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The Gaming Industry as a Case Study to the Implications of Cloud Computing

By Idan Yaron on September 28, 2017

Last class, Anoop introduced the power of the cloud in the gaming industry. It reminded me an article I read about the early stages of the internet when classic mainframe systems were in use (explanation can be found here: https://goo.gl/pBgp4k). we could argue about the differences and the similarities between cloud computing and mainframe systems, but I hope we could agree that one of the main differences is the physical distance between the main computer and the client. In cloud computing, the distance is infinite. I tried to understand the possible outcomes of cloud computing, and I wondered whether it could influence the way we use computers and our approach to gaming.

Let’s imagine the next scenario: It’s 2025, and gaming through the cloud is now profitable. A Chinese gamer wish to play GTA, but the government prohibits that. In China, it’s impossible to buy the game in stores or online stores (like Steam). Also, just to make sure, the Chinese government criminalized playing GTA and forced the installation of a silent monitor on all the computers which notifies the police if someone install the game illegally.

It is well known that for social media providers as Facebook, many Chinese uses VPN to “jump” to a different country and bypass China’s regulation. But what will happen if a Chinese citizen will utilize cloud computing to play GTA? It opens the possibly that the “wheel” of controlling the activity will go beyond the Chinese government.

It is also known that video game companies forced to “localize” their products by removing scenes, texts and parts of games to fit the local regulation. Is this practice is going to continue? are we advancing towards a stage where the regulation of video game content (or internet content in general) is going to be regulated only by private companies, or not regulated at all, because governments won’t be able to regulate the content, purely based on technical difficulties?

The core issue here, in my opinion, is how governments will regulate a video game content, accessed from a cloud based, for example, in the Seychelles? A proper answer to that question will result in better understanding of the Internet’s future. In a nutshell, given that the packets between the cloud and the user is encrypted, and the ISP is just a tunnel for those packets, it will be very hard to monitor the information (compared to other information, i.e, post on Facebook). In different aspect, but still relevant, it worth noting that the EU released recently new guidelines for hate speech over the internet, that will hold companies to account if they won’t adhere to the guidelines (https://goo.gl/AC89yZ). Will the cloud change the way governments enforce their laws in the internet?

Are we going towards an era, where our computers are just a secured transit station to the internet, unregulatable by governments? I truly believe that the gaming industry and cloud utilization is going to be the ultimate case study for that.

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Product Placement in Video Games

By C, Laura on September 27, 2017

A brand could be placed in a video game for different reasons. Players want authenticity and request realistic games. Any digital goods displayed in a game can be based on a brand: cars, clothes, weapons, businesses, etc. Even in the dialogues, a brand might be mentioned. There is also the possibility for a celebrity to appear either as an accurate or likelihood depiction. I see the economic benefits for celebrities and brand holders/marketers to use video games as a platform to target specific customers. But I also understand that they might not want to let their brands appear in it.

When a brand is deliberately placed in a video game, the players, some of them may be minors, may not realize that they are targeted by advertising. Are there some rules on these kinds of advertising? My theory is that the product placement in video games is not subject to any disclosure as long it is related to the game as in-game cinematic or gameplay.

In contrast, when celebrities or brand holders/marketers refuse to authorize the use of their brand, the artistic development of the game will be affected. Is there some degree of freedom that allows an artistic creation to use popular brands? Is the brand owner’s permission required for every use of a brand by any production studio? For what I have seen so far in my initial research, in the United States, there is a tension between the First Amendment, constitutional free speech right, and the “right of publicity” of celebrities or, in the case of digital goods, the trademark likelihood of confusion for consumers.

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Anoop Desai’s Follow-Up’s

By Jon Festinger on September 26, 2017

Last week’s guest Anoop Desai of Electronic Arts has sent some follow up links for references he made during his talk. You will find them by clicking on the images below:

He also reminded everyone to watch “Indie Game” for all purposes, and Episode 10, Season3 of “Halt & Catch Fire” for a great explanation of the Internet. Both are apparently currently available on Netflix. No links below.

Jon

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Class 3 Guest Speaker: Ian Verchere

By Jon Festinger on September 26, 2017

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Ian Verchere is the Co-Founder of Session Games and has been a “must-see” part of this course for many years. His talks are always deeply and passionately rooted in the creator’s ethos. It is through that core lens that Ian explores legal and normative constraints and freedoms with insight and frequent surprises .

Ian’s Linked In profile (quoted below) gives you that much more information:

“Verchere is a long-time game industry executive, creative producer, game director, writer, and visual artist. He has been involved in the creation and production of some 40 video, computer, and mobile games. Over 20 million people have now downloaded Red Bull Air Race, Bike Unchained, and Snowboarding The Fourth Phase for their mobile devices. Millions more have played SSX Tricky and NBA Street V2 on their consoles, and the classic, best-selling Sega Genesis title Beavis and Butt-head for MTV.

A former professional skier and alpine coach, Verchere graduated with honours from the Emily Carr University of Art and Design in 1989. He was one of the founders of Radical Entertainment, and served as Studio Creative Director until he left in 1998 to join Electronic Arts (Canada) as a Producer.

Verchere sold his first feature screenplay, Mom’s Cookies (co-written with Douglas Coupland), to Buena Vista (Disney), and is a member of the WGAw. In 2007, his first non-fiction book General Deliver, Whistler BC V0N 1B0, was published by Douglas & McIntyre. He was former Chief Creative (CCO) of Roadhouse Interactive, a company he co-founded in 2009. Some months prior to the closing of Roadhouse, Verchere departed the company. Recently, he co-founded Session Games, a production company specializing in creating, delivering, and operating original games. Currently, Session is doing live development and operations on several high-performing games the team built for Red Bull Media House.

Specialties: Creative and game direction. Game design and production. Expert in free-to-play monetization, mobile game play, and mobile narratives. Writing for film, television and interactive. Deep understanding of how brands and intellectual properties migrate authentically and successfully cross-platform and cross-media.”

Jon

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News of the Week; September 20, 2017

