News of the Week

News of the Week; August 27, 2014

GAMES

1. Capcom suing Koei Tecmo

2. Nintendo files copyright claims to have Super Smash Bros. leaks removed

3. Trolls drive Anita Sarkeesian out of her house to prove misogyny doesn’t exist

4. The Porn Viewing Habits of Console Owners

5. Report: Adult women gamers now double the number of under-18 boys

6. Rockstar: Lohan’s GTA suit is “for publicity purposes”

7. Police Called On Game Creator Over Nuclear War Diagrams

8. “We’re very close to having the first death in VR”

9. EA Cracking Down on ‘FIFA 15’ Cheaters

EA cracks down on FIFA virtual currency sales

10. Star Wars: Commander Is Slow-Going Unless You Pay Up

11. The dominance of ‘free’ App Store games, as seen in one handy chart

12. Indie devs facing “mass extinction event” – Prince

13. Amazon’s Twitch Acquisition Is Official

Google-Twitch deal nixed by antitrust concerns – Report

Why Amazon Really Bought Twitch

14. Third of PS4 owners switched from Wii or Xbox

15. Sony’s PlayStation Network Attacked: 9 Questions Answered

16. Atari “Destroyed” by Sale to Warner, Says Founder: Nolan Bushnell adds, “I think that Atari would still be important today if that sale hadn’t occured.”

17. Minecraft players build working hard drives: Players of the pixelated building block game have taken its virtual simulation tools to an unprecedented level – building functioning hard drives that can read and write data.

18. How Microsoft’s predictive modeling could make streaming gaming tolerable: “DeLorean” system reduces apparent lag by guessing what you’re about to do in-game.

19. Two fish are playing Street Fighter II and it is surprisingly entertaining

21. The ’80s Videogames That Built Castles From Words—And Changed My Life

22. Elite: the game that changed the world

23. Videogame Based On Borges Short Story Is In Fact Borgesian

24. The Bootleg Retro Console Culture Of Brazil

DIGITAL

25. Monkey’s selfie cannot be copyrighted, US regulators say: Selfie by macaca nigra monkey is public domain, not owned by nature photographer.

26. BC Court Rules on Signing Away Your Reasonable Expectation of Privacy

27. The Two Western Cultures of Privacy: Dignity versus Liberty (James Whitman, Yale Law School)

28. Is Technology Shifting Our Moral Compass?(Video)

29. How to Save the Net: Keep It Open (Vinton Cerf)

30. The Surveillance Engine: How the NSA Built Its Own Secret Google

31. Appeals court knocks out computer bingo patents

32. India makes ‘liking’ blasphemous content illegal

33. TiVo Releases A ‘Legal’ Version Of Aereo, Called Roamio, Proving That Aereo Really Was About Cable Length

34. Oregon Attorney General sues Oracle for “racketeering activity”: State claims Oracle hid problems with health exchange, conspired to overcharge.

35. China censorship filters are hamstringing posts that help their cause: Pro-government content gets caught as much as anti-government posts.

36. Why and How We Must Protect the Right to Film Cops in Ferguson

37, How AT&T’s Own Legal Fights Show It’s Lying In Claiming Broadband Reclassification Would Create Collateral Damage

38. Hackers Unmask Anonymous Posters On Secret, Including App’s Founder

39. The extreme, addictive side of fantasy football

CONSTRAINTS

40. The Conservatism of Emoji: Emoji offer you new possibilities for digital expression, but only if you’re speaking their language

41. Getty Images Sued Over Settlement Demand Letter: ‘Unfair, Deceptive Scheme,’ Copyright Lawyers Claim

42. Should Twitter, Facebook and Google Executives be the Arbiters of What We See and Read? (Glenn Greenwald)

43. A Horrifying Interactive Map of Global Internet Censorship

jon

News of the Week; August 20, 2014

GAMES

1. Nintendo Goes Copyright On Woman Making Pokemon-Inspired Planters

2. Arbiter Orders Bungie to Return Stock to Marty O’Donnell

3. Sony: PS4 success is “important for the shape of the whole industry”

4. Call of Duty’s three-year cycle gives devs “freedom to fail” – Hirshberg

5. Robin Williams and His Longtime Love of Videogames

Robin Williams to be Immortalized in World of Warcraft

6. Pro Gaming Faces a Surprising Challenge: Doping

7. MineORama Organizers Disappear

8. DARPA Uses Preteen Gamers to Beta Test Tomorrow’s Military Software

9. Creating Controversy: No, An Upcoming EA Game About Militarized Police Doesn’t Need To React To Ferguson, MO

10. Couple jailed for keeping two girls locked inside filthy trailer home for three years — while they played World of Warcraft:  The jobless California pair, 42, pleaded guilty to child abuse and false imprisonment for their actions against the two girls, 5 and 10.

11. Why clubs are using Football Manager as a real-life scouting tool: Sports data company Prozone is using stats from the computer game Football Manager to help real clubs recruit players

12. Devs want to work for Valve more than themselves – Survey

13. The Insidious Influence of Blockbuster Cinema on Videogames

DIGITAL

14. What Happens to #Ferguson Affects Ferguson: Net Neutrality, Algorithmic Filtering and Ferguson (by Zeynep Tufekci)

Free Speech, Filters, Algorithms & Net Neutrality: How Big Company Nudging Can Influence Your World View

SWAT Team Shows Up In Ferguson, Detains Reporters Live Tweeting Their Actions

In wake of Ferguson shooting, calls escalate for cops to wear body cams: Cameras serve as a “check against the abuse of power by police officers,” says ACLU.

#Ferguson Exposes the Fault Lines Between Facebook and Twitter

15. These six lawsuits shaped the internet

16. The Internet’s Original Sin: It’s not too late to ditch the ad-based business model and build a better web (by Ethan Zuckerman)

17. A Magna Carta for the web (Tim Berners-Lee)

18. Everyone Knows Privacy Is About Power. Now What?(by Ryan Calo)

19. Brazil court to Apple, Google: Wipe anonymous sharing app off users’ phones: New app called Secret is forbidden by the Brazilian constitution, judge says

20. Delaware Passes Law to Give Heirs Rights to Digital Property

21. Data Analysis Of FCC Comments Reveals Almost No Anti-Net Neutrality Comments

Can We Kill This Ridiculous Shill-Spread Myth That CDNs Violate Net Neutrality? They Don’t

Comcast, TWC pull $132,000 donation from event honoring FCC commissioner: Controversial donations will be redirected toward group promoting diversity.

22. Apple investor sues execs over illegal poaching deals, cites Jobs as “walking antitrust violation”

23. Canada Completes Ratification of International Treaties on Copyright

24. U.S. Court Grants Order To Wipe Pirate Sites From The Internet

Who Needs SOPA? US Court Wipes Sites From The Internet For ‘Infringement’ Without Even Alerting Sites In Question

25. OnePlus Cancels Its Dumb Contest Following Uproars Of Sexism

26. Twitter Pollutes The Timeline

27. Ask’s CEO: “We won’t run a bullying site. If we can’t fix Ask.fm, we’ll shut it down”

28. Mark Zuckerberg Dumps Ice On Himself For ALS Awareness, Passes The Challenge Onto Bill Gates

29. 49ers’ ubiquitous stadium Wi-Fi network delivers to full house in NFL debut

CONSTRAINTS

30. Warner Bros. Wins Appeal Over Fictional Technology in ‘Dark Knight Rises’

31. 10 years of podcasting: Code, comedy, and patent lawsuits: “Thank you very much for taking the time to download this MP3 file.”

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly of Adam Carolla’s Settlement with the Podcasting Troll

32. Arrest over Twitter parody of mayor wasn’t “unreasonable,” Peoria says: “We took every step in accordance with the law,” city’s attorney says.

33. Licensing Boards Think Studying For A Test Is Copyright Infringement, Forbid Memorization Of Material

34. Huge Tournament Celebrates End of Oakland’s Bizarre 80-Year Pinball Ban

jon

News of the Week; August 13, 2014

GAMES

1. SNK Playmore Files Criminal Complaint Against Square Enix

2. Sony faces Killzone: Shadowfall lawsuit over graphics – “Sony’s marketing and on-box representations turned out to be nothing more than fiction”

3. Big Fish accused of “unfair or deceptive” trade practices

4. Codemasters offers refunds for PC port of mobile Colin McRae

5. Kim Kardashian: Hollywood And The Viral “Oops”

6. Twitch Muting Video That Contains Copyrighted Audio

Twitch Adds Appeal Button to Videos Affected By Automated Copyright Enforcement System

Twitch Muting Further Demonstrates Copyright Law Needs To Relax For Its Own Good

Andrew Eisen Video: Twitch Does Not Need To Mute Sound in Videos

7. Candy Crush Saga publisher King getting pummeled by market after weak Q2

8. World of Warcraft Loses 800K Subscribers in the Last Three Months

9. Zynga misses Wall Street expectations, but it invests in NFL and Tiger Woods games for the ‘long term’

Zynga chief Don Mattrick steers the struggling social game publisher into a mobile future (interview)

10. Take-Two loses $35.4 million in first quarter

11. Father Takes Sons to the Middle East to Show Them the Difference Between Real War and Video Game War

12. Rutgers players upset about end of college football video game series

13. Gaza: The Videogame – Games in the Google Play App Store let you play the Gaza conflict. Why do their developers create them?

