Posts

Discussion Outline – November 28th (Group 1)

Hi everyone,

Next week we will be talking about the future of video games. We are going to focus on the following topics:

  1. The Future of Gaming Technology – VR and AR
  2. How Future Gaming Technology Can Affect The Movie Industry
  3. A.I. In the Future
  4. The Future Implications of BREXIT for Video Games

Seems like Jon already has some mind reading/-hacking skills, since he showed us the excellent, yet scary, short film about how our future can look like with the way technology is evolving. So instead of posting that video once again (for the people who did not see it, you can see it here though) we would like to show you this video from EA instead as preparation:

News of the Week; November 14, 2018

GAMES

  1. Husband and wife ordered to pay $12m to Nintendo for running ROM sites
  2. Nintendo wins out in legal battle against ROM sites
  3. Nintendo reaches final judgment agreement with ROM site owners: LoveROMS and LoveRETRO owners admit to copyright infringement, agree to $12m judgment
  4. Senators ask FTC to investigate malicious ads in apps geared for kids
  5. Three Square Enix mobile games blocked in Belgium over loot box use
  6. Three Square Enix mobile games stop operating in Belgium over loot boxes: Kingdom Hearts Union X, Dissidia Final Fantasy Opera Omnia, Mobius Final Fantasy all to end in country by mid-December
  7. Final Fantasy XV game director Hajime Tabata departs Square Enix
  8. Square Enix files trademark dispute against Dorado Games over ‘Conflict’ branding: Publisher’s lawyers argue there “is a clear likelihood of confusion”
  9. Valve condemns racist behaviour of pro players during DOTA 2 matches: Developer says it will not tolerate racist langue between pro players but puts onus on teams to discipline
  10. Hacker gets $20K from Valve for unearthing bug that generates free Steam keys
  11. Valve rewards man $20,000 for discovering unlimited free game codes bug: Bug allowed anyone with developer portal account to generate thousands of free codes for any game 
  12. YouTube Unbans Gamer Who Uploaded Clips Of Killing A Feminist Character In ‘Red Dead Redemption 2’
  13. God of War, Red Dead Redemption 2 lead nominees for The Game Awards 
  14. YouTube backtracks ban on YouTuber who assaulted Red Dead suffragette: Controversial clips restored but now age restricted, deletion blamed on misinterpretation of guidelines
  15. Blog: My time at Telltale Games
  16. Tyler Barriss, Serial ‘Swatter’ Who Phoned in Lethal Hoax, Pleads Guilty to 51 Federal Charges
  17. Man pleads guilty to swatting attack that led to death of Kansas man
  18. NPR Posits Nazis Are Recruiting All Of Our Children In Online Games With Very Little Evidence
  19. The Controversy Over Bethesda’s ‘Game Engine’ Is Misguided
  20. Fortnite Players Immediately Find Worst Possible Uses For New NFL Skins 
  21. Original Command & Conquer devs will remaster series’ first games in one package
  22. EA brings in original Command & Conquer devs to help with remasters
  23. EA partners with Petroglyph Games for Command & Conquer remasters: Tiberian Dawn and Red Alert to be remastered with original developers, no microtransactions
  24. PlayStation Now brought in $143 million last quarter – Report: Superdata pegs Sony’s subscription service as the industry leader; EA’s Access offerings totaled $90 million while Xbox Game Pass claimed $41 million
  25. Sony agrees to Chicago city tax on PlayStation Store purchases: 9% Amusement Tax will apply to various store purchases for city residents beginning November 14
  26. Sony’s PlayStation Classic is powered by the open-source emulator PCSX
  27. Sony using open source emulator for PlayStation Classic plug-and-play
  28. PlayStation Classic Plays Fine, But It’s A Bare-Bones Experience
  29. Sony Patent Hints at Possible Touchscreen Playstation Controller
  30. PUBG’s “console exclusivity” ends, PS4 version out on Dec. 7 [Updated]
  31. THQ Nordic acquires Coffee Stain and Bugbear Entertainment
  32. Koch Media acquisition driving record sales at THQ Nordic
  33. UK government responds to industry’s Brexit fears: “The video games sector plays an important part in the UK’s creative industries and we are listening to concerns”
  34. £80m Creative Industries Clusters Programme launches to fund new R&D projects: Abertay University representing video games in new initiative by Arts and Humanities Research Council
  35. China’s ongoing game license freeze prompts decline in market forecast
  36. Report: Tencent dials back game marketing budget to weather China’s game freeze
  37. Tencent undergoes marketing budget cuts as China’s licensing freeze persists: Company’s gaming division to limit spending, shift budget away from unlicensed titles
  38. “The Chinese government just doesn’t see games as a priority”: At Level Up KL, 505 Games’ Thomas Rosenthal explored the upheaval caused by the freeze on game approvals in China, and the uncertainty still to come
  39. Hitman 2’s Denuvo DRM cracked days before the game’s release
  40. Denuvo: Every Download Is A Lost Sale For This Anonymous AAA Title We’re Referencing, So Buy Moar Dunuvo!
  41. Take-Two: Game streaming is a big opportunity for us – As long as the business model is right
  42. Blizzard acknowledges the mobile reality: Diablo Immortal didn’t go down well at Blizzcon, but Blizzard’s Asian following makes a high-profile mobile strategy a necessity, not an option
  43. Activision Blizzard revenues, engagement dip: Tough comparison against last year’s Destiny 2 launch takes shine off publisher’s numbers even as net income grows
  44. Activision Blizzard’s revenues falter after Destiny 2 DLC ‘underperformed’
  45. Activision Blizzard shares drop a further 11 per cent: Weaker-than-expected results and dips in engagement worry shareholders
  46. The many merchandising methods of Activision
  47. Red Dead Redemption 2 shipments reach 17 million: Rockstar’s hit game has shipped more in eight days than the original did in eight years
  48. Red Dead Redemption 2 has shipped 17M copies in under two weeks
  49. Red Dead Redemption 2 is still No. 1 at UK retail after three weeks
  50. Fortnite hits 8.3M concurrent players
  51. Fortnite reaches 8.3 million concurrent players: Epic Games’ battle royale reaches milestone as game launches in South Korea
  52. GAME: “With so many games clustered together, there was going to be winners and losers” – The retail giant discusses one of the most competitive and challenging Q4 periods in years
  53. Profits dip at GAME but cost savings reduce losses: Retailer remains “cautiously optimistic” about the year ahead as Belong strategy continues to develop
  54. Newzoo: Top 25 public gaming companies are still growing, but slowly – H1 2018 growth was lowest year-over-year since 2014, with China licensing freeze hurting industry leaders
  55. The media-starved Nintendo Switch just got a YouTube shot in the arm
  56. Nintendo’s Poké Ball Plus Made Me Wish I Was a Kid Again
  57. Nintendo is ending video streaming support on the Wii
  58. Video streaming support may fully end on the Wii next year: Netflix to stop service on the system in January 2019; Switch still awaiting more apps
  59. The audio design behind the original Xbox startup sound
  60. Keyboard and mouse controls finally hit Xbox One this week
  61. Mouse and keyboard support arriving on Xbox One this week
  62. Xbox chief Phil Spencer taking on a ‘bigger role’ in fixing the Microsoft Store
  63. Microsoft launches $1m #givewithXbox charity campaign: Initiative will support Child’s Play, Gamers Outreach, SpecialEffect and Operation Supply Drop
  64. Microsoft’s two-hour Game Pass advert told us everything about the future of Xbox
  65. Obsidian, inXile acquired by Microsoft Studios 4
  66. Microsoft to acquire RPG specialists Obsidian Entertainment and InXile: Pillars of Eternity, Fallout New Vegas and Wasteland 3 creators join to boost Game Pass
  67. Microsoft wants Azure to be the multiplayer server solution for every platform
  68. Ex-EA design chief Patrick Söderlund unveils Embark Studios
  69. Nexon makes big investment in Patrick Söderlund’s ambitious new studio
  70. MapleStory drives revenue and profit growth for Nexon: Dungeon & Fighter Q3 update also hit big in China
  71. German government to establish $57 million games fund
  72. German government to establish €50 million game fund in 2019: game’s Felix Falk sees “historic” fund as a chance to close the gap on the UK, France and Canada
  73. Physical copies of Hollow Knight cancelled 
  74. Dude, Where’s My Money? Part Three: From Hunting To Gathering: Nikolay Bondarenko’s publishing advice series continues with an in-depth look at bundles and crowdfunding
  75. ‘We had the finished package, and they just took it from us’: How CBE Software recovered from the Lace Mamba fiasco
  76. Guide Maker Prima Games Will Close Its Doors In 2019
  77. Strategy guide publisher Prima Games is shutting down
  78. Prima Games shutting down: Long-running strategy guide publisher expected to halt operations by next spring
  79. Streamlabs launches app store with $1M developer fund
  80. Streamlabs launches App Store focused on streamer support: New app platform offers $15 credit, heavy curation, app developer fund
  81. Lord of the Rings Online returns to its 2007 roots with official ‘Legendary Server’  
  82. ‘PokerStars VR’ Brings Multiplayer Freeplay Poker to Rift & Vive
  83. BigBox VR secures $5 million in seed funding round: Funding to support development on upcoming VR battle royale game Population – One
  84. Tetris Effect review: The puzzle game of my dreams—literally
  85. 9 Things I Learned About Game Jams As An Outsider
  86. Going the Distance: Building a game – and community – over six years
  87. Blog: How world-building elevates video games and fandom
  88. Blog: Cultural concepts as principles of design
  89. Video: An apology for Roger Ebert
  90. Google Play announces Games for Change design challenge finalists
  91. Revealed: The best video games employers in Canada – Four winners for our inaugural awards
  92. Meet the best places to work in Canada’s games industry: Interviews with Beenox, Behaviour, Ludia and Ubisoft
  93. A new “fuzzy Pikachu” debate headlines a trailer-filled Monday
  94. Watch the Extremely Cursed Trailer for ‘Detective Pikachu’: Ryan Reynolds is voicing a CGI Pikachu in a tiny Sherlock Holmes hat, which is just as bizarre as it sounds.