By Jon Festinger on September 24, 2017

GAMES

  1. To tackle toxicity, Overwatch now mutes Xbox One players with bad Live rep
  2. Blizzard has taken disciplinary action against 480,000 Overwatch accounts: Jeff Kaplan’s team devotes “a tremendous amount of time and resources to punishing people,” and it’s slowing progress of the game
  3. Campo Santo’s DMCA strike against PewDiePie accepted by YouTube: Felix Kjellberg believes Campo Santo’s position wouldn’t “hold up in court” and amounts to abuse of the DMCA system
  4. Gaming YouTube must get its house in order: The risk posed by PewDiePie’s outbursts isn’t confined to his career; Google won’t tolerate a sector that keeps dragging down YouTube’s commercial prospects
  5. YouTube Gaming ups community-building tools with paid ‘sponsorships’
  6. Bungie Explains How Offensive Symbol Made Its Way Into Destiny 2: Vetting process didn’t catch image’s “vile derivation that has been repurposed by hate groups.”
  7. Bungie explains how a hate symbol ended up in Destiny 2
  8. Bungie promises deeper content vetting over Destiny 2 symbol: Bungie will conduct a process review after completely “scrubbing” the symbol from the game and promotional materials
  9. YouTube Launches Moneymaking Sponsorships For All “Eligible” Gaming Creators
  10. YouTube introduces Twitch-style sponsorship service for streamers: Trials of the $4.99 per month model have proven successful as platform abandons paid channel service
  11. In the wake of CSGO Lotto, FTC takes to Twitter to clarify its disclosure policy
  12. Russian Antifa Developed SharpShooter3D, A Nazi-Hunting Video Game
  13. Playing with politics: How real-world politics could improve your game
  14. “There will be hate you cannot control. In all honesty, it’s defeating”: Square Enix’s Amy Graves discusses the pressures community managers face ahead of her UKIE Careers Bar talk next week
  15. Why I deleted my Steam account: Valve’s dominance in the PC gaming space is made more harmful by its tolerance for toxic users
  16. Steam considers preventing review bombs, adds graphs instead: “In the end, we decided not to change the ways that players can review games, and instead focused on how potential purchasers can explore the review data.”
  17. Steam has a “review bomb” problem—but will today’s new feature fix it?: Follows a September 2016 overhaul which aimed to remove fraudulent reviews.
  18. Overwatch development hampered by toxic players, says director
  19. Overwatch now mutes Xbox One players with bad reputation: Further efforts to stem toxicity after revelation that abusive players hold back development
  20. Blizzard: Toxic Overwatch players are hurting the game’s development – This is why we can’t have nice things, apparently.
  21. Game: Interrupted – How a teenage gamer in the hottest new esport, Overwatch, became a reluctant icon for South Korea’s feminist movement.
  22. Video: How game communities build eSports scenes from the ground up
  23. As NFL ratings drop, a new internet study says young men like watching eSports more than traditional sports
  24. How Misfits went from League of Legends minnows to the World Championship: Team manager Joe Elouassi on managing burnout, the Overwatch League, and esports becoming an Olympic event
  25. Unity debuts open-source beta of a new machine learning AI toolkit
  26. Unity introduces Machine Learning Agents to help AI advancement: New feature goes into beta, primarily for researchers but engine firm keen to see what developers can do
  27. Battleborn is Battledead: Updates halted after ~16 months – Servers will stay up, but Gearbox seems to be transitioning to Borderlands 3.
  28. There’s Seemingly A NES Emulator And Game Hidden On Every Nintendo Switch
  29. Every Nintendo Switch appears to contain a hidden copy of NES Golf: What’s more, it might have a first for an emulated NES game – motion control.
  30. Hidden Switch game is actually a tribute to former Nintendo president: Unlock method seems designed to work only on July 11, the day Satoru Iwata died.
  31. How to (Maybe) Play the Super Secret Copy of NESGolf Hidden on Your Nintendo Switch
  32. Hackers Say Nintendo Switch Contains A Game That Unlocks On The Date Of Satoru Iwata’s Death
  33. The coming game cartridge renaissance?: Street Fighter II’s SNES rerelease could be the start of a trend.
  34. Nintendo Switch lands Doom and Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus – Plus, Nintendo’s Arcade Archives retro classics, red JoyCon, and a Pokemon-themed 2DS.
  35. Doom, Wolfenstein II and Honor of Kings boost Switch third-party line-up: Bethesda shows its commitment, while Tencent is bringing China’s most popular game to the platform as Arena of Valor
  36. Nintendo Switch, Madden can’t stop August sales dip – NPD: Despite Madden topping the charts and Switch continuing to sell, total US game sales fell 2%
  37. Nintendo spent an estimated $4.5m on TV ads in August – Report: According to iSpot.tv Nintendo outspent other video game brands during the month to promote the new-look 2DS XL
  38. Nintendo shares riding nine-year high: Stock price closes the day up 7% as Switch maker tests heights not seen since the Wii’s heyday, considers Chinese expansion
  39. How Planet of the Apes is using console gamers to reach its real audience: The Imaginati’s Martin Alltimes talks us through the unusual business model behind narrative adventure spin-off Last Frontier
  40. Nintendo investors seem pumped about Tencent bringing its MOBA to Switch
  41. How much does it cost to develop a videogame?
  42. EA CEO Andrew Wilson joins Intel’s board of directors
  43. Hilarious, spectacular EVE betrayal destroys player group, costs trillions: Infighting and Cold War-style espionage led to largest theft in game’s history.
  44. ‘Star Wars: Battlefront II’ Won’t Be Supporting PSVR Headsets After All
  45. No VR for Star Wars Battlefront II but still “very important” for Criterion: UK studio says Rogue One demo “informed” Starfighter Assault mode, but sequel will not support virtual reality
  46. Someone has created a VR headset for the Commodore 64
  47. Developer gets a Game Boy emulator running on the Apple Watch, because he can: “Giovanni” emulator doesn’t quite fit full speed or compatibility on Series 2.
  48. Report: Magic Leap Could Reach $6B Valuation, First Device Shipping in 6 Months to “small group of users”
  49. Niantic: “AR is not just visual” – Pokémon Go developer suggests that audio will play a vital role in the design of its next game
  50. Mind the gap: Fortnite error briefly allowed cross-platform PS4/XB1 play
  51. Error leads to Fortnite cross-platform play between Xbox and Playstation: Issue fixed but Xbox head “would have liked to see them leave it on”
  52. The iPhone X’s ‘notch’ is powered by the same tech as the Kinect
  53. Disruptor Beam: Big name IP is about player retention, not acquisition – CEO Jon Radoff shares takeaways from making mobile games for Star Trek, Game of Thrones, and The Walking Dead
  54. How to launch a mobile game in multiple countries: Tappx CMO Ignasi Prat offers advice to developers hoping to release their app in as many markets as possible
  55. How has the flood of Steam games affected the average indie dev?
  56. Steam Direct fails to prevent revenue drop for indies: Average first month sales down by 39% since 2015, average naive revenue down by almost 50%
  57. Battlegrounds breaks the all-time Steam concurrent player record
  58. PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds smashes Steam records for concurrent users: Surpasses Dota 2’s player peak by less than 50,000
  59. Steam adds histograms to address review bombing: Ability to see how user reviews change over time one step on the way toward prediction-based review scores
  60. Rovio values itself at $1bn ahead of IPO
  61. Developers say a Star Citizen guild did not get $45,000 refund: Cloud Imperium says refund was actually for just $330
  62. McLaren builds a virtual hypercar for the next Gran Turismo game
  63. Blizzard chief explains how he raised money to start the company
  64. Classic Postmortem: How Maxis avoided sequel-itis on The Sims 2
  65. The Life and Merciful Death of the Fad Controller
  66. “There’s no better environment than AAA to develop your skills”: Playground Games’ Nick Duncombe discusses the benefits of working at an established studio rather than forming your own ahead of his UKIE Careers Bar talk
  67. Build, gather, brawl, repeat: The history of real-time strategy games: As we wait on a new Age of Empires this fall, let’s revisit the RTS genre’s highs and lows.
  68. Wireless PC Gaming At Lightspeed: Wireless mice that are now faster than wired
  69. How playing games can advance science
  70. How one man turns Garry’s Mod scenes into art
  71. The Most Popular Mod For Fallout 4 Is The One That Removes The Title Screen Crawl For Bethesda’s ‘Creation Club’
  72. Tracing the path an Israeli folk song took to end up in Japanese video games
  73. Humble has now raised over $100M for charity
  74. 15 practical pieces of advice, stuff that I learned the hard way
  75. 2 Games in 2 Months with a Stranger from Reddit
  76. Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite isn’t the same without arcade-era pixel art – A look back at the Marvel vs Capcom series and the evolution of pixel art to 3D.
  77. Richard Garriott remembers calling his parents to settle a fight over Ultima IV’s design
  78. NBA Commissioner Adam Silver wants sports on television to look more like video games

