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News of the Week; March 9, 2916

By Jon Festinger on March 8, 2016

GAMES

  1. Nintendo fends off Wii Remote patent suit appeal
  2. Rage Against The Convoluted ‘Rage’ Trademark Dispute
  3. Developer alleges China-based Eyogame Studio stole his iOS game
  4. Microsoft wants to monopolise games development on PC. We must fight it: Microsoft is looking to dominate the games industry ecosystem with its aggressive new UWP initiative. Developers must oppose this, or else cede control of their titles
  5. Epic CEO: “Universal Windows Platform can, should, must, and will die” – UWP first step towards “locking down the consumer PC ecosystem,” says Tim Sweeney.
  6. An upgradable Xbox One? Think this one through, Microsoft: Despite what it says, the rules of the PC market won’t fly on console.
  7. Lionhead shutdown shines a light on Microsoft Studios: First-party development for Xbox One has slowed to a trickle; does Microsoft’s third-party focus see Xbox as part of the Windows 10 ecosystem
  8. EA’s Ultimate Team earning around $650 million a year
  9. Yahoo launches eSports site
  10. Most gamers not interested in VR in 2016 – report
  11. Superdata cuts VR forecast by 30%
  12. HTC warns: Don’t sit on imaginary VR furniture when using the Vive – Also, have a friend on hand so you don’t trip over your cat. Seriously.
  13. Activision won’t have an E3 booth this year
  14. No E3 booths for Disney, Wargaming
  15. Why are some of gaming’s biggest publishers abandoning E3?: Wargaming, Disney join EA and Activision in sitting out the show.
  16. Activision, Riot among Fortune’s “100 Best Companies to Work For”
  17. Can a new CEO fix Zynga, which has lost nearly $1 billion since 2008?
  18. Valve notifies Steam users affected by Christmas breach…
  19. Steam user reviews can be bought for $5 – Report
  20. Kickstarter funded Bear Simulator abandoned by its creator
  21. Successful $100,000 Kickstarter Dev Calls It Quits Due To Drama
  22. Feminist Frequency and Crash Override Network announce partnership
  23. Iran Joins The Using Video Game Footage To Pump Up Your Own Military’s Reputation Arms Race
  24. Publisher Hachette launches gamebook format: “Our first gamebook utilizes gameplay from the BAFTA winning New Star Soccer”
  25. SEC goes after principals in 38 Studios loan deal
  26. Wells Fargo Sued For Being A (Shady) Shill For Curt Schilling

DIGITAL

  1. CSS and HTML Code May Be Copyrightable–Media.net v. Netseer
  2. Apple must pay $450 million as Supreme Court rejects e-book antitrust appeal: Appeals court ruled that Apple knowingly conspired with publishers to keep prices high.
  3. Reviewing the Fight Against ‘Astroturfing’
  4. These are the most hate-filled places in America, according to their tweets
  5. New Emmy Rules Open Categories to YouTube and Other Streaming Shorts
  6. YouTube Funds Women Video Creators, Teams With U.N. and Geena Davis
  7. Supreme Court Refuses to Provide Clarity on Discipline for Off-Campus, Online Student Speech 
  8. Using Scraper to Harvest Records Isn’t Fraudulent Access Under CFAA–Fidlar v. LPS
  9. Can Software Be Created As a Work-for-Hire? 
  10. Biggest patent troll of 2014 gives up, drops appeal: East Texas judge tossed out eDekka’s 168 cases, and it must pay attorneys’ fees.
  11. IBM sues Groupon over 1990s patents related to Prodigy: Big Blue also says it “owns” the idea of signing into an app with Facebook.
  12. ‘Made in America’ 2015? The TPP and the Future of Canada’s Digital Economy
  13. As 4th trial nears, Samsung asks judge: Make Apple stop talking about Korea: Judge refuses “overly broad” request but issues a warning to Apple lawyers.
  14. Canadian tech unicorn Hootsuite gets written down by Fidelity
  15. Whole lotta onions: Number of Tor hidden sites spikes—along with paranoia – What’s driving the surge in hidden services—is it government tampering?
  16. DRM Is Evil, Part 8,492: Nook Pulls Out Of UK, Exploring Options To Let People Retain Access To At Least Some Books
  17. Google Asked To Remove 100,000 ‘Pirate Links’ Every Hour
  18. Biggest patent troll of 2014 gives up, drops appeal: East Texas judge tossed out eDekka’s 168 cases, and it must pay attorneys’ fees.
  19. PewDiePie could win an Emmy someday thanks to new Academy rules: New and revised Emmy categories make room for short-form, online video content.
  20. We calculated the year dead people on Facebook could outnumber the living
  21. Facebook is eating the world (Columbia Journalism Review)
  22. Five Ways Machine Learning Is Shaping The Future of Advertising

CREATIVITY

  1. Kanye West caught using Pirate Bay to download music software
  2. Adam Levine’s Songwriter Competition Show Under Fire for Requiring Contestants to Waive All Royalties
  3. Copyright Suit Alleges Huckabee Campaign Lacks “Eye of the Tiger”
  4. The Donald Sends Cease And Desist Threat To Band Over The Use Of His Name In Music And Video
  5. Copyright and the US primaries: From Adele to Neil Young, why do artists keep getting Berned by politicians? 
  6. She should be so lucky: Kylie Minogue opposes Kylie Jenner’s bid to trade mark “KYLIE”
  7. Jimi Hendrix Estate Sues Distillery for “Purple Haze Liqueur”
  8. Author Sues Google For Copyright Infringement For Copying His ‘Philosophy’ In A TV Ad
  9. Fox News & Fair Use: How Transformed Does Reposted Content Need