DIGITAL

  1.  ‘Facebook is the new cigarettes,’ says Salesforce CEO
  2. Report: Even Facebook Employees Are Bummed About Facebook 
  3. Delay, Deny and Deflect: How Facebook’s Leaders Fought Through Crisis
  4. How Facebook Flags Terrorist Content With Machine Learning: But it’s not perfect.
  5. Blame Fox, not Facebook, for fake news
  6. Facebook will let French regulators study its efforts to fight hate speech
  7. French investigators to work directly with Facebook to monitor hate speech
  8. Facebook Allowing French Censors To Embed With The Company, And Maybe That’s A Good Thing?
  9. Facebook joins Google, halts mandatory arbitration in sexual harassment cases
  10. Nasty Adobe Bug Deleted $250,000-Worth of Man’s Files, Lawsuit Claims 
  11. Pennsylvania Attorney General Sends Broad, Unconstitutional Gag Order To Gab’s New DNS Provider
  12. Gab cries foul as Pennsylvania attorney general subpoenas DNS provider
  13. Reminder: Cutting-and-Pasting Photos from the Internet Is Hazardous to Your Legal Health–Grecco v. Valuewalk (Eric Goldman)
  14. In the Age of A.I., Is Seeing Still Believing?: Advances in digital imagery could deepen the fake-news crisis – or help us get out of it.
  15. Algorithms and their unintended consequences for the poor 
  16. Buying your First AI or “Never Trust a Used Algorithm Salesman”
  17. Is this AI? We drew you a flowchart to work it out
  18. Google ends mandatory arbitration in sexual harassment cases
  19. Google’s New AI Can Recognize Voices It’s Never Heard Before
  20. Google adds always-on VPN to its Project Fi cellular service
  21. Nice Work EU: You’ve Given Google An Excuse To Offer A Censored Search Engine In China
  22. Governor Of Tanzania’s Capital Announces Plan To Round Up Everyone Who Was Too Gay On Social Media
  23. Why Amazon’s Search For A Second Headquarters Backfired
  24. Report: Amazon chooses New York City neighborhood, DC suburb for HQ2
  25. It’s Official: Amazon Is Coming to NYC and Arlington, Virginia
  26. Amazon is getting more than $2 billion for NYC and Virginia expansions
  27. New York Politicians Suggest a Better Place Jeff Bezos Can Stick His New Headquarters 
  28. How to Stop the Amazon Extortion From Happening Again
  29. Windows 10 users finding their legit installs are being deactivated
  30. Windows 10 October 2018 Update is back, this time without deleting your data
  31. Spotify officially releases first version of its Apple Watch app
  32. Apple to replace unresponsive iPhone X touchscreens for free
  33. Samsung’s foldable smartphone reportedly costs $1,770, launches in March
  34. Leading Open Access Supporters Ask EU To Investigate Elsevier’s Alleged ‘Anti-Competitive Practices’
  35. A campaign to save the web from abuse
  36. Content or Context Moderation?: Artisanal, Community-Reliant, and Industrial Approaches
  37. A Third of Wikipedia Discussions Are Stuck in Forever Beefs  
  38. Over a Third of the U.S. Adult Population Turns to YouTube for Tutorials, Survey Says
  39. As U.S. Creators See Merch Sales Soar, YouTube Launches Teespring Integration Across The EU
  40. Dear EU Politicians: You Really Don’t Have To Wreck The Internet 
  41. ‘YouTube VR’ Finally Comes to Oculus Go, Now Available on Oculus Store
  42. YouTube’s Recommendation Algorithm Suggests Increasingly Longer Videos, Study Finds
  43. ‘Superwoman’ Lilly Singh Announces Break From YouTube To Focus On Her Mental Health
  44. Lilly Singh announces she’s taking a break from YouTube
  45. YouTube Creators’ AdSense Payments Are In Limbo After Defy Media’s Abrupt Shutdown
  46. BroadbandTV Launches Brand Safety Video Solution VISO Prism
  47. PewDiePie Continues To Outrun T-Series, Becoming First Channel To Pass 70 Million Subscribers
  48. Smosh Co-Founder Anthony Padilla Shares Why He Departed “Evil And Shady” Defy Media After Sudden Shutdown
  49. Top YouTube creators call out defunct Defy Media for shady practices
  50. Influencers v. PopSugar: Recent Updates 
  51. Influencer Marketing: Understanding Disclosure Best Practices 
  52. Brands Are Pursuing ‘Nano Influencers’ With Mere Thousands Of Instagram Followers (Report)
  53. Forget Pet Stars: A New Field Of Plant Influencers Is Cropping Up On Instagram
  54. Disney Unveils Name Of Upcoming Streaming Service, Will Launch In Late 2019 With Marvel And ‘Star Wars’ Series 
  55. A Twitter Account Is Outing White People Who Pretend to Be Black and It’s Hilarious
  56. Claims for Analyzing Twitter Posts Held Unpatentable by Judge Castel 
  57. Vine Sequel To Be Called ‘Byte,’ Launching Next Spring
  58. HQ Trivia Is Bleeding Users, Weathering CEO Drama Ahead Of Follow-Up Game Launch (Report)
  59. After Being Banned By Fiverr, Voice Over Pete Is Making Bank On Patreon — And Teaming Up With Ninja 
  60. Vice To Reduce Staff By 15%, Slash Number Of Content Verticals In Half Over Next Year
  61. Disney is taking a $157 million write-down on Vice Media as the site is reportedly reducing staff by 15%
  62. Netflix is doubling down on Asia with 17 new originals
  63. Netflix Tests Cheap, Mobile-Only Subscription Plan To Net More Users In Asia 
  64. Insights: Netflix Really Wants To Win Some Oscars, So It’s Changing Its Whole Strategy For Big Films And Filmmakers
  65. Will Netflix have a Devil of Time Defending Suit Brought by Satanic Temple?
  66. Disney Eyeing Global Rollout For Hulu, Potential Subscription Price Hike
  67. Why a Blockchain Startup Bought This $9 Million Stradivarius Violin: Mattereum wants to tokenize the real world.
  68. The Hammer Falls on the First Major Blockchain-based Art Auction 
  69. Using blockchain in advertising
  70. Imminent Bitcoin Cash schism triggers cryptocurrency selloff 
  71. Headmaster Fired For Stealing School’s Electricity To Mine Crypto
  72. High School Principal in China Fired for Running Secret Cryptocurrency Mining Operation
  73. The IRS is Closing in on Cases Regarding Bitcoin Income Reporting
  74. Six Years Behind Bars: DOJ Gives Dire Warning to Online False Advertisers 
  75. Qualcomm’s Patent Nuclear War Turning Into Nuclear Winter
  76. In 20 Years, the Internet Will Split in Two — Then Go to War With Itself
  77. Robert Jackson Bennett Uses Magic To Make Sense Of How Technology Shapes Our Lives 

CREATIVITY

  1. Follow Up on Bill C-86 – The Omnibus Bill that Amends Canadian IP Law (Howard Knopf)
  2. AP: Video expert says White House clip of CNN reporter was likely doctored [Updated]
  3. White House Spreads Doctored Video to Justify Temper Tantrum Against CNN Reporter
  4. CNN Lawsuit Seeks To Show That Trump Can’t Kick Reporters Out For Asking Tough Questions
  5. Dems to probe whether Trump retaliated against CNN, Washington Post
  6. Don’t Throw Out The First Amendment’s Press Protections Just Because You Don’t Like President Trump
  7. Another Freedom of Speech Win For The Fantasy Sports Industry
  8. Indiana Supreme Court Finds Fantasy Sports Statistics Newsworthy In Right of Publicity Claim 
  9. Artist hacks street signs in Edinburgh to the public’s delight 
  10. Why We Need Utopian Fiction Now More Than Ever
  11. Forget movie villains—it’s the “good” superheroes that are the most violent
  12. Legendary Marvel Comics creator Stan Lee has died
  13. Obituary: Marvel Comics co-creator Stan Lee passes away at 95
  14. Legendary Creator Stan Lee, Who Changed Comics and Pop Culture Forever, Is Dead at 95
  15. The taste of a food product is not eligible for copyright protection The taste of a food product cannot be classified as a ‘work’
  16. The Levola Hengelo CJEU decision: ambiguities, uncertainties … and more questions
  17. RIAA Court Filing In Stairway To Heaven Case Warns Against *OVERPROTECTION* By Copyright
  18. The Girl Scouts Sues The Boy Scouts Over Trademark

MEDIA, COMMUNICATIONS & NET NEUTRALITY

  1. Net Neutrality News: Supreme Court Declines to Hear Telecom Industry Appeals 
  2. Why Democrats Didn’t Campaign More on Net Neutrality
  3. Oh Look, Wireless Sector Investment Is Declining Despite Tax Cuts, Repeal Of Net Neutrality
  4. Colorado Voters Continue To Opt Out Of State’s Protectionist, ISP-Written Broadband Law
  5. AT&T CEO: State net neutrality and privacy laws are a “total disaster”
  6. House To Investigate Whether DOJ’s AT&T Antitrust Lawsuit Was Political
  7. AT&T Ignores Numerous Pitfalls, Begins Kicking Pirates Off Of The Internet
  8. Comcast uses NBC to harm other cable companies, rivals say
  9. Comcast forced to pay refunds after its hidden fees hurt customers’ credit
  10. Negotiating with ISPs: Don’t accept broadband price hikes without a fight
  11. Whose Liability Is It Anyway? CRTC Issues New Guidance Regarding Liability for Aiding or Inducing CASL Non-Compliance 
  12. CRTC’s Troubling Guidelines on CASL Accessorial Liability  

SURVEILLANCE & PRIVACY

  1. Google goes down after major BGP mishap routes traffic through China: Google says it doesn’t believe leak was malicious despite suspicious appearances.
  2. Security breach notification and reporting requirements are now in force under Canada’s PIPEDA
  3. New mandatory data breach notification requirements come into force
  4. New Developments in the Law on Data Breaches
  5. High Court blocks data privacy claim against Google 
  6. Amazon must give up Echo recordings in double murder case, judge rules
  7. Judge Says Amazon Needs To Hand Over Recordings Created By Murder Victim’s Echo Speaker
  8. Amazon Breaks Silence on Aiding Law Enforcement Following Employee Backlash
  9. Motel 6 Agrees To Pay $7.6 Million Settlement For Sending Guest Lists To ICE
  10. EU and U.S. second annual review of Privacy Shield 
  11. How your car is spying on you
  12. We need stronger cybersecurity laws for the Internet of Things

Jon

Class 10 – 11/14/18; “Mass Effect-s” + “Mobile Gaming: The ‘Freemium’ Model & The Law”

Slides and video below. Unfortunately there is another unexplained video outage (still being investigated by UBC IT) part way through, but audio and slides are still there, and in reality that’s what is really needed.

