of Warner Bros’ Nemesis system patent, with Harbottle & Lewis’ Kostya Lobov
- PC versions of Grand Theft Auto reverse-engineered to raw source code
- New dev revives Six Days in Fallujah a decade after controversal announcement
- Six Days in Fallujah dev: “I don’t think we need to portray the atrocities” – Peter Tamte wants to tell the story without politics, without addressing why the war started, or what war crimes were committed
- Hackers claim to have sold Cyberpunk 2077, Witcher 3 source code
- CD Projekt Red source code reportedly sells for millions in dark Web auction
- How close is too close? A look into the use of altered trade marks and third-party ‘patches’ in videogames
- US regulations reportedly prevented GameStop from cashing in on share surge
- Why didn’t GameStop sell some of its inflated stock during the bubble?
- Habbo: “The last month left a bruise on our community” – Sulake CEO Valtteri Karu on Habbo’s troubled migration from Flash to Unity, and how the firm aims to win back the trust of its players
- Why a “Black Panther moment” is not the answer to games’ diversity problem: Studio AC Games founder Adam Campbell on how improving representation in video games takes less effort, not more
- Niantic launches Black Developers Initiative, offers funding and mentorship
- Microsoft launches gaming accessibility testing platform for developers
- Microsoft updates Xbox Accessibility Guidelines to help devs make games for everyone
- Report: Microsoft testing web-based xCloud streaming ahead of public preview
- Xbox takes back-compat to new extremes, tricks old games to run faster
- Stadia staff lauded for “great progress” one week before closure
- Ex-Stadia developers dish on Google’s mismanagement and poor communication
- Report: Stadia boss praised first-party studios for ‘great progress’ days before closure
- Steam developer gets banned for “Very Positive” review trickery
- Eximius dev relaunching title after publisher dispute
- Amazon delays New World again
- Future of work in games: new EU-UK relationship brings renewed focus on immigration for the games industry
- Ampere: PS5 and Xbox Series X|S sales in line with, not ahead of, previous gen – But firm believes new PlayStation could sell up to eight million units by end of March, surpassing PS4
- PC hardware and accessories spending grew 62% in the US in 2020
- US game spending up 42% in January, says NPD
- Dreams of easy money create a risk of tough acquisitions | Opinion: As frothy valuations and predatory firms drive a wave of acquisitions, serious questions need to be asked about the chimeras being created
- Profits falter despite rising game sales at Sega Sammy
- Sega Sammy reports sharp income decline despite soaring game sales
- Supercell posts solid profits, despite fifth straight year of revenue decline
- Playtonic branches into game publishing with Playtonic Friends label
- Yooka-Laylee developer Playtonic launches publishing division
- Asmodee acquires Board Game Arena
- Pole to Win acquires 5518 Studios
- Record year for Remedy despite no new game releases
- Remedy had a record financial year despite lack of new releases
- Valheim tops 1 million sales during first week on Steam Early Access
- Valheim has topped 2 million sales in under two weeks
- Human: Fall Flat has topped 25 million sales worldwide
- Trials of Mana remake tops 1 million digital sales and shipments
- An acceleration of consolidation | This Week in Business
- Kwalee launches PC and console publishing arm
- Tilting Point sinks $60 million into Match 3D developer Loop Games
- Zynga delivers record annual revenues thanks to ‘forever franchises’
- Zynga still in the market for more acquisitions
- NaturalMotion working on cross-platform games as Zynga eyes growth on console, PC
- Asmodee acquires digital multiplayer board game platform Board Game Arena
- Starbreeze losses shrink to $15.8m as Payday continues to grow
- Thanks to Payday 2-driven stability, Starbreeze pushes ahead on Payday 3
- Netmarble doubles full-year profits for 2020
- Peter Molyneux’s studio 22cans suffers layoffs
- Colossi Games raises $2.5m in funding
- Colossi Games nets $2.5 million to boost production on debut mobile game
- What Do 140 Million ‘GTA 5’ Sales Mean For ‘GTA 6’?
- Bad Robot looking to be the rare Hollywood-and-games success story
- Last Of Us HBO series casts Pedro Pascal as Joel
- Dota 2 is getting a Netflix series: The eight-episode anime series will launch on March 25
- Twitch and Facebook Gaming set record highs in January
- The ‘GaaS or subscription service’ squeeze in games
- Striker VR Raises $4M to Bring Its Haptic VR Gun to Consumers – First Look
- Why The Medium embraced a local Polish setting for a global audience
- GoldenEye, Mario and how to succeed in the world of nostalgia
- Super Mario 3D World + Bowser’s Fury launch 190% bigger than Wii U original | UK Boxed Charts
- Super Mario 3D World + Bowser’s Fury | Critical Consensus
- Valheim is the endless Viking survival game we have craved for years
- Online fighting games during COVID: How rollback helps us connect
- The games of love: Our favorite couch co-op games to play with a partner
- Blog: Breaking down the essentials of live ops – Part 1
- Blog: Designing for a sense of mystery and wonder
- Blog: Designing touch controls for Human: Fall Flat
- Blog: How developers are dealing with toxic behaviour in social VR
- Blog: Video game music concerts in 2021
- Blog: Lessons learned from teaching game design
DIGITAL
- Beyond Defamation: Ontario Court Recognizes New Tort of Internet Harassment
- Expanding the Courts’ arsenal to combat online abuse – The new tort of harassment in Internet communications
- Conservative News Outlet Ordered To Pay More Than $250,000 In Legal Fees To Rachel Maddow, MSNBC
- Trump’s False Posts Were Treated with Kid Gloves by Facebook
- Facebook goes nuclear, banning all news posts in Australia
- Big Tech opens wallet for publishers as Australian news code looms
- Google and Facebook grapple with news publishers, as Australia becomes a test case
- The Internet Is Splintering
- The world’s second-most popular desktop operating system isn’t macOS anymore
- Posing as Amazon seller, consumer group investigates fake-review industry
- There won’t be blood: Apple is making its syringe emoji a vaccine dose
- New report on Apple’s VR headset: 8K in each eye, potential $3,000 price tag
- Apple’s car project could put it on a collision course with Tesla
- New York Administrative Law Judge Determines That Online Security Services Are Subject to Sales Tax
- State lawmakers override veto, become first in nation to tax online ads
- Biden Administration Presses Pause on WeChat and TikTok Appeals
- Biden Administration Asks Federal Courts to Pause TikTok and WeChat Cases
- Twitter CFO Says Trump Is Banned In Perpetuity, Even If He Runs For Office Again
- Facebook has been helping law enforcement identify Capitol rioters
- Facebook Blocks News Viewing, Sharing In Australia, Faces Backlash From Emergency Services
- Zuckerberg responds to Apple’s privacy policies: “We need to inflict pain”: Meeting between Zuckerberg, Cook “resulted in a tense standoff.”
- Insights: Apple And Facebook Are Fighting For The Future As Much As For Now
- Inside the Making of Facebook’s Supreme Court: The company has created a board that can overrule even Mark Zuckerberg. Soon it will decide whether to allow Trump back on Facebook.
- The Copia Institute To The Oversight Board Regarding Facebook’s Trump Suspension: There Was No Wrong Decision
- Zuckerberg’s Grand Illusion: Understanding The Oversight Board Experiment
- Why We Filed A Comment With Facebook’s Oversight Board
- United States: towards the end of Internet intermediary immunity?
- New details emerge about Google’s payments to link to French news sites
- Why young designers are using social media to shame fast fashion copycats
- Twitter & India Still Arguing Over Whether Or Not Twitter Accounts Supporting Farmer Protests Need To Be Removed
- Instagram bans top anti-vaxxer Robert F. Kennedy Jr. over COVID falsehoods
- Orrin Hatch, Who Once Wanted To Destroy The Computers Of Anyone Who Infringed On Copyrights, Now Lies About Section 230
- Content Moderation Case Study: Valve Takes A Hands Off Approach To Porn Via Steam (2018)
- Content Moderation Case Study: Google ‘Removes’ German Residences From Street View By Request (2010)
- Section 230 Protects App Store from Liability for Apps With Loot Boxes–Coffee v. Google (Eric Goldman)
- Section 230 Applies to Articles by Huffington Post Contributors–Page v. Oath (Eric Goldman)
- Nvidia wants to buy CPU designer Arm—Qualcomm is not happy about it
- Nvidia acquisition of Arm under fire from Microsoft and Google
- Prosecutor charges former phone company employee in SIM-swap scheme
- WhatsApp messages – who is in control?
- Google flags its iOS apps as “out of date” after two months of neglect
- Top 50 Most Viewed YouTube Channels Worldwide Last Week
- Top 50 Most Viewed U.S. YouTube Channels Last Week
- YouTube’s ‘Shorts’ TikTok Clone, With 3.5 Billion Daily Views, To Arrive In The U.S. This March
- YouTube Launches Bi-Weekly ‘Shorts Report’ To Bolster Its TikTok Competitor
- YouTube TV Readies Add-On Package With 4K, Offline Viewing, Unlimited Concurrent TV Screens
- YouTube Unveils 2021 Originals Slate Featuring Markiplier, Marques Brownlee, Jake Roper
- YouTube Will Expand Tipping Tool ‘Applause’ To More Channels, Is Testing Ecommerce Feature For Creators
- TikTok’s U.S. Ad Business Grew 500% In 2020, It Says
- ASA continues crackdown on influencer #ads as Love Island’s Luke M is the latest to fall foul of advertising rules
- SAG-AFTRA Ratifies New ‘Influencer Agreement’ Covering Creator-Generated Branded Content
- Grace Helbig, Mamrie Hart To Catch Up With OG YouTubers In Limited Podcast ‘How Ya Been?’
- Collectibles Marketplace Goldin Auctions Raises $40 Million, Pacts With Logan Paul For Pokemon Card Event
- Charli D’Amelio Builds On Dunkin’ Donuts Alliance With Second Signature Coffee Drink
- Emma Chamberlain Named Spokesmodel For PacSun
- This Week In Social Video: Super Bowl (Ad) Shuffle
- Disney+ Closes 2020 With 94.9 Million Subscribers, Expects To Hit 230 Million In 2024
- Apple TV+ acquires a “sci-fi courtroom drama” about a murderous robot doll
- After the failure of the Facebook Phone, get ready for a Facebook Watch
- Parler’s Found A New Host (And A New CEO)… For Now
- Parler says it’s back without “Big Tech” after being kicked off Amazon
- When Can Plaintiffs Serve Process Via Online Methods? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
- Internet Law Year-in-Review for 2020 (Eric Goldman)
- An anniversary for great justice: Remembering “All Your Base” 20 years later
A.I.
- AI Update: USPTO Releases Report on Growth of Artificial Intelligence Applications
- IP law and strategy for AI – A European perspective
- AI Hiring Tools Present New Risks: What’s Next in the US
- Top Ten Legal Considerations for Use and/or Development of Artificial Intelligence in Health Care
- FDA Issues Long-Awaited Action Plan for Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning-Based Software As a Medical Device
- Video: The AI of Assassin’s Creed Origins
COMMUNICATIONS
- Vancouver’s TSN 1040 off the air after Bell suddenly pulls the plug: Vancouver’s most popular sports radio station shut down Tuesday morning, surprising fans and staff alike
- Bell abandoning all-sports format at radio stations in Vancouver, Winnipeg, Hamilton
- Why Laid Off Bell Sports Journalists Should Form A Worker Co-op: We cannot rely on legacy corporate media to save the journalism industry. It’s time to build something better.
- Circumventing Parliament: How Bill C-10 Dramatically Reduces Parliamentary Oversight and Review Over Broadcast Policy (Michael Geist)
- Texas Power, Phone Outages Again Highlight How Infrastructure Underinvestment Will Be Fatal Moving Forward
- Ajit Pai Tried To Strangle A Broadband Aid Program For Low Income Americans. Then A Pandemic Hit.
- State Laws Restricting Community Broadband Are Hurting US Communities During The Pandemic
- Are Social Media Services “State Actors” or “Common Carriers”? (Eric Goldman)
- FCC to Hold Hearing to Determine What Felony Conviction of Station Owner Means for License Renewal – What Does the FCC Character Policy Require of Broadcast Applicants?
- The Return of the Fairness Doctrine – What it Was and Why it Won’t Return
- The digital divide is giving American churches hell
- Dumb New GOP Talking Point: If You Restore Net Neutrality, You HAVE To Kill Section 230. Just Because!
- AT&T scrambles to install fiber for 90-year-old after his viral WSJ ad
- A 90 Year Old Shouldn’t Have To Buy A $10,000 Ad Just To Get AT&T To Upgrade His Shitty DSL Line
- Cox cuts some users’ uploads from 30Mbps to 10Mbps—here’s how to avoid it
- Frontier raises sneaky “Internet Infrastructure Surcharge” from $4 to $7
- Annoyance Builds At Elon Musk Getting A Billion In Subsidies For Starlink Broadband
- SpaceX plans Starlink phone service, emergency backup, and low-income access
- SpaceX Starlink passes 10,000 users and fights opposition to FCC funding
- FCC Prepares to Auction AM and FM Radio Construction Permits, Seeks Comments on Procedures
- Louisiana AG Sues Journalists To Keep Them From Obtaining Documents Detailing Sexual Harassment By Top Prosecutor
- CAN-SPAM Requires Falsity or Deception, But What Do Those Words Mean?–Rad v. US
- Kang v. PF Chang’s, Inc.: Reasonable Consumer Deception, or Just a “Crabby” Plaintiff?
- Who is leading the 5G patent race? A patent landscape analysis on declared SEPs and standards contributions
- A reckoning for the paparazzi and tabloid media
INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY
- A consultation on how to implement an extended general term of copyright protection in Canada (Canada)
- Copyright Term Extension – March 12 2021 Deadline to Respond to Very Disappointing Document (Howard Knopf)
- Afraid to Lead: Canadian Government Launches Timid Consultation on Implementing Copyright Term Extension (Michael Geist)
- The Copyright Bill That Does Nothing: Senate Bill Proposes Copyright Reform to Support Media Organizations (Michael Geist)
- Copyright Term Extension: To Life Plus 70 Years, But Not Beyond! Government Consultation on Copyright Term Extension Now Open
- Should We Require Human Inventorship? Submit Your Amicus Brief by March
- Is This Beverly Hills Cop Playing Sublime’s ‘Santeria’ to Avoid Being Live-streamed?: Police in Beverly Hills have been playing music while being filmed, seemingly in an effort to trigger Instagram’s copyright filters.
- Copyright and database rights in database schema: Software Solutions Ltd and others v 365 Health and Wellbeing Ltd and Smith
- Judiciary’s Approach to Moral Rights under Copyright Law
- H&M and Unicolors weave up at Copyright battle at US SC
- UK Courts find hidden voice in film authorship dispute
- Pan-European Design Protection: Considerations for the fashion sector post-Brexit
- Utah Theme Park Sues Taylor Swift Over Album Title After Exploiting It
- A Shoe-In? Fleet Feet Gives Injunction Appeal the Moot Boot
- Amazon keeps hitting the target… but not quite in a trade mark context
- One too many Pink Ladies
- Tefal fails to secure trade mark protection for its red dot despite survey evidence
- ‘It’s like milk but made for humans’: General Court overturns EUIPO’s refusal to register Oatly’s trade mark
- When is a slogan a trade mark?
- Random Jackass Attempts To Trademark ‘Mayor Of Mar-A-Lago’ In The Most Hilarious Way
- How life sciences companies can strengthen IP strategies through the use of trade secrets
- ITC Finds Trade Secret Misappropriation and Bars Electric Vehicle Batteries from SK Innovation—With Exceptions
- $6 Million Verdict Vacated in Flooring Tech Trade Secrets Row
- The Facts on Fax Machines: They’re Not Dead, They’re Indefinite
- Foreign Prosecution History: To Admit, Or Not To Admit, That Remains a Puzzle To Canadian Courts
- Federal Court finds silodosin formulation patent valid but not infringed
- Patent application extensions of time in Canada
- Extensions of time in Canada: worth the trouble?
- Contradictory Positions Render Claims Indefinite
- “Safe Harbor” Act May Save Pfizer From Infringement for Covid Vaccine Clinical Trials
- It Is Improper To Read a Claim in a Grammatically Incorrect Way Simply To Include a Disclosed Embodiment
- US patents: Body blow for antibodies
- There’s no such thing as an international patent
- Everyday IP — Flushing out the facts: When was indoor plumbing invented?
- From Snail Mail to Streaming: The Netflix Intellectual Property Story
- Cloud Contracts: The Impact of Common Terms of Service Provisions on Intellectual Property Rights
- The link between intellectual property rights and business performance
- IP law looms large over U.S.-China relations
PRIVACY
- France ties Russia’s Sandworm to a multiyear hacking spree
- North Korea may have hacked into Pfizer servers looking for COVID data
- Enough is enough — Governing the ungovernable
- Comments on the Clearview AI joint Report of Findings
- Big Brother’s Access Limited – Canadian Privacy Commissioners Rule Clearview AI’s Facial Recognition Tool in Breach of Canadian Privacy Laws
- Privacy trends to watch in 2021: Canada modernizes its private-sector privacy laws
- FTC Chair Rebecca Slaughter Outlines Data Privacy Enforcement Agenda
- FTC Settles Facial Recognition Data Misuse Allegations with App Developer
- Analyst: Tighter IDFA privacy rules on iOS spell short-term trouble for in-app ads
- Microsoft is seeing a big spike in Web shell use
- Microsoft: SolarWinds attack took more than 1,000 engineers to create – Microsoft reckons that the huge attack on security vendors and more took the combined power of at least 1,000 engineers to create.
- France: Russian state hackers targeted Centreon servers in years-long campaign
- Hacked Florida Water Plant Found To Have Been Using Unsupported Windows 7 Machines And Shared Passwords
- Minneapolis, Minnesota Becomes The Latest Major City To Pass A Facial Recognition Ban
- Amazon will use cameras and AI to monitor delivery drivers
- Gun Trafficking Investigation Shows The FBI Is Still Capable Of Accessing Communications On Encrypted Devices
- Google Pixel phones will soon track heart rate using only the camera
- Zoombombing countermeasures are ineffective in the vast majority of cases
- The Perfect Storm for Privacy and Adtech: How the End of the Cookie Era Will Reshape the Digital Marketplace
- Virginia is about to get a major California-style data privacy law
- Report: Google considering an iOS-style anti-tracking feature for Android
- Information Commissioner confirms conservatives illegally collected data to racially profile voters
- CBP Facial Recognition Program Has Gathered 50 Million Face Photos, Identified Fewer Than 300 Imposters
- Biometric Privacy in the Era of COVID-19: Facial Recognition Compliance for Airports and Airlines
- Cops can’t access $60M in seized bitcoin—fraudster won’t give password
Jon
News of the Week; February 10, 2021
GAMES
- Riot Games CEO accused of sexual harassment in lawsuit from ex-employee
- Shadow of War publisher Warner Bros. has patented the series’ Nemesis system
- Super Nintendo World apparently took scenery from a Mario fangame
- Merritt killer gets PlayStation memory card back after win in Federal Court: Justice Zinn ruled removal order unreasonable – that inmate permitted to having a gaming system in their cell should also have a memory card
- Fischer v. Canada (Attorney General), 2021 FC 112
- G.I. Bro is a Go: Copyright Dispute Over Call of Duty Poster Survives Summary Judgement
- Activision Blizzard sued over Call of Duty character
- Call of Duty drives record year for Activision Blizzard
- Microsoft says terms of service mandate arbitration for Xbox controller suit
- Microsoft creates ‘Vault’ to temporarily house Bethesda parent ZeniMax
- PS5 DualSense controllers already have a drift problem – what you need to know: It’s not just the Nintendo Switch’s Joy-Cons anymore
- Advocating for accessibility in video games
- PS5’s DualSense controller also faces drift issues
- PS5 to launch in China in Q2 2021
- Warner Bros finally secures patent for Shadow of Mordor’s Nemesis system
- CD Projekt Red’s internal systems “compromised” following ransomware attack
- CD Projekt Red gets ‘cyberpunk’d’ – another ransomware attack
- Cyberpunk 2077 developer hit with ransomware attack
- Cyberpunk 2077 developer CD Projekt hit by ‘targeted cyber attack’
- MP proposes bill to make console scalping illegal amid PS5 and Xbox Series shortages
- Gaming sites are still letting streamers profit from hate
- Can you cheat to get ahead on Steam?
- Steam Becomes Available In China, Offers 53 Whole Games To Customers
- Lessons from GameStop: Small Investors “100% Don’t Care” About Risk
- Regulators forced to respond to GameStop Corp.’s historic yo-yo
- Robinhood Sued in Class Action, Alleging Website Inaccessibility and Discrimination Against Blind Users
- Another Speculation Is Possible: The Political Lesson Of R/WallStreetBets
- Amazon’s next CEO vows to help struggling Amazon Game Studios bounce back
- Bandai Namco switches management amid business unit shake-up
- Profits dip at Bandai Namco despite rising game sales
- Bandai Namco reports rising profits amid restructure
- Nintendo boss says diverse Switch playerbase will help it outsell the Wii
- Nintendo discusses Switch growth plans as console enters “middle of its lifecycle”
- Ori director criticises developers for overhyping games with “lies and deception”
- YouTube Releases Self-Certification Guide Specifically For Gaming Creators
- Terraria developer cancels Google Stadia port after YouTube account ban
- Stadia’s issues were clear from the start | This Week in Business
- Google’s shutdowns relegate streaming to “gaming of the gaps” | Opinion
- Digital downloads jumped 47% across Europe in 2020 | European Annual Report
- Animal Crossing continues to dominate UK retail | UK Boxed Charts
- Xbox Series S/X was the No.1 console of January | UK Monthly GfK Charts
- Assetto Corsa franchise reaches €100 million in lifetime sales
- Epic Games addresses speculation over IPO
- Epic Games’ ability to go to war with Apple stems from its financial freedom, says CEO
- Epic’s new tool promises high-fidelity human characters in under an hour
- Epic Games’ new MetaHuman Creator will let devs build hi-fi humans
- Super High-Fidelity Mario: The quest to find original gaming audio samples
- Sony now has a stake in parent of Dark Souls dev From Software
- Wildlife Studios launches Never Forget Games
- EA Sports Announces College Football Video Game Revival and Another Collegiate Athlete Persona Rights Piece of Legislation is Proposed in Congress
- EA continues its big mobile push with $2.1 billion Glu Mobile acquisition
- EA acquires Glu Mobile in $2.1 billion deal
- EA’s Andrew Wilson talks about the Glu acquisition
- Leaf Mobile: Kings of Green Mountain – Darcy Taylor on building a thriving business in the “green games” market, and what the $159m acquisition of East Side Games means for Leaf’s future
- Leaf Mobile confirms $125m acquisition of East Side Games
- Zynga posts record revenues, record net losses
- Digital makes up 85% of Take-Two’s $860.9 million in Q3 net revenue
- Maple Story and mobile expansion push Nexon to record revenues
- Ubisoft’s Prince of Persia remake postponed indefinitely
- Assassin’s Creed Valhalla leads Ubisoft’s biggest quarter ever
- Assassin’s Creed, Watch Dogs, and Just Dance push Ubisoft to new record highs
- Minecraft Dungeons has crossed 10 million players on all platforms
- Huuuge Games IPO to raise $442m
- Vertigo Games acquires location-based VR arcade platform SpringboardVR
- Mountaintop raises $5.5 million to accelerate development of its PvP shooter
- Homa Games raises $15m for hypercasual titles
- Candivore raises $12 million
- French mobile studio Homa nets $15 million to create hypercasual titles
- Unity reports record year despite losses
- Revenue, downloads, and MAUs all on the rise as Unity closes Q4
- Activision Blizzard closes out 2020 with rising revenue and profit
- Final Fantasy VII Remake and Marvel’s Avengers boost sales at Square Enix
- Mobile titles and domestic releases are driving revenue at Konami
- Mobile developer Wildlife opens new studio in California
- Match Masters dev Candivore nets $12 million to drive user acquisition
- Focus Home Interactive opens up new Deck13 studio in Montreal
- TinyBuild acquires three studios
- Totally Reliable Delivery Service dev among three studios acquired by TinyBuild
- Nazara Technologies gets $13.7m in funding
- Latitude raises $3.3 million for its AI platform
- Pizza Club secures $1.5m investment from My.Games
- Focus Home Interactive is opening a Deck13 subsidiary in Montreal
- Kowloon Nights backs indies with funding deals for 23 titles
- Tencent buys minority stake in DayZ developer Bohemia Interactive
- Tencent acquires minority stake in Bohemia Interactive
- Super Mario 3D World + Bowser’s Fury review: Everything old is new again
- Here’s what ESRB’s ratings looked like in 2020
- “Arcades are a crucial part of the history of video games”
- E3 skipping in-person event again
- Newzoo’s Esports Trends to Watch in 2021
- Pokémon World Championships 2021 cancelled
- ‘Why was that focusing on Miranda’s butt?’ & other dev tales from remastering Mass Effect
- “90 bugs left”: Rare devs talk about the nearly completed Goldeneye 007 remake [Updated]
- Blog: Set rotations in Magic The Gathering – A mobile F2P perspective
- Blog: Revisiting the fall of Resident Evil
- Blog: Building an arcade cabinet for the 21st Century
- Video: The combat animations of Middle-earth: Shadow of War
- Don’t Miss: How Baldur’s Gate 3 first approached the RNG of D&D-inspired dice rolls
- Level Up: 33 Legal Tips for Game Developers and Publishers Part II
DIGITAL
- The Tort of Internet Harassment: A new tort with an extraordinary remedy
- Ontario Superior Court recognizes new cause of action addressing internet harassment
- Ontario Superior Court recognizes new tort for online harassment
- Court Refuses to Order Removal of Social Media Posts Alleging Employer was Racist
- Parler’s ownership offer to Trump and possible Russian ties probed by Congress
- Parler CEO says board fired him for planning to ban “neo-Nazi” groups
- Various States All Pile On To Push Blatantly Unconstitutional Laws That Say Social Media Can’t Moderate
- If We’re Going To Talk About Discrimination In Online Ads, We Need To Talk About Roommates.com
- 25 Years Later: A Celebration Of The Declaration Of The Independence Of Cyberspace
- Can A Community Approach To Disinformation Help Twitter?
- Facebook moves to scale down political content
- Google, Facebook tell SCOTUS it should be harder for you to sue them
- Indian Government Threatens To Jail Twitter Employees For Restoring Accounts The Government Wants Blocked
- Huawei Attempts To Rebuild Trust By Using… Fake Twitter Telecom Experts
- Without Twitter, Trump Is Left To Write Tweets He Would Have Said On Paper
- With Trump gone, Huawei tells Biden it’s not a security threat
- Not just Facebook: Snap, Unity warn Apple’s tracking change threatens business
- Soon, you may be able to change the default music service in iOS
- Sorry, small-phone lovers: The iPhone 12 mini was Apple’s 2020 sales flop
- Klobuchar targets Big Tech with biggest antitrust overhaul in 45 years
- Senators Warner, Hirono, And Klobuchar Demand The End Of The Internet Economy
- Platform mergers and antitrust: This paper sets out a framework for addressing competition concerns arising from acquisitions in big platform ecosystems.
- Lingerie Brand Adore Me Accuses TikTok Of Targeting Videos With BIPOC, Plus-Size, Disabled Models
- Oracle’s TikTok acquisition reportedly “shelved” indefinitely
- Trump And Oracle’s Dumb TikTok Cronyism Falls Apart
- 20-Year-Old Nashville Man Allegedly Shot Dead While Attempting YouTube Robbery Prank
- Sony picks up minor stake in From Software parent company Kadokawa Corporation
- Microsoft Offers To Break The Web In A Desperate Attempt To Get Somebody To Use Its Widely-Ignored Bing Search Engine
- Raspberry Pi OS added a Microsoft repo. No, it’s not an evil secret
- The Definitive Guide to Clickwrap
- We’re Living Our Lives On The Internet, And We Can’t Be Free If It Isn’t.
- Smartmatic Sues Two Trump Lawyers And Three Fox News Hosts For $2.7 Billion-Worth Of Defamation
- Now It’s The Democrats Turn To Destroy The Open Internet: Mark Warner’s 230 Reform Bill Is A Dumpster Fire Of Cluelessness
- Senators Propose Substantial Revisions to Section 230’s Protections for Online Providers
- Proposed Sec. 230 rewrite could have wide-ranging consequences
- The Many Reasons To Celebrate Section 230
- Section 230 Lets Tech Fix Content Moderation Issues. Congress Should Respect That
- How To Think About Online Ads And Section 230
- How Section 230 Makes My Life Better (A Celebration of Its 25 Year Anniversary) (Eric Goldman)
- Comments on the “SAFE TECH” Act (Eric Goldman)
- Content Moderation Case Study: Twitch Allows Users To Enable Emote-Only Chats (2016)
- Content Moderation Case Study: Twitter Attempts To Tackle COVID-related Vaccine Misinformation (2020)
- TikTok’s Sale To Oracle, Walmart Indefinitely Shelved, As Biden Administration Conducts Its Own Cybersecurity Review
- Instagram Building Vertical Scrolling Experience For Stories, Just Like TikTok
- Instagram Will Begin Making Reels Including A TikTok Watermark “Less Discoverable”
- Whalar Launches First All-Black Creator House, ‘The Crib Around The Corner’
- Former YouTube Employee Launches ‘BlackOakTV’ Streaming Service To Superserve Black Viewers And Creators
- Sports YouTuber KOT4Q Partners With Malka, Up North Management For Weekly YouTube Series
- YouTube’s lo-fi music streams are all about the euphoria of less
- MrBeast’s ‘MrBeast Burger’ Ghost Kitchen Concept Arrives In Canada
- David Dobrik Shows Off New $9.5 Million Mansion, Unveils Video Version Of ‘Views’ Podcast
- ASA upholds another complaint against an influencer social media ad
- In A First, Shopify To Integrate Checkout Technology Directly Within Facebook And Instagram
- Universal Music Yanks Catalog From Triller, Slams Service For Withholding Artist Payments
- Disney fires Mandalorian’s Gina Carano over “abhorrent, unacceptable” posts
- Netflix acquires the rights to all 22 Redwall books, plans film and series
- HBO Max signs “adult” cartoon series based on Scooby-Doo’s Velma
- New report on Apple’s VR headset: 8K in each eye, potential $3,000 price tag
- Texas Dept. Of Public Safety Issues Amber Alert For Victim Of Horror Doll Chucky
- Joint Chiefs of Tax Enforcement to Investigate Tax Fraud Arising Out of FinTech and Cryptocurrency
- A terabyte isn’t what it used to be—14% of Internet customers use more
- 25 years ago today, the internet declared its independence — for better and for worse
- ‘I’m Not a Cat,’ Says Lawyer Having Zoom Difficulties
A.I.
- Protecting AI Innovations Through Trade Secrets and Patent Protection
- A.I. and machine learning tools in financial services should expect regulatory scrutiny
- Apple’s car project could put it on a collision course with Tesla
- The Collision of AI’s Machine Learning and Manipulation: Deepfake Litigation Risks to Companies from a Product Liability, Privacy, and Cyber Standpoint
- In Defense of AI
- Why the resignation of the Dutch government is a good reminder of how important it is to monitor and regulate algorithms
- AI Regulation Under the New US Administration
- New UK AI Roadmap published
- Will AI Create More Problems Than It Solves in Recruiting?
- Amazon will use cameras and AI to monitor delivery drivers
- AI Update: The Future of AI Policy in the UK
- AI: cure for or cause of discriminatory outcomes in healthcare?
- FDA Publishes Action Plan for Oversight of Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning-Based Medical Software
- Code Red: The FDA’s Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning Action Plan Poses Potential Risks for Medical Device Makers
- U.S. Advances AI Innovation with NAIIA
- BAILII grants Oxford University unprecedented access to case data for AI analysis in historic agreement
- Video: The AI of Assassin’s Creed Origins
- MintzTech Connect Industry News: Spotlight on Turing Enterprises
COMMUNICATIONS
- Conservative MP Files Amendment Calling on the Government to Withdraw Bill C-10 (Michael Geist)
- Why The Secrecy on Bill C-10?: How the Liberals Abandoned Their Commitment to Consultation, and Transparency in Pushing Their Broadcast Reform Bill (Michael Geist)
- Vancouver’s TSN 1040 off the air after Bell suddenly pulls the plug: Vancouver’s most popular sports radio station shut down Tuesday morning, surprising fans and staff alike
- Bell abandoning all-sports format at radio stations in Vancouver, Winnipeg, Hamilton
- Why Laid Off Bell Sports Journalists Should Form A Worker Co-op: We cannot rely on legacy corporate media to save the journalism industry. It’s time to build something better.
- DOJ Drops Ridiculous Trump-Era Lawsuit Against California For Passing Net Neutrality Rules
- Want a New Radio Station? FCC Proposes Procedures for a July 2021 Auction, Lists Channels to be Sold, and Imposes a Freeze on Certain Applications
- Authorities bust SIM-swap ring they say took millions from the rich and famous
- 16 States Ask The FCC What The Hell Is The Point Of The Verizon Tracfone Merger
- ISPs step up fight against SpaceX, tell FCC that Starlink will be too slow
- SpaceX plans Starlink phone service, emergency backup, and low-income access
- SpaceX Starlink passes 10,000 users and fights opposition to FCC funding
- SpaceX Starlink opens preorders, but slots are limited in each region
- Appeals Court Tells Lying Cop No ‘Reasonable’ Officer Would Think It’s OK To Tear Gas Journalists For Performing Journalism
- Big Game, Ad Claims: Reflecting on Super Bowl Advertising Tactics
- The Importance of Advanced Telecommunications Networks to Modern Healthcare
- ASA rules that Ladbrokes TV ad showed gambling behaviour that was socially irresponsible
- How Cubans make island Internet work for them
INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY
- Federal Court trusts technology to prove infringement
- Is This Beverly Hills Cop Playing Sublime’s ‘Santeria’ to Avoid Being Live-streamed?: Police in Beverly Hills have been playing music while being filmed, seemingly in an effort to trigger Instagram’s copyright filters.
- Latest Anti-Accountability Move By Cops Involves Playing Music While Being Recorded In Hopes Of Triggering Copyright Takedowns
- Celebrity tattoo artist Kat Von D sued for inking Miles Davis design? Tats crazy!
- Desire v. Manna Textiles (USCA, 9th Circuit): Holds only one statutory damages award available where defendant supplied infringing work to other defendants, even when those other defendants exploited infringing work.
- Carlini v. Paramount Pictures Corp. (USDC, California): Court action brought alleging film “What Men Want” infringed plaintiff’s screenplay, finding access was insufficient and works were not substantially similar.
- Be careful what you scrape from the HiQ v. LinkedIn decision
- Sherlock Holmes and the copyright infringement claim
- Protect your moves – A mix of Intellectual Property and Dance
- Snippet Taxes Not Only Violate The Berne Convention, But Also Betray The Deepest Roots Of Newspaper Culture
- Why Is Congress Pushing For Locking Up More Culture?
- SCOTUS Update – Google v. Oracle
- Music – Royalty Rates for Digital Transmissions
- Copyright year in review 2020
- The growing role of domains in IP
- What to Do when “Everything Sucks”
- Utah Theme Park Sues Taylor Swift Over Album Title After Exploiting It
- Taylor Swift sued by Utah Theme Park for trademark infringement.
- Pearl Jamm changes name to Legal Jam…to avoid legal jam
- SDNY Magistrate Judge Recommends that Rubik’s Cube Design is Not Functional
- Hanes Pop Warner’s Way: Trademark Dispute Over Pop Warner Mark
- How to Register a Common Shape as Your Trademark
- Trademarks in 2020: notable cases and developments
- Trade Secret Management in the United States: Top Ten Mistakes to Avoid
- December 2020 COVID-19 Relief Bill Finally Closes the Streaming Loophole
- Third Circuit Finds Pocky Trade Dress Functional, Not Protectable
- There’s No Sugarcoating It: Pocky’s Cookie Design Trade Dress Is Functional
- The Doctrine of File Wrapper Estoppel in Canada: The Court of Appeal Hands Down its Decision
- Evidence Supports Prior Art’s Public Accessibility but Not the Board’s Adoption of an Unpresented Theory of Anticipation
- Federal Circuit Clarifies Part of Patent Term Extension Equation
- Federal Circuit Says Automated Systems Are Not Abstract when Tied to Improvements
- The “Skinny Label” – The Federal Circuit Has Second Thoughts
- No Patent Eligibility Reward for Customer Loyalty Program Computer System
- How to patent over-the-air (OTA) automotive technology
- Federal Circuit Agrees to Reconsider Ruling in GSK v. Teva Drug Patent Case
- When Fixing One Problem Creates Another: How Patent Infringement Arises Out of Product Repairs
- Key Insights for Obtaining FinTech Patents
- Patents in 2020 – The year in review
PRIVACY
- Privacy class action not certified – Setoguchi v Uber B.V., 2021 ABQB 18
- Clearview AI’s Facial Recognition Tool Found to Violate Canadian Privacy Laws
- Exceptions from consent in PIPEDA: facial recognition, privacy and Clearview
- Privacy Commissioners Issue Report on Clearview AI’s Facial Recognition Tool
- Canadian Privacy Commission Says Clearview’s App Is Illegal, Tells It To Pack Its Things And Leave
- “Made in Canada” – What is happening to Privacy by Design under the CPPA?
- NYT Easily Tracks Location Data From Capitol Riots, Highlighting Once Again How US Privacy Standards Are A Joke
- Amazon Transparency Report Indicates Its Multiple IoT Devices Are Juicy Targets For Law Enforcement
- 11th Circuit: Future identity theft risk does not confer standing
- 11th Cir. Rejects Standing Due to Threat of Future Identity Theft & Further Deepens Circuit Split
- Calling SCOTUS: Eleventh Circuit Invites Supreme Court to Address Circuit Split on Article III Standing for Data Incident Plaintiffs
- Court Dismisses CCPA Claim Against Google
- Court denies tech company’s second request for COPPA claim dismissal
- California AG Becerra Tweets Endorsement for a Universal Opt-Out Tool
- Chastity Penis Lock Company That Was Hacked Says It’s Now Totally Safe To Put Your Penis Back In That Chastity Lock
- FTC Reaches Settlement with Digital Health App, Requires First Notice of Privacy Action
- Key Takeaways from the Recent Grindr Decision and “Tentative” $11M Fine
- The Bright Side of the Horrifying Story About a Hacked Water Treatment Plant
- Water Treatment System Hack is a Warning to Critical Infrastructure Organizations
- Breached water plant employees used the same TeamViewer password and no firewall
- Turf wars: confidentiality of live (sports) data
- Android barcode scanner with 10 million+ downloads infects users
- Google Pixel phones will soon track heart rate using only the camera
- Zoombombing countermeasures are ineffective in the vast majority of cases
- Report: Google considering an iOS-style anti-tracking feature for Android
- Cops can’t access $60M in seized bitcoin—fraudster won’t give password
- 2020 Privacy Law Year in Review
Jon
News of the Week; February 3, 2021
GAMES
- Valve loses controller patent case, must pay $4m in damages
- Valve on the hook for $4 million over Steam Controller patent infringement
- Is Steam really conspiring to price fix?
- Riot Games pushes for arbitration in gender discrimination lawsuit
- Riot Games pushes gender discrimination case back towards arbitration
- Ubisoft Toronto co-founder Alexandre Parizeau departs Ubisoft
- Activision lawyers dismiss diversity hiring proposals as ‘unworkable’
- Game firms acknowledged by Human Rights Campaign for LGBTQ inclusivity
- Google closes Stadia’s dedicated game studios after less than 2 years
- Google shuts down first-party Stadia game studios to refocus as platform provider
- Google closing Stadia game studios, opening up tech to publishers
- Google Stadia Shuts Down Internal Studios, Changing Business Focus
- Google Shutters Stadia Game Dev Studio, Will Focus On Distribution And Tech
- Google eliminates Stadia’s internal development team
- What Stadia’s pivot tells us about the future of cloud gaming
- Google needs to think smaller about games streaming | Opinion
- Level Up: 33 Legal Tips for Game Developers and Publishers
- New supply chain attack uses poisoned updates to infect gamers’ computers
- Amazon Can Make Just About Anything—Except a Good Video Game: The company produces successful movies, TV shows, e-readers and speakers, but gaming has proven difficult to crack.
