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News of the Week; September 25, 2019

By Jon Festinger on September 30, 2019

GAMES

  1. Steam must allow digital games to be resold, rules French court
  2. French court rules country’s Steam users can resell their games: Ruling contradicts EU law and would be “disastrous” for consumers and industry, says ISFE CEO
  3. French Court Declares That Steam Gamers Actually Do Own What They Bought
  4. Bandai Namco is suing AtGames over Ms. Pac-Man copyright infringement
  5. Ubisoft is taking legal action against Rainbow Six Siege DDoS attackers
  6. Suspect arrested in conjunction with World of Warcraft DDoS attack: Blizzard confirms individual believed to be behind wave of server outages this month is in custody
  7. Games professor accuses Kingdom of Loathing designer of abuse: A.M. Darke shares her story of physical, emotional abuse at the hands of ex-husband Zack Johnson
  8. UK Parliamentary Committee says ‘loot boxes’ should be considered gambling and regulated accordingly
  9. Dynamic and Nonliteral Elements Win Protection in Blizzard Copyright Suit
  10. RomUniverse To Attempt To Crowdfund Legal Defense, Which Isn’t Going Well At All
  11. Blog: How the California AB5 Labor Bill might affect game companies
  12. Ustwo: Apple Arcade “unshackles the finances” from mobile gaming – The developer of Monument Valley and Apple Arcade launch title Assemble With Care on the benefits of subscriptions
  13. Apple Arcade’s debut heralds the launch of dozens of games on iOS (and Steam?)
  14. Xbox’s Project xCloud launches in public preview this October
  15. Microsoft launching public xCloud streaming test on Android in October
  16. Google Stadia ‘Founder’s Edition’ pre-order bundle has sold out in Europe
  17. Google announces Play Pass subscription service: Android’s answer to Apple Arcade includes over 350 premium apps and games at launch for $4.99/month
  18. Play Pass and its library of 350 apps offers a different take on mobile subscriptions
  19. Devs that sign on to Play Pass are paid by the time players spend in their games
  20. Niko Partners: Cloud gaming revenue to reach $3bn in Asia by 2023 – Projections suggest there will be 500 million cloud gamers in Asia by 2028
  21. Control’s Epic Games Store exclusivity initially cost Epic $10.45 million
  22. Epic seems to have paid $10.5 million for Control’s PC exclusivity
  23. Epic paid 505 Games parent over $10m for Control PC exclusivity: Digital Bros financial statements reveal exclusivity deal payout for Remedy’s latest release
  24. Steam Labs rolls out new discoverability experiments
  25. Steam Labs adds two more experiments: Deep Dive, Community Recommendations – Prior experiment Interactive Recommender gets promoted to Steam Store home page
  26. TurboPlay’s grand ambition to be the Spotify of games: Co-founder Vince McMullin wants to take on other PC storefronts with different takes on algorithms, revenue sharing, and community
  27. Nicalis delists Ittle Dew 2 from console storefronts: Developer says he was ghosted by publisher for six months after terminating publisher’s license
  28. Do you need a publisher to ‘make your game sell’?
  29. NBCUniversal is closing its game publishing division
  30. NBCUniversal shuts down game publishing arm
  31. Summer games drought slowed inflation in the UK: Office for National Statistics points to video games as prime contributor to lowest inflation rate since December 2016
  32. Unity acquires game marketing and analytics specialist deltaDNA
  33. Unity acquires deltaDNA: Engine maker says live ops analytics firm will continue to operate independently as engagement tools are integrated into Unity Engine
  34. Borderlands 3 is the fastest selling game in 2K’s history: And 70% of all sales in the first five days were digital
  35. Borderlands 3 has sold over 5 million copies in five days
  36. New releases, led by Borderlands 3, shake up EMEAA charts: eFootball PES 2020 and Greedfall debut at No. 2 and 3, NHL 20 arrives at No. 5
  37. The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening topples Borderlands 3 in UK Charts – The most successful Zelda remake so far
  38. Zelda: Link’s Awakening review: This beach adventure looks 2019, feels 1993
  39. Link’s Awakening: Critical Consensus – Faithful modern-day remake of original Game Boy game charms reviewers despite underwhelming dungeon creator, frame rate issues
  40. PUBG becomes first mobile battle royale to surpass $1bn revenue: Since Chinese re-launch, PUBG Mobile has seen 540% growth year-on-year
  41. Pride Run developers: “We didn’t expect so much resistance” – The IV Productions team discuss the challenges they’ve faced in making a game that celebrates LGBTQ+ culture
  42. Call of Duty Modern Warfare expected to be US best-selling title of 2019: NPD – NBA 2K20 predicted second, Pokemon Sword and Kingdom Hearts III also make top ten
  43. Pokemon GO just saw its best month since 2016 – SuperData: Niantic’s deluge of summer events helped the game gross $176 million in August
  44. Can Nintendo learn from its mistakes with Mario Kart Tour? | Opinion: All eyes are on Mario Kart Tour, Nintendo’s most important mobile release so far
  45. Nintendo’s free-to-play mobile Mario Kart now offers a monthly subscription
  46. Nintendo fought hard to lower the Switch Lite’s price to $200, say suppliers
  47. Nintendo Switch Lite is the best portable system Nintendo has ever made
  48. Nintendo Switch Lite: Critical Consensus – Few see any faults with Nintendo’s new hardware, and even its critics concede that it’s just about perfect for handheld gaming
  49. Report: The Switch Lite has already sold over 170,000 units in Japan
  50. How do you manage software and saves on a second Switch? It’s complicated
  51. Dead Cells crosses 2.4M sales due to ‘ridiculous’ Switch performance
  52. Twitch Acquires ‘Internet Games Database’ (IGDB) To Improve Search Functionality
  53. Content Moderation At Scale Especially Doesn’t Work When You Hide All The Rules
  54. Esports investment: Building resilience in a volatile space – New Wave Esports CEO Daniel Mitre on the glamour of teams versus the sustainability of platforms
  55. UTA Adds To Burgeoning Esports Roster With Call Of Duty Star Seth ‘Scump’ Abner
  56. Is it time to retire virtual currency? | Opinion: The industry doesn’t want to curb loot boxes, but it could address some concerns by giving up another consumer-unfriendly tactic
  57. Take-Two: Next-gen won’t see dev costs spike – CEO Strauss Zelnick says the days of console transitions putting significantly increased burden on publishers are long gone
  58. Revealed: The 2019 GamesIndustry.biz Best Places To Work Awards winners
  59. LVP raises $80 million to fund new game startups
  60. Manticore Games raises $30m for accessible development platform: Core platform aims to enable players to quickly and easily make high-quality games
  61. Removing Denuvo DRM doesn’t improve performance for Arkham Knight
  62. Immutable raises $15m for blockchain card game Gods Unchained: Australian studio will also use investment to build out its Immutable Platform toolkit
  63. 21 game companies join Playing for the Planet Alliance to combat climate change
  64. PlayStation, Xbox, Stadia and more sign up to United Nations climate change initiative: Platform holders pledge to save the planet with carbon neutral Xbox units and low-power suspension mode for PlayStation 5
  65. PlayStation teams with UN to reduce carbon footprint of game hardware
  66. PlayStation 5 to increase energy efficiency—but only if users opt in
  67. PlayStation cuts out the middleman, starts selling its own consoles and more online
  68. 20% of the Oculus Store’s $100 million lifetime sales were Quest titles
  69. Where Oculus’ VR games go from here: Facebook’s Jason Rubin and Mike Verdu talk Vader Immortal, Respawn, and the future
  70. Oculus Quest’s secret trick: It can double as a wired PC VR headset
  71. Oculus announces plans to build augmented reality glasses
  72. Controller-free hand tracking comes to Oculus Quest in early 2020
  73. Oculus adding hand-tracking to Quest
  74. Oculus Rift games are coming to Quest via Oculus Link this November
  75. Oculus will add new social features powered by Facebook: The brand integration gets tighter and tighter
  76. Mobile AR game Dragon Quest Walk passes 5 million downloads in Japan
  77. Respawn’s first VR game is Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond
  78. Ex-Owlchemy devs land $4.4 million for new XR studio absurd:joy
  79. Absurd: joy aims to “invent a genre of content no one has ever seen before” –  Ex-Owlchemy Labs devs Alex Schwartz and Cy Wise launching new VR/AR company making things that may or may not be games
  80. MTG invests in emotional regulation app Mightier: Swedish outfit puts $250,000 toward app and subscription service intended to help children with ADHD, anger, or anxiety issues
  81. Manticore Games raises $30 million for its social game platform Core
  82. Unit 2 Games launches £100,000 fund indie development: Finance available to developers who want to make the first wave of games for multiplayer platform Crayta
  83. Untitled Goose Game review: HONNNNNNK
  84. Getting goosey with Debussy: Creating an adaptive score for Untitled Goose Game
  85. Unheadlined Goose Game interview: House House’s Jacob Strasser and Michael McMaster on the studio’s surprising growth from gosling to gander
  86. Video: Ars talks Civilization with the man himself: Sid Meier
  87. Video: Living a long, full, and fulfilling life in game development
  88. Making people understand and care about your game
  89. How to grow as a designer: What to read, where to get ideas, and knowing thyself
  90. Blog: Development stress, choices that matter, and language of games
  91. Blog: Why you should invest more in community management
  92. Blog: Strategies for growing player loyalty and retention rates
  93. Raven Software devs look back at the making of Jedi Outcast
  94. Video: How to be an effective, high-performance game producer
  95. Don’t Miss: How Everything connects the arts of animation and game design
  96. Don’t Miss: A 2007 look at the essential open-world games for game designers
  97. Don’t Miss: How Naughty Dog designed The Last Of Us’ brutal melee system
  98. Don’t Miss: A deep dive into the art that gives colors back to Dead Cells’ cryptic worlds
  99. Using the language of film & theater to entice new players in FMV game Erica
  100. Influencers and E3: Invasion of the tweens | Opinion – E3 as a festival for influencers and celebrities may horrify some, but is likely a good move – as long as we’re realistic about the age demographics it will reach
  101. GDC YouTube Top 5: NYU Game Center’s Mitu Khandaker
  102. U.S. Patent No. 9,308,458: Automatic movement of player character in network game