DIGITAL

  1. Hollywood’s Use of “Stolen” Computer Technology Tests Ownership Theories: In a bid to dismiss a lawsuit, Disney, Fox, and Paramount distinguish between human and technological output.
  2. Hulu Becomes First Streaming Service To Win Best Drama Emmy For ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’
  3. To Fix Its Toxic Ad Problem, Facebook Must Break Itself
  4. Exclusive: Facebook Silences Rohingya Reports of Ethnic Cleansing – The social network says it’s committed to helping the world ‘share their stories.’ But when people from Burma’s oppressed minority post, their stories have a habit of disappearing.
  5. Facebook Enabled Advertisers to Reach ‘Jew Haters’: After being contacted by ProPublica, Facebook removed several anti-Semitic ad categories and promised to improve monitoring.
  6. Could Facebook Have Caught Its ‘Jew Hater’ Ad Targeting?: “Facebook can monitor the things it does that make it money.”
  7. Facebook’s Offensive Ad Targeting Options Go Far Beyond “Jew Haters”
  8. Trump Retweeted A Video From An Anti-Semitic Account Showing Him Hitting Hillary Clinton With A Golf Ball: The original poster had previously tweeted several anti-trans and racist statements.
  9. The Real Trouble With Trump’s ‘Dark Post’ Facebook Ads
  10. Google Allowed Advertisers To Target People Searching Racist Phrases: Google prompted BuzzFeed News to run ads targeted to keywords like “black people ruin neighborhoods,” then allowed the campaign to go live.
  11. Facebook’s Reckoning Draws Nearer: Sooner or later, the company will be forced to take on the responsibilities that come with being the world’s dominant news distributor.
  12. ­Facebook’s war on free will: How technology is making our minds redundant
  13. Should Facebook Ads Be Regulated Like TV Commercials?: The company’s sales to a Russia-connected troll farm raise big questions about free speech in advertising and beyond.
  14. Alt-Right Twitter App Developers Sue Google After Gab.Ai App Is Kicked Out Of The Play Store
  15. Google Paid HTC $1.1 Billion To Turn Itself Into A Phone Maker
  16. Google/HTC deal is official, Google to acquire part of HTC’s smartphone team: $1.1 billion deal means HTC will still exist, while Google beefs up its hardware team.
  17. Female ex-Googlers sue, claiming sex discrimination: Three former Googlers say women were funneled into less lucrative “job ladders.”
  18. The Pao Effect Is What Happens After Lean In
  19. Lost Context: How Did We End Up Here?: Facebook and Google’s advertising platforms are out of control. That used to be a good thing. Now…not so much.
  20. Twitter rival Gab sues Google over app store rejection: Gab, an app popular with the alt-right, says Google violated antitrust law.
  21. Twitter rival Gab faces domain loss over extremist content: After anti-Semitic post, registrar gives Gab five days to find a new provider.
  22. The Super-Aggregators And The Russians
  23. Facebook’s Russia data: What Mueller may learn
  24. A Fishy Wikileaks Dump Targets Russia For A Change
  25. New Group Of Iranian Hackers Linked To Destructive Malware
  26. Snopes And The Search For Facts In A Post-Fact World
  27. Unwanted ads on Breitbart lead to massive click fraud revelations, Uber claims – Uber: We paid Fetch Media for “nonexistent, nonviewable, and/or fraudulent advertising.”
  28. Here’s a real-life, slimy example of Uber’s regulator-evading software: “In using Greyball, Uber has sullied its own reputation,” Portland says.
  29. Waymo wants Uber to pay $2.6 billion in damages—just for starters: It’s the first hint of what Waymo might want as compensation for alleged theft.
  30. Appeals court rejects Uber’s attempt to dodge trial: No arbitration – And, Levandowski can’t stop Waymo lawyers from reading a report on his startup.
  31. Faced with a trove of new evidence in Uber case, Waymo asks to delay trial 
  32. Uber: We don’t have to pay drivers based on rider fares – Contracts allow rider fares to be higher than what is known and paid to drivers.
  33. Drone delivery startup is about to begin commercial operations: Startup envisions hundreds of drone delivery stations across metro areas.
  34. Digital transformation: How machine learning could help change business – ML has more than just a learning curve to overcome before it transforms business.
  35. HTML5 DRM finally makes it as an official W3C Recommendation: 30.8% of W3C members disapproved of the decision.
  36. EFF Resigns From W3C After DRM In HTML Is Approved In Secret Vote
  37. HP Brings Back Obnoxious DRM That Cripples Competing Printer Cartridges
  38. Adding clickbait title isn’t false advertising or fraud on author Dankovich v. Keller, 2017 WL 4081852, No. 16-13395 E.D. Mich. Sept. 15, 2017 (Rebecca Tushnet)
  39. 5 reasons why people share fake photos during disasters
  40. Do the distracted boyfriend memes infringe copyright?
  41. The Blacklock’s Perfectly Predictable Costs Appeal Dismissal & a Preview of Potential Problems (Howard Knopf)
  42. The Senate Is Close To Undermining The Internet By Pretending To ‘Protect’ The Children
  43. Why SESTA Is Such A Bad Bill
  44. The Wrong Answer to a Serious Problem: Senator Wyden’s testimony to the Senate Committee on Commerce at the legislative hearing titled “S.1693, The Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act of 2017”
  45. The Top Ten Myths About SESTA’s (S. 1693) Impact On Startups
  46. Senator Blumenthal Happy That SESTA Will Kill Small Internet Companies
  47. Is There A Single Online Service Not Put At Risk By SESTA?
  48. Free Software Foundation Europe Leads Call For Taxpayer-Funded Software To Be Licensed For Free Re-use
  49. The Sex Trafficking Fight Could Take Down A Bedrock Tech Law
  50. Music Industry Is Painting A Target On YouTube Ripping Sites, Despite Their Many Non-Infringing Uses
  51. YouTube Apologizes To ‘Red’ Subscribers Who Were Served Ads, Says Fix Is In The Works
  52. Yes, You Can Believe In Internet Freedom Without Being A Shill
  53. Regulating Hate Speech?
  54. The rise of AI is sparking an international arms race: Elon Musk thinks it’s the most likely cause of WWIII.
  55. The AI Chatbot Will Hire You Now
  56. AI: Scary for the Right Reasons
  57. AI built profiles for every individual is a reality
  58. AI Research Is In Desperate Need Of An Ethical Watchdog
  59. Can Competition Act address Big Data cases?
  60. Big data and Innovation: Implications for competition policy in Canada
  61. Big data may become big antitrust concern
  62. Google Chrome To Block Autoplay Videos With Sound Beginning In January
  63. Google Chrome will block autoplay video starting January 2018: Only muted video and user “interest in the media” will be allowed by default.
  64. Chrome Will Soon Block Autoplay Videos With Sound—Here’s Why You Should Be Worried
  65. YouTube TV, Now Available In Eight More Areas, Nears Completion Of US Rollout
  66. These Are The Types Of Influencers Who Get Paid Most Per Sponsored Post (Study)
  67. Snapchat Is Pulling Out All The Stops For This Year’s Emmy Awards
  68. Crowdfunding platform Patreon secures $60M investment
  69. Are We Asking Too Much From Defamation Law? Reputation Systems, Adr, Industry Regulation And Other Extra-Judicial Possibilities For Protecting Reputation In The Internet Age: Proposal For Reform (Emily Laidlaw)
  70. The Political Awakening of Silicon Valley: What happens when tech leaders, like Y Combinator’s Sam Altman, believe our system is broken? They treat it like a startup. 
  71. “Skip intro”: Netflix could’ve saved TV title sequences, but now it’s killing them
  72. Netflix Has Narcos Actors Threaten To Shoot The Families Of French People For Pirating The Show
  73. Vancouver Canucks, Perspective Films Offer Virtual Reality Views
  74. Baltimore Ravens Debut NFL’s First Augmented Reality Face Painting
  75. Mizuno Introduces Smart Baseball With Internal Pitch-Tracking Tech
  76. China’s Largest Messaging App ‘WeChat’ is Creating its Own AR Platform
  77. It looks like China is shutting down its blockchain economy: Leaked regulation orders Chinese Bitcoin exchanges to shut down.
  78. Bitcoin and Ethereum plunge on Chinese crackdown
  79. The Pirate Bay Added a CPU-Hijacking Bitcoin Miner to Some Pages
  80. Feds in California are aggressively going after Silk Road, AlphaBay vendors: Federal courthouse in Fresno is set to see a lot of action in coming months.
  81. Your Digital Millennium Copyright Registration May Be About To Expire
  82. Bored With Your Fitbit? These Cancer Researchers Aren’t
  83. About FaceID
  84. After 23 years, the Apple II gets another OS update: On 30th anniversary of Apple II GS, devoted developer releases ProDOS 2.4.
  85. The Pluralist Model of Speech Regulation: Free Speech in the Algorithmic Society (Jack Balkin)
  86. Free Speech in the Algorithmic Society: Big Data, Private Governance, and New School Speech Regulation (Jack Balkin)