- Report: Mismanagement plagues Amazon’s struggling push into video games
- Amazon is reportedly spending nearly $500 million a year on its video game division
- Activision bans 60,000 Call of Duty: Warzone cheaters
- Goldeneye 007’s lost Xbox 360 remaster has leaked—as a full-game speedrun
- We have finally played the lost, official Goldeneye 007 remaster for Xbox 360
- Destruction AllStars review: Amazing PS5 car combat, in spite of speedbumps
- Sony says semiconductor shortage makes increased PS5 production difficult
- Sony reports ‘significant’ sales increase following PS5 launch
- The PlayStation 5 had sold 4.5 million units by the end of 2020
- Scalpers aren’t the main reason you can’t find a new console
- Activision Patent Seeks to Improve Esport Footage Sharing For Future Titles: A patent filed by Activision looks at ways to improve the esports experience with detailed data that could enhance the way broadcasts look.
- CD Projekt’s stock soars after Elon Musk tweets about Cyberpunk
- GameStop stock dips as apps like Robinhood restrict trading
- Discord Takes Over Moderation Of r/WallStreetBets Server As Facebook Shuts Down Popular Stock Trading Group
- Discord bans WallStreetBets as subreddit briefly goes private
- Robinhood blocking purchase of GameStop stock
- Robinhood denies automatically selling users’ GameStop shares
- Robinhood’s plan to “democratize finance” hit a GameStop-shaped speed bump
- Robinhood App Decides To Stop Helping The Poor Steal From The Rich
- Discord bans WallStreetBets for hateful conduct amid GameStop stock surge
- Hedge fund Melvin sustains 53% loss after Reddit onslaught
- Hedge fund Melvin Capital pulls out of GameStop trading
- GameStop stock story won’t have a happy ending | This Week in Business
- Canada’s answer to Robinhood Markets warns traders but won’t halt trading in speculative stock: Wealthsimple doesn’t plan to restrict trading as other brokerages have done in recent days, CEO says
- Multiple GameStop stock story adaptations reportedly in the works
- As Virgin Galactic gets swept up in GameStop mania, it gets back to flying
- AOC Examines Wall Street Over Twitch Stream
- How to protect your intellectual property in the games industry
- Tabletop Simulator devs face criticism for Google Translate-sourced translations
- Piracy: Does it matter? – People will try to steal your game in huge numbers, says Butterscotch Shenanigans’ Adam Coster — treat it as a design constraint
- EA signs multi-year license extension with UEFA to continue FIFA collaboration
- EA extends UEFA exclusivity, working on multiple FIFA mobile games
- EA reveals new studio Full Circle, the developer taking on the next ‘Skate’: The studio is led by the former head of Xbox Live and staffed by the creators of the original ‘Skate’ games
- EA posts record-breaking bookings driven by Ultimate Team, Apex Legends
- EA reports record net bookings as Apex Legends, Ultimate Team exceed expectations
- EA Play now has 13 million players across all platforms
- Star Wars has made $3bn for EA
- EA has made $3 billion in net bookings from just Star Wars games
- EA “very, very confident” about BioWare’s future despite key departures
- EA sees “huge potential” in racing following Codemasters acquisition
- EA Sports returning to college football
- EA Sports revives college football games, but without NCAA involvement
- EA is getting back into college football without NCAA, player licenses
- Detroit: Become Human dev Quantic Dream sets up new studio in Montreal
- Microsoft requests EU approval for ZeniMax acquisition
- Sega Sammy splits video games and pachinko machines into separate companies
- Nintendo raises fiscal forecast as Switch closes in on 80 million lifetime sales
- Nintendo Switch sales overtake 3DS as Nintendo raises forecasts again
- Animal Crossing: New Horizons sold over 31 million copies in nine months
- Super Nintendo World Recreated in Minecraft: A Minecraft player is currently building an authentic replica of the upcoming Super Nintendo World theme park, complete with its rides and shops.
- Modded Game Boy looks like an Apple product, works as Apple TV Remote
- iOS 14.5 update adds DualSense and Xbox Series X controller support
- The Medium has already recouped production and marketing costs
- The Medium | Critical Consensus
- Valve updates Steamworks to make sharing patch notes easier
- The Epic Games Store amassed over 160 million PC users in 2020
- Spider-Man: Miles Morales has sold 4.1m copies
- 25 years later, Midway’s lost “MLB Jam” arcade game has been found
- A new $110 light gun for old Duck Hunts: Ars tests an HDTV-friendly option
- Why Animal Crossing: New Horizons’ 31 million sales are so incredible
- Animal Crossing: New Horizons returns to No.1 | UK Boxed Charts
- All game development is unsustainable | 10 Years Ago This Month
- How can Xbox encourage consumers to ‘swim upstream’? | Opinion
- Brawl Stars is Supercell’s fourth title to pass $1bn in lifetime revenue
- Epic Games Store’s 160 million users spent over $700m in 2020
- Navigating the new normal: Studio culture in the time of COVID
- Australian games industry delivers 29 percent revenue growth despite COVID-19
- Sumo Group acquires PixelAnt Games
- Sumo acquires Polish work-for-hire studio PixelAnt Games
- Plug In Digital acquires Black Shell’s catalogue
- Gearbox Entertainment joins Embracer Group in $1.3b deal
- Borderlands dev Gearbox acquired by Embracer Group in $1.38 billion deal
- Embracer Group acquires Aspyr Media for $100m
- Embracer acquires mobile developer Easybrain and independent studio Aspyr
- Embracer Group merges with Easybrain in $640m deal
- AppOnboard raises $20m for Buildbox engine
- AppOnboard nets $20 million to support ‘no-code’ mobile dev platform Buildbox
- Pocket Worlds closes $7m funding round
- Ninja Theory halts updates for new IP Bleeding Edge
- Ninja Theory’s Bleeding Edge is staying online but won’t receive new content
- Digital drives Capcom sales to $622m
- Rovio shuts down Hatch
- Australian developer revenues raise 29% to $140m
- Pocket Worlds raises $7 million to double down on social mobile games
- Netflix and Legendary partner on Tomb Raider series
- Rime pairs accessible gameplay with relatable loss | Why I Love
- Over 50 percent of esports followers likely to bet on esports in the US – Survey
- FaZe Clan Signs With UTA Amid Content Expansion Into Scripted, Podcasting, More
- Red Bull Launches AR Mobile Game Series With Tyler ‘Ninja’ Blevins, 4 Other Athletes
- Blog: Five insights from 3700 reviews of Cyberpunk 2077
- Blog: A level design analysis of BioShock Infinite – Part 5
- Blog: How randomness contributes to strategic thinking
- Blog: What I learned from doing a game jam every month for a year
- Blog: Analyzing Unexplored’s secret cyclic dungeon generation
- Video: The value of large spenders in free-to-play games
- Q&A: Lessons learned from five years spent on the Hitman series
- Don’t Miss: The creative challenges BioWare faced designing Mass Effect 3
- Don’t Miss: Gearbox on producing a bigger Borderlands
- Utility Patents – What Game Developers Should Know
DIGITAL
- 70% of top “civic” Facebook groups are toxic or violent, report finds
- Lawmakers take aim at insidious digital “dark patterns”
- Influencers told not to use ‘misleading’ beauty filters
- Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos stepping down
- Jeff Bezos to leave Amazon CEO post after 27 years, become executive chair
- No, WallStreetBets isn’t robbing Wall Street to help the little guy
- WallStreetBets craze pushes dogecoin up 5x in 24 hours
- Facebook “Supreme Court” overrules company in 4 of its first 5 decisions
- Facebook Oversight Board decisions
- People Want Real Change From Facebook. Its ‘Supreme Court’ Isn’t Delivering.: The first decisions from the new Oversight Board have been issued. The results are underwhelming.
- Facebook Oversight Board’s First Decisions… Seem To Confirm Everyone’s Opinions Of The Board
- Every crazy thing that happened in Apple and Facebook’s privacy feud today
- Facebook makes the case for activity tracking to iOS 14 users in new pop-ups
- EU calls US$15.7bn Apple tax ruling ‘contradictory’: At the heart of the legal arguments are simple questions on where value is created and where it should be taxed
- Apple, Its Control Over the iPhone, The Internet, And The Metaverse
- Apple’s updated App Store guidelines clarify positions on recent controversies
- Latest FTC “Made in USA” Enforcement Includes Scrutiny of Hashtags
- Biggest MAGA Conference Threatens Politico With Bogus Lawsuit For Reporting On Conference Troubles
- Google settles federal gender and race discrimination charges for $3.8M
- Google Play bans open source Matrix client Element, citing “abusive content”
- A Wave of Online Services Have Suspended Accounts Associated with Trump and His Supporters
- TikTok Implements Prompts To Deter Users From Proliferating Misinformation
- TikTok Inks Multi-Faceted Partnership With British Ad And Marketing Giant WPP
- Australians May Soon Face Life Without Google
- Microsoft backs Australian law forcing Google to pay for news links
- Online Harassment Toward Women Is Getting Even More Insidious
- Dominion Sues Rudy Giuliani For $1.3 Billion Over False Statements About Its Voting Systems
- Professional Assholes Equate Consequences With ‘Cancel Culture’ To Obscure That They’re Finally Being Held Accountable
- Continued Access to Service Not Sufficient to Bind User to New Terms of Service–Stover v. Experian (Eric Goldman)
- Google and Twitter Defeat Lawsuit Over Account Suspensions/Terminations–DeLima v. Google (Eric Goldman)
- Politician Can Block Constituents at Twitter–If It’s a “Campaign” Account–Campbell v. Reisch (Eric Goldman)
- Selling Keyword Ads Isn’t Theft or Conversion–Edible IP v. Google (Eric Goldman)
- TripAdvisor Doesn’t Get Early Section 230 Dismissal–Putt v. TripAdvisor (Eric Goldman)
- No, Revoking Section 230 Would Not ‘Save Democracy’
- Removing Civil Rights Law From Section 230 Will Create Many New Problems, While Failing To Fix Existing Ones
- Columbia Law Professor Spews Blatantly False Information About Section 230 In The Wall Street Journal
- No Section 230 Has Nothing To Do With Horrific NY Times Story Of Online Stalker Getting Revenge For Decades’ Old Slight
- Content Moderation At Scale Is Impossible: Google Play Bans Video Player App Over ASS File Extension Support
- Content Moderation Case Study: Twitter Removes Account Of Human Rights Activist (2018)
- Content Moderation Case Study: GitHub Attempts To Moderate Banned Words Contained In Hosted Repositories (2015)
- CNN Ends Distribution Deal With Facebook Watch, Brings ‘Go There’ Series In-House
- YouTube’s new “Clips” feature lets users share 60-second clips of videos
- YouTube Will Let Viewers Share Custom Short Videos Cut From Creators’ Uploads And Livestreams
- YouTube Doubled Number Of TrueView Advertisers In Q4 2020, Earned $6.9 Billion
- Top 50 Most Viewed YouTube Channels Worldwide Last Week
- Top 50 Most Viewed YouTube Channels Worldwide Last Week
- Top 50 Most Viewed U.S. YouTube Channels Last Week
- Top 50 Most Viewed US YouTube Channels Last Week
- The Obamas To Host YouTube’s Black History Month Special, ‘Black Renaissance’
- YouTube Sets Series From Hillary Clinton’s HiddenLight Productions, Starring Patricia Bright
- Instagram Revamps User Interface For Stories Consumption On Desktops
- Snapchat Launches ‘Safety Snapshot’ Program To Educate Users On Data Security
- Teespring Goes Live With ‘Spring’ Rebrand, Has 450,000 Creators On The Platform
- Ryan Reynolds To Premiere Snapchat Series Alongside Will Smith’s Westbrook Media
- Amid Miami Move, Jake Paul Lists Infamous Calabasas Mansion For $7 Million
- Wheelhouse Launches ‘DNA’ Division For Digital And Audio Ventures, Inks 360 Deal With Nikita Dragun (Exclusive)
- Barstool Sports, NPR, Wondery Were Top-Earning Podcast Producers Of 2020 (Report)
- Netflix Is Testing A Sleep Timer That Will Automatically Stop Playback
- HBO Max To Offer Cheaper, Ad-Supported Subscription In Q2
- Apple TV+ Nabs Jared Leto, Anne Hathaway For Series About WeWork Saga
A.I.
- Artificial intelligence soon to be regulated in Canada?
- FTC Brings First BOTS Act Case Against Online Ticket Brokers
- FTC Sets Its Eye on Algorithms, Automated Tech, and AI-Enabled Applications
- FDA Releases Action Plan for Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning-Enabled Software as a Medical Device
- Boston Dynamics’ robot dog gets an arm attachment, self-charging capabilities
- Microsoft Patent: Chatbots Made From The Online Habits Of Dead People
- Patent Issues for Factory Automation Inventions in AI
- National Defense Authorization Act Propels National Strategy on AI Development
- AI and data protection – uncomfortable bedfellows?
- Three Considerations for AI Healthcare Application Developers and Users
- National Artificial Intelligence Initiative Office Launched as “Central Hub” for AI Research and Development
- Driving AI development: new UK AI roadmap released
- Artificial Intelligence: Landmark 2020 Developments and Rapid Business Adoption
- ICO Contributes To Briefing On AI And Healthcare
COMMUNICATIONS
- Bell Blasted For Taking $122m Labour Subsidy While Boosting Dividends
- AT&T & Verizon Got Billions From Government, Yet Laid Off 95,000 People In Just Five Years
- After Years Of Litigation, AT&T Customers Get A Measly $22 For Being Lied To Over ‘Throttling’
- Why victims of AT&T unlimited-data throttling get only $22 in settlements
- AT&T customer since 1960 buys WSJ print ad to complain of slow speeds
- Antitrust Remedies in Highly Regulated Industries
- Xiaomi denies ties to China’s military, calls US ruling “unconstitutional”
- Cable ISP warns “excessive” uploaders, says network can’t handle heavy usage
- State reps try to ban Comcast data cap and price hikes until pandemic is over
- Comcast lifts uploads to 5Mbps amid complaints its low-income plan is too slow
- 27% Of Cable TV Subscribers Will Cut The Cord This Year
- Flash is dead—but South Africa didn’t get the memo
- Georgia Towns Sue Netflix In Flimsy Bid To Nab A Slice Of The Pie
- The Wall Street Journal Kisses Big Telecom’s Ass In Whiny Screed About ‘Big Tech’
- A TV Broadcaster’s Guide to Where Washington Regulatory Issues Stand
- Fixed-satellite service operators may soon access new frequencies and routine licensing procedures
- How to Watch the Super Bowl in VR With Friends for Free
INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY
- For the Want of a Nail – Copyright Claims Fail When Plaintiffs Can’t Show Ownership
- Thomson Reuters v. ROSS case will test limits on protections for subscription-based database: ROSS Intelligence alleges monopolistic, anticompetitive control over legal research market
- Bernie and his Marvelous Mittens. It’s all Good Fun Until a Copyright Lawyer Gets Involved
- Anthropomorphized Characters Representing Human Emotions are Not Copyrightable
- Annotations that Accompany State and Local Laws are not Copyrightable
- Generalized Expressions of Scientific Facts and Generic Themes are Not Copyrightable
- Spoofs, Parodies, Compatibility, and Comparisons: When Can Competitors Borrow from Each Other?
- Music – The Scope of Protection
- The Lies Told About The EU Copyright Directive’s Upload Filters May Help Get Them Thrown Out In Court
- Japan Looks To Amend Copyright Law To Force Some Cosplayers To Pay To Cosplay
- Pitch perfect appeal for James Arthur
- Is your joint copyright work purple or red/blue?
- Mitigating Copyright Issues in Remote Learning
- Music Licensing in the Video Streaming Era
- Pocky Ruling Denies Trade Dress Protection for the Useful, Though Not Essential, Shape of Cookie
- Third Circuit Panel Revises Half-Baked Trade Dress Functionality Decision
- Please Dough Not Use My Trademark
- Much ado about ballet shoes – important designs case on copying
- The Shape of Things to… Eat
- The Federal Court of Appeal Upholds Finding that Trademark Use Can Be Established Without a Physical Presence in Canada.
- Federal Court grants interlocutory injunction in trademark action for second time in six months
- Canadian Intellectual Property Office allows requests for expedited COVID-19 medical trademarks
- Taste, Smell, Hear, Touch, and See – Appealing to All Five Senses with Non-Traditional Trademarks
- Taylor Swift in ‘Evermore’ Trademark Lawsuit Over Utah Theme Park Name
- Trademark Modernization Act Strengthens Rights of Brand Owners
- The Trademark Modernization Act: Real Change to Address the Realities of Trademark Law
- Brewery Industry Insight — A Play-on-Words Mark Prevailed
- Annual Reminder: You Can Probably Just Call The Super Bowl The Super Bowl
- A decision based on Aesthetics – UK IPO rules stylisation is enough to overcome confusion
- General Court finds no likelihood of confusion in BBQLOUMI opposition – Cypriot cheesemakers continue to struggle in EU trade mark courts
- Lady A vs. Lady A: (Trademark) Battle of the Bands
- TTAB Precedent No. 46: No Abandonment of A.W. SHUCKS
- Cannabis Trade marks and commercialisation in the US, UK and EU.
- Minimalist trademarks: end of the road for uniqueness?
- Cybersquatting trends and strategies that brand owners need to know
- Janssen’s abiraterone acetate and prednisone combination therapy patent found invalid
- When is There an “Actual Invention” Involving Computers?
- Office Actions: Options to consider when you need an extension of time to respond to the Patent Office
- Protecting innovations through patent due diligence and FTO analysis
- Data Breaches Ain’t Just About Privacy: Risking the Loss of Patent Rights by Data Breach with Subsequent Disclosure
- All Hands On Deck: Ensuring Innovation, Not Just Patents, From All
- Third Circuit Requires Patent Validity Analysis In Adjudicating Antitrust Causation
- Federal Circuit Finds Patent Infringed After Reversing Claim Construction That Violated “Grammatical Principles” to Cover All Embodiments
- Judge Hellerstein Upholds Infringement by Microsoft of Kaufman’s “And/Or” Patent
- Augmented Reality/Virtual Reality Litigation Update: Defendants’ Motion to Stay Pending IPR Denied in AR Design Innovations’ Patent Case
- Update on Patent “Aggregation” Suit Against Fortress
- Patent-Eligible Subject Matter
- Patent-Ineligible Subject Matter
- 2020 IP Law Year in Review: Patents – Executive Summary
- Snapshot: intellectual property for fashion goods in Canada
- 14 States Are Now Considering ‘Right to Repair’ Legislation
- Is there Magic in those Mushrooms? Protecting Psilocybin and Other Actives from Magic Mushrooms
- IP Litigation 2020 Year in Review
PRIVACY
- Clearview AI’s Facial Recognition App Called Illegal in Canada
- Not So Fast: Clearview Asks for Rehearing of Seventh Circuit Decision on Article III Standing for BIPA Class Action
- Michigan State Police Officials Are Dodging Public Records Obligations By Using Encrypted Messaging Apps
- Consent Standards under the Proposed Consumer Privacy Protection Act
- FTC’s allegations of misuse of facial recognition
- FTC Settles with Fertility-Tracking App Developer Regarding Health Data Disclosures
- 30% of “SolarWinds hack” victims didn’t actually use SolarWinds
- From first to sixth: Huawei’s phone business tanks thanks to US sanctions
- Police Chief Demands Holes In Encryption Because Some Cops Decided To Participate In The DC Insurrection
- States Gear Up to Limit Use of Biometrics and Biological Data
- Apple sets “early spring” rollout for iOS privacy changes
- Texas Immigration Lawyer Sues DHS, CBP Over Seizure And Search Of His Work Phone
- Why Does the Brand of My Phone Affect My Credit Rating?
- Data Security and Privacy Predictions for 2021: 6 Issues to Watch
- The government will guard Biden’s Peloton from hackers. What about the rest of us?
- Canadian Privacy Law 2020 Year in Review
Jon
News of the Week; January 27, 2021
GAMES
- Québec law firm files latest Nintendo Switch Joy-Con drift lawsuit: Lambert Avocat seeking compensation for all Québec consumers who bought Switch controllers since August 2017
- European Commission called to investigate into Joy-Con drift
- BEUC calls for Joy-Con Drift investigation after receiving 25,000 complaints
- Valve on trial for allegedly infringing controller patents: The Steam Controller is accused of being based on a patent belonging to SCUF
- US Court dismisses Wargaming lawsuit against former employees
- Jagex disputes Plutos Sama’s claims of ownership: RuneScape dev calls RICO lawsuit against former owner “meritless,” says it was fully acquired by Carlyle Group
- Runescape developer Jagex has been acquired by The Carlyle Group
- FTC Reaches Settlement with Tapjoy for Allegedly Deceiving Consumers About In-Game Rewards
- Mobile Ad Company Settles FTC Charges Over Misleading In-Game Rewards
- Epic’s Fortnite v Apple dispute arrives in the UK
- How Final Fantasy VII Remake legitimizes sexuality and gender identity
- Twitch bans Donald Trump’s account indefinitely
- Twitch indefinitely suspends account of former U.S. President Donald Trump
- Twitch permanently bans Trump, will update policy after Capitol siege: Streaming site says recent events have raised concerns over “rhetoric that encourages violence”
- Twitch’s new harassment policy goes into effect today: What’s new
- Activision Is Resisting Diversity Hiring Push by America’s Unions
- Activision Blizzard says interviewing diverse candidates for every opening “unworkable”
- Scavengers Studio creative director accused of belittling, screaming at, groping employees
- Report: Scavengers Studio co-founder allegedly groped, screamed at employees
- Scavengers suspends co-founder Simon Darveau
- Scavengers CEO steps down, suspends creative director after abuse allegations
- MAGFest executive director resigns after accusations of abusive behavior
- So, Uh, What’s Up With GameStop’s Stock?
- GameStop stock hits new highs as Redditors and stock market short sellers wage war
- For Basically No Reason, Gamestop’s Stock Price Is Rollercoastering In A Tug Of War Being Fought On Reddit
- The complete moron’s guide to GameStop’s stock roller coaster
- A Fight Over GameStop’s Soaring Stock Turns Ugly: The denizens of the WallStreetBets subreddit helped push the flailing stock to dizzying heights – while a short seller alleged an accompanying harassment campaign.
- How WallStreetBets Pushed GameStop Shares to the Moon
- Discord bans r/WallStreetBets server (for hate speech)
- GameStop share price reaches record high amid Reddit-driven short squeeze
- GameStop shares continue to soar following Elon Musk tweet
- GameStop stock soars, craters, closes up
- GameStop stock up 135% in 24 hours, Biden administration “monitoring the situation”
- All eyes on GameStop stock: The White House is now ‘monitoring the situation’
- Google halts Play Store ‘review bombing’ by GameStop traders
- Google Play bans video app for standard “.ass” subtitle support
- The Pokémon Company takes measures against Sword and Shield hackers
- The Pokemon Company is clamping down on Sword, Shield, and Home hackers
- Rovio quietly shutters game streaming service Hatch
- EA forms new studio Full Circle to revive Skate franchise
- Codemasters directors to vote in favour of EA bid
- Codemasters’ directors vote in favor of $1.2 billion EA acquisition
- Huuuge Games IPO could raise almost $400m
- Developers should be wary of the IPO’s siren call | Opinion:
- As CD Projekt Red’s Cyberpunk woes turn legal, developers with an eye on the stock market should think carefully about doing business under that level of scrutiny
- Cyberpunk 2077’s launch month sets digital sales record despite refunds
- Was the Cyberpunk 2077 launch a perfect storm? | This Week in Business
- CDPR working to navigate physical Cyberpunk 2077 returns as refunds roll out
- How India’s shifting political climate is influencing local game development
- Romania: Copyright Perspective – Legal nature of Video Games
- New York Times Decides Kids Are Playing Too Many Video Games During The Pandemic
- Dead by Daylight studio apologises following developer comments about colourblind mode
- Plex adds game-streaming as paid add-on, completely botches the landing
- Xbox Live price increase reversed after less than one day
- Microsoft’s rolled back its Xbox Live Gold price increase
- Xbox Live Gold price hike reversed, service to no longer be required for free-to-play games: After outcry, Microsoft reverses course and goes a step further
- Xbox U-turns on Gold subscription price hike after fan backlash
- Opinion: Xbox’s Gold pricing flipflop & Game Pass ramifications
- Xbox Series X|S launches help push Microsoft gaming revenue up 51%
- Microsoft earnings: Xbox hardware sales shot up 86% with Series X/S
- Xbox revenue up 51% in a quarter defined by Game Pass growth, Series X|S debut
- Xbox Game Pass driving revenue at Microsoft after crossing 18 million subscribers
- Here’s Every Game Coming to The PlayStation 5 And Xbox Series X In 2021
- Can the games industry keep its COVID customers?
- Epic Games Pushes Into Film With Funding For Animated Feature ‘Gilgamesh’
- Using player-avatar relations to make more engaging and successful games: Avatars can be the key to offering more intense and satisfying game experiences, and inspiring loyalty among players
- Steam ‘prologues’… do they really help?
- Hitman 3 surpasses its predecessor to claim No.1 | UK Boxed Charts
- Hitman 3 recoups project costs in under a week
- IO Interactive’s Hitman 3 made back its dev costs in a single week
- FIFA 21 was Europe’s best-selling boxed game in 2020
- Switch expanding the console market, says Interpret
- What a Wipeout spiritual successor can teach investors about games
- Capcom raises forecasts thanks to growing digital sales
- Capcom raises full year earnings forecast thanks to strong digital sales
- Resident Evil VIII gets May release date, massive preview, playable demo
- Digital sales now make up 91 percent of Focus Home Interactive’s revenue
- Hyrule Warriors drives record Q3 for Koei Tecmo
- Deep Rock Galactic has topped 2 million sales
- Konami restructuring internal departments, has not dissolved games development teams
- Tencent acquires minority stake in Dontnod
- Tencent picks up minority stake in Dontnod for $36.3 million
- Tencent invests 30 million euros into DONTNOD, funding self-publishing
- Sagard NewGen nabs minority stake in Flight Simulator dev Asobo Studio
- Blizzard absorbs acclaimed Activision studio as a dedicated “support” team
- Vicarious Visions merged into Blizzard
- Vicarious Visions is now a part of Blizzard Entertainment
- DualShockers acquired by GRV Media
- Jagex sold to Carlyle Group
- RuneScape publisher Jagex acquired by The Carlyle Group for at least $530 million
- Team 17 acquires Golf With Your Friends franchise for $16.4 million
- Team17 acquires Golf With Your Friends for £12m
- Nacon acquires Big Ant Studios for €35m
- Nacon acquires Cricket 19 developer Big Ant Studios for $42.5 million
- Azerion fully acquires Habbo Hotel developer Sulake
- Habbo developer Sulake to be fully acquired by Azerion
- Imvu receives $35m investment
- Together Labs nets $35 million to fund avatar-based social platform IMVU
- MegaDev secures $1.9m for PC cheat platform Plitch
- Huuuge ambitions: How a $300m IPO will make the Polish mobile studio last forever
- Sagard NewGen acquires minority stake in Asobo Studio
- Tencent made record number of games M&A deals in 2020
- Tencent acquires majority stake in Klei Entertainment
- Games projects raised $23m on Kickstarter in 2020
- The rise of Fall Guys and how Mediatonic plans to take it higher
- The Esports Industry Grew; Now It’s Time For It To Grow Up
- PlayVS expands to Canada with GameSeta acquisition
- Epic pledges $20 million for Fortnite esports in 2021
- Rival Peak reaches 22m views
- GamersNexus’ Steve Burke overclocks his YouTube channel’s best comments
- Apple reportedly planning VR headset for next year
- Report: Apple’s VR headset will be a pricey, high-end niche standalone
- PSVR 2 could be the hottest VR headset yet | Patent Trawling
- Pokémon Crystal keeps us interested by telling us less | Why I Love
- The ‘fab four’ game marketing maxims to live by
- Blog: The scary secrets of horror design from Silent Hill 4
- Blog: Everything you need to know about LiveOps in 2021
- Blog: Microtransations and the race to the bottom
- Blog: Using data-driven lessons from Academia: School Simulator to understand discounts
- Blog: A design discussion on Death Stranding
- Video: Behind the massive crowds of Assassin’s Creed Unity
- Video: The tech behind Inkle’s interactive film scripts
- Don’t Miss: The Cabal – Valve’s design process for creating Half-Life
- Don’t Miss: How Monster Hunter: World’s director breathed new life into the series
- The Last of Us Part II leads the 2021 DICE Awards nominations
DIGITAL
- YouTube Suspends Donald Trump Indefinitely, Demonetizes Rudy Giuliani
- Parler’s attempt to get back on Amazon Web Services rejected by judge
- Judge Easily Rejects Parler’s Demands To Have Amazon Reinstate Parler
- Court Rejects Parler’s Demand That Amazon Host Its Services (Eric Goldman)
- This site posted every face from Parler’s Capitol Hill insurrection videos
- Facebook calls in its Oversight Board to rule on Trump ban
- Facebook’s Oversight Board to Decide on Trump Ban
- Oversight Board Agrees To Review Facebook’s Trump Suspension
- Donald Trump Permanently Suspended from Twitter
- Insights: The Donald’s Digital Death Penalty—Deplatforming, Politics, And The Future Of Social Media
- Disingenuous, Lying, Whining, Bloviating, Insurrection Encouraging Senator Josh Hawley Given Pages Of Major Newspaper To Explain How He’s Being Silenced
- Parole Violator Who Raided Senate Building Sold Out By The GPS Unit Attached To Him For Previous Parole Violations
- Let’s fix Facebook’s content issues
- California Appeals Court Says Section 230 Immunizes Twitter From Banned User’s Lawsuit
- Dozens Of Human Rights Group Tell Congress: Do Not Gut Section 230 On Our Behalf; It’ll Do More Harm Than Good
- Twitter is opening up its full tweet archive to academic researchers for free
- De-platforming Is a Fix, But Only a Short-Term One
- Have Social Media Companies Become Too Powerful?
- Twitter launches ‘Birdwatch,’ a forum to combat misinformation
- Planning to Sue Twitter Over an Account Suspension? YOU WILL LOSE–Murphy v. Twitter (Eric Goldman)
- Website ADA Lawsuit Filed Against Golden State Warriors
- NLRB Approves Workplace Social Media Policy Limiting Employees’ Online Communications
- EFF Tells Louisiana Court Satire Is Still Protected Speech Even If The Government Doesn’t Get The Joke
- Unfiltered: How YouTube’s Content ID Discourages Fair Use and Dictates What We See Online (EFF)
- Big Tech worldwide nerulation: not if, but how
- Google agrees to pay French news sites to send them traffic
- Google: We’ll shut down Australian search before we pay news sites for links
- Google Threatens To Pull Out Of Australia Entirely; Australians Demand That It Both Stay And Pay News Orgs For Giving Them Traffic
- Court Tosses RICO Lawsuit Demanding $90 Million And The Dissolution Of Google For Supposed Anti-Conservative Bias
- Google Maps will soon show COVID vaccine locations
- Google takes Tilt Brush open source as official development comes to an end
- Sexual Harassment: Now Digital and Still Happening
- Silicon Valley Takes the Battlespace
- The history of the connected battlespace, part one: Command, control, and conquer
- Why Red Hat killed CentOS—a CentOS board member speaks
- Antitrust and the Tech Industry
- Role Reversal: Ninth Circuit Rejects Consumer’s Attempt to Enforce Updated Arbitration Provision in Website Terms of Use
- Former US Ambassador Sues Apple Because Telegram Users Are Making Him Feel Scared
- House Republicans Have A Big Tech Plan… That Is Both Unconstitutional And Ridiculous
- How Can Conservatives Fight Back Against Big Tech? For A Start, Just Be Sane Again.
- Not just MagSafe: Apple reminds users not to hold iPhones near pacemakers
- Apple reports double-digit sales booms for every product category in Q1 2021
- Loon’s bubble bursts—Alphabet shuts down Internet balloon company
- FTC Reaches Multi-Million Dollar Settlement With Ticket Brokers in its First BOTS Act Case
- Southwest Airlines Sues to Stop Web Scraping of Fare Information
- Labor Board Approves Carefully Crafted Social Media Policies
- FOSTA Survives Constitutional Challenge–US v. Martono (Eric Goldman)
- Comments on the “Protecting Constitutional Rights from Online Platform Censorship Act” (Eric Goldman)
- Lawyer Can’t Sue Google for Bad Client Review–Lewis v. Google (Eric Goldman)
- Content Moderation Case Study: Facebook Targets Misinformation Spread By The Philippines Government (2020)
- Content Moderation Case Study: Social Media Upstart Parler Struggles To Moderate Pornography (2020)
- Mirroring Qualifies for Section 230–Monsarrat v. Newman (Eric Goldman)
- An alternate dimension: Virtual influencers
- Instagram Launches Professional Dashboard For Creators Building Businesses
- The Number Of Channels Monetizing Via YouTube’s Partner Program Doubled In 2020, CEO Says
- YouTube Issues Significantly Expanded Guide To Self-Certification, Asks For Creator Feedback
- JoJo Siwa Allegedly Swatted By Paparazzi After Coming Out As Part Of LGBTQ+ Community
- Jake Paul Signs With Triller And Snoop Dogg-Owned ‘The Fight Club’ For April Boxing Bout
- Jake Paul To Battle UFC Fighter Ben Askren In Upcoming Triller Boxing Match
- Invite-Only Chat App Clubhouse To Develop Creator Monetization With Series B Funding
- Genflow, Which Helps enceruencers Build Their Own Brands, Raises $11 Million
- IAC’s Vimeo Raises $300 Million At $5.7 Billion Valuation, With Spinoff Slated For Next Quarter
- Vimeo Rolls Out Lead-Generation Integrations With Mailchimp, HubSpot, Constant Contact
- ‘Selma,’ ‘When They See Us’ Filmmaker Ava DuVernay Signs Exclusive Podcast Deal With Spotify
- Byte, Clash Merge To Take On TikTok
- Italian Data Protection Authority Orders TikTok To Block Underage Users Following Death Of 10-Year-Old Girl
- This Tiktok star uses astrology to predict bitcoin prices
- TikTok Testing Q&A Tool, Enabling Creators To More Seamlessly Respond To Viewer Inquiries
- TikTok Launches ‘Creator Portal’, A Hub For Educational Resources, Best Practices, More
- TikTok Helps Push 17-Year-Old Olivia Rodrigo’s “Drivers License” To No. 1 Billboard Debut
- TikTok To Lay Off Most Indian Staffers After Country Makes Ban Permanent (Report)
- Public Actors Without Public Values: Legitimacy, Domination and the Regulation of the Technology Sector
- A class for itself? On the worldviews of the new tech elite
- Evolving Trends in the Production and Distribution of Streaming Media
- Privacy, Digitalization, Rule of Law Some Contemporary Challenges
- Crypto Asset Regulation: Is the US or UK Keeping Up Best With This Emerging Market?
- Break the Backlog: The Durable Conclusions from the Online Courtroom Project
A.I.
- Valve’s Gabe Newell imagines “editing” personalities with future headsets: “Remember when Bob got hacked by Russian malware [and] ran naked through forests?”
- Facebook’s Post-Insurrection Purge Catches A Bunch Of Left Wing Accounts In Its AI Net
- Algorithms and consumer harm: CMA publishes new research paper and launches call for information
- Research and analysis – Algorithms: How they can reduce competition and harm consumers (Competition & Markets Authority, U.K.)
- A short primer on patenting AI and machine learning inventions at the European Patent Office
- Towards a deliberative framework for responsible innovation in artificial intelligence
- Sidewalk-robot startup celebrates 1 million deliveries
- Waymo CEO dismisses Tesla self-driving plan: “This is not how it works”
- AI and Life Sciences: Has protein folding been solved?
- AI Update: UK Parliament Research Briefing on AI in the UK Healthcare System
- Andrew Gray and the AI Boot Camp
- Scale AI Valued at $3.5B After Series D Fundraising Round
COMMUNICATIONS
- Report calls for powerful new federal body to regulate social media
- Telecoms Paused PAC Spending To Insurrectionists, But Their Umbrella Lobbying Orgs Didn’t
- Democrat Jessica Rosenworcel replaces Ajit Pai, is now acting FCC chairwoman
- Rosenworcel Announces Staff Appointments
- New Interim FCC Boss Jessica Rosenworcel Will Likely Restore Net Neutrality, Just Not Yet
- SpaceX adds laser links to Starlink satellites to serve Earth’s polar areas
- CenturyLink, Frontier missed FCC broadband deadlines in dozens of states
- Outgoing FCC’s Last Act Is A Delusional Report That Pretends US Broadband Is Wonderful
- FCC Issues Declaratory Ruling on Pole Attachment Costs and Pole Replacements
- Biden Fires Steve Bannon Protege, Who Tried To Turn Voice Of America Into A New Breitbart
- Broadband Monopolies Keep Getting Money For Networks Never Fully Deployed
- AT&T eats a $15.5 billion impairment charge as DirecTV debacle continues
- AT&T may keep majority ownership of DirecTV as it closes in on final deal
- New US rules target use of Chinese IT and communications goods and services
- FCC Seeks Comment on Permitting Mobile Services in 12 GHz Band
- FCC’s Annual Broadband Deployment Report Shows Digital Divide Closing
- Can public service broadcasting survive Silicon Valley? Synthesizing leadership perspectives at the BBC, PBS, NPR, CPB and local U.S. stations (Erik Martin)
INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY
- Software-Generated “Infringement Report” Supports $262,931 in Remedies For Copyright Infringement
- Securing Copyright and Trademark Rights for Broadcasts and Promotions Related to NFL Championship Games and Super Bowl LV (55)
- Sony Music Entertainment v. Cox Communications (USDC, Virginia: January 12, 2021): Denies ISP’s post-trial motion to reduce $1 billion statutory damages award in copyright infringement action.
- The Tricky Issue of Joint Authorship in Copyright Works
- BMG, Aggressive Champion Of Copyright Enforcement, Accused Of Copyright Infringement By Jehovah’s Witnesses
- CASE-ing the Joint: The Copyright Alternative in Small-Claims Enforcement Act
- Turns Out That Brexit Means Rotting Pigs’ Heads, And Losing An EU Copyright Exception
- Finds Alleged Parody Fails on Copyright Fair Use Factors but Passes Rogers Test to Avoid Trademark Liability
- Sports data rights in 2021: the outlook
- Trademarks in 2020: Notable Canadian trademark cases and developments
- Are Trademark Injunctions Continuing their Awakening from Hibernation?
- Top 5 trademark considerations every cleantech entrepreneur should know
- Pearl Jam v Pearl Jamm
- Proud to Be an American, God Bless The USA, But Not Functioning as A Trademark
- What’s Cookin’? No Likelihood of Confusion Between Two KITCHEN Marks
- Tommy Hilfiger invalidates trademark piggybacking on its iconic flag logo
- Brizzy v. Vizzy: Molson Coors Obtains Cheers-Worthy Trademark Ruling at Fifth Circuit
- “Lettuce Turnip the Beet” Pun on T-Shirts Not Trademark Use, Ninth Circuit Affirms
- Trademarks and Expressive Works
- Stay A Lot More Than Six Feet From The NFL’s Trademarks! 2021 Update on Super Bowl Advertising and Promotions
- Laches and Acquiescence in Trademark Proceedings
- More ‘failure to function’ refusals in 2020
- Generic.com Terms are Not Ineligible for Registration
- Trademark Law Updates – Fees, Fraud and Injunction Presumptions
- January 2021 Trademark Update
- US Trademark Amendment Act Will Provide New Procedures for Challenging Use Claims
- UDRP on Gameroom.com: Facebook keeps its domain name
- How does Brexit affect European Trademark Rights?
- Can I keep my .eu domain name?