DIGITAL

  1. Facebook Is Making Millions by Promoting Hate Groups’ Content: Despite a company policy banning hate speech, the social media giant has taken in nearly $1.6 million from hate groups since mid-2018.
  2. Top Court Rules Google Doesn’t Have to Censor Around the World Because of European Privacy Laws
  3. Other Big CJEU Case Says Google Must Put Certain Links At The Top Of Search Results
  4. Paper leaks showing a quantum computer doing something a supercomputer can’t
  5. AT&T tells court: Customers can’t sue over sale of phone location data
  6. Missing Link: Tibetan Groups Targeted with 1-Click Mobile Exploits
  7. Inside the campaign that tried to compromise Tibetans’ iOS and Android phones
  8. Defense media tweet threatening Area 51 “raiders” pulled, DOD apologizes
  9. Google takes hard line, refuses to pay French news sites despite new law
  10. No, it wasn’t a virus; it was Chrome that stopped Macs from booting
  11. Another Day, Another Major Disinformation Effort Facebook Thinks Is Ok
  12. Snapchat reportedly has “Project Voldemort” dossier on Facebook’s bad behavior
  13. Snap Detailed Facebook’s Aggressive Tactics in ‘Project Voldemort’ Dossier: Antitrust investigation gives competitors chance to air complaints about Facebook’s hardball tactics
  14. Meet Facebook’s latest fake: An “Oversight Board” programmed by Facebook should not be confused with democratic oversight
  15. Facebook and Google have ad trackers on your streaming TV, studies find
  16. The Best People: White House Emailed Talking Points Meant For Surrogates To Dems, Tried To Recall Email Afterwards
  17. Facebook confirms its “standards” don’t apply to politicians
  18. Facebook is Building an AR Headset, Starting By Making a Digital Copy of the Real World
  19. Facebook will be sticking ads with polls, games and AR into News Feed: The interactive advertising formats were already being tested in Instagram and other parts of the Facebook universe. Now they’ll be in your feed.
  20. Facebook suspends tens of thousands of apps in ongoing privacy investigation
  21. Facebook Watch And ESPN Team Up For New Slate Of Interactive Sports Shows
  22. Coder deletes open source add-on for Chef in protest over ICE contract
  23. NYAG Sends Cease & Desist Letters to Online Gun Marketers
  24. Clickwrap Litigation Trends 2019
  25. Jerks ‘Reporting’ Women Who Swipe Left On Them In Tinder, Once Again Highlighting How Content Moderation Gets Abused
  26. Defamation and Social Media – the ordinary, reasonable tweeter
  27. Deepfake Legislation: A Nationwide Survey – State and Federal Lawmakers Consider Legislation to Regulate Manipulated Media
  28. SCC rules that class actions in lawsuits against tech giants can proceed
  29. Source Hacking: Media Manipulation In Practice
  30. Voltage v. Salna & ~55,000 – the “Reverse Class Action” (Howard Knopf)
  31. Twitter rolls out ‘hide replies’ to let you tame toxic discussions: Trying to win back its reputation as a platform for healthy conversations
  32. Twitter details new policies designed to crack down on financial scams
  33. Romance Scams Harm Victims and Lead to Prosecutions
  34. Cyber-dystopianism: The Internet seen through the lens of nightmares (Andres Guadamuz)
  35. Jeff Bezos pledges that Amazon will swiftly combat climate change: Retail giant vows to meet climate goals ahead of schedule
  36. Amazon orders 100,000 electric trucks to fight climate change
  37. “Grassroots” anti-Amazon nonprofit turns out to be retailer astroturfing
  38. People Freaking Out About Amazon Copying A Shoe Are Totally Missing The Point
  39. Apple says it will make the new Mac Pro in Texas: Media reports had suggested Apple could shift Mac Pro work to China.
  40. Apple Watch Series 5 review: A better, more independent timepiece
  41. After a five-month delay, the $2,000 Galaxy Fold arrives in the US on Friday
  42. Huawei’s new flagship smartphone ships without Google apps: Trump’s export ban means no Google apps for the Mate 30 Pro.
  43. Xiaomi’s crazy new $2,800 phone has display on the front, sides, and back
  44. YouTube Security Warning For 23 Million Creators As ‘Massive’ Hack Attack Confirmed
  45. YouTube Exec Says Some Conspiracy Videos Aren’t “Causing Harm,” And Can Remain Uploaded
  46. Susan Wojcicki Says YouTube Won’t Remove Politicians’ Content Because “It’s Important For Other People To See”
  47. YouTube will remove politicians’ content if it breaks rules, but there are some exceptions: Context of videos is important, CEO says
  48. YouTube creators may lose verified badges as company makes verification program even stricter
  49. YouTube Apologizes, Reverses Course After Creators Balk At Verification Update
  50. Creators Lash Out After YouTube Retroactively Strips Them Of Verification
  51. YouTube Revamps Verification System With New Look And Eligibility Requirements
  52. YouTube Launches New ‘Video Reach Campaign’ Ad Format, Brings ‘TrueView For Action’ To Home Feeds
  53. Jellysmack’s New ‘Creator’s Program’ Invests Time, Money, And Tech In YouTubers
  54. How Mattel Harnessed YouTube To Help Bring Its Iconic Barbie Character Down To Earth
  55. Louis Vuitton Launches ‘LV TV’ YouTube Series With Emma Chamberlain, Dolan Twins, More
  56. Journalists Seek Answers To YouTube Users’ Burning Questions In Upcoming Vox Original ‘Glad You Asked’
  57. YouTube Music Spins Itself Up As Spotify Challenger With Weekly 49-Song ‘Discover Mix’
  58. YouTube Backs 14 More Independent Artists Via Its Foundry Development Program
  59. Spotify artists can now see how many listeners they have in real time: Thanks to the revamped Spotify for Artists app
  60. Play It Again, Sam: Spotify’s Newest Playlists Are Based on Repeat Listens
  61. Snap Sets Series With Nikita Dragun, Bhad Bhabie, Will Launch New ‘Shows’ Page To The Right Of ‘Discover’
  62. Every Single Video MrBeast Has Made In The Past Year Got More Than 10 Million Views
  63. Emma Chamberlain To Drop Sunglasses Collection With Eyewear Brand ‘Crap’
  64. Issa Rae Takes Stake In Streamlytics, Which Lets People Monetize Their Own Streaming Data
  65. SeatGeek Taps David Dobrik To Launch Its First Branded Series, ‘Postgame Press Conference’
  66. Russian national confesses to biggest bank hack in US history
  67. In India, you don’t need a Google phone to have a Google Assistant
  68. How Google Changed the Secretive Market for the Most Dangerous Hacks in the World: Google has funded a team of hackers with the mission of finding bugs in software. Are they making the internet safer?
  69. Nielsen Now Tracks Interactions With TV Stars’ Social Media Posts, Which Drive 60% Of Engagement For Shows
  70. Nielsen Buys Minority Stake In OpenSlate, Which Measures Brand Safety In Online Video
  71. Vimeo Debuts ‘For Hire’, A Marketplace For Video Professionals To Find Clients (And Vice Versa)
  72. Insights: Apple And Comcast Giveaways May Net Tens Of Millions Of Subscribers And Send SVOD Super Derby Back To Where TV Started
  73. Meet the Women Leading Netflix Into the Streaming Wars: Apple, Disney, and others are challenging its dominance like never before. Here’s the team behind the tech giant’s big bet on original content.
  74. Facebook Watch And ESPN Team Up For New Slate Of Interactive Sports Shows
  75. 21% Of U.S. Households Will Buy A Disney+ Subscription (Study)
  76. Website Accessibility Claims on the Rise: A Higher Education Perspective
  77. BuzzFeed Hires New York Times Vet In Bid To Better Monetize Its News Business
  78. Levi’s CMO Jen Sey Talks Importance Of Taking A Social Stand
  79. E-Sign of the Times: Law Commission report promotes confidence in e-signatures
  80. Tristan Harris — Fighting Skynet and Firewalling Attention (#387)
  81. The Mysterious Death Of The Hacker Who Turned In Chelsea Manning
  82. How Peloton made sweat addictive enough to IPO: 13 reasons this bike has a cult
  83. The rise and fall of Flash, the annoying plugin that shaped the modern web: The web was a static, dull place. But the accidental creation of Flash turned it into a cacophony of noise, colour, and controversy, presaging the modern web
  84. The Unsolved Case of the Most Mysterious Song on the Internet: 12 years ago, a New Wave anthem appeared on the internet. Amateur detectives have spent thousands of hours since trying to figure out where it came from…