Note that in  “Mobile Gaming” slides there is a part that there was not time for during the presentation about kids mobile games and COPPA violations in the US that you may find interesting.

Jon

Discussion Outline – November 21st

Group: Frederikke, Sebastian, Magdelena & Camilla

Next week we will be talking about the EU framework regarding video games. We will look at how the EU deals with some current issues:

  1. EU consumer rights
  2. The new EU directive on copyright
  3. The principle of exhaustion
  4. Children and games in the light of GDPR

As preparation please see the video below:

Discussion Outline – November 14th

Group: Scott Ashbourne, Conor Kennelly

 

Hi Guys,

This week we are going to be talking about the mobile gaming industry, with a focus on free-to-play games (“freemium”). We will start with an overview of the mobile game industry, and then discuss the market driving the explosion in “freemium” games. Our focus will then shift to a discussion of two areas of law and how they intersect with the mobile game industry: privacy and intellectual property rights.

If you would like to prepare, please watch this short video:

News of the Week; November 7, 2018

GAMES

  1. Tencent will use police databases to restrict playtime in China
  2. Tencent to run player ID checks across its entire portfolio in China: “Healthy gaming” system to expand beyond Honor of Kings in 2019, to allay the government’s addiction fears
  3. Riot Games sued over allegations of sexual harassment, pay disparity
  4. Current and former employees file class action lawsuit against Riot Games
  5. Riot Games faces class-action suit for discrimination, harassment: One current, one former employee allege company denied equal pay, stifled careers based on their gender
  6. He Helped People Cheat at Grand Theft Auto. Then His Home Was Raided: A gamer in Melbourne has had his assets frozen in connection with a popular video game cheat. He’s one of many being sued by game companies worldwide, raising questions about copyright
  7. Bizarre: TrustedReviews Pulls Website Reporting on ‘Red Dead’ Leak, Pays More Than A Million To Charities Of Rockstar’s Choice
  8. Take-Two Interactive raises financial outlook due to Red Dead Redemption II
  9. NBA 2K19 and GTA Online drive Take-Two results: Digital sales continue to accelerate
  10. British Website Forced To Pay $1.3 Million Over Red Dead Redemption 2 Leak
  11. TI Media donates $1.3 million as apology for leaking internal Take-Two documents
  12. Take-Two, TrustedReviews reach legal settlement over Red Dead Redemption 2 leak: ‘Over £1 million’ settlement to be directed to three charities after February article leak of confidential document
  13. Red Dead Redemption 2 scores 2018’s biggest second week at UK retail: Football Manager 2019 comes in at No.9 in physical form
  14. Rockstar Ports Its Old, Antiquated, Flawed Censorial Blacklist For Player Chat Into New ‘Red Dead Redemption’ Game
  15. Twitch users spent 34M hours watching Black Ops 4 on launch week
  16. Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 sees 34m hours of Twitch viewership during launch week – Gamoloco – Battle royale mode drove 270% increase over WWII’s launch
  17. Microsoft’s Twitch Competitor Mixer Rolls Out Hefty Update With More Ways For Creators To Make Money And More Ways For Viewers To Engage
  18. Rainbow 6 Siege Will Remove Sex And Gambling References Globally
  19. Visual tweaks hit Rainbow Six Siege ahead of release in Asian countries
  20. Ubisoft removing references to gambling, skulls for global Rainbow Six Siege release: Expansion to Asia to come with aesthetic game changes for “single, global vision” of the game
  21. Just Dance 2019 under fire for advertising paid subscription in ‘Kids Mode’
  22. Ubisoft reworking Just Dance kids mode after parental complaint over subscription ads: Calls for younger users to sign up to Unlimited service prompt apology from publisher
  23. How to handle entitled gamers when announcing a mobile game: Blizzard isn’t the first games giant to have to manage its fans when moving to smartphones
  24. Blizzard announces its first mobile Diablo game
  25. Blizzard’s Diablo mobile game meets community backlash: NetEase co-developed Diablo Immortal sparks online petition, Blizzard categorises response as fan “passion”
  26. Activision Blizzard stock tumbles following Diablo Immortal backlash: Share price takes 6.74% hit to close out day at lowest point since January
  27. Blizzard’s long-awaited World of Warcraft Classic releases next summer
  28. World of Warcraft: Classic free to WoW subscribers – Recreation of original World of Warcraft due out in summer 2019
  29. Blizzard’s Overwatch League is making big changes with player wellness in mind: Season 2 will have more teams and fewer games
  30. Turtle Beach revenue up 107% to $74.4m in latest quarterly financials: Popularity of battle royale games drive strong headset sales
  31. Fallout 76 beta: Bethesda extends UK time after bug deletes game from PCs – A bug managed to delete the whole of the Fallout 76 beta from people’s PCs and they were not happy
  32. Sony keeping Warhawk, other PS3 game servers live through January [Updated]
  33. PUBG’s “console exclusivity” may soon end, as loud hints of a PS4 version mount
  34. As PUBG for PS4 looms, Xbox unofficially responds: have the game for free
  35. Feature erosion watch: Xbox One loses broadcast TV streaming on iOS/Android – iOS and Android apps no longer able to receive antenna TV signals through console
  36. “Companies don’t care about your games. People care about your games”: At Melbourne Games Week, Nick Suttner and Ken Wong advised developers not to see storefronts as monoliths – find the people that work there, and make them your champions
  37. Back from the dead: The people keeping old MMOs alive: Dozens of dead or abandoned MMOs are kept alive by teams of volunteers, many of whom struggle with the legal and financial implications of the task
  38. Dude, Where’s My Money? Part One: The Science of Steam
  39. Dude, Where’s My Money? Part Two: Divvying up the Loot – AurumDust’s Nikolay Bondarenko offers advice on Steam’s tools, key resellers, and how to work with the growing legion of storefronts
  40. 5 years into Early Access, DayZ hits beta ahead of a planned 1.0 release this year
  41. A ridiculously in-depth look at the email marketing ofBoyfriend Dungeon
  42. Starbreeze Studios pre-tax loss triples to $11.3m in Q3 2018: Payday 2 accounts for two-thirds of company’s Q3 revenue as it prepares to launch Overkill’s The Walking Dead
  43. Pokemon GO earned $73 million in October: Earnings represent 67% year-over-year increase, edges Niantic’s title over Fortnite for mobile revenue
  44. Junichi Masuda likely stepping away from director role on future Pokemon games: After Let’s Go!, Masuda to allow “younger generation” to steer the series
  45. Apptopia October report: Asian developers dominate the top new games on iOS and Android – Games from Asian markets account for nine of the top ten new games on App Store in terms of IAP spending
  46. Newzoo lowers global games forecast for 2018 to $134.9 Billion: China’s licensing freeze, mobile copycat fatigue bring mobile market predictions down by $7 billion
  47. Bringing feudal Japan to life in Ghost of Tsushima: Sucker Punch creative director Nate Fox discusses ensuring the game’s setting is authentic, despite the appeal of the romantic imagery
  48. DeNA bringing Tencent’s Arena of Valor to Japan: Mobile specialist will handle operational support, marketing and localisation for the region
  49. Report: Japan’s mobile game creators are losing out to China, South Korea
  50. Capcom will focus on PC for the future of Monster Hunter: World
  51. Capcom considering more cloud games despite Resident Evil 7 shortcomings: Streamed Switch version of horror hit “did not have a significant impact on earnings”, but publisher still sees promise in the technology
  52. Brexit will cause ‘serious harm’ to the UK games industry: White paper from Games4EU suggests consumers will take financial hit while industry suffers ‘brain drain’ and ‘cultural diminishment’
  53. Profits down at Sega despite upswing in packaged game sales
  54. Sega’s H1 games results stagnate on lack of new releases: New Football Manager and Total War games promise a stronger H2
  55. Ingress Prime launches today, first major live events imminent: Niantic also planning Netflix series, web series to develop the game’s plot
  56. Old School RuneScape mobile debuts with over one million installs: iOS launch more than doubles mobile audience, brings game to #1 in the App Store in eight countries
  57. Nintendo to remove offensive Native American designs from Super Smash Bros. Ultimate
  58. Nintendo Says It Will Remove Racist Native American Animation From Super Smash Bros. Ultimate
  59. Nintendo apologizes for Native American caricature: Super Smash Bros. Ultimate callback to 1982 Game & Watch title will see animation changed as company says it “does not represent our company values today”
  60. Super Mario Party passes 1.5 million sales in under a month
  61. Super Mario Party sells 1.5m units in release month: Joy-Con sales driven up by game’s strong performance, says Nintendo
  62. Mario Segale, namesake for Nintendo’s mascot, dies at 84
  63. Obituary: Mario Segale, the real-life namesake of Super Mario, has passed away
  64. Top Twitch Streamer Ninja Talks Planning For A Future Without ‘Fortnite’
  65. Fortnite has been downloaded by half of all Nintendo Switch owners: Epic’s game has been a hit with console’s 22 million-strong audience
  66. Tech billionaire Tej Kohli launches €50 million European esports investment fund: Esports Insider co-founder and managing director Sam Cooke brought on as adviser to Rewired GG
  67. Discord acquires Blitz Esports, closes content platform: Eight editorial team members let go in transition, League of Legends app to continue under new owner
  68. Malaysian government pledges $2.4m for esports in 2019: National budget will boost local esports scene, Razer CEO pledges to match the investment
  69. Danish prime minister opens Counter-Strike esports tournament – Lars Løkke Rasmussen: “You are truly sportsmen following your dreams”
  70. Bat, ball and keyboard? The expansion of traditional athletic organisations into esports
  71. Diablo III leads our list of older games born anew on Nintendo Switch
  72. Survey: Teens spend an average of $184 on video games a year
  73. Study: Tetris is a great distraction for easing an anxious mind
  74. Video: Experimental approaches to improving peer feedback in games
  75. Zynga enjoys best mobile performance in company history: Mobile revenue reaches $212 million in Q3 2018
  76. Candy Crush Friends Saga surpasses $10 million: King’s most recent Candy Crush entry’s launch driven by US, Android users
  77. Sales and profits down at Square Enix as console titles falter
  78. Square Enix wants new studio Luminous to focus solely on triple-A
  79. Square Enix reports $33m extraordinary loss as new AAA studio shifts focus: Half-year financial results also show declines across the board despite Tomb Raider and Octopath Traveller launches
  80. Square Enix picks up 20% stake in Battalion 1944 dev Bulkhead Interactive
  81. Square Enix buys 20% of Battalion 1944 developer Bulkhead
  82. Record bookings drive Glu Mobile ever closer to profit in Q3: Design Home, Tap Sports Baseball and Covet Fashion represented 79% of all bookings
  83. Blog: A case for single-player matchmaking
  84. Swiss studio wins Universal GameDev Contest: Gbanga awarded $150,000 and one-year consulting contract with Universal for Voltron: Cubes of Olkarion
  85. How to design for coziness…and kindness: Tanya X. Short, Rebecca Cordingley, and other developers of “cozy” games explain why and how they make their games safe, familiar and intimate
  86. Kartridge, Kongregate’s game platform with generous rev share, launches in open beta
  87. Oculus co-founder: “Free is still not cheap enough” for current VR tech
  88. Blizzard’s Hearthstone reaches 100 million registered players 
  89. How bad crediting hurts the game industry and muddles history
  90. A look back at the top-selling games of the ’90s