14. Activision Teases the Return of Sierra

Activision resurrects Sierra thanks to good trademark practices (Jas Purewal)

15. PlayStation 4 will let you play friends’ games without buying them this fall

16. PlayStation 4 hits 10m sales mark

17. Xbox One Getting Mobile TV Streaming, Plus DLNA And USB Playback

18. Why Game Accessibility Matters

19. Playing Games Increases Brain Size

20. Brains At Play

21. An actual fish has been playing Pokémon Red for 135 hours now: We can’t cure ebola, but we can make it so a fish can play Game Boy games!

22. Games Studies: the international journal of computer game research (volume 14 issue 1August 2014 ISSN:1604-7982)

DIGITAL

23. Monkey’s selfie at center of copyright brouhaha: Wikipedia says the public, not the photojournalist, owns the rights to ape’s pic.

Wikipedia’s monkey selfie ruling is a travesty for the world’s monkey artists: How is an aspiring monkey photographer supposed to make it if she can’t stop the rampant internet piracy of monkey works?

How That Monkey Selfie Reveals The Dangerous Belief That Every Bit Of Culture Must Be ‘Owned’

We Asked A Bunch Of Lawyers: Who Owns The Copyright To This Amazing Monkey Selfie?: Wikipedia? The Wildlife Photographer? Maybe Even The Monkey?

24. Plot Thickens as 900 Writers Battle Amazon

Amazon Gets Increasingly Nervous

In a Fight With Authors, Amazon Cites Orwell, but Not Quite Correctly

Distribution Is King

25. Consent agreement reached with e-book publishers – Canada has reached a settlement with e-book publishers following settlements in the EU and the US

26. The Internet Never Forgets: Google Inc.’S “Right To Be Forgotten” EU Ruling And Its Implications In Canada

27. Judge Rejects Comically Low $324.5M Settlement To Tech Workers Who Were Cheated Out Of Fair Wages

28. DMCA mea culpa: Randy Queen apologizes for response to criticism – Artist of Darkchylde series says his response “was the wrong one to take.”

29. The Ghost of iCraveTV?: The CRTC Asks Bell For Answers About Its Mobile TV Service in Net Neutrality Case

30. Apple and Samsung Agree To Drop All Patent Lawsuits Outside the U.S.

31. President Obama Does Not Support Internet ‘Fast Lanes’

FCC Chairman Lines Up With President Obama on Fast Lanes

32. Snapchat Is Now The #3 Social App Among Millennials

33. Could Red Bull Become the New ESPN?

34. Foursquare kills off the “social media” pretense of data collection

35. More than 20,000 join privacy action against Facebook: Lawsuit initiated by Austrian privacy campaigner Max Schrems over data protection

36. A More Pseudonymous Internet: From ephemeral publishing apps to the abandoned Google+ “real names” policy, a push to revive relative namelessness online.

37. Quarantine for Cyberbullies: The Latest Strategy in the Fight Against Offensive Social Media Content

38. Who has better online privacy? The U.S. or EU?

39. How a Simple Spambot Became the Second Most Powerful Member of an Italian Social Network

CONSTRAINTS

40. Allergy to Originality: Mark Twain and the Remix Nature of All Creative Work, Animated

41. Reagan Biographer Claims ‘Copyright Infringement’ Because Another Biographer Used The Same Facts

42. Do documentary filmmakers need data about their audiences?: As Netflix and other services gain viewer insights, filmmakers aren’t seeing the full picture

43. Netflix surpasses HBO in subscriber revenue: New media out earns old—with a smaller customer base.

44. NJ Supreme Court Says Rap Lyrics Can’t Be Introduced As Evidence Unless Directly Linked To Criminal Actions

jon

News of the Week; August 6, 2014

GAMES

1. Artist claims she invented Angry Birds, files complaint seeking compensation

2. Thailand’s military junta bans dictator-simulator Tropico 5: State reportedly worried game “might affect peace and order” in the country.

3. Gearbox responds to Aliens class-action lawsuit, throws Sega under bus: Says dev spent “millions” of its own to finish game, never repaid by Sega.

4. Of Doom Metal, Women, And Videogames

5. Shock study: Kids playing video games over an hour a day are better adjusted

6. Study: Play of ‘Risk-Glorifying’ Video Games Can Exacerbate Deviant Behavior

7. Bomb Gaza pulled from Google Play

8. Hacker crack squad hitting the video game industry with IP-stealing attacks (concerns theft of “source code”)

9. More than 20 million people watched the most lucrative video game tournament ever

10. The Case For and Against Game Subscriptions in the App Store

11. Strong PlayStation 4 sales keep Sony in the black

12. Metal Gear Solid on PS4 triples Xbox One version sales

13. PS4, Xbox One doubling last gen sales – NPD Canada

14. China’s Xbox One and games will be totally region locked

15. Sony And EA Experiment With New Business Models For Older Games

16. A Father’s Struggle To Make A Game After Cancer Killed His Son

DIGITAL

17. OTW files amicus brief in Capitol Records vs Vimeo

18. Tweeting from courtroom impresses Nova Scotia top judge: Chief Justice Joseph Kennedy of the Nova Scotia Supreme Court allowed reporters use Twitter during a sexual assault trial and says he “couldn’t get over how well it had worked.”

19. Copyright Office Rejected My Attempt To Copyright A Tweet

20. The death of privacy: Google knows what you’re looking for. Facebook knows what you like. Sharing is the norm, and secrecy is out. But what is the psychological and cultural fallout from the end of privacy?

21. What Is Privacy?: It’s also not so simple… (danah boyd)

22. Privacy and Data Security Harms

23. Bullying Is A Problem For All Of Us, And The App Secret Needs To Do Something To Prevent It

24. Max Mosley Continues His Quixotic And Misguided Quest: Sues Google For Still Finding Photos He Doesn’t Like

25. Leak Lets You Send Anonymous Emails

26. The NFL Announces It’s Tracking RFID Chips On Every Player For 2014

27. Elon Musk says artificial intelligence is ‘potentially more dangerous than nukes’

28. Chinese Communist Party-Backed Tech Giants Bring Censorship To The Global Stage

29. New Russian law represses social media, bloggers: Activists say law is part of “Russia’s relentless crackdown on free expression.”

30. How Silicon Valley wants to hack North Korea: Balloons, slingshots, and miniature radios could get information to ‘the darkest corner of earth’

31. Dear America, Would You Please Give Edward Snowden His Medal Of Freedom Already?

32. Twitter Pushing DOJ, FBI To Let It Disclose More Info on National Security Requests

33. In the age of Reddit, can the Internet ever really grow up?

34. CRTC Finds Rogers Engaged in Unjust Discrimination With Its Domestic Roaming Agreements

35. FCC chair accuses Verizon of throttling unlimited data to boost profits

Verizon to FCC: We Throttle Unlimited Data Users to Incentivize Using Less Data

36. MLB Comes Out Against FCC’s ‘Fast Lanes’ Plan

37. Quantifying Comcast’s Monopoly Power

38. Adam Carolla Won’t Let Company Drop Podcast Patent Infringement Case Against Him

39. EFF inaugurates “Stupid Patent of the Month”: Your August candidate – patent for “a doctor’s computer-secretary.”

40. Microsoft sues Samsung over Android patent fees

CONSTRAINTS

41. The Ambush at Sheridan Springs: How Gary Gygax Lost Control of Dungeons & Dragons

42. How Art Became Advertising

43. Recording Industry Willfully Misreads The Law In Order To Sue Ford & GM For Having Built-in CD Rippers

44. Artist uses DMCA to remove criticism of his impossibly-shaped female characters:

45. Randy Queen takes issue with Tumblr posts using images from his Darkchylde series.

46. Amid backlash, hotel rescinds $500 fines for “negative” online reviews: News of the policy hit the Internet, and the Internet reacted predictably.

47. How one man’s lies almost destroyed the comics industry

jon

News of the Week; July 30, 2014

GAMES

1. Rovio Files Trademark Lawsuit Against Young Star Toys & Gifts

2. Federal Judge Approves Settlements in NCAA Video Game Lawsuit

3. Sony to pay up to $17.75 million in 2011 PSN hacking settlement: PSN users get free games and PS Plus, ID theft victims get up to $2,500.

4. Report: EA Snuck SecuROM DRM in Free ‘The Sims 2 Ultimate Collection’

5. Should thieves in World of Warcraft be sent to real prisons?: Tory MP Mike Weatherley wants those who swipe valuable items in video games to get the same sentences as burglars

Should virtual theft be treated like real world theft? A UK MP says yes.

Should Stealing in Video Games Be Punishable in the Real World?

6. Square Enix Nixes 3 Years Of Fan Translation Work On PSP, Despite Not Releasing English Version For PSP

7. No skin thick enough: The daily harassment of women in the game industry

The Most Sexist Video Game of All Time?: It’s called Catherine, and it reveals a lot about misogynist gaming culture.