A.I.

  1. Chinese Authorities Call For Internet Companies To Add Bias To AI Algorithms — In Order To ‘Promote Mainstream Values’
  2. Google Says It’s Achieved Quantum Supremacy, a World-First: Report
  3. ­­
  4. How “information gerrymandering” influences voters: Study analyzes how networks can distort voters’ perceptions and change election results.
  5. Harnessing machine learning to make managing your storage less of a chore 
  6. Human vs. Algorithmic Recommendations
  7. A facial recognition ban is coming to the US, says an AI policy advisor 
  8. Pentagon seeks ‘ethicist’ to oversee military artificial intelligence: General says ‘We are thinking deeply about the ethical, safe and lawful use of AI’ as US seeks to catch up with China’s early lead
  9. Teaching machines to autonomously write stories
  10. For India’s Caste-Based Sewer Cleaners, an Uncertain Robot Rescue: Sewer robots and other new technology aim to end caste-based scavenging, which regularly costs lives. But are they enough?
  11. No Rage Against the Machines: Threat of Automation Does Not Change Policy Preferences (Baobao Zhang) 
  12. MegaBots calls it a day, puts fighting robot up for sale on eBay

COMMUNICATIONS

  1. Can Price Caps or Virtual Competitors Solve Canada’s Wireless Pricing Problem? (Michael Geist)
  2. Net Neutrality Proposals for Tech Platforms Raise First Amendment Concerns
  3. FCC loses in court, judges say agency would fail “intro statistics class”
  4. Courts Shoot Down Yet Another FCC Proposal For Being Factually Sketchy
  5. Sprint took FCC cash for “serving” 885,000 people it wasn’t actually serving
  6. Cable Giant Spectrum On Quest To Outlaw ‘Insane’ Streaming Password Sharing
  7. Something Has Spooked AT&T Enough To Warrant Bringing Their Top Lobbyist Out Of Retirement
  8. AT&T Ponders Dumping DirecTV After Investor Backlash, But It’s Not Likely To Help
  9. Comcast promised not to raise prices—guess what happened next
  10. ‘Subscription Fatigue’ Looms As Comcast Reveals Yet Another New Streaming TV Platform
  11. Complexity Investing Applied to ViacomCBS
  12. Significant Changes to Media, Communications, and Data Claims in the English Courts

PRIVACY

  1. Busy North Korean hackers have new malware to target ATMs
  2. Yahoo data-breach settlement: You’ll get $100, if you’re lucky
  3. California Senate Passes Statewide Ban On Facial Recognition Tech Use By Law Enforcement
  4. Ninth Circuit Allows Class Action Against Facebook under Illinois’ Biometric Information Privacy Act to Proceed in California
  5. Ninth Circuit Declines to Shelve Lawsuit Alleging Facebook Violated Illinois Biometric Privacy Statute
  6. Court Says Compelled Production Violates Fifth Amendment… Unless The Gov’t Takes Certain Steps First
  7. Private Companies Gathering Plate Data Are Selling Access To People’s Movements For $20 A Search
  8. CJEU Judgment C-40/17: what are the implications of the ‘like’ button in terms of data protection?
  9. YouTube will Pay $170 Million Fine for Children’s Privacy Law Violations
  10. Should The Media Voluntarily Embrace A ‘Right To Be Forgotten’?
  11. European Court of Justice Rules on the Scope of the Right to be Forgotten for Search Engines
  12. Google wins case as court rules “right to be forgotten” is EU-only
  13. Google wins landmark right to be forgotten case
  14. Google wins CJEU right to be forgotten case
  15. Europe’s Supreme Court Places Limits on the Right To Be Forgotten
  16. ‘Right to be forgotten’, but only in Europe?
  17. The Right to be Forgotten Held to Apply Only to Europe in Landmark European Court of Justice Decision
  18. Forget-me-not: Google v. CNIL defines territorial scope of the right to be forgotten
  19. Google Search is not required to forget us outside the EU
  20. Phew: EU Court Of Justice Says Right To Be Forgotten Is Not A Global Censorship Tool (Just An EU One)
  21. Edward Snowden wants to come home: “I’m not asking for a pass. What I’m asking for is a fair trial”
  22. The FBI Tried To Get A Secure Phone Company To Create A Backdoor In Its Encrypted Network
  23. World’s most destructive botnet returns with stolen passwords and email in tow
  24. IE zero-day under active attack gets emergency patch
  25. Payment card thieves hack Click2Gov bill paying portals in 8 cities
  26. A New Era of COPPA Enforcement?
  27. CCPA Privacy FAQs: Does the CCPA require that a company allow consumers to opt-out (e.g., toggle off) analytics cookies?
  28. CCPA Privacy FAQs: Are businesses required to display the “Do Not Sell My Personal Information” link during subsequent visits to the business’s homepage where the consumer does not “opt-out” during his/her first visit?
  29. Meaningful Consent: An Evolving Standard under Canadian Privacy Law
  30. Enhancing Understanding of Legal Trends Impacting Freedom of Expression and Privacy in the ICT Sector
  31. Fake veteran hiring site downloads spyware instead of jobs
  32. Milan Fashion Week and Fashion Law Trends – Is the retail and fashion sectors ready for the IoT revolution?
  33. Forget erasure: why blockchain is really incompatible with the GDPR
  34. Automatic License Plate Readers Are The Latest Neighborhood Perk