DIGITAL

  1. As Canadian ISPs Requested, Canada Get Proposed Law To Ban Copyright Settlement Letters
  2. AT&T steps up copyright enforcement, kicks customers off network
  3. Small And Medium Publishers Protest EU Link Tax, Which Will Harm Them, While Helping Only Large Publishers
  4. Section 230 Doesn’t Support Habeus Petition by ‘Revenge’ Pornographer–Bollaert v. Gore (Eric Goldman)
  5. Gab is back a week after Pittsburgh shooting controversy forced it offline
  6. As He Staves Off T-Series, PewDiePie Isn’t Finished Crossing YouTube Milestones Yet
  7. Chrome 71 will block any and all ads on sites with “abusive experiences”
  8. YouTube Music Chief Lyor Cohen Joins Chorus Of Execs, Creators Denouncing Article 13
  9. YouTube’s head of music warns that EU’s Article 13 is detrimental to remixes, fan videos: Lyor Cohen is the most recent YouTube executive to speak out
  10. YouTube’s ‘Edge Of Seventeen’ Marks Latest In A String Of Series From Female-Led Creative Teams
  11. Anna Kendrick To Star In YouTuber-Filmmaker Joe Penna’s Second Feature Film ‘Stowaway’
  12. Most Parents Who Let Their Kids Watch YouTube Have Encountered Disturbing Videos (Study)
  13. YouTube Has Paid Out More Than $3 Billion To Copyright Holders Through Content ID 
  14. YouTube paid $3 billion to copyright owners through Content ID: Google said its anti-piracy efforts are doing very well.
  15. “Bohemian Rhapsody” Becomes YouTube’s Most-Viewed Music Video From The ‘70s Ahead Of Queen Biopic 
  16. Vancouver School District and City of Vancouver Launch FuturePLAY, a STEAM Program with BroadbandTV 
  17. VSauce2 Launches Create Unknown Podcast About The Business Of Being A YouTuber
  18. Disney Digital Network Lays Off A Number Of Employees As Part Of Shifting Focus To SVOD
  19. TanaCon Organizer Files For Bankruptcy, Will Release His Own Documentary About Ill-Fated Event
  20. Logan Paul Says Being Axed From ‘Google Preferred’ In January Has Cost Him $5 Million
  21. FaZe Clan Is Hiring A House Manager To Oversee Its Growing Fleet Of Creator Mansions
  22. Mixer introduces new monetization for streamers  
  23. The Privacy Battle To Save Google From Itself
  24. Google Patents Eye-Tracking System To Read Expressions For VR 
  25. The Next Level Of Tech Activism: Google Employees Walk Out, Demand Changes From Management
  26. Thousands of Google employees slam execs’ response to sexual misconduct
  27. We’re the Organizers of the Google Walkout. Here Are Our Demands
  28. Vice Media President Andrew Creighton Exits Months After Sexual Harassment Investigation
  29. Vice Media is cutting its staff by up to 15% amid missed revenue and a traffic slump
  30. Nancy Dubuc: Vice Will Be Profitable ‘Within a Fiscal Year’ 
  31. Pet Influencers Can Command $15,000 Per Instagram Post, Says Top Animal Talent Manager
  32. Snapchat’s PR Firm Sues Influencer For Breaching Terms Of $60,000 Brand Deal
  33. Company Sues Influencer for Failing to Influence 
  34. Snapchat to Launch Three More Series From Barcroft Media
  35. On eve of US elections, Facebook pulls down 115 “inauthentic” accounts
  36. Facebook Takes Down 115 Accounts Possibly Linked to Russia Hours Before Polls Open 
  37. We Tested Facebook’s Ad Screeners and Some Were Too Strict: The platform mistook a disabled veterans fundraiser for a political ad.
  38. We posed as 100 Senators to run ads on Facebook. Facebook approved all of them.
  39. Don’t Leave It All to Facebook: The U.S. Should Do More To Protect Our Data Privacy
  40. TikTok Tops App Charts, Beating Out YouTube, Facebook, Instagram In Number Of October Downloads
  41. Will ‘Deepfakes’ Disrupt The Midterm Election?
  42. Our lack of interest in data ethics will come back to haunt us
  43. Copyright Office Extends Anti-Circumvention DMCA Exemptions To All Filmmakers, Not Just Documentarians 
  44. After Being Sued To Block Sci-Hub; Swedish ISP Blocks Court’s And Elsevier’s Website In Protest
  45. Crypt TV Teams With Netflix On Horror Anthology Series ‘Don’t Watch This’
  46. Free Flickr accounts slashed to 1,000 pictures; the rest will be deleted
  47. Flickr Is Going to Delete a Bunch of Photos—Back Up Yours Now
  48. You can now share IGTV videos to your Instagram Story
  49. Apple’s heart study is the biggest ever, but with a catch
  50. Apple Stock Drops After Company Announces No Growth in iPhone Sales
  51. While iPhone sales remain stagnant, Apple services hit $10 billion in revenue
  52. Report: Apple Nearly Acquired Leap Motion but the Deal Fell Through
  53. Satya Nadella: The cloud is going to move underwater 
  54. Red Hat Hysteria: Aren’t We Past The Point Of Being Surprised That ‘Free’ Is A Part Of The Business Model? 
  55. Bell Says Latest Helicopter was Designed 10 Times Faster With VR
  56. Defendant Can’t Send Virtual Gambling Claims to Arbitration 
  57. AI Meets IP: The patent challenge
  58. We Need an FDA For Algorithms: UK mathematician Hannah Fry on the promise and danger of an AI world.
  59. Should a Self-Driving Car Kill the Baby or the Grandma? Depends on Where You’re From: The infamous “trolley problem” was put to millions of people in a global study, revealing how much ethics diverge across cultures
  60. Winklevoss twins claim famed crypto evangelist stole 5,000 bitcoins from them
  61. Lawyer: My client didn’t steal 5,000 bitcoins, “Period”
  62. Our Music Festival- Empowering a Decentralized Fanbase with Blockchain 
  63. Blockchain-based elections would be a disaster for democracy
  64. The Case For Giving Robots An Identity
  65. Restaurants have strict standards to protect customers. Tech platforms don’t
  66. New York Lawmakers Want Social Media History To Be Included In Gun Background Checks
  67. Racial Discrimination Lawsuit Against Airbnb Has the Potential to Change Online Marketplaces–Harrington v. Airbnb (Eric Goldman)
  68. Making Sense of the Canadian Digital Tax Debate, Part 5: Income Tax Reform to Support the News Media (Michael Geist)
  69. Making Sense of the Canadian Digital Tax Debate, Part 6: Ensuring Internet Companies Pay Their Fair Share of Income Tax (Michael Geist)
  70. A Victory for Software Preservation: DMCA Exemption Granted for SPN
  71. Big Boost For Open Access As Wellcome And Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Back EU’s ‘Plan S’

CREATIVITY

  1. Massive Canadian IP Law Reform in a Budget Bill – Throwing Parliamentary Scrutiny Under the Omnibus Bus with Bill C-86
  2. Bill C-86: Shaking Up Canada’s IP Legislation 
  3. No Need for New Internet Injunctions: Why Canadian Copyright Law Already Provides Rights Holders with the Legal Tools They Need (Michael Geist)
  4. U.S.-Mexico-Canada Trade Agreement: Intellectual Property Provisions for the Modern Age
  5. Russian Government Hits Last Independent News Outlet With A $338,000 Fine
  6. HBO Would Like Donald Trump to Stop Using Game of Thrones Memes to Stoke Fear Ahead of Elections [Updated]
  7. HBO twitchs Trump’s Game of Thrones-tinged tweet a “misappropriation” of trademark
  8. Conservative Magazine Tweets That President Trump Is Going to Hell
  9. An expert on ‘dangerous speech’ explains how Trump’s rhetoric and the recent spate of violence are and aren’t linked
  10. Another Lawsuit And Another Loss For Plaintiffs Trying To Make Twitter Pay For Terrorism
  11. New Report Details Massive Mysterious Influence Campaign On Twitter
  12. Trump has Twitter. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is winning Instagram
  13. Why The Whole Freaking World Knows That Rep. Jeff Fortenberry Hates Being Called Fartenberry
  14. Notorious patent enforcement entity values its entire portfolio at $2, folds

MEDIA, COMMUNICATIONS & NET NEUTRALITY

  1. CRTC Chair Opens the Door to Weakening Canadian Net Neutrality Rules (Michael Geist)
  2. Supreme Court rejects industry challenge of 2015 net neutrality rules
  3. Supreme Court Rejects Telecom Industry Calls To Hear Net Neutrality Case… For Now
  4. California Net Neutrality Law Put On Hold Pending Federal Litigation  
  5. As The “Net Neutrality” World Turns . . . .
  6. Lawmaker who wants paid fast lanes on Internet wins US Senate seat
  7. All The Mergers In The World Apparently Can’t Save AT&T From Cord Cutting
  8. AT&T Blackout Of HBO On Dish Highlights Perils Of Megamerger Mania 
  9. Cable’s Top Lobbyist Again Calls For Heavier Regulation Of Silicon Valley
  10. Verizon Just Obliterated Ajit Pai’s Justification For Killing Net Neutrality
  11. Ajit Pai slams Sprint, Charter, and CenturyLink for poor robocall effort
  12. FCC Pretends To Hold Carrier Feet To The Fire On Robocalls
  13. How robocall spam and cheap tech are screwing with political polls 
  14. Digital Businesses Beware: You Could be Liable for the Anti-Spam Violations of Others
  15. Charter Spectrum’s CEO Continues To Whine About Streaming Password Sharing
  16. Another Study Shockingly Discovers That Cable TV Needs To Compete On Price