8. Pink and Blue Pixel$: Gender and Economic Disparity in Two Massive Online Games (Lehdonvirta, Ratan, Kennedy & Williams)

9. The world of bizarre Japanese dating sims is invading America

10. GaymerX founder says NIS America backed out of sponsorship 

NIS America and GaymerX Kiss and Make Up

Nintendo’s Quest for Inclusivity: Nintendo’s Animal Crossing team speaks about the drive for diversity in its games — even if the company falls short of its goals from time to time.

Nintendo records quarterly loss of nearly 10bn Yen

11. Game developers, watch out! German data protection authorities publish guidelines for mobile apps

12. Surveillance & Society Vol. 12, No. 3 (2014): Special Issue on Surveillance Gaming and Play

Including – 1. “Surveillant Assemblages of Governance in Massively Multiplayer Online Games: A Comparative Analysis”; 2. “Surveillance and Community: Language Policing and Empowerment in a World of Warcraft Guild”; 3. “Getting Played: Gamification and the Rise of Algorithmic Surveillance”; 4. “Games of Drones: The Uneasy Future of the Soldier-Hero in Call of Duty: Black Ops II”; 5. “Creative Misuse as Resistance: Surveillance, Mobile Technologies, and Locative Games”; 6. “The Gift that Keeps on Giving: Google, Ingress, and the Gift of Surveillance”; 7. “’I had no credit to ring you back’: Children’s strategies of negotiation and resistance to parental surveillance via mobile phones”; 8. “Gaming Privacy: a Canadian case study of a children’s co-created privacy literacy game”; 9. “Enclosures at Play: Surveillance in the Code and Culture of Videogames”; 10. “Reporting From the Snooping Trenches: Changes in Attitudes and Perceptions Towards Behavior Tracking in Digital Games”; 11. “Watching Us Play: Postures and Platforms of Live Streaming”; 12. “Diverting and diverted glances at cameras: playful and tactical approaches to surveillance studies”; 13. “Playdates with Big Brother: Playfully Repurposing Surveillance Cameras to Build Communities”; 14. “Surveillance Chess”.

13. Kobra Studios Attacks YouTubers and Deletes Negative Comments, Has Game Taken Down From Steam Greenlight

14. No Man’s Sky: A Vast Game Crafted by Algorithms

15. EA improves revenues and profit in Q1, delays Dragon Age

16. Sony: EA Access wouldn’t provide “value” for PlayStation owners

17. PS4 to get 3D Blu-Ray support

18. Gamer discovers his deceased father’s ghost on an old Xbox game, challenges it to a race

19. Learn how to copy, and know when to steal

20. Gaming Tax Credits: A Developer’s Guide to Free Money

DIGITAL

21. Yet Another Court Rules That Digital Data Is Not Property

22. What Is Public?: It’s so simple, right? (by Anil Dash)

23. UK Government Report Recommends Ending Online Anonymity

24. Plagiarism in the Internet age: The issue isn’t copying, it’s attribution

25. Does Internet Addiction Excuse the Death of an Infant?

26. EU regulators to Google: “Right to forget” needs to go worldwide

27. French blogger owes $2,000 in damages for review ‘too prominent’ on Google

28. The Evidence Is In: Patent Trolls Do Hurt Innovation (HBR Blog)

29. USPTO Alice Corp. guidelines provide concrete guidance on abstract ideas

30. Time for digital emancipation (Doc Searls)

31. What’s New in Digital and Social Media Research: What makes commenters less civil, and the rise of digital longform (Nieman Journalism Lab)

32. How Informed Consent Has Failed

33. Data privacy isn’t political — it’s personal

34. We Experiment On Human Beings!

OkCupid reveals it’s been lying to some of its users. Just to see what’ll happen.

35. The internet is a politically and culturally loaded tool, particularly when it comes to censorship

36. FISA Court Judges Keep Buying Verizon Stock; Wonder What They Know…

37. An epic battle in streaming music is about to begin, and only a few will survive

38. Uncovering Algorithms: Looking inside the Facebook news feed

39. Google ordered by BC court to block websites: Equustek Solutions Inc. v. Jack (Updated)

40. Instagram’s Forthcoming Photo Messaging App Bolt Could Face Legal Trouble

41. Unlocking Your Cell Phone Is Still Illegal, But Probably Not For Long

42. Microsoft still doesn’t get why the iPhone succeeded

43. Experience James Joyce’s Ulysses in Virtual Reality, Using the Oculus Rift Headset 

CONSTRAINTS

44. Rhyme and Punishment: Prosecutors are using rap lyrics as evidence in criminal trials. That needs to stop.

45. Artist sues after TV show films Montreal building that he had tagged with graffiti

jon

News of the Week; July 23, 2014

GAMES

1. Manuel Noriega sues Activision over Call of Duty video game character: The former dictator is seeking lost profits and damages over the game Call of Duty: Black Ops II, which featured his likeness

2. Philips Win Patent Infringement Suit Against Nintendo

3. Bungie pays Halo composer $95k over dismissal

4. Grand Theft Likeness: The Story of Lindsay Lohan and Lacey Jonas

5. Riot starts getting tough on toxic LoL players with “instant” bans: Strict penalties for racism, homophobia strengthen attempts at player “reform.”

6. Kickstarter Suspends ‘Areal’ Crowd-Funding Campaign

7. Yogscast to ‘Yogventures’ Backers: We’re Not Obligated To ‘Do Anything’

8. Gamasutra’s Game Developer Salary Survey 2014 Highlights the Gender Gap in Video Games Industry

9. Think the nsa is bad? Games are masters of surveillance.

10. In-app purchases: Joint action by the European Commission and Member States is leading to better protection for consumers in online games

Apple scolded by Europe over in-app purchase protections

EU regulation of free to play games: hot topic or hot air?

11. Retro revival: Warner Bros. options movie rights to Space Invaders game

12. Hunger Games film studio Lionsgate partners with Finland’s Next Games

13. Why the Kim Kardashian Game Is Legitimately Good

14. ESPN dips its cleats into the e-sports pool with Dota 2 partnership

Valve boss Gabe Newell interviewed by ESPN: ‘The Internet is changing what sports is’

Dota 2 team pockets $5 million at The International

15. Civilization 5 mod lets you exploit migrant workers in the ‘first true’ FIFA World Cup sim

16. Modders are developers – it’s time to stop treating them differently

17. Key Sony Gaming Websites Go Down Because They Let Their Domains Expire

18. PlayStation 4 still best-selling console, six months running

19. “Consolidation crush”: 5 drivers of $12.5B games acquisitions

20. Eutechnyx restructuring business

21. Games tax relief gets EU greenlight

22. Microsoft Laying Off 18K Employees, Closing Xbox Entertainment Studios

23. Vivendi Considered Firing Kotick Over Buyout

24. The secret of Minecraft

25. How the team behind The Witcher conquered Poland

DIGITAL

26. Pirate Bay traffic has doubled post-ISP blocks

27. Copyright Skeptic: We Don’t Need More Copyright Laws

28. Google processes millions of useless DMCA notices

29. Copyright Board’s new SOCAN user generated content tariff

YouTube, Facebook, Netflix liable to pay for music in Canada rules Copyright Board

30. AEREO – Everything Old is New Again (Mark Cuban Blog)

Copyright Office To Aereo: Quack All You Want, We Don’t Think You’re A Cable Service

31. The Details About the CIA’s Deal With Amazon

32. Snowden Calls On Developers To Champion Privacy By Design

Edward Snowden: ‘If I end up in chains in Guantánamo I can live with that’ – video interview

A Convicted Hacker and an Internet Icon Join Forces to Thwart NSA Spying

33. US Supreme Court clarifies law on warrantless cell phone searches. Will the Supreme Court of Canada follow?

34. A manifesto for the future of the ‘right to be forgotten’ debate: The landmark ruling against Google Spain presents the opportunity for a proper debate. Here are five strategies for reframing the ethics of our online lives

35. Over One Million Americans Submit Comments to FCC About Net Neutrality Changes

Did Verizon accidentally admit it’s slowing down Netflix traffic? Level 3 thinks so

Read Netflix’s plea to ban paid “fast lanes” on the internet

36. Welcome to the Hotel California: ISPs Who Won’t Take No For An Answer

37. The Russian Public Has a Totally Different Understanding of What Happened to Malaysia Airlines Flight 17: And it’s more of a problem than you think.