CREATIVITY

  1. Quebec Superior Court Rules on the Concept of Fair Dealing in Relation to the Substantial Reproduction of Journalistic Works
  2. Off-Broadway ‘Grinch’ Parody Defeats Copyright Claims
  3. Joy in Who-Ville? Playwright Wins Fair Use Copyright Dispute in Parody of “Grinch” 
  4. Maradona sues Dolce&Gabbana over 2016 ‘MARADONA’ jersey 
  5. Monkey Selfie Case Settled Out Of Court, Questions Remain (Andres Guadamuz)
  6. Lawyer: Without The Monkey’s Approval, PETA Can’t Settle Monkey Selfie Case
  7. Monkey See, Monkey Do… Monkey Own? The Curious Case of Naruto v. Slater 
  8. Man who made “Pepe” wants his frog back, and he’ll use copyright to get it: Mike Cernovich won’t pay, threatens “to embarrass the f***” out of Pepe creator.
  9. With Court Ruling, Fan Subtitles Officially Copyright Infringement In Sweden
  10. Structural engineers score big as Federal Court recognizes and enforces copyright on structure of soccer complex
  11. Canadian Government Publications Still Don’t Belong To The People As Ottawa Maintains Its Iron Grip On Crown Copyright
  12. Melania Trump billboard removed in Croatia after legal action threatened
  13. ‘Racist’ Paddy Power Floyd Mayweather ad dealt knockout blow by ASA
  14. New patent review process has saved billions—so why is it under attack?: “Inter partes review” let a patent’s opponents be heard, without spending millions.
  15. Doubling (& Tripling) Down on Trademark Protection For Secret Menu Items–In-N-Out v. Smashburger 
  16. Yoko Ono halts sale of John Lemon lemonade: Polish company agrees to change its name to On Lemon after legal letters saying drink infringed trademark 
  17. Kim Kardashian West’s trade mark woes and the love-hate relationship between celebrities and IP
  18. New study claims Slender Man is in the commons, argues assertion of trademark rights “chills creativity”
  19. Charles Harder Loses Again: You Can’t Just File Defamation Lawsuits In A Random State Because You Like Its Statute Of Limitations
  20. Model Behaviour – Copyright infringement action brought against model Gigi Hadid
  21. Why Copyright Term Matters: Publisher Study Highlights Crucial Role of the Public Domain in Ontario Schools (Michael Geist)
  22. Buyer Beware: Make Sure Your Copyright Assignment Is Valid
  23. The Business of Fandom: How Teenage Girls Predict the Future of Culture
  24. 20 years in, Kid Rock, Eminem and ICP are politically relevant — and culturally divided
  25. How Amazon is becoming the third force in advertising, making the duopoly an oligopoly
  26. The Battle for Blade Runner
  27. Vermont State Police Rewrite Press Rules To Withhold As Much Information As Possible
  28. Bleistein, the Problem of Aesthetic Progress, and the Making of American Copyright Law (Barton Beebe)
  29. First application of the Canadian parody exception (Sabine Jacques)

MEDIA, COMMUNICATIONS & NET NEUTRALITY

  1.  Why Canadian cell phone bills are among the most expensive on the planet: As tech analyst Michael Geist has noted, cell phone companies keep raising prices ‘because they can’ 
  2. Toronto Star receives $65,000 fine for violating CRTC Do Not Call List rules
  3. Yet Another Report Says The Rate Of TV Cord Cutting Is Worse Than Anybody Thought
  4. “Fake” net neutrality comments at heart of lawsuit filed against FCC –  Lawsuit: FCC ignored public records request for data on mass comment uploads
  5. ‘I Want to Explode’ — A Roger Ailes Protégé Bares His Soul: Joe Lindsley was as close to the late Fox News chairman as anybody. Now, for the first time, he’s giving his account of their dramatic split.
  6. The transformation continues (Timothy Denton)
  7. Verizon Is Booting 8,500 Rural Customers Over Data Use, Including Some on ‘Unlimited’ Plans
  8. Verizon Hangs Up On Tens Of Thousands Of ‘Unlimited’ Wireless Customers For Using Too Much Data
  9. Comcast looks forward to more mergers during Trump presidency: Comcast VP is glad Trump is “less hostile” to mergers than Obama.
  10. Comcast said he used too much data—so he opted to live without home Internet: Man said he didn’t go over his data cap; Comcast told him to trust the meter.
  11. FCC’s New ‘Diversity Chair’ Has Long History Of Undermining Minority Consumers At Comcast’s Behest
  12. T-Mobile’s unlimited plan will soon let you use 50GB before slowdowns: T-Mobile leaps further ahead of Verizon and AT&T with more data before slowdowns.
  13. T-Mobile backtracks from plan to throttle Apple Watch speeds to 512kbps: T-Mobile initially planned $20 charge for watch LTE, but now it’ll be $10.
  14. Unlimited Data Customers Report Fewer Network Problems Than Capped Users
  15. SpaceX’s worldwide satellite broadband network may have a name: Starlink – Low-latency, gigabit network inches closer to commercialization.
  16. A telemarketer called my elevator: The emergency intercom started speaking to me in a voice I’ve heard a thousand times.