- Who’s on the Line?: Protecting Your Trade Secrets on Zoom Calls
- Pepper Spray Manufacturer’s Successful Self-Defense Reinforces Best Practices for Design Patents
- Rothy’s v Giesswein – English Court leaves a lasting mark on EU Community design rights
- Federal Court of Appeal Cautions Against Use of Foreign Prosecution History
- Federal Court of Appeal affirms summary judgment in patent prosecutions: Court also upholds interpretation of file wrapper estoppel in precedent-setting case
- Federal Court continues trend of granting summary judgment in appropriate patent proceedings
- Federal Court upholds validity of two patents pertaining to ELIQUIS
- Non-practicing entity’s allegations of patent infringement against oil sands producer /operator dismissed
- Choueifaty patent application found to possess patentable subject-matter
- Federal Court finds silodosin formulation patent valid but not infringed
- Patent Appeal Board Allows Dosage Regimen Claims – No Physician Skill Needed
- PMPRB proposes to modify Guidelines definition of “gap medicine” to include medicines sold by July 1, 2021
- Patentee’s Success Story in a Hatch-Waxman Litigation Case
- A New Application of an Abstract Idea Is Still Abstract: Court Affirms Dismissal Under § 101
- Patentee Cannot Cure Lack of Written Description by Reference To Matter Present Only Foreign Priority Application
- Happiest Baby’s SNOO patent Rocks Baby Automatically
- Illuminating insufficiency: the English Patents Court examines “Regeneron ranges”
- Regeneron Recast – Mr Justice Birss provides illuminating insight into the law of sufficiency
- UKIPO “Green Channel” – can the patent system encourage more innovation in green technologies?
- Cannabis: Patents in Europe
- Senate Passed New Legislation to Punish Foreign Individuals and Corporations for IP Theft
- Biden administration promises hard stance against Chinese IP abuses
- Intellectual Property Issues for Foreign Enterprises Acquiring Chinese Companies
- Critical and curious terms from the world of Intellectual Property
- Top Enforcement Issues to watch in 2021
PRIVACY
- The CPPA’s Privacy Law Enforcement Regime
- ADT Tech Spied On Women For Four Years Before Getting Caught By Accident
- Britain Helps Children Learn From Home By Procuring Them Laptops Preloaded With Russian Malware
- North Korea hackers use social media to target security researchers
- Military intelligence buys location data instead of getting warrants, memo shows
- NYPD Still Blowing The Public’s Money To Keep The Public From Seeing The NYPD’s Misconduct Records
- New Yorkers Receive Postmortem Rights and Protection Against Digitization of Sexually Manipulated Content in New Right of Publicity Statute
- Chrome and Edge want to help with that password problem of yours
- Home alarm tech backdoored security cameras to spy on customers having sex
- Flo Period App Gets A Wrist Slap For Sharing Private Health Data
- United Kingdom: Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) issues statement on SolarWinds Orion compromise
- Amazon Ring App Found To Be (Again) Exposing User Locations, Home Addresses
- Court approves grocery store data breach settlement
- Appeals Court Rejects Clearview’s Attempt To Dodge A State Lawsuit By Trying To Make It A Federal Case
- 2020 Privacy Year In Review
Jon
News of the Week; January 20, 2021
GAMES
- CD Projekt faces a second class-action lawsuit over Cyberpunk 2077
- CD Projekt Red exec disputes Cyberpunk 2077 demo were “almost entirely fake”
- CD Projekt vows ‘vigorous’ defense as investors launch second Cyberpunk class action
- Inside Cyberpunk 2077’s Disastrous Rollout
- Epic Games takes legal action against Apple and Google in UK
- Epic submits claims against Google and Apple to UK Competition Appeal Tribunal
- “Loot boxes” and other in-game purchases: ASA launches consultation
- European Commission fines Valve, others $9.4 million for ‘geo-blocking’ games
- EU fines Valve and five publishers €7.8m for geo-blocking practices
- FTC Cracks Down on Mobile Gaming Middlemen Offering In-Game Rewards and Offers
- FTC reaches settlement over misleading mobile advertisements for in-game rewards, and warns of growing scrutiny towards today’s gaming gatekeepers
- FTC Pursues Advertising Network that Failed to Deliver In-Game Rewards in Exchange for Payment or Personal Information
- Planning a Super Bowl-themed Marketing Campaign? 5 Tips for Staying In Bounds
- ITC Threat for Gaming Companies Grows with PTAB Discretionary Denials
- Twitch’s Trump ban sustained after leaving office
- Nintendo blocks videos by Game & Watch hacker
- Nintendo uses copyright claims to take down Game & Watch hacking videos
- Nintendo Hates You: Gaming Giant Lobs A DMCA Nuke At Hundreds Of Fan Games
- Universal delays opening of Super Nintendo World again due to COVID-19
- Super Nintendo World opening on “indefinite hiatus”
- Analyst: The Nintendo Switch outsold every other console in 2020
- Chinese Switch sales expose a failure to counter the import market | Opinion
- Studios and designers: Are you sure that you own the intellectual property rights to your video games?
- Gaming the system: How GameStop stock surged 1,500% in nine months
- GAME details efforts to prevent PS5 scalpers
- Epic Games Store exclusivity muddles Hitman 3’s legacy DLC promise on PC
- IO Interactive assures Hitman 3 players will not have to repurchase previous entries
- Hitman III review: Let’s call it Hitman 2.5 and be fine with it
- Hitman 3 | Critical Consensus
- US environmental agency warns against Xbox Series X, PS5 energy consumption
- Report: Xbox’s “instant on” feature could consume 4 billion kWh by 2025
- Mobile gaming saw surge of new players in 2020
- Bungie is shutting down its Halo stats archive in February
- Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor has lost its online features, including Vendetta missions
- Games investments reached $33.6bn in 2020
- InvestGame: 2020 game deals hit value of $33.6 billion across 664 transactions
- 2020 sees record US games spending at $56.9bn | US Annual Report
- NPD reveals the best-selling games of 2020 in the U.S.
- Battle.net gets a fresh coat of paint to improve navigation, accessibility, and more
- The triumph of mobile core games heralds a demographic shift | Opinion
- The Switch has officially shipped 1 million units in China
- Nintendo Switch accounted for 87% of consoles sold in Japan last year | Japan Annual Report
- Nintendo and GTA 5 come top in big year for Australia game sales | Australia Annual Report
- Nintendo continues to prop up UK games retail | UK Boxed Charts
- Ace Combat 7 has topped 2.5 million sales worldwide
- Puzzle Quest dev Infinity Plus Two acquired by 505 Games parent Digital Bros
- Playtech sells YoYo Games to Opera for $10m
- Opera buys GameMaker Studio maker YoYo Games for $10 million
- Opera opens new video game division and confirms YoYo Games purchase
- 505 Games acquires Infinity Plus Two
- Playtika IPO raises $1.88bn
- IPO plans value Krafton at up to $27bn
- Impending IPO values PUBG Studio parent Krafton at as much as $27 billion
- Casino game studio Huuuge looking to raise $150 million through IPO
- Savage Game Studios raises $4.4m
- Mobile developer Savage Game Studios nets $4.4 million for competitive shooter
- Miniclip acquires Online Soccer Manager studio Gamebasics
- Miniclip acquires Online Soccer Manager developer Gamebasics
- How MTG’s acquisition will fuel Hutch’s race to No.1
- Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Blockbuster IP
- PC fan port of early Sonic games lets you zoom the camera way, way out
- How to localize a game video: A checklist for developers
- YouTube channel GameXplain accused of overworking and underpaying staff
- PewDiePie Signs Exclusive Facebook Distribution Deal With Jellysmack
- Leyline: “We don’t care about the money — we want to make the world better”
- Esports’ Wild 2020 Ride Culminates In 69 Percent Growth And A Continuing Rising Trend
- Kuato raises £4.5m, expands to VR
- Educational game studio Kuato nets $6.1 million to finance VR pivot
- Tilting Point opens studio in Russia to work on multiple projects
- The return of Peter Moore
- Industry vet Peter Moore returns to games as Unity SVP
- Peter Moore joins Unity as SVP and GM of sports and live entertainment
- Blog: The successful steps of Early Access games
- Blog: How can we improve support powers in RTS games?
- Blog: Understanding the types of game currencies in mobile free-to-play
- Video: Next-level creature sound design
- Video: Unscoring the world of Kenshi
- Don’t Miss: Monolith Productions’ postmortem of Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor
- Don’t Miss: Building a ‘homebrew’ video game console
DIGITAL
- YouTube Extends Trump Ban For Another Week, Citing Concerns About “Ongoing Potential For Violence”
- YouTube Removes Onision From Partner Program, Demonetizes His Channels Over Child Safety Concerns
- Facebook knew about violent extremists before insurrection, reports find
- Sheryl Sandberg Makes Disingenuous Push To Argue That Only Facebook Has The Power To Stop Bad People Online
- They Used to Post Selfies. Now They’re Trying to Reverse the Election.: Right-wing influencers embraced extremist views, and Facebook rewarded them.
- Inside Twitter’s Decision to Cut Off Trump
- The Capitol Rioters Are Giving Insurrection a Bad Name
- Disinformation creep: ADOS and the strategic weaponization of breaking news
- Sticks and Stones May Break My Bones but Words Incite a Riot
- I’m a First Amendment scholar – and I think Big Tech should be left alone
- No Political Advertising on Google, At Least Until After Inauguration Day
- Inauguration Has Happened, Google And Facebook Should End The Ban On Political Advertisements
- Social Media Platforms See 73% Drop In Election Misinformation After Trump’s Ban (Study)
- Dominion Voting Systems Files Defamation Lawsuit Against Former Trump Lawyer, Sidney Powell
- GitHub regrets firing Jewish employee who called Trump-incited mob “Nazis”
- Trump pardons engineer who copped to stealing a Google secret for Uber: Peter Thiel, Palmer Luckey, and others asked Trump to pardon Levandowski.
- Chinese Ad for Make-Up Wipes Pulled Over Charges of Sexism and Victim-Blaming
- Applying Uber v. Heller – Ontario Superior Court of Justice applies unconscionability doctrine to standard form arbitration clause
- Jonathan Zittrain on the Great Deplatforming
- 2021 Is the Year the Internet Gets Rewritten: As Silicon Valley flails to combat an insurrection at home, Europe is marching ahead with a plan to revise the web’s basic rulebook.
- Jack Dorsey Explains The Difficult Decision To Ban Donald Trump; Reiterates Support For Turning Twitter Into A Decentralized Protocol
- What motivates the motivated reasoning of pro-Trump conspiracists?
- Trump’s Facts-Optional Assault On Chinese Tech Continues With Blocking Of Xiaomi
- As Beijing Continues To Creep Into Hong Kong, Internet Censorship Begins
- Amazon offers Biden help to speed up vaccine distribution
- Judge Not Impressed By Parler’s Attempt To Force Amazon To Put It Back Online
- Parler CEO admits site may never recover from Amazon ban
- Parler’s CEO Promises That When It Comes Back… It’ll Moderate Content… With An Algorithm
- Ridiculous: Yale Law Prof Argues That Because Some In Congress Want More Moderation, That Makes Twitter A State Actor
- A Few More Thoughts On The Total Deplatforming Of Parler & Infrastructure Content Moderation
- Parler seems to be sliding back onto the Internet, but not onto mobile
- Parler Attempting to Come Back Online, Still Insisting The Site’s Motivation Is ‘Privacy’ Despite Leaking Details On All Its Users
- Questions Raised About Why Online Retailers Are Promoting Attack on Capitol Hill-Themed Products
- Hackers alter stolen regulatory data to sow mistrust in COVID-19 vaccine
- When Can a Politician Block Constituents on Social Media?–Garnier v. O’Connor-Ratcliff (Eric Goldman)
- Facebook Isn’t Liable for Account Hack/Hijack–Damner v. Facebook (Eric Goldman)
- The local politics of AirBNB’s ban on DC rentals
- Samsung’s top executive gets 30 months in prison for bribery
- Mobile Advertising Company Gets Flack from FTC for Failure to Deliver Upon Advertised Promises
- “Big Tech” under pressure – new Rules for Digital Platforms in the EU and UK
- UK government sets out final approach to regulating online harms
- Should my Will refer to Digital Assets
- Google says it’s closing the Fitbit acquisition—uh, without DOJ approval?
- Former FCC Boss Tom Wheeler Continues To Misunderstand And Misrepresent Section 230 And The Challenges Of Content Moderation
- Understanding the Controversy over Section 230
- Content Moderation Case Study: Dealing With Demands From Foreign Governments (January 2016)
- Content Moderation Case Study: Using Hashes And Scanning To Stop Cloud Storage From Being Used For Infringement (2014)
- The New Age of Content Moderation(?)
- Free Access To Academic Papers For Everyone In India: Government Proposes ‘One Nation, One Subscription’ Approach As Part Of Major Shift To Openness
- Indonesian Government Prioritizes Influencers — Alongside Healthcare Workers — In COVID Vaccine Rollout
- Influencer and brand under fire for failing to clearly identify marketing communication on TikTok (Jamella t/a GHD in association with Emily Canham)
- Influencer Marketing Guide
- 2020 Advertising Law Year in Review
- Netflix’s First Inclusion Report Lays Out Its Diversity Efforts, Shortfalls, Goals
- Netflix Soars Past 200 Million Subscribers, Clocked $25 Billion In Revenues Last Year
- ViacomCBS Sets March 4 Launch For Paramount+ Streaming Service
- CBS All Access is dead, long live Paramount+: “New” streaming service launches March 4
- Apple Looking To Monetize Podcasting Platform Via Subscription Service (Report)
- Apple pulls the plug on user-found method to sideload iOS apps on Mac
- Some Creators Are Making Millions Uploading Videos To Snapchat’s Spotlight
- YouTube Adds Safety Feature Targeting Comments With External Links
- YouTube Adds New Metric Letting Creators Track Video Performance Over 24-Hour Span
- The Dolan Twins, With 11 Million Subscribers, Resign From YouTube To Pursue Other Ventures
- YouTube Wonderkid ‘Like Nastya’ Topples 200 Million Subs Across Portfolio Of 14 Channels
- PC sales finally saw big growth in 2020 after years of steady decline
- Newly-Formed ‘Group Nine Acquisition Corp.’ Prices $200 Million IPO, Kicking Off Today
- Wattpad Acquired By Webtoon’s Parent Company ‘Naver’ In $600 Million Deal
- CAA Acquires Creative Agency ‘Tandem’ To Bolster Digital Partnerships, Branded Content Efforts
- Treasury nominee Yellen is looking to curtail use of cryptocurrency
- The internet didn’t kill counterculture—you just won’t find it on Instagram
- Rhode Island clarifies sales taxation of advertising software
- Zeros and Ones in 2021: Next Moves in the Digital Tax Debate
- Emoji Law Year-in-Review for 2020 (Eric Goldman)
A.I.
- Facebook will pay more than $300 each to 1.6M Illinois users in settlement
- WorkLife 2.0: A robot in control – should AI have a voice on the Board?
- Brainard weighs benefits and risks of using AI in financial services industry
- AI-powered text from this program could fool the government
- Microsoft invests in $30 billion driverless car company Cruise
- FDA Issues Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning Action Plan
- Five highlights from FDA’s new AI device regulation Action Plan
- House of Lords liaison committee report on AI published
- “AI in the UK: No room for complacency” and no room for a separate AI regulation
- The AI Council calls for a National AI Strategy: building public trust
- What You Need to Know About M&A and Investing in AI
- Blockchain, AI and Cloud in the Luxury Sector
- An interview with Cirio Advokatbyrå AB discussing artificial intelligence in Sweden
COMMUNICATIONS
- Federal Enforcement Agencies Remind Canadian Mobile App Companies of their CASL Obligationsl
- Fox News Needs To Accept Some Of The Blame For The Insurrection; But That Doesn’t Mean We Toss Out The 1st Amendment
- FCC fines white-supremacist robocaller $10 million for faking caller ID
- FCC Fines White Supremacist ~$10 Million for Spoofed RoboCalls
- In Departing Statement, FCC Boss Ajit Pai Pretends He ‘Served The People’
- As Ajit Pai exits FCC, Charter admits defeat on petition to impose data caps
- With Trump Loss, Charter Backs Off FCC Request To Allow Broadband Caps
- 3Mbps uploads still fast enough for US homes, Ajit Pai says in final report
- FCC’s new foreign ownership review rules set to take effect
- House Lawmakers Question Telecom Giants Over Broadband Price Gouging During A Pandemic
- Broadband Market Failure Keeps Forcing Americans To Build Their Own ISPs
- US declares Xiaomi a “Communist Chinese military company,” bans investments
- English Premier League wins latest round in battle over satellite decoder cards
- UK faces major telecoms regulation overhaul courtesy of the European Electronic Communications Code
INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY
- Foreign Certificate of Registrations of Copyright may not suffice to prove ownership of copyright in Canada
- How one musician took on the world’s biggest TV network over copyright—and won
- Ninth Circuit Panel Adopts “Asserted Truths” Doctrine in Holding Jersey Boys Musical Does Not Infringe Copyright
- INSTA-FRAUD Instagram ‘Copyright Infringement’
- Martin v Kogan: High Court re-writes script as Kogan succeeds in copyright co-authorship retrial
- Why Software Developers Should Provide Licensees With Software Escrow Services
- Getting Your Website Ready for the New Library of Congress Copyright Claims Board
- A Short Summary of the CASE Act (Tyler Ochoa)
- Mixed reactions as copyright owners ring in 2021 with CASE Act
- In CASE You Missed It: Significant New Dispute-Resolution Process for Copyright Claims
- New Stimulus Bill Creates Small Claims Copyright Court
- Pepe the Frog
- Knobbe Practice Webinar Series – Protecting User Interface Technologies
- Celebrated graffiti artist Futura sues The North Face for its FUTURELIGHT apparel line alleging copyright and trademark infringement
- A COVID-19 fast-track for Canadian trademark applications
- Canadian Trademark Law: 2020 Year in review
- Year in Review – Key Trademark Cases from 2020
- The Case of the ‘Missing S’
- A not so EASY task after all – UKIPO finds EASY mark devoid of distinctive character
- SCOTUS Refuses To Hear Case Between Jack Daniels And VIP Products Over Doggy Chew Toy
- Are Commercial Parody Dog Toys Subject to the Heightened Rogers Test, and Do They Qualify As Non-Commercial Works under the Trademark Dilution Revision Act?
- Everything Old is New Again: Presumption of Irreparable Harm Restored to Third Circuit Trademark Cases Seeking Injunctive Relief
- TTAB KO’s Mayweather PAST PRESENT FUTURE Trademark Application
- Trademark Modernization Act Becomes Law: Establishes Procedures to Remove Deadwood Registrations, Restores Presumption of Irreparable Harm, and Protects the Independence of the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board
- Trade Mark Filings increase worldwide in 2019
- A Trademark is Not a Copyright or a Patent
- Manufacturers Must Not be Blind to Their Rights Against Counterfeiters
- Shoe design found valid and infringed in the UK Court’s last Community registered design case
- Case Study | Breach of Confidence by employees
- Litigation finance helps companies keep their cool during trade secrets disputes
- How Not to Build a Case of Trade Secret Misappropriation
- Federal Court invalidates Janssen ZYTIGA® Patent
- Federal Court decision regarding glatiramer acetate finds one patent obvious and another valid and infringed
- PM(NOC) Invalidity Grounds May Extend Beyond NOA
- Federal Court continues recent trend of granting summary judgment in appropriate patent proceedings
- The new rules of Canadian patent litigation: Federal Court of Appeal affirms the viability of summary judgments in patent actions, upholds interpretation of file wrapper estoppel
- Recent Amendments to the Patented Medicines Regulations Declared Unconstitutional by Québec Superior Court
- Have any Patents Issued under the USPTO’s COVID-19 Prioritized Patent Examination Program?
- Patenting the 3D Bioprinting Innovations that Combat COVID-19
- Revenge of the Grammer Nerds: Grammatical Canons Overturn $8.6 Million Jury Infringement Verdict
- No Reasonable Expectation of Success, No Obviousness
- The China Pivot: Closing the “Back Door” to Trade Secret and IP Theft
- Rapid Rise in Blockchain Patent Filings in China
- Everyday IP – Brushing up: When were toothbrushes invented?
- UK-EU Trade Agreement and IP Rights
- Proposed University Technology Licensing Program Gets Nod from Justice Department
- Making the best of a bad year: Winning IP cases in 2020
- World Intellectual Property Indicators Report 2020
- 2020 Engineering & Technology Year in Review
- Importance of Protecting Intellectual Property in the Digital Age
- 10 things every new IP counsel should do
PRIVACY
- Defunct Photo App Agrees to Erase Biometric Data in FTC Settlement
- FTC Settles Allegations of Deceptive Practices by Photo Storage App Provider
- FTC Takes Aim at Facial Recognition Claims in Latest Deception Settlement
- Tiktok faces lawsuit for violating children’s data privacy law in the UK
- Fired former data scientist Rebekah Jones arrested, tests positive for COVID-19
- Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals Vacates MD Anderson HIPAA Penalty
- CJEU rules that the UK’s “mass surveillance” regime is out of line with EU law
- The NSA warns enterprises to beware of third-party DNS resolvers
- Security firm Malwarebytes was infected by same hackers who hit SolarWinds
- How law enforcement gets around your smartphone’s encryption
- Beware of biometric data compliance pitfalls under BIPA
- Another Day, Another Location Data Privacy Scandal We’ll Probably Do Nothing About
- Oceans Apart? Mass Privacy Litigation in the US and Europe
- Key lessons from the first major GDPR fines for cyber breaches
Jon
News of the Week; January 13, 2021
GAMES
- ESA suspends political contributions after assault on U.S. Capitol
- ESA PAC to pause political contributions following insurrection at US Capitol
- Twitch suspends Trump account following insurrection at US Capitol
- Updated: Twitch, Discord suspend Trump-related accounts after Capitol assault
- Twitch removes popular emote after pro player’s support for Capitol Hill mob
- Twitch pulls Pogchamp emote over link to Capitol siege supporter
- Twitch removes PogChamp emote it says was “the face of… further violence”
- Riot and Bungie file lawsuit against Destiny 2 and Valorant cheat-maker
- Riot Games and Bungie file joint lawsuit against cheatmakers
- Koei Tecmo says it will sue over bootleg Dead or Alive video
- Dangen Entertainment settles dispute with Protoculture Games
- Nintendo Appears To Be Using A Fan-Made Drawing Of Mario Without Artist’s Permission Or Credit
- Legal risks and implications of hyper-realistic videogames
- CD Projekt apologizes again for Cyberpunk 2077 on consoles
- CD Projekt faces scrutiny from consumer protection org over Cyberpunk 2077
- CDPR CEO blames “in-game streaming” for Cyberpunk’s console problems
- CD Projekt leadership vows no ‘obligatory overtime’ during Cyberpunk 2077 fixes
- Polish competition watchdog investigating Cyberpunk 2077
- Capcom confirms at least 16,000 people affected by Nov. data breach
- Personal information of 16,415 people compromised during Capcom security breach
- Capcom security breach compromised personal data of 16,415 people
- Take-Two officially ends pursuit of Codemasters following EA offer
- Take-Two withdraws bid for Codemasters following EA offer of $1.2bn
- Wolfenstein 3D + Super Monkey Ball = free Nazi-flattening fun!
- Payload Studios launches incubator for underrepresented developers
- FTC wary of Apple and Google “squeezing developers”
- The FTC slams Tapjoy over deceptive ads, pledges to keep ‘gatekeeping giants’ in check
- FTC Settles With Mobile-Game Platform for Misleading In-Game Advertisements
- FTC Pursues Advertising Network that Failed to Deliver In-Game Rewards in Exchange for Payment or Personal Information
- Federal Trade Commission orders Tapjoy to better police fraudulent advertising
- Peter Moore: FIFA Ultimate Team is a “long way” from gambling
- EA’s hold over Star Wars games ends with Ubisoft’s open-world announcement
- Lucasfilm Games taps Ubisoft Massive to create new open-world Star Wars title
- Lucasfilm re-establishes Lucasfilm Games as home for all its gaming titles
- Star Wars games are now housed under a revived Lucasfilm Games brand
- Disney brings back the Lucasfilm Games brand for future Star Wars titles
- Bethesda lands Indiana Jones license
- Bethesda, Lucasfilm tease new Indiana Jones video game
- Lucasfilm and Ubisoft partner on Star Wars game
- GameStop holiday sales down 3.1% in 2020
- GameStop: Fewer stores, ‘industry-wide decline’, supply woes led to holiday sales slide
- N95 masks, gamer style: Razer’s crazy face-mask prototype revealed
- Video Games & the Novel (Eric Hayot)
- Video games have replaced music as the most important aspect of youth culture
- Forget power fantasies: pandemic-era players crave companionship | Opinion
- What will a post-pandemic games industry look like? | This Week in Business
- Tencent confirms 1m Nintendo Switch shipments in China
- Amazon’s 2020 gaming best-sellers again led by gift cards, Switch games
- Nintendo Switch dominates Top Ten as lockdown boosts game sales | UK Boxed Charts
- 43 million games sold in the UK in 2020 | UK Annual Report
- Number of mobile gamers increased 50% in the UK due to COVID-19
- Core gamers generated 66% of mobile revenues in 2020
- Newzoo sees mobile marketing upheaval in 2021
- Nerts! is the free, pleasant six-player card game we could all use right now
- GameFly introduces movies-only subscription
- Tilting Point signs $10 million publishing deal with South Korean dev Storytaco
- Best Fiends publisher Playtika launches $1.6B IPO
- Playtika launches IPO, looks to raise as much as $1.6b
- Roblox to go public through direct listing, not IPO
- Roblox secures fresh $520 million investment, outlines plans for direct listing
- Turtle Beach acquires Neat Microphones
- Epic acquires Rad Game Tools
- Steam saw 21% more games sold in 2020
- Over 8 million demos played during 2020’s Steam Festivals (and other nifty Steam stats)
- How did Rust make $1 million in Steam revenue in a day – twice?
- Genvid targets “a huge opportunity for game developers” with Rival Peak
- The future is digital — right?
- What does 2021 hold for the African games industry?
- What I learned playing 30+ years’ worth of Jeopardy! video games
- Handheld hardships | 10 Years Ago This Month
- Twitter says gaming posts up 75% in 2020
- Streamer TheGrefg breaks Twitch peak concurrent viewership records
- Twitch, Facebook see best months for viewership yet in December
- Dolphin Entertainment acquires esports and game PR agency B/HI
- B/HI acquired by Dolphin Entertainment
- Financing in the Esports sector
- Oculus Quest 2 players make up nearly half of Rec Room’s 1 million VR-using MAUs
- Making Chestnut Grove (a game set in the pandemic) during the pandemic
- Blog: Deconstructing the product strategy of PC Building Simulator
- Blog: Have video games become products like any other?
- Blog: Studying physical elements of play
- Blog: How many currencies should my game have?
- Blog: How studios can prevent unauthorized spending in games
- Don’t Miss: The challenges BioWare faced designing Mass Effect 3
- Don’t Miss: A 2014 Lucasfilm Games postmortem, told by those who lived it
- Don’t Miss: Leveraging physical animation to sell Force powers in Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order
- Video: The appeal of ‘legacy’ board games
- GI 100 | Game Changers
DIGITAL
- Trump deletes tweets after being banned from Twitter
- Donald Trump has finally earned a permaban from Twitter
- Not Easy, Not Unreasonable, Not Censorship: The Decision To Ban Trump From Twitter
- Facebook, Instagram ban Trump through at least Inauguration Day
- YouTube suspends Trump’s account, disables comments “indefinitely”
- Just-Formed Alphabet Union Condemns YouTube’s “Lackluster” Response To Pro-Trump Capital Mob
- Wednesday, January 6th: The Day The Game Of Politics Turned Into Insurrection
- Politics Is Not A Game
- Republican state lawmaker livestreamed himself in mob storming US Capitol
- FBI arrests Republican lawmaker who stormed Capitol with pro-Trump mob
- Republican lawmaker resigns after arrest for storming US Capitol
- Identifying Insurrectionists Is Going To Be Easy — Thanks To Social Media And All The Other Online Trails People Leave
- Insurrectionists’ social media presence gives feds an easy way to ID them
- Dominion Voting suing “kraken” lawyer Sidney Powell for $1.3B
- Michael Flynn and Sidney Powell banned from Twitter in QAnon purge
- Trump social media ban will feature in future antitrust hearings
- The real lesson of Trump’s social media silencing
- Trump Is Banned. Who Is Next?
- Reddit’s largest remaining Trump community banned for “inciting violence”
- Google bans Parler from Android app store
- Amazon cuts off Parler’s Web hosting following Apple, Google bans
- After white supremacists storm US capitol, Apple expands racial justice initiative
- Parler goes dark, sues Amazon to demand immediate reinstatement
- Parler’s Laughably Bad Antitrust Lawsuit Against Amazon
- Filing: Amazon warned Parler for months about “more than 100” violent threats
- Parler’s amateur coding could come back to haunt Capitol Hill rioters
- Trump, Parler, and the internet regulation fallout (Andres Guadamuz)
- Facebook says it’s blocking posts with the phrase “stop the steal”
- Big ISPs pause donations to 147 Republicans who tried to reverse Biden’s win
- Snowflake Josh Hawley Seems To Think The 1st Amendment Means Simon & Schuster Has To Give Him A Book Contract
- Some Thoughts On Twitter Pulling The Plug On Trump’s Account
- Irony: German Chancellor Merkel Upset At Twitter For Banning Trump; Meanwhile Germany Demands Social Media Blocks Dangerous Content
- More Plaintiffs (and Lawyers) Need To Be Reminded That YouTube Isn’t a State Actor–Divino v. Google (Eric Goldman)
- The First Amendment: Where it is Implicated, and Where it is Not
- A New Year, a new approach to digital regulation: the DSA and Online Harms
- SolarWinds malware has “curious” ties to Russian-speaking hackers
- “Baby-making machines”: Chinese tweet on Uighurs not against Twitter rules
- Twitter takes down China’s “baby-making machines” tweet on Uighur women
- Appeals Court: Just Because Someone Used An Email Account To Send Threats Doesn’t Make It An ‘Interstate’ Crime
- Mossack Fonseca & Co. v. Netflix Inc. (California: Central District December 23, 2020): In libel action concerning Netflix’s 2019 film The Laundromat, district court grants anti-SLAPP motion.
- PSA: If Someone Doesn’t Accept Your Friend Request, Do Not Threaten To Kill Them And Kick In Their Front Door
- Goliath Beater Roku Rockets Into ‘The Streaming Decade’
- Quibi’s $1.75B experiment ends with Roku acquisition for “less than $100M”
- Roku Has Officially Acquired Quibi’s Pricey Programming Library
- Internet Shutdowns in 2021
- The Year That Changed the Internet
- New proposals for regulation of online platforms in Europe
- Dear Section 230 Critics: When Senators Hawley And Cruz Are Your Biggest Allies, It’s Time To Rethink
- New Op-Ed: People Who Understand Section 230 Actually Love It (Eric Goldman)
- Section 230 Year-in-Review for 2020 (Eric Goldman)
- Content Moderation Case Study: SoundCloud Combats Piracy By Giving Universal Music The Power To Remove Uploads (2014)
- Content Moderation Case Study: Yelp Attempts To Tackle Racism On Its Platform (2020)
- The Slope Gets More Slippery As You Expect Content Moderation To Happen At The Infrastructure Layer
- Everything Pundits Are Getting Wrong About This Current Moment In Content Moderation
- Twitter Bans Sci-Hub’s Account Because Of ‘Counterfeit Goods’ Policy, As Indian Copyright Case Heats Up
- Apple allegedly working with Hyundai on electric car for 2027
- Bummed about new Google Photos storage limits? Amazon Photos says “hi”
- A Google smart display with radar-based sleep tracking is reportedly happening
- How YouTube helps form homogeneous online communities
- YouTube Re-Teams With Demi Lovato For ‘Dancing With The Devil’ Docuseries
- YouTube Turns On Post-Roll Ads By Default On All 10-Minute, Monetizing Videos
- YouTube Names Dr. Garth Graham Global Head Of Healthcare, In Bid To Bolster Authoritative Health Content
- ‘#YouTubeBlack Voices Grant Program’ Unveils Inaugural Class Of 132 Creator Recipients
- MrBeast Smashes 50 Million Subs, Though Recent Videos Have Lost A “Ridiculous” Amount Of Money
- 100 Thieves Snags AT&T Sponsorship, Will Install Branded ‘Valorant’ Team Training Room
- Some Uber, Lyft drivers sue over California ballot measure: Lawsuit says Proposition 22 is unconstitutional because it limits right to organize
- Sway House Investment Spurs Tinder Founder Sean Rad To Seed $1 Million In ‘Versus Game’ App
- Music and Social Media – Times are changing for brands on TikTok
- TikTok Launches 3-Month Incubation Program For Black Creators
- TikTok Breakout Noah Beck Lands Reality Series At AwesomenessTV
- Context is key: ASA dismisses complaint against a Laphroaig whisky ad accused of linking alcohol with sexual activity
- After corporate blunders and setbacks, Intel ousts CEO Bob Swan
- Qualcomm will acquire chip company founded by Apple execs for $1.4 billion
- Nvidia’s next laptop GPU generation powers a leap to 1440p displays
- Nvidia’s takeover of Arm is being investigated by UK competition authorities
- UK competition regulator to investigate Nvidia’s takeover of Arm
- 2H 2020 Quick Links, Part 5 (Contracts, E-Commerce, Defamation, Censorship, & More) (Eric Goldman)
A.I.
- UKIPO patent guidance updated for DABUS judgment
- Landmark artificial intelligence legislation becomes law
- Eye on AI
- An interview with Covington & Burling discussing artificial intelligence in the United States
- New York City proposes regulating algorithms used in hiring
- AI Update: Provisions in the National Defense Authorization Act Signal the Importance of AI to American Competitiveness
- Why Big Tech Wants Your Body
- Remember Sony’s electric car from CES? Now it’s being road-tested
- Tesla’s main self-driving rival isn’t Google—it’s Intel’s Mobileye
- FRB Governor Promotes Financial Inclusion through AI
- One piece of optical hardware performs massively parallel AI calculations
COMMUNICATIONS
- Ajit Pai offers mild criticism of Trump incitement, drops Section 230 plan
- In His Last Two Weeks, Ajit Pai Finally Finds A Backbone And Refuses To Move Forward With Trump’s Ridiculous 230 Attack
- Reminder – 2021 Will Include Some Off-Year Elections for State and Local Office – and FCC Political Broadcasting Rules Do Apply
- Big Telecom Wants A Cookie For Pausing PAC Donations After Hoovering Up Billions In Trump Favors
- AT&T kills off the failed TV service formerly known as DirecTV Now
- AT&T Is Restoring Its Bullshit Broadband Caps Because Apparently The COVID Crisis Is Over
- Jared Mauch didn’t have good broadband—so he built his own fiber ISP
- 6G Hype Is Already Getting Stupid, When 5G Hype Hasn’t Even Finished Disappointing Us Yet
- A Few Reminders Before The Tired Net Neutrality Debate Is Rekindled
- Report: Tencent and Alibaba may get blacklisted by the Trump administration
- Radio, Radio: FM Radio Licenses Soon to be Available to Educational Institutions
- Canada’s Anti-Spam Legislation – Legal compliance reminder for mobile app industry
- Canada’s Anti-Spam Legislation – 2020 Year in Review
INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY
- Eleventh Circuit Says Netflix Series Does Not Infringe Copyrighted Memoir
- Ninth Circuit Holds Dr. Seuss-Star Trek Mashup an Infringement, Not a Parody
- This Mashup Is Not a Place You’ll Go – Seuss Copyright Will ‘Live Long and Prosper’
- Copyright Troll Richard Liebowitz Helps Protect Free Speech & Fair Use By Losing Yet Another Case
- Dickinson v. Ryan Seacrest Enterprises, Inc. (USCA, Ninth Circuit, Dec. 21, 2020): Dismissal of claims by Janice Dickinson over allegedly false portrayal of her in reality television series.
- Copyright Royalty Board Announces SoundExchange Audits of Royalty Payments for Webcasters (Including Broadcast Simulcasts) and Other Digital Music Services
- Digital Collections: Reflections on copyright
- Copyright Office Begins Review of Changes in Satellite Television Statutory License for Carriage of Local Television Stations
- Is 2021 the year for artists to sell their music catalogues?
- Art law – Recent developments January 2021
- Use My Likeness? Over My Dead Body!
- Canadian Madrid Applications: Practice Note for Foreign Agents
- Trademark litigation: a global guide 2021 – Canada
- Louisville Courier-Journal Wins ‘Derby Pie’ Trademark Dispute
- USPTO v Booking.com: Whether a “.com” can transform a generic mark into a registrable trademark under the Lanham Act
- The Trademark Modernization Act Establishes New Trademark Cancellation Procedures
- United States: Key considerations in parallel criminal and civil trade secrets cases
- Ten Trade Secret Resolutions to Keep for 2021 and Beyond
- Court Rejects Attempt to “Stretch” Patent Claim Language
- Watch What You Say! Prosecution History Estoppel in Canada
- Election Ballot Verification – A Patent Subject Matter Eligibility Analysis
- Patent Owner’s ex parte communications with members of Congress, the president, and PTAB APJs are sanctionable and the Board may craft its own reasonable sanctions
- Patent protection in the time of COVID-19
- Why standard essential patents are now essential to you
- The Right to Repair in Massachusetts Rolls Forward
- Not Patent Misuse to License U.S. Patents in Foreign Jurisdictions for “Administrative Convenience”
- 10 Patent Prosecution, Litigation Practice Trends From 2020
- What Was Old Is New Again In IP Litigation — Thanks To Suspected Russian State-Sponsored Hack
- What Were the Top Intellectual Property Stories in 2020?
- Cloud computing: overview of IP issues
- The EU / UK Trade Agreement: Three myths busted – Intellectual property
PRIVACY
- Trends to watch in 2021 – Privacy: issues in a hyper-connected world
- Privacy and Our New Virtual World
- Internet-Connected Chastity Cages Hit By Bitcoin Ransom Hack
- DOJ, US Court System Latest To Announce They’re Victims Of The Massive Solarwinds Hack
- Proactive Steps to Address the Issues Raised after Cyberattack on U.S. Federal Judiciary’s Electronic Filing System
- The SolarWinds hack is stunning. Here’s what should be done
- FTC Settles With Photo App Over Use of Facial Recognition Technology
- New York and Others Settle with CafePress Over 2019 Data Breach
- Cops Love Body Camera Footage… When It Clears Officers Of Any Wrongdoing
- Fifth Circuit Tosses Child Porn Conviction Predicated On Unconstitutional Searches Of Three Cellphones
- Five Key Developments in the Privacy and Data Security Sector in 2020 and Five Predictions for 2021
Jon
News of the Week; January 6, 2021
GAMES
- The Sinking City returns to stores as legal dispute over publishing rights continues
- CD Projekt gearing up for ‘vigorous action’ against investor lawsuit
- Apple removes 39,000 games from the App Store in China
- Apple removes 39,000 games from China store in biggest single-day takedown
- Microsoft calls for Xbox drift lawsuit to be handled by arbitration
- Koei Tecmo’s sites offline following cyber attack
- Netflix producer, Yoozoo Games CEO Lin Qi dead at 39 amid poisoning probe.
- Washington ALJ Rules Video Game Developer’s Attendance at Trade Show Created Substantial Nexus
- A closer look at Raw Fury’s publishing contract
- Tencent and Huawei resolve revenue share dispute
- Minecraft Earth shutting down
- Minecraft Earth is going dark at the end of June
- Saving video gaming’s source code treasures before it’s too late
- The SpongeBob SquarePants effect: Why THQ Nordic is doubling down on licenses
- Where do we go from here? Analysts give 2021 predictions
- Analysing the major mobile game design and feature trends of 2020
- 2020’s most disappointing games, as led by Blizzard’s WarCraft III: Reforged
- Quantifying the Xmas day video game sales bump
- Call of Duty: Mobile makes $14m in first week in China
- Football Manager 2021 has sold over 1 million copies in record time
- Animal Crossing: New Horizons ends 2020 at the top | UK Boxed Charts
- Fall Guys, Doom and Cyberpunk represent 2020 in Steam’s top earners of the year
- Polygon’s 50 most anticipated games of 2021
- The SpongeBob SquarePants effect: Why THQ Nordic is doubling down on licenses
- Ubisoft’s game subscription service now supports Google Stadia for free.