+  Russia caught editing Wikipedia entry about downed Malaysian airliner

38. New York state proposes sweeping Bitcoin regulations—and they’re strict

39. 3 Years Later, Google+ Drops Its Dumb Real Name Rule And Apologizes

CONSTRAINTS

40. Pete Seeger on Combinatorial Creativity, Originality, Equality, and the Art of Dot-Connecting

jon

News of the Week; July 16, 2014

GAMES

1. Mastering the Game: Business and Legal Issues for Video Game Developers (Creative industries – No. 8 – WIPO)

2. In Re Nintendo of Am., Inc.

3. Warner Bros. Censorship of Greenpeace Lego Video Backfires

4. ‘MineORama’ Organizer Cancels Event at Last Minute After Selling $540K in Tickets

5. Minecraft: how a change to the rules is tearing the community apart

6. Soccer Video Game Developed by College Students Proves to Reduce Violence Against Women and Girls

7. Frustration vs. Video Game Violence in Real-Life Aggression

8. Can joy be more ‘adult’ than violence?

9. This free, quick game shares the risks and rewards of coming out

10. Gender Differences in Emotional Responses to Cooperative and Competitive Game Play

11. Blizzard working to improve inclusivity – Morhaime

12. Kim Kardashian Video Game on Track to Earn $200 Million

13. Fan Pirates Game, Accidentally Tells Developer About It

14. Video Games Make a Convenient Scapegoat for Weak Students

15. Google’s Regina Dugan Joins Zynga Board

16. Another Study Suggests Acting Immorally In Video Games Actually Makes Players More Moral

17. ‘Game Journalism Simulator’ is a Real Thing, Apparently

18. Blizzard will launch Diablo III in China

19. Can video games be sports?

20. Where Virtual Meets Real: Ingress, a Mobile Game From Google

21. The Most Expensive Video Games Ever Made

22. After 23 years a new Super Mario World glitch is discovered

23. A Quest for the Secret Origins of Lost Video-Game Levels

24. Where have Japan’s gamers gone?

25. Microsoft CEO commits to Xbox

26. Richard Bartle: “Free-to-play has a half-life”

DIGITAL

27. American Bar Association urges against file sharing lawsuits

28. Canadians That Access U.S. Netflix May Be in a Legal Grey Zone, But They Are Not Stealing

29. Aereo: Hey, we’re a cable company after all!

30. The Lost and Found Legacy of Barbara Ringer

31. Why Silicon Valley needs the coder grrrls of Double Union, the feminist hacker space: The lack of women in the tech world isn’t just a pipeline problem–it’s one of rampant sexism.

32. Vagina selfie for 3D printers lands Japanese artist in trouble

33. FTC Sues Amazon Over In-App Purchases

34. Senator Asks FTC to Look Into Facebook Mood Experiment

Hard Questions About Big Data

35. German Cartel Office Says Google, Other Tech Giants Could Be Regulated Like Utilities

36. Your favorite mobile apps leave a trail of cookie crumbs: We monitor our own smartphone traffic to see how much data apps are giving up.

37. Netflix Performance on Verizon Continues to Decline in June

38. The Most Frustrating And Painful Phone Call We’ve Ever Heard (Comcast/consumer)

39. Google, Canon, Dropbox and Others Pool Patents to Ward Off Trolls

CONSTRAINTS

40. A Game as Literary Tutorial: Dungeons & Dragons Has Influenced a Generation of Writers

41. When all you have is a Captain Hammer …

42. The reality show: Schizophrenics used to see demons and spirits. Now they talk about actors and hidden cameras – and make a lot of sense

jon

News of the Week; July 9, 2014

GAMES 

1. NCAA Video Game Settlement Payments Detailed

2. Lindsay Lohan sues makers of GTA V over look-alike complaints

Lindsay Lohan’s ‘GTA 5’ Lawsuit: ‘The Kindest Thing You Could Say Is It’s A Publicity Stunt’

3. Hackers under fire for Mario Kart 8 Wii U modding

4. DRM not the way to fight piracy – Paradox

5. Report: Crytek UK staff not getting paid, leave studio en masse

6. British regulator: EA “misled” by calling Dungeon Keeper free-to-play

UK Advertising Regulator Nixes EA’s Dungeon Keeper Advertisement Due To Microtransactions

7. ‘Male Only’ Hearthstone eSports Competition Angers Gaming Community

Op-ed: E-sports cannot fight segregation with segregation

8. Video Games Didn’t Make Me Gay, But They Did Make Me Proud

9. EA’s Peter Moore Is Wrong About Video Game And Music Distribution

10. Moral Combat: Do Violent Video Games Make Us Reflect On Morality?

11. One Year After Granting Adulthood To Video Gamers, Committee Suggests Australian Government Reenact Ban On R18+ Games

+ Report: Western Australian Amendment Meddles With R18+ Rating13. Free Video Games Say Pay Up or Wait, Testing Players’ Patience

12. TIGA and Google publish extensive report on UK games funding

13. Perfect World and meat supplier acquire Warframe dev

14. Science Still Doesn’t Understand Video Games

15. British tabloid claims games are as addictive as heroin, game journalists respond in kind

16. Freemium games are a chance to teach kids how to manage their money

17. I Won $9 for Wasting Three Hours on a Mobile Game

18. 85 per cent of top grossing apps are games

19. Mobile could push games to $100 billion by 2017 – Digi-Capital

DIGITAL

20. The Truth About Tinder and Women Is Even Worse Than You Think

Stop Erasing Women from Tech History

21. The Basic Rules of Dungeons and Dragons Next Have Some Cool Things To Say About Gender Identity

22. Experimental evidence of massive-scale emotional contagion through social networks (study)

ICO to assess compliance of Facebook study with data protection laws

Canada’s privacy watchdog to press Facebook on ’emotional’ study

Facebook charged with FTC violations for messing with users’ minds

Will Facebook Backlash Kill Scientists’ Data Dream?

23. British Columbia Privacy Act trumps Facebook’s jurisdiction selection clause

24. Online privacy protection for kids lagging in Canada

25. EU calls for radical copyright reform in light of internet’s disruption

26. The Internet’s Own Boy: The Story of Aaron Swartz (film)

27. Can you trademark an internet meme?

28. Apple suffers Siri patent case defeat in China

29. Why More Start-Ups Are Sharing Ideas Without Legal Protection

30. Hollywood Studios Tried To Add File Sharing Sites To New Zealand’s Child Porn Blacklist

31. In NSA-intercepted data, those not targeted far outnumber the foreigners who are

32. Now on Your Cellphone Bill, Services You Never Wanted

33.   YouTube Outs Web Traffic Slow Pokes

34. I just installed a tool which shows how popular websites are spying on me. The results are horrifying

35. Google Alerts British News Outlets About Deleting Their Links

36. Virtual Currencies: European Banking Authority Publishes Opinion

37. Stop The JerkTech

38. UK tax breaks voted the best in Europe

jon

 

News of the Week; July 2, 2014

1. Oculus Portrays Accuser as Opportunist, in Lawsuit Over Virtual Reality Technology

Oculus: ZeniMax lawsuit is sour grapes over missed investment opportunity

2. The Future Is Now: Cheating In Online Games Leads To Arrests In Japan

3. First Defendant in 38 Studios Lawsuit Settles for $4.4 Million

4. Ubisoft Found ‘Not Guilty’ in DRM Infringement Case

5. Lindsay Lohan Sues Rockstar Over Grand Theft Auto V

6. Microsoft court order has removed Chess 2: The Sequel’s servers

7. King Candy’s Trademark Attempt at Crushing The Banner Saga

8. Chinese Mobile Games Giant Embroiled in Bribery Scandal

9. Gamblit Gaming Software Gets Certified By U.K. Gambling Commission

10. The legal loophole of advergames: How ads disguised as video games are impacting today’s youth

11. Twitch.tv – 1 million channels and rising

12. Here are the countries bringing in the most video game revenue

13. Building a Warship for the Video Game Generation

14. Killer drone report downplays “PlayStation mentality” of pilots

15. BioWare Reveals First Gay Companion Character in ‘Dragon Age: Inquisition’

16. Research: Bad Behavior in Games Can Lead to Pro-Social Behavior In Real Life

17. New Toledo Museum of Art exhibit examines the artistry of video games, and you can play Pac-Man, too

18. 10 Best Video Games Made In Vancouver

19. Aereo “Pauses” Service in Light of Supreme Court Defeat

Supreme Court Uses The Bizarre ‘Looks Like A Cable Duck’ Test To Outlaw Aereo

We’ll Never Know the Internet We Lost

The walls erected by traditional media

Analysis: Aereo’s death leaves cloud computing hanging in the balance

The Aereo Decision – Canadian Content?

Four Unanswered Questions From Aereo’s Supreme Court Loss

Why the Aereo Shutdown Will Be a Disaster for Broadcast TV

20. Facebook’s science experiment on users shows the company is even more powerful and unethical than we thought

Even the Editor of Facebook’s Mood Study Thought It Was Creepy

As Flies to Wanton Boys

Facebook Says It’s Sorry. We’ve Heard That Before.