SURVEILLANCE & PRIVACY

  1. New data shows China has “taken the gloves off” in hacking attacks on US
  2. How did Iran find CIA spies? They Googled it
  3. The upshot of GDPR: Programmatic ad rates are rising
  4. Hackers Published Private Messages From 81,000 Facebook Users
  5. Police decrypt 258,000 messages after breaking pricey IronChat crypto app
  6. Cyber-attackers could exploit security flaw found in the embedded video function of Microsoft Word
  7. Wyden Unveils Plan to Protect Private Data, Restore ‘Do Not Track,’ and Jail Reckless CEOs
  8. Bluetooth bugs bite millions of Wi-Fi APs from Cisco, Meraki, and Aruba
  9. Proposed data privacy law could send company execs to prison for 20 years
  10. California Passes Internet of Things Law 
  11. New Senate report on cyber security should “keep you up at night”
  12. Georgia’s Brian Kemp And The No Good, Very Bad Claim That Democrats Were Hacking Voter Registration System
  13. Common-Knowledge Attacks on Democracy (Henry Farrell & Bruce Schneier)

Jon

Class 9 – 11/7/18; “Controlling Originality” + “Gamify Everything”

Slides & video here…

Jon

News of the Week; October 31, 2018

GAMES

  1. Suspect in fatal swatting faces 46 new charges: Tyler Barriss expected to plead guilty to phoning in bomb threats and using police to harass others for years leading up to last December’s death over a Call of Duty argument
  2. The Library of Congress just made game preservation a little bit easier
  3. Researchers can now legally restore “abandoned” online game servers
  4. Analyst expects Houser brothers to receive huge Red Dead royalties: Take-Two clarifies that last year’s royalties of $383m shared across all studios
  5. Rockstar devs detail the studio’s history with ‘mandatory’ crunch
  6. Rockstar’s broken work ethics: Former employees detail mandatory long hours, unpaid overtime, and a culture of fear at studios behind Grand Theft Auto and Red Dead Redemption
  7. Rockstar: “Overtime is not mandatory” – Red Dead Redemption developer responds to increasing number of stories about studio’s intense working conditions
  8. Red Dead Redemption 2: Critical Consensus – Rockstar’s latest hailed as a masterpiece, raising the bar for open worlds to come
  9. Red Dead Redemption 2 made $725 million over the weekend
  10. Red Dead Redemption 2 makes $725 million in three days: It’s the second biggest entertainment launch in history behind GTA V
  11. Red Dead Redemption 2 UK sales more than double the first game: Rockstar’s latest epic is the second fastest-selling game of the year
  12. Crunch, work-life balance, and Assassin’s Creed Odyssey: A view from the top
  13. Assassin’s Creed Odyssey built without ‘massive crunch’: “We think it’s a false economy to burn out our teams. We risk losing them”
  14. SAG-AFTRA’s new agreement opens doors for small-budget and indie games
  15. Ex-IGDA head Kate Edwards now convinced game devs need unions: Edwards explains what pushed her from being open to the idea of organized labor to believing it needs to happen
  16. Twitch teams up with Harmonix to develop a streaming karaoke game
  17. Female Gamers Defend Twitch Star Pokimane After Sexist Backlash Following Makeup-Free Stream
  18. Introducing the games industry’s latest gender diversity initiative – G Into Gaming
  19. Can a video game prevent domestic violence?: We speak to Professor Adele Jones about her ongoing work to tackle abuse and the attitudes that lead to it
  20. Renegotiated music licenses bring Alan Wake back to digital stores
  21. Alan Wake returns to digital storefronts after music rights snafu [Updated]
  22. Edge Case Games ceases support for Fractured Space: Developer intends to keep servers online “for the foreseeable future”
  23. The dark, ironic, surreal games of Central and Eastern Europe: The region’s developers have found a place in the market by taking the upheaval of the past, and creating a unique visual and thematic identity
  24. Epic Games secures $1.25 billion from multiple investors
  25. Epic Games raises $1.25 billion from handful of investors: KKR, ICONIQ Capital, Smash Ventures, and four more join the ranks of Fortnite studio’s minority shareholders
  26. ‘Fortnite’s’ Streaming Popularity May Have Peaked (Analyst)
  27. Games deals in 2018 worth record $25bn but “could signal top of the market”: IPO market falls 90 per cent but games investment reaches “unprecedented” levels, according to Digi-Capital
  28. SuperData: Digital spend on console reaches $1.24bn for September – Destiny 2 Forsaken expansion beats out Fortnite to top digital console rankings
  29. Liftoff: Mobile user acquisition costs drop while in-app purchases struggle – Mobile App Engagement Index report notes that costs to get users from install to in-app purchase are rising quickly despite high engagement
  30. Candy Crush Saga is the UK’s most popular game of all time on Android
  31. Nier: Automata’s 2B Is Coming To Soulcalibur VI
  32. Massive apples, cubes draw ire in ranked SoulCalibur VIonline play
  33. Zynga reports rising revenues and deals for Harry Potter & Game of Thrones games
  34. Zynga investing in Harry Potter, Game of Thrones titles: Both licensed games will be casual, mobile experiences to be developed at company’s US studios
  35. Edge Case Games ends development of free-to-playFractured Space
  36. The balance of Scavengers, a multiplayer game built by “famously vicious trolls”: Midwinter Entertainment CEO Josh Holmes believes “griefing” is an inevitable part of playing online – and accepting that is key to ensuring fair play
  37. Turning a documentary into a video game: The team behind Never Alone discuss its upcoming Blue Planet tie-in with the BBC
  38. Team Sonic Racing delayed until May 2019: Return of Sega-themed kart racing series was due on shelves before Christmas
  39. Industry-first esports gambling platform gets wagering license approval: “There is finally a legitimate, regulated operator in the space that has a pretty comprehensive offering,” says Unikrn CEO
  40. Esports Integrity Coalition issues five-year ban to CS:GO cheater: OpTic disbands in wake of Nikhil ‘forsaken’ Kumawat’s ban for cheating in two competitions
  41. NBA superstar Michael Jordan leads $26m investment into aXiomatic Gaming: Jordan invests in parent company of third-most valuable esports organisation, Team Liquid
  42. Conde Nast owner Advanced Publications acquires The Esports Observer 
  43. Advance acquires The Esports Observer: Media company makes significant investment increase shortly after acquiring gaming analytics firm Newzoo
  44. Esports makes up 9-17% of Twitch’s viewership in 2018 so far: Fortnite viewership dips in Q3 of this year, leaving Activision Blizzard to command attention once more
  45. Blizzard launches standalone, souped-up Overwatch viewer for esports event
  46. Unikrn gets gambling license for crypto-based betting on esports and games
  47. Monster Hunter: World continues to drive sales at Capcom
  48. Monster Hunter: World drives Capcom to strong six-month results – Hit title has eclipsed 10m shipments, helped Capcom to double profits
  49. Microsoft gaming revenue up 44% despite quiet Q1 2019: Platform holder to expand Xbox Game Pass offering on PC
  50. Microsoft Reveals ‘Maquette’, a VR Tool for Spatial Ideation and Design
  51. Microsoft CEO reveals Xbox Game Pass is heading to PC
  52. Microsoft is bringing all-you-can-play Game Pass subscription to PC
  53. Minecraft reaches 150 million downloads in China: Free-to-play Chinese version gains 50 million players in five months
  54. Sony sold nearly 4 million PS4s in the last three months
  55. Sony reports 65% increase in games profit driven by sales of Spider-Man
  56. Don’t mean a thing if you ain’t got that swing…in Spider-Man
  57. Spider-Man drives 65% increase in games profits for Sony: Software sales were behind a strong fiscal Q2, Sony said, even as PS4 hardware sales continued to fall
  58. Blog: A design analysis of Marvel’s Spider-Man
  59. Here are all 20 games you’ll get with the PlayStation Classic
  60. Full List Of PlayStation Classic Games Is Missing Some Classics
  61. PlayStation Classic’s full game list announced, and it might annoy you
  62. PlayStation Classic’s full game list announced, and it might annoy you
  63. Sony announces PlayStation Classic game line-up: 20 titles on plug-and-play console include Metal Gear Solid, Grand Theft Auto, and Rayman
  64. Why Playstation Classic (and other throwback consoles) may never feature the sports games we loved
  65. Sony licenses PSVR design to Lenovo following eerily similar VR headsets
  66. Sony licenses PSVR design for Lenovo VR headset: Two-year deal aims to expand and improve VR industry
  67. Before crucial holiday season, Nintendo struggles as Sony shines
  68. Nintendo recommits to “keep the business going” for 3DS
  69. Bethesda hasn’t forsaken the Switch, despite Fallout 76skipping the console
  70. Nintendo Switch version of Fallout 76 “wasn’t doable”: New game won’t be following Doom and Wolfenstein to Nintendo’s console, but Bethesda remains committed to the Switch as a “viable platform”
  71. Switch reaches 22m lifetime sales in a solid six months for Nintendo: Total software unit sales are now at 111 million units for Nintendo’s console
  72. Over 1,300 games from 500+ publishers have been released on the Switch’s eShop
  73. Switch sales remain steady as Nintendo reports bump in profits
  74. Report: Nintendo’s latest mobile game Dragalia Lostearned $28M in first month
  75. Fortnite downloaded onto ‘nearly half’ of all Switch consoles
  76. The Switch has surpassed 22M units in lifetime sales
  77. A peek at Nintendo’s early Wii Remote prototype for the GameCube
  78. Japanese auction reveals Nintendo’s first Wii remote—for the GameCube
  79. Super Mario Odyssey has sold over 12 million copies
  80. Income from player recurring investment rises to $297 million for Ubisoft
  81. Ubisoft CEO: Cloud gaming can help AAA games grow beyond PC and console
  82. Steam, Proud Adopters Of Hands Off Games Policy, Very Hands On When Banning All Of TorrentFreak
  83. Steam now boasts 90 million monthly active users
  84. New Valve Data Gives Fresh Insight into Number of VR Headsets Used on Steam
  85. Oculus Now Lets You Record Abusive Behavior on Go & Gear VR
  86. Has the VR boom hit a wall?: Enormous progress has been made in headset design and software development for VR – but without a major technological leap forward, current devices won’t reach the mass market
  87. Don’t Miss: Here They Lie and the ethics of VR horror
  88. EA reveals Project Atlas, a new game dev platform ‘in the cloud’
  89. EA details new cloud native development platform, Project Atlas: Unified platform aims to “seamlessly converge” artificial intelligence, cloud computing, and Frostbite engine
  90. FIFA & Madden drive a strong Q2 for EA ahead ofBattlefield V
  91. Battlefield V will have premium currency, but no pay-to-win progression system
  92. The rising need for game economy designers in freemium mobile games
  93. What drives players to digital murder in The Sims games
  94. Unity announces a winner for the Universal game dev contest 
  95. Child of Light and Talking Tom to be adapted for TV and film
  96. Blog: The universal inaccessibility of board games
  97. Blog: A different approach to difficulty
  98. Blog: Let’s talk about innovation in mobile games
  99. Blog: Playing video games – A rambling essay about hating what you love
  100. Blog: Why record $25 billion games deals could signal top of the market
  101. Tabletop games are bigger than ever, and its driving growth in the digital sector
  102. Raspberry Pi launches game dev magazine Wireframe 
  103. Raspberry Pi launches games development magazine Wireframe: Fortnightly publication launches November 8th, 10,000 free welcome issues on offer
  104. Australian devs’ advice to students: Specialise, and kill your darlings – At Melbourne Games Week, Blake Mizzi and Chris Wright outlined two key mistakes students make after graduating