- Sony discontinues all but one PS4 model in Japan
- PS4 Pro and most other models discontinued in Japan
- Sony Pictures Developing 3 Movies, 7 TV Shows Based On PlayStation Games
- Tenet director Christopher Nolan is ‘definitely interested’ in adapting his films into games.
- Nintendo’s Power-Up Band—a physical key to Japan’s upcoming Super Nintendo World
- Nintendo acquires Next Level Games
- Nintendo acquires Luigi’s Mansion 3 developer Next Level Games
- Xbox once pitched an acquisition of Nintendo, and was met with laughter
- The SpongeBob SquarePants effect: Why THQ Nordic is doubling down on licenses
- Niantic acquires community gaming platform Mayhem
- Pokemon Go maker Niantic acquires community platform Mayhem
- Epic Games acquires shopping mall for new headquarters
- Spotify is the first nongaming app on the Epic Games Store, and Epic says it won’t be the last.
- Honor of Kings foresees a borderless, mobile future
- How Riot Games is gunning for its second big esports with Valorant.
- Blog: How I wasted time and money developing a game that earned $30
- Blog: Historians discuss Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War
- Blog: An empathy-driven way to design games
- Video: Clint Hocking’s 2011 game design keynote
- Gamasutra’s Best of 2020: The top 10 game developers of the year
DIGITAL
- Bucking Trump, NSA and FBI say Russia was “likely” behind SolarWinds hack
- DoJ says SolarWinds hackers breached its Office 365 system and read email
- Pro-Trump reporter gloats over access to fleeing Hill staffer’s computer
- Court says Uber can’t hold users to terms they probably didn’t read
- Ticketmaster admits it hacked rival company before it went out of business
- Laura Loomer Loses Another Lawsuit Related to Her Twitter Ban–Illoominate v. CAIR (Eric Goldman)
- Defamation Law Can Slow the Plague of Fake News: Challenging falsehoods about voting machines is a good place to start. (Cass Sunstein)
- Cass Sunstein’s No Good, Horrible, Very Bad Idea For Using Defamation To Fight ‘Fake News’
- Study: Folklore structure reveals how conspiracy theories emerge, fall apart
- Women’s victimization by online hate impedes their democratic participation: LEAF
- Activist hedge fund advises Intel to outsource CPU manufacturing
- Why don’t PCs use error correcting RAM? “Because Intel,” says Linus
- 60 Minutes Episode Is Pure Misleading Moral Panic About Section 230; Blames Unrelated Issues On It
- Parler, Desperate For Attention, Pretends It Doesn’t Need Section 230
- Content Moderation Case Study: Dealing With Controversial & Sexual Fan Fiction (May 2007)
- WhatsApp gives users an ultimatum: Share data with Facebook or stop using the app
- Google and Facebook Sued for Antitrust Violations in the U.S
- Too big not to fail? Google’s antitrust woes
- Google employees announce union open to all Alphabet workers
- Google employees kick off union membership drive for 120,000 workers
- Amazon promises $2B for affordable housing projects near its corporate offices
- European Commission Unveils Sweeping Proposals to Regulate the Digital Sector
- Regulating the Internet, at Last? The Digital Markets Act and the Digital Services Act
- Use of fake identities found deceitful in commercial email — why not elsewhere on the Internet?
- UK blocks Assange extradition due to suicide risk, poor US jail conditions
- Judge Refuses To Extradite Julian Assange, Citing US Prison Conditions & Assange’s Mental Health
- Logan Paul Sued By Production Company Over Fallout From Aokigahara Video
- Top 50 Most Viewed US YouTube Channels • Week Of 12/28/2020
- Top 50 Most Viewed YouTube Channels Worldwide • Week Of 12/28/2020
- Ars Technica’s 2021 Deathwatch—2020 was just the beginning
- After Months of Deadlock, Congress Extends Lifeline for the Arts and Entertainment Industry through the Shuttered Venue Operators Grant Program
- ASA publishes 12 month review of gender stereotyping rule in advertising
- Cryptocurrency stealer for Windows, macOS, and Linux went undetected for a year
- United States President’s Working Group on Financial Markets Releases Statement on Regulatory and Supervisory Considerations for Stablecoin Arrangements
- Synchronized violin players reveal uniqueness of human networks
- Seven Years Ago, CERN Gave Open Access A Huge Boost; Now It’s Doing The Same For Open Data
- 2H 2020 Quick Links, Part 4 (FOSTA) (Eric Goldman)
A.I.
- House of Lords Committee publishes new report “AI in the UK: No Room for Complacency”
- AI Council publishes roadmap for UK AI strategy
- When AI goes wrong, how will the courts determine why?
- Facial Recognition Technology Involves More Than Meets the Eye
- Artificial intelligence and transparency in the public sector
- How Smart Software And AI Helped Networks Thrive For Consumers During The Pandemic
- Waymo CEO: Building safe driverless cars is harder than rocket science
- Birds of a feather flock together, but patterns change with the mission
- You can’t unsee Tedlexa, the Internet of Things/AI bear of your nightmares
COMMUNICATIONS
- Broadband Infrastructure Companies Ripe for M&A, Experts Say
- Pudding-Brained 5G Conspiracies Somehow Get Even Dumber
- FCC Issues Ruling Limiting Call Volumes Permitted Under TCPA Exemptions
- FCC issues voluntary caller id authentication best practices for Voice service providers
- FCC Takes A Break From Not Caring About Consumers To Hassle Some Landlords Over Pirate Radio
- ViaSat Asks FCC To Investigate Space X For Space Pollution
- President Trump Issues Executive Order Banning Transactions Involving Eight Chinese Software Applications
- Comcast data cap blasted by lawmakers as it expands into 12 more states
- Lawmakers Complain About Comcast’s Bullshit Expanded Usage Caps
- Frontier agrees to fiber-network expansion in plan to exit bankruptcy
- Last-minute Brexit deal extends free flow of personal data to UK with 6 months
INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY
- The Copyright Board Begins 2021 with Less Transparency and More Potentially Dysfunctional Delays
- UK Music Rights Group Demands Payment From A Pub That Isn’t Playing Any Music Because It’s Closed Due To COVID
- U.S. Amends the Copyright Act to Establish Copyright Small Claims Tribunal
- Why You Should Be Cautious of the New Copyright Small Claims Court
- Dr. Seuss Enterprises, L.P. v. ComicMix LLC (USCA, 9th, 12.18.20): Unauthorized Dr. Seuss & Star Trek mash-up “Oh, the Places You’ll Boldly Go!” was not fair use of copyrights because the book did not parody or critique
- A New CJEU Judgment on Copyright-Related Geoblocking – One Step Forward or One Step Back in the EU Commission’s Fight Against Geoblocking? (Eric Goldman)
- 1925 Was an Annus Mirabilis for Culture
- Ferrari‘s Testarossa passes the “Test of Genuine Use” before CJEU
- Battle of the Bentleys: Bentley Motors loses trade mark appeal against Bentley Clothing
- USA: 25% Fee hike for Trademark Applications via Madrid Protocol
- US Trademark Modernization Act Provides New Relief to Trademark Owners
- Trademark Modernization Act of 2020 – Use It or Lose It
- What to Know About the Trademark Modernization Act of 2020
- 2H 2020 Quick Links, Part 3 (Trademarks) (Eric Goldman)
- Battle of the ballet shoes: UK court finds infringement of registered community design
- Software and Business Method Patents – How to Improve Your Chances?
- Court Interprets Purported Contour Lines in Design Patent Drawings as Claimed Features
- No Simulating Alice Requirements: Application of Abstract Ideas Alone Cannot Transform Patent Ineligible Subject Matter
- Twelve Cannabis Plant Patents and Counting
- Looking for a patent database? Need a little Inspire-ation?
- Patent Licensors Can Prevent Challenges to Patent Validity
- 2021 Intellectual Property Primer: Cases to Watch this Year
PRIVACY
- Child’s Play: Federal Judge Shuts Down Privacy Litigation Brought Against Tech and Toy Companies Alleging They Violated Kids’ Privacy Rights
- Government Users of Facial Recognition Software Sued by Plaintiff Alleging Wrongful Imprisonment Over Case of Mistaken Identity
- FBI Warns Assholes Are Now Combining Compromised IoT Devices With Swatting Because That’s The Hell We Now Live In
- Telegram feature exposes your precise address to hackers
- FTC Focuses on Privacy Practices of Social Media and Video Streaming Companies
- FTC’s Confusing Guidance on How Merchants Should Manage Their Consumer Reviews (Eric Goldman)
- Update on global privacy expectations of Video Teleconferencing companies
- Global Privacy Roundup: The World Beyond Europe and California
- Data Breach Litigation Without a Data Breach? Not So Fast Walmart Says…
- Federal Court Grants Preliminary Approval of First CCPA Settlement
- Portland’s Ban on Facial-Recognition Technology Takes Effect
- New York Temporarily Bans Facial Recognition Technology in Schools
- En Banc First Circuit Will Decide Whether Government Needs a Warrant to Put Pole Camera Outside Your Home
- Obscure Analytics Tool Helps Cops Make Sense Of All That Location Data They’re Grabbing Without A Warrant
- COVID-19 contact-tracing data is fair game for police, Singapore says
- Surprise! Singapore Backtracks On Privacy Pledge And Opens Contact Tracing Data To Police
- What the heck is a token, and is it considered personal information in California and Europe?
- 10 Areas Of Privacy Law That Look Ripe For Change In 2021
Jon
News of the Week; December 30, 2020
GAMES
- CD Projekt Red investors sue company over Cyberpunk 2077 debacle
- Apple reportedly warns devs of more app takedowns in Chinese App Store
- What makes for a good game publishing contract?
- Nier: Automata surpasses 5 million shipped
- Steam’s end of year bonanza gets ‘experimental’
- Blackstone makes big investment in mobile ad firm Liftoff
- Parents Who Gift Quest 2 to Kids Under 13 Years Old are in for an Unfortunate Surprise
- Games of the Year 2020 | Xbox Game Pass
- Moving Out | Games of the Year 2020
- Gamasutra’s Best of 2020: Kris Graft’s top 5 games (+1)
- Gamasutra’s Best of 2020: The top 10 games of the year
DIGITAL
- Ninth Circuit Says Amazon Isn’t “Seller” of Marketplace Items–State Farm v. Amazon (Eric Goldman)
- Amazon Acquires Podcast Network Wondery In Reported $300 Million Deal
- Amazon still hasn’t fixed its problem with bait-and-switch reviews
- European Union Rules: Facebook Hopes Limits on Apple, Too
- Facebook Isn’t a Constructive Public Trust–Cameron Atkinson v. Facebook (Eric Goldman)
- Chinese Government Sentences Journalist To Four Years In Jail For Reporting On The Spread Of The Coronavirus
- Reddit clone Voat, home to hate speech and QAnon, has shut down
- Computer repairman suing Twitter for defamation, seeks $500 million
- Repair Shop Owner Who Supposedly Had Hunter Biden’s Laptop Sues Twitter For Defamation… Has Lawsuit Tossed The Same Day
- Private party app pulled from App Store by Apple
- Ushering in a new age of accountability for big tech- UK government response to Online Harms White Paper consultation
- EU turns the screw on Big Tech: The Digital Services Act Package
- Revamp image rights to fight deepfakes (Andres Guadamuz)
- Washington State Attorney General’s Office Announces $65,000 Settlement with Online Retailer for Illegal Online Tobacco Sales
- Unimpressed Judge Tosses One Of Devin Nunes’ SLAPP Suits Against The Washington Post
- When You Can’t Innovate, You Litigate: Oracle Gleefully Takes Credit For Attacks On Section 230 And Google
- House overrides Trump veto, defying demand to repeal Section 230
- McConnell introduces bill tying $2K stimulus checks to Section 230 repeal
- Mitch McConnell Using Section 230 Repeal As A Poison Pill To Avoid $2k Stimulus Checks
- Coalition Of Internet Companies Who Are Decidedly Not ‘Big Tech’ Raise Their Voices About The Importance Of Section 230
- Who’s responsible for content posted on the Internet? Section 230, explained
- Section 230 Isn’t A Subsidy; It’s A Rule Of Civil Procedure
- 2H 2020 Quick Links, Part 2 (Section 230) (Eric Goldman)
- Content Moderation Case Study: Profanity Filter Causes Problems At Paleontology Conference (October 2020)
- Content Moderation Case Study: Understanding Cultural Context To Detect Satire (2020)
- Elsevier Wants To Stop Indian Medics, Students And Academics Accessing Knowledge The Only Way Most Of Them Can Afford: Via Sci-Hub And Libgen
- After 2020’s Crucial Role In Our Lives, Social Media Will Face A Far More Critical 2021
- Discord Raises $100 Million, Rolls Out Much-Requested Feature Amid Boom In User Acquisition
- TikTokers’ Collaborative ‘Ratatouille’ Musical To Star Wayne Brady, Tituss Burgess, Adam Lambert
- Google Is Testing A Search Feature That Exclusively Serves Short Videos From TikTok, Instagram
- MrBeast, Jimmy Fallon, MatPat, And More Join YouTube’s NYE Special ‘Hello 2021’
- ‘Wonder Woman 1984’ Was Watched By “Nearly Half” Of HBO Max Subscribers On Christmas Day
- TikTok Taps Brittany Broski, Lil Yachty To Host Live New Year’s Eve Festivities
- Ontario Amends Rules of Civil Procedure to Embrace Virtual Proceedings and Electronic Processes
- All I want for Christmas is an awesome new curriculum
- Divers recover a WWII Enigma Machine from the Baltic Sea
A.I.
- Google develops an AI that can learn both chess and Pac-Man
- House of Lords Committee publishes new report “AI in the UK: No Room for Complacency”
- Facial Recognition Helps New Jersey Cops Jail The Wrong Man For Ten Days
- 2020 In Review: An AI Roundup
- Why AI is so power-hungry
COMMUNICATIONS
- FCC Seeks Input on FM Booster “Zonecasting” Proposal
- FCC Threatens Large Fines Against Landlords Who Allow Pirate Radio Broadcasts on Their Property
- Congress Appropriates $7 Billion to Fund Broadband Initiatives
- Impact of Section 889’s Telecommunications and Video Surveillance Equipment Prohibitions on Federal Grant and Loan Recipients
- Verizon’s Latest 5G Innovation: A 5G ‘DSS’ Network That’s Slower Than 4G
- Comcast’s Pandemic Price Hike Bonanza Continues
INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY
- Ninth Circuit Provides Holiday Win to Copyright Owners with Fair Use Decision
- Neoprene Tote Bags: Watertight Not Copyright
- Corellium notches partial victory in Apple iOS copyright case
- The Man With The Tiger Tattoo Prances Forward*
- Copyright Claims Board To Be Established; Criminal Streaming Law
- Substantial similarity in copyright: It matters where you sue
- EUIPO report on online copyright infringement of film, TV and music – so what’s popular?
- 2H 2020 Quick Links, Part 1 (Copyright) (Eric Goldman)
- US Trademark and Copyright Reforms Accompany COVID-19 Relief
- A brand story: Santa and Coca-Cola
- Girl Scouts Continuing To Fight Boy Scouts Of America Over Trademarks, Branding
- Congress Passes the Trademark Modernization Act
- Avoid New Trademark Email Scams
- Brexit – Are you prepared? Pending UK Trade Mark proceedings: 3 key points to remember
- UDRP: hydroquébec.com
- Design disputes: combatting copycats with a collection of IP rights – Freddy SPA v Hugz Clothing Ltd
- Snapshot: procedure for design registration in USA
- Quebec Court finds price and revenue calculation provisions of amended PMPRB Regulations unconstitutional
- Federal Circuit Finds Video Signal Conversion Claims Patent Ineligible
- Senators Tell The USPTO To Remove The Arbitrary Obstacles Preventing Inventors (Especially Women Inventors) From Getting Patents
- Why Everyone Is Patenting Software Inventions
- Inventions behind the music: From Eddie Van Halen to Michael Jackson and beyond
- Towards a Better Patent System for Europe: The Unified Patent Court (UPC)
- Chinese Court Rules that It Can Set Patent License Terms outside China
- The Wuhan Submarine surfaces at Christmas, to be met by a Texan TRO
- Lewis Hamilton’s IP struggles highlight some important issues
- Cloud computing: A brief overview of intellectual property issues “in the cloud”
PRIVACY
- Responding to the SolarWinds Breach: Compliance and Oversight Considerations
- ICO issues statement on potential data breaches resulting from the recent SolarWinds Orion cyber-attack
- United Kingdom: Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) issues statement on SolarWinds Orion compromise
- Five Things to Do in Response to SolarWinds Compromise
- Marriott and BA fined a combined £38.4m for data security failures
- Tweeting Tardy: Twitter fined $500,000 for GDPR breach
- Canada: Watch out, GDPR – Canada proposes strict new privacy law framework backed by significant fines
- Brexit Deal Keeps EU-UK Data Flows Open as Parties Pursue Mutual Adequacy
- The Deal is There! EU-UK Trade Agreement Facilitates Data Transfers
- Brexit Deal Copied And Pasted Recommendations For Netscape, Outdated Encryption
- How your digital trails wind up in the hands of the police
- How Sweepstakes Compliance Can Save Your Reputation
- Can a litigant use an access request as a means of obtaining quasi-discovery?
- Still Not ‘Going Dark:’ Device Encryption Still Contains Plenty Of Exploitable Flaws
- 2020 had its share of memorable hacks and breaches. Here are the top 10
- The decade-long quest to stop “Spamford” Wallace
Jon
News of the Week; December 23, 2020
GAMES
- Games Are Now Making More Than Movies And Sports Combined: Gaming sales are up to almost $180 billion per year.
- GamesIndustry.biz presents… The Year in Numbers 2020
- Digital gaming just had its best revenue month ever in November
- 31% of young UK gamers struggle to track spending on loot boxes: New report from Gambling Health Alliance says one in four gamers spend over £100 on randomised in-game items
- Blizzard Sued for “Wiretapping” World of Warcraft Website Visitors
- World of Warcraft Maker Hit with Privacy Invasion Class Action Lawsuit
- Gearbox reaches settlement with Bobby Prince over Duke Nukem music
- Jury Will Decide If Videogame Character Infringes a Wrestling Persona–GI Bro v. Call of Duty (Eric Goldman)
- Investors reportedly considering class action lawsuit against CD Projekt Red
- Sony removes Cyberpunk 2077 from PlayStation Store, promises refunds
- Sony Removes Cyberpunk 2077 from PS Store, Will Offer Refunds to PlayStation Players Who Already Bought It
- Sony pulls Cyberpunk 2077 from PlayStation Store
- Sony delists PlayStation version of Cyberpunk 2077, offers refunds to all owners
- Cyberpunk 2077 troubles cost CD Projekt founders more than $1bn
- Xbox offering full refunds for Cyberpunk 2077 but isn’t removing it from sale
- Cyberpunk 2077 has sold over 13m copies
- Cyberpunk 2077 sales climb to 13 million copies despite launch issues
- Microsoft granting full refunds to anyone who purchased Cyberpunk 2077 digitally
- CD Projekt hasn’t discussed removing Cyberpunk from Xbox platforms
- CD Projekt Red Heaps Bullshit Via Tweet After Removing Game To Appease China
- CD Projekt now pledges to help refund retail copies of Cyberpunk 2077
- Red Candle Games announces launch of Devotion on GOG; GOG says it won’t list it
- Raw Fury publicly shares publishing agreement
- Read Raw Fury’s publishing terms (without signing your soul away first)
- Assassin’s Creed Valhalla takes Christmas No.1 as Cyberpunk 2077 falls to third | UK Boxed Charts
- Microsoft Flight Simulator has amassed over 2 million players in four months
- Nintendo and Sony share prices rise to record highs
- Miyamoto leads fans through Super Nintendo World—and it looks incredible
- BuzzFeed Launches First Mobile Game — A Mental Health-Inspired Endless Runner
- China introduces new age rating system
- An insider’s perspective on China’s new age ratings | Opinion
- “Simp,” “incel” part of newly banned insults on Twitch
- These People Helped Shape Video Game Culture in 2020: Designers, competitors, streamers, voice actors and labor activists have been working to make gaming more inclusive.
- Lost Sega arcade classics born anew in cute, $130 Astro City Mini
- 2020: Games boomed, but the industry was treading water | Opinion
- 2020: A year of success and responsibility
- Four takeaways from the GI 100 Game Changers | Opinion
- The Gaming Industry Generated 2 Million Sponsored Posts From 400,000 Creators This Year, Report Finds
- The Game Awards sets new viewership record with 83m livestreams
- Monster Hunter movie makes $2.2m in US opening weekend
- Human: Fall Flat sells 2m in China
- IP licensing for games: How to profit from brand injections
- Discord valued at $7bn as it raises $100m
- MAG Interactive acquired word game specialist Apprope
- MAG Interactive acquires mobile studio Apprope for $6 million
- Eneba raises $8m for online gaming marketplace
- Distributed computing startup Salad raises $3.2m
- Suikoden successor Eiyuden Chronicle was top video games Kickstarter of 2020
- Nordisk Games buys 40% of MercurySteam
- TikTok owner reportedly in talks to buy stake in Chinese mobile games publisher
- Tencent officially acquires Splash Damage parent Leyou in $1.5 billion deal
- Warframe studio “expects no changes” under Tencent ownership
- Microids announces in-house distribution arm
- Keywords acquires PR company Indigo Pearl and recording studio Jinglebell
- Unity partners with Snap to extend reach of Unity Ads and deliver Snap Kit integration
- Opinion: Game company acquisitions & the ‘growth stock bubble’
- Mass market, mystery boxes and metric-driven design: The legacy of FarmVille
- Making weirdness work: The sun-drenched horror of Paradise Killer
- Esports to debut as medal event at Asian Games 2022
- Esports Milestone: Esports Becomes A Medal Event At The Asian Games
- Esports Milestone: The Philadelphia Eagles Become The First NFL Team To Dive Into Esports
- Skillz goes public: Mobile esports platform is trading up 7% during its first day on the New York Stock Exchange
- NRG Esports Unveils New ‘Full Squad’ Content Brand Targeting Casual Gamers
- Twitch Signs Swedish ‘Fortnite’ Streamer Loeya To Exclusive Two-Year Deal
- Rebecca Zamolo Launches $8 Video Subscription Service Inside Of Her Mobile Game
- Microsoft Flight Simulator in VR: A turbulent start for wide-open skies
- A rare look at the compassionate game design of Shigeru Miyamoto
- Who’s playing what on PlayStation 5?
- Ars Technica’s best games of 2020
- Blog: 5 technical lessons learned making Art Sort in VRChat
- Blog: Hands on – Predicting players’ thinking
- Blog: Developing Raji: An Ancient Epic and crossing the finish line
- Blog: A postmortem of Cogmind’s 2020 ARG
- Blog: Torchlight 3 – Data fixup war stories
- Best of 2020: Breaking linear character progression with Outer Worlds’ flaw system
- Best of 2020: How System Era overcame creative paralysis to fix Astroneer’s crafting system
- Best of 2020: The trends and events that defined the year for game devs
- Best of 2020: Level Design Analysis – Oxenfurt level in The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt
- Best of 2020: How Jackbox CEO Mike Bilder is grappling with quarantine-driven success
- Gamasutra’s Best of 2020: Bryant Francis’ top 10 games
- Gamasutra’s Best of 2020: Chris Kerr’s top 5 games
- Gamasutra’s Best of 2020: Alissa McAloon’s top 6(ish) games
- Animal Crossing: New Horizons | Games of the Year 2020
- The Last of Us Part 2 | Games of the Year 2020
- Yakuza: Like a Dragon | Games of the Year 2020
- 1997 – 2002 | Games of the Year 2020
DIGITAL
- SolarWinds hack that breached gov networks poses a “grave risk” to the nation
- Microsoft is reportedly added to the growing list of victims in SolarWinds hack
- Microsoft president calls SolarWinds hack an “act of recklessness”
- A Cybersecurity Storm and Winds of Change: NY DFS requires all New York financial institutions to report effects of SolarWinds hack
- SolarWinds Fallout Warrants Vendor Pulse Check
- Russia’s hacking frenzy is a reckoning
- The Urgent Need to Assess and Respond to Russian Supply Chain Attacks
- Secret Agents Implicated In The Poisoning Of Opposition Leader Alexey Navalny Identified Thanks To Russia’s Black Market In Everybody’s Personal Data
- After riots, iPhone manufacturer says it “deeply regrets” exploiting workers
- Google Isn’t Liable for Allegedly Problematic Search Results–Diez v. Google (Eric Goldman)
- Google committed “antitrust evils,” colluded with Facebook, new lawsuit says
- Embarrassing: New Antitrust Suit Against Google Confuses WhatsApp Encrypted Backup Option With Giving Google A Backdoor
- Another Day, Another Antitrust Lawsuit For Google:
- Czech Search Engine Seznam Joins In the ‘Let’s Sue Google’ Fun, Seeks $417 Million in Damages
- Google kills Android Things, its IoT OS, in January
- Google, Facebook reportedly agreed to work together to fight antitrust probes
- FTC Seeks Information from Nine Social Media and Video Streaming Companies Regarding Their Data Collection, Use, and Advertising Practices
- FTC orders social media and video streaming companies to provide data on privacy practices
- TikTok Bars Content Promoting Multi-Level Marketing, Pyramid And Ponzi Schemes
- Alibaba Says It’s Not Going After Uighurs (At Least Not Yet)
- CDT Lacks Standing to Challenge Trump’s Anti-230 Executive Order (Eric Goldman)
- Americans For Prosperity Sue Commerce Department To Find Out Who Was Influencing NTIA’s Attack On Section 230
- Trump vetoes $740B defense bill, citing “failure to terminate” Section 230
- Apparently Trump Refuses To Allow The Government To Do Anything At All Until The Open Internet Is Destroyed
- Once Again, Section 230’s Authors Feel The Need To Tell Everyone That Section 230 Is Not The Evil You Think It Is
- Content Moderation Case Studies: Copyright Claims On White Noise (2018)
- Content Moderation Case Study: Using Copyright To Take Down A Transformative Criticism Video (2019)
- Twitter repeals retweet roadblocks, Facebook follows suit
- Dutch Prosecutors Say One Man Got Into Trump’s Twitter Account With ‘MAGA2020!’ Password
- Apple is allegedly working on a passenger car, breakthrough battery tech
- Musk says Apple passed on Tesla acquisition three years ago
- 2021 Predictions For YouTube, feat. D’Angelo Wallace, Rebecca Zamolo, And Hank Green
- NikkieTutorials To Lift Veil On Personal Turmoil, Triumphs In New YouTube Docuseries
- MrBeast Launches Nationwide, Delivery-Only Burger Chain
- Latest Drop From Creator-Focused Startup ‘Stir’ Will Help Nascent Vlogger Airrack Reach 1 Million Subs
- David Dobrik To Host ‘Peace Out 2020’ Year-End Special On Facebook Watch
- Emma Chamberlain Named Global Ambassador For New ‘Bad Habit’ Skin Care Brand
- 2HYPE’s ‘Jesser’ Drops Limited Edition Sneaker Collab With Champs Sports, Puma
- Scotty Sire Signs With Indie Rock Label Fearless Records, Drops Christmas Track
- The D’Amelio Family’s Eight-Episode Reality Series To Arrive On Hulu Next Year
- Netflix Testing Audio-Only Mode, Enabling Background Content Consumption
- Vice Becomes First Publisher To Launch Verified OnlyFans Account For Its ‘Munchies’ Brand
- Tesla Cybertruck Hot Wheels toy ships late—just like real Tesla cars
- How an obscure British PC maker invented ARM and changed the world
- Art, Technology and the Law: Capture by Paolo Cirio
A.I.
- Copyright and Privacy Legal Issues Resulting from the Rising Popularity of Artificial Intelligence Use
- AI Hospital Startup Olive Valued at $1.5B After Latest Funding Round
- Video: Building better AI sensory systems
COMMUNICATIONS
- BILL C-10: An Act to amend the Broadcasting Act and to make related and consequential amendments to other Acts
- The Broadcasting Act Blunder, Day 19: The Misleading Comparison to the European Union (Michael Geist)
- The Broadcasting Act Blunder, Day 20: The Case Against Bill C-10 (Michael Geist)
- Early Warnings: Canada’s Regulators Issue Warning Letters to Mobile App Companies
- We Had To Pass A Law To Stop Telecom Monopolies From Charging You ‘Rental Fees’ For Things You Already Own
- Lawmakers Question Why FCC Is Throwing Taxpayer Money At Incompetent Telcos With History Of Fraud
- FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr Again Misrepresents The Debate Over Section 230
- FCC Seeks Comment on Modernized Equipment Marketing Rules
- With Terrible Federal Broadband Data, States Are Taking Matters Into Their Own Hands
- New COVID Bill Includes Billions To Shore Up Broadband Access. But…
- Next Generation Broadcast TV Services Promoted in ATSC 3.0 Order
- Big Changes Coming to Calling & Texting Legal Landscape? TCPA Update
- AT&T Pisses Off Everybody (Especially Christopher Nolan) For Launching Movies Straight To Streaming
- AT&T reportedly struggling to sell DirecTV at anything but a huge loss
- AT&T Is Sad Because Nobody Wants To Overpay For DirecTV
- Wonder Woman Forces AT&T & Roku To End Their Petty Squabbles
- Law banning “rental” fees for customer-owned routers takes effect Sunday
- Funding Europe’s broadband ambitions
- UK Government Plans for an Online Safety Bill
- EU Publishes Proposal For Digital Services Act
- US government bans tech exports to top drone maker DJI
INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY
- Fair Use Permits Newspaper to Republish Photo Taken By Drone–Castle v. Kingsport Publishing (Eric Goldman)
- Dr. Seuss/Star Trek Mash-Up Not Fair Use, Ninth Circuit Rules
- The Mystery Of The Copyright On Sherlock Holmes’ Emotions Goes Unsolved Due To Settlement
- The Copyright Office Will Not Weigh in on Philadelphia Phillies’ Copyright Dispute
- US COVID-19 relief bill would punish streaming of copyrighted content
- Congress (Once Again) Sells Out To Hollywood: Sneaks CASE Act And Felony Streaming Bill Into Government Funding Omnibus
- Senator Tillis Releases Massive Unconstitutional Plan To Reshape The Internet In Hollywood’s Image
- Congress creates new copyright court that could make trolling easier
- States can invoke sovereign immunity against claims of copyright infringement
- To Die For – New York Recognizes Publicity Rights of Deceased Performers.
- ‘Imagine’ This: John Lennon Would Have Received Post-Mortem Right to Publicity in New York
- Jackson v. Netflix, Inc. (California Central District, December 9, 2020): Dismissal of trademark & copyright claims. “Tiger King” marks in popular Tiger King series is protected by First Amendment.
- Fifth Circuit Says No Preliminary Injunction in Boozy Beverage Trademark Fight
- Cerverceria Modelo SA de CV v Marcon.
- Lemonade Beats Deutsche Telekom In French Court Over Use Of The Color Magenta
- The Court of Appeal Adds a Few More Shades to Canada’s Grey Market
- Brand protection: A comparison of U.S. and Canadian trademark systems
- New Year, New Trademark Fees
- US trade mark costs rise and Madrid Protocol grows
- Domain Name Lawsuits Are Stupid (and the Initial Interest Confusion Doctrine Is Too)–Wooster Floral v. Green Thumb (Eric Goldman)
- A Tale of Two Cookies: Third Circuit Dunks Cookie Stick Trade Dress Claims
- 4 Mass. Trade Secret Litigation Tips From Facebook Ruling
- Court Battle Between India’s SaaS Industry Leaders Being Fought in California
- What to expect from Canada’s new examination guidelines for patentable subject matter – interview
- Secret prior art: a trap for the unwary?
- US Courts Can Compel Parties to Transfer Ownership of Foreign Patents
PRIVACY
- C-11 – An Act to enact the Consumer Privacy Protection Act: Five top measures to get ready
- Where Things Stand: Update on the Digital Charter Implementation Act, 2020
- Making Connected Devices? Federal Privacy Commissioner Publishes Guidance for Manufacturers of Internet of Things Devices
- Pornhub squarely targeted in bipartisan bill to regulate sex work online
- A Major Wireless Network Flaw Is Still Being Exploited To Track User Locations
- Zero-click iMessage zero-day used to hack the iPhones of 36 journalists
- A New Antitrust Class Action Threat: Anticompetitive Invasion of Privacy
- Cyber litigation will be the new battleground in 2021
- Tracking the privacy issues stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic
- Schools Are Using Phone-Cracking Tech To Access The Contents Of Students’ Devices
- A Little Gloom for the Zoom Boom: FTC Settlement for Unfair and Deceptive Security Practices
- FTC Issues Orders to Nine Social Media and Video Streaming Service Companies Regarding Privacy Practices
- You Can’t Get There from Here: Did the EU Just Outlaw Almost All Transfers of Personal Data to the U.S.?
- Kazakhstan spies on citizens’ HTTPS traffic; browser-makers fight back
- The California Consumer Privacy Act (“CCPA”) – 2020 Year in Review
- Does a business have to provide a privacy policy directly to a consumer if it obtains the consumer’s data from a third party (i.e., purchases it)?
- Use of facial recognition technology increasing
J0n
News of the Week; December 16, 2020
GAMES
- Nintendo Hates You: DMCA Takedowns Of Game Music Continue While Nintendo Offers No Legit Way To Listen
- Germany Opens Legal Action Against Facebook Account Requirement for Oculus Headsets
- GOG backtracks on Devotion re-launch hours after it was announced
- The Strong Museum now includes decades of files from the LGBTQ Game Archive
- Copyright law is bricking your game console. Time to fix that
- British MPs want console scalping made illegal, call for more consumer protection
- UK Members of Parliament call for ban on bulk buying consoles
- Major Gaming Company Sued for Making Games Too Challenging
- Microsoft, Nintendo, and Sony unite to create safer online spaces
- Microsoft, Nintendo, Sony release joint commitment to online safety
- Microsoft delays launch of EA Play on Game Pass Ultimate for PC until 2021
- CD Projekt offering refunds to Cyberpunk players on consoles after shaky launch
- Amid massive bugs, CDPR offers refunds for Cyberpunk 2077 on consoles
- CD Projekt: Polarizing Cyberpunk 2077 launch ‘the wrong approach’
- CDPR admits it “ignored the signals” of Cyberpunk 2077’s console issues
- Cyberpunk 2077 developers were “updating the last-gen version until the very last minute”
- Requests for refunds on Cyberpunk 2077 met with inconsistent response
- PC version of Cyberpunk 2077 now features an epilepsy warning
- Cyberpunk 2077’s Stream-Safe Setting Option For Its Music Failed To Keep Streamers Safe
- Cyberpunk 2077 launches with some real dystopia in tow | Opinion
- CD Projekt Red stock falls 29% in run-up to Cyberpunk 2077 launch
- Cyberpunk 2077 racked up 8m pre-orders, 74% were digital
- Cyberpunk 2077 already passed 1m concurrent users on Steam
- CD Projekt Red boasts 8 million preorders for Cyberpunk 2077
- CDPR estimates Cyberpunk 2077 has recouped development, marketing costs
- Cyberpunk 2077 developers promised full bonuses despite declining review scores
- CD Projekt Red apologises for not showing last-gen Cyberpunk 2077, offers refunds
- Cyberpunk 2077 is the second biggest retail launch of the year | UK Boxed Charts
- EA agrees $1.2 billion acquisition of Codemasters
- EA set to pay $1.2 billion for Codemasters and its stable of racing games
- Sky News reports EA has gatecrashed Take-Two’s Codemasters takeover
- EA outbids Take-Two to buy Codemasters Group for $1.2 billion
- EA to acquire Dirt developer Codemasters, scuppering Take-Two deal
- Publicity on the Pitch? Football Superstars vs EA Sports
- Keywords acquires High Voltage Software for $50m
- New Unity updates target programming, graphics, quality of life improvements
- Steam gets ‘experimental’ with discovery
- Valve’s latest Steam Labs experiment is an expansive discoverability overhaul
- Valve upgrades News Hub from experiment to full-fledged Steam feature
- Inside ‘Browsing Steam’: the biggest change to Steam Discovery in recent history
- Steam breaks concurrent users record at nearly 25m
- Streamloots launches mental health support program for streamers
- Facebook Gaming creators have earned $50m in Stars in 2020
- 2020 has shown our lack of leadership | Opinion
- Maximizing the 2020 holidays for mobile user acquisition
- The Last of Us Part 2 dominates at The Game Awards
- Tilting Point pens $40 million UA team up with Gunship Battle: Total Warfare dev Joycity
- Five mobile games topped $1b in revenue this year – Sensor Tower
- Nintendo Switch is the best-selling console in Canada for 25 straight months
- Switch cracks down (further) on extreme discounting
- “Mass Effect Will Return:” Teaser trailer sets a new (old) direction for the sequel
- UK games industry made record $3.84 billion economic contribution in 2019
- Developers and publishers contributed £2.91bn to UK economy last year
- US games spending breaks November records at $7bn
- Report: PlayStation 5 breaks unit and dollar sales records for a new console launch month (NPD)
- PS5 makes its mark but Nintendo Switch holds No.1 in huge November for video games | EMEAA Charts
- The Nintendo Switch sold over 1.3m units in China this year
- Nintendo Switch was the best-selling console in November in the US, despite next-gen launches
- The Super-est SuperFX: An unmodified SNES, revved up with ray tracing [Updated]
- Subscription library Ubisoft+ is now on Google Stadia
- Stadia is now on iOS, but not through the App Store
- Dr. Seuss gets serious about games
- Ark Survival Evolved gets an animated series: David Tennant, Russell Crowe, Vin Diesel, Elliot Page among the cast of show coming in 2022
- Vin Diesel joins Studio Wildcard as executive producer on Ark
- Unity acquires 3D content creator RestAR
- Tilting Point invests up to $40m in UA funding for Gunship Battle: Total Warfare
- Steam introduces new discovery tools
- Rollic acquires matching game Onnect for $6m
- Zynga’s Rollic fully acquires Onnect from Chef Game Studio
- Zynga-owned Rollic acquires Onnect from dev Chef Game Studio for $6 million
- SteelSeries acquires KontrolFreek
- Fnatic raises over £2m in crowdfunding
- Roblox purchases digital avatar firm Loom.ai
- Roblox delays IPO to 2021
- Leyou shareholders approve Tencent takeover
- Bad Robot Games’ first in-house dev studio will create ‘cross-medium’ franchises
- J.J. Abrams’ Bad Robot Games Forms In-House Studio Led by Gaming Vet Mike Booth
- Control has surpassed 2 million sales 15 months after launch
- Pocket Mortys developer Big Pixel Studios is shutting down
- Big Pixel Studios shuts down, impacting about 40
- Fortnite focuses in on boosting playability on lower-powered PCs
- Talent Firm Loaded Signs 16-Year-Old Fortnite Pro BenjyFishy
- Philadelphia Eagles Reach Multi-Year Deal with Esports Entertainment Group to Become NFL’s First Esports Tournament Club Provider
- Facebook Slashes Price of Oculus Rift S to $300
- Zynga veterans launch VR gaming company ForeVR
- VR Destination ‘Sandbox VR’ Emerges from Chapter 11 Bankruptcy After Reorganization
- Leaked Photos Reveal Possible Lenovo AR Glasses Ahead of CES 2021
- Niantic donated a total of $7m in 2020 to Black Lives Matter charities
- Make Way – ‘Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond’ Needs 180GB and Recommends Demanding Specs
- ‘Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond’ Review – War Never Felt so Bland
- We have a winner in the world’s first quantum chess tournament
- How Watch Dogs: Legion’s ‘play as anyone’ simulation works
- “No adaptation without interpretation” — turning Animal Farm into a game
- The Last of Us Part II dominates The Game Awards 2020
- The Game Awards’ Future Class highlights 50 people shaping the future of the game industry
- How beautiful voxels laid the way for Teardown’s heist-y framework
- Blog: The not-so-secrets to success in the games industry
- Blog: Integrating Joustus in Shovel Knight: King of Cards – Part 3
- Blog: How to make a decent game trailer for less than $100
- Blog: A postmortem of asynchronous 1v1 horror title Antithesis
- Blog: Softening polygon intersections in Blightbound
- Blog: A BioShock Infinite level design analysis
- Blog: Zen and the art of retro level design in Kudzu
- Blog: A look at the revenue, expenses and statistics of Starlight X-2
- Blog: What every game designer should know about human psychology
- Blog: A developmental look at game aesthetics
- Video: How embedded QA can improve games accessibility
- Video: Telling location-based stories in games
- Don’t Miss: From The Witcher 3 to Cyberpunk – The evolution of CD Projekt’s quest design
- Best of 2020: Nintendo Switch Game Sales – The Three Biggest Misconceptions
- Best of 2020: Creating the ever-improvising text adventures of AI Dungeon 2
- Best of 2020: How Dishonored and Assassin’s Creed designers craft iconic stealthy encounters
- Best of 2020: A look back at the 5-year development of Eastshade
- Best of 2020: How Blizzard, Ubisoft, and other studios went remote in the time of COVID-19
DIGITAL
- Russian hackers hit US government using widespread supply chain attack
- ~18,000 organizations downloaded backdoor planted by Cozy Bear hackers
- DHS Cyber Warriors Issue Warning About Massive Hacking Campaign, Disclose They’ve Been Hacked A Day Later
- Security Researcher Reveals Solarwinds’ Update Server Was ‘Secured’ With The Password ‘solarwinds123’
- US diplomats’ brain injuries may be from covert microwave attack, experts say: Data from Russian experiments on pulsed RF energy offers best explanation.