21. F.T.C. Accuses T-Mobile of Fraud in Billing

22. Google begins removing links under “right to be forgotten” ruling

23. The NSA Revelations All in One Chart

24. Cops must have a warrant to search cell phones, rules Supreme Court

25. Facebook threatened with contempt for fighting NY over user privacy

26. Tinder Is Target of Sexual Harassment Lawsuit

Amid sexual harassment allegations, dating app Tinder suspends co-founder

27. The end of the Canadian “iPod tax” saga

28. California Legalizes Bitcoin and Other Cash Alternatives

29. Why More Start-Ups Are Sharing Ideas Without Legal Protection

30. The lost promise of the Internet: Meet the man who almost invented cyberspace

jon

News of the Week; June 25, 2014

1. Nintendo loses UK patent ruling to Philips

The indefiniteness of Father’s Day fun – Triton Tech of Texas v. Nintendo of America

After losing patent suit, Nintendo plans appeal

2. Social media class actions buy the Farm(ville): Ninth Circuit dismisses consumer claims against Zynga and Facebook for sharing user information with advertisers

3. Net neutrality the biggest issue facing games – Lanning

4. “Gamers are not criminals and they do not need DRM”

5. Spy Satellite Agency Wants to Utilize ‘Video game Technology’ for Improving Data Collection

6. Witcher 3 Design Documents Stolen, Leaked on Reddit

7. EA Looking Into Possible ‘False’ Bans in Battlefield 3

8. Ubisoft Comments on ‘Watch Dogs’ PC Mod

9. Ubisoft: Future Protagonists Will be More Diverse

10. How Making Games Helped Her Deal With Evil

11. How video games can affect adolescent brains

12. As game players diversify, developers start to rethink the stars of their games

13. Here’s how exploitative Minecraft servers can be

14. What Nintendo’s Top Game Creators Think Of Minecraft

15. EZK’s Take on Fair Use and Let’s Play Videos

16. Game software market to hit $100 billion by 2018 – DFC

17. IGDA: Over Half of Developers Surveyed Think Unions are a Good Idea

18. Crytek misses payroll for months – Report

19. Ubisoft responds to Quebec tax relief cuts

20. Xbox head on stand-alone Kinect: They’ll buy it

21. HB Studios: No licenses, no problem

22. How indie film financing could shape the future of games

23. What Are eSports? A Pro Videogaming Guide for the Rest of Us

24. Huh: School Offering Real League Of Legends Scholarship

25. The Kiss That Changed Video Games

26. How A Seemingly Impossible Game Is Possible

27. The five most disruptive ideas in video game design

28. Linden Lab is building a spiritual sequel to Second Life

29. Doing it wrong: World of Warcraft player grinds to max level by picking herbs in training level

30. Supreme Court Rules Against Aereo in Broadcasters’ Challenge

ABC v. Aereo (SCOTUS decision)

Statement from Aereo CEO and Founder Chet Kanojia on United States Supreme Court Decision

31. Canada’s New Trademarks Act Receives Royal Assent

32. Super Kat-Exclusive: here’s Commission’s draft White Paper on EU copyright

33. Of Course Tesla Wasn’t Just Being Altruistic In Opening Up Its Patents: That’s The Whole Point!

34. Chromebook Buyers Upset at Cutoff of Promised Free Data

Google gives $150 apology to Chromebook owners deprived of Verizon data

35. That Story You’ve Read About YouTube ‘Blocking’ Indie Artists… Yeah, That’s Not Accurate

36. (U.S) Supreme Court Recognizes Limits in Software Patentability

Alice Corporation v. CLS Bank (decision)

Computer-Implemented Inventions: Ideas That Are Fundamental Truths And Generically Implemented Are Not Patent Eligible

37. Bill S-4 Passes Senate, Despite Supreme Court Ruling Against Warrantless Access

38. Major Ruling Shields Privacy of Cellphones: (U.S.) Supreme Court Says Phones Can’t Be Searched Without a Warrant

39. Privacy and surveillance: 8 things every Canadian should know

40. House votes 293-123 to cut funding for NSA spying on Americans

41. British government ‘breaking law’ in forcing data retention by companies: EU directive overturned in April but UK continues to make telecoms and internet firms comply with legislation

42. Exposed: Massive mobile malware network used by cops globally

43. BuzzFeed is Watching You

44. Canadian Court Asserts the Right to Censor Google Results Around the World

45. Dating site violated Canadian privacy law by continuing to use former customer’s personal information without consent

46. The richest man in Vegas has declared war on internet gamblers

47. Rights holders can control resale of digital content that is not software, rules German court

48. The Disruption Machine: What the gospel of innovation gets wrong.

49. These Haptic Gloves Can Teach Your Brain Skills Even When You’re Not Paying Attention

jon

News of the Week; June 18, 2014

1. Nintendo Wins Patent Infringement Lawsuit Appeal

2. How Apple TV might disrupt Microsoft and Sony

3. Research: ‘Polite’ Female and ‘Rude’ Male Gamers Accepted Most in Online Games

4. “Inclusivity always seems to end up on the cutting board”

Far Cry 4 to also skip playable female character due to workload

The Lady Killers

Animating the Ladies: Ubisoft fundamentally doesn’t get it

If Our Videogames Are Going to Be Sexist, Let’s at Least Be Honest About It

5. ‘Watch Dogs’ Video Game Will Inspire More ‘Godzilla Attack’ Road Sign Hacks, Says Cybersecurity Warning

6. Looking at Link Between Violent Video Games and Lack of Empathy

7. Kojima: Bigger budgets make authorship more difficult

8. Mobile games market to hit $28.9 billion by 2016 – Juniper

9. Game subsidies cut as Quebec slashes spending – report

10. The world’s largest video game collection sells for $750k at auction

11. Valve Bans CS: Go Community Content Creators for Using Copyrighted Artwork

12. Notch clarifies Minecraft EULA changes

13. The DNA of Candy Crush Saga and Other Successful Match-3 Games

14. The Golden Curve: Determining player value in freemium apps

15. Is Sony’s PS4 Eating Microsoft and Nintendo’s Lunch?

16. Capcom shareholders reject anti-takeover plan

17. Nordic Games Owns ‘THQ’ Trademark

18. New AFM deal with Microsoft is welcome news for game musicians

19. PS4, Xbox One seeing much higher digital download attach rates

20. Oops: Xbox Advertisement Results In Aaron Paul Turning On Your Console

21. The History of Mana: How an Austronesian Concept Became a Video Game Mechanic

22. Canadian Supreme Court Says Government Needs To Get A Warrant To Get Your Internet Info

Supreme Court Delivers Huge Victory for Internet Privacy & Blows Away Gov’t Plans for Reform

SCC protects Internet users’ expectation of privacy in online activities

23. Congressman asks NSA to provide metadata for “lost” IRS e-mails

24. Microsoft challenges US gov’t warrant to access overseas customer data

Apple, Cisco, AT&T join Microsoft in fight against global search warrant

25. Get a warrant for cell phone location tracking, US appeals court says

26. Global Deletion Orders? B.C. Court Orders Google To Remove Websites From its Worldwide Index

Equustek Solutions Inc. v. Jack

27. Clever piece of code exposes hidden changes to Supreme Court opinions

28. The Facebook War: Would taking down the social network justify a real-world attack?

29. Why Online Tracking Is Getting Creepier

30. We Need to Regulate Technology That Can Detect Your Emotions

31. Thoughts on Privacy: The right way forward.

32. AT&T Phone Records, Social Security Numbers Hacked

33. FCC Looking Into Netflix’s Complaints About Verizon, Comcast

FCC gets Comcast, Verizon to reveal Netflix’s paid peering deals

34. Apple Settles E-Book Pricing Antitrust Suit

35. Tesla will use patents to subvert patent system

36. New study suggests patent trolls really are killing startups

37. Amazon Got ‘Photography Against A White Background’ Patent Because CAFC Says Obvious Ideas Must Be Written Down

38. The tech industry’s God complex is getting out of control

39. Marc Andreessen and the Inevitability of Catastrophic Ideas

40. YouTube to block indie labels who don’t sign up to new music service

41. The Dark Side Of Facebook, Where People Lie, Steal, And Make Millions

42. Owning Digital Content

43. Winter Has Come for TV Advertising: YouTubers Are Getting More Viewers Than ‘Game of Thrones’

44. 7th Circuit confirms that Sherlock Holmes is in the public domain

45. Fair use decisionmaking

46. Hackers are the immune system for the information age

47. Iraqis Turn to Whisper to Circumvent Government’s Social Media Blackout

jon

News of the Week; June 11, 2014

1. Activision Blizzard CEO must face lawsuit over $8.2-billion buyout

2. NCAA Settles Video Game Lawsuit

3. Marty O’Donnell files lawsuit against Bungie for unpaid benefits

4. Nintendo Shuts Down European HQ, Lays Off 130

5. Snatching Atari Back From the Grave, Again

6. Video Games Developed and Published in Canada Central to 2014 E3 Expo

7. E3 2014: EA talks of “commitment to put players first”

8. Mattrick: Zynga left its lunchbox unattended

9. Girly video games: rewriting a history of pink

10. Aisha Tyler on Race, Sexism and Video Games (Q&A)

11. No female Assassin’s Creed characters a “reality of development”

Assassin’s Creed’s female problems: Devs respond

12. Ubisoft, NIS America, and OUYA Support GaymerX

13. Award-winning game composer takes musicians union to task

14. FCC considers net neutrality rules, could impact video game industry

15. Study: Gamers are more educated, more social than the people who make fun of them

16. Guantanamo Prisoners Get to Play Video Games in a Recliner — While Being Force-Fed

17. Swedish Government’s ‘Democreativity’ Reveals First Round of Games

18. Why Would Google Want to Buy Video-Game Livestreaming Site Twitch?

19. Super Evil Megacorp Raises $15 Million to Prove Mobile Gaming Can Be Hardcore

20. Oculus signs exclusive content from Words With Friends creator

21. What Oculus Rift and virtual reality mean for sex, death, violence, and identity

22. How People Are Wired to Connect: The startling parallels between human social groups and online video games 

23. Privacy Class Action Against Facebook Certified by BC Court

B.C.’s Privacy Act trumps jurisdiction selection clause

24. Texas Appeals Court Vacates Order Commanding Google To Hunt Down Third Party Content And Destroy It

25. Apple starts banning apps that reward video views and social sharing

26. Telecom giant Rogers got 175,000 info requests from government

Rogers’ Shocking Admission: It Does Not Track Disclosures of Subscriber Information to Authorities