CREATIVITY

  1. Pro-China groups to tear down pro-democracy graffiti in Hong Kong
  2. Global Freedom Declines as Chinese, Russian Info Control Practices Spread, Says Study
  3. During A Police Raid, Russian Activist Uses Drone To Whisk Sensitive Data To Safety
  4. US Court Says Fair Use Nullifies French Rightholder’s Attempt To Extract $2.25 Million From A California Art Scholar
  5. French Picasso Judgement is Abstract Expression to U.S. Law
  6. The Controversial Use of Rap Lyrics as Evidence
  7. Mercedes Drives Suits Against Artists Forward
  8. Copyright clarification from Europe’s top court
  9. Copyright dispute over ‘Stairway to Heaven’ continues to climb in the courts
  10. The Differences Between Copyright And Possession: Gilda Radner Interview Copyright Lawsuit Dismissed For Lack Of Registration
  11. Strange changes discovered in Banksy painting ahead of auction
  12. Chuck Yeager Sues Airbus For Mentioning That Chuck Yeager Broke The Sound Barrier
  13. Chuck Yeager sues Airbus for writing “Yeager broke the sound barrier”
  14. Louisiana’s Terrible Criminal Defamation Law Again Being Used To Unconstitutionally Target A Critic Of Law Enforcement
  15. How Canada should deal with obscene trademarks
  16. LeBron’s “Taco Tuesday” Trademark Blocked
  17. LeBron James Declares Victory In Losing Bid For ‘Taco Tuesday’ Trademark
  18. The New Consumer Gatekeepers: Inside the Hidden Power Of The DJ Industry 2.0
  19. IP/Internet/Antitrust Professor Amicus Brief in 1-800 Contacts v. FTC (Eric Goldman)
  20. Duels, Dualities, and Destiny in Canadian Copyright – a Snapshot at Summer’s End 2019 (Howard Knopf)
  21. Milan Fashion Week and Fashion Law Trends – Karl Lagerfeld’s heritage: who is going to award the rights on his image? Does the cat really take it all?

Jon

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Cloud Gaming’s Implications for the Video Game Industry

By anna-lisa tie on September 26, 2019

News of Google Stadia has been met with a mix of enthusiasm and skepticism. On one hand, there’s definitely appeal in the prospect of being able to play games on any device with access to Google Chrome without having to purchase a console. In addition, Google Stadia seems to be taking a step forward in terms of facilitating closer connections in the gaming community, allowing streamers and developers to share playable scenes with Stadia users and developing the Crowd Play feature for YouTubers to play games with their viewers, including those who don’t have the game themselves.

However, with the emergence of cloud gaming, different kinds of challenges arise:

  1. One issue that tends to be raised quite a lot is the concern about the internet connection required for streaming video games. Latency problems can be detrimental to playability and player experience, particularly for competitive multiplayer games that rely on precise timing of movements. That’s not to mention potential consumers without a high-speed internet connection in the first place, or those who have sporadic connection.
  2. Game preservation has also been a worry among the gaming community. In the case of traditional console gaming, the game is stored on a hard drive and the player can still pick it up at a later time even if the game is removed from sale. Cloud game requires the players to relinquish control of their gameplay history, as it is the cloud streaming platform that retains the code. In the case of Google Stadia, this raises the concern that if games are removed, users who have paid will no longer be able to play and complete the game. Though it is noted that Google responded to this question in June this year, saying they wouldn’t remove games no longer on sale from players’ Stadia libraries.
  3. As for the Crowd Play feature, little has been said about exactly how the queuing system will operate. How much control will content creators have to screen prospective viewers/players queuing to join their gameplay? Could YouTubers be in danger of internet trolls hijacking their livestreams and being disrupted by abuse in chat comments?

Overall, while cloud gaming has its perks, it also poses a number of additional challenges and implications for the future of gameplay and community engagement in the video game industry. It’ll be interesting to see how platforms like Google Stadia fare in the near future.

Check out these links for more info:

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Class 4 – 9/25/19; “Right to Create or Rights to the Creation” + “5 FACTS to understand the Chinese video game market”

By Jon Festinger on September 25, 2019

Video & slides above.

Jon

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What a typical Chinese game looks like?

By sijia wu on September 25, 2019

This is a reply to the question I received during the presentation. I described the art of Chinese games as “colorful, crowded and shiny ” but I think with a picture it would make more sense. So here is a screenshot by someone else of MMORPG mobile game Fantasy Western World Journey developed by NetEase:

In comparison, I would describe the art of US games as “cool” and Japanese ones as “cute and tidy”. Let me know if that’s a kind of misunderstanding.

I also want to include a picture of the marketplace (where you pay for in-game items in a F2P game) of Tencent’s King of Hornor. Look at all the columns on the left you will find a variety of things to buy and its super complex:

Let me know if you have further questions on today’s topic!

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Court decision in France: Steam users should be allowed to resell their games

By Andrija Maksic on September 24, 2019

Pretty big news from France:

Four years after the French consumer protection association “Union Fédérale des Consommateurs (UFC) – Que Choisir” filled a lawsuit against Valve’s Steam on the basis of a clause in its store policy that disallows the resell of games or Steam accounts, on penalty of being banned from the platform. The District Court in Paris has now announced a decision: Steam may not prohibit users from reselling their games.

At the moment, the terms of use of Valve’s distribution platform explicitly state that users do not have permission to “distribute or transfer contractual content and services (games, updates, etc.) to third parties”.

According to the French court, however, this is an infringement of two fundamental principles of the European Union:

  1. First, the principle of exhaustion has the effect that copyright holders are no longer entitled to the goods after the first sale.
  2. Secondly, the Steam clause infringes the principle of the free movement of goods, which is one of the four fundamental rights of the European Union.

According to the judgement, Steam is now theoretically forced to change its terms of use and make this change visible on its homepage for 3 months. Valve has been given one month to comply with these requirements. If not, they will have to pay a penalty of 3,000 € for each additional day.

Valve certainly plans to appeal against this decision. However, a final decision could be very important for the entire gaming industry.Such a drastic decision regarding digital sales would not only affect Valve, but many distribution platforms for PC or console products.

The outcome of this dispute can therefore be awaited with great interest.

Links for further information:

https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2019-09-19-french-court-rules-steam-users-have-right-to-resell-their-games

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20190920/09224543030/french-court-declares-that-steam-gamers-actually-do-own-what-they-bought.shtml

https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2019-09-19-french-court-rules-countrys-steam-users-can-resell-their-games

https://www.polygon.com/2019/9/19/20874384/french-court-steam-valve-used-games-eu-law

Andrija

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Playing for the Planet: The rise of Climate Change video games

By Cassie Chu-Yu-Chee on September 22, 2019

Have you ever stopped to think about the carbon emissions of the cars you race in GTA? Ever thought about whether your Sim’s shower is water efficient or whether you should really cut that tree down in Minecraft? Some of us might not think about these things in our real lives, let alone our virtual ones, but you’re about to.

