News of the Week

News of the Week; April 9, 2014

1. Video Game Store Owner Pleads Guilty to Tax Evasion, Faces Five Years in Prison

2. Study: Games’ link to aggression comes from challenge, not violence

3. Ultimate Gay Fighter To Be Renamed After Legal Pressure

4. The Reality of Sexism in the Game Industry

5. Are Japanese women the future of its gaming?

6. Blizzard, trans clans, and the evolution of online harassment policy

7. Report: Russia Proposing Stricter Age Restrictions for Video Games and Web Sites

8. This War Of Mine turns war survivors’ tales into game design

9. TabTale: “We don’t believe in virtual currency for kids”

10. Regulatory and tax issues posed by Convertible Virtual Currencies

11. Computers Are Now Able to Teach Each Other Pac-Man, The End is Near

12. Last year, 71 million people watched other people play video games

13. Most Mobile Game Players Quit After One Day

14. Wargaming to Invest $10 Million in Support of eSports

15. Amazon Fire TV: A “nonevent” for games?

16. Ridley Scott is working on a Halo project for Microsoft

17. Xbox has landfill dig for Atari games approved

18. Microsoft will let you share Xbox One clips on YouTube starting tomorrow

19. How pinball and boardwalk amusements gave rise to video games

20. Mozilla’s Chief Felled by View on Gay Unions

21. Why Mozilla’s Chief Had to Resign

22. New California law extends additional protections to minors on the internet

23. Technology’s Man Problem

24. Supreme Court passes on NSA bulk phone surveillance case

25. EU high court strikes down metadata collection law

26. Illegal Spying: BCCLA files class action lawsuit against Canada’s electronic spy agency

27. Snowden Speaks: A Vanity Fair Exclusive

28. Turkey Lifts Twitter Ban

29. From Turkey’s ban to “Cuban Twitter”: How countries manipulate the masses on social media

30. Nearly Half Of Americans Claim They’ve Changed Their Behavior Due To NSA

31. U.S. Calls Out Canadian Data Protection as a Trade Barrier

32. E.U. Lawmakers Approve Tough ‘Net Neutrality’ Rules

33. 5 Privacy Laws I Would Put on the Books Right Now

34. Release of discussion draft on Action 1 (Tax Challenges of the Digital Economy) of the BEPS Action Plan

35. Royal Society of Canada says Wi-Fi appears safe, exposure limits fine

36. Court Quickly Rejects Contempt Motion Against Google By Innocence Of Muslims’ Actress

37. Aereo Gets Support from Cable Operators, Law Professors, Tech Industry

38. Competition Bureau Seeks Input on the Updated Intellectual Property Enforcement Guidelines

39. Never Use the Words “Intellectual Property” When It Matters

40. What’s New in Digital and Social Media Research: How editors see the news differently from readers, and the limits of filter bubbles

41. Why it is not possible to regulate robots

42. Automated ethics

43. The Internet of Things: Monopoly Capitalism vs. Collaborative Commons

44. Is Native Advertising Legal? Does It Matter?

45. The Guilt of the Video-game Millionaires

46. NBA star Jeremy Lin says DOTA 2 is “more than just a game”

jon

News of the Week; April 2, 2014

1. The Times They Are a’Trollin’: World of Warcraft Wins Suit against Patent Trolls

2. PlayStation problems: no defense in Sony’s cyberattack suits

3. 3DRealms to Gearbox: ‘We Still Own Duke Nukem’