SURVEILLANCE & PRIVACY

  1. EFF, ACLU Sue Government Over Warrantless Electronic Searches At The Border
  2. ISPs claim a privacy law would weaken online security and increase pop-ups: California to vote on privacy law opposed by AT&T, Comcast, Charter, and Verizon.
  3. Closely watched California Internet privacy bill dies in final minutes of legislative session
  4. California Sides With Comcast, Votes To Kill Broadband Privacy Law Favored By EFF
  5. ISPs can keep sharing your browsing history after California no-vote: Lawmakers fail to vote on opt-in rule that would protect your browsing history.
  6. Face Scanning Lawsuit Against Shutterfly Survives Motion to Dismiss
  7. Trump Administration Says It’s Classified If They Can Let The NSA Spy On Americans
  8. Equifax Officially Has No Excuse
  9. Oh Man, You’re Gonna Hate What Equifax Just Admitted About That Security Breach
  10. Equifax’s Chief Information Officer and Head of Security Are ‘Retiring’
  11. Equifax CIO, CSO “retire” in wake of huge security breach: Press release – “The company’s review of the facts is still ongoing.”
  12. DoNotPay chatbot adds feature allowing users to sue Equifax over data breach
  13. Scammers keep trying to sell fake Equifax facts: Site offers “proof” of access to Equifax data, but it all appears to be fake.
  14. FTC launches Equifax breach probe, warns consumers about credit scammers: Posing as Equifax employees, crooks are calling to verify your account information.
  15. Equifax sends breach victims to fake notification site
  16. Google stops challenging most US warrants for data on overseas servers: Microsoft keeps up the challenges while Supreme Court remains silent.
  17. Secret Algorithms Are Deciding Criminal Trials and We’re Not Even Allowed to Test Their Accuracy (ACLU)
  18. EFF Asks Court: Can Prosecutors Hide Behind Trade Secret Privilege to Convict You? (EFF)
  19. Biased Algorithms Are Everywhere, and No One Seems to Care: The big companies developing them show no interest in fixing the problem.
  20. Ad industry “deeply concerned” about Safari’s new ad-tracking restrictions: Apple’s limits on tracking will “sabotage the economic model for the Internet.”
  21. How One Of Apple’s Key Privacy Safeguards Falls Short
  22. Infrared signals in surveillance cameras let malware jump network air gaps: aIR-Jumper weaves passwords and crypto keys into infrared signals.
  23. The CCleaner Malware Fiasco Targeted At Least 18 Specific Tech Firms
  24. NSA Employees Routinely Undermined ‘Non-Attributable’ Web Access With Personal Web Use
  25. How The NSA Built A Secret Surveillance Network For Ethiopia
  26. Trudeau needs to deliver on his access-to-information promises
  27. New law firm seeks would-be gov’t whistleblowers, requires Tor and SecureDrop: “We want to earn the trust of people who have been 20-year veterans at the NSA.”
  28. Most-wanted criminal arrested after posting Instagram video of himself: Officials obtained fugitive’s GPS coordinates after he took to social media.
  29. Apple’s FaceID Could Be A Powerful Tool For Mass Spying
  30. Software Has A Serious Supply-Chain Security Problem
  31. For $200 you can buy an NBA smart jersey and be a marketing pawn: Once activated, Nike knows where you live, and when and where jersey is scanned.
  32. Internet-Connected Toys: Cute, Cuddly and Inherently Insecure
  33. The Undue Influence of Surveillance Technology Companies on Policing (Elizabeth Joh)

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Class 2 – 9/15/17; “If Picasso had painted a round object..”

By Jon Festinger on September 18, 2017

Video and slides from the class…

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News of the Week; September 13, 2017

By Jon Festinger on September 14, 2017

GAMES

  1. FTC Settles Complaint Against ‘Let’s Play’ YouTube Stars, Sends Warning Letters To Other Influencers And Demands Responses
  2. FTC demands disclosure from influencers following TmarTn CS:GO scandal – Commission rules that influencers must “clearly and conspicuously” identify links to products and services
  3. YouTubers escape fines for promoting their own CS:GO gambling site – FTC settlement extracts a promise not to do it again and not much else.
  4. Individual Influencers Settle With The FTC Over Undisclosed Endorsements
  5. Bungie pulls Destiny 2 item resembling white supremacist symbol
  6. Bungie removes hate symbol from Destiny 2: Developer says legendary gauntlets’ similarity to “Kekistan” flag was unintentional, doesn’t reflect its values
  7. Religious fighting game gets Steam banned in Malaysia: Valve pulls Fight of Gods after local ISPs were ordered by government to block access to digital storefront
  8. Funcom: Steam user reviews should be region gated – With “review bombs” now a common occurrence, CEO Rui Casais believes Steam should follow other stores and ditch “global” user ratings
  9. Blizzard brings forward annual charity drive to provide disaster relief
  10. Rovio IPO: A stark lesson in timing – Once the biggest company in mobile gaming, the Angry Birds creator now plans an IPO far more modest than its past ambitions
  11. Nintendo: Switch demand might outweigh supply during the holidays
  12. Nintendo wary of potential Switch shortages this holiday: Reggie Fils-Aime says “supply chain is there” but is cagey about whether platform holder will meet demand
  13. Switch version of Wonder Boyoutsells all other platforms combined
  14. Nintendo Switch versions of indie games outselling others: Wonder Boy, Forma.8 and Oceanhorn proving more successful than on other platforms, say devs
  15. For No More Heroes dev Goichi Suda, ‘the Switch is a punk console’
  16. For the first time in 15 years, Doom is coming to a Nintendo console
  17. Nintendo Urges Public: Don’t Pay More Than $80 for SNES Classic
  18. Nintendo bringing back NES Classic Edition in 2018: Super NES Classic Edition manufacturing to continue through next year as well
  19. Behind the effort to archive Nintendo’s disappearing social network: Scraping and saving millions of posts before Nintendo deletes them all on Nov. 7.
  20. Bandai Namco on the hunt for mobile mergers and acquisitions: Japanese publisher hopes to expand mobile business as it pursues global growth strategy
  21. Nintendo Still Not Ready For VR, Not Enough “Truly Fun” Experiences
  22. Niantic: Focus on visuals makes AR look like “a gimmick that lacks utility” – CEO John Hanke posts cool response to Apple’s reveal of the iPhone X’s capabilities
  23. Nazara’s $550m plans for India’s first games industry IPO: Mumbai-based mobile games publisher preparing for public listing
  24. Animal Farm developer: “I wish more games made a statement”: Imre Jele on why a team of highly experienced creators are revisiting Orwell’s 1940s classic
  25. Breaking the outrage cycle: Anger and abuse from fan communities have become a routine part of the games industry, but they don’t have to be
  26. Zoë Quinn: What Happened After GamerGate Hacked Me
  27. Women In Games Mobile Awards winners revealed: Plus Anita Sarkeesian given honourary Hall of Fame prize
  28. PAX Report: Rep. Jayapal speaks on players and political consciousness
  29. Video: A game dev guide to fostering a positive community
  30. Crunch mentality is ‘misguided and old-fashioned,’ says Tim Schafer
  31. Facebook: “We’re going all in with esports”: The leading social network explains why it is partnering with so many developers and their professional gaming leagues
  32. Facebook Pushes Further Into Esports With Paladins Partnership
  33. Blizzard is opening its own eSports venue in California
  34. Blizzard opening dedicated esports production facility: Blizzard Arena Los Angeles will include soundstages, practice facilities, merch store, seating for about 450 fans
  35. Lambton College announces plans for academic Esports program, officially opens campus gaming arena
  36. How can Riot Games fix League of Legends esports in Europe?: A prominent team has accused the European League Championship Series of being “neither rational nor fair,”, and Riot’s big changes have yet to arrive
  37. Two new Overwatch League teams point to strong US emphasis – report: Houston and Philadelphia teams would give the US 8 out of 11 spots in Activision Blizzard’s new competition
  38. Iron Galaxy’s Adam Boyes breaks down the pros and cons of game funding deals
  39. How to avoid getting sc—ed in a game publishing deal: Indies, don’t be afraid to negotiate and realize your value, says games lawyer Zachary Strebeck
  40. BIG List of Incubators, Accelerators and Funding Opportunities
  41. Gaming’s move away from ownership model is inevitable – EA: Publisher’s VP of investor relations says the technology is already in place for a shift to an access model like Spotify or Netflix
  42. Battlegrounds has surpassed 1M concurrent players on Steam
  43. 1,300 new games have been released since Steam Direct launched: The total number of games for this year has already exceeded 2015, says Niko Partners
  44. Raptr shutting down as optimization services become obsolete
  45. 14 Racing Games That Want To Win Over Your Wallet: It’s a good year to be a gearhead.
  46. Path of Exile Economy: Currency Trading
  47. Games writers now eligible for Nebula Award: Writers also able to apply for Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America membership
  48. The Secret Power of Play
  49. Games aren’t always fair, the magic lies in making you think they are: Behind the scenes with the neuroscience of game design
  50. Custom Xbox One S That Lights Up Revealed By Microsoft, Made In Collaboration With Chainsmokers: DJ duo behind “Closer” worked with Microsoft on this system.
  51. How the longest-running web series, Rooster Teeth’s ‘Red vs. Blue,’ makes money