As the global climate strikes continue, today at the UN Headquarters some of the biggest names in the video games industry have formally committed to using their platforms to take action against the climate crisis. The “Playing for the Planet Alliance” saw leaders in the gaming industry including Sony Interactive Entertainment, Microsoft, Google Stadia, Rovio, Supercell, Sybo, Ubisoft and WildWorks, commit to tackling climate change.

While many of their commitments include reducing the carbon effect of actually playing their games (mostly around power consumption) many of them have focused on using their video games as a possible way to educate people about climate change. Many of the companies will host design-jams with their creatives to consider how they can “mindfully incentivise better environmental outcomes” within the games, without limiting the fun and enjoyment for players. This is consistent with the upwards trend we are seeing in video games, like Eco, that focus their story line on saving the world from man-made climate disaster. While this might seem like new ground, some of these games have been around for 10 years. 

I am personally very interested to see the user reaction to environmentally friendly cues in decision-making games, and whether the response will reflect the real-world opinions on climate change. I am also interested in whether an almost forced sustainability in video games will have any consumer effect and change people’s behaviour outside the game.

How do you feel about having a story line driven by reducing pollution? Do you like that you can be environmentally friendly while playing video games or does this feel like big corporate pushing an agenda?

Many video games put the player on a hero quest to save the world. Maybe this time next year when I play Mario Kart I’ll be racing a Tesla.

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News of the Week; September 18, 2019

By Jon Festinger on September 22, 2019

GAMES

  1. Parliamentary committee recommends banning loot box sales to children: Report proposes industry tax to fund research into the harmful effects of gaming, slams “wilfully obtuse” industry representatives
  2. UK Parliament: Ban all loot boxes until evidence proves they’re safe for kids
  3. UK committee argues loot boxes should be covered by gambling regulations
  4. Electronic Arts responds to DCMS committee calls for loot box regulation: Publisher “doesn’t agree with all conclusions” but will continue dialogue with UK government
  5. TIGA: Government should “urgently” carry out research around loot boxes and gambling – CEO Dr Richard Wilson raises impartiality concerns over suggestion of taxing industry to fund research; PEGI also weighs in
  6. The GamesIndustry.biz Podcast: A Turning Point For Loot Boxes? – Haydn and Brendan discuss the potential consequences of recommendations that the UK government introduces regulation
  7. Nintendo’s ROM Site War Continues With Huge Lawsuit Against Site Despite Not Sending DMCA Notices
  8. Anti-bullying advocates assess what’s wrong in games: There’s a cultural problem that isn’t going to fix itself overnight, but behaviours can and do change with the right support
  9. Sea of Thieves adds microtransaction store in latest update
  10. Former Donkey Kong champ threatens to sue Guinness over record removal
  11. Steam’s latest discovery update tilts the algorithm away from popular games
  12. Discord cuts games from paid subscription plan after Nitro Games fails to take off
  13. Discord pulls free games from Nitro: Chat service pulls feature from subscription offering because “vast majority of Nitro subscribers didn’t play them”
  14. Second person gets prison sentence in fatal swatting case: Call of Duty WWII player gets 15 months for asking third party to report emergency at online opponent’s address
  15. Instigator of fatal Kansas swatting receives prison sentence
  16. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare offering cross-platform play in all modes
  17. Devs restore Modern Warfare’s mini-map after two days of beta backlash
  18. Video: A cautionary tale in community crisis management
  19. Newzoo: Android games will earn more revenue than iOS games in 2019 – Between Google Play and third-party stores, Android games will earn majority of revenue for the first time this year
  20. Google Stadia Founder’s Edition is nearly sold out: Premium bundle is being replaced with similar bundle sans Buddy Pass with a different controller
  21. Nintendo’s weird exercise ring is used to control a Switch RPG
  22. Nintendo’s first Ring-Con game is a Switch fitness RPG: Ring Fit Adventure
  23. Nintendo’s new fitness game is Ring Fit Adventure: Switch title uses new Ring-Con and leg strap peripherals to sense movement, launches October 18
  24. How do people find your game on Switch?: A discoverability run-down
  25. Sega Genesis Mini review: $80 delivers a ton of blast-processing fun
  26. Report: The PS4 has sold-through 30 million units in the United States
  27. PlayStation 4 has sold 30m units in the US, analyst reveals: Meanwhile, Niko Partners’ Daniel Ahmad also says Gears 5’s boxed sales in the UK are “tiny and no longer important” for Microsoft
  28. Gears 5 saw 3 million players during launch week through Game Pass and retail
  29. Rockstar Games now has its own game launcher on PC
  30. Rockstar Games launches its own storefront: GTA V, Bully, others now available through latest publisher-driven game launcher
  31. Rockstar Games Launcher: We install it on Windows so you don’t have to
  32. Gears 5 tops 3 million players in first week: Microsoft says The Coalition sequel enjoyed “the biggest launch week of any Xbox Game Studios title this generation”
  33. EMEAA charts: Slam dunk for NBA 2K20 in launch week – Strong digital sales push older games into the top ten, while Game Pass sees Gears 5 barely rank
  34. Borderlands 3 has nearly doubled Borderlands 2’s peak concurrents record on PC
  35. Borderlands 3 is the biggest UK boxed launch of 2019: But the lack of digital data makes all of this hard to compare
  36. Borderlands 3 PC doubles 2’s peak concurrent users at launch: Gearbox boss Randy Pitchford reveals latest outing is breaking company records despite Epic backlash
  37. Borderlands 3 is a lot more Borderlands, in ways both good and bad
  38. Apple Arcade soft launches early, to surprise of some developers
  39. Blog: The long slow death of an indie studio
  40. Indie game pricing is in a familiar death spiral | Opinion: Data suggests a race to the bottom in PC indie game pricing, and Apple Arcade is a reminder of where this process leads
  41. Swedish games industry generated €1.87bn in 2018, employs almost 8,000 people: Latest figures from Dataspelsbranschen also shows the number of companies is also on the rise
  42. Blog: NetEase drives mobile games business in Japan, Tencent targets emerging markets
  43. Scavengers dev Midwinter Entertainment acquired by Improbable
  44. Keywords expands game audio services with TV+Synchron Berlin acquisition
  45. JoJo Siwa’s Latest Business Venutre Is A Mobile Game Called ‘Live To Dance’
  46. Ex-King, Z2 devs launch Starform: New Seattle-based studio aims to make online games for friends, attracts $1.25 million in funding
  47. How to develop for a licence (successfully): Brand Licensing Europe’s Anna Knight speaks to developers and IP holders about pleasing both fans and gamers
  48. Football Manager boss Miles Jacobson calls for an end to plastic packaging: Sports Interactive director tells us he expects savings of up to 20 tonnes of plastic as series switches to eco-friendly cases
  49. How PES wants to level the playing field: European brand manager Lennart Bobzien discusses the eFootball rebrand and renewed efforts to put Konami’s football game on top
  50. Vivendi, Riot veterans announce gaming broadcast network, VENN: Ben Kusin and Ariel Horn share their plans and goals for a space that unifies publishers, leagues and audiences under one network
  51. One decade in, League of Legends still averages 8M peak concurrent players daily
  52. League of Legends hits 8 million peak concurrent players a day: Riot shares August’s daily worldwide average figures, says it’s larger than the top 10 games on Steam combined
  53. Valve launches revamped Steam Library in open beta
  54. Twitch sexual content crackdown causing confusion: Streaming site has issued multiple suspensions against streamers wearing Chun-Li costumes, sports bras and more
  55. Twitch acquires IGDB to bolster search and discoverability capabilities
  56. Twitch acquires Internet Gaming Database: Acquisition will see Twitch feed database into discovery feature set
  57. Esports: The next billion dollar industry
  58. Video: Building explosive 8-bit Nintendo eSports the Tetris World Championship way
  59. Dignitas CEO: Soccer, basketball, and esports will be the major sports of the future
  60. Esports tournament platform XY Gaming raises $2.5 million
  61. XY Gaming announces $2.5m funding round: Funds will go toward expanding esports tournament platform, adding games such as Fortnite
  62. Subnation’s ‘LVL UP’ Highlights Explosion Of Premium Content For Esports
  63. PlayVS lands another $50 million: High school esports platform details Series C funding round, brings total funding to $96 million in just over a year
  64. Hulu dropped support for Google’s Daydream VR
  65. HTC Vive Cosmos VR: We have the price, release date, and first hands-on
  66. Image courtesy Daqri: Well-funded AR Headset Startup DAQRI is Shutting Down
  67. Vive Cosmos arrives on October 3 for £699: New virtual reality headset from HTC will cost roughly the same as predecessor
  68. 2K will donate up to $500,000 to blood cancer research in WWE marketing campaign: Publisher partners with Leukemia & Lymphona Society as survivor Roman Reigns stars on the cover of this year’s wrestling game
  69. UKIE partners with Alzheimer’s Research UK for Journo/Dev Swap game jam: GamesIndustry.biz will be publishing the developers-turned-journalists coverage from September 27
  70. Don’t Miss: Gwent and 6 other minigames that developers should study
  71. The 57 years of unseen work that built Cyberpunk 2077’s Night City
  72. Bioware, Beamdog devs unveil Summerfall Studios
  73. Blog: Creating hit games in Dreams
  74. Blog: The difference of accessibility vs. playability in game design
  75. Blog: Historians play Assassin’s Creed Discovery Tour
  76. Blog: Why not just use thumbsticks?
  77. Kojima details the subtly social gameplay of Death Stranding
  78. Don’t Miss: How Sonic Mania’s devs made the old new (and good) again
  79. Don’t Miss: Writing Firewatch, and capturing the beauty of being alone
  80. Watch two of GreedFall’s developers discuss their new colonial RPG
  81. Where do you go from Doom?: Doom Eternal’s Marty Stratton and Hugo Martin talk about their approach to following up the successful reboot of a seminal classic
  82. Every game should copy Death Stranding’s “Very Easy Mode”
  83. Knights and Bikes TV show in the works: Peaky Blinders production company Tiger Aspect options rights for animated series based on Foam Sword game
  84. How a basement hacker transformed Donkey Kong for the Atari 2600
  85. Super Smash Bros. Ultimate wins big at the Japan Game Awards
  86. Proposed E3 revamp could turn expo into ‘fan, media, and influencer festival’
  87. E3 2020 pitch shows move towards celebrities, consumers and influencers: ESA pitch also includes 10,000 additional consumer passes for the E3 showfloor
  88. This new eco-friendly game packaging could save tonnes of plastic every year
  89. Football Manager 2020 studio swaps to recyclable packaging, wants others to do the same
  90. Billy Mitchell Threatens To Sue The Guinness World Record Folks For Removing His Records
  91. Knights and Bikes is being turned into an animated TV show
  92. U.S. Patent No. 9,364,746: System and method configured to unlock content within a videogame