4. Epic’s goal: Don’t be Comcast

5. Is the Oculus Rift sexist?

6. Is The Oculus Rift Acquisition A PR Disaster For Kickstarter And Facebook?

7. Oculus founder didn’t expect “so many death threats” after Facebook deal

8. Is Facebook buying Oculus a boost for Morpheus?

9. Study finds online gamers aren’t antisocial basement dwellers

10. Free-to-play whales more rational than assumed

11. Console microtransactions: $352 million annually and growing

12. Games evangelists and naysayers

13. A Video Game Without Rules Inevitably Devolves Into Lord of the Flies

14. Was CCP right to ban this Eve Online player?

15. Banned Titanfall Players Can Still Play Online… With Other Cheaters

16. Violent Video Games Don’t Exist

17. Anti-Game Violence Crusader Leland Yee Arrested On Charges Of Bribery, Corruption And Arms Trafficking

18. A Lesson in Stupid Moral Panics: The History Of Dungeons And Dragons Bans

19. Goat Simulator review

20. EU approves UK games tax relief, signalling £188m windfall

21. App Maker Buckles on 1st Day of Trading

22. Inside the disintegration of a game jam reality show

23. EA’s Moore apologises for Frostbite prank

24. NSA performed warrantless searches on Americans’ calls and emails – Clapper

25. Don’t Listen to Google and Facebook: The Public-Private Surveillance Partnership Is Still Going Strong

26. Turkey Escalates Internet Blocking With YouTube Ban

27. Huawei on NSA: If foreign spies attacked a US firm, there’d be “outrage”

28. Google says government requests ‘up 120%’ in four years

29. Microsoft will no longer look through your Hotmail to investigate leaks

30. Activists to Appeal US Judge’s Ruling on Baidu’s Censorship

31. UK Court Says Information Stored Electronically Is Not ‘Property’

32. The inside story of MIT and Aaron Swartz

33. Supreme Court Seems Wary of Software Patent Case

34. Apple faces certified class action suit over e-book price conspiracy

35. Big Changes Coming to Canadian Trademark Law

36. The Canadian legal landscape in 3D scanning and printing: The next frontier of IP law

37. The rise of the API economy and consumer-led ecosystems

38. Op-ed: The legality of virtual currency

39. Old Rivalry Aired Again in Patent Case Between Apple and Samsung

40. Three Mozilla board members—including former CEOs—step down

41. At Mozilla, a Chief’s Support of Gay Marriage Ban Causes Conflict

jon

News of the Week; March 26, 2014

1. Rovio Wins Counterfeit Toy Lawsuit, Awarded $700K in Damages

2. Facebook acquiring Oculus for $2 billion

3. Minecraft dev halts talks with Oculus following Facebook acquisition

4. Security and Privacy for Augmented Reality Systems

5. Candy Crush Maker Falls in Trading Debut

6. At GDC Shindig, Don Mattrick Says Zynga Turnaround Is Halfway There

7. EA out of Worst Company in America poll

8. Australian Man Charged With Hacking Unnamed U.S. Video Game Company

9. Playing as black: Avatar race affects white video game players

10. We must reject stereotypes in games – Manveer Heir

11. What it means to be a woman in games

12. Watch out trolls: Microsoft begins sending Xbox One reputation warnings

13. How Virtual Gaming Worlds Are Revealing the Nature of Human Hierarchies

14. Abraham game makers believe they are in a fight with Satan

15. The First National Bank of GameStop

16. The Pilots in the Basement

17. This University Cares About What Truly Matters: Being Good At Gaming

18. Norwegian Teen Learns That Call of Duty Marathons and Energy Drinks Can Put You in a Coma

19. Texas Juvenile Probation Dept. Head Blames Video Games, Music for Evil Influence

20. Researchers Disagree on New Study Correlating Violent Games With Aggressive Behavior in Children

21. Researchers Use Tetris To Reduce Cravings

22. The 10 best esports documentaries of all time

23. ‘Monopoly’ is crowdsourcing new rules on Facebook

24. Landmark judgment on intellectual property and online links

25. Supreme Court Changes False Advertising Law Across the Country

26. Judge: IP-Address Is Not a Person and Can’t Identify a BitTorrent Pirate

27. Show me how you do that trick: magic  performance copyrightable, infringed

28. The big steal: rise of the plagiarist in the digital age

29. BSA Caught Using Infringing Image For Its ‘Snitch’ On Your Colleagues Anti-Piracy Campaign

30. How do you DRM a coffee pod?

31. Netflix Says It Really Didn’t Want to Cut That Traffic Deal With Comcast

32. Internet Tolls And The Case For Strong Net Neutrality

33. In Turkey, Twitter Roars After Effort to Block It

34. Elephant Trails: How Old Technologies & Business Practices Continue to Influence Us

35. NSA hacker in residence dishes on how to “hunt” system admins

36. Forget the NSA. Tech Companies May Be Reading Your Email Too

37. Arrest of secret-leaking ex-Microsoftie raises Hotmail privacy concerns (Updated)

38. Microsoft Software Leak Inquiry Raises Privacy Issues

39. How Microsoft Scroogled Itself As The Defender Of Email Privacy Over Google

40. Taken in phishing attack, Microsoft’s unmentionables aired by hacktivists

41. Revelations of N.S.A. Spying Cost U.S. Tech Companies

42. Who Needs Lawful Access?: Cdn Telcos Hand Over Data on Thousands of Subscribers Without a Warrant

43. When gov’t spies fake your company’s website, what can be done?

44. Mt. Gox suddenly finds 200,000 missing bitcoins, worth over $115M

45. IRS Says Bitcoin Will Be Taxed as Property, Not Currency

46. 9th Circuit oral arguments in Garcia v. Google

jon

News of the Week; March 12, 2014

1. Video game addiction? Court dings dad’s claim

2. South Park delayed in Germany, Austria over use of swastikas

3. DRAM makers reach $310 million settlement in price fixing suit

4. Female Representation in Desktop Dungeons