DIGITAL

  1. Canadian Government Banning Settlement Demands in Copyright Notice-and-Notice System (Michael Geist)
  2. Canadian Government Rejects Access Copyright’s Demand for Statutory Damages (Michael Geist)
  3. Canadian ISPs Want To Amend Law To Outlaw Settlement Letters
  4. This is fine: IBM acquires Red Hat
  5. Who owns this AI-generated painting? (Andres Guadamuz)
  6. Painting created by Artificial Intelligence goes under the hammer at Christie’s  
  7. This AI Lie Detector Flags Falsified Police Reports
  8. AI Dreamed Up These Nightmare Fuel Halloween Masks
  9. Glimpse: Truly Useful Augmented Reality is Coming. We’re Not Ready. – Soon we’ll be using augmented reality more seamlessly than ever before. And that means we need ground rules for how to not be creeps.
  10. Facebook Sees A Future In Augmented Reality Glasses 
  11. Hey, How’d That Facebook ‘War Room’ Fare During Brazil’s Election Season? Oh.
  12. Facebook yanks content tied to Iranian effort due to “inauthentic behavior”: Detected last week by investigators, accounts targeted US and UK users to “spread discord.”
  13. Facebook Bans Proud Boys, Vice Co-Founder Gavin McInnes
  14. U.K., Canada Call on Mark Zuckerberg to Appear Before International Panel
  15. Instagram’s IGTV, BuzzFeed Launch Accelerator Program For 15 Vertical Video Creators
  16. Liza Koshy To Co-Host ‘Election Afterparty’ On MTV With Charlamagne Tha God
  17. Snapchat Lost Users in Quarter, Says Declines Will Continue
  18. Snap expands Snapchat Shows with 25 new series out of the UK
  19. Snap CEO Evan Spiegel Rescinded Promotion for Ex-WarnerMedia Exec Kristen O’Hara, Who Is Now Leaving (Report)
  20. GitHub is now officially a part of Microsoft
  21. Snapchat Content Chief Wants To Foster Creator Ecosystem Like On YouTube, Vine — And He’s Unimpressed By IGTV
  22. EU ‘Protecting Consumers’ By Forcing Them To Pay More For Android?
  23. Google CEO: We need to “take a much harder line on inappropriate behavior”
  24. Over a decade, Google handsomely paid 3 men accused of misconduct, per report
  25. YouTube Fixes Error Messages Stating Certain Free Videos Required Payment
  26. YouTube’s ‘Cobra Kai’ Pilot Passes 50 Million Views, With Perfect Rotten Tomatoes Score
  27. YouTube’s New King? India’s T-Series Could Soon Overtake Pewdiepie To Become The World’s Biggest Channel
  28. Naomi Campbell, Janelle Monáe, And Lakeith Stanfield Grace #YouTubeBlack Creator Summit
  29. Disney Star Peyton List Joins Cast Of YouTube Premium’s ‘Cobra Kai’ For Season 2
  30. Trudeau’s gift to Google
  31. Patreon And Reddit Add Integrations To Help Creators Connect With And Gain New Supporters
  32. Elle Mills Launches Patreon Account Because She Spends “Way More Money Creating Videos Than I Earn From Them”
  33. Brands and Influencers: Navigating Influencer Agreements from Macro to Micro
  34. SVOD Service Zeus Inks Tech Pact With Vimeo On Back-End, Unveils 3 New Shows
  35. Fox Nation Sets Launch Date
  36. FilmStruck Is Latest Casualty Of WarnerMedia Streamlining, Will Shutter In November
  37. Warner Bros. and Turner Are Killing One of the Internet’s Last Good Things
  38. Cheddar Buys ‘Rate My Professors’ Website From Viacom
  39. UK Government Screws Head On Straight, Bans Use Of Term ‘Fake News’ By Gov’t Officials
  40. Brookings survey finds 57 percent say they have seen fake news during 2018 elections and 19 percent believe it has influenced their vote
  41. Breitbart Snowflakes Threaten To Sue People Who Have Asked Advertisers To Stop Advertising On Breitbart
  42. Trump Tweets, ‘I Rarely Use a Cellphone,’ From His iPhone
  43. The President’s Phone OPSEC Continues To Be, Well, Crap
  44. Campbell Soup Co. Executive Is Out After Tweeting George Soros Conspiracy Theory
  45. UK set to impose new “tech tax” on Silicon Valley giants
  46. U.K. to Slap New Tax on Technology Giants
  47. UK Commits to Introducing Targeted Digital Services Tax
  48. The Digital Services Tax: A Conceptual Defense (Wei Cui)
  49. FundamentalVR Partners with Mayo Clinic to Develop VR Surgical Simulations, Raises $1.4M Financing
  50. The Indiana Supreme Court’s Decision in Daniels v. FanDuel, Inc.: What it Means for Right of Publicity Law and the Future of Online Sports Betting
  51. Half of enterprise machines run Windows 10, as Windows 7’s end of life looms
  52. Court Rules on Remand that it Lacks Long-Arm Jurisdiction Over Tech Company in Defamation Lawsuit 
  53. After 10 Years, Bitcoin Has Changed Everything—And Nothing
  54. Court Orders Tracing Remedy For Cryptocurrency – Copytrack Pte Ltd v. Wall
  55. Swedish Court Misunderstands Memes
  56. Mail bombing suspect repeatedly threatened Democrats on Twitter
  57. Detailed And Thorough Debunking Of Bloomberg’s Sketchy Story About Supply Chain Hack
  58. Section 230 Protects Twitter’s Decision to Suspend User’s Account–Mezey v. Twitter (Eric Goldman)
  59. Video Advertising Contract Descends Into Possible “Cyberattack”–Radian Weapons v. GY6Vids
  60. Seventh Different Lawsuit Against Social Media Providers for “Material Support to Terrorists” Fails–Taamneh v. Twitter (Eric Goldman)
  61. Making Sense of the Canadian Digital Tax Debate, Part 2: Mandated Canadian Content Contributions aka a “Netflix Tax” (Michael Geist)
  62. Making Sense of the Canadian Digital Tax Debate, Part 3: New Taxes or Fees on Internet Access (Michael Geist)
  63. Making Sense of the Canadian Digital Tax Debate, Part 4: New Taxes or Fees on Digital Devices (Michael Geist)
  64. Helium implicated in weird iPhone malfunctions
  65. Why almost everyone was wrong about Tesla’s cash flow situation
  66. Eye doctors find that WebMD symptom checker was wrong more than half the time

CREATIVITY

  1. New Bill C-86 introduces many more changes to IP laws
  2. Taking on the Trolls: Canadian Government To Regulate Patent Demand Letters (Michael Geist)
  3. Pharrell Is Not At All Happy About Trump Using ‘Happy’ At His Rally… And He Might Actually Have A Case
  4. Judge Engelmayer: Copyright Damages from Brief Display of Plaintiff’s Art in Kendrick Lamar Music Video Are Not Inherently Speculative 
  5. Copyright in the United States
  6. Fair use isn’t arithmetic 
  7. EU Copyright Directive Update: Fresh (But Slim) Hope Of Stopping Link Taxes And Upload Filters
  8. Indiana Supreme Court Rules Against Student Athletes in Fantasy Sports Rights of Publicity Case
  9. Indiana Supreme Court: No Right to Publicity in Fantasy Sports
  10. Megyn Kelly ousted from NBC show after blackface backlash
  11. The House Of Cards cast bailed on Megyn Kelly, and now NBC News might even cut her loose 
  12. Fox News takes a hard pass on Megyn Kelly
  13. MoMA museum claims infringement and dilution by MoMaCha tea café name
  14. The Urban Legend About Scattering Human Ashes at Disney Is True, and It’s Worse Than We Thought

MEDIA, COMMUNICATIONS & NET NEUTRALITY

  1. Net neutrality delay: Calif. agrees to suspend law until after court case
  2. California Agrees To Delay Net Neutrality Law Pending Outcome Of Federal Lawsuit
  3. California Delays Implementation of Its Net Neutrality Law Pending Challenge of FCC’s Order 
  4. FCC Falsely Declares Community Broadband An ‘Ominous’ Attack On Free Speech
  5. Texas, Arkansas, & Nebraska AGs Are Now Aiding The Broadband Industry’s Assault On Net Neutrality
  6. Charter Spectrum Jacks Up Rates (Again) Thanks To Merger ‘Synergies’
  7. FCC Republican claims municipal broadband is threat to First Amendment
  8. Verizon won’t speed up 5G buildout despite FCC preempting local fees