DIGITAL

  1. Examining The Expanding Web Of Chinese And Russian Information Controls
  2. Ninth Circuit’s LinkedIn Decision Does Not Greenlight the Unauthorized Webscraping of Public Websites
  3. The Ninth Circuit Takes On Web Scraping
  4. Instagram Confirms Security Issue Exposed User Accounts And Phone Numbers
  5. YouTube, Facebook, Instagram Are Epicenters For Steroid Sales — And So Are Their Recommendation Algorithms (Study)
  6. Facebook plans launch of its own “Supreme Court” for handling takedown appeals
  7. Audible fires back at book publishers, says captions are fair use: Audible Captions is not a book of any kind,” Audible writes in court filing.
  8. Hotel Owner Files Libel Suit Against Reviewer For Calling Nazis Nazis, Gets Support From Austrian Court
  9. Twitter Stands Up For Devin Nunes’ Parody Accounts: Won’t Reveal Who’s Behind Them
  10. History Repeats Itself: Twitter Launches Illegal SF Street Stencil Campaign Just As IBM DId Decades Ago
  11. Scraping the Web: Practical Implications From the hiQ v. LinkedIn Opinion
  12. Facebook is launching a streaming device that watches you while you watch TV
  13. House lawmakers ask Apple, Amazon, Facebook and Google to turn over trove of records in antitrust probe
  14. Congress wants Facebook, Google, Apple, and Amazon emails as probe heats up
  15. WSJ: Amazon changed search results to boost profits despite internal dissent
  16. Kickstarter accused of “union busting campaign” by former employees: Two former staff claim they were fired for their roles in unionising Kickstarter’s workforce
  17. Ninth Circuit Upholds Amazon.com’s Cost-Sharing Valuation
  18. The $24 Billion Online Casino Boom China Is Struggling to Halt: The Communist Party is hard-pressed to stop the spread of digital gambling in Asia.
  19. Self-Help in Cyberspace: A Path Forward
  20. Would the Internet Be Healthier Without ‘Like’ Counts?: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube have moved to hide or obscure measures of popularity, in the name of less toxic dialog. Users give a thumbs-down.
  21. OONI Explorer team unlock the web’s untold censorship stories
  22. Amazon Music Jumps Into the Hi-Res Audio Game: Amazon adds “high definition” and “ultra high definition” options to its music-streaming service, taking hi-fi music into the mass market
  23. Alibaba Opens Online Marketplace to U.S.-Based Businesses
  24. Content Moderation Is Impossible: Facebook Settles Legal Fight Over Famous Painting Of A Woman’s Genitals
  25. Facebook launches its own Supreme Court
  26. Facing Fines—The Mechanics of Facebook’s Reportedly Forthcoming FTC Settlement
  27. Facebook Unveils Several Video Product Updates, Including ‘Live’ Rehearsals, Pre-Scheduled ‘Watch Parties’
  28. Congress Is Investigating Apple’s Repair Monopoly: Part of the antitrust investigation centers on “Apple’s restrictions on third-party repairs.”
  29. Apple Takes on EU’s Vestager in Record $14 Billion Tax Fight
  30. Apple, services and moats
  31. The U1 chip in the iPhone 11 is the beginning of an Ultra Wideband revolution
  32. Apple’s Big YouTube Stream Was Just Part Of Its Swelling Social Video Impact
  33. Disney CEO Bob Iger resigns from his Apple board seat
  34. “We Could Say Anything To Each Other”: Bob Iger Remembers Steve Jobs, The Pixar Drama, And The Apple Merger That Wasn’t
  35. Less Human Than Human: The Design Philosophy of Steve Jobs – To what degree do “good design,” or “taste,” depend on human values?
  36. Ninth Circuit Reverses Course While Quoting Its Own Precedent Saying Otherwise; Says Section 230 Doesn’t Cover Anti-Competitive Moderation
  37. Terrible Ninth Circuit 230(c)(2) Ruling Will Make the Internet More Dangerous–Enigma v. Malwarebytes (Eric Goldman)
  38. Court Enforces Arbitration Clause in “Modified Clickwrap”–Chen v. Sierra Trading Post
  39. That Time EFF Got A Copyright Takedown Demand Of Its Own Artwork
  40. Forwarding email is a crime, Jerry Falwell Jr. says after leaks to media: A legal expert told the AP Falwell’s claims were “totally insane.”
  41. Meet the three North Korean hacking groups funding the country’s weapons programs
  42. NBCUniversal’s streaming service is called Peacock: Launching with a slate of original and beloved licensed series
  43. NBCUniversal’s Streaming Service Peacock Will Reboot ‘Battlestar Galactica’ And Revive ‘Saved By The Bell’
  44. NBC Peacock is Comcast’s dive into the crazy streaming-video fray
  45. Oh, frak: There’s another Battlestar Galactica reboot coming
  46. Bizarre Streaming Service Quibi Already Has a Better Lineup Than Apple TV+
  47. Tinder Wraps First Scripted Series, A Choose-Your-Own-Adventure Set In The Apocalypse
  48. Insights: Music’s 360 Deals Come To The Hypercompetitive Video Streaming World
  49. Whistle Inks Multi-Year Deal With U.K.-Based Soccer Content Company ‘OTRO’
  50. Google’s ‘Smart City’ Project For Toronto
  51. YouTube’s Abbreviated Subscriber Counts Are Here
  52. Google launches YouTube Music Charts in India
  53. YouTube Changes Music Chart 24-Hour Rankings to Exclude Paid Ad Views
  54. YouTube Will No Longer Count Ads Toward Music Charts, 24-Hour Music Video Debuts