5. Tomb Raider finally beats profit expectations

6. Hard Empirical Evidence That Games Are Better Than Music

7. The Disappointment Of Video Game Guns

8. Playing games with violence

9. What today’s console makers can learn from the ’90s Sega vs. Nintendo battle

10. When A Successful Game Is A Failure

11. Kabam Acquires Role-Playing Game Studio Phoenix Age

12. King targets $7.6 billion valuation

13. The Flight of the Birdman: Flappy Bird Creator Dong Nguyen Speaks Out

14. Nigeria seeks to conquer African video games market

15. Copyright v. privacy: Voltage Pictures LLC v. John DOE and Jane DOE

16. Court Blesses Instagram’s Right to Unilaterally Amend Its User Agreement–Rodriguez v. Instagram

17. Google States Unequivocally It Was ‘Attacked’ By The Chinese… And By The United States

18. Government Sues Sprint For Overcharging For Wiretaps Under CALEA

19. Why You Should Embrace Surveillance, Not Fight It

20. The Future of Internet Freedom

21. Web inventor Tim Berners-Lee calls for digital “Magna Carta”

22. Machinima raises $18m in Warner Bros funding round

23. Getty Images Decides It’s Mostly Better To Compete Than Sue, Frees Up Millions Of Images

24. A First Amendment defense to a right of publicity claim? No longer “a shoe in”

25. Danah Boyd Has a Message for Adults About Teen Behavior Online: It’s All Your Fault

jon

News of the Week; March 5, 2014

1. Delaware Court Rules That Vivendi Can’t Invoke French Law in Activision Shareholders Lawsuit

2. Federal Judge Dismisses Shareholder Lawsuit Against Zynga

3. Judge Denies RI Advisor Request to Be Shielded in 38 Studios Lawsuit

4. Court Documents Reveal EA Was Keen to Use Athletes’ Names and Likenesses in its NCAA Video Games

5. Chinese Government Bans Video Game Advertising on TV, and in Other Mediums

6. Report: UK Spy Agency Evaluated the Potential of Using Kinect, PlayStation Eye for Bulk Surveillance

7. PEGI: We Didn’t Censor South Park: Stick of Truth

8. European Commission consultation on free to play games and ‘free’ mobile apps: an initial analysis

9. House Offers Proposal for Tax Credits for Business… Except ‘Violent Video Game Makers’

10. Ubi writer: Sales fears make gay protagonists unlikely

11. The day the Mario Kart died: Nintendo’s kill switch and the future of online consoles

12. Nintendo Kills Online Functionality For Wii, DS Titles, Highlighting Need For Greater User Control Over Content They Supposedly Own

13. This Is Your Brain on Candy Crush (Video)

14. Nintendo Investor Wants Us To Pay $0.99 For Higher Mario Jumps

15. 6 million PlayStation 4s sold

(And a 3 item  GTA 5 bonus)…

16. Mob Wives star sues Rockstar (Feb. 27, 2014)

17. Lindsay Lohan sets lawyers on Grand Theft Auto 5 (Dec. 2, 2013)

18. Rapper sends cease and desist to Rockstar 

19. Board Games and Intellectual Property

20. Copyright Users’ Rights in Canada Hits Ten: The Tenth Anniversary of the CCH Decision

21. Will 3D Printing Upend Fashion Like Napster Crippled the Music Industry?

22. Facebook exempt from Quebec’s French language law, lawyer says

23. Garcia v. Google, Inc.: Does An Actor Have A Copyright Interest In His Or Her Performance In A Film?

24. Bitcoin Exchange Mt. Gox Files for Bankruptcy Protection

25. The Doomsday Cult of Bitcoin

26. California Court Rules Looking at Maps Apps Okay — But What About Everything Else?

27. This Video Is No Longer Available

28. Verizon Reveals More About Federal Spying on Customers

29. The technical aspects of privacy

30. “A Rape in Cyberspace” Gets Remade for the IRL Era

31. Lawrence Lessig sees compensation after rights holder’s YouTube takedown

32. British Spies Said to Intercept Yahoo Webcam Images

33. The digital anthropologist: Danah Boyd interview

34. Kickstarter reaches $1 billion in pledges — Games are the biggest category overall

jon

News of the Week; February 26, 2014

1. King Drops “Candy” Trademark Battle in U.S.; Other Trademarks Unaffected

2. International Trade Commission Sides With Nintendo in 3DS Patent Infringement Case

3. Gearbox sues 3D Realms, Interceptor over ‘unauthorized use’ of Duke Nukem

4. Zynga Beats IPO Lawsuit

5. That’s a Bingo: GSN Gobbles Up Bash Gaming, Ending Lawsuit

6. Court Orders GAME to Pay Back-Rent

7. 11 Times Video Games Led to Lawsuits

8. Does Norwegian mass murderer Anders Breivik deserve a PS3?

9. Sony Blows Past PS4 Target, and Developers Are Leaning Its Way, Too

10. Twitch broadcasting comes to Xbox One

11. Viral Video: Nostalgia, Memes and Anarchy Collide in Twitch Plays Pokémon

12. The Oculus Rift Will Work for Movies, Too. Eventually.

13. Did the Video Game World Have its Own Manti Te’o Scandal?

14. EVE graphic novel based on real player stories out now

15. EVE, offline: how do you archive a universe?

16. EVE: The Most Thrilling Boring Game in the Universe

17. King’s IPO is no Royal Flush

18. Study: Video Game Training Can Make Better Baseball Players

19. Can Dating an Avatar Improve Real-Life Relationships?

20. Video game play may provide learning, health, social benefits, review finds

21. In a First for Spain, a Woman Is Convicted of Inciting Terror Over Twitter

22. Copyright Board of Canada on Copying a Few Pages: It’s Insubstantial and Not Compensable

23. Fair use is a trademark concept as well

24. How the TekSavvy court decision will help shut out copyright trolls in Canada

25. Intellectual Ventures starts PAC to lobby for patent trolls

26. Surprise! Apple and Samsung Still Don’t Agree to Agree.

27. How Covert Agents Infiltrate the Internet to Manipulate, Deceive, and Destroy Reputations

28. Data privacy, machine learning and the destruction of mysterious humanity

29. Can Privacy Be Saved?

30. ‘The Wild West of Privacy’