SURVEILLANCE & PRIVACY

  1. Facebook could face legal claims from a million UK users following Information Commissioner’s data breach fine
  2. When idle gossip goes too far – data breach involving Facebook
  3. The New Mandatory Data Breach Reporting Regimes: Four Key Elements
  4. EFF Sues California Law Enforcement Agency For Refusing To Hand Over Stingray Documents
  5. Court: Teen’s driving killed someone, but he can’t be forced to give up passcode
  6. Feds took woman’s iPhone at border, she sued, now they agree to delete data
  7. Florida Appeals Court Says Producing Passwords Is Testimonial And Protected By The Fifth Amendment
  8. New Signal privacy feature removes sender ID from metadata
  9. How a 19th-Century Teenager Sparked a Battle Over Who Owns Our Faces
  10. My Father Says He’s A ‘Targeted Individual.’ Maybe We All Are
  11. Feds Also Using ‘Reverse Warrants’ To Gather Location/Identifying Info On Thousands Of Non-Suspects
  12. The Price of Privacy: Canada’s Top Court Rules, ISPs must disclose the identity of illegal downloaders at a “reasonable” cost
  13. Last Chance To Opt Out Of #MyHealthRecord, Australians!
  14. Take a Wild Guess Why Visiting 9,000 Porn Sites on Your Government Computer Is a Dumb Idea
  15. EU-U.S. Privacy Shield Framework Joint Annual Review 2.0 

Jon

News of the Week; October 24, 2018

GAMES

  1. Zombie Orpheus cancels contract with GOG over transphobia: JourneyQuest producers pull content, saying “We cannot do business with a company that doesn’t take human rights seriously”
  2. Rockstar Games defends itself over working conditions claims
  3. Rockstar allows employees to speak out on 100-hour week controversy: Tools programmer Vivianne Langdon kicks things off with assurances she’s never worked more than 50 hours a week, with paid overtime
  4. Red Dead Redemption 2 Developers Speak Out After Rockstar Lifts Social Media Ban
  5. The Red Dead Redemption 2 companion app can completely replace its HUD
  6. Rockstar says average work week under 46 hours: “We will not stop working to improve in this area,” says co-head of Red Dead Redemption 2 developer
  7. Independent game stores may get Red Dead Redemption 2 late: A number of smaller US stores have reported they may not have copies until 5-10 days after release
  8. Rockstar developers speak out about “100-hour weeks” comment
  9. Rockstar states overtime is ‘optional’ for studio that sometimes pulled 50-hour weeks
  10. Rockstar Lincoln QA tester: “Overtime is NOT optional, it is expected” – Current employee describes “standard” crunch hours v. “true” crunch hours, new policy change making overtime optional
  11. Rockstar Games clocks the average employee’s workweek at 42-45 hours  
  12. Rockstar devs detail the company’s long and troubled relationship with crunch
  13. Rockstar QA Studio Told That Overtime Is Now Optional After Workers Said It Felt Mandatory
  14. Rockstar employees past and present offer mixed takes on company’s work culture: Extensive report shows uneven experiences across Rockstar studios and departments, including year-long crunch
  15. Rockstar devs comment on work culture after 100-hours backlash
  16. 100-hour weeks mean bad management, not passion: Rockstar may not be the hell it’s been portrayed as – but we need to stop lionising long overtime and start seeing it as a shameful sign of failure
  17. Grand Theft Auto V hack exposed single-player games to malicious trolls
  18. Six Foot lays off nearly one third of dev team followingDreadnought Steam launch
  19. How Riot has been removing cheaters from League of Legends
  20. Games as a service drives huge market value spike for EA, Activision
  21. EA Origin Access includes more indie games in its repertoire 
  22. Xbox sees earnings rise on the strength of third-party game sales  
  23. Fan Translator Likely Finds His Work In Official Game Release And Is Totally Cool With It
  24. Bethesda softens ground for “spectacular issues” with Fallout 76 launch
  25. “Don’t give into fear and keep adding more features” – How not to overwork your employees: EA’s Criterion, one of the UK’s best places to work, on how it avoids crunching
  26. How to avoid video game development crunch: “Teams who are having fun make better games and making games should be fun – otherwise, what’s the point?”
  27. “I’ve seen sleep disorders, chronic stress fatigue, dissolved relationships, broken marriages…”: At Game Connect Asia Pacific, Keith Fuller detailed the fallout from crunch, and Kate Edwards said “we need to find our rage” in order to fight it
  28. A post-mortem of Telltale Games: Speaking at Sweden Game Conference 2018, former Telltale narrative designer Emily Grace Buck says it’s time for a “really serious conversation about potentially starting a union”
  29. Skybound “fully expect” third episode of The Walking Dead’s final season to launch this year: CEO Ian Howe said reuniting the Telltale team is difficult due to people moving on, and others not wanting to come back
  30. Skybound CEO aims to finish out The Walking Dead with ‘100%’ former Telltalers
  31. Six Foot lays off one third of development staff: Flagship game Dreadnought hampered by delays, slow sales, and mixed reviews
  32. ‘Fortnite’ Developer Sues Two YouTubers For Using, Selling Cheat Codes
  33. Epic Games to establish new office in Australia and New Zealand
  34. Some Best Buy copies of Starlink are missing the game itself: Several people report receiving starter packs with all pieces except the game
  35. Dota 2 now dynamically discloses loot box odds in-game
  36. Valve publishes loot box odds for Dota 2: Chances of receiving a rare item from a bundle now disclosed in game, with escalating odds calculated
  37. Discord updates terms of service to force arbitration over lawsuits
  38. NPD: Marvel’s Spider-Man was the biggest PlayStation exclusive launch ever – The web-slinger’s latest outperformed the combined launch sales of all his previous adventures since 1995
  39. A Nintendo-backed initiative aims to work Labo into classrooms  
  40. Nintendo Labo heads to schools: Institute of Play program will bring the kits to 100 classrooms to integrate into curriculum
  41. Common problems when translating games into Japanese
  42. Steam reaches 90m monthly active users: Halt on new-game licenses in China buoy Steam’s market presence as Tencent continues to suffer
  43. Steam surpasses 30 million domestic users in China
  44. Steam’s Chinese audience grows to more than 30 million users: Dota 2 credited with driving Valve’s marketplace in the region as firm prepares for China-only version
  45. China ends ‘green channel’ game approvals amid ongoing licensing freeze
  46. China closes last remaining official game licensing process: ‘Green channel’ process reportedly shuttered while companies continue to wait for licensing to re-open
  47. “More people have played Florence in Mandarin than in English”: At Game Connect Asia Pacific, Mountains founder Ken Wong emphasised the importance of Asian markets – for studios of all sizes
  48. Call of Duty brings in $500 million in three days: Black Ops 4 sees launch weekend revenue in line with last year’s WWII, not quite up to Black Ops III’s $550 million
  49. Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 review: War games, now with battle royale!
  50. Call of Duty Black Ops 4: Critical Consensus: Activision’s annual shooter ditches the campaign but critics say a standout battle royale mode is a fine reward
  51. Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 introduces special in-game items to support veterans
  52. With Black Ops 4, Call Of Duty Takes Aim At A Fortnite World
  53. Gamigo confirms acquisition of Trion Worlds
  54. Significant layoffs at Trion Worlds following acquisition by Gamigo
  55. Jade Raymond departs EA
  56. EA Motive founder Jade Raymond departs EA
  57. EA and Activision’s $79bn games-as-a-service growth: DFC reports shows both publishers’ values have surged since 2012 as they increase focus on live titles
  58. Games as a service drives huge market value spike for EA, Activision
  59. All eyes on Red Dead as UK games retail falters: LEGO, SoulCalibur and Starlink fail to lift physical sales in poor start to Q4
  60. Splash Damage ends live development on Dirty Bomb two months after launch: Servers will remain up “as long as there are a meaningful number of players”
  61. The average Football Manager 2018 player has over 285 hours of playtime: Nearly half of the game’s owners were still playing in September – almost a year after release
  62. Unity dabbles in development with FPS Sample Game: VP of engineering Brett Bibby says undertaking will demonstrate the “best way to build a specific type of game”
  63. Drake And Scooter Braun Join Nadeshot’s ‘100 Thieves’ Esports Startup, Which Has Raised $25 Million To Date
  64. Abrams Artists Agency Onboards New Esports And Digital Branding Agents
  65. Betting platform nabs license for cryptocurrency gambling on eSports
  66. Green Man Gaming delays float due to ‘horrendous’ equity markets
  67. Arena of Valor brings in $15 million lifetime player spending: International version of Honor of Kings sees strong September led by US spending
  68. CCP CEO: “You can’t build a business” on current VR – Hilmar Veigar Pétursson says virtual reality has fallen far short of the Eve developer’s expectations
  69. CCP Games CEO: “We expected VR to be two to three times as big”
  70. SuperData: Mobile AR to generate more revenue than VR by 2021
  71. VR and AR dev Resolution Games secures $7.5 million in funding
  72. After five years of waiting, Sixense will refund its VR controller Kickstarter backers
  73. A postmortem of Boyfriend Dungeon’s $272K Kickstarter
  74. Oculus co-founder Brendan Iribe leaves Facebook
  75. Oculus Co-founder Departs Facebook Amidst Rumor of Rift 2 Cancellation
  76. Facebook exodus continues as Oculus co-founder Brendan Iribe leaves
  77. Oculus Shut Down Movie Purchases & Rentals on Rift Toda
  78. PSVR’s Weirdest Game ‘Accounting+’ Now Available on Vive & Rift with New Levels
  79. UK magazines GamesTM and GamesMaster to close: Multiformat magazines axed
  80. Phoenix Labs on walking the line between Dauntless and reckless: In the wake of its latest funding round, co-founder Jesse Houston talks about growing the studio and the game at a deliberate pace
  81. What does it take to reach No.1 on mobile?: AppLovin’s Lion Studios shares its secrets of success as it pushes indie title Flip Trickster to the top of the charts
  82. If less than 30% of players come back to your game on Day 2, fix it or kill it: But GameAnalytics’ mobile benchmarking reports shows that 40% retention rates for Day 1 mean a game is doing well
  83. “Designing with marketing in mind” in Move or Die: At the Dev Play conference, Nicolae Berbece described taking Move or Die from a humble Flash game to an audience of over 500,000 people
  84. Diddy Kong was my Dark Souls: Sumo Digital’s Jamie Smith says Rare’s N64 kart racer left the competition in the dust
  85. Those painted sculptures in Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey are true to history
  86. Listen to history experts discuss Assassin’s Creed Odyssey
  87. Intellivision joins the retro console space with new hardware coming in 2020: Formerly defunct console brand is re-imaged as Intellivision Amico