DIGITAL

  1. Why Has the Government Failed to Act on Copyright Notice-and-Notice When Internal Docs Raise Abuse and Fraud Concerns? (Michael Geist)
  2. RT, Sputnik and Russia’s New Theory of War: How the Kremlin built one of the most powerful information weapons of the 21st century — and why it may be impossible to stop.
  3. The Fake Americans Russia Created to Influence the Election
  4. Russia’s Facebook Fake News Could Have Reached 70 Million Americans: Facebook acknowledged that Russian propagandists spent $100,000 on election ads. It neglected to mention how many millions of people those ads reached.
  5. Russian-made Facebook page invited Americans to protest “upsurge of violence”: Effort to unmask the Kremlin’s propaganda campaign takes a dark turn.
  6. I Bought a Russian Bot Army for Under $100
  7. Facebook May Have More Russian Troll Farms To Worry About
  8. Russia Piracy Blocking: Four Thousand ‘Pirate’ Sites Blocked… Along With Forty Thousand Sites Worth Of Collateral Damage
  9. Kaspersky software banned from US government agencies: Kaspersky: We have “never helped, nor will help, any government with cyberespionage.”
  10. Social influence and political mobilization: Further evidence from a randomized experiment in the 2012 U.S. presidential election (Jason J. Jones, Robert M. Bond, Eytan Bakshy, Dean Eckles & James H. Fowler)
  11. How Facebook Changed the Spy Game: I fought foreign propaganda for the FBI. But the tools we had won’t work anymore.
  12. Facebook Wins, Democracy Loses
  13. Why it’s so hard to trust Facebook
  14. Facebook will ban monetizing on violence and tragedy, even for news and awareness
  15. Facebook Sets Guidelines To Dictate What Types Of Content It Won’t Monetize
  16. The Terrifying Power of Internet Censors
  17. Facebook’s Failed $608 Million Bid For Cricket Rights Sends Strong Signal
  18. Facebook To Spend $1 Billion On Original Content For ‘Watch’ Through 2018 
  19. Make Mark Zuckerberg Testify
  20. Facebook Wins Appeal Over Allegedly Discriminatory Content Removal–Sikhs for Justice v. Facebook (Eric Goldman)
  21. The Fake News Pipeline: How A Small-Time Clickbait Farmer Is Spreading the Gospel of Big Oil
  22. America Is a Cyberpunk Dystopia
  23. Adding a “disputed” label to fake news seems to work, a little. But for some groups, it actually backfires: Labeling only some fake news stories as fake can make some people more likely to believe other fake news that aren’t labeled.
  24. China’s Social-Media Smoke Screen
  25. 1st Amendment wins in self-proclaimed e-mail inventor’s Techdirt libel suit: The truth, whatever that may be, is the best defense to defamation.
  26. Texas AG’s office accuses ‘reputation management company’ of procuring fraudulent libel takedown lawsuits
  27. Texas Attorney General Issues Complaint Against Reputation Management Company For Bogus Lawsuits
  28. Blacklock’s Loses Appeal of Justice Barnes’ Costs Order: Dismissed from the Bench
  29. Patent Trolls’ Favorite Judge Comes Up With Test To Keep Patent Cases In East Texas, No Matter What SCOTUS Said
  30. The Latest Scam To Protect Sketchy Patents From Patent Office Review: Sell To Native Americans
  31. YouTube stream-ripping site for the masses dead in wake of RIAA suit: Youtube-mp3.org facilitated 40% of illegal stream-ripping from YouTube globally.
  32. Digital Network Collab Launches New Rights Management Tool
  33. Facebook Testing ‘Instant Videos’ Feature That Enables Offline Viewing
  34. The no-sports streaming bundle is coming soon from Viacom, Discovery, and others: The entertainment-focused service could cost less than $20 per month.
  35. Verizon customers can sue ad company over “zombie” cookies, judges rule: Judges say ad company can’t use Verizon’s arbitration clause to avoid lawsuit.
  36. Uber is apparently facing a third federal criminal investigation: Uber allegedly created fake Lyft accounts to gather data on drivers and prices.
  37. The first man at trial over a “gig economy” job got dismantled on cross-examination
  38. Amazon’s 1-Click Patent Is About To Expire. What’s The Big Deal?
  39. Canadian cities jump at chance to play host to massive Amazon HQ
  40. Amazon’s New Headquarters Should Be in Hell
  41. White Supremacist Threatens to Sue News Outlet Over Photoshopped Gun (That He Tweeted a Month Earlier)
  42. PewDiePie Draws More Ire By Using N-Word During Live Stream
  43. PewDiePie Uses Racial Slur In Livestream, Game Dev Says He’s “Worse Than A Closeted Racist”: The super-popular streamer has found himself in hot water, again.
  44. PewDiePie Is Inexcusable but DMCA Takedowns Are Not the Way to Fight Him
  45. PewDiePie racial slur sparks backlash from Campo Santo, Simogo: Prominent YouTube streamers brace for fallout from “liability” PewDiePie’s actions
  46. Why was it so easy to weaponize copyright against PewDiePie?
  47. Let’s Play Copyright Threat Raises Questions About The Law And How To Use It
  48. Campo Santo legally able to file DMCA against PewDiePie over racial slur: But court costs to enforce could be “well over six figures” so dangerous defence for indies and smaller studios
  49. Here’s what the law says about PewDiePie’s fight with Campo Santo: Game company wants to take down YouTube star’s livestreams after n-word incident.
  50. As PewDiePie Offers Apology For Racial Slur, YouTube’s ‘Let’s Play’ Gamers Worry About Financial Fallout
  51. Ted Cruz Liked a Porn Tweet and I Can’t Even Decide Which Joke to Say 
  52. Cruz blames ‘staffing issue’ for porn video ‘liked’ on his Twitter account