31. Obama Administration Responds to Net Neutrality Petition, Reaffirms Support

32. Comcast Versus the Open Internet

33. Netflix packets being dropped every day because Verizon wants more money

34. Americans say they’d dump a carrier that slowed their Web traffic

35. Netflix is paying Comcast for direct connection to network

36. The FCC’s new net neutrality plan draws skepticism, pessimism, and fear

37. The Netflix-Comcast agreement isn’t a network neutrality violation, but it is a problem

38. Facebook Price for Having No Phone OS? $19 Billion. A Must-Have Apps Play? Priceless.

39. The Fall Of Intrade And The Business Of Betting On Real Life

40. Kids May Be Leaving Facebook, but They Love YouTube

jon

News of the Week; February 19, 2014

1. IGDA criticizes King’s “predatory” trademark tactics

2. Valve DNS privacy flap exposes the murky world of cheat prevention

3. Digital resale rights in the EU: the state of play

4. Time for Some Traffic Problems… In Your Video Games!

5. Women are gamers, but largely absent from “e-sports”

6. The Plight Of Iranians Trying To Make A Video Game About The 1979 Revolution

7. What makes video games addictive?

8. Indie is the new punk – Vlambeer

9. Clash of Clans daily revenue at $5.15 million – Hacker

10. King files for $500m IPO on NYSE

11. EA: You Can Only Rate Our Dungeon Keeper App If you Give It A Perfect Rating

12. EA Deploys The Comcast Defense: ‘It Only Sounds Like A Lot Of Complaints Because We Have So Damn Many Customers’

13. How Will the Oculus Rift Change Game Design?

14. Another Big Month for Sony Game Console

15. NBA execs on the power of video games

16. How Passion Killed and Revived a 20-Year-Old Indie Game

17. Tulsa Oklahoma Looking To Place Video Game Stores Under Same Regulations As Pawn Shops

18. Disruptions: Using Addictive Games to Build Better Brains

19. The Psychology of Gamification: Can Apps Keep You Motivated?

20. Can Playing Video Games Help With Dyslexia?

21. Flappy Bird: What lessons can be learned?

22. Flappy Bird fallout: Apple, Google rejecting apps with the word “flappy” in the title

23. Google’s Ingress Players Are Crazy. Here’s the Video to Prove It.

24. Is the Internet Good or Bad? Yes.

25. The Terrible Toll of Secrecy

26. The Day We Fought Back

27. Spying by N.S.A. Ally Entangled U.S. Law Firm

28. ‘Copyright needs a dramatic rethink for digital realm’

29. Hyperlinking is Not Copyright Infringement, EU Court Rules

30. The Australian Law Reform Commission officially recommends adoption of fair use

31. People-Powered Publishing Is Changing All the Rules

32. How Free Speech Online Is Enabled By Not Blaming Websites For The Actions Of Their Users

33. Social Media, a Trove of Clues and Confessions

34. Internet Trolls Really Are Horrible People: Narcissistic, Machiavellian, psychopathic, and sadistic

jon

News of the Week; February 12, 2014

1. Valve Wins German Lawsuit Concerning Used Digital Games Sales

2. Modchips now legal in the EU (as long as they’re not naughty)

3. U.S. Gaming Content Spending Topped $15.39 Billion in 2013

4. Original Dungeon Keeper Creator Calls New Mobile Game ‘Ridiculous’

5. Oculus VR Will Co-Publish Space Shooter EVE: Valkyrie

6. Gaming Minds Search for the Sweet Spot Between Physical and Virtual Worlds

7. Flappy Bird Soars, Then Disappears, Along With a Weekend

+ Flappy Bird Fallout: Piracy, Clones and eBay Auctions

+ 29-Year-Old Flappy Bird Creator Says Guilt Made Him Shut Down His Game: It Became ‘Addictive’