- Fireeye victim of “state-sponsored” hacking
- Oracle joins Silicon Valley’s Texas exodus
- Huawei Is Crafting Facial Recognition Tech That Will Make It Easier For The Chinese Government To Target Citizens It Doesn’t Like
- Apple’s app store is an illegal monopoly, rival Cydia claims in suit
- Apple introduces privacy labels to make data mining transparent
- iPhone factory workers say they haven’t been paid, cause millions in damages
- Uber defends sexual assault victims’ privacy, gets fined $59 million
- Google and Amazon made to Toe the French Line? Oui!
- Digital regulation 2.0: UK and EU announce details of major reforms
- The Digital Services Act and Digital Markets Act: A new era for online regulation within Europe
- Pinterest agrees to $22.5 million settlement in discrimination lawsuit
- Digital platforms – let the games begin!
- US law proposal could make streaming copyrighted material a felony
- Not This Again: Senator Tillis Tries To Slide Dangerous Felony Streaming Bill Into Must Pass Government Funding Bill
- Tillis Release Details Of His Felony Streaming Bill; A Weird Gift To Hollywood At The Expense Of Taxpayers
- Reddit Buys TikTok Competitor Dubsmash, Will Integrate App’s Video Creation Tools
- TikTok Introduces Extensive Policies Against Sexual Harassment, Dangerous Pranks
- The Christchurch shooter and YouTube’s radicalization trap
- Report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Terrorist Attack on Christchurch Mosques on 15 March 2019
- People affiliated with French military used Facebook to meddle in Africa
- FTC Launches Investigation Into Facebook, Twitter, and Other Social Media Sites
- FTC kicks off sweeping privacy probe of nine major social media firms
- Facebook Violated Antitrust Laws, Say FTC and More than 40 States
- FTC’s Misses Opportunity To Understand Social Media; Instead Goes For Weird Fishing Expedition Against Odd Grouping Of Companies
- New Facebook advertising terms, new Apple iOS 14 privacy rules and updated cookie guidance: help!
- EU warns that it may break up Big Tech companies
- The Peril of Persuasion in the Big Tech Age
- NLRB Finds Executive’s Joking Tweet Violated Federal Labor Law
- AZ GOP Goes Full Bullshit: Claims It took Down Violence-Inciting Tweet Over Copyright Concerns
- ICE Withdraws Demand For Journalists’ Sources After Having Its Unconstitutional Demand Outed By BuzzFeed
- Facebook says hackers backed by Vietnam’s government are linked to IT firm
- People affiliated with French military used Facebook to meddle in Africa: It’s the first time Facebook has identified people affiliated with a Western government for sanction
- Facebook Testing ‘Super’, Which Lets Fans Pay To Interact With Their Favorite Creators On Stream
- Pornhub Purges 80% Of User-Uploaded Videos After Allegations Of Child Exploitation, Rape Content
- Millions of videos purged from Pornhub amid crackdown on user content
- Visa and MasterCard ban Pornhub over abusive videos
- 40 GirlsDoPorn victims sue Pornhub for hosting “sex trafficking” videos
- China fines Alibaba, Tencent unit under anti-monopoly laws
- Twitter To Sunset Periscope App In March After Years Of Declining Usage
- Disney+ drops Andor teaser, announces gazillion other Star Wars projects
- More Disney 2021 plans: Kate McKinnon as Elizabeth Holmes, Y: The Last Man on FX
- We’ve got our first real look at Loki as Disney drops lengthy teaser trailer
- Op-Ed: Social Media Companies Should Permanently Ban Political Advertising (Eric Goldman)
- Justice Thomas’ Anti-Section 230 Statement Doesn’t Support Reconsideration–JB v. Craigslist (Eric Goldman)
- As A Parting Shot, Tulsi Gabbard Teams Up With Paul Gosar To Introduce Yet Another Unconstitutional Attack On Section 230
- USA Today Publishes Yet Another Bogus OpEd Against 230, Completely Misrepresents The Law
- District Court Rejects CDT’s Challenge Of Trump’s Ridiculous Executive Order On Section 230
- Trump Appoints Unqualified Guy Who Hates Section 230 To Top Justice Department Role
- Smaller Internet Companies Say They’re Open To 230 Reform… To Keep Facebook From Being The Only Voice In The Room
- Lindsey Graham’s Latest Attack On Section 230: Reform It By 2023, Or We Take It Away
- Content Moderation Case Study: Facebook’s AI Continues To Struggle With Identifying Nudity (2020)
- Content Moderation Case Study: Vimeo Moderates Uploads Of ‘Commercial-Use’ Videos Using Unclear Guidelines (2009)
- Sony-Owned Anime Streamer Funimation To Buy Crunchyroll For $1.2 Billion
- Can Influencers’ Failure to Disclose Sponsorship Constitute False Advertising?–EIS v. WOW Tech
- YouTube Will Enable Viewers To Toggle Out Of Ads For Alcohol And Gambling
- After 6 Years, YouTube Supergroup O2L Reunites In The Name Of Charity
- R.I.P. Henri, le Chat Noir, angst-ridden feline YouTube star for the ages
- The D’Amelios, Marques Brownlee, Demi Lovato To Headline YouTube’s New Year’s Eve Special ‘Hello 2021’
- Helping your child make the best use of time online
- YouTube Greenlights ‘Creator Spotlights’ Docuseries, An Intimate Glimpse Into The Lives Of Top Stars
- David Dobrik’s Latest Venture, ‘The Hundred Thousand Dollar Puzzle,’ Sells 17,000 Units In One Hour
- Liza Koshy Signs Overall Deal With Jada And Will Smith-Founded Westbrook Inc.
- Walmart Looking To Turn Salaried Employees Into Social Influencers With Nascent ‘Spotlight’ Program
- Meghan Markle, Prince Harry, And Their New Podcast Company ‘Archewell Audio’ Sign Exclusive Deal With Spotify
- Google sees major services outages two days in a row
- The Google Home Max is dead—Google shuts down production
- Instagram Makes ‘Reels’ Shoppable, Bringing Ecommerce To Every Format On The App
- Giving by Taking Away: Big Tech, Data Colonialism and the Reconfiguration of Social Good
- 2021 NewFronts Will Stay Virtual, Be Immediately Followed By Podcast Upfronts
- Here Are Your 2020 Streamy Award Winners
- CentOS Linux is dead—and Red Hat says Stream is “not a replacement”
- Where do I go now that CentOS Linux is gone? Check our list
- VR meetings are weird, but they beat our current reality
- Stroll down memory lane with this 1996 instruction video on How To Internet
A.I.
- Arendt’s Algorithm: AI’s Disenfranchising Effect on Refugees as Examined through China’s Uighur Population (Gideon Salutin)
- How our data encodes systematic racism
- CDEI publishes review into bias in algorithmic decision-making
- From whistleblower laws to unions: How Google’s AI ethics meltdown could shape policy
- White House Finalizes AI Regulatory Framework and Directs Agencies to Develop Plans for AI Regulation and “Non-Regulation”
- Why CD Projekt used AI to localise Cyberpunk 2077
- Bias in algorithmic decision-making: recommendations from the UK’s Centre for Data Ethics and Innovation
COMMUNICATIONS
- The Broadcasting Act Blunder, Day 15: Mandated Confidential Data Disclosures May Keep Companies Out of Canada (Michael Geist)
- The Broadcasting Act Blunder, Day 16: Mandated Payments and a Reality Check on Guilbeault’s Billion Dollar Claim (Michael Geist)
- The Broadcasting Act Blunder, Day 17: The Uncertain Policy Directive (Michael Geist)
- The Broadcasting Act Blunder, Day 18: The USMCA Trade Threat That Could Lead to Billions in Retaliatory Tariffs (Michael Geist)
- FCC Accused Of Falsely Inflating U.S. Gigabit Broadband Availability
- Deep Dive Shows FCC’s Covid Response Was Largely Theatrical Nonsense
- SpaceX won “rural” FCC funding in surprising places, like major airports
- Space X Gets $886 Million From FCC To Put Very Small Dent In U.S. Broadband Gaps
- Senator tries to block Frontier’s FCC funding, citing ISP’s various failures
- Consumer Groups Say The FCC Just Blew $9 Billion To Deliver Broadband To Already Served Rich People
- The Cost Of Broadband Is Too Damned High
- Can Broadband Policy Help Create A More Equitable And inclusive Economy And Society Instead Of The Reverse?
- Stupid Cable TV Retrans Feuds And Blackouts Make Their Way To Streaming TV
- AT&T sells Crunchyroll to Sony for $1.2B amid “streamlining” efforts
- Untouchable No More: Reinforcements Arrive for TCPA Defendants Battling the FCC’s Aggressive Expansion of the Statute
- The other shoe drops: court holds SCOTUS didn’t find TCPA unconstitutional after all
- The FCC Reverses Course—Finds Government Contractors Subject to the TCPA
- Georgia executive order requires telework, virtual conduct of business
INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY
- Eve of destruction: Moral rights infringement and destroying works of art
- Two Turntables, No Microphone: Using Technical Diagram Is Not Copyright Infringement
- Brophy v. Belcalis Almanzar (California, Southern District 12.4.20): In lawsuit against Cardi B for using plaintiff’s back tattoo on cover of her album, court holds that transformative fair use is question for jury.
- Atlantic Recording Corp. v. Spinrilla, LLC (Georgia ND, 10.30.20): Court finds that streaming constitutes “public performance” under Copyright Act and that defendant did not qualify for safe harbor protections under DMCA.
- Lego’s copyright victory against Lepin in China
- Ancestry.com Sued Over Yearbook Pic Database
- Copyright Trolling/SEO Scam, Changing The Photo Credits On Wikimedia Commons
- Is Your Company Accidentally Granting Implied Copyright Licenses?
- House Passes PACER Bill As Budget Office Says It Will Cost Less Than $1 Million A Year To Provide Free Access To Court Documents
- US House passes bill to tear down judiciary’s paywall
- APIs front and centre in age of digital interconnectivity
- Why Canadian trademark owners should consider whether international registration is right for them
- Trademarks Office to allow expedited examination for COVID-related goods and services
- The Swiss Shield: A Trademark Registration Is a Defence to Damages Even if Later Invalidated
- French Film Company Somehow Trademarks ‘Planet’, Goes After Environmental NGOs For Using The Word
- A Rare Case of a Judge Relying on the Initial Interest Confusion Doctrine (Boo)–Nike v. Warren Lotas (Eric Goldman)
- Battling Bubbles: Beverage Behemoth Coors Defeats Upstart Future Proof’s Motion for a Preliminary Injunction
- Dishonest Abe? Trademark Battle erupts over THE LINCOLN PROJECT
- Trade mark rights IN THE RED!
- Owner of ‘Derby Pie’ Trademark Sues Newspaper For Using The Term, Publishing Recipe
- Tasty Trademarks: An Analysis of the Canadian Trademark Applications Covering Taste
- Trademarks: 1 registration for 107 member states and 123 territories: trinidad and tobago has joined the international trademark system
- Judge Upholds “Willful and Malicious” Trade-Secret Misappropriation Verdict in Produce Preservation Case
- Judge Rakoff Sanctions Patentee for Sharing Confidential Documents with Counsel in Overseas Trade Secret Case
- Recently Filed Lawsuit by Trinseo Highlights the Potential for the Rapid Spread of Misappropriated Trade Secrets
- Ontario Court Affirms the Enforceability of Patent No-Challenge Clauses
- Federal Circuit Compels Transfer of Ownership of Japanese Patent Applications
- Today’s No Patent Challenge Provisions in License Agreements
- What are the rules around software patents?
- The Unified patent court and unitary patent – Introduction
- Top Section 101 Patent Eligibility Stories of 2020
- The UK Supreme Court, patent infringement, and the challenges of judging IP cases: In conversation with Lord Neuberger
- World Trade Organization Considers IP Rights for Covid Vaccines
- Software development intellectual property joint ventures
- Intellectual property infringement on the rise
PRIVACY
- Oh, Canada! Government Proposes New Federal Privacy Law with Enhanced Individual Rights and Hefty Fines
- Privacy Limits on Employee Background Checks in Ontario
- What’s “So” Important: Computer Fraud and Abuse Act Gets a Close Look from SCOTUS
- Supreme Court Says Muslim Men Can Sue The FBI For Placing Them On The No-Fly List For Refusing To Become Informants
- Apple, Cloudflare Join Forces To Encrypt DNS
- New Report Shows Cellphone Encryption Isn’t Really Stopping Cops From Searching Phones
- Up to 3 million devices infected by malware-laced Chrome and Edge add-ons
- Brave browser-maker launches privacy-friendly news reader
- 4 major browsers are getting hit in widespread malware attacks
- Regulatory Crackdown on Ransomware
- IoT Goes Federal under Newly Signed Law
- Yes, data privacy regulations apply to IoT devices too
- As Voice Recognition Technology Market Surges, Organizations Face Privacy and Cybersecurity Concerns
- RCMP commits to changes in how it collects, uses information about protesters
- Home Depot’s Agrees to Multistate Settlement Related to 2014 Breach – The Cost: $17.5 Million and Updated Cybersecurity Requirements
- Augmented reality and e-commerce: IP implications of a powerful alliance
- Biden Faces Early Test on Digital Trade With EU Privacy Talks
- Schrems II is a Board / CEO-Level issue because
- Top 5 Privacy Developments in 2020 and 5 More to Prepare for in 2021
Jon
News of the Week; December 9, 2020
GAMES
- Activision lawsuit accuses Netflix of poaching CFO
- Activision sues Netflix for poaching former CFO: Suit alleges Netflix incited Spencer Neumann to break his contract to become CFO of Netflix
- Consumer rights groups launch joint investigation into Nintendo Switch Joy-Con drift
- Nintendo Plays ‘Control Inception’, Cancelling Splatoon Broadcast After Teams Protest Canceling Smash Bros. Tourney
- Ubisoft names VP of global diversity and inclusion to improve workplace culture
- Bale and Ibrahimovic’s responses to FIFA 21 echoes the complications of sports person’s image rights
- Cyberpunk 2077 features epileptic triggers
- Cyberpunk 2077 under fire for epileptic triggers
- Cyberpunk 2077 could trigger seizures in photosensitive players
- CD Projekt adding seizure warning to Cyberpunk after reporter finds multiple triggers
- Cyberpunk 2077 is equal parts beautiful and messy
- Highlights from the Foreign Investment Review Committee’s Town Hall with the Investment Review Division and Cultural Sector Investment Review
- Newsflash: Update on Epic Games’ dispute with Apple
- Epic Games is ditching in-person Fortnite events in 2021
- Twitch harassment policy update aims to focus less on intent, more on impact
- Twitch revises hateful conduct and harassment policy
- Twitch Institutes Sweeping Changes To ‘Harassment And Hateful Conduct’ Policies, Beginning Jan. 22
- Twitch removes ‘blind playthrough’ tag after feedback over ableist language
- BioWare studio GM and Dragon Age lead are both leaving company
- GM Casey Hudson, Dragon Age executive producer Mark Darrah depart BioWare
- Next-gen consoles helped raise GameStop’s November store sales by 16.5%
- GameStop has closed 462 stores so far this year, 783 in last two years
- Did Genshin Impact swipe an opportunity from under Nintendo’s nose? | Opinion
- Small developers and creators can now use FMOD Studio for free
- Modio raises $4 million to grow its cross-platform modding service
- Destiny 2 will open up cross-platform play in 2021
- Platform share, platform share, platform share!
- SIE head pushes back against claims that PlayStation is deprioritizing Japan
- How Young Horses leveraged PS5’s unique features in Bugsnax
- Xbox to expand cloud gaming beta to iOS and PC in 2021
- Xbox cloud gaming service hits iOS, Windows PCs in spring 2021
- Xbox Game Pass cloud streaming arrives for iOS, PC next spring
- Stadia expands to 8 more European countries
- Analyst: Research reveals 4 in 5 consumers don’t know what cloud gaming can offer
- Facebook launches Black Gaming Creator Program
- Ubisoft appoints former Uber D&I head as VP of global diversity and inclusion
- 72% of all 2020 mobile revenue generated by games at $81bn
- Digital Black Friday sales jump almost 50% over 2019 l UK Download Charts
- Honor of Kings once again tops mobile game spending charts in November
- World of Warcraft: Shadowlands sells 3.7 million copies in 24 hours
- Call of Duty has brought in $3 billion in past year
- Call of Duty made $3 billion for Activision in 12 months
- Fashion x Gaming: Fashion Catches the Gaming Bug
- Lumikai invests $1m in Bombay Play
- MTG acquires Hutch for an expected $375 million
- MTG acquires UK mobile studio Hutch Games for initial $275 million
- Kalypso Media fully acquires Realmforge Studios
- MyGames grabs minority stakes in three mobile studios
- Control has sold more than 2m units
- Aglet raises $4.5m for location-based sneaker game
- Tencent invests in Wizard Games
- ZeniMax Online Studios forms new satellite studio in San Diego
- Gfinity acquires Epicstream as it seeks growth amid financial troubles
- Starbreeze has paid off most of its creditors
- Payday maker Starbreeze settles debts with majority of creditors
- A word from a Destiny 2 acolyte | Why I Love
- A look back at the storied history of action RPG Torchlight
- Metal Gear Solid film reportedly will star Oscar Isaac
- FIFA 21 holds No.1 during Cyber Monday sales week | UK Boxed Charts
- Halo Infinite delayed to Fall of 2021
- Halo Infinite gets new fall 2021 release date
- Minecraft tops YouTube’s list of most watched games of 2020
- Not all Steam wishlists are created equal: GameDiscoverCo’s Simon Carless explores why developers are seeing wildly different conversion rates of wishlists after launch
- Manticore bolsters Core platform with ‘creator-friendly’ Perks monetization
- Manticore announces a 50% revenue share for users of its Core game creation platform
- Facebook Launches ‘Black Gaming Creator Program’ With Monthly Pay, Other Perks
- More Than 350 Gaming Creators Hit 10 Million Subscribers In 2020, YouTube Says
- Wendy’s Teams With Tfue, Myth, Flight23white, itsHafu, And xChocoBars For ‘Never Stop Gaming’ Menu
- Epic won’t hold in-person Fortnite events in 2021
- FaZe Clan Launches ‘FaZe Academy’ Talent Incubator, Through Which All Future Recruits Must Pass
- FTC Sues Facebook Over Alleged Monopolization – What it Could Mean for Oculus
- Wacom Unveils VR Pen Built for “the next creative future”
- A deep dive into the making of King of Cards’ Joustus mini-game
- Case study: making Core Defense a solo dev success
- Blog: Six mistakes that’ll drain the ‘Juice’ out of your game
- Blog: Understanding pain points in game design
- Blog: Using luck to your advantage in marketing
- Blog: Building a mono profiler for Unity
- Video: The cost of doing nothing about trolls
- Video: The efficient art direction of Tooth and Tail
- Best of 2020: How a new wave of developers are using voxels to create jaw-dropping worlds
- Best of 2020: Iran video games timeline – from 1970 to 2019
- Best of 2020: Leveraging physical animation to sell Force powers in Jedi: Fallen Order
- Best of 2020: How deeply personal RPG The Wagadu Chronicles explores new realms of Afrofantasy
DIGITAL
- The FTC, 48 Attorneys General File Antitrust Lawsuits Against Facebook
- FTC, 47 states file suits to break up Instagram and WhatsApp from Facebook
- Feds say Facebook broke US law offering permanent jobs to H-1B workers
- Open Season: FTC & 48 Attorneys General File Separate Antitrust Lawsuits Against Facebook
- The tech industry needs regulation for its systemically important companies
- Trump Doubles Down On Threat To Defund Military Because People Are Mean To Him Online; Republicans Threaten To Override His Veto
- Trump Makes It Official: He’s Going To Pull Military Funding, Because Congress Won’t Kill The Open Internet
- Senator Tillis Is Mad That Twitter Won’t Testify About Copyright Infringement; Since When Is Twitter A Piracy Problem?
- Dead Celebrities and Digital Doppelgangers: New York Expands Its Right of Publicity Statute and Tackles Sexually Explicit Deepfakes
- Rebekah Vardy v Coleen Rooney: What next in the war of the WAGs?
- Court Again Enjoins Anti-TikTok Executive Order–TikTok v. US (Eric Goldman)
- Google parts with top AI researcher after blocking paper, faces blowback
- Google illegally spied on and retaliated against workers, feds say
- YouTube bans videos claiming Trump won
- Google and YouTube Aren’t “Censoring” Breitbart Comments–Belknap v. Alphabet (Eric Goldman)
- It’s Meshugenah to Operate a Streaming Mixtape Site–Atlantic v. Spinrilla (Eric Goldman)
- Section 230 Protects Amazon from Manufacturer’s Ad Copy–Brodie v. Amazon (Eric Goldman)
- CRM Software Vendor Didn’t Qualify for Section 230–Tan v. Konnektive (Eric Goldman)
- Biden’s Top Tech Advisor Trots Out Dangerous Ideas For ‘Reforming’ Section 230
- Content Moderation Case Study: Google’s Photo App Tags Photos Of Black People As ‘Gorillas’ (2015)
- Content Moderation Case Study: Scammers Targeting Scrabble Chat (2020)
- Reform The DMCA? OK, But Only If It’s Done Really, Really Carefully
- Pornhub under investigation by Visa, MasterCard amid abuse allegations
- Pornhub blocks uploads and downloads in crackdown on child-sexual-abuse videos
- Social media bet on labels to combat election misinformation. Trump proved it’s not enough
- Tackling misinformation: What researchers could do with social media data
- Toward a Digital Economy That’s Truly Collaborative, Not Exploitative
- 2021 predictions: increased regulation of online platforms
- Debate: Is open scholarship even possible with Zoom?
- After years of fighting it, Nest will work with Samsung’s SmartThings
- Amazon Sues Social Media Influencers for Promoting Counterfeit Goods
- Amazon and U.S. IPR Center announce “Operation Fulfilled Action”
- YouTube Finally Bans Content Endorsing Election Conspiracies
- YouTube Will Now Support ‘High Dynamic Range’ Video Quality For Live Streams
- YouTube Wants To Use Creators’ Data To See If Its Algorithms Target Marginalized People
- Influencer marketing Q&A
- Logan Paul Will Fight Floyd Mayweather In An Exhibition Match On February 20
- Juanpa Zurita, Kyle Exum, NikkieTutorials, More To Bestow First-Ever ‘Streamys Creator Honors’
- Charli D’Amelio Invests In Teen-Targeted Banking Startup ‘Step,’ Which Just Raised $50 Million
- How Much More Money Do Creators Make During the Holidays?
- Loren Gray, TikTok’s Fourth Biggest Creator, Debuts ‘&Always’ Jewelry Brand
- For Its Latest Drop, Startup ‘Stir’ Blindly Paired Creators To Collab On Custom Face Masks
- Brands Taking Stands: Six Non-Negotiable Tenets For 2021
- Where Netflix goes, the world follows – BBFC suggests that all streaming sites should introduce age-ratings in the UK
- AT&T, HBO Put Another Bullet In Antiquated Theatrical Release Windows
- Warner Bros. will release entire 2021 film slate in theaters and on HBO Max
- Georgia Court Streams Ridiculous ‘Kraken’ Lawsuit Hearing On YouTube; Then Tells People They Can’t Repost Recordings
- Federal Court System Pushes Back Against Free Access To Court Documents
- Trial by Webex, but Not Zoom?
- In narrow ruling, law firm escapes liability for not thwarting real estate cyber-scam
- B.C. Technology Sector Makes the Grade – But Not Yet Top of the Class
- Apple’s new AirPods Max over-ear headphones cost $549
- Apple’s Failure To Ensure Backwards Compatibility In Big Sur Leaves Developers Quite Sour
- Enrollment opens for Apple’s fee-reducing Small Business Program
- Google promises “spectacular” city GPS improvement with 3D building data
- New RISC-V CPU claims recordbreaking performance per watt
- Quantum device performs 2.6 billion years of computation in 4 minutes
- Google’s secretive Fuchsia OS is open for contributions
- Lidar startup goes public, makes founder a billionaire
- “A damn stupid thing to do”—the origins of C
- Grand theft GPU: $340,000 worth of RTX 3090s “fell off a truck” in China
A.I.
- Is Canada on the Brink of AI and Diagnostics Patent Rush?
- Use of patents in artificial intelligence: What does the new CIPO report say?
- Intellectual property rights to AI works: The EP proposal
- Artificial Intelligence and Creativity: Why We’re Against Copyright Protection for AI-Generated Output (Creative Commons)
- New York Schools Putting Students In The Crosshairs Of Tech That Targets Minorities, Thinks Broom Handles Are Guns
- Executive Order 13960 Establishes Government-wide Principles for its Use of AI
- AI Update: New Executive Order on Promoting the Use of Artificial Intelligence in Federal Agencies Pushes Developing Public Trust for Future Expansion
- Shining a Headlight on AI Blindspots
- Guidance on artificial intelligence and data protection
- This Arizona college student has taken over 60 driverless Waymo rides
- Uber abandons dreams of self-driving domination, sells self-driving unit
- The A.I. behind unique ‘interactive reality TV’ game Rival Peak
- Looking ahead to 2021: AI – A brave new world?
COMMUNICATIONS
- The Broadcasting Act Blunder, Day 11: The “Regulate Everything” Approach – Licence or Registration Required (Michael Geist)
- The Broadcasting Act Blunder, Day 12: The “Regulate Everything” Approach – The CRTC Conditions (Michael Geist)
- The Broadcasting Act Blunder, Day 13: The “Regulate Everything” Approach – Targeting Individual Services (Michael Geist)
- The Broadcasting Act Blunder, Day 14: The Risk to Canadian Ownership of Intellectual Property (Michael Geist)
- Broadcast Reform Bill Could Spell the End of Canadian Ownership Requirements (Michael Geist)
- The Trump FCC Has Failed To Protect Low-Income Americans During A Health Crisis
- GOP Confirms Unqualified Simington to FCC With Eye On Crippling Biden FCC
- GOP clinches 2-2 deadlock for Biden FCC as Senate approves Trump nominee
- With Simington Vote, The GOP And Big Telecom Maneuver To Cripple The Biden FCC
- McConnell pushes Trump nominee toward vote that would deadlock Biden FCC
- A New White House, a New FCC
- $125,000 FCC Penalty to Broadcaster for Tower Structure and Contest Rule Violations – Including Violation of Rule Against Broadcasting Seemingly Live Recorded Programming Without Informing Listeners
- FCC Starts Rulemaking on Possible Adoption of GeoBroadcast Solutions Zonecasting Proposal to Allow FM Boosters to Originate Limited Amounts of Programming
- FCC Terminates Proceeding to Dedicate TV Channel in Each Market to Unlicensed Wireless Use
- FCC acts on blocking one-ring scam calls
- SpaceX gets $886 million from FCC to subsidize Starlink in 35 states
- The FCC, 2.5 GHz Spectrum, And The Tribal Priority Window: Something Positive Amid The COVID-19 Pandemic
- Facing Massive Subscriber Defections AT&T Chooses: Rate Hikes & New, Bogus Fees
- Somehow, 5G Paranoia Is Only Getting Dumber
- Largest Auction for 5G Spectrum Starts Today!
- What’s New in 5G – December 2020
- U.S. Broadband Speeds Jumped 90% in 2020. But No, It Had Nothing To Do With Killing Net Neutrality.
- Benton Study Again Shows How ‘Open Access’ Broadband Networks Can Drive Competition, Improve Service
- Colorado’s Broadband Internet Doesn’t Have to Be Rocky
- Insurer Can’t Mute TV Station’s Recovery for $25 Million Malpractice Claim
- Verizon has been leaking customers’ personal information for days (at least)
- Samsung finally starts its Android 11 rollout, three months after release
- UK Government proposes laws to implement Huawei equipment ban and stricter telecommunications security controls
- A good day for UltraHD: HBO Max, The Lord of the Rings will stream in 4K HDR
INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY
- Linking and Copyright Law in the European Union – Where do we go from here?
- Another Court Says Embedding Instagram Photos May Be Fair Use–Boesen v. United Sports (Eric Goldman)
- 576 German Artists Want EU Copyright Directive Made Worse, With No Exceptions For Memes Or Mashups
- Nancy Pelosi Sells Out The Public: Agrees To Put Massive Copyright Reform In ‘Must Pass’ Spending Bill
- ACLU Tells Congress: Do Not Add Copyright Trolling Bill To Government Funding Bill
- Legendary MC5 Guitarist Wayne Kramer Doesn’t Like the Smell of Proctor & Gamble’s “Guitar Solo” Body Wash
- Taking down copycat websites and defending against cybersquatting
- GSK v Teva – The Federal Circuit’s First Look at Skinny Labels and 35 U.S.C. 271(b)
- Deus ex Machina Motorcycles Pty. Ltd. v. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc. (Cal., 10.23.20): Dismissal of trademark claims of Australian motorcycle brand against MGM for use of mark in The Sun Is Also a Star.
- The Bentley Clothing and Bentley Motors trade mark dispute: Take 2
- Can a Company Own ‘Enby’? Sex Toy Company Sues Black/Trans-Owned Company for Trademark Infringement
- “Too many cooks… ‘Fit Kitchen’ trade mark infringed”
- “Naked” at the Federal Circuit
- General Liability Insurer Must Defend Trademark and Other IP Claims
- Tips When Using the Madrid Protocol to Register a Trademark in Canada
- Global brand expansion: Why Canadian trademark owners should consider whether international registration is right for them
- First Circuit Reversal Highlights Importance of Satisfying Trade Secret Definition
- Protecting trade secrets in the era of remote working
- Patent Term Extension in Canada: an Overview of Certificates of Supplemental Protection
- 2020: A year of clarity for Canadian life sciences and software patents
- Canadian Intellectual Property Office issues new guidelines for reviewing patent applications
- Federal Court of Appeal clarifies standard for granting leave in NOC cases
- Employment Law and Patent Law Collide: Federal Circuit Rules that California’s Non-Compete Restrictions Also Limit the Scope of Patent and Invention Assignment Clauses
- Patent-Eligible Subject Matter in Biotech Should Recite More Than a “Telescope”
- Deciding Whether Your Software Is Patentable
- The UK Retains the Doctrine of Exhaustion of IP Rights After the Transition Period
- IP Litigation Quarterly Update: Q3 2020
PRIVACY
- A year featuring a flurry of Canadian privacy legislative reform
- CPPA: identifying the inscrutable meaning and policy behind the de-identifying provisions
- Long-awaited privacy reform welcomed by lawyers, could help bring national consistency
- ICE Sends Subpoena To BuzzFeed, Hoping To Force It To Turn Over Its Sources
- Patriot Act Used By The FBI To Collect Internet Browsing Data, Contradicting Claims Made To Oversight
- Florida State Police Raid Home Of COVID Whistleblower, Point Guns At Her & Her Family, Seize All Her Computer Equipment
- Nation-state backed hackers going after COVID vaccine supply chain
- COVID-19 vaccine data has been unlawfully accessed in hack of EU regulator
- Premiere security firm FireEye says it was breached by nation-state hackers
- NSA says Russian state hackers are using a VMware flaw to ransack networks
- Feds logged website visitors in 2019, citing Patriot Act authority
- Massachusetts Poised To Become The Next State To (Temporarily) Ban Facial Recognition Tech
- Federal Court Says Sanctions Are On The Way For Portland PD Over Violations Of Protest Restraining Orders
- CBP’s warrantless use of cell phone location data is under investigation
- After Being Notified Of Info It Should Have Already Been Aware Of, LAPD Bans Clearview Use By Investigators
- Provision Added To Defense Bill That Would Make Federal Officers Policing Protests Identify Themselves
- Cloudflare, Apple, and others back a new way to make the Internet more private
- New Privacy Requirements for App Developers Using the Apple App Store
- Settlement with App Developers Requires Limits on Collection and Use of Children’s Personal Information
- Zoom’s FTC Settlement a Good Guidepost to Avoiding Data Security Missteps
- FireEye cybersecurity tools compromised in state-sponsored attack
- Is an IP address considered personal information?
- Cyberattacks Discovered on Vaccine Distribution Operations
- German Court Orders Encrypted Email Service Tutanota To Backdoor One Account
- Lack of Standing: The Gift That Keeps on Giving for Defendants in Data Privacy Litigation
- FTC “Zooms” Into Settlement Agreement with Communications Company Over Concerns with its Security Practices
- Home Depot Enters Into Multistate $17.4 Million Settlement With State AGs Concerning Data Breach
- Satellite company to pay over $200 million for telemarketing violations
- International Data Transfers Post Schrems II: A Dance of Six Steps
- Are law firms considered “processors” or “controllers” of the personal data that they collect from third parties as part of a representation of a client?
- Are barristers and solicitors “separate controllers” or “joint controllers?”
- Solutionism, Surveillance, Borders and Infrastructures in the “Datafied Pandemic”
- Privacy in 2021: The Big Picture
Jon
News of the Week; December 2, 2020
GAMES
- Twin Galaxies attacks Billy Mitchell as a fraud in new legal claims
- Nicalis issues DMCA against free Cave Story games
- Subverse developer under fire for partnering with racist YouTuber Arch
- Supercell cancels Hay Day Pop
- Supercell shutting down Hay Day Pop after less than a year
- ‘As abstract as killing people in a video game,’ doctor says of Alek Minassian’s mind
- The Legality of Loot Boxes: A Primer
- Fortnite’s Nexus War event could expose Twitch streamers to DMCA problems
- Travis Scott reportedly grossed roughly $20m for Fortnite concert appearance
- Fortnite’s Season 4 finale attracted a record 15.3 million concurrent players
- Marvel finale was Fortnite’s biggest event ever at 15.3m concurrent users
- Wallace & Gromit maker Aardman partners with Bandai Namco on new game franchise
- What are the biggest changes impacting the games industry?
- Survey finds gaming by Americans over 45 has spiked in 2020
- Remote work is here to stay — but it won’t be cheap or easy
- How meditation and cooperation shaped Vela Games
- The Witcher 3 is the bedrock of CD Projekt Red’s financials one last time
- Fall Guys developer Mediatonic opens new UK studio
- How ‘buoyant’ Sega Europe is helping Sega Sammy stay afloat
- EG7 acquires Daybreak
- MechWarrior developer Piranha Games acquired by EG7 for $24.2 million
- EG7 pens deal to acquire EverQuest and H1Z1 dev Daybreak for $300 million
- Uri Geller retracts 20-year ban on Kadabra Pokémon trading cards
- Super Nintendo World now opening in February
- Universal Studios Japan will open Super Nintendo World in February
- The PlayStation 5’s ‘Activities’ quick-select is Sony’s answer to common single player woes
- PS5 comes out top in massive month for console sales | UK Monthly Charts
- UK mobile game spending reaches new single-day record on Black Friday
- Black Friday physical game sales drop 20% over 2019 l UK Boxed Sales
- Worldwide digital games spending down 10% between Black Friday and Cyber Monday
- Console remains largest employer of development staff in the UK
- GTA5: A Living World Eyeing A Decade Of Rabid Play Instead Of Just A ‘Game’
- TinyBuild invests $3m in Secret Neighbor developer Hologryph
- Tinybuild sinks $3 million into Secret Neighbor developer Hologryph
- Saudi Arabian charity Misk acquires 33.3% stake in SNK
- Phoenix Labs expands to Montreal and LA
- Dauntless dev Phoenix Labs opens two new studios to support growth
- Remnant: From the Ashes tops 1.7 million base game sales in just over a year
- Marvel’s Avengers fails to meet Square Enix sales targets
- Playco charts a course to the billion-player mobile game
- Krafton to consolidate Pnix and Delusion Studio into new studio, RisingWings
- Was Activision Blizzard right to ignore mobile? | 10 Years Ago This Month
- Cyberpunk 2077 pre-orders “visibly higher” than any Witcher title
- CDPR will take down Cyberpunk 2077 streams & let’s plays aired before launch
- Dead Cells sells over 3.5m copies
- Dead Cells surpasses 3.5 million sold ahead of second DLC announce
- Genshin Impact made almost $400m in two months on mobile
- Genshin Impact wins iPhone Game of the Year
- Apple picks Genshin Impact as its iPhone Game of the Year
- Google names Genshin Impact its best game of 2020
- Bigger Games raises $6 million for casual puzzle games
- Immortals: Fenyx Rising | Critical Consensus
- Sonic The Hedgehog 2 movie expected to start production in March
- That time Roger Ebert said games will never be as worthy as movies
- ‘Interactive reality TV’ project Rival Peak launches on Facebook
- We test Herman Miller’s $1,499 gaming chair: All business—to a fault
- The Game Theorists Raise Staggering $3 Million For St. Jude During 9-Hour YouTube Stream
- Food Publishers Surprisingly Didn’t Lean On Thanksgiving Video Content This Year
- Sega unveils never-before-seen prototype ‘Venus’ handheld
- BBTV Signs 5 International Gamers Who Count 23 Million Collective Subscribers
- Esports platform Smashgg acquired by Microsoft
- AR Mario Kart anchors Universal’s Super Nintendo World in February
- VR spending to pass $1bn in 2020
- Analyst: 2020 will see 6.4 million consumer VR headsets sold, spending surpass $1bn
- Blog: A pre-postmortem about marketing
- Blog: Key ingredients for compelling video game characters
- Q&A: Hand-painting the watercolor world of Dordogne
- Video: A look at Insomniac Games’ cache simulator
- Video: Lessons from Sony Interactive Entertainment’s localization process
- Don’t Miss: Using procedural destruction to unleash chaos in Control
- Don’t Miss: Why do devs love Slack, and how do they get the most out of it?