27. Microsoft fights U.S. search warrant for customer e-mails held in overseas server

28. Ars tests Internet surveillance—by spying on an NPR reporter

29. Vodafone Says Some Governments Have Direct Access to Eavesdrop

30. US Secret Service wants software to “detect sarcasm” on social media

31. Google will flag search results erased due to “right to be forgotten”

32. Yes, Verizon Is At Fault In Netflix Dispute; It’s Not Delivering What It Sold Customers

33. The best explanation of net neutrality and why it matters, ever, period.

34. Public Responds Negatively to FCC’s Net Neutrality Proposal

35. Google, the fight to forget, and the right to remember

36. Google’s university book scanning can move ahead without authors’ OK

USCA decision in Author’s Guild Inc. v. HathiTrust

37. The Samuelson Clinic releases “Is it in the Public Domain?” handbook

38. EU Court Of Justice: Just Viewing Stuff Online Isn’t Infringing On Copyright

39. Okkervil River Responds to Don Henley: Copyright Laws Kill Art

40. Should you have a right to sell your ebooks and digital music?

41. E.U. to Launch Formal Investigation Into Apple’s Irish Tax Deal

42. Cat Videos, Binge TV Watching Will Account for 84 Percent of Internet Traffic, Cisco Says

43. Netflix to Verizon: Nope, Your Congested Pipes Are Still Your Fault

44. Theater chain bans Google Glass

45. Your Personality Type, Defined by the Internet

46. The Forgotten Firsts: 10 Vintage Versions of Modern Technology

jon

News of the Week; June 4, 2014

1. Lawyers win big in Electronic Arts college sports settlement

2. Honda Jet Removed from ‘FlightGear’ After Trademark Complaint

3. Creator Of Flappy Bird Clone Claims His Duplication Is Covered By Trademark

4. Uplay’s Poor Performance Affecting ‘Watch Dogs’ and Other Games on Multiple Platforms

5. This Woman Was Threatened With Rape After Calling Out Sexist Video Games—and Then Something Inspiring Happened

6. Riot Bans Two Pro ‘League of Legends’ Players

7. Gamers Bullying Jewish Students Online

8. Fired Community Manager Says He Was A Victim Of ‘Outrage Culture’

9. When geopolitics meets the game industry. A study of Arabic video games and what they teach us

10. Why did Fox and Murphy sign ‘non-disclosure agreements’ with 38 Studios?

11. Protestors Tell RI Lawmakers: Don’t Bail Out 38 Studios

12. EA Shutters Warhammer Online Developer Mythic

13. U.K. Rag Tries To Link Teen Suicides With Call of Duty

Everyone Agrees They Don’t Know Why Teenager Committed Suicide, So Helpful Coroner Shouts Video Games

14. Glen Beck Criticizes ‘Watch Dogs’

15. Newzoo Report Predicts Global Gaming Revenue of Over $100 Billion by 2017

16. Take-Two CEO skeptical of Oculus’ broad appeal

17. The Next Eminem/Activision Deal: How Big Data Can Reinforce Gut Instincts

18. eSports viewing nearly doubled in 2013 as games-watching fanbase grew

19. Technology And Video Games Make Kids Think Differently About Old Questions

20. How to Dig Up a Landfill: The history, hurdles and local politics behind the search for E.T.

21. Arcadia, a Love Story

22. Why has the Canadian government given up on protecting our privacy?

23. Critics decry new Privacy Commissioner’s appointment

24. Snowden: NSA Revealed Only One Email, Shows NSA Lied Before

25. The Top 5 Claims That Defenders of the NSA Have to Stop Making to Remain Credible

26. The NSA Intercepts Millions of Images per Day for Facial Recognition

27. Anonymous No More: Sabu Walks

28. Google Starts Taking Removal Requests for EU ‘Right to Be Forgotten’ Law

Google Got 12,000 Requests To Be ‘Forgotten’ In The Service’s First Day

Google inundated with “right to be forgotten” requests

29. A “right to be forgotten” in Canada?

30. U.S. patent troll bill unsuccessful – what is the situation in Canada?

31. (U.S.) Supreme Court: To Be Valid, Patent Claims Must Provide Reasonable Certainty Regarding the Claim Scope

32. FCC comment site breaks after comedian asks trolls to fight “fast lanes”

33. Is Some Tech Too Addictive?

34. Is Nvidia Playing Fair With Their New Development Tools?

35. Cryptocurrency!

36. Don’t Fear the Network: The Internet Is Changing the Way We Communicate for the Better

37. The real 10 algorithms that dominate our world

38. He Said, He Said: the Comcast-Netflix Edition

39. Netflix Loves Big Data, But Won’t Use It To Make TV Shows

40. In a Reversal, Kickstarter Largely Ditches Rules and Human Moderation Requirements

41. Silicon Valley vs. Hollywood: Clash of the Corporate Cultures

42. Data Vs. Creativity: The Content Marketer’s False Choice

jon

News of the Week; May 28, 2014

1. Zenimax Sues Oculus

+ Virtual Rift Leads to Legal Rift for Oculus and ZeniMax

2. Wolfenstein: The New Order clocks up 100,000 illegal downloads

3. Blizzard suing StarCraft II hackers

4. Nintendo Reveals Plan to ‘Share’ Revenue with YouTube ‘Let’s Play’ Video Makers

5. Timeline: The rise and fall of 38 Studios in Rhode Island

Caprio: Ratings agencies hands weren’t clean in 38 Studios deal

6. Former CEO of Atlus parent arrested for fraud

7. An Anti-Bullying Video Game Where Mean Kids Become Demons

8. Apple pulls Weed Firm from App Store

9. Vivendi sells another $850m in Activision Blizzard stock

10. Sony PlayStation Follows Microsoft Into China

Sony Forms Joint Ventures in China for PlayStation

11. Sony: PS4 “likely” to exceed profits earned from PS2

12. PCCC Video Compares Net Neutrality Proposal to ‘Laggy Video Games’

13. Why we behave like psychopaths in online games

14. Watch Dogs PR stunt causes evacuation of Australian news office

15. Darpa Turns Oculus Into a Weapon for Cyberwar

16. How One Video Game Became a Million-Dollar Professional Sport

17. Video games are the most fascinating medium ever created, David Cage says

18. Man Robs Bank, Buys Games at Walmart, Gets Caught

19. Meet The Man Who Keeps Making Up Fallout 4 Rumors

20. The domestication of digital games in the lives of older adults

21. “A Multiplayer Game Environment Is Actually a Dream Come True for an Economist”

22. 7 Gamecations for the Ultimate Nerdy Summer

23. Giants behaving badly: Google, Facebook and Amazon show us the downside of monopolies and black-box algorithms

24. Amazon Speaks on Hachette Book Battle: Everyone Negotiates Like We Do (Wink)

25. Why I’m ditching my Amazon account

26. Canada needs a royal commission on spying and privacy of Canadians

27. From Toews to Todd: The Unravelling of the Government’s Lawful Access Sales Strategy

28. ‘Gutted’ NSA reform bill passes the House, but sheds supporters

29. FBI withdraws national security letter following Microsoft challenge

30. China Pulls Cisco Into Dispute on Cyberspying

31Pentagon Report That Supposedly Shows How Much Harm Snowden Caused… Actually Shows No Such Thing