8. Why Indie Developers Go Insane

9. UMass Studies The Positive Effects of Casual Games

10. League of Legends developer promises it’s not a patent troll

11. Report: EA is Manipulating the Ratings for Free-to-Play Dungeon Keeper Game

12. Inside the Epic Online Space Battle That Cost Gamers $300,000

13. Amazon Boosts Gaming Cred With Acquisition of Double Helix Games

14. Games still seen as “social ill” but there’s opportunity in education – Hawkins

15. Why the Fighting Game Community is Color Blind

16. Twitch Beats Out Facebook and Amazon in Online U.S. Traffic

17. Life is a game. This is your strategy guide

18. Cisco Jumps Into The Fray: Fights Rockstar Consortium Patent Lawsuits

19. Court sides with T-Mobile, bans AT&T’s Aio Wireless from using magenta color

20. The Day the Internet Didn’t Fight Back

21. What happens with digital rights management in the real world?

22. Twitter Rejects NSA Agreement, Demands More Transparency

23. Turks bid farewell to the Internet in the face of brutal censorship/surveillance law

24. When Facebook’s Terms Of Service Decide What Kind Of ‘Speech’ Is Okay, Activists Get Silenced

25. Surveillance and Canada’s lagging law

26. Tim Berners-Lee: we need to re-decentralise the web

jon

News of the Week; February 5, 2014

1. U.S. District Court Dismisses GTA Online Class Action Lawsuit

+ Grand Theft Auto online delay not actionable

2. GTA V tops 32m shipped as Take-Two’s Q3 profits hit $578m

3. Blizzard sues Hearthstone clone developer

4. Someone Files Fake ‘Express Abandonment’ on Watch Dog Trademark, Ubisoft Fights Back

5. Pennsylvania’s Fact-Finding Commission on Video Games and Violence Fails to Find Facts

6. Violent video games may affect moral judgement in teens

7. Sony data breach case stripped down but not gone

8. Does the CJEU ruling in Nintendo and Others v PC Box Srl raise serious implications for device manufacturers?

9. Funcom: We Are Cooperating with Authorities in Insider Trading Investigation

10. The Squalid Grace of Flappy Bird

11. Well Played: volume 3 number 1

12. Games and the Public Domain

13. Keyboards, Kickstarter and Copyright Law: Elite Systems under fire

14. Video games, Down’s syndrome and my brother – a personal story

15. Digital Video Games and International Interactions

16. Struggling Zynga to Buy Mobile Game Maker

17. Remember Me developer files for bankruptcy – reports

18. Nintendo Buys Back 9.5 Million Shares for $1.13 Billion

19. Why Nintendo Won’t Give Up on the Wii U’s GamePad

20. Street Fighter II: An Oral History

21. CRA confirms its view of bitcoin transactions

22. Government of Canada tables five significant intellectual property law treaties

23. Tech startups: A Cambrian moment

24. Has the FCC Chairman Solved the Net Neutrality Quagmire?

25. LinkedIn claims breach of contract by bot users

26. Does Bitcoin Matter?

27. How DeepMind’s artificial intelligence will make Google even smarter

jon

News of the Week; January 29, 2014

1. Court overturns $11 million judgment for original Madden creator

2. Copyright Suit Over Second Life Terraforming Survives Summary Judgment, Then Settles — FireSabre v. Linden

3. Stoic: The Banner Saga Sequel Held Up By King Trademark Challenge

4. Candy Crush is everything that is wrong with trademark law

5. ‘Candy Crush Saga’ Creator Accused Of Cloning Indie Game

6. Nintendo vs Modchips

7. Report: Spy Agencies Collect Troves of Data From ‘Leaky Apps’ Like ‘Angry Birds’

8. “DayZ” Makes You Feel Every Murder You Commit. Can You Handle This?