- Best of 2020: Rebuilding a classic in Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition
- Best of 2020: Behind the dizzying ride to the top for Among Us
DIGITAL
- Increased Web Page Accessibility Requirements for Private and Non-Profit Organizations in Ontario Come into Effect in 2021 and AODA Accessibility Report Due Date Extended
- Utter Insanity: Trump Lawyer Suggests Former Trump Cybersecurity Official Should Be ‘Taken Out And Shot’ For Saying The Election Was Secure
- Just As #DiaperDon Starts Trending, Trump Claims That Twitter Uses ‘Fake’ Trends, Calls For ‘Termination’ Of Section 230
- Trump Promises To Defund The Entire Military, If Congress Won’t Let Him Punish The Internet For Being Mean To Him
- Trump to Congress: Repeal Section 230 or I’ll veto military funding
- White House Still Pushing To Slip Section 230 Repeal Into ‘Must Pass’ Military Spending Bill
- Congress Decides To Ignore Trump’s Ridiculous Veto Threat If Military Authorization Doesn’t Wipe Out Section 230
- New Ebook on Zeran v. AOL, the Most Important Section 230 Case (Eric Goldman)
- Twitter To Relaunch Account Verification In 2021
- Pinterest shareholders sue firm over rampant gender, race discrimination
- Federal Court Strikes Down California’s Ban On ‘Offensive’ License Plates
- European regulator hits Apple with a fine over iPhone water-resistance claims
- Amazon to roll out tools to monitor factory workers and machines
- Amazon Web Services adds macOS on bare metal to EC2
- Amazon to pay employee bonus amid threat of Black Friday strikes
- Oracle vulnerability that executes malicious code is under active attack
- Cases against Facebook are reportedly coming… when FTC decides how
- Facebook Gaming Introduces Non-Gaming Content Hub For Partners Called ‘Hanging Out’
- Facebook’s libra currency to launch next year in limited format
- Lilly Singh, Liza Koshy, More Hosted Instagram Live Fundraisers For ‘Giving Tuesday’
- The Material Conditions of Platforms: Monopolization Through Decentralization
- 512(f) Claim Against Robo-Notice Sender Can Proceed–Enttech v. Okularity (Eric Goldman)
- Content Moderation Case Study: Reclaiming A Hashtag (2020)
- Is Free Speech Online About To Get A Lot Less Free?
- Salesforces buys Slack for $27.7bn
- Salesforce to acquire Slack in $27.7 billion deal
- Salesforce strikes deal to acquire Slack for $27.7 billion
- Snapchat Taps Michael Le, Dytto To Host Interactive Dance Series, With Potential For Viewers To Monetize (Trailer)
- How to restore moral and technical order in a time of misinformation
- As a Service | Selling to consumers using a subscription model
- Platform Regulation Should Focus on Transparency, Not Content
- New Tech Regulation for the UK? Sounds familiEUr…
- New York Passes Wide-Ranging Automatic Renewal (Subscription Model) Law
- The risks and rewards of influencer marketing
- Influencer Philanthropy and Social Media – What are the Rules, What are Best Practices?
- Bella Poarch, The #YouHaveTo Hashtag, “Savage Love” Top TikTok’s Biggest Trends Of 2020
- TikTok Users Can Now Auto-Skip Videos That Might Trigger Photosensitive Epilepsy
- TikTok Is Reportedly Testing 3-Minute Videos
- I Turn My Camera on. Notes on the Aesthetics of Tiktok
- YouTube Suspends ‘OANN’ From Monetization, Strikes Channel For Repeated COVID Misinformation
- YouTube Teams With British Vogue For ‘Masterclass’ Series Starring Fashion Experts, Influencers, More
- How old, ambient Japanese music became a smash hit on YouTube
- Creators Can Now Host Live Pre-Shows, Embed Trailers Ahead Of Their YouTube Video ‘Premieres’
- Top 50 Most Viewed US YouTube Channels • Week Of 11/30/2020
- Top 50 Most Viewed YouTube Channels Worldwide • Week Of 11/30/2020
- YouTube’s Latest Original Is A Charitable ‘Secret Santa’ Exchange With AsapSCIENCE, Molly Burke, More
- Jake Paul Says He’s In Talks To Fight UFC Champ Conor McGregor
- Washington considers digital advertising tax
- Big Tech’s carbon problem: Energy-guzzling data centres and supply chains mean our online lives leave a heavy environmental footprint.
- Google, the Media Patron: How the Digital Giant Ensnares Journalism
- Is Google Really the Borg?
- ‘The Queen’s Gambit’ Becomes Netflix’s Most-Watched Limited Scripted Series, 4th Biggest TV Show Overall
- Taylor Swift Re-Teams With Disney+ For ‘Folkore’ Concert Documentary
- As organizations accelerate their digital transformation initiatives, they are increasingly embracing the power, affordability and versatility of open source software.
- Perpetually Missing from Tech Policy: ISPs And The IoT
- Choose your movies and also their endings!
A.I.
- DeepMind AI handles protein folding, which humbled previous software
- Amazon inquiry after Alexa accused of antisemitism
- Amazon’s Alexa accused of sharing anti-Semitic conspiracies, Holocaust denial
- The Time Has Come for International Regulation on Artificial Intelligence’
- A robot’s muse: when AI creates art
- AI inventors? Why should we care?
- Thinking outside the black box: explainable AI is coming into focus
- Artificial Intelligence and Recruitment – how to address the pitfalls
- Artificial intelligence, robotics and automation: The best or the worst thing to ever happen to humanity?
- The use of artificial intelligence: interesting technological developments in the legal and accountancy sectors
- AI can run your work meetings now
- The Full Automation Fallacy
- Speaking to algorithms? Rhetorical political analysis as technological analysis
- Deciding what’s fair
- A “Light Touch” Regulatory Framework for AI – Transparency at the Heart of AI Regulation
- Machines as Manifestations of Global Systems: Steps toward a Sociometabolic Ontology of Technology
- Artificial Intelligence, Aesthetics, and Future of Culture
- AI did it My Way
COMMUNICATIONS
- The Broadcasting Act Blunder, Day Six: The Beginning of the End of Canadian Broadcast Ownership and Control Requirements (Michael Geist)
- The Broadcasting Act Blunder, Day Seven: Beware Bill C-10’s Unintended Consequences (Michael Geist)
- The Broadcasting Act Blunder, Day 8: The Unnecessary Discoverability Requirements (Michael Geist)
- The Broadcasting Act Blunder, Day 9: Why Use Cross-Subsidies When the Government is Rolling Out Tech Tax Policies? (Michael Geist)
- The Broadcasting Act Blunder, Day 10: Downgrading the Role of Canadians in their Own Programming (Michael Geist)
- Ajit Pai announces departure from FCC after four-year deregulatory blitz
- Ajit Pai, Easily The Most Controversial FCC Boss In History, Will Step Down January 20
- Senate rushes to confirm Trump FCC nominee in order to hinder Biden admin
- FCC agenda meeting to evaluate items of interest for manufacturers and operators of radiofrequency equipment
- FCC Makes More Spectrum Available in 5.9 GHz Band for Unlicensed Use
- President-Elect Biden Announces FCC Transition Team
- FCC Proposes $20,000 Fine for TV Station Program-Length Commercial in Children’s Programming
- FCC Adopts New Program Carriage Complaint Procedures
- Comcast Increases Prices And Bogus Fees In The Middle Of A Pandemic
- Verizon, NYC Settle Lawsuit Over Verizon’s Empty Fiber Promises
- Verizon wiring up 500K homes with FiOS to settle years-long fight with NYC
- In the Conversion to NextGen TV, Who is Responsible for the Content of the Simulcast Streams?
- More Subsidies Alone Won’t Fix What Ails U.S. Broadband
- Broadband and the UK’s National Infrastructure Strategy
INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY
- Nicki Minaj Safeguards the Right for Artists to Experiment with Unlicensed Work
- Skateboard Graphic Artist Sues Jack Black, Tony Hawk, and The Berrics for Copyright Infringement of Skateboard Graphic Design
- PewDiePie’s “My Heart Will Go On”: A Case Study in the DMCA and YouTube’s Copyright Dispute Process (Part I)
- Peace does not get a chance
- Supermodel Sues for Alleged Unauthorized Use of Her Likeness
- The EU Commission better get its skates on when it comes to copyright
- World’s Worst Copyright Troll, Richard Liebowitz, Suspended From Practicing Law
- ‘Tis The Season: Congress Looks To Sneak In Unconstitutional Copyright Reform Bill Into ‘Must Pass’ Spending Bill
- Circumventing technological protection measures and website blocking orders: An EU perspective
- Ferrari Wins Legal Case Against Designer Philipp Plein’s Use Of Its Supercars, But He Says It’s Not Over
- Philipp Plein Loses Court Battle Against Ferrari Over Illegal Use of Its Brand
- How the Freddy copycat fashion case opens up new options for designers
- Nevermind: Who Really Owns Nirvana’s Iconic Smiley Face Design?
- From football stadiums to railway stations…covering the bigger picture with registered designs
- When Trademarks Get Messi: Likelihood of Confusion and Leo Messi’s Big European Trademark Win
- Deus ex Machina Motorcycles Pty. Ltd. v. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc.
- AMERICAN EAGLE found to infringe EAGLE RARE trade mark in the UK
- EUIPO: What’s in the name…………… Hamilton!
- A Butler cannot be Royal!
- Minimalist trademarks: trend to follow or end of the road for uniqueness?
- The Burberry case: influencers, rappers and VIPs, watch out for improper use and associations to reputed brands
- A guide to trade mark revocation for legacy brands
- Snap Removal in Trade Secret Cases
- Risks and rewards of trade secrets in Europe
- Patenting antibody-based biologics in Canada
- Federal Circuit Confirms That “Magnetic Fuzz” Is Too Fuzzy for a Patent Claim
- Working from home — does it affect patent ownership for employee inventions?
- It’s a Date – Twitter Reply Proves Prior Art Publication Date
- Effectively using experts in IP litigation part two: practice
- (S)he´s making a list, (S)he´s checking it twice: An IP due diligence checklist for the holidays – or any time
PRIVACY
- Proposed Canadian Privacy Bill Introduces Fines and New Requirements for Private Organizations
- Understanding the Draft Consumer Privacy Protection Act: A Summary of the Key Changes Proposed
- French Gov’t Walks Back Proposal To Make Publishing Images Of Police Officers Illegal After Massive Protests Erupt Across The Nation
- Once more unto the breach: The Supreme Court weighs in on a circuit split on what constitutes a hack
- New Orleans PD Finally Admits It Uses Facial Recognition Tech After Denying It For Years
- Autonomous vehicles and big data: Managing the personal information deluge
- Canada Re-enters the International Ring with Bold New Privacy Law Including Significant Fines
- Post-Schrems II: European Data Protection Board’s Recommendations Bring Further Clarity and Practical Steps Regarding International Data Flows
- Does Tor provide more benefit or harm? New paper says it depends
- The Supreme Court will finally rule on controversial US hacking law
Jon
News of the Week; November 25, 2020
GAMES
- Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Gareth Bale question use of likeness in FIFA
- Mine, Mine, Mine! Nintendo Neuters The Cool Ways People, Groups Are Using ‘Animal Crossing’
- Nintendo axes fan-run Smash tournament over online play mod
- Nintendo orders cancellation of Smash Bros tournament over mod use: The Big House’s first online competition scrapped due to modified Melee that enables smoother online play
- Nintendo lawsuit takes aim at yet another Nintendo Switch hack seller
- Nintendo suing yet another Switch hack reseller: Amazon seller taken to court in platform holder’s ongoing fight against “serious, worsening international problem” of piracy
- Super Mario Maker Wii U to be delisted, lose some online features in early 2021
- Nintendo issues new Animal Crossing guidelines to keep politics out of the game
- Nintendo publishes Animal Crossing guidelines for businesses: The platform holder asked organisations to “refrain from bringing politics” into New Horizons
- Next-gen consoles have few answers to Argentina’s longstanding reliance on piracy: Argentina’s gamers approach next-gen with uncertainty, due to rising prices and the difficulty of turning to the black market
- Bossa Studios confirms layoffs amid complaints against management
- Game Workers Unite UK rebrands to IWGB Game Workers
- Can game studios radically transform how they hire?
- Does Apple’s 15% platform cut change the game?
- Tim Sweeney on Apple’s 15% cut: “We’re not fighting for a lower commission” – Epic Games CEO says 30% commission “is not wrongful, it’s just a bad deal”
- Epic adds a subscription service to Fortnite
- Epic Games launches ‘Fortnite Crew’ monthly subscription plan
- Epic Games’ MegaGrants program surpasses $60m in financial support
- 100 Thieves Becomes First Brand To Take Over Fortnite’s Creative Hub
- Twitch’s No Good, Very Bad Time Continues: Part 2
- Twitch Co-Founder Kevin Lin Departs Company After 12 Years: “I Will Build Again”
- The New York Times Is Broadcasting Collaborative Crosswords On Twitch
- This Streamer Took The Sims’ Lack Of Diversity Into Her Own Hands — And Then Became An Advisor To EA
- EA publishes first annual Impact Report: Report includes company demographic breakdown; 50% of EA Studios leadership is female
- GamesIndustry.biz writer Rebekah Valentine wins Journalist of the Year at GameHERs Awards: First year of the GameHERs recognises “women in all aspects of gaming”
- Harassment costs this industry too much | Opinion: From dollars to basic human decency, the status quo of online multiplayer gaming is taking a heavy toll
- Square Enix confirms Avengers missed expectations
- Square Enix to implement permanent work-from-home program in December
- Square Enix shifts all eligible staff to permanent remote working
- Pokémon Go restores social distancing benefits to the game
- The $70 AAA price point — it’s about time | Opinion: No consumer is going to be enthused about a price rise, but 15 years of $60 has done no favours to either gamers or creators
- Bandai Namco invests $3m in avatars creator Genies
- The ultimate guide to selling your indie game: Network N’s James Binns laid out the strategy and tactics indies should follow to sell more games
- 5 years below minimum wage: the financial history of Awesomenauts dev Ronimo
- Roblox files for IPO: Kid-focused, user-generated content platform has not yet turned a profit despite skyrocketing DAUs, bookings
- Lightfox Games raises $3.3m: March Gaming leads seed round to fund more accessible midcore games
- Seattle mobile studio Lightfox nets $3.3 million to bring debut title to market
- Report: Activision Blizzard laying off staff at Asia-Pacific offices
- More layoffs expected at Activision-Blizzard, this time at APAC offices: Company confirms around 30 employees face redundancy following announcement it needed to hire over 2,000
- Netease Q3 strengthened by multiple mobile game releases in China
- Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War was the real No.1 last week | UK Digital Charts: Assassin’s Creed enjoyed one of its biggest weeks to-date
- Hitman developer IO Interactive teases Project 007: James Bond licence emerges from stealth and will be used to tell a brand new origin story
- Red Dead Online gets a stand-alone release
- Rockstar is turning Red Dead Online into a standalone game
- Crowded field of racers drives Codemasters revenues up
- Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity ships 3 million
- Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin tops 500,000 digital sales and shipments
- Genshin Impact leads October digital game spending
- Piranha Games acquired by Enad Global 7
- Learning platform Kahoot acquires language game dev Drops for $50 million
- Keywords Studios acquires marketing agency G-Net Media
- Supercell invests $2.8m in 2UP Games
- As World of Warcraft enters the Shadowlands: “Why should it ever end?”: John Hight and Morgan Day share how the World of Warcraft team is still building on its MMORPG 16 years after launch
- Yakuza: Like a Dragon’s turn-based combat came from an April Fools joke that went too well
- Aiming to curb DMCAs, CDPR builds copyrighted music toggle into Cyberpunk 2077
- ‘Cyberpunk 2077’ Has A Built-In Mode For Content Creators That Disables Copyrighted Music
- Ridiculous: ‘Cyberpunk 2077’ Will Ship With A Mode Just To Help Streamers Avoid DMCA Notices
- The bulk of CD Projekt’s $27.9 million in Q3 revenue came from The Witcher 3
- Nvidia developed a radically different way to compress video calls
- Nvidia sidesteps the App Store to bring GeForce Now game streaming to iOS
- Analysis: Nvidia GeForce Now cloud gaming service comes to iOS
- Stadia plans to bypass App Store with web app iOS launch
- Google Stadia begins public iOS test in a few weeks: With Apple blocking games streaming via apps, Google moves Stadia to Safari as a web app
- Controller use on Steam has doubled in past two years
- Controller use on Steam has ‘more than doubled’ since 2018
- Steam beefs up DualSense support with LED, rumble, and more
- The anatomy of a Steam sale
- “The time is right to re-evaluate open worlds. We can do better”
- Unknown 9’s multimedia awakening
- The forgotten Flash Website movement (when websites were ‘the new emerging artform’)
- GeForce Now arrives on iOS via Safari: Nvidia gets around App Store’s game streaming policies with a beta version of browser-based offering, will soon add support for GOG storefront titles
- PS5 is biggest console launch in history
- PlayStation 5 delivers ‘biggest console launch ever’ for Sony
- PlayStation 5 sold almost six times as many units as Xbox Series X|S in Japan: Sony’s consoles sold 118,085 units in four days, while Microsoft’s machines sold 20,534 in six days
- Spider-Man: Miles Morales is PS5’s biggest launch game as Call of Duty grabs No.1 | UK Boxed Charts
- Scalpers and bots reportedly driving PS5 shortages
- Xbox Series X/S vs. PlayStation 5: Our launch-month verdict
- Microsoft: Bethesda Games Will Be ‘First, Best’ On Xbox, PC
- Xbox experimenting with how to pay studios for Game Pass “because we don’t think we have it figured out
- What agreements land games on Game Pass? Xbox head says they’re ‘all over the place’
- How to turn your Xbox Series X/S into an emulation powerhouse
- How one developer is sneaking emulators through a hole in the Xbox Store
- The Winner of the Console Wars is…Light Beer?
- JoJo Siwa, Loren Gray To Host 2-Day ‘Among Us’ Event
- TikTok developer launches publishing arm and casual gaming platform
- COVID-19 expected to boost investment in esports: But esports activity won’t go back to pre-pandemic levels for another year, some execs believe
- Esports company Blast receives £1.7m in funding from Edge Investments
- Insert Coin, the arcade documentary worth feeding all your quarters into
- OpenBCI Announces Brain-Computer Interface Designed Specifically for VR/AR Headsets
- Video: Making compelling character interactions for VR NPCs
- Lost “Sega VR” game unearthed, made playable on modern VR headsets
- Veteran VR Studio of ‘Waltz of the Wizard’ Pausing PSVR Development Until Sony Addresses PS5 Roadmap
- Warner Music: “If artists want to be in the next James Bond, they should want to be in the next AAA game”
- Don’t Miss: How GoldenEye 007 set a new standard for video game AI
- Don’t Miss: Defining direction, writing, art and music on Yakuza 4
- Don’t Miss: The story behind Remedy’s viral dog mocap star
- Don’t Miss: Mapping out the subtle social cues throughout Hitman’s level design
- Don’t Miss: A PC game for consoles – Remaking Divinity: Original Sin
- Video: Bugsnax’s devs discuss launching on the PS5
- Video: A deep dive into Ubisoft’s VR escape rooms
- Video: Breaking down the making of Teardown
- Video: The world generation tech behind Far Cry 5
- Blog: Is Apple’s platform fee reduction a PR move or sound investment?
- Blog: General tips for ‘Games as a Service’ indie games
- Blog: Power of storytelling in blockbuster casual games?
- Blog: The art of compelling quest design in Ghost of Tsushima
- Blog: The Impact of video game criticism
- Blog: Historians discuss Assassin’s Creed Valhalla
- Blog: Four hyper-casual prototype best practices
- Deep Dive: Evolving the UX/UI of A Total War Story: Troy using user testing & feedback
- Hugo Awards adds video game category for 2021
- Patenting video games in Europe – The EPO’s Board of Appeal decide in favour of Nintendo (T1504/17)
- U.S. Patent No. 10,532,290: Sharing recorded gameplay to a social graph
DIGITAL
- Twitter, Facebook Plan For Post-Trump Era
- Why it’s easy to hate Facebook but hard to leave
- Facebook AI catches 95% of hate speech; company still wants mods back in office
- Facebook Could See Antitrust Charges From Nearly 40 States Over Acquisitions Of Instagram, WhatsApp
- Advertisers Challenge Facebook’s Representations on Audience Targeting and Fraudulent Traffic
- Facebook Says Ads for Giving Tuesday Are OK, So Long as They Aren’t About Social Issues
- Disappointing: Netflix Decides To Settle With Chooseco LLC Over ‘Bandersnatch’ Lawsuit
- Instagram Adds Branded Content Tags To ‘Reels’, ‘Live’, Unveils Several Updates To ‘Branded Content Ads’ Format
- Age Gating on Instagram is Now a Bit Easier
- David Attenborough Departs Instagram Mere Months After Record-Breaking Foray
- White House Offers To Allow Renaming Confederate Bases… In Exchange For Getting Rid Of Section 230
- Content Moderation Case Study: Facebook Attracts International Attention When It Removes A Historic Vietnam War Photo Posted By The Editor-in-Chief Of Norway’s Biggest Newspaper (2016)
- Bad Analogy: Comparing Social Media To Guns
- AMD laptops have a hidden 10-second performance delay. Here’s why
- Apple security chief maintains innocence after bribery charges
- Apple moving forward with plan to limit “creepy” user tracking
- “We are giddy”—interviewing Apple about its Mac silicon revolution
- Mac mini and Apple Silicon M1 review: Not so crazy after all
- Snapchat Giving $1 Million Per Day To “Top” Creators With New Short Video Platform ‘Spotlight’
- BuzzFeed Acquires HuffPost In Stock Deal As Part Of Larger Pact With Its Parent, Verizon Media
- Creator-To-Consumer Vendor Gumroad Launches Monthly Memberships
- Wonder What’s Ahead For Film? Watch What WarnerMedia Does
- Nvidia developed a radically different way to compress video calls
- Will Parler Users Treat Its ‘Glitch’ That Hid Georgia Election Content The Same Way They Treated A Twitter Glitch?
- YouTube Defeats Lawsuit Over Cryptocurrency Scam–Ripple v. YouTube (Eric Goldman)
- After Quitting YouTube, Ingrid Nilsen To Launch Fragrance Studio ‘The New Savant’
- As Billie Eilish Hits 1 Billion Views, YouTube Unveils ‘Infinite Music Video’ Concept For “Bad Guy”
- Top 50 Most Viewed YouTube Channels Worldwide Last Week
- Top 50 Most Viewed US YouTube Channels Last Week
- Snapchat Giving $1 Million Per Day To “Top” Creators With New Short Video Platform ‘Spotlight’
- Is Food The New Merch For Creators? And Are Ghost Kitchens The Next Frontier?
- MrBeast Launches New Channel, ‘Beast Philanthropy,’ To Raise Money For His Food Bank
- Inconceivable: TikToker Who Made Paint Mixing Very, Very Cool… Is Fired From Sherwin-Williams For Doing So
- Charli D’Amelio Has Amassed 100 Million TikTok Followers In One-And-A-Half Years
- A general introduction to the regulation of virtual currencies in USA
A.I.
- USPTO Releases Public Comments on AI
- Artificial Intelligence and Intellectual Property: Transatlantic Approaches
- Intellectual property strategies for data and artificial intelligence – ThinkHouse
- Florida Sheriff’s Pre-Crime Software Says D-Students And Victims Of Domestic Violence Are Potential Criminals
- AI & cybersecurity: reflections on a multidimensional relationship
- When AI sees a man, it thinks “official.” A woman? “Smile”
- AI Trends Part 1: IoT privacy and security risks
- AI in the boardroom: opportunities and challenges
- Robots invade the construction site
COMMUNICATIONS
- Canadian Government introduces legislation that would fundamentally transform the broadcasting system
- The Broadcasting Act Blunder, Day One: Why There is No Canadian Content Crisis (Michael Geist)
- The Broadcasting Act Blunder, Day Two: What the Government Doesn’t Say About Creating a “Level Playing Field” (Michael Geist)
- The Broadcasting Act Blunder, Day Three: Minister Guilbeault Says Bill C-10 Contains Economic Thresholds That Limit Internet Regulation. It Doesn’t. (Michael Geist)
- The Broadcasting Act Blunder, Day Four: Why Many News Sites Are Captured by Bill C-10 (Michael Geist)
- The Broadcasting Act Blunder, Day Five: The Narrow Exclusion of User Generated Content Services (Michael Geist)
- 10 Years Of U.S. Broadband Policy Has Been A Colossal Failure
- ‘Activist’ Investor Elliott Management Sells Stake In AT&T After Encouraging Mass Firings
- AT&T raises DirecTV prices again amid customer losses and possible sale
- More Evidence FCC Claims That Killing Net Neutrality Would Boost Broadband Investment Were Bullshit
- FCC reallocates transportation safety spectrum for Wi-Fi use, endorses C-V2X for auto safety
- Ajit Pai’s FCC Does Something Good, Frees Wireless Spectrum The Auto Industry Had Done Little With
- Trump’s FCC Nominee Asked Fox News To Help Destroy Section 230 To Help Elect More Republicans
- Comcast raising TV and Internet prices, including a big hike to hidden fees
- UK government buys chunk of bankrupt Starlink competitor, OneWeb
- OneWeb exits bankruptcy and is ready to launch more broadband satellites
INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY
- Using music in your business? Copyright fees proposed to increase
- Disney (Disney!) Accused Of Trying To Lawyer Its Way Out Of Paying Royalties To Alan Dean Foster
- Who Owns Vacation Photos of You? Probably Not You–Hubay v. Mendez (Eric Goldman)
- Hyperlinking: more control for copyright owners
- “Cultural misinterpretation” or designer’s freedom?
- Due diligence of copyright is key when purchasing a record label business
- Poland’s Bid To Get Upload Filters Taken Out Of The EU Copyright Directive Suddenly Looks Much More Hopeful
- Brexit and copyright: 6 key things to know
- Good News: Academics Can Make Their Articles Published In Top Journal Nature Freely Available As Open Access. Bad News: They Must Pay $11,000 For Each One
- Bricks and mortar or is online in order? Federal Court of Appeal checks in to trademark use and hotel services
- UK High Court finds EAGLE RARE infringed by AMERICAN EAGLE
- Puma v Nike Footwear brands dispute FOOTWARE
- The Lord Chamberlain v Grant Harrold – British Queen blocks Royal Butler trade mark
- Taiwanese Semiconductor Pleads Guilty, To Pay $60 Million Fine for Criminal Trade Secret Theft
- Understanding compulsory licensing: a global overview
- Recent Patent Developments in the Autonomous Vehicle Market
- Common Patent Misconceptions – Myth #5 – Provisional Applications
- Printed Matter Is Patentable If It’s Functional, Not Just Communicative
PRIVACY
- Canada Proposes Federal Privacy Law Overhaul – Key Takeaways
- The dawn of Canadian Privacy Law 2.0: The Consumer Privacy Protection Act introduced
- Attention, mall shoppers: your data is being collected!
- ‘You Have Zero Privacy’ Say RCMP Social Media Surveillance Documents Before Going On To Demonstrate Why
- US Military Is Buying Location Data From Data Brokers, Including Data Pulled From US App Users
- Portland, Maine Passes Facial Recognition Ban That Says The City Can Fire Employees For Violating It
- Seattle PD Detective Took Clearview Facial Recognition Tech For A Spin, Possibly Violating Local Laws
- Very Little Stands Between the U.S. and a Technological Panopticon
- Court Sends Wyze Labs Privacy Suit to Arbitration (Eric Goldman)
- Google is testing end-to-end encryption in Android Messages
- Make the Web Great Again (Andres Guadamuz)
CREATIVITY
Jon
News of the Week; November 18, 2020
GAMES
- Nintendo faces yet another Joy-Con drift lawsuit: An expert analysis noted that the drift is caused by “extensive wear on the pad surface on the interior of the Joy-Con”
- The dance-off ends: a (partial) resolution to Fortnite’s slurry of copyright lawsuits.
- Oxford University study finds playing games can positively impact emotional well-being
- Oxford University study shows video games can benefit well-being and mental health: But researchers call for more studies into this field, following its success in collaborating with EA and Nintendo
- Pokémon Go raises its level cap for the first time in over four years
- Video game play is positively correlated with well-being (Niklas Johannes, Matti Vuorre, Andrew K. Przybylski)
- Court Upholds Gaming App’s Clickthrough TOS–Ball v. Skillz (Eric Goldman)
- Survey finds growing harassment among US gamers: ADL-Newzoo poll finds 68% of online multiplayer games experienced severe harassment in past six months, 22% said it made them quit playing certain games entirely
- Free to Play? Hate, Harassment and Positive Social Experience in Online Games 2020
- Ubisoft Singapore MD stepping down after misconduct allegations
- Ubisoft removes Singapore studio head: Hugues Ricour no longer leading Skull and Bones studio after report of sexual harassment, but remains with the publisher
- Global Game Revenues Up an Extra $15 Billion This Year as Engagement Skyrockets
- Judge dismisses Apple’s “theft” claims in Epic Games lawsuit
- Apple will halve App Store platform fees for smaller developers in 2021
- Apple drops its cut of App Store revenues from 30% to 15% for some developers
- Apple to cut down App Store share to 15% for small developers: The company’s new App Store Small Business Program means studios earning less than $1m a year in proceeds will benefit from a reduced commission
- Epic CEO: App Store changes offer ‘no relief to customers’ from ‘Apple Tax’
- Epic Games files against Apple Australia: Fortnite firm claims battle royale’s removal breaches Australian consumer law
- Apple settles with states for $113M over iPhone battery throttling
- Streamers protest Twitch DMCA policy with homemade video game noises: Beep beep beep. Pow! Schooooo… po-pow!
- Twitch eyes new tools, licensing deals after ‘understandably frustrating’ DMCA takedowns
- Twitch streamers report DMCA takedowns for in-game sound effects: Content creators report flags on sounds such as clock chimes, police sirens, bird noises, and wind
- Twitch Continues To Trip Over Itself In Response To DMCA Apocalypse
- Twitch’s No Good, Very Bad Time Continues: Part 1
- xQcOW, Pokimane Are Twitch’s Top-Earning Streamers Of 2020
- Twitch sees record viewership in October – Report: StreamElements and Arsenal find 1.6 billion hours watched on the platform last month, nearly doubling previous October
- EA launching FIFA spend-tracking tool: FIFA Playtime gives players an overview of how much time and money they’ve spent on FIFA 21, ability to set spending and Ultimate Team limits
- EA has loot boxed itself in with FIFA Ultimate Team | Opinion: Publisher is in the position of having to fix its gambling problem without admitting there’s a problem to fix
- EA must reconsider its FIFA goals | Podcast: The team discusses EA’s reluctance to acknowledge the resemblances of Ultimate Team to gambling, and the consequences that could bring
- FIFA 21 debuts at No.1 in the US for October in a first for the franchise: Nintendo Switch hardware sets a new dollar sales record for the month, surpassing the Wii in 2008
- Is a Tattoo Protected by Copyright? Is it Infringed if it Appears in a Computer Game?
- Star Trek’s Space-Traveling Tardigrades Live Long and Prosper After Second Circuit Affirms Non-Infringement of Video Game Copyright
- Capcom says personal details of 350,000 potentially compromised after recent hack
- Capcom: Up to 350,000 people could be affected by ransomware leak
- Capcom confirms it was the victim of a ransomware attack: Employee personal information, sales reports, and other financial information was compromised
- Playrix: gameplay footage must be representative of the gaming experience
- Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla sees the franchise’s best launch sales so far: It sold more copies at launch than any other Assassin’s Creed game, and set a new record for Ubisoft PC launch sales
- Assassin’s Creed Valhalla beats Call of Duty in race for No.1 | UK Boxed Charts: It’s a massive, massive week for UK game sales
- Genshin Impact was the top-grossing mobile game worldwide in October: It brought in nearly $239m in player spending, beating out Honor of Kings
- Graffiti Games leaders launch Indie Game Coach: Alex Josef and Alex Van Lepp to provide free and low-cost resources, coaching, and consulting for new, independent developers
- How a Guilty Gear project contributed to the collapse of Skullgirls dev Lab Zero
- Epic releases thousands of What Remains of Edith Finch assets for free
- Epic Games acquires real-time animation firm Hyprsense: The company will collaborate closely with 3Lateral and Cubic Motion to “make content production more accessible”
- Half of US and UK players want more diverse characters in games: Research conducted by Newzoo shows that gamers want publishers to take an “active stance” on societal issues
- Respawn emphasises its no crunch policy: Accused of being too slow with content, Apex Legends game director says the studio “refuses to crunch the team”
- Animal Jam data breach exposes personal info of approximately 46m accounts: Emails, usernames, encrypted passwords, billing addresses, and real names were posted on public hacker forum
- Ubisoft Montreal staffers barricade on roof, escorted out by police
- Police operation underway at Ubisoft Montreal: Reported hostage situation may have been a hoax, police begin evacuating building
- Police say ‘hoax’ emergency call prompted Ubisoft Montreal studio scare
- The challenge and promise of DualSense | Opinion: PlayStation 5’s advanced haptic system is arguably the most interesting innovation of the new generation, but it creates a tricky marketing conundrum
- Discovery takeaways from the new PlayStation 5 store?
- Sony thinks cross-gen games will be ‘important’ for the next 3 years as players transition to PS5
- Demon’s Souls PS5 review: A gorgeous game worth dying (repeatedly) for
- Ghost of Tsushima passes 5m sold: Sucker Punch’s game is the fastest selling new IP for the PS4 from a Sony first-party studio
- Xbox Series X and S deliver Microsoft’s biggest ever console launch
- Xbox Series X|S is biggest console launch in Microsoft’s history: But Phil Spencer says platform holder still focused on player numbers of unit sales
- How will the Xbox Series X|S and PlayStation 5 benefit indies?: We speak to indie studios and publishers about the possibilities afforded by the new consoles
- Xbox Series S|X launch, big releases drive new records for UK broadband use: Service providers report new highs among Call of Duty updates and preloads, debuts of Destiny 2: Beyond Light and Assassin’s Creed Valhalla
- Microsoft expects Xbox Series X and S to be in short supply until after holidays
- Microsoft expects Xbox Series X|S shortages until Q2 2021: CFO Tim Stuart points to summer next year for “the supply profile meeting the demand profile”
- Microsoft suggests higher AAA price-point is “warranted”: CFO Tim Stuart said that publishers need to “make the right decision for their content”
- The Falconeer: An unexpected jewel in the Xbox launch line-up
- Bethesda games will likely be “first or better” (not “only”) on Xbox
- Microsoft to begin testing Project xCloud in new regions including Australia and Japan
- Microsoft to roll out Project xCloud in four new markets: The cloud gaming beta is coming to Australia, Brazil, Japan, and Mexico this November
- What next-gen consoles really mean for audio: Sumo Digital discusses the audio tools that could be a game changer for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S
- Switch sets new October sales record in the U.S. as next-gen arrives
- The Switch had the second-best October sales in the US of any console ever: At over 735,000 units sold, it was outpaced only by the Wii in 2008
- Happy 20th Birthday To ‘No One Lives Forever’, The Classic PC Game That Can’t Be Sold Today Thanks To IP
- Why are there no James Bond games?: In the absence of new film No Time To Die, we explore 007’s ongoing absence from video games and the challenge of developing with a licence
- Assassin’s Creed Valhalla debuts with record launch week sales for the franchise
- Assassin’s Creed Valhalla doubles Odyssey’s player count at launch: The latest entry in Ubisoft’s series also saw record viewership on Twitch and YouTube
- Freshly founded Gunzilla Games aims to take on triple-A shooter development
- Gunzilla Games enters AAA shooter market with $25m in funding: After helping Warface developer Blackwood spin out from Crytek, Vlad Korolev is looking to build a studio from scratch
- The careful cultivation and localization of Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin: Edelweiss and XSeed discuss the historical Japanese roots of the in-depth rice farming sim, and the challenges of bringing it West
- PUBG Corp is bringing a new version of banned PUBG Mobile to India
- PUBG Corp. creating new PUBG Mobile for India to get around ban: Korean publisher establishes Indian subsidiary that will hire 100 people, pledges to invest $100 million into local gaming and entertainment industry
- Fortnite mulls monthly paid subscription
- New League of Legends character not based on real person, says Riot
- Grubhub Taps Addison Rae, CrankGameplays, More For Virtual Friendsgiving Promo On ‘Animal Crossing’
- Unity revenue up 53.3% year-over-year at close of first public quarter
- Unity shares first earnings following IPO with $201 million in Q3 revenue: On earnings call, CEO John Riccitiello addresses price hikes, COVID-19 impacts, future investments, and finding a casual audience
- Ghost of Tsushima has topped 5 million sales in under four months
- Fall Guys has sold over 10 million copies on Steam
- Fall Guys has sold more than 10 million copies on Steam alone
- Data deep dive: What’s the ‘long tail’ like for Steam games?
- Steam’s initial PS5 controller support doesn’t include the controller’s advanced haptics
- Zynga opens Austin studio to work on upcoming Star Wars project
- Zynga to open new studio in its Austin office: The new studio will focus on the development of NaturalMotion’s Star Wars game
- Google and My.Games launch mobile accelerator program
- My.Games launches cloud gaming service
- Thunderful acquires long-time LittleBigPlanet collaborator Station Interactive
- Thunderful acquires Station Interactive: Swedish development studio’s employees, IP, and assets will be incorporated into Thunderful Development
- As lockdowns lift, Tencent gaming revenues continue to rise: Online games revenues up 45% year-over-year, 8% quarter-over-quarter thanks to Honour of Kings, Peacekeeper Elite
- Paradox reports record quarterly revenues as Crusader Kings III sales top 1 million
- Embracer acquires 13 studios including Shadow Warrior dev Flying Wild Hog
- Embracer Group H1 sales up 132% to $524.2m: THQ Nordic and Koch Media parent reports growth across all divisions as it adds 13 new studios
- Thunderful Group intends to go public to raise cash for further acquisitions
- Thunderful Group prepares for IPO on NASDAQ First North Premier: Listing expected to raise close to $90 million for Swedish games firm, company valued at $395 million
- Female-led Queens Gaming Collective raises $1.5m: Gaming lifestyle company launches after seed round led by Bitkraft Ventures
- Mobile startup Lila Games raises $2.8m: Indian developer attracts investment from execs at Super Evil Megacorp and Machine Zone
- Conversation as the crewmate: Understanding the rise of Among Us: Barbie Koelker from conversation analysis platform Spiketrap explores Among Us’ growing popularity
- New toolbox shows teachers how to best use games in their classroom
- Wiggin acquires games law firm Purewal & Partners: Founder Jas Purewal is joining as partner, alongside his team
- All eyes on esports: staying ahead of the legal hurdles: As investment pours into the sector, legal firm Reed Smith offers advice to new companies seeking to avoid legal pitfalls
- The pandemic-fuelled esports boom: legal and regulatory considerations for investors
- NRG Esports Unveils Sprawling Content Creation “Castle” In Los Angeles
- Valve adds extensive developer commentary to Half-Life: Alyx
- Double win for Valve at 2020 VR Awards: Index headset won best hardware, while Half-Life: Alyx was crowned Game of the Year
- VR dev Resolution Games kicks off push into publishing with Odd Raven deal
- Resolution Games launches VR publishing arm: First partnership will bring Odd Raven Studio’s Carly and the Reaperman to Oculus Quest and Quest 2 next year
- Video: Lessons in developing functional artificial intelligence using VR
- Blog: The psychology of irresistible game offers
- Blog: 12 misconceptions that hurt the player experience
- Blog: Roguelike lessons horror games need to learn
- Blog: Spilt Milk Devlog 06 – Fascism Fighters 4000 (Part 1)
- Blog: What mechanics should you add to an Early Access game?
- Video: Porting your game to Oculus Quest
- Video: Why Survios builds new tech for games like Battlewake
- Don’t Miss: Looking back to Mark Cerny’s 2013 tech breakdown of the then-next-gen PS4
- Don’t Miss: Bad crediting hurts the game industry and muddles history
- Don’t Miss: How games like Super Mario Galaxy and Demon’s Souls handle subjective difficulty
- Don’t Miss: Inside the development of Supergiant Games’ Hades
- Q&A: Why Assassin’s Creed Valhalla did away with side quests
- The Last of Us Part 2, Hades dominate The Game Awards nominations: Sony received 22 nominations for its published games, including ten for The Last of Us Part 2
- U.S. Patent No. 10,471,357: Systems and methods for simulating a particular user in an interactive computer system
DIGITAL
- Amazon Sues Two TikTok, Instagram Influencers For Alleged Scheme To Sell Knockoff Designer Goods
- The Case Against Holding Amazon Liable for Third-Party Merchants’ Sales in its Marketplace (Eric Goldman)
- Massive, China-state-funded hack hits companies around the world, report says
- Hackers sponsored by Russia and North Korea are targeting COVID-19 researchers
- Russian Internet Research Agency Disinformation Activities on Tumblr: Identity, Privacy, and Ambivalence
- WHO Is Blocking Commenters From Even Mentioning Taiwan On Its Facebook Page
- Facebook Expands Access To ‘Rights Manager’ Video Copyright Tool, Rolls Out In-Stream Ads To 4 More Countries
- Facebook Can Block Scraper (For Now)–Facebook v. BrandTotal (Eric Goldman)
- Day After Senator Lindsey Graham Is Credibly Accused Of Trying To Undermine The Election, He Hosts Hearing Attacking Social Media For Undermining Election
- Trump Fires US Cybersecurity Director Chris Krebs After Krebs Debunks Trump’s Claims Of Election Systems Fraud
- US Cybersecurity Director Expecting To Be Fired After Refusing To Edit Page Debunking Election Hacking Myths
- Trump Campaign Gets Laughed Out Of Court For Claiming A Bunch Of Unvetted Webform Submissions Is ‘Evidence’ Of Voter Fraud
- Trump Campaign’s Ridiculous SLAPP Suit Against CNN Tossed Out Easily
- After Trump tweets Defcon hacking video, voting security experts call BS: Dozens of computer scientists say there’s “no credible evidence” of election fraud.