DIGITAL

  1.  This Week’s Bomb Scares Are A Perfect Misinformation Storm
  2. Twitter takes down more accounts affiliated with Alex Jones’s Infowars
  3. Twitter plays whac-a-mole with Alex Jones, suspends 18 linked accounts
  4. Bleacher Report’s House of Highlights Sets Twitter Live Talk Show Debut
  5. Uber vice president resigns after sexual misconduct allegations
  6. Microsoft making more of the Windows 10 built-in apps removable
  7. Microsoft’s problem isn’t how often it updates Windows—it’s how it develops it
  8. Microsoft posts a record $29.1 billion Q1. Same old, same old
  9. eBay is going to war with Amazon over an alleged scheme to steal business that is ‘startling in breadth’
  10. Why Netflix Features Black Actors In Promos To Black Users
  11. Rideshare and Chill? Lyft Introducing a Spotify/Netflix-Inspired Subscription Service 
  12. Establishing an AI code of ethics will be harder than people think: Ethics are too subjective to guide the use of AI, argue some legal scholars.
  13. Novelists Have A Boring New Gimmick: Writing Dull Books With AI 
  14. This Startup Is Paying Strangers To Train AI’s
  15. The AI Cold War That Threatens Us All
  16. Want to Keep Canadian AI Thriving?: Create a Copyright Exception for Informational Analysis (Michael Geist)
  17. New Roundup Ranks The World’s Robots By Creepiness
  18. An agnostic observation on machine-originated works and copyright
  19. How Alibaba Used Big Data To Dream Up A Peppercorn Snickers Bar 
  20. The HTC Exodus Blockchain Phone Comes Into Focus
  21. Two Cryptocurrency Heavyweights Partner On A Dollar-Backed Stablecoin
  22. FinCEN warns of Iran using virtual currencies to bypass sanctions
  23. It’s Blockchain your Honour
  24. Why A Blockchain-based DRM Has Always Been A Terrible Idea
  25. Inside Facebook’s election war room: In a Menlo Park conference room, a global effort to fight misinformation comes together
  26. Facebook’s War Room Is Definitely Managing at Least One Crisis
  27. Facebook is using new software to identify and remove child nudity photos uploaded to the site 
  28. Facebook May Buy A Cybersecurity Company To Prevent Another Major Hack
  29. SoundCloud now lets you share songs to Instagram Stories
  30. Hundreds of health crowdfunding campaigns are for sham treatments
  31. Instagram just surpassed Snapchat as the most used app among American teens, according to a new Wall Street survey
  32. Snapchat helped over 400,000 users register to vote: To combat historically low voter turnout 
  33. Report: Amazon Tried To Sell Facial Recognition Tech To Ice
  34. Microsoft making more of the Windows 10 built-in apps removable
  35. Axios Ridiculously Calls For Newsrooms To Ban Journalists From Having Opinions Online
  36. Trump Wants to Borrow Tech Workers From Amazon, Google, and Microsoft: Report
  37. Google to charge Android OEMs as much as $40 per phone in EU 
  38. Just As Expected: GDPR Has Made Google Even More Dominant In Europe
  39. Google to Remove Deceptive Travel Ads
  40. CEO Gets Nine Months In Prison For Forging Court Documents Ordering Google To Delist Negative Reviews
  41. YouTube CEO Calls on Creators to Rally Against EU Copyright Legislation
  42. GroupM: YouTube’s better at brand safety, but still has a ways to go
  43. YouTube partners with Eventbrite to sell concert tickets below music videos
  44. YouTube is investing $20M in educational content, creators: Including partnering with third-party studios and networks
  45. YouTube Invests $20 Million In Its ‘YouTube Learning’ Initiative To Support Creators, Launches Channel To Curate Educational Content 
  46. Susan Wojcicki Says YouTube Update This Quarter Improved Monetization Icon Accuracy By 10%
  47. Susan Wojcicki Warns Article 13 Could Result In Shutdown Of Millions Of YouTube Channels In The EU
  48. Rihanna Tries Her Hand At Being A Beauty Vlogger In New YouTube Series 
  49. David Dobrik, Casey Neistat, ‘Escape The Night’ Lead 2018 Streamys Nominees; Awards To Air Oct. 22 On YouTube
  50. YouTube Revamps Look Of Video Embeds, Adds New Shortcuts To Boost Channel Growth
  51. PewDiePie Decries YouTube’s Release Of Logan Paul Movie While His Series Remains Shelved
  52. 2018 Streamy Awards: Complete Winners List
  53. Todd The Hero Dog Named First-Ever ‘Dog Of The Year’ At 8th Annual Streamys
  54. Influencer Marketing – Three Golden Rules 
  55. Warner Bros. Promptly Shutters K-Drama Streaming Destination DramaFever
  56. Intel’s 5GHz i9 Processor Is Incredible for Hype and Pretty Good for Computing, Too 
  57. IBM: Quantum Computers Could Be Useful, But We Don’t Know Exactly How
  58. The Incredible Evolution of the Smartphone Notch: From Bezels to All Screen
  59. This Gorgeous All-Screen Phone Shows How the Notch Dies
  60. Streaming Exclusives Will Drive Users Back To Piracy And The Industry Is Largely Oblivious 
  61. Bad Newspaper Photoshop: Manny Machado Apparently Needs Emergency Shoulder Surgery, Probably Not Worth $300M
  62. Another Report Shows That FOSTA Increased (Not Decreased) Sex Trafficking; Where Is The Outrage?
  63. As Predicted, Australian Government Looks To Creep Site Censorship Into Search Censorship
  64. UK Refreshes Stupid Porn Filter Law, Making It Fresher But No Less Stupid
  65. Interpol Alert Issued By Turkey For Exiled Journalists President Erdogan Wants To Toss In Jail
  66. Vietnam Expands Decades Long Effort To Crack Down On Any Dissent Online By Demanding Data Be Kept In The Country
  67. Mexico Reverses Ban On Selling Roku Hardware After Absurd Piracy Ruling 
  68. 100 Websites That Shaped the Internet as We Know It
  69. Section 230 Applies to Defend Trade Secret Act Claims–Craft Beer Stellar v. Glassdoor (Eric Goldman)
  70. Making Sense of the Canadian Digital Tax Debate, Part 1: Digital Sales Taxes (Michael Geist) 

CREATIVITY

  1. USMCA versus NAFTA: what’s changed and what it means for intellectual property in Canada
  2. U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement: Business Insights on Intellectual Property Issues
  3. Ninth Circuit Finds Bus Ads Protected by First Amendment
  4. Photographers’ Claims Against the NFL Score a Touchdown
  5. Appeals Court Says Of Course Georgia’s Laws (Including Annotations) Are Not Protected By Copyright And Free To Share
  6. No Substantial Similarity Between TV Shows Empire and Cream
  7. Supreme Court to Address Meaning of “Full Costs” as Used in Copyright Act
  8. Too hyperbolic to be believed: How social media is transforming libel law 
  9. Disney Wouldn’t Let Wreck-It Ralph 2 Joke About Kylo Ren
  10. Internet Memes Are Making UK Children Fat, Say Researchers Who Don’t Understand Memes
  11. Fake Products From Movies Become Awesome Pop Culture Posters
  12. “Bank For Your Buck” – The Legal Implications of Banksy’s Destruction of “Girl with Balloon” 
  13. Block Party? UK Government Considers New Ways of Clamping Down on Illegal Streaming 
  14. Intellectual Property and the implications of a “No Deal” Brexit
  15. It’s Blockchain your Honour

MEDIA, COMMUNICATIONS & NET NEUTRALITY

  1. Consumer Groups Say FCC Deregulatory Fever Harming Hurricane Michael Recovery
  2. Ajit Pai killed rules that could have helped Florida recover from hurricane 
  3. Ajit Pai, Telecom Lobbyists Are Now Coordinating Their Lies In Perfect Symmetry
  4. Entire broadband industry sues Vermont to stop state net neutrality law
  5. 3 states try to help the FCC kill net neutrality and preempt state laws
  6. Broadband Industry Sues Vermont For Daring To Protect Consumers, Net Neutrality
  7. CP24 re a news report about 4-20
and a panel discussion about the Ontario provincial election (CBSC Decision 17/18-1438)
  8. Turner Axes Super Deluxe Following AT&T’s Time Warner Acquisition 
  9. T-Mobile CEO Insists New Merger Will Create Jobs, Competition. Wall Street, History Disagree.
  10. Big Bird Goes Digital: The FCC Undertakes to Modernize Children’s Television 
  11. New Law Sets Up Federal-State Showdown Over Net Neutrality
  12. NY’s AG Is Trying To Tie Major ISPs To Those Bogus Net Neutrality Comments

SURVEILLANCE & PRIVACY

  1. NYT: Chinese and Russian spies routinely eavesdrop on Trump’s iPhone calls
  2. How Russia’s “influence operations” targeted the midterms (and how they still do)
  3. Russia was likely behind dangerous critical infrastructure attack, report says
  4. Russian trolls get DM from US Cyber Command: We know who you are. Stop it
  5. Voltage Pictures and the Massive Mass Litigation Mess in Canada (Howard Knopf)
  6. High Court blocks data privacy opt out group action against Google
  7. Hack on 8 adult websites exposes oodles of intimate user data
  8. Amazon, Super Micro Join Apple in Demanding Retraction of Bloomberg Story on Hacked Server Boards
  9. Apple CEO Tim Cook calls on Bloomberg to retract its Chinese spy story
  10. Apple Demands Retraction Of Bloomberg’s Big ‘Chip Infiltration’ Story; Bloomberg Has Some Explaining To Do
  11. Apple CEO Tim Cook Calls for Tougher Privacy Laws
  12. Tim Cook calls for strong US privacy law, rips “data-industrial complex”
  13. Apple’s TV subscription service starts in 2019 to compete with Netflix, Amazon
  14. Amazon pitched its facial recognition to ICE, released emails show [Updated]
  15. This business card-sized Japanese phone bucks the giant-phone trend
  16. Big Tech Splits Over Privacy Issues, at Least on the Surface: Big tech companies are paying lip service to online privacy, but their efforts are paper-thin.
  17. Two new supply-chain attacks come to light in less than a week
  18. California Passes First-Of-Its-Kind Law Focused on Internet of Things Cybersecurity 
  19. Firefox 63 blocks tracking cookies, offers a VPN when you need one
  20. Judge Says FOIA Isn’t Battleship; Requesters Don’t Need To Score Direct Hits To Obtain Documents

Jon