9. Former Global VR CTO Sentenced to Two Years in Prison

10. Report: Funcom Under Investigation for Insider Trading

11. EA beats guidance as sales shrink, losses deepen

12. Report: Iranian Man Arrested by Government for ‘Kill Dictators’ Game on Kongregate

13. Japanese Vita Game ‘ Monster Monpiece’ Gets Toned Down for Europe and North America

14. A Holodeck Videogame Designed to Train Soldiers

15. Biggest battle in EVE Online’s history leads to an estimated $500,000 in damages

16. What Games Are: Generation Gygax

17. FTC: Microsoft and EA Are Not Breaking Any Laws With YouTube Paid Endorsement Schemes

18. Net Neutrality and Gaming: Things Can Get A Lot Worse

19. How online gamers are solving science’s biggest problems

20. Is emoji death threat a criminal offense? Possibly, law prof says

21. Apple Patent Explores Mood-Based Ad Targeting

22. What If Your Autonomous Car Keeps Routing You Past Krispy Kreme?

23. Chinese Internet Traffic Redirected to Small Wyoming House

24. Watchdog report offers harshest critique of NSA metadata program to date

25. Told Ya So: NSA’s Collection Of Metadata Is Screamingly Illegal

26. Snowden Docs Reveal British Spies Snooped on YouTube and Facebook

27. Spanish Court Orders an ISP to Disconnect a Copyright Infringer

28. Apple Wins Temporary Stay on Court Monitor

29. Europe’s Highest Court Says DRM Circumvention May Be Lawful In Certain Circumstances + Decision

30. Study of French “three strikes” piracy law finds no deterrent effect

31. Corporations Abusing Copyright Laws Are Ruining the Web for Everyone

32. A Brief History of Sampling: From the Beatles to the Beastie Boys

33. Here We Go Again: Canadian Recording Industry Calls on Government To Regulate the Internet

34. The Internet Is the Greatest Legal Facilitator of Inequality in Human History

jon

News of the Week; January 22, 2014

1. Why did a SimCity offline option take so long?

2. Plastic surgery game removed from sale

3. Gaming Addiction Documentary ‘Love Child’ Debuts at the Sundance Film Festival

4. The Healing Power of Video Games

5. Dreamcasters: how video games alter our subconscious

6. Valve says virtual reality hardware could transform entertainment in two years

7. Stealth marketing: Microsoft paying YouTubers for Xbox One mentions

8. Could The (U.S.) Court’s Net Neutrality Ruling Affect Your Gaming?

9. Joint Namco-DeNA mobile venture to finish in March

10. Candy Crush maker King is a step closer to trademarking the word ‘Candy’

11. Some thoughts on game trademarks, King and Candy Crush

12. Google Remarketing Ads Found To Violate Canadian Privacy Law; To Revamp Ad Review System By June

13. The Problem with Facebook: “It’s Keeping Things From You”

14. NSA collects millions of text messages daily in ‘untargeted’ global sweep

15. Obama To End Mass Collection of U.S. Phone Data

16. Full Text of Obama’s Speech on NSA Surveillance

17. Obama’s Surveillance Reform Speech Draws Tepid Tech Response

18. Obama’s Path From Critic to Overseer of Spying

19. Guess Who Owns The Patent to RSA’s Backdoor Algorithm? Blackberry

20. America’s Spies Want Edward Snowden Dead

21. AMC movie theater calls “federal agents” to arrest a Google Glass user

22. What is the big brother problem? by Jonathan Zittrain

23. Why Alyssa Milano created a comic book tribute to Anonymous

24. Closing Time for the Open Internet

25. Copyright’s Not Getting its Job Done

26. Copyright Week: If We Want To Get Copyright Right, It’s Time To Go Back To Basics

27. Report: Japan to Tax Digital Goods from Foreign Sources in 2015

28. .CA Domain Names Held To Be Personal Property

29. Canada Says Bitcoin Isn’t Legal Tender

30. Why Bitcoin Matters

jon

News of the Week; January 15, 2014

1. Court upholds findings in $9.2M Epic Games, Silicon Knights lawsuit

2. Why The Violent Game Debate Actually Isn’t Over

3. Nintendo Secures IA Labs Patents in Sherriff’s Sale

4. Schilling Attorney Claims New Documents Prove Rhode Island’s Lawsuit is ‘Baseless’

5. SimCity reversal: EA finally adding offline mode

6. China drafting new rules for consoles, disallows products ‘hostile to China’

7. Candy Crush Is Turning Children Into Obsessive Gamblers

8. Xbox 360 app made $1m in 4 months for Pizza Hut

9. Can an iPad Game Detect Alzheimer’s?

10. Federal Court of Justice bans ads for virtual items in online game – reasons for judgment available, but not final (Germany)