- Trump admin puts a hold on TikTok ban it seems to have forgotten about
- Trumpland Apparently Just Forgot About Its Manufactured TikTok Hysteria
- Commerce Department Remembers It Was Supposed To Ban TikTok; Says It Won’t Enforce For Now
- Insights: Social Media In The Post-Trump Era Headed To Splitsville
- The announcement of election results prompted the expected chorus of brands messaging about “unity,” but some opted to celebrate on social media.
- Facebook Extends Political Advertising Ban for Another Month, Including Advertising for Run-Offs
- Google to Extend Political Advertising Ban Through Year-End
- Google Pay relaunch transforms it into a full-fledged financial service
- Alphabet CEO: Plan to target EU commissioner was not “sanctioned” by me
- UK Politician Demands The Impossible: Social Media Companies Must Not Take Down Political Speech, But Must Block Disinformation
- Wish.com: sexually explicit in-app ads deemed offensive and inappropriately targeted
- Upload Filters And The Internet Architecture: What’s There To Like?
- Content Moderation Case Study: GoFundMe Addresses Controversial Fundraising Efforts (2020)
- Counterfeit Merch Is A Big Problem For Creators, And It’s Even Worse Than You Think.
- Markiplier, Ethan Nestor Bid Farewell To High-Concept ‘Unus Annus’ Channel — A Metaphor For Death
- Hulu raises Live TV price to $65, matching YouTube TV’s latest price hike
- Top 50 Most Viewed US YouTube Channels • Week Of 11/16/2020
- Top 50 Most Viewed YouTube Channels Worldwide • Week Of 11/16/2020
- YouTube Is Serving Young Viewers Age-Inappropriate Ads, Videos With Little Educational Value, Study Finds
- YouTube Shelves Annual ‘Rewind’ Video Given Hardships, Heaviness Of 2020
- YouTube Launches ‘Audio Ad’ Format To Capture Background Content Consumers
- Steph Curry’s YouTube Series ‘5 Minutes From Home’ Is Becoming An Audible Original Podcast
- Trump-Endorsed Right-wing YouTube Channels See Rise In Viewership
- On The Podcast: Ninja Doesn’t Want To Be Called A ‘YouTuber’. Is He Right?
- YouTube Will Now Serve Ads On Channels That Aren’t Eligible For Its Partner Program — Though Creators Won’t Earn A Cut
- GitHub agrees RIAA claim is bunk, restores popular YouTube download tool
- Teespring Teams Up With YouTubers For Merch-Selling Cyber Monday Live Streams
- Audiovisual Media Services Directive – European Commission adopts guidelines on video-sharing platforms and the promotion of European works
- BuzzFeed Seeking Next Social Video Star In IGTV Competition ‘Show Off’
- ‘The Good Place,’ ‘Brooklyn Nine-Nine’ Developer Tracey Pakosta Is Netflix’s New Head Of Comedy
- Instagram Gives Reels, Shop Permanent Spots On Nav Bar
- Instagram Finally Adds Ability To Search Platform Via Keyword
- TikTok’s ‘Hashtag Challenge Plus’ Ad Format Is Generating Billions Of Views For Brands
- ICE Briefly Becomes A Stranded Minor: Loses Its Twitter Account For Being Too Young
- Twitter Launches Stories-Like ‘Fleets’ Feature, With ‘Audio Spaces’ Soon To Follow
- What is Parler, and why is everyone suddenly talking about it?
- ‘Stop the Steal’ supporters, restrained by Facebook, turn to Parler to peddle false election claims
- What If Cambridge Analytica Owned Its Own Social Network? CA Backer Rebekah Mercer Admits She’s A Co-Founder Of Parler
- A history of Intel vs. AMD desktop performance, with CPU charts galore
- Beyond Screen Time: Identity Development in the Digital Age
- Nova Scotia’s eCourt platform is first online judicial dispute resolution service in Canada
- Why Does Silicon Valley Want to Reengineer Humans?: Human beings are not the problem. We are the solution.
- Japan-UK Trade Deal Shows How Controversial Digital Policies Can Be Slipped Through With Little Scrutiny Or Resistance
A.I.
- IP Rights and AI-Generated Works
- Amazon begins shifting Alexa’s cloud AI to its own silicon
- Video: Using AI to create interactive digital actors
- ICO publishes guidance on AI decision making
- Artificial intelligence and gender discrimination
- Artificial vision, white space and racial surveillance capitalism
- Technology vs Ideology: How Far will Artificial Intelligence and Distributed Ledger Technology Transform Corporate Governance and Business?
- AI revolution in medicine
COMMUNICATIONS
- Law Bytes Episode 69: Bram Abramson on the Government’s Plan to Regulate Internet Streaming Services (Michael Geist)
- Two Trump Defamation Claims Dismissed Including Claim Against TV Station for Political Attack Ad – What is the Relevance for Broadcasters?
- How the Presidential Transition Will Affect the FCC
- Big TCPA News: Biden Announces FCC Transition Team that Includes Former Commissioner Clyburn
- FCC Boss Pai Urged To Accept Trump Loss, Pause Dumb Attack On Social Media
- FCC takes spectrum from auto industry in plan to “supersize” Wi-Fi
- Broadband power users explode, making data caps more profitable for ISPs
- Digital Redlining: ISPs Widening The Digital Divide
- How Our Biggest ISPs Are Failing Students During COVID-19
- TV services head towards complex post-Brexit regulatory world
- FTC Tries to Clean Out 25 Fake Disinfectant Websites
INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY
- Boesen v. United Sports Publications, Ltd.: Court dismisses copyright claim, holding that publisher’s article that “embedded” Caroline Wozniacki’s Instagram post featuring plaintiff’s photograph constituted fair use.
- Flo & Eddie, Inc. v. Pandora Media, Inc.: Court denies anti-SLAPP motion by owners of pre-1972 sound recordings created by The Turtles, holding Pandora’s failure to pay for use of recordings was not a speech right
- Artistic license and use of copyright in creative pursuits
- The Pose Is Prologue
- Despite RIAA’s Claim That YouTube-dl Is Infringing, Journalists Use It All The Time
- GitHub, EFF Push Back Against RIAA, Reinstate Youtube-dl Repository
- YouTube Seeks To Crack Down On COVID-19 Vaccine Conspiracies In Fact-Check Panels
- Donald Trump Argues That Use Of ‘Electric Avenue’ In Campaign Video Was Transformative
- Montgomery v. Holland: Second Circuit affirms dismissal of copyright infringement claim targeting 2014 television miniseries Rosemary’s Baby, holding it was not substantially similar to plaintiff’s short stories.
- Is Software Patentable?
- Scientific publishers propose installing spyware in university libraries to protect copyrights: The hypothetical plan to combat digital piracy called for the use of software to monitor those accessing academic material
- Proctorio used DMCA to take down a student’s critical tweets: “This is really a textbook example of fair use”
- Copyright rides to the rescue: Brompton Bicycle is protected by copyright
- Copyright: Online platform operators’ liability for users illegally uploading copyright material
- No Future for Copyright or Trade Dress Protection for Personal Planner Layout
- The First Step to Protecting Your Brand in Canada
- EMPOWER-ing trademark infringement claims against public authorities
- Four Seasons Total Landscaping: trademark lessons from a bizarre political event
- In a Galaxy Not So Far, Far Away: Millennial Falcon v. Millennium Falcon
- Can Clickbait Cause Confusion? Purchasing AdWord Did Not Constitute Trademark Infringement or an Unfair Trade Practice
- Will the growing second-hand market for fashion fuel trademark disputes?
- Hugo Boss And Art Teacher Reach ‘Amicable Solution’ Over ‘Be Boss, Be Kind’ Trademark Application
- Trademark everything: The not-so-secret world of celebrity IP
- Why Don’t Conservatives Care About Copyright?
- Food Industry Insight – The Trade Dress of a Cookie is Held to be Functional
- Ninth Circuit Rules That the Identification of a Trade Secret May Be Developed Through Discovery
- Patent eligibility in Canada clarified with new Examination Guidelines
- CIPO’s new guidelines on patentable subject matter explained
- Presumed essential: CIPO clarifies its approach toward eligibility analysis following Federal Court decision
- Canadian Patent Office Issues Guidance to “Cooperate” With Inventors of Computer-Based Inventions
- Supreme Court to Decide Constitutionality of Patent Board
- Moderna’s covid vaccine is promising news, but IP issues may mean the financial windfall it enjoys are limited
- Working with known materials in life sciences: Key patent considerations
- Canadian courts show trend of awarding higher costs in IP litigation
- Five things to know about protecting IP rights on Amazon
PRIVACY
- “Publicity Placing the Plaintiff in a False Light” is the Newest Privacy Tort in Ontario
- Canada’s GDPR Moment: Why the Consumer Privacy Protection Act is Canada’s Biggest Privacy Overhaul in Decades (Michael Geist)
- Privacy Pressure Points: A Closer Look at Ten Consumer Privacy Protection Act Concerns (Michael Geist)
- Canada’s proposed new privacy law – Summary of business impacts
- The Canadian Government Proposes Significant Changes to Privacy Law: Key Features include New Requirements, Orders, Penalties and a Private Right of Action
- Information privacy and security in a virtual learning world
- Appeals Court Says Baltimore PD’s Aerial Surveillance Program Doesn’t Violate The Constitution
- Federal Court Says State Regulation That Compels Production Of Code May Violate The First Amendment
- Barbash v. STX Financing, LLC: Court dismisses adult entertainment host’s invasion of privacy and defamation claims against producers and distributors of film Hustlers
- How the U.S. Military Buys Location Data from Ordinary Apps: A Muslim prayer app with 98M downloads connects to a supply chain that sends people’s personal data to brokers, contractors & the military.
- Zoom Gets An FTC Wrist Slap For Misleading Users On Security, Encryption
- Instructors And School Administrators Are Somehow Managing To Make Intrusive Testing Spyware Even Worse
- EU Data Protection Regulators Issue Critical Draft Guidance on Personal Data Transfers
- Not Again! California Voters Enact California Privacy Rights Act: Now What?
- FTC requires video conferencing provider to safeguard against security risks
- Election 2020: Looking Forward to What a Biden Presidency May Mean for Data Privacy and Data Privacy Litigation
- ICO Fines Ticketmaster £1.25 Million for Security Failures
- Marriott International, Inc. fined £18.4m for personal data breach by the UK ICO under the GDPR (reduced from £99.2m)
- H&M hit with €35.3m fine for GDPR employee breach
- Resisting the rise of facial recognition
- Five months after the Schrems II decision, the EDPB has added long awaited clarity to the CJEU’s language regarding ‘supplemental measures’
- The iOS COVID-19 app ecosystem has become a privacy minefield
- Information privacy and security in a virtual learning world
- The Posthumous Privacy Paradox: Privacy preferences and Behavior Regarding Digital Remains
CREATIVITY
- Court of Appeal rules on the confidentiality of live sports data
- EU Court Backs Austrian Court, Says Local Libel Law Applies Everywhere In The World
- Conspiracy theories masquerading as news may be the biggest threat to our democratic world
- About Time: NY Governor Cuomo Signs Anti-SLAPP Law
- Freedom of Speech Gets a Big Boost With New York’s Passage of Widely Expanded Anti-SLAPP Law
- Devin Nunes Files Another SLAPP Suit; Sues The Washington Post Again
- COVID-19: Court Dismisses MLB Ticket Purchasers’ Action for Reimbursement After Shortened Season
Jon
News of the Week; November 11, 2020
GAMES
- Class action lawsuit accuses EA of changing game difficulty to push loot boxes
- EA faces yet another class-action lawsuit connected to loot boxes: EA calls claims “baseless,” says they “misrepresent our games”
- What’s Loot Got to do With It?
- Judge dismisses Apple’s claim of theft in Epic case: Court says ongoing legal battle should focus on breach of contract and anti-trust claims
- Judge says Apple isn’t entitled to extra monetary damages over Fortnite lawsuit
- SAG-AFTRA extends video game voice acting contract to November 2022
- Tommy Tallarico, Roblox come to agreement over “oof” sound effect: Popular death sound effect to be replaced in game, asset will be sold via Roblox store going forward
- Ubisoft apologises for ableist description in Assassin’s Creed Valhalla: The publisher said it will address the issue in an upcoming update
- Assassin’s Creed Valhalla review: A Viking quest worth sinking your axe into
- Ubisoft removing UK journalist from Watch Dogs over “controversial remarks”: The Atlantic writer Helen Lewis voiced a character on an in-game podcast
- MiHoYo reportedly discloses Genshin Impact players phone numbers: The studio said they took “immediate action to fix the problem,” which should now be resolved
- EA renews UFC, NHL, NHLPA partnerships with fresh ‘multi-year’ deals
- EA extends UFC, NHL licensing deals: Publisher will have exclusive rights to MMA league’s games through 2030 while hockey deal is a “multi-year renewal”
- EA quarterly sales slide due to later FIFA, Madden launches: Full game sales for the second quarter halved but publisher still beats guidance, announces stock buyback and dividend plans
- FIFA leads renewed mobile strategy at EA: CEO Andrew Wilson says “six new FIFA titles” are in development on mobile for “new genres and new markets”
- EA: Apex Legends on track to become billion dollar franchise by March 2021
- EA Play crosses 6.5 million paying subscribers
- EA Play reaches 6.5 million paid subscribers, EA aims to double that within a year
- EA looks to revamp its mobile biz to tap into an ‘unbelievable exponential opportunity’
- Live games continue to lead at Take-Two as recurrent consumer spend jumps 56%
- NBA 2K21 drives Take-Two earnings: Revenues and bookings flat but net income hops as CEO Zelnick reports pandemic-driven engagement boost hasn’t let up at all
- Take-Two president “highly sceptical” about games subscriptions: Karl Slatoff tells investors services like Xbox Game Pass will become the primary way games are consumed
- Take-Two in talks to acquire Dirt dev Codemasters
- Take-Two confirms $994 million purchase of Dirt developer Codemasters
- Take-Two in talks to buy Codemasters: Racing publisher says it has discussed a deal that would value it at nearly $1 billion
- Take-Two bids to buy Dirt 5 publisher Codemasters for $973.8 million
- Take-Two acquisition of Codemasters expected to go through in early 2021: Both publishers’ board of directors approve the proposed deal, valuing Codemasters at £726 million
- Sega Sammy calls for 650 staff to voluntarily retire: Japanese publisher records extraordinary losses around structural reform
- Sega Sammy struggling to weather the pandemic despite strong game sales
- Sega Sammy raises forecasts, despite losses driven by COVID-19: Publisher expects structural reform and increased games sales to carry company through tough financial year
- Mobile games set new quarterly revenue record at Konami
- Grounded tops 5 million players in under six months
- Nexon posts its best Q3 ever thanks to mobile revenue surge: Mobile revenue up 140% thanks to The Kingdom of the Winds Yeon, KartRider Rush+ and V4
- ‘HD Games’ profit dips at Square Enix following Marvel’s Avengers launch
- Capcom says customer information is secure following cyber attack
- Ten risks associated with the new EU Digital Content Directive: Legal expert Sebastian Schwiddessen breaks down how buggy games at launch, shutting titles down early and more can violate consumers’ rights
- Dontnod to embrace self-publishing for multiple future titles: CEO Oskar Guilbert says the studio wants to be “as independent as possible” going forward
- Griffin Gaming Partners raises $235 million to invest in games
- Griffin Gaming Partners raises $235m for gaming investments: Gaming-focused VC firm run by Philip Sanderson, Peter Levin, and Nick Tuosto already invested in Discord, Skillz and more
- Enthusiast Gaming plans to list on NASDAQ: Parent behind The Escapist and Luminosity Gaming
- First impressions: How are reviewers reacting to the PlayStation 5?
- PlayStation 5 | Critical Consensus: Critics agree that Sony’s PS5 transcends on-paper comparisons to Xbox, and is the only new console that “feels” next-gen from the first moment
- No day one stock for retail as Sony focuses PS5 launch sales online: Platform holder urges PlayStation fans to order through retail partners’ websites
- The PlayStation 5 has a hidden Web browser; here’s how to find it
- Sony debuts PS5 games ad as part of “memorable” launch efforts: Travis Scott returns alongside Spider-Man, Gran Turismo, Demon’s Souls, Horizon and more
- Sony launches PS5 remote play app for the PS4 with next-gen looming
- The PlayStation 5 was even larger in initial design concepts
- PlayStation 5 review: Not just a more-powerful PS4
- PlayStation 5 forgoes day one in-store launch as a COVID-19 precaution
- Sorry, you can’t move your discontinued copy of PT to the PS5
- PlayStation exec: Dual support for PS4 and PS5 planned for 3 years
- A tale of two consoles: Xbox Series X and S in review
- Xbox Series X/S review: Beautiful, powerful—but whatcha gonna play?
- If Xbox is Netflix, then PS5 is cinema | Console analysis: PlayStation’s new console is an extension of the games it makes
- The Different Strategies Of Microsoft And Sony’s Next-Generation Consoles: Choosing between a console is a more philosophical choice this generation
- First impressions of PS5 and Xbox Series X|S | Podcast: The team share their own experiences with the next-generation consoles on our latest episode, available to download now
- The last great console leap? | Opinion: Microsoft and Sony have different strategies, but they’re both launching consoles that feel less like a “clean break” with the past generation
- Xbox Series X|S | Critical Consensus: Reviewers like quality-of-life improvements on Microsoft’s new systems, but recommendations come with big caveats
- Microsoft: Xbox Series S does not hold back the next generation, it advances it – Platform holder explains why it dropped Xbox One X, rather than maintaining it as a low-end console
- Xbox: Next-gen battle will “not be a reflection of demand — it’ll be a reflection of supply” – Phil Spencer disregards tendency to declare ““a winner and… a loser” between sales of Xbox and PlayStation
- Report: Microsoft holding acquisition talks with a number of Japanese developers
- Spencer: Microsoft almost abandoned Xbox brand after the Xbox One launch
- Dev-friendliness, scalability at top of mind for Xbox development chief
- Some Amazon Xbox Series X pre-orders may not arrive until December: A Microsoft spokesperson said the company is “working tirelessly with retail partners to replenish Xbox hardware as quickly as possible”
- Nintendo raises forecasts as H1 profits triple to $2.8bn: Full-year Switch sales predicted to reach 24 million, five million units higher than previously expected
- Switch driving growth at Nintendo as console nears 70 million sales
- Google Is Giving YouTube Premium Subscribers A Free Stadia Controller, Chromecast Ultra
- Steam adds frictionless playtesting feature: The new tool will make playtests accessible directly from a title’s store page
- BioWare confirms Mass Effect remaster in 2021, new Mass Effect later
- Final Fantasy 7 Remake, Avengers push Square Enix H1 sales up 43%: Publisher’s HD Games division posts profits for the six-month period, but last quarter was in the red
- FIFA 21 and Star Wars: Squadrons come out top in October | EMEAA Charts: Nintendo Switch console sales up 77% in October 2020 vs 2019
- Watch Dogs: Legion knocks down FIFA 21 | UK Digital Charts: Ni No Kuni Wrath of the White Witch on Switch makes No.3
- Slight jump in boxed game sales as lockdown returns | UK Boxed Charts: Nintendo Switch games post strong week-on-week increases
- NPD says US consumers spent a record amount on games in Q3: $11.2 billion total for July-September span is up 24% on last year; market research firm expects Q4 to set records as well
- Descenders has sold over 250,000 units: Nearly 3.5 million people have played the biking title across all platforms, thanks to its success on Xbox Game Pass
- Hitman franchise crosses 70 million players in 20 years
- Assassin’s Creed Valhalla | Critical Consensus: Critics agree that Valhalla is one of the very best Assassin’s Creed games, but its underlying themes are tainted by Ubisoft’s year of scandal
- Spider-Man: Miles Morales review: New hero, same heroic gameplay
- Why do some games just… keep selling?
- The Game Developer’s Playlist: Full Throttle with Chandana Ekanayake | Outerloop Games co-founder shares how the 1995 biking adventure inspired him to get into games
- Light Brick, the once and possibly future Lego studio: Builder’s Journey studio co-founders say they spun out to be more agile and independent, but Lego Ventures backed them with an eventual reunion in mind
- Amber opens new studio in Montreal: New branch will focus on QA, localisation and engineering
- Epic is gauging interest in a Fortnite monthly subscription plan
- Epic Games gauging interest in monthly Fortnite subscription: If implemented, subscribers would receive Battle Pass, early access to free skins and regular V-Bucks
- Which publishers are the game subscription believers?
- Night Media Signs 6-Channel Family Gaming Empire FGTeeV
- After Mixer Closed, Ninja Chose Twitch Over YouTube Because He Didn’t Want To Be Known As “A YouTuber”
- Twitch Unveils Full Rundown For Saturday’s ‘GlitchCon’ — Its Virtual Reimagining Of TwitchCon
- Twitch Apologizes To Creators Hit By Mass DMCAs And Content Deletions, Says It’s In Talks With Record Labels
- Twitch explains confusing copyright crackdown, urges users to delete videos
- Twitch apologizes for handling of mass copyright claims: Streaming platform apologizes for giving streamers unhelpful warnings, little notice in face of avalanche of DMCA claims from record labels
- Esports brand Fnatic raises $10m: Also offering fans the chance to invest via $1.3m Crowdcube campaign
- Esports platform Edge raises $1.5m: Investment will be used for recruitment and improving its tech, which simplifies esports contracts, payments and more
- 100 Thieves To Enter Call Of Duty League With New Team, Los Angeles Thieves
- ESPN Confirms Future Shut Down of Esports Editorial Operations
- ESPN ends its daily esports coverage, laying off at least eight: Network to continue covering esports on a story-by-story basis following cost-cutting measures, layoffs
- Original founder re-acquires OpTic Gaming: Hector Rodriguez takes esports organization back after Immortals Gaming Club acquisition last year
- Fortnite reportedly returning to iOS via GeForce Now: An announcement from Nvidia is expected “before the winter holidays” the BBC reported
- Lifting the VR veil: How PlayStation 5 works with Sony’s last-gen headset
- It Took Just 5 Minutes Of Movement Data To Identify ‘Anonymous’ VR Users
- Composing the blockbuster soundtrack of Ghost of Tsushima: Written to reflect the game’s historical setting, Ilan Eshkeri discusses the creative and practical process behind the PlayStation exclusive’s music
- Video: Making great key art for your game’s front end
- Video: How to wrangle inflation in your online game economy
- Don’t Miss: A deep dive into Forza Horizon 3’s online co-op multiplayer
- Don’t Miss: How Onrush harnesses the chaos of a racing battle
- Don’t Miss: A 2013 snapshot of game developers’ motion control tips, lessons, and dreams
- Don’t Miss: Translating the humor & tone of the Yakuza games for the West
- Don’t Miss: What was it like programming Skyrim?
- Blog: How spreadsheets power civilian AI in Watch Dogs 2
- Blog: The argument for simpler games
- Blog: Combining 2D and 3D effects in Blightbound
- Blog: How to run offers in free-to-play (and avoid backlashes)
- Blog: Developing a tabletop game
- Analyst: The next-gen console race is Sony’s to lose
- U.S. Patent No. 10,478,735: Video game system with spectator mode hud
- U.S. Patent No. 10,509,461: Augmented reality video game systems
DIGITAL
- Amazon’s use of marketplace data breaks competition law, EU charges
- Antitrust: Commission sends Statement of Objections to Amazon for the use of non-public independent seller data and opens second investigation into its e-commerce business practices
- Facebook and Twitter struggle with online fury from Trump supporters
- Microsoft engineer gets nine years for stealing $10M from Microsoft
- QAnon Conspiracy Theorists Can’t Force YouTube to Carry Their Videos–Doe v. Google (Eric Goldman)
- United States v Google: A Re-Found Willingness to Regulate Technology Monopolies?
- Bot or Not? Authenticating Social Media Evidence at Trial in the Age of Internet Fakery
- Facebook’s latest attempt to slow disinformation means probation for groups
- YouTube Election Loophole Lets Some False Trump-Win Videos Spread
- How Well Did Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube Handle Election Misinformation?
- YouTube Touted Its Handling Of Election Misinformation. But Now It Says Videos Spreading Vote Tabulation Conspiracies, False Win Claims Are Fine.
- Google Photos is the latest “Unlimited” plan to impose hard limits
- Google Photos will end its free unlimited storage on June 1st, 2021: After 15 gigs, you’ll need to pony up for Google One
- Netflix files copyright claims against tweets criticizing movie, trailer
- Netflix Targets Critical ‘Cuties’ Tweets With Copyright Takedown Requests
- Netflix Gets Cute Using DMCA Notices To Take Down Tweets Critical Of ‘Cuties’
- Netflix Testing Pre-Programmed, Linear TV-Style Channel Called ‘Direct’ In France
- FCC General Counsel Issues Guidance on the Agency’s Section 230 Authority
- Section 230 Faces the Heat
- Content Moderation Case Study: Google Refuses A Law Enforcement Agency Demand To Remove A Video Depicting Police Brutality (2011)
- Content Moderation Case Study: Using Fact Checkers To Create A Misogynist Meme (2019)
- Ten Common Mistakes When Conducting Sweepstakes or Contest Promotions on Social Media
- If You Want an Enforceable Online Contract, You Better Keep a Good Chain of Evidence–Snow v. Eventbrite Eric Goldman)
- Emojis & The Law: An Interview with Professor Eric Goldman
- The Latest Influencer Hotspot Is An Abandoned California Ghost Town
- UK Wing Of TikTok Swears It Isn’t Helping The Chinese Government Oppress Uighur Muslims
- UK Advertising Regulator makes first ever ruling on disclosures required for commercial marketing via a TikTok video
- TikTok Predicted To Hit 1 Billion Users In 2021
- TikTok users troll Trump “voter fraud” reporting hotline en masse
- TikTok says it’s been waiting weeks for a Trump response on US ban
- Fullscreen To Be Dramatically Affected By WarnerMedia Layoffs
- Vimeo Raises $150 Million Amid Record Revenue Growth, Eyes Spinoff From Parent IAC
- Spotify May Be Eyeing Podcast-Only Subscription Tiers
- In Biggest Podcast Purchase Yet, Spotify Acquires Ad And Publishing Platform ‘Megaphone’ For $235 Million
- Patreon, Acast Partner To Help Podcasters Distribute Paywalled Content More Broadly
- Intel SGX defeated yet again—this time thanks to on-chip power meter
- Apple dishes details on its new M1 chip
- First ARM-based Mac laptops: MacBook Air and 13-inch MacBook Pro
- Update! Apple Announces New Privacy Disclosures Required Starting December 8
- Apple, Sony Reportedly Eyeing $300-$400 Million Acquisition Of Podcast Network Wondery
- Apple supplier Pegatron found using illegal student labor in China
- After IPO, BBTV Signs Parkour Athlete Nick Pro, Lifestyle Vlogger Francesca Farago, More
- Reebok Sits Down With Hit YouTube Franchise ‘Hot Ones’ For Footwear, Apparel Collaboration
- Top 50 Most Viewed US YouTube Channels • Week Of 11/09/2020
- Top 50 Most Viewed YouTube Channels Worldwide • Week Of 11/09/2020
- The anatomy of Zoom fatigue
- Key Takeaways from New Cryptocurrency Enforcement Framework by US Department of Justice
- The feds just seized Silk Road’s $1 billion stash of bitcoin
- US Seizes $1 Billion in Bitcoin Associated With Silk Road
A.I.
- Patenting Artificial Intelligence in Canada, the UK and Europe: A Primer
- AI Application Examination: 5 Key trends
- Understanding the AI Patent Landscape
- Plans for new AI legal framework gather pace
- A global legal standard for Artificial Intelligence? The European Parliament proposes legislation
- AI and Climate Change: The Promise, the Perils and Pillars for Action
- The De-democratization of AI: Deep Learning and the Compute Divide in Artificial Intelligence Research
- Co-regulating algorithmic disclosure for digital platforms
- Extending the framework of algorithmic regulation. The Uber case
- AI and health data: cracking the privacy code
- James Corden is a snarky AI that might take out humanity in Superintelligence
COMMUNICATIONS
- Cultural Uncertainty: A Closer Look at Heritage Minister Steven Guilbeault’s Timeline For Internet Regulation (Michael Geist)
- Universal Broadband Fund and Telesat low Earth orbit capacity agreement (Government of Canada)
- Merger ‘Synergies’ Force T-Mobile To Pay $200 Million Fine For Sprint Falsehoods
- ESPN Lays Off 300 Staffers Amid Resource Shift Toward DTC, Digital Businesses
- No Chips? No Worries. Ninth Circuit Rejects FTC’s Petition for En Banc Review of Decision Holding that Qualcomm Has No Antitrust Duty to Deal with Rivals
- Fox News doubles down on calling Arizona for Biden
- The moment Fox News projected Joe Biden will win 2020 presidential election – video
- Ajit Pai urged to accept Trump loss and stop controversial rulemakings
- D.C. Circuit Rejects Petitions to Strike Down FCC’s 2019 Unbundling and Resale Forbearance Order
- FCC Opens Application Portal for $100 Million in Funding to Support Connected Care Services
- FCC Adopts Order Expanding Unlicensed Wireless Operations in TV White Spaces
- FCC Announces T-Mobile Will Pay $200 Million Penalty Resolving Sprint Lifeline Investigation
- Wireless 5G Networks in 2021
- There Is No ‘Race To 5G.’ And The U.S. Wouldn’t Be Winning Even If There Was
- Alphabet delivers wireless Internet over light beams from 20km away
- Improperly installed Ring doorbells are catching on fire
- Your Slingbox Will Be A Useless Brick In A Few Years
- We Do Not Have the Internet We Deserve
INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY
- Game, set, match: Sometimes the photo is the story
- Federal Judge Rules Embedding of Instagram Post Containing Copyrighted Photo is Fair Use
- Embedding in a State of Flux: New York Courts Challenge Decade Old Reasoning from the Ninth Circuit
- Vallejo v. Narcos Productions LLC (USCA, Oct.27, 2020): Held that portions Netflix’s Narcos series are not substantially similar to journalist’s memoir regarding romantic relationship with Pablo Escobar
- Capote Charity Claims Copyright
- Anti-Cheat Student Software Proctorio Issuing DMCA Takedowns Of Fair Use Critiques Over Its Code
- Copyright Plaintiffs Can’t Figure Out What Copyrights They Own, Court Says ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ (Eric Goldman)
- Canada’s Forever Register: Newfoundland Trademark Registrations
- Anita White Strikes Back With Second Trademark Suit
- He May be Undefeated in the Ring, but Floyd Mayweather Got Knocked Out at the Trademark Office.
- Augusta National Blazes a Trail to Registration of its Iconic Green Jacket
- “I sense a disturbance in the force” When Star Wars universe meets Trademark law: Millennial Falcon v Millennium Falcon
- Glossier’s Pink Pouch TM Registration Could Mean a Rosy Future for Non-Traditional Marks
- Alleged bait-and-switch selling found not to constitute trade mark infringement
- Aussie Brewer Keeps Digging Holes With Trademark Lawsuits, Now Owes Court Costs
- Trademark protection on e-commerce platforms
- Seeing Green – Post-Election Day 2020: State Trademarks for Cannabis Goods & Services
- TTAB Refuses Registration of .SUCKS
- Trade Secret Strategies: Using Standstill Agreements to Resolve Disputes Out of Court
- Sedona Conference Publishes Commentary on Proper Trade Secret Identification
- Federal Court finds that discoverability principle applies to limitation periods under Section 55.01 of Patent Act
- The Impact of CIPO’s New Guidance on the Prosecution of Patent Applications Directed to Diagnostic Methods
- Canadian Intellectual Property Office issues Practice Notice regarding patentable subject matter
- 2020 Brings Growing Trend of Patent Cases Decided by way of Summary Trial
- Is the new toilet on the International Space Station patentable?
- Augmented Reality/Virtual Reality Patent Prosecution Update: 2020 Q3 Prosecution Statistics
- How to protect a user interface with a patent
- Massachusetts Voters Overwhelmingly Support Expanded ‘Right To Repair’ Law
- Proactive Protection: Intellectual Property Audits
- Under President Biden, IP evolution is much more likely than revolution
- WIPO Launches “WIPO Lex-Judgments” Database
PRIVACY
- Anonymous video analytics’ future uncertain after Canadian privacy regulators’ investigation
- Privacy Enforcement Update: Possible Collaboration Between the Competition Bureau and the Office of the Privacy Commissioner
- Mall real estate company collected 5 million images of shoppers, say privacy watchdogs
- Facial Recognition Company’s Employees Abused Tech To Sexually Harass Coworkers
- Software snoops on students during exams
- FTC Settles Complaint Against Zoom Regarding End-to-End Encryption
- Zoom Settles with FTC Over Deceptive Security Claims
- Zoom lied to users about end-to-end encryption for years, FTC says
- California Court Says Wiretap Target Should Have Access To Wiretap Documents
- Mississippi City Trying To Turn Residents’ Doorbell Cameras Into Law Enforcement Surveillance Network
- San Diego’s spying streetlights stuck switched “on,” despite directive
- EU Takes Another Small Step Towards Trying To Ban Encryption; New Paper Argues Tech Can Nerd Harder To Backdoor Encryption
- Surprise: Latest Draft Of The EU’s Next Big Privacy Law Includes Some Improvements
- Data Broker On The Hook For $5 Million After Abusing Its Access To North Carolina DMV Data
- Portland’s Facial Recognition Ban Won’t Stop Private Citizens From Rolling Their Own Tech To ID Cops
- The DOJ Will Finally Allow Local Cops To Wear Body Cameras When Working With Federal Agencies
- California Voters Adopt the California Privacy Rights Act
- California Ramps up Consumer Privacy Enforcement
- California Privacy Rights Act Passes – Dramatically Altering the CCPA
- Democratizing Platform Privacy
- Michigan Voters Add Constitutional Protections for Electronic Data and Communications
- Building a Robust Biometric Compliance Program in the US: A Five-Step Checklist
- Schrems II: Court Orders the DPC to Pay Majority of Costs
CREATIVITY
- Gun-Toting Couple Sues Photographer For Privacy Violation Over Photo They Used As Christmas Cards, After He Billed Them
- Using hate speech as an excuse
- China’s Hong Kong Protester-Targeting ‘See Something, Say Something’ Hotline Is A Big Success
- How Should Social Media Handle Election Polls That Turned Out To Be Misinformation?
- Xiaolu Guo: “The way we read has changed radically in the digital age” – The Chinese novelist on her book A Lover’s Discourse, her love of Roland Barthes, and why fragmented narratives best represent modern life.
Jon
News of the Week; November 4, 2020
GAMES
- Bandai Namco, AtGames resolve legal dispute: Judge dismisses lawsuit over Ms. Pac-Man rights, clearing way for re-release of AtGames’ Namco arcade microconsole
- EA fined €10m over loot boxes as Dutch court sides with gambling authority: District court unmoved by FIFA publisher’s defenses, denies its bid to keep fines from being made public
- Dutch judge rules that EA should be fined €500k every week until it removes FIFA loot boxes: FUT Had Been Deemed In Violation Of Gambling Rules
- Opening Pandora’s Loot Box? Canadian Class Action Lawsuit Over Loot Boxes May Provide Guidance On The Legality of Loot Boxes in Canada
- Sony legal threat compels PS5 faceplate company to cancel all orders: CustomizeMyPlates also had to rebrand from PlateStation5 following complaints from platform holder
- Judge rejects Google’s attempt to push Epic case to October 2022: Fortnite firm has suggested February 2021 as judge tells both companies to “get moving”
- Amazon patents method of grouping toxic players together online: Patent filing suggests gamers would be able to specify preferences for the behaviours they would accept
- Ubisoft investigating after ransomware group claims to have leaked Watch Dogs source code: 560GB code for Legion reportedly available online, could endanger anti-piracy measures
- Reports of Watch Dogs Legion source code leak prompts Ubisoft investigation
- Take-Two Finds Less Success with Second Take on Copyright and Tattoos
- Randy Orton’s Tattoos Divide Courts as Gamers Prepare for PS5 and Xbox Series X
- 2020 is already a record year for games investment: $5.2 billion in investment in Q3 alone brings the year’s total to $9.9 billion so far
- Scopely raises $340 million at $3.3 billion valuation as mobile games thrive during pandemic
- Newzoo raises its annual games industry forecast for 2020 once again: COVID-19’s impact on the market expected to bring industry revenue to $174.9 billion this year
- Billy Mitchell’s Defamation Case Against Twin Galaxies Over ‘Donkey Kong’ High Score Can Go Forward
- Opportunity for Game Publishers & Developers: Over a Quarter of Western Lapsed Gamers Are Looking to Play Again
- Lab Zero founder Mike Zaimont suspended from work on Guilty Gear update
- Standing on the shoulders of Riot Grrrl: Story Juice and punk feminism in games: “When you can’t see your stories and perspectives in an industry, then you have to put them there,” says studio founder Dr Hannah Wood
- Game developers have too much job security | 10 Years Ago This Month
- Biden/Harris Campaign Deploys Custom ‘Fortnite’ Map To Teach Voters About Key Policies
- Old School Runescape breaks concurrent player record during Leagues II event
- Is the games industry open to working class people?
- Black representation in games | Podcast
- Twitch Marketing Promo Over Golden Emoji Goes Horribly Wrong After DMCA Nuclear Strike
- Hasan Piker’s Twitch Stream Is the Future of Election Night Coverage: Last night’s Twitch stream was so thoroughly modern that I was actually able to calm down.
- Elastic Audio announces Intonal, a new audio programming language for games: CEO Andrew Beck says Intonal would allow game sound design to be as reactive and adaptive as graphic design
- Pokémon Go’s 2020 revenues estimated at $1bn so far: Niantic game on course to record its best year ever, third biggest mobile game globally
- Digital and catalog sales continue to drive growth at Capcom
- Capcom’s games business rescues six-month results: Total revenue and profits increased despite the impact of COVID-19 on arcades and amusement centres
- Frostpunk board game raises over €2m on Kickstarter
- Guild Wars 2 pauses Steam plans to focus on expansion development
- Steam rolls out built-in playtest invite and management tool beta for devs
- The Lego Group helps Builder’s Journey dev Light Brick go independent
- PUBG Mobile has ceased operations in India due to government ban: Tencent statement defends protection of user data — “we deeply regret this outcome”
- Tencent shutting down PUBG Mobile in India following government ban
- Tencent leads $25 million investment in Avakin Life dev Lockwood Publishing
- Tencent invests in Lockwood Publishing: Chinese tech giant leads a $25 million investment round in the Avakin Life creator
- Tencent-owned Honor of Kings is recording 100 million average daily active users
- Sega Sammy sells off arcade business as COVID takes its toll
- Sega Sammy sells arcade business Sega Entertainment to Genda Inc: Company says arcades suffered due to COVID-19; expects “extraordinary losses” for fiscal year related to the sale
- Gfinity cuts costs, seeks stability following another year of losses: Operating loss for the year was £5.5 million as company ponders acquisitions, partnerships, or sale
- Zynga posts record quarterly revenues, bookings: Social publisher sees even more acquisitions in its future as revenue, engagement metrics grow, but net loss remains
- Stillfront acquires collectible card game developer Everguild for $1.37 million
- Stillfront Group acquires Everguild for £1.06m: Studio collective expands into the CCG genre with Madrid-based developer
- Curve Digital acquires For the King developer IronOak Games
- Curve Digital acquires IronOak Games: Canadian studio behind For the King becomes Curve’s second studio acquisition
- UK startup Sugar closes £1.5m pre-seed round: Passion Capital leads investment in new firm offering finance to games studios wishin to avoid equity funding
- Phil Spencer: “Our motivation is not to turn everybody into a subscriber” – The Xbox chief renewed his commitment to retail and said Game Pass is not here to “take options away from people”
- Phil Spencer calls for more diverse leaders in games: Having “visible leaders” should be the industry’s focus, Xbox chief said, addressing the role Microsoft has to play against racial inequity
- Bethesda exec says an Xbox-exclusive Elder Scrolls is “hard to imagine”
- Bethesda, Microsoft Make Conflicting Statements About Game Exclusivity After Studio Purchase
- Microsoft tightens Xbox security to prevent DDOS attacks: Xbox players were being targeted through “random party invites” in multiplayer titles
- Xbox Party Chat security is being improved to protect IP addresses
- PlayStation boss prefers organic studio growth over ‘frenzied’ spending
- PlayStation CEO Jim Ryan on making PS5 more successful than PS4: “I’ve done them all, and this has easily been the most extraordinary PlayStation launch of any of them.”