  53. No “Contract By Tweet” for Plaintiff Who Pitches Movie Idea via Social Media (Eric Goldman)
  54. Congress Is About To Eviscerate Its Greatest Online Free Speech Achievement (Eric Goldman)
  55. Why Has the Government Failed to Act on Copyright Notice-and-Notice When Internal Docs Raise Abuse and Fraud Concerns?
  56. LinkedIn’s efforts to stop the bots
  57. Bitcoin investors could lose all their money, FCA warns: UK financial watchdog spells out risk for those participating in initial coin offerings using cryptocurrencie
  58. CSA Staff Narrow the Path for Cryptocurrency Offerings
  59. A Debate about Google and Its Critics: Recent allegations stoke growing ‘antitrust sentiment’ about Google.
  60. Can You Get Addicted to Trolling?: It’s becoming increasingly evident that, for some people, trolling isn’t just playing an a—-le on the internet.
  61. News Use Across Social Media Platforms 2017 (Pew Research Center)
  62. A tech critic on the sham populism of Silicon Valley: Ex-New Republic editor Franklin Foer on the expansive power of big tech.
  63. There’s Blood In The Water In Silicon Valley: The bad new politics of big tech.
  64. Conservatives, liberals unite against Silicon Valley: The fading of the tech industry’s bipartisan glow in Washington puts it at risk for tighter regulations.
  65. Tech Is Public Enemy #1. So Now What?: If tech wants to reverse the crushing tide of negative public opinion, it must start creating public good commensurate with its extraction of private profit.
  66. Teen Girls With Smartphones Flirt Most With Depression and Suicide: A spike in the teen suicide rate parallels almost exactly the rise of smartphone use, especially among teen girls, who are the most vulnerable to cyberbullying and alienation.
  67. Searching For Help: She turned to Google for help getting sober. Then she had to escape a nightmare.
  68. Terms Of Service Aren’t Just Annoying—They’re A Failure
  69. Phones Are Changing How People Shoot And Watch Video
  70. Attacked by Rotten Tomatoes
  71. Hollywood’s Movies Suck, and It Doesn’t Want You to Know
  72. Lawyer who sued Gawker and Techdirt has a new target: Jezebel – “Whatever he says, goes,” former Superstar Machine member “Poppy” told Jezebel.
  73. AG Szpunar advises CJEU on cloud-based recording and private copying exception
  74. iPhone X: Software leak appears to confirm name, features, and specs – Meanwhile, iPhone 8 is an updated iPhone 7 with a glass back, and wireless charging.
  75. The Biggest IPhone Leak Yet Won’t Bruise Apple
  76. How Apple Finally Made Siri Sound More Human
  77. Apple, Facebook And Disney To Shake Up Video Streaming With Original Content
  78. Apple strikes deal with Warner Music, looks to pay labels lower rates: More paid subscribers means less money directly out of Apple’s pocket.
  79. Should Spotify Try to Become the ‘Netflix Of Music’? Not So Fast
  80. Disney To Move Marvel, ‘Star Wars’ Films From Netflix To Its Own Streaming Service
  81. Disney is pulling Star Wars and Marvel films from Netflix: In 2019, you’ll have to subscribe to Disney’s service to stream these movies.
  82. H3h3productions Raises Over $100,000 With Twitch Live Stream To Support Hurricane Harvey Relief
  83. Artificial Intelligence’s Fair Use Crisis (Benjamin L. W. Sobel)
  84. For Superpowers, Artificial Intelligence Fuels New Global Arms Race
  85. Putin says the nation that leads in AI ‘will be the ruler of the world’: The Russian president warned that artificial intelligence offers ‘colossal opportunities’ as well as dangers
  86. Elon Musk: Competition for AI Superiority at National Level Will Be the “Most Likely Cause of WW3”
  87. Following Elon Musk Letter, UK Government Plans to Ban Fully Autonomous Weapons
  88. Elon Musk auto-magically extended the battery life of Teslas in Florida to help drivers evacuate
  89. MIT, IBM team up on $240 million effort to rule the AI world: The open-ended research will explore consumer tech, health, and security applications
  90. Apple’s ‘Neural Engine’ Infuses The Iphone With AI Smarts
  91. Brain-Machine Interface Isn’t Sci-Fi Anymore
  92. How Seoul Is Reinventing Itself As A Techno-Utopia
  93. Every NFL Football Will Have A Data Tracking Chip This Season
  94. Are Your Jokes Always Bombing? This App Crowdsources Them
  95. It Took A Natural Disaster For Me To Understand Snap Map
  96. The Music Industry Bands Together To Finally Get Paid Online
  97. Inside Juicero’s Demise, From Prized Startup to Fire Sale: The shuttering of the much-ridiculed Silicon Valley startup was the culmination of unsustainable costs, slow sales and unflattering media reports.
  98. Before trying robot judges, let’s learn from robot referees: Automated rulings in sports can help inform the development of criminal justice tech.
  99. How Indian Smartphone Makers Lost the War Against Chinese Companies
  100. In Irma prep, GasBuddy downloads increased 10x, nuclear reactors stayed online
  101. Tesla remotely extends the range of some cars to help with Irma: An over-the-air software update temporarily unlocks spare battery capacity.
  102. Hurricane Irma took 7 million cable and wireline subscribers offline: Comcast, AT&T, other ISPs try to get customers online as power outages persist.
  103. How Silicon Valley is erasing your individuality
  104. Whose record is it anyway? Musical ‘crate digging’ across Africa
  105. Are nonprofit news sites just creating more content for elites who already read a lot of news?
  106. Internet Archaeology
  107. The History Of The Music Industry’s First-Ever Digital Single, 20 Years After Its Release 