11. New Research Explores Why Some Players Cheat and Troll in Online Games

12. IGDA Applauds South Australian Government’s Decision to Take Down Anti-Videogame Billboards

13. 2013 for games on Kickstarter

14. Ethical Free-to-Play Game Design (And Why it Matters)

15. Intellectual Property Fosters Corporate Concentration

16. Top Ten Internet Law Developments Of 2013

17. Can an Emoticon be Protected as a Trademark?

18. Clickable Consent at Risk in Internet Privacy Lawsuits

19. LinkedIn Sues to Fend Off Content-Scraping Bots

20. Apple and Samsung Agree to Mediation in Patent Dispute

21. Is Uber’s Surge-Pricing an Example of High-Tech Gouging?

22. The REAL Real Problem with Facebook

23. No copyright on yoga: HC (India)

24. Federal Court in Virginia Court Says Domain Names Are Not Property, But Contractual Rights

25. Social Data by Woodrow Hartzog

26. The NSA Even Spies on Congress

27. A New Hampshire Rebellion for Aaron Swartz

28. On the anniversary of the death of Aaron Swartz, Anonymous hacks MIT again

29. Members Of Congress Ask Eric Holder To Try Again In His Explanation Of The Prosecution Of Aaron Swartz

30. European Report Says Canadian Privacy Law Should Be Re-Examined Due to Surveillance Activities

31. Court of Appeals Nullifies Part of FCC’s Open Internet Order

32. What you need to know about the court decision that just struck down net neutrality + Link to decision

jon

News of the Week; January 8, 2013

1. Nintendo must pay percentage of 3DS sales to infringed patent holder

2. The violent game debate is over

3. Lanza’s Violent Video Game Play Overblown

4. Are the Xbox and unleaded gas helping keep you safe from violent crime?

5. Penny Arcade’s Gabe Apologises For Being A “Bully”

6. Online Gaming Is South Korea’s Most Popular Drug

7. Happy pirates, wider audience: Why making sure a pirated game works is good business

8. Zynga Links Up With BitPay For A Bitcoin Payment Test In FarmVille 2, CityVille And Other Web Games

9. Blizzard Makes Changes to Default Battle.net Parental Control Settings Related to ‘Buying Things’

10. 3DS Users Create Region Locking Work Around

11. PS4 to “win” console wars – Analyst

12. Chinese gaming market tops $13 billion

13. China Cracks Open the Door for Video Game Consoles, but Doubts Abound

14. U.S. Patent No. 7,697,015: storage medium and game device storing image generating program

15. U.S. Patent No. 7,695,368: Game program, game device, and game method

16. Idea vs. Expression – What is protected under copyright law?

17. Multiple gaming platforms hit with apparent DDoS attacks

18. The top four tech legal cases to watch in 2014

19. Technology and the Law in 2014: 14 Questions in Need of Answers

20. Studios win again in fight over user content: “safe harbors” not so safe, websites find

21. Apple Calls NSA a ‘Malicious Hacker’

22. ACLU Files Appeal in Case Against NSA

23. French Telco Orange Plans To Sue The NSA For Tapping Its Undersea Cables

24. How the NSA Almost Killed the Internet

25. Losing Aaron

26. How Netflix Reverse Engineered Hollywood

27. Listen to Pandora, and It Listens Back

28. Peering into the future: Google Glass and the law

29. Why movie studios happily violate journalists’ copyright

jon

News of the Week; January 1, 2014

1. Rockstar Tells Honest GTA Online Players Not to Worry About Money Hack Issues

2. The 10 worst games of 2013

3. Teen’s Late Night Gaming Saves Family from Fire

4. Crazy race tests whether virtual driving skills carry over to real life

5. Internet Archive releases hundreds of classic game console ROMs

6. U.S. Patent No. 7,713,116: Inventory management of virtual items in computer games

7. Applicant For UND Head Football Coach Cites Video Game Experience As His Qualifications

8. Judge Grants Motion to Dismiss in NSA Surveillance Case

9. Leaked documents detail 2008 NSA program to hack and remote control iPhones (video)

10. When Does Technology Change Enough That the Law Should Too?

11. Considering the Future of Internet Governance

12. The Year Government Lost Its Grip on Information

13. The NSA and the Corrosion of Silicon Valley

14. The inside story of Aaron Swartz’s campaign to liberate court filings

15. Google fights back against Rockstar patent group

16. How Iron Maiden turned piracy into paying customers

17. Experts Concerned about The Negative Impact of Tablets on Young Children

18. 2013 was a lost year for tech

19. How Netflix Reinvented HR

20. Hells Angels club sues often to protect its intellectual property

jon

News of the Week; December 25, 2013

1. Investor sues EA over Battlefield 4 bugs

2. Zynga founder asks President to pardon Snowden

3. Chinese Wow Hackers Get Prison Time, Fines

4. Texas Judge Rules LoL Player’s ‘Terrorist Threat’ Case Will Move Forward

5. Think your game is exempt from COPPA? Think again.

6. Flights of fancy: Inside the intense world of virtual pilots

7. Resurgent Game Console Market Keeps Supplies Sparse

8. A YouTube Powerhouse Looks Beyond Its Gamer Base

9. Turn Off the Data Vacuum NY Times Editorial

10. GCHQ, NSA Spied On Known Terrorist Haven… UNICEF

11. Smooth operators: why phone companies don’t fight the NSA

12. What Surveillance Valley knows about you

13. Daniel Clowes Pursuing His Legal Options Regarding Shia LaBeouf’s Plagiarism

14. Bitcoin, Magical Thinking, and Political Ideology

15. Inside the Web’s $156 Billion Invisible Industry

16. Government Requests to Remove Online Material Increase at Google

17. Top Dozen Tech Events of 2013

And in the isn’t this a huge liability issue department:

18. Report: NSA paid RSA to make flawed crypto algorithm the default

jon

News of the Week; December 18, 2013

1. YouTube goes nuts flagging game-related content as violating copyright

2. Another Reason Why YouTube’s Video Game Copyright Crackdown Doesn’t Make Sense

3. YouTube copyright fiasco sparks INDmusic and TuneCore music claims

4. NSA’s virtual waste of time? Spying in ‘World of Warcraft’ is harder than you think

5. Playing video games could lead to life-threatening blood clots: Study

6. Smithsonian calls video games art, adds two to permanent collection

7. Big Huge Games Assets Sell for $320K

8. Microsoft launching original programming on Xbox in first half of 2014

9. 20 Contract Questions: how should I negotiate a contract? Gamer|Law

10. Defining 2013 in Games

11. Federal judge finds NSA phone spying likely unconstitutional

12. Judge Rules Against Collection of Phone Data by N.S.A.

13. NSA ruling fallout hits White House

14. NSA goes on 60 Minutes: the definitive facts behind CBS’s flawed report

15. Why Did 60 Minutes Let the Head of the NSA Fool Its Audience?

16. Surprise: White House’s Intelligence Review Task Force Suggestions Much More Than Just Cosmetic

17. President’s Review Board Says: Protect Thy Neighbor’s Privacy

18. Google Removes Vital Privacy Feature From Android, Claiming Its Release Was Accidental

19. Google Inc facing heat from Competition Bureau over alleged anti-competitive behaviour

20. Korean Court Rejects Samsung Lawsuit Against Apple

21. ‘Everything Is A Remix’ Takes On The iPhone [Video]