  55. YouTube Is Bringing Its Most Prominent Ad Product, The Masthead, To Smart TV Screens
  56. YouTube introduces a massive ad box to its TV app: A prominent feature on the standard site
  57. YouTube To Shutter Its TV-Optimized ‘Leanback’ Feature On Oct. 2
  58. YouTube Testing New ‘Profile Cards’ That Showcase Channel-Specific Comment History
  59. Google Is Adding The Ability To Search For ‘Key Moments’ Within YouTube Videos
  60. Google Launches Ability to Find Key Moments in YouTube Videos via Search
  61. SoulPancake’s NewFronts Presentation: Control Over Its YouTube Ad Inventory, New Programming, And A PBS Partnership
  62. Lilly Singh Posts Confident Late-Night Debut With Socially-Conscious Bits, YouTube-Esque Challenges
  63. ‘Close Friends,’ for a Monthly Fee: Influencer culture has normalized charging money for all kinds of intimacy.
  64. Instagram Partners With Jonah Hill On Anti-Bullying Docuseries For IGTV
  65. Instagram Debuts Jonah Hill’s ‘Un-filtered’ Bullying Docu-Series
  66. Instagram tightens rules on diet and cosmetic surgery posts: Platform responds to concerns about impact of content on mental health of young people
  67. Instagram, Facebook, and the Perils of “Sharenting”
  68. Fantasy Football Videos Gain Steam All Summer From Unexpected Sources
  69. Whistle Inks Content Deal With U.K. Soccer Subscription App ‘OTRO’
  70. Christine Sydelko Says She’s Quitting The Internet: “It’s Such A Trivial Job”
  71. PewDiePie Retracts $50K Donation To Anti-Defamation League, Says It Doesn’t “Feel Genuine”
  72. Rooster Teeth Lays Off 13% Of Staff, Is Beginning “A New Chapter,” CEO Says
  73. DoubleVerify Becomes a Snapchat Measurement Partner: Its viewability and fraud verification technology will help brands maximize their campaigns
  74. Snapchat Is Once Again Pivoting Back to News
  75. #No Filter: Terminating an Employee for Social Media Posts – Part 2
  76. Volkswagen’s bold plan to create a new car operating system
  77. It’s real and it’s spectacular: Netflix buys exclusive rights to stream Seinfeld
  78. Warner Media’s Rooster Teeth Lays Off 50 Employees: Cuts represent about 13% of the Austin-based digital production company’s employees
  79. WarnerMedia Unveils J.J. Abrams, Bad Robot Mega-Deal
  80. CBS, Viacom, and WarnerMedia ban e-cigarette advertisements amid vaping health crisis: Following a similar CNN ban last week
  81. One Year After Acquiring Ecommerce Startup ‘Kit’, Patreon Sells It To Affiliate Link Company Geniuslink
  82. England’s Law Commission reports on e-signatures – A missed opportunity?
  83. Just How Far Does California’s New IoT Security Law Reach?
  84. Rhode Island Expands Electronic Money Transfer Licensing Requirements to Certain Cryptocurrency Service Providers
  85. Björk made music’s first “VR pop album”—she opens up about its heartbreak
  86. Say hello to 802.11ax: Wi-Fi 6 device certification begins today
  87. Does The Public Care About Tech Backlash? And Does That Matter?
  88. Impact of digital disruption worldwide
  89. I researched Uighur society in China for 8 years and watched how technology opened new opportunities – then became a trap

A.I.

  1. Google is changing its search algorithm to prioritize original news reporting: Humans will train it, as usual
  2. On “AI” replacing jobs and humans
  3. Artificial Intelligence & the Intellectual Property Landscape
  4. Who needs qubits? Factoring algorithm run on a probabilistic computer
  5. Video: Deterministic vs. replicated AI: Building For Honor’s battlefield
  6. The LawBytes Podcast, Episode 24: A Tribute to Ian Kerr (Michael Geist) 

COMMUNICATIONS

  1. Counterpoint: Big telcos have no business howling over CRTC decision that encourages fair internet prices – Any unfairness pales in comparison to what Canadian consumers have had to put up with for years
  2. 50% of US homes still won’t have fiber broadband by 2025, study says
  3. AT&T to lose 1.1 million TV subscribers as DirecTV continues nosedive
  4. Lawsuit: AT&T signed customers up for DirecTV Now without their knowledge
  5. AT&T considers getting rid of DirecTV as TV business tanks, WSJ reports
  6. AT&T’s Terrible New TV Branding Confuses Even AT&T
  7. Some Investors Are Fed Up With AT&T’s Costly Obsession With Merger Mania
  8. FCC Commissioner Investigating Payola in the Radio Industry 
  9. Colorado Town Offers 1 Gbps For $60 After Years Of Battling Comcast
  10. Comcast Sues Maine For Demanding It Sell TV Channels À La Carte
  11. Verizon plans 5G Home Internet in every city where it deploys mobile 5G
  12. At Qualcomm, 5G is headed everywhere and into virtually everything
  13. Upcoming FCC Consumer Advisory Committee Meeting Will Consider Robocall Working Group Recommendation 
  14. FCC Expands Anti-Spoofing Prohibitions to Foreign-Originated Calls, Text-Messaging Services
  15. FCC’s consumer Advisory Committee adopts robocall blocking recommendation
  16. Alarm Industry Communications Committee Seeks Reconsideration of Call Blocking Declaratory Ruling to Prevent Blocking of Alarm Calls
  17. Fall TV Is the Crystallization of Broadcast’s Existential Crisis 