32. Government Seeks Seven-Month Sentence for LulzSec Leader ‘Sabu’

33. Google, Yahoo and others are getting fed up with government gag orders

34. Google’s Brin Says NSA Surveillance Revelations Were a “Huge Disappointment”

35. Facebook Wants To Listen In On What You’re Doing

36. E.U. Debates Which Nation Will Regulate Web Privacy

37. You Are Not a Digital Native: Privacy in the Age of the Internet

38. Twitter caves to Pakistani “blasphemy” censorship requests

39. Microsoft sues Siberian bank for copyright infringement

40. Legislation to Protect Against ‘Patent Trolls’ Is Shelved

41. An Open Letter on Feminism In Tech

42. Wake me up before you Indiegogo: legal issues with crowdfunding

43. Microsoft’s Skype “Star Trek” Language Translator Takes on Tower of Babel

jon

News of the Week; May 21, 2014

1. Nintendo Wins Patent Lawsuit Against Wall Wireless

2. Philips alleges Nintendo patent infringement

3. Hex card game sued for infringing Magic IP

4. With Twitch Acquisition Talks, Validation of Games as Spectator Sport

5. You Can Try a Demo of Kabam’s New Videogame … On YouTube. What?

6. Microsoft offering refunds on Xbox Live Gold

7. It’s Run and Gun Time with Kim Jong Un in ‘Glorious Leader’

8. Far Cry 4 already playing with fire

9. Army’s new training shooter makes out of shape soldiers look fat

10. The vagina that scared Apple

11. Op-ed: It’s time for Nintendo to move beyond white characters

12. With Virtual Currency Giveaway, EA Tests New Type of iOS Promo

13. The gamification of buying games

14. As It Brings Its Mobile Game to China, Betaworks Reconnects the Dots

15. McDonald’s World Cup Promo Uses Augmented Reality to Turn French Fry Boxes Into Soccer Fields

16. Oculus Rift coming to Chuck E. Cheese’s

17. EVE Online And The Big Game Hunters

18. PS4 outsells Xbox One in April for fourth consecutive month

Sony’s still on track despite tough figures

19. Watchdog Group Report Concludes That New Consoles are Power Hogs

20. The Rise of Nintendo: A Story in 8 Bits

21. The Inside Story of Oculus Rift and How Virtual Reality Became Reality

22. A visit to Galloping Ghost, the largest video game arcade in the USA

23. Data Pirates of the Caribbean: The NSA Is Recording Every Cell Phone Call in the Bahamas

24. Secrets, lies and Snowden’s email: why I was forced to shut down Lavabit

25. Irony Alert: US Filing Criminal Charges Against China For Cyberspying

26. Photos of an NSA “upgrade” factory show Cisco router getting implant

In Letter to Obama, Cisco CEO Complains About NSA Allegations

27. Your Secret Stingray’s No Secret Anymore: The Vanishing Government Monopoly Over Cell Phone Surveillance and Its Impact on National Security and Consumer Privacy

28. (Canadian) Spy program suspended for being too aggressive

29. The “right” to be removed from Google: what the big EU decision means and the reaction so far

What we can salvage from ‘right to be forgotten’ ruling

Politician and paedophile ask Google to ‘be forgotten’

Will Europe’s “Right to be Forgotten” cross the pond to Canada?

30. Google Can’t Forget You, But It Should Make You Hard to Find

31. Apple May Be Liable For Privacy Violations by Third Party Developed Apps

32. The End Of Maximalist Copyright?

33. The Copyright Board of Canada Music Streaming Decision: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

34. How Much Copyright Protection Should Source Code Get? A New Court Ruling Reshapes The Landscape

35. We Need a Legal Framework for Biohacking Our Brains

36. Competition Bureau Recommends New Regulations To Address Wireless Competition Concerns

37. FCC Proves Yet Again That It’s Out to Kill Net Neutrality

38. Rogers explains why it came last in Netflix rankings

39. Shocker: Cable TV prices went up four times the rate of inflation

40. The Judge that Apple Hates

41. Bitcoin Foundation Hit by Resignations Over New Director

42. Forget the 3D Printer: 4D Printing Could Change Everything

43. Internet Addiction: Real or Virtual Reality?

44. Big Brother teams up with TMZ: How celebrity culture is hastening privacy’s digital demise

jon

News of the Week; May 14, 2014

1. Nintendo’s anti-gay cop-out: Why its demented same-sex ban is no game

Nintendo Apologizes for Response to Same-Sex Controversy

2. The Sims 4 rated 18+ in Russia for same-sex relationships

3. The Glorious History Of Video Game Panics

4. Research: 26 Percent of Men Use Opposite Gender Avatars in MMOs

5. Always Sometimes Monster’ Maker Urges GLAAD to Honor Games in its Media Awards

6. Capcom promoting female employees in an effort to recognize diversity

7. Report says Chinese authorities are banning bikinis in video games

8. CCP Punishes Eve Online Monument Vandals

9. Federal Court Rejects Facebook, Zynga Privacy Lawsuit Appeals

10. Gamers More Likely To Consider Themselves Independent And Support A Variety Of Policies Based On Free Choice

11. Sega’s gaming business rebounds

12. Tencent banks $1 billion in Q1

13. Sony executives to return bonuses

14. EA execs sell shares

15. EA confirms 50 games going offline

16. Microsoft: Xbox Live is bigger than DirecTV

17. Microsoft Cuts Xbox One Price to $399 Without Kinect, Will Put Media Apps in Front of Paywall

18. Epic announces crowdsourced dev model for next Unreal Tournament

19. Take-Two CEO open to buying more studios

GTA V ships 33 million, boosts Take-Two’s income to a record $361m

20. Australian Government Redirects $10 Million Meant for Australian Interactive Games Fund

21. The Birth of the $60 Billion Videogame Industry

22. Are Video Game Publishers Becoming Irrelevant?

23. From Paper to iPad, Pixel Press Turns Drawings Into Videogames

24. Sony’s Project Morpheus brings virtual reality to mainstream console gaming

25. I’ve Been Playing ‘Snood’ for 14 Years, and It Won’t Stop Insulting Me

26. The Untold Story of How Sega Nearly Won the Console Wars

27. The Wizard of Minecraft

28. Edward Snowden Sees Himself As A Video Game Hero

29. The Mystery of Go, the Ancient Game That Computers Still Can’t Win

30. Government snooping on social media may breach Privacy Act

31. ‘We Kill People Based on Metadata’

32. Protecting Privacy Through Copyright Law? by Pamela Samuelson

33. Your memories are negotiable: How science is making “Eternal Sunshine” a reality

34. Snapchat Settles FTC Charges on False Promises of Disappearing Messages

35. E.U. Court Orders Google to Grant ‘Right to Be Forgotten’

36. The facial recognition databases are coming. Why aren’t the privacy laws?

37. The Move Toward Computing That Reads Your Mind

38. Appointment of New Copyright Board of Canada Chair Offers Chance for Change

39. Oracle wins Android-Java copyright appeal: API code copyrightable, new trial on fair use

+ Link to Oracle v. Google USCA decision

Why Oracle’s Copyright Victory Over Google Is Bad News for Everyone

40. Guarding against abuse: Restoring constitutional copyright

41. Netflix Speed Rankings Raise Rogers Internet Traffic Management Questions: What Did It Know & When

42. Complaints About Net Neutrality Flooding the FCC

Comcast is the one who should pay for network connections, Cogent claims

Vi Hart Explains & Defends Net Neutrality in a New Doodle-Filled Video

Web Hosting Service NeoCities Throttles FCC Over ‘Net Neutrality’ Proposal

43. How Big Cable is organizing against net neutrality

44. Netflix comes through with price hike after struggles with Comcast, Verizon

45. Defending the Open Internet

46. Comparative Study Of National Approaches To Internet Intermediary Liability

47. What Happens When You Break Up With Facebook: Nothing

48. Can You Take a Security Interest in Bitcoin?

49. Talking Turkey: Twitter’s Top Lawyer Fights for Free Speech, Revenue

jon

News of the Week; May 7, 2014

1. Zenimax claims ownership of IP created by John Carmack that powers Oculus Rift [Updated]

Oculus “disappointed, but not surprised” by Zenimax claims

Oculus, ZeniMax trade accusations in VR technology ownership dispute

2. Valve refunding Earth: Year 2066 customers

3. Wolfenstein: The New Order to be Censored in Germany and Austria

4. Nintendo says no to same-sex relationships in new sim game

5. Nintendo Sinks to Loss on Lagging Wii U Sales

6. Level 3 claims six ISPs dropping packets every day over money disputes

7. After 32 Years, Small Massachusetts Town Votes to Lift Arcade Games Ban

8. Pro League of Legends Player Suffers Collapsed Lung, Continues to Play Anyways

9. Connecticut Lawmaker Calls for Warning Labels, Sin Tax on Video Games (Again)

10. Australia Considers Automating Classification Process for Games, Film and TV

11. Rhode Island Lawmaker Received Death Threat for Investigating 38 Studios Loan Deal

12. Can you tell a person’s gender by their video-game avatar?

13. EA sales dip as year ends

14. Mobile Game Revenue in China Expected to Rival U.S. in 2014

15. Lionsgate launching games division

16. Activision backs Destiny with $500m launch investment

17. Glu Mobile Acquires PlayFirst

18. Neversoft folded into Infinity Ward

19. Turtle Rock Community Manager Weighs In On Donald Sterling Situation, Gets Fired

20. EA nearing deal to stream games via Comcast – report

21. The Man Who Disposed of 750,000 Atari Games

22. Computer Technology Is Reviving the Board Game

23. What Do You Owe Your Backers on Kickstarter?

24. Canadian Telcos Asked to Disclose Subscriber Data Every 27 Seconds

Statement from the Interim Privacy Commissioner of Canada regarding telecommunications companies’ responses to information requests from government authorities

Why Have Canada’s Telcos Failed to Notify Subscribers About Disclosing Their Information?