22. Microsoft and Apple group use ancient Nortel patents to sue Time Warner Cable, Cisco

23. For Bitcoin, Square Peg Meets Round Hole Under the Law

24. The Bitcoin Ideology

25. The ethics of crowdfunding

26. Watch your mark – navigating the prohibitions on immoral, scandalous and disparaging trademarks

jon

News of the Week: December 11, 2013

1. Snowden papers allege NSA/GCHQ embedded in WoW, XBL

2. The best quotes from the NSA World of Warcraft surveillance papers

3. Spies’ Dragnet Reaches a Playing Field of Elves and Trolls

4. The Daily Show Is Really Worried About NSA Spying In World of Warcraft

5. Daily Report: Tech Giants Call for Curbs on Government Surveillance

6. NSA reportedly ‘piggybacking’ on Google advertising cookies to home in on surveillance targets

7. US Court Secretly Lets Government Share Megaupload Evidence With Copyright Industry

8. The NSA Is Recruiting Teens

9. AT&T shoots down shareholder demands for transparency on law enforcement requests

10. Battlefield 4 Problems Have Shareholder Law Firm Thinking Lawsuit

11. Judge criticized over work-hours Web posts on fantasy game message boards says he will scale back

12.Game Companies Push Back Against New YouTube Copyright Enforcement System

13. Court Approves Atari’s Bankruptcy Exit Plan

14. More Arguing About Women In Video Games. But This Time the Women Can Beat You Up.

15. EA scores 100 per cent for workplace equality

16. Another Questionable Study By Brad Bushman Claims Violent Video Games Are Bad For Children

17. Report: Chinese Government To Loosen Grip On Online Games

18. Kabam to pay $18m for stadium naming rights

19. Ouya now accepts Bitcoin

20. For Bitcoin, Square Peg Meets Round Hole Under the Law

21. Online Retailer Threatens Legal Action Against Customers for a Mistake it Made

22. SOCAN announces new arrangement for YouTube revenues

23. World’s leading authors: state surveillance of personal data is theft

24. 2013 Brought Major Fair Use Wins For Tech, Entertainment

25. Judge Bars Movie Studios From Calling Websites ‘Pirates’

jon

News of the Week; December 4, 2013

1. The Player-Authors Project by Greg Lastowka

2. Arrest Made in San Francisco PS4 Killing

3. Why Gamers Can’t Stop Playing First-Person Shooters

4. Are Computer Games “Addictive?”

5. No Girls Allowed: Unraveling the story behind the stereotype of video games being for boys

6. New Barbie Game Is The Stuff Of Nightmares

7. Game Developers Pirate Own Game, Offer it as a Free Torrent

8. Koch Media Acquires Fishlabs

9. Videogame installation combines physical and digital play

10. A Game So Bad It Was Canceled After Release

11. ACTA about to be quietly written into Canadian law

12. German Court Tells Wikimedia Foundation That It’s Liable For Things Users Write

13. Amazon’s petition against collecting New York sales tax rejected by US Supreme Court

14. FTC workshop panelists rethink privacy and security norms for the “Internet of Things”

jon

News of the Week; November 27, 2013

1. NCAA sues EA over settlement with former players

2. Turbine Settles Lawsuit with Treehouse Avatar Technologies

3. Microsoft: ‘We plan to take care of customers’ with faulty Xbox Ones

4. Official Report Does Not Tie Sandy Hook Shooting With Video Games

5. Violent video games may stop crime by keeping criminals busy playing violent video games

6. Irish Male Teens Who Game Online Are More Social With Other Cultures

7. Playing Computer Games Together Makes Brains Feel and Think Alike

8. Blizzard dev apologises for attitude to over-sexualised characters

9. Popular iOS app QuizUp is full of security holes, fix on the way

10. Life Inside a PlayStation

11. Where Film Marries Video Game

12. New Cyberbullying  Bill Resurrects Many Police Powers From Scrapped “Lawful  Access” Bill

13. Beyond 3-D Printers’ Magic, Possible Legal Wrangling

14. MPAA Revenue Up 50% As “War on Piracy” Cranks Up

15. Pressure Mounts on Wireless Providers Over U.S. Surveillance Efforts

16. N.S.A. May Have Tapped Internet Cable Links

17. Twitter Toughening Its Security to Thwart Government Snoops

18. Microsoft To Encrypt Data Center Links; Says NSA Hacking Would Be Unconstitutional

19. The FISA Court’s Problems Run Deep, and More Than Tinkering is Required

jon

Regulatory unbundling coverage @CBC

During our discussion with Sheridan Scott this week, it occurred to me that it might be useful in some way to po st the following clip. Perhaps most appropriate to post in in News of the Week (since it actually made the news last week). The clips broach the issue of consumer choice  in two ways that may be relevant to the course: 1. References to you as students and how you relate to entertainment services (as these subjects have come up in this year’s and past year’s Video Game Law course); & 2. the uniqueness of our totally individual footprint of digital entertainment choices which exists in gaming and the web, but not so much elsewhere. Embedded video and  link to the fuller story below.

Thoughts?

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/plan-to-unbundle-tv-channels-sought-by-feds-1.2426874

jon