PRIVACY

  1. Digital privacy evolves in class actions: With two recent failed digital privacy class-action certifications, litigators say certification is becoming a higher hurdle to pass
  2. District court allows majority of privacy invasion class action claims to proceed against social media company
  3. Millions of Americans’ Medical Images and Data Are Available on the Internet. Anyone Can Take a Peek.
  4. Millions of Americans’ medical images and data are available on the Internet
  5. University Of Alabama Is Using A Location-Tracking App To Punish Students For Leaving Football Games Early
  6. The DMV Is Selling Your Data To Vast Array Of Third Parties
  7. Hackers are exploiting a platform-agnostic flaw to track mobile phone locations
  8. Advanced hackers are infecting IT providers in hopes of hitting their customers
  9. You’d Think The FBI Would Be More Sensitive To Protecting Encrypted Communications Now That We Know The Russians Cracked The FBI’s Comms
  10. Privacy Regulators Turning Up the Heat: Major Fines for Data Breaches and Privacy Violations This Summer
  11. Los Angeles partnership launches platform to help people catch phishes
  12. Encryption Working Group Releases Paper To ‘Move The Conversation Forward’
  13. Denmark Releases 32 Prisoners Convicted Because Of Flawed Mobile Phone Tracking Data
  14. Spouse of Ring exec among lawmakers trying to weaken Calif. privacy law
  15. California’s Consumer Privacy Act Completes its 2019 Legislative Journey
  16. California now has toughest law in U.S. for the collection of personal information
  17. And At the End of the Day, the CCPA Remains Very Much the Same 
  18. California Legislature Passes CCPA Amendments and Privacy Bills
  19. Compliance Tips From the Largest COPPA Settlement Ever
  20. CCPA’s Moving Target Comes into Focus
  21. Nevada’s New Privacy Law Will Go Into Effect Next Month: Are You Ready?
  22. A connected world will be a playground for hackers: Few companies making connected gadgets have much experience with cyber security
  23. Feds seek to seize all profits from Snowden’s book over NDA violation
  24. DOJ Decides To Help Publicize Snowden’s Memoir By Suing Him For Failing To Run His Book By The CIA And NSA First

CREATIVITY

  1. Mercedes’s Claims Against Street Artists Survive Dismissal Motion 
  2. When IP meets counterculture: Is graffiti protected by copyright?
  3. After Being Sued, Mississippi Rewrites Its Unconstitutional Ban On The Use Of Meat Words By Vegan Food Producers
  4. New Mexico City Starts Crowdfunding Effort To Pay For Its Stupid Defense Of Constitutional Violations
  5. Lawsuit Settlement Over Detainment Of A Journalist Will Force Denver Police Department To Admit The First Amendment Exists 
  6. Australian Aboriginal Flag Mess Is Getting Worse — All Thanks To Copyright 
  7. USPTO Drops Its Demands For Applicants’ Green Cards
  8. The Music Business Wants to Blow Up Copyright – and the Trump Administration Is On Board
  9. She’s just not that ‘Into You’ – Ariana Grande seeks $10 million after snubbing Forever 21 
  10. Charlotte Tilbury successful in copyright action against Aldi for “lookalike” makeup
  11. All Over the Map: Publishers, Writers, Small Towns & Apartment Owners Weigh In On Consent Decree Debate 
  12. Researchers analyzed more than 300,000 local news stories on Facebook. Here’s what they found.: “Aside from critical information needs, 31 percent of stories categorized covered sports and 9 percent were obituaries.” 
  13. THE Ohio State University Loses Its Trademark Application For ‘THE’ 
  14. Liverpool FC Fans Plan Protest Of Their Own Club Over Trademark Issue 
  15. AB InBev Fails To Get ‘Patagonia’ Trademark Suit Dismissed
  16. Monster Energy Opposes Teenager’s Trademark Application Over Logos Not At All Similar
  17. Fluid Trademarks: Will Companies Go With the Flow?
  18. Intellectual Property Is Neither Intellectual, Nor Property: Discuss
  19. Elections Advertising—What You Need to Know About the Third-Party Advertising Rules
  20. The amendment to the Patent Rules – Coming into Force October 30
  21. The Cutthroat Battle for Controlling Le Monde
  22. No-deal brexit and intellectual property
  23. The MoviePass Mess Has Finally Come To An End
  24. Ken Burns’ Soft-Focus Look at Country Music: The filmmaker’s latest documentary has more than three chords, not enough of the truth.
  25. The Decline and Fall of the Modern Nerd: The sad saga of how fandom transformed from being about love into hate and intolerance
  26. The Female Patrons Who Shaped Art History
  27. No, James Murdoch Doesn’t Watch “Succession”: After leaving the family empire, Rupert Murdoch’s son is fighting threats to democracy that sound an awful lot like Fox News.
  28. The 100 best TV shows of the 21st century
  29. The 100 best films of the 21st century

Jon

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Class 3 – 9/18/19; “John Milton Plays Grand Prix Legends” + EA’s Brian Dartnell & Perry Bahniwal

By Jon Festinger on September 18, 2019

Video & slides above. Note that in Brian and Perry’s slides the videos are disabled as they were way too large to upload.

Jon

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Music in Sports Games

By Anant Sidhu on September 17, 2019

I wanted to post about the influence music has on the gaming world.

Growing up I loved video games, especially sports games (NHL, NBA & FIFA) and the soundtrack in sports games are so influential on the gamers. I can honestly say that there are songs from NHL 2002 onwards that I could recite word for word if I heard it but I did not know the name of the song (She Loves Me Not – Papa Roach from NHL 03).

FIFA on the other hand is probably the biggest and most global sports game in the gaming industry. I feel like the songs in these games reach global audiences. EA has bought into this global audience and announced that the game will feature many international artists that will please players globally:

“The 43-song soundtrack features marquee names like UK grime icon Skepta; American neo-soul hitmaker BJ The Chicago Kid; Spanish vocalists – and VMA showstoppers – ROSALÍA & Ozuna; Israeli singer/songwriter Dennis Lloyd; hot Philly female rapper Tierra Whack; London indie rockers Another Sky; DC breakout rapper GoldLink; Norwegian R&B stars Fieh; Brooklyn singer-songwriter Cautious Clay; UK rock favorites Foals; Australian electropop star Flume; Florida rapper/singer Dominic Fike; UK hip-hop musician and Mercury Prize nominee Loyle Carner; and The S.L.P., the solo project of Serge Pissorno from Kasabian featuring London rapper/singer Little Simz” 

I always found soundtracks to be very interesting in games and are usually overlooked in the gaming industry, but the soundtrack and music in the games can be under a lot of scrutiny f0r such things like copyright, royalties and like it was stated in this article:

“Not obtaining proper consent from copyright owners can be an expensive mistake to make. Unauthorised use in a game of a composition or a recording of a composition is an infringement of copyright law. An aggrieved copyright owner might initiate an action against you, which, if successful, can lead to a claim for substantial damages or a share of the game’s profits ” (https://www.mcvuk.com/the-legal-side-of-music-in-games/)

In a game like FIFA, its interesting to think how all those copyright laws in the respective country plays into the domestic sales in other countries. Example, how the copyright law of UK allows FIFA to be sold in Canada, where you can listen to UK Grime icon Skepta. How do royalties work across all these markets? It’s interesting, I will continue to search for these articles and update this as they come available.

 

FOLLOW THESE LINKS FOR MORE INFORMATION:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/brianmazique/2019/07/20/nba-2k20-soundtrack-announced-along-with-new-talent-search-initiative-for-new-artists/#4874fea26fcd

https://www.ea.com/games/fifa/fifa-20/news/fifa-20-soundtrack-volta-football

operationsports.com/nhl-20-soundtrack-revealed/

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Guests for Class 3

By Jon Festinger on September 17, 2019

Happy to report that Brian Dartnell (left) and Perry Bahniwal (right) of the Legal Department of Electronic Arts will be joining us tomorrow to provide some insights into the issues video game company counsel deal with day-to-day.

Brian is Vice President, Legal Affairs at EA. He has been at EA almost 14 years, working out of EA’s Vancouver operations. Prior to joining EA Brian practiced at both Owen, Bird and Gowlings and clerked and the B.C. Court of Appeal. He graduated from Osgoode Hall Law in 1996.

Perry is Product Counsel at EA having joined in April 2018. Before that he was legal Counsel at Canucks Sports & Entertainment, Global Relay, Central 1 Credit Union and Broadband TV. Perry articled at Stikeman Elliott, obtained his law degree from the University of Southhampton in 2007 and is currently the President of the BC Chapter of the Association of Corporate Counsel.

Jon

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