- Sony expects PS5 to exceed PS4’s 7.6m launch sales this fiscal year: But CFO Hiro Totoki says each unit will make a “negative contribution to earnings for the time being”
- The big boost – PlayStation Plus & Fall Guys’ success?
- Does PlayStation need to buy more games studios? | Opinion: With Microsoft snapping up major studios and publishers in recent years, we consider the implications for Sony
- Sony reportedly puts a stop to third-party PS5 faceplate plans
- War Stories: How Nintendo sold the NES to a skeptical country
- Bringing more franchises to mobile is Activision Blizzard’s biggest opportunity, says COO
- Activision-Blizzard needs to hire 2,000 people to meet production demands: Publisher to beef up for franchise-focused strategy a year and a half after laying off 800
- Activision Blizzard reports $1.95 billion in revenue
- Activision Blizzard beats forecasts with $1.95 billion in Q3 net revenue
- Call of Duty drives Activision Blizzard revenues up 52% year-over-year: Modern Warfare reboot sets franchise record for first-year premium sales as engagement dips for Blizzard, King
- Far Cry 6, Rainbow 6 Quarantine delayed: Ubisoft pushes upcoming games into next fiscal year as it reports record profits for first half of year
- Live games keep cash flow steady as Ubisoft readies for big launches
- Some current-gen Ubisoft games are forward compatible on Xbox but not PlayStation
- Ubisoft ‘undertook profound actions’ to address studio culture concerns, says CEO
- Ubisoft’s strong earnings benefit from live service games and back catalog sales during pandemic
- Facebook’s cloud isn’t for the birds | Opinion
- CD Projekt Red’s stock fell 25% in two months amid Cyberpunk uncertainty: Negative stories about the production and release of Cyberpunk 2077 coincided with €2.5b decline in market cap
- CD Projekt attributes new Cyberpunk delay to working with current-gen consoles: Co-CEO Adam Kiciński apologizes to staff for “demeaning and harmful” comments about crunch during investor call
- CD Projekt: Cyberpunk crunch ‘not that bad’, ‘mostly’ hits QA, engineers, programmers
- Developer talent representation evolving alongside the industry: CAA head of games Derek Douglas discusses how Hollywood agencies have handled gaming over his 15-year career
- Friday the 13th: The Game winds down with final patch, end of dedicated servers
- Skate 3 returns to top three ten years after release | UK Digital Charts: But FIFA 21 remains at the top
- Soft opening week for Watch Dogs Legion and Pikmin 3 | UK Physical Charts: New Dark Pictures game breaks Top Ten
- What could game publishers be doing better?
- Gears Pop! to shut down as long-term support becomes unfeasible
- Light Brick Studio splitting off from Lego: Builder’s Journey developer goes indie with investment from Lego Ventures, will continue to work on Lego games
- Caspar Lee-Founded Fund Invests In Spanish Creator Monetization Startup ‘Streamloots’
- Oculus Quest 2 pre-orders were five times higher than Oculus Quest: Mark Zuckerberg sets a target of “ten million active units” to make Facebook’s VR platform self-sustaining
- PlayStation boss suggests the ‘meaningful’ future of VR is still years away
- Jim Ryan: “We’re more than a few minutes from the future of VR” – PlayStation’s CEO said VR will not be “meaningful component of interactive entertainment” until at least 2022
- Sony to give away adapters to allow VR use on PlayStation 5: PSVR is not compatible with the PS5 out of the box, but Sony will start shipping adapters for free from the end of October
- The PlayStation 5 only supports PlayStation VR for PS4 games right now
- Saved by Morrowind, striving for Starfield: Todd Howard and the story of Bethesda
- Blog: Breaking down the level design of Die Young: Prologue
- Blog: A study on modern mobile design
- Blog: What I learned after making an Among Us-like game in 10 days
- Blog: What is the Unity Asset Store and how to make money on it?
- Video: Designing the robot dinosaurs of Horizon Zero Dawn
- Video: Creating Michelangelo’s David in VR
- Don’t Miss: The six year journey to Donut County
- Don’t Miss: Game dev advice for creating terrifying and memorable 2D monsters
- Don’t Miss: Building the PvE features in World of Warcraft: Battle for Azeroth
- Don’t Miss: Building a light-hearted puzzle game around Friday the 13th
- Don’t Miss: 6 techniques to make game narratives more dynamic
- Video: Building a writer’s room for Life is Strange: Before the Storm
- Mobile game sales deep dive: Meteorfall: Krumit’s Tale
- Thanks To Fair Use, One Man Is Trying To Preserve Old School Video Game Manuals
DIGITAL
- Facebook Charged Biden a Higher Price Than Trump for Campaign Ads: In swing states, Biden paid average ad rates of $34 compared with Trump’s average of $17 in July and August
- The Trump Camp Has Bought YouTube’s Masthead Ad 20 Times This Election—Including On Election Day
- What Twitter Did After Trump Said Democrats Are Trying to “STEAL” the Election
- Trump’s campaign and family boost bogus conspiracy theories in a bid to undermine vote count: Campaign sent estimated 9 million texts according to anti-robocall firm, some seeking money to launch voting challenges
- Court tosses constitutional challenge to Trump order on social media
- Facebook targeted in U.K. legal action over Cambridge Analytica
- Facebook sued by UK group over Cambridge Analytica breach
- Insights: Social Media Platforms’ Election-Protection Plans A Start, But Not Nearly Enough Change For Long-Term
- What The Election Means For Tech
- While Social Media Was Quick To Highlight And Limit The Spread Of False Claims Of Election Victory, Traditional Media Just Let It Flow
- Another Court Rejects Trump’s Censorial Anti-TikTok EO–Marland v. Trump (Eric Goldman)
- Judge: Trump Admin‘s TikTok ban would cause “irreparable harm” to creators
- Three TikTok Influencers Influenced A Judge To Block Trump’s TikTok Ban
- TikTok Countersues Triller, Says Its Tech Doesn’t Violate Patent
- TikTok Re-Ups Licensing Deal With Sony, Adding Marketing, Artist Discovery Components
- Nixon Scandal Resulted In A Law To Prevent The Politicization Of Antitrust Cases; Meanwhile Trump Uses His Politicized Antitrust Effort In Campaign Ad
- As Trump falsely claims victory, Twitter and Facebook counter misinformation
- How Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Reddit are handling the election
- Turkish President Sues Dutch Lawmaker Over A Bunch Of ‘Insulting’ Tweets
- U.S. Department of Justice Sues Google for Antitrust Violations
- Google Kills Nest Secure, Can’t Be Bothered To Explain Support Roadmap
- Senate hauls Zuckerberg, Dorsey into hearing to yell at them about tweets
- The Senate Snowflake Grievance Committee Quizzes Tech CEOs On Tweets & Employee Viewpoints
- A Digital Tech New Deal to break up Big Tech: Antitrust efforts in the US are not enough to counter the global power of Big Tech.
- NZ Supreme Court Gives A Mixed Bag Extradition Ruling To Kim Dotcom; Extradition Still Alive, But He Can Raise Procedural Issues
- Transparency Is Important; Mandated Transparency Is Dangerous And Will Stifle Innovation And Competition
- Constitutional Challenge to Trump’s Anti-230 EO Fails–Rock the Vote v. Trump (Eric Goldman)
- Free Market Advocate Switches Sides, Calls For Direct Government Interference In Online Moderation Decisions
- Trump campaign out $2.3 million after hack of Wisconsin GOP
- Changing Section 230 Won’t Fix Politicians’ Issues With Section 230
- Twitter, Facebook, Google Heads Testify on Section 230 and Local Journalism
- Your Problem Is Not With Section 230, But The 1st Amendment
- Snapchat Isn’t Liable for Its Speed Filter (Even if Section 230 Doesn’t Apply)–Maynard v. Snapchat (Eric Goldman)
- Creators Are Starting To Make A Lot Of Money On Facebook
- Facebook’s Handy Identity Crisis: Publisher or bulletin board? Can it really give up news sharing? Why the tech giant works hard to resist definition.
- Facebook Takes Aim at NYU Web Scrapers
- This microscopic 3D-printed Star Trek Voyager can move on its own
- Apple One, Apple’s answer to Amazon Prime, is finally launching
- On The Podcast: All The Reasons Why Quibi Didn’t Work
- A Quick Bite Post Mortem For For Quibi: Hollywood Still Doesn’t Get The Internet
- BEN Group Acquires YouTube Channel-Optimizing Browser Extension ‘TubeBuddy’
- YouTube Hits $5 Billion In Ad Revenue, 30 Million Premium And Music Subscribers In Q3
- YouTube Soundtracking Service Epidemic Sound Launches ‘Music Recommender’ Tool For Creators
- Ryan Kaji Becomes First YouTuber To Be Featured In Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade In Roughly A Century
- “Baby Shark” Overtakes “Despacito” To Become YouTube’s Most-Watched Video Of All Time
- Tati Westbrook Sued By Former Business Partner In Her Halo Beauty Vitamin Venture
- David Dobrik Links Up With Leonardo DiCaprio For Second Voter Registration Contest
- Google says it’s “committed” to Nest Secure but won’t ship any new features
- Senate hauls Zuckerberg, Dorsey into hearing to yell at them about tweets
- Netflix Raises Subscription Prices In The U.S., Causing Shares To Jump 4%
- Spotify CEO Says ‘The Joe Rogan Experience’ Is No. 1 English Podcast, Has “Outperformed Our Expectations”
- Filtering feminisms: Emergent feminist visibilities on Instagra
- Creator Community Standard Beefs Up In-House Video Production With Acquisition Of Studio Mighteor
- The Ongoing Transformation of the Digital Public Sphere: Basic Considerations on a Moving Target
- Decentralize the feedback infrastructure! (Pedro Garcia Lopez)
- Revisiting the Black Box Society by rethinking the political economy of big data (Benedetta Brevini, Frank Pasquale)
- Dark pools and data markets: an exploration of the regulatory challenges
- The Janus faces of Silicon Valley
- Freedom of Expression and Alternatives for Internet Governance: Prospects and Pitfalls (Emma Ricknell)
- A Digital Tech New Deal: Digital Socialism, Decolonization, and Reparations for a Sustainable Global Economy (Michael Kwet)
- California votes against granting Uber and Lyft drivers employee status
- Who Needs to Tell the U.S. Internal Revenue Service About Their Cryptocurrency Activity?
- US Bank Crypto Services Proceed, Crypto Debit Cards Launch in US and Mexico, Blockchain Enterprise Developments, and Crypto Enforcement Continues
- Someone has transferred ~$1 billion from a bitcoin wallet quiet since 2015
A.I.
- A new way to plug a human brain into a computer: Via veins
- Acknowledging AI as an Inventor of IP – A Slippery Slope to Giving AI the Same Rights as Humans?
- AI use in U.S. criminal justice reinforced racialized decision-making: Law Commission of Ontario
- Racial Discrimination in Face Recognition Technology
- Legal and Ethics Checklist for AI Systems
- Draft Proposal for the Regulation of Ethical AI
- Weak Ties: The Urban History of an Algorithm
- Patent protection of machine learning and artificial intelligence inventions in Europe
- “Oh Jeeeesus”: Drivers react to Tesla’s full self-driving beta release
- Tesla raises “full self-driving” price from $8,000 to $10,000
- Connected cars must be open to third parties, say Massachusetts voters
- Content Moderation Case Study: Moderating An Anonymous Social Network (2015)
- Content Moderation Case Studies: Using AI To Detect Problematic Edits On Wikipedia (2015)
- Video: Character control with neural networks in Assassin’s Creed
- More Than a Feeling: Emotion detection doesn’t work, but it will try to change your behavior anyway (Frank Pasquale)
- No longer sci-fi: our bodies as computers
- Apply for UK Government funding for robotic AI by 20 November 2020
COMMUNICATIONS
- Altering the broadcasting landscape – Canada’s Broadcasting Act to be amended
- Feds propose changes to Broadcasting Act that may raise $800 million from streamers: New regulations would ensure streaming platforms face same rules as traditional broadcasters
- Broadcasting Act Amendments
- The Government’s Internet Regulation Bill: Why Bill C-10 Will Mean a CRTC-Approved Netflix Service, Reduced Consumer Choice, and Less Investment in Canadian Culture (Michael Geist)
- Heritage Minister Steven Guilbeault’s “Get Money from Web Giants” Internet Regulation Bill: An Unauthorized Backgrounder (Michael Geist)
- What’s Another Way Supporters of Mandated Facebook Media Payments Promote Their Position? Paid Facebook Advertising (Michael Geist)
- The tech antitrust problem no one is talking about: Americans pay more for broadband, have fewer choices than consumers in other countries.
- Monopolistic U.S. ISPs Take Full Advantage Of The Covid Crisis
- “Stay Home” robocalls to voters prompt FBI, FCC investigations
- FCC forces T-Mobile to pay $200 million fine for subsidiary Sprint’s fraud
- Time to Treat Broadband Like the Essential Service It Is
- The Enormous Cost Of Digital Inequality
- Cable TV Execs Move Past Denial Stage, Now Fully Expect A ‘Cord Cutting’ Bloodbath
- FCC Approves All-Digital AM Radio Broadcasts
- FCC Establishes $9 Billion Fund to Support 5G Services in Rural America
- FCC to Lift Freeze on TV Station Technical Improvement Applications
- More on the FCC Rule Changes on Public Notice of Broadcast Applications and Required New Link on Station Homepages
- Comcast Tells Customers They May Lose Access To Comcast Channels If Comcast Can’t Agree With Comcast
- What’s New in 5G – November 2020
- Audiovisual Media Services Regulations 2020 Made
INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY
- Use Your Illusion: Rights in posthumous holographic performance
- Intellectual Property & Architecture – Copyright Protection in Focus
- Tenth Circuit Breathes New Life into a Spooky Skeleton Copyright Dispute
- Protect Your Posts: New Group Copyright Registration Option for Online Blogs and Articles
- The US election: a vote on IP?
- New Working Paper – Memes and Parasites: A discourse analysis of the Copyright in the Digital Single Market Directive
- Canada: Official marks can lead to damages for infringement of regular trademarks, according to Canada’s Federal Court of Appeal
- Procedures and strategies for anti-counterfeiting: Canada
- Ninth Circuit: Likelihood of Confusion Required to Sustain TM Counterfeiting Claim
- Hallmark Win in Greeting Card Trademark Dispute: Court Finds Unauthorized Sale of Cards Meant for Destruction Infringing
- Neat infringement claim leaves whiskey competitor’s trade mark on the rocks
- Counterfeit luxury goods
- Brand protection in the digital world
- Distilling the value of corporate trademarks
- Descriptive Use of a Registered Trademark is not Infringement
- Slogans as marks: when does a slogan function as a mark
- Trademark Cancellation Is Appropriate Sanction for Misconduct
- Cookie Trade Dress Infringement Case Crumbles in Face of Functionality Challenge
- A Clear Need: To Allege Misappropriation, Identify Trade Secret
- CIPO’s Patentable Subject-Matter Guidance – Same Code, Different Syntax
- The Canadian Patent Office Releases New Guidelines: The Diagnostic’s Industry Should Be Cautiously Optimistic
- Canadian Patents: What to Keep in Mind One Year After the Coming into Force of the New Rules?
- The Intersection between Drop-Shipping and Patent Infringement
- The Changing Patent Landscape in the Semiconductor Space
- Size Matters in Obviousness Analysis
- Marathon musings – Patenting running watch algorithms in Europe
- Five Patents You Should Know About for Halloween 2020
- Courtrooms and the America’s Cup – Patent infringement set to be the latest out-of-water battle
- A “Bitterly Divided” Federal Circuit Declines to Stay Decision Invalidating Car Driveshaft Patent
- Clearing the 5G Patent Forest!
- People With Silly Patents Would Really Like It If It Was Harder To Cancel Them
- Final PMPRB guidelines released
- “Zombie” Privacy & IP Rights: Protecting the Rights to an Individual’s Image after Death: Part 1 of 2
- “Zombie” Privacy & IP Rights: Protecting the Rights to an Individual’s Image after Death: Part 2 of 2
- How Might New Supreme Court Justice Barrett Rule on IP Cases?
PRIVACY
- Alberta Court of Appeal rules that searches of electronic devices at the border are unconstitutional
- Cybersecurity Among Factors Driving Privacy Law Reform in Canada
- Use of Facial Recognition Software for Customer Analytics
- California Voters Approve New Data Privacy Law
- California Voters Pass Proposition 24 – the California Privacy Rights Act
- California Passes Proposition 24: California Privacy Rights Act to Become Law
- California Voters Approve Reworking of Landmark Consumer Privacy Law – What CCPA 2.0 Will Mean for Businesses and Consumers
- Clearview Resurfaces To Make Some Empty Promises About Keeping Cops From Abusing Its Tech
- Portland, Maine has voted to ban facial recognition
- Risks and Compliance Under the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act: No Actual Harm Required for Private Cause of Action
- One Clear Message From Voters This Election? More Privacy
- Stanford Research Shows VR Users Can Be Identified Using Only 5 Minutes of Motion Data
- How the Upcoming Election Could Change Privacy Law in the U.S.
- Google’s Project Zero discloses Windows 0day that’s been under active exploit
- EFF Asks Government To Dump DHS’s Plan To Massively Expand Its Biometric Collections
- Senator Wyden Wants To Know If The NSA Is Still Demanding Tech Companies Build Backdoors Into Their Products
- ICO fines Marriott 18.4 million pounds for failing to secure customer data
- A New Wave of Class Action Lawsuits is Targeting Online Customer Tracking
- UK Privacy Regulator Dramatically Reduces Fine for British Airways’ GDPR Violations
- Swiss-U.S. Privacy Shield Invalidated by Swiss Commissioner
- Dr. Strangenet—or, how I stopped worrying and embraced the WFH IT apocalypse
CREATIVITY
- Trump Appointee Removes ‘Firewall’ Preventing Administration From Meddling In VOA Reporting
- President-For-Life Hopeful Donald Trump Issues Executive Order Mandating ‘Patriotic’ Education For Kids
- Johnny Depp loses high-risk libel trial against NGN and Dan Wootton
- To Prevent Free, Frictionless Access To Human Knowledge, Publishers Want Librarians To Be Afraid, Very Afraid
Jon
News of the Week; October 28, 2020
NoW October 28, 2020
GAMES
- EA hit with class action lawsuit in Canada over loot box usage
- EA Accused Of Running “Unlicensed, Illegal Gaming System”
- Billy Mitchell’s Donkey Kong high-score case will move forward to trial
- AOC’s Twitch stream is a milestone for games — and for politics | Opinion: Embarrassing copycats are inevitable, but Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez opened a new frontier by showing how to reach younger voters
- Twitch Deletes Content for Copyright Infringement Without Warning
- 2K Sports Could Have Avoided Its Un-Skippable Ads Backlash If The Ads Were Better Content
- Music industry organisations slam Twitch in open letter: The streaming giant denied the claims that its Soundtrack service is not fully licensed
- Epic refutes Apple’s theft claims as “implausible and deficient as a matter of law”: “Apple seeks to compare Epic’s conduct to stealing cash from a vault in ApplePark,” new legal filing argues
- Epic hits back at Apple, saying it ‘has no rights to the fruits of Epic’s labor’
- Casino Game App Settles Gambling Accusations for $6.5 Million
- Wasteland 3 removed “interactive use” of recreational drug for Australian release: InXile’s game was the only title out of 316 to be denied a certificate by the Australian ratings board in the last fiscal year
- “The industry has come of age — we take our responsibilities seriously”: UKIE’s Jo Twist on the right response to “a new phase of regulatory scrutiny” for the games industry
- Lifting the barriers for Black professionals in the games industry: Focusing on retention and promotion, the GamesIndustry.biz Academy looks at the barriers facing Black talent in games
- Microsoft’s game revenue up by $550 million as Xbox readies for Series X debut
- Microsoft quietly closes its final quarter before next-gen: Company projects 40% growth in hardware sales next quarter, constrained by supply
- Xbox Series boxes unboxed, revealing a series of Xboxes inside of boxes
- Microsoft explains how the Xbox Series S and X will shape up on day one
- Xbox Brazil host says she was fired to protect her from harassment: Microsoft says termination of Isadora Basile was unrelated to harassment, was instead due to increased focus on Xbox Wire
- Xbox muses xCloud expansion through ‘lower priced’ gear like streaming sticks
- All Xbox, 360, and One games playable on Xbox One work on Xbox Series X and S: Except the ones that require Kinect
- Phil Spencer: “You’re going to see lower-priced hardware as part of our ecosystem” – Xbox head suggests future tech could include streaming sticks, TV controllers for xCloud access
- Xbox wants more “E-rated content” to strengthen its portfolio: Phil Spencer also says its priorities for Game Pass put Chromebook, smart TV access above Switch or PS4
- First-party releases are driving sales and operating income at Sony
- PS4 shipments near 114m as new generation looms: More than 75% of all PlayStation revenue came from digital sources in the second quarter, with only 41% of games bought physically
- Clearing up which media apps will be available on PS5 at launch
- Sony delays PS5 launch title Destruction AllStars until 2021
- Destruction AllStars delayed from PS5 launch: Sony pushes arena combat game’s debut to February, when it will be free to PlayStation Plus subscribers
- First 12 hours of PS5 preorders match first 12 weeks of PS4’s – CEO Jim Ryan: “It may well be that not everybody who wants to buy a PS5 on launch day will be able to find one”
- PlayStation’s new (web) store, genre viability & more
- Battle of the launch line-ups: What games make for a successful console launch?: How important are first-party games? What will be the key titles for PS5 and Xbox Series X/S? We look at the data
- 30 years later, Nintendo is localizing the first Fire Emblem game
- Control and Hitman 3 are heading to the Switch via the cloud
- Control, Hitman 3 receive streaming versions on Switch: Ultimate Edition of Remedy’s latest arrives today; both games will be free-to-start so players can test performance
- Nintendo’s new translation tune? What a Fire Emblem re-release means in 2020
- Nintendo drops price of single Joy-Cons in the US: Controllers get $10 price cut, as well as another color option for individual purchase
- Uplay+ rebrands to Ubisoft+, adding Luna and Stadia support by 2021: Ubisoft launches beta program on Amazon’s streaming service November 10 before hitting Google’s service by year’s end
- Ubisoft details next-gen improvements for its upcoming games: Most of the publisher’s upcoming titles releasing on current generation hardware will benefit from a free upgrade
- Ubisoft and Netflix partner on Assassin’s Creed live-action series: The deal also includes work on animated and anime series
- FIFA 21 retains No.1 in quiet week before the storm | UK Boxed Charts: Cadence of Hyrule sneaks into the Top 40
- Digital console spending up 40% last month thanks to wave of big releases – SuperData: NBA 2K21, Avengers, Tony Hawk, and Super Mario 3D All-Stars lead console spending for September
- Report: Latest Cyberpunk 2077 delay announcement blindsides its dev team
- Cyberpunk 2077, after going gold, gets delayed another month
- Cyberpunk 2077’s third delay pushes it to December 10: CD Projekt Red says it needs an extra three weeks to work on launch day patch
- CD Projekt Red devs speak out after Cyberpunk 2077 delay met with death threats
- Facebook quietly debuts cloud-streaming service for Facebook Gaming
- Facebook takes its first small steps into the world of cloud gaming: It’s not a new service, but cloud-powered games are playable on Facebook
- Facebook enters cloud streaming with free-to-play mobile games, playable ads: Jason Rubin explains the company’s plans to make the bottom line work, and how he expects streaming to change play patterns
- Deleting Facebook wipes out Oculus purchases: Users who have not linked their Facebook account to their VR headset yet are not impacted
- Facebook’s cloud-gaming offering focuses on free-to-play mobile games
- Analysis: Facebook gears up for ad-supported cloud gaming service
- Facebook’s cloud gaming push, why social gaming took off, more!
- “We need a real shift in the tide”: Black professionals on representation in the UK: As the UK celebrates Black History Month, we speak to developers, players and more about racial equality in the games industry
- Creative Director At Google Stadia Advocates Streamers Paying Game Devs And Publishers
- Google distances itself from Stadia creative director’s comments
- Google distances itself from Stadia creative director Alex Hutchinson: Internet giant asserts that tweets about streamers paying royalties “do not reflect those of Stadia, YouTube or Google”
- Mojang games to require Microsoft account: All the titles from the Minecraft developer will be impacted by the change, including Minecraft Java Edition
- We need to talk about Steam & China
- Roblox player spending passes $2 billion on mobile: Sensor Tower estimates suggest half of that total arrived in the last 12 months
- Devolver Digital brings in licensing specialist to work on Fall Guys: Fée Heyer brings experience from Dunlop Sports, describes Mediatonic’s game as “a phenomenon rarely seen before”
- The constant tug of war between AAA developers and “the money people”: Massive Entertainment boss David Polfeldt discusses the instability of AAA and the influence of self-inflicted crunch
- Scopely acquires Genjoy: Match-three developer and its 150 employees add to Scopely’s presence in Spain
- Scopely acquires Spanish mobile studio Genjoy to expand match-3 roster
- Scopely raises $340 million to forge new partnerships in mobile games
- Scopely picks up $340 million in Series E funding: At least 14 investors lend support to Star Trek Fleet Command company
- Shotcall closes $2.2m seed round: The platform aims to connect content creators and their community by letting them play together
- Genshin Impact made $245m in its first month on mobile alone: This makes it one of the biggest mobile launches ever
- Riot Games appoints first ever chief marketing officer to help expand player base
- Call of Duty: Mobile has topped 300 million downloads
- Clever game dev tech is at the core of Watch Dogs Legion’s London
- Watch Dogs: Legion review: A meaningless mob, with mostly merry mayhem
- Watch Dogs Legion | Critical Consensus: Ubisoft’s latest draws largely warm reception as the play-as-anyone idea works, but critics split on how far that carries the game
- Uplay+ subscription rebrands as Ubisoft+ and adds multi-platform support
- Ubisoft and Netflix partner for live action Assassin’s Creed series
- How Indiana Jones, Rambo, and others ended up in 1980s Czechoslovak text-adventures
- Why bringing Donkey Kong 64 into the third dimension required a mental shift
- Building concept art workflows with neural net-powered ‘generative adversarial networks’
- Unity teams up with Lego to teach game development fundamentals
- MrBeast-Backed Gaming Venture Launches Backbone One, A Controller That Turns iPhones Into Consoles
- Cloud9 signs its first-ever all-woman esports roster: Valorant team formerly known as MAJKL becomes Cloud9 White, begins competing this week
- Tencent leads $100 million investment into Chinese esports company VSPN
- Tencent leads $100m Series B round in VSPN: Chinese esports firm eyes international expansion after growing to 1,000 employees in the space of four years
- VENN closes $26m Series A funding: The esports and gaming broadcast network secured Nexstar Media Group as an exclusive local television partner
- CS GO pro players banned for betting on themselves: The accused had accomplices that were placing identical bets
- Esports Entertainment Group to acquire Helix Esports and ggCircuit: The deal will be worth $43 million, Esports Entertainment Group teases more “near-term” acquisitions
- Not Just America: CEO Of Esports Org In India Says COVID-19 Resulted In Explosive Growth
- Trademarks and E-games
- VR lessons from Arizona Sunshine’s success: Vertigo Games dives into the strategies behind its virtual reality hit, and how it paved the way for future projects such as After the Fall
- Ubisoft’s VR Space Sim ‘AGOS: A Game of Space’ Launches Today
- How Agos A Game Of Space Will Turn Players Into A Spaceship: Will you be the benevolent AI spaceship guardian of the human colonists in the VR space sim Agos, or will you go homicidal like HAL?
- Tilt Five on working around the pandemic to deliver tabletop AR: CEO Jeri Ellsworth explains how the platform adapted its manufacturing and fundraising to COVID-19, and what the strategy is going forward
- Video: The lighting technology of Detroit: Become Human
- Video: How internal game jams can help art teams.
- Video: How Jagex has evolved to change with the times over 16 years
- Video: A better way of depicting war in games
- Video: Bridging community divides in cross-platform online games
- Blog: The Zynga analytics platform in 2020
- Don’t Miss: What Nintendo’s indie program looked like way back in 2014
- Don’t Miss: Why Clint Hocking wanted every NPC in Watch Dogs: Legion to be playable
DIGITAL
- Facebook Seeks Shutdown of NYU Research Project Into Political Ad Targeting: In letter this month, Facebook says the project violates provisions in its terms of service that prohibit bulk data collection
- No Robots, Spiders, or Scrapers: Legal and Ethical Regulation of Data Collection Methods in Social Media Terms of Service (Casey Fiesler, Nathan Beard, Brian Keegan)
- Facebook’s Threat To NYU Researchers Is A Mistake, But It’s The Inevitable Follow On To Overreaction To Cambridge Analytica
- Zuckerberg And Facebook Throw The Open Internet Under The Bus; Support Section 230 Reform
- Sacha Baron Cohen Demands Facebook Remove Conspiracies; Flips Out When Facebook Removes His Article With Conspiracy Images
- S.D.N.Y. Dismisses Defamation Case Arising Out of “Battle by Tweet”
- Yet Another Twitter Account Suspension Case Fails–Jones v. Twitter (Eric Goldman)
- Trump’s website defaced with claim that Trump admin created coronavirus
- Hacker says he correctly guessed Trump’s Twitter password—it was “maga2020!”
- Trumpist Republicans Latest Freakout A Total Self-Own, As They Reveal They Don’t Read What They Tweet
- Ninth Circuit Dumps Sentencing Enhancement Handed To Defendant For Opening Social Media Accounts For ISIS Sympathizers
- Iran behind supposed “Proud Boys” voter-intimidation emails, Feds allege
- Google Will Temporarily Ban Election-Related Advertising Once the Polls Close
- RIP Google Play Music, 2011 – 2020
- We’re Still Unsure If Instagram Grants Users a Sublicense to Embed Photos (Eric Goldman)
- President’s Promise to Limit 230 Immunity is Underway
- Section 230 – Everything You Love and Hate About the Internet
- Another Section 230 Reform Bill: Dangerous Algorithms Bill Threatens Speech
- Content Moderation Case Studies: Facebook Removes Militia Event Following A Shooting (August 2020)
- Content Moderation Case Study: Facebook’s Moderation Of Terrorist Content Results In The Removal Of Journalists’ And Activists’ Accounts (June 2020)
- DOJ Antitrust Case Against Google Draws Allusions to Landmark Microsoft and Standard Oil Cases
- Google’s Data Collection Practices Face Scrutiny in Recent Lawsuits
- YouTube Is Running Out Of Room For Political Ads
- YouTube Music To Hold All-Day Digital Fest Featuring Artists From Its Foundry
- YouTube Adds New Navigational Gestures To Mobile App, Thumbnail View For Video ‘Chapters’
- Top 50 Most Viewed US YouTube Channels • Week Of 10/26/2020
- Top 50 Most Viewed YouTube Channels Worldwide • Week Of 10/26/2020
- RIAA Tosses Bogus Claim At Github To Get Video Downloading Software Removed
- GitHub boots popular YouTube download tool after RIAA claim
- Twitch’s Freak Out Response To RIAA Takedown Demands Raises Even More DMCA Questions
- Join The Fan Fiction Deep State And Watch This Latest Video That Addison Cain Really Doesn’t Want You To See
- Tubular Labs Debuts New Industry-Standard Viewership Metrics For Digital Video
- Invisalign Shares Soar Following Huge Quarter, With Substantial Jolt From Charli D’Amelio
- Startup ‘Kindred’ Wants To Help Socially-Conscious Influencers Speak With Greater Authority
- Amazon launches new Counterfeit Crimes Unit
- TikTok To Provide Greater Insight Into Video Takedowns With New Notification System
- Adult Card Game ‘What Do You Meme?’ Launches Official TikTok Edition
- TikTok Links Up with Shopify For Ad Integration Amid Social Commerce Push
- A Biden-Harris PAC Is Behind TikTok’s First Virtual Creator House
- YouTube Introduces New Icon For TikTok-Like ‘Shorts’ Tool, Shares Discovery Tips For Creators
- TikTok Partners With Associated Press To Display Live Election Results In ‘For You’ Feed
- Zoom Shuts Down NYU Event To Discuss Whether Zoom Should Be Shutting Down Events Based On Content
- The Daily Show’s Jon Stewart will return in new Apple TV+ series
- Apple develops alternative to Google search
- Insights: How To Avoid Quibi’s Gigantic Bust-Out In Your Own Startup
- BBTV Goes Public On Toronto Stock Exchange
- Bumble, the Popular Dating App, Eyes $6 Billion IPO
- Record Deals Are So Yesterday. Here’s The New Playbook For Musicians On The Internet.
- Spotify Inks Overall Podcast Deal With Talent Manager Scooter Braun
- Digital, Culture, Media and Sports Committee launches inquiry into the impact of streaming on the music industry
- Bot orders $18,752 of McSundaes every 30 min. to find if machines are working
- DOJ and IRS May Soon Begin Enforcement Actions Against Virtual Currency Tax Fraudsters
- PayPal Pushes Crypto Further into the Mainstream
- A general introduction to the regulation of virtual currencies in Canada
- SEC Resolves Digital Token Offering Case
- Bitcoin “Mixer” Operator Penalized by FinCEN for AML Violations
- Scanning the European Ecosystem of Distributed Ledger Technologies for Social and Public Good
A.I.
- Bias behind bars: A Globe investigation finds a prison system stacked against Black and Indigenous inmates – Black & Indigenous inmates are more likely to get worse scores than white inmates, based solely on their race
- AI Predicts Aggressiveness of Early Stage Breast Cancer
- USPTO publishes report on public views on artificial intelligence and IP Policy – US IP law adequate for now, until artificial general intelligence is reached?
- UK Court Decision: Artificial Intelligence Machine Is Not An Inventor
- Use of Aggregated Data in Artificial Intelligence Solutions
- Regulating AI: EU proposes legal framework for Artificial Intelligence
- Don’t Miss: 7 examples of game AI that every developer should study
- Don’t Miss: Looking back at Left 4 Dead’s dynamic AI
COMMUNICATIONS
- Canadian News Media Lobby Group Calls for Creation of Government Digital Media Regulatory Agency (Michael Geist)
- Where is Canada’s News Media Lobby Promoting Its Link Licensing Plan for Facebook? On Facebook (Michael Geist)
- Senator wants Google, Facebook to pony up for local news
- Pai’s FCC squeezes in one more vote against net neutrality before election
- FCC Ignores The Courts, Finalizes Facts-Optional Repeal Of Net Neutrality
- The Trump Swamp Fights Itself Over Multi-Billion Dollar No-Bid Spectrum Grab
- Wall Street: Traditional Cable TV Sector ‘Unraveling’ In Wake Of Covid
- As EU Starts To Draft Its Most Important New Online Law, The Digital Services Act, MEPs Want Basic Rights High On The Agenda
- TCPA Bites Political Speech Again: Trump Campaign Sued for Alleged Illegal Robotexts
- AT&T loses another 600,000 TV customers as it seeks buyer for DirecTV
- T-Mobile screwups caused nationwide outage, but FCC isn’t punishing carrier
- It’s Opposite Day At The FCC: Rejects All Its Own Legal Arguments Against Net Neutrality To Claim It Can Be The Internet Speech Police
- Congress, With Nothing Important On Its Hands, Seeks To Rush Through Nomination Of Anti-230 FCC Commissioner
- We’re Already Hyping 6G When 5G Hasn’t Even Finished Disappointing Us Yet
- The Network: How a Secretive Phone Company Helped the Crime World Go Dark
- Stupid Use Of Profanity Filter Makes A Mess Of Virtual Paleontologist Conference
- FCC Proposes Expansion of Sponsor ID Rules to Require Disclosure of Foreign Government Support
- Community Broadband In The Age Of Covid
INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY
- Enforcing Copyright Outside the Courtroom – The New Notice Regimes
- FLVTO.biz Petitions SCOTUS To Hear Jurisdiction Argument In Stream-Ripping Lawsuit
- Battle Lines Drawn Over Font Copyright Protection
- Tom Lehrer, Still Awesome, Releases Lyrics Into The Public Domain
- Armes v. Post: In action asserting co-authorship of Post Malone’s hit song “Circles,” court dismisses alleged co-authorship of recording, but denies motion to dismiss based on co-authorship of underlying composition.
- SCOTUS Reaches for Cup of Java in Oracle v. Google Oral Argument
- New Working Paper – Memes and Parasites: A discourse analysis of the Copyright in the Digital Single Market Directive
- Canada’s Official Marks – A Public Nuisance?
- Jack Daniel’s Petitions for Certiorari to Clarify Trademark Fair Use
- Monster Mash: Minor League Hockey Team Prevails Over Energy Drink Giant in Trademark Dispute
- One Restaurant Sends Cease And Desist To Another Over The Word ‘Juicy’
- Trade Secret Battle Waged in Legal Services Market
- Second Chances From the Second Circuit: Tiffany’s $21m Judgment Is Overturned and Remanded Back to the SDNY
- Federal Court of Appeal affirms largest reported Canadian patent infringement award in history
- Navigating your Global Patent Prosecution Strategy under Canada’s new Patent Rules
- IP monitor: Claim construction revisited: Positive changes for applicants seeking to protect computer-related inventions
- Solving the ‘problem-solution’ problem for patent applicants: Choueifaty decision
- Can you patent software?
- Spotlight On: Neulasta® (pegfilgrastim) / Fulphila® (pegfilgrastim-jmdb) / Udenyca® (pegfilgrastim-cbqv) / Ziextenzo® (pegfilgrastim-bmez) / Nyvepria™ (pegfilgrastim-apgf)
- U.S. Court Values Cybersecurity Patents at Nearly $2 Billion, but Why?
- A Patentee’s Dismissed Lawsuit Will Preclude a Subsequent, Effectively Identical Suit in the Absence of Different Conduct, Different Alleged Violations or Litigants, or Different Subsequent Facts
PRIVACY
- Sensitive Personal Information: Another Concept Borrowed From The GDPR
- Hacked Healthcare Provider Refuses to Pay Ransom, Attackers Target Psychotherapy Patients
- Advisories: “Brazen” Russian ransomware hackers target hundreds of US hospitals
- Data as Property?
- 2020 Data Privacy Compendium
- Top Five Tips to Protect Privilege in a Data Breach
CREATIVITY
- Ivanka Trump, Jared Kushner Threaten Defamation Suit Over Lincoln Project’s Non-Defamatory Billboards
- Dark Ironies: The Financial Times and Cambridge Analytica
- Appeals Court Reinstates Injunction Blocking Federal Agents From Assaulting Portland Journalists
- Demonstrating the Strength of the “Opinion Defense,” Rose McGowan Defeats Defamation Suit
Jon