CREATIVITY 

  1.  Judge throws out 57-year-old copyright on “We Shall Overcome”: Pete Seeger asked for his name to be removed from the copyright in 1994.
  2. Monkey selfie case settles out of court 
  3. Lawsuit settled over rights to monkey’s selfie photo
  4. PETA drops lawsuit arguing animals have right to own property: Naruto can beat his chest: Monkey’s habitat wins 25% stake in the selfies.
  5. Monkey Selfie Case Reaches Settlement — But The Parties Want To Delete Ruling Saying Monkeys Can’t Hold Copyright
  6. 9th Circuit’s VidAngel decision vindicates lawful video filtering service
  7. Federal Court Says Utah Theater Can Serve Up Beer And R-Rated Movies Simultaneously
  8. Another Craft Beer Brand Gets Bullied To Death Over Shaky Trademark Claims
  9. Why Is This Peppa Pig Cartoon Banned In Australia?
  10. Can a tattoo on human flesh be copyrighted? We’ll soon find out: Is the human body a protectable medium of expression for purposes of copyright?
  11. Is Moviegoing Dead? Lessons Learned From The Worst Summer At The B.O. In Over A Decade
  12. America’s local newspapers might be broke – but they’re more vital than ever: Local journalism is doing great work across the country while fighting cutbacks and tight budgets.
  13. Intellectual Property and Architecture
  14. Boats Are Art; Is Fashion?
  15. Who Cares Whether Cake-Baking Is “Expressive”? The Doctrinal Costs of Focusing on Private Burdens Rather Than Governmental Purpose
  16. UGC Uncertainty Consternation Continues 
  17. Pop Stars or Porn Stars? ‘Blurred Lines’ Book Examines Music’s Role In Sexual Assault on Campus
  18. Dr. Phil Misuses Copyright In A False Imprisonment Claim
  19. Police Chief Says He’ll Decide Who Is Or Isn’t A Real Journalist
  20. Effectively Regulating E-Cigarettes and Their Advertising—and the First Amendment (Eric Lindblom)
  21. How Don Hewitt Invented 60 Minutes And Changed Journalism Forever
  22. Why the Fall TV Season is Like Your Junk Drawer
  23. Nicolas Cage Believes His Scrapped Superman Movie Is Better Than Man of Steel, Because It Exists Only in Our Minds
  24. Imagination is ancient: Our imaginative life today has access to the pre-linguistic, ancestral mind: rich in imagery, emotions and associations

MEDIA, COMMUNICATIONS & NET NEUTRALITY

  1.  TV Ad Spend To Remain Flat Through 2021 As Cord-Cutting Surpasses Projections (Report)
  2. More on Media Deregulation – Chairman Pai Speaks to NAB Radio Show and Promises to Propose the Repeal of a Rule Each Month 
  3. Comcast Whines That The Net Neutrality Debate It Keeps Rekindling Is A Lot Like ‘Groundhog Day’
  4. Comcast Continues To Insist Its Sneaky, Misleading Fees Are Just The Company’s Way Of Being ‘Transparent’
  5. Comcast Sues Vermont, Insists Having To Expand Broadband Violates Its First Amendment Rights
  6. Comcast raises sports and TV fees again, says it’s about “transparency”: Charges fees even in areas where Comcast owns local sports networks.
  7. Comcast puts YouTube in its TV boxes to entice would-be cord-cutters: YouTube follows Netflix to a prime spot on Comcast’s X1 set-top boxes. 
  8. Senators Blast The FCC For Weakening The Definition Of Broadband To Try And Hide The Industry’s Lack Of Real Competition
  9. AT&T’s John Stankey hopes to avoid a disconnect in merger with Time Warner
  10. This Sinclair-Tribune merger is a rotten deal for America: What’s to be done about “the most dangerous company most Americans haven’t heard of?”
  11. New analysis suggests Fox News is working, shifting votes to R column: Research relies on Americans being too lazy to keep channel surfing.
  12. Dirty, big secrets: Why won’t CNN and Fox account for their mistakes? 

SURVEILLANCE & PRIVACY

  1. Judge won’t release man jailed 2 years for refusing to decrypt drives: Kid-porn suspect to remain jailed pending 5th Amendment appeal to Supreme Court.
  2. Remember the artist whose iPhone was searched at border? He’s suing the feds: “The border doctrine does not say that the Constitution doesn’t exist at the border.”
  3. MA SJC Ruling on Bail Instructive Re: Algorithms and Criminal Justice
  4. NSA Broke The Encryption On File-Sharing Apps KAZAA And EDONKEY
  5. What you should know about privacy and Apple’s FaceID on iOS 11: Your rights may differ if phone is locked via biometrics compared to a passcode.
  6. New AI can guess whether you’re gay or straight from a photograph: An algorithm deduced the sexuality of people on a dating site with up to 91% accuracy, raising tricky ethical questions
  7. So, Equifax says your data was hacked—now what?: 143 million now face identity theft threat, so here’s what to do if you’re one of them.
  8. Why the Equifax breach is very possibly the worst leak of personal info ever: Consumers’ most sensitive data is now in the open and will remain so for years to come.
  9. Equifax Breach Response Turns Dumpster Fire
  10. Equifax Security Breach Is A Complete Disaster… And Will Almost Certainly Get Worse
  11. Why Some Are Recommending ‘Credit Freezes’ in the Wake of the Gigantic Equifax Data Breach
  12. Are you an Equifax breach victim? You could give up right to sue to find out: Visiting Equifax site to see if you’re a victim can require you to waive lawsuit rights.
  13. Failure to patch two-month-old bug led to massive Equifax breach: Critical Apache Struts bug was fixed in March. In May, it bit ~143 million US consumers.
  14. Don’t waste your breath complaining to Equifax about data breach (Bruce Schneier)
  15. Apple’s IOS 11 Will Make It Even Harder For Cops To Extract Your Data
  16. It’s about to get tougher for cops, border agents to get at your iPhone’s data
  17. The DNC’s Technology Chief Is Phishing His Staff. Good.
  18. Mandatory Data Breach Reporting One Step Closer with Publication of Proposed Regulations

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Class 2 Guest Speaker: Anoop Desai

By Jon Festinger on September 12, 2017

Anoop Desai will be speaking to us about the video game industry, it’s structure, opportunities and threats this coming Friday.

Anoop is Sr. Director, Business Development & Strategy at Electronic Arts (EA). As such Anoop partners with EA’s business units to define strategies and evaluate, negotiate & implement strategic partnerships to drive growth of EA’s digital business with a particular focus on:

  • New platforms (i.e. streaming, microconsoles, OTT services, VR).
  • New business opportunities complimentary to EA’s core business to drive player acquisition, engagement and monetization (i.e. eSports)
  • Product specific strategic partnerships (i.e. technology partnerships)

Anoop has been with EA since September 2007. He has a B.Comm from UBC (1994) and a JD from University of Calgary (2001). Anoop practiced law with Alexander Holburn until 2005.

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Class 1 – 9/8/17; “Introduction to the Course”

By Jon Festinger on September 10, 2017

Slides and video of our first class below…

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Acceleration to Authenticity: Emerging Trends in Online Legal Education

By Jon Festinger on September 10, 2017

For those of you in class on Friday who witnessed me prattling on (hopefully as minimally as possible) about the pedagogical intentions behind what we are embarking on, and somehow are curious about that, you may want to sneak a peak at the slides attached above. They are from a presentation from the day before that Will Engle of UBC CTLT and longtime friend and supporter of this course and I were invited to give to 2017 Annual Meeting of the Association of Canadian Legal Education Directors that was held this year at the Law Society of B.C.

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