Responding to the Crisis in Canadian Telecommunications

25. Facial recognition: is the technology taking away your identity?

26. Tech Companies Increasingly Telling Users When Law Enforcement Comes Asking For Data

27. Russia Quietly Tightens Reins on Web With ‘Bloggers Law’

28. Yahoo is the latest company ignoring Web users’ requests for privacy

29. App changes its privacy policy ten days after Facebook acquisition

30. 3 Ways Big Data Is Going To Be Used Against You In The Future

31. Big Data: Seizing Opportunities, Preserving Values (Executive Office of the President)

32. Competition Bureau releases draft updated Intellectual Property Enforcement Guidelines

33. What Exactly Are You Implying?’: The Elusive Nature of the Implied Copyright License

34. Jury Orders Samsung to Pay $119 Million to Apple in Patent Case: Damages Are Far Short of the $2.2 Billion Apple Had Sought

Google a Winner in Apple-Samsung Verdict

There’s No Dancing in Streets of Cupertino After Latest Apple-Samsung Verdict

35. I sold out to China: You know that censorship has won its war on truth-telling when journalists happily police themselves

36. WeRobot 2014 Conference Videos

jon

News of the Week; April 30, 2014

1. Stanford Has a Videogame Controller That Knows if You’re Bored

2. New ESA Report Offers Stats Galore on American Gaming Trends

3. PC market has surpassed console – DFC

4. Women increasing representation among US gamers – ESA

5. Virtual rape and slavery scandal rocks Minecraft community

6. Playing with privilege: the invisible benefits of gaming while male

7. How Dota 2 manipulates your behavior

8. Yes, There are Old Atari Game Cartridges Buried in the Desert

9. Digging up meaning from the rubble of an excavated Atari landfill

10. People donated $100,571 to pay for a game about being a bear

11. Zynga Founder Leaves Daily Role at Struggling Game Maker

12. So you want to publish a game in China…

13. This guy thinks killing video game characters is immoral

14. Video Games That Embrace Irony and Death

15. Sharing joysticks: how video games are opening up to LGBT themes

16. Danish government releases geographic data by way of 1:1 Minecraft map

17. Growth grinds to a halt for Angry Birds’ maker

18. Whatever happened to the arcade-style sports video game?

19. Nintendo Is Sort of Warming Up to This “Internet” Thing

20. Government Buries Massive Trademark Overhaul in Budget Implementation Bill

21. Trademark change bad for business

22. The Digital Privacy Act: Protecting the economic interests of copyright holders, or opening the door to copyright trolling in Canada?

23. Appeals court deals Apple’s current case against Samsung a massive blow: key patent devalued

24. Two Rulings May Curb Lawsuits Over Patents

25. (Canadian) Government makes over a million requests a year for data from telecoms

26. Declassified FISC Order Shows Verizon Lost Challenge to NSA’s Mass Surveillance Program

27. Communications Privacy for and by Whom?

28. F.B.I. Informant Is Tied to Cyberattacks Abroad

29. Putin’s Fear of the Internet

30. Justices appear open to limits on cellphone searches

31. Football team settles suit over text messages to fans for $3 million

32. FCC to Release Draft Net Neutrality Rules in May  

33. Net Neutrality: A Guide to (and History of) a Contested Idea

34. Does Anyone Like the FCC’s Proposed Net Neutrality Rules?

35. U.S. Plan for Internet Fast Lanes Contrasts With European Rules

36. Different Regulations, Different Regulators: Behind Canada’s Net Neutrality Advantage

37. BitTorrent: Netflix should defeat ISPs by switching to peer-to-peer

38. RadiumOne’s All-Male Board Is Now Deciding Whether (or Not) to Dump CEO Over Domestic Violence Conviction

+ Here Is the RadiumOne CEO Gurbaksh Chahal Firing Statement

jon

News of the Week; April 23, 2014

1. US v. SILVIUS, Court of Appeals, 6th Circuit 2014; mod chips conviction

2. King Settles Trademark Disputes With ‘CandySwipe’ and ‘The Banner Saga’ Makers

3. King Stock Bumped Up by Tencent Partnership

4. Candy Crush Gets Nationwide TV Ads in Japan, and They’re Super Weird

5. PS4 outsold Xbox One in March while Titanfall led software sales

6. It’s Official: Consoles Can Be Sold at Chinese Retail

7. China Details Copious Restrictions On Video Game Content

8. Sony sells all Square Enix stock

9. Perfect World to buy $100 million in Shanda shares

10. NCSoft Invests $4.8 Million in Lezhin Entertainment

11. For Zynga, a modest rebound would count as a win

12. Only 2.2% of free-to-play users ever pay – Report

13. My mother made me a gamer, and gave me the skills to deal with her death

14. How Minecraft is helping the United Nations improve the world

15. The Lawless Frontier of Deep Space: Code as Law in EVE Online

16. The Next Big Thing In Video Games: ‘Ethical’ Gaming

17. Tapping Into the Emotional Side of Video Games: Developing Hope, Healing and Love

18. The disappearing inventor (Blog entry by Ken Perlin on the real story of the origins of Oculus and the role of Mark Bolas of USC)

19. All Videogames Are a Joke

20. Telus must reimburse $2.6M in texting fees, court rules

21. Netflix Asks Appellate Court to Reconsider ‘Innocence of Muslims’ Ruling

22. For world’s biggest troll, first patent case ends up in tatters

23. Argument preview: Free TV, at a bargain price?

+ Why the Aereo Supreme Court case over TV’s future is too tough to call

+ Aereo analysis: Cloud computing at a crossroads

Here’s What the Supreme Court Wants to Know About Aereo, in the Justices’ Own Words

24. Copyright is Out of Control

25. Understanding the Crazy Math Apple and Samsung Use to Calculate Patent Damages

26. Record industry finds a new way to squeeze Pandora, but it won’t help musicians

27. When ‘Liking’ a Brand Online Voids the Right to Sue

After Facebook Flap, General Mills Backs Down From Forced Arbitration Policy

28. The Effect of Social Media in Young Girls

29. Facebook Wants You Talking About the World Cup — So Advertisers Can Find You

30. Amazon Sales Take a Hit in States With Online Tax

31. Protests Continue Against Dropbox After Appointment of Condoleezza Rice to Board

32. Preston-Warner Threatens Legal Action in Github Scandal Fallout

Julie Ann Horvath on GitHub Investigation: “How Do You Sleep at Night?”

33. Government of Canada proposes important changes to PIPEDA

34. Key differences between US and Canadian anti-spam laws

35. Big Data is the new Artificial Intelligence

36. Right of Publicity? First, Let Me Take a Selfie

37. Twitter’s Turkey Headache That Won’t End

38. China’s New Internet Crackdown: Not About Porn

39. Google Patents Contact Lenses That Contain Microcameras

40. Finally, Someone Acts Like An Adult: District Attorney Drops Charges Against Bullied Teen Who Recorded His Tormentors

41. Hollywood Sci-Fi Films Are Ripping Off Anime

42. Theories of intellectual property: Is it worth the effort?

43. Ignore age—define generations by the tech they use

44. The Rapture of the Nerds

45. Ethereum

Ethereum: Freenet or Skynet ?

46. How the Internet Is Taking Away America’s Religion

jon

News of the Week; April 16, 2014

1. Legal battles shook Titanfall dev Respawn, report says

2. Halo composer fired “without cause”

3. Inside Eve Online’s Fear of a Russian Star Cluster

4. Spector aims to build “Navy SEALs of game development training”

5. How A Drexel Professor Created The World’s Biggest Game Of Tetris

6. Virtual Reality, Oculus Rift, and Computing’s Next Big Reset

7. An oral history of the last 20 years of gaming, as told by PlayStation’s Shuhei Yoshida

8. PC gaming: Not just still alive, but still dominant, says PAX East panel

9. Fox Accidentally Releases Family Guy Game Early, ‘Fixes’ This By Issuing YouTube Copyright Claims And Killing Twitch Channels

10. ESA Responds to Column Comparing Drug Use and Slavery to Game Addiction

11. Dispute flares on why game addict killed son

12. Research: The Impact of Video Games on Teen School Grades is Almost Negligible

13. China’s Communist Party Publicly Shames Politicians for Online Gambling, Drinking, and Gaming

14.The game that saved a life

15. Traditional games are the real bait-and-switch – Cousins

16. Study finds that 0.22 percent of players account for 46 percent of mobile app revenue

17. Sony sells all Square Enix stock

18. SOE: One Player Has Already Made $100K Creating Items in Player Studio

19. Georgia Passes Law Providing $25 Million in Tax Credits to the Video Games Industry

20. Some Gamers Fear a Dystopian Free-to-Play Future

21. Philippines Government Investigating Leland Yee Gun Smuggling Allegations

22. The FBI Gamified the Hunt For One of Its Most Wanted

23. Supreme Court weighing when online speech becomes illegal threat

24. Laws and Ethics Can’t Keep Pace with Technology

25. Court Declares That, Yes, Bloggers Are Media

26. ECJ declares Dutch home copying levies incompatible with EU law

27. Is Anonymous Texting Ethical?

28. After Netflix pays Comcast, speeds improve 65%

29. Top Android Executive Says Google Didn’t Copy Apple’s iPhone

30. Obama: NSA Must Reveal Bugs Like Heartbleed, Unless They Help the NSA

31. Why Heartbleed Is the Ultimate Web Nightmare

32.All sent and received e-mails in Gmail will be analyzed, says Google

33. Why the Digital Privacy Act Undermines Our Privacy: Bill S-4 Risks Widespread Warrantless Disclosure

34. 10 Charts That Are Changing the Way We Measure Content

35. You Knew This Day Would Come: Crowdfunding Site Raising Crowdfunding for Itself

36. Two Artificial Intelligence Chatbots Talk to Each Other & Get Into a Deep Philosophical Convseration

37. All rise: The era of legal startups is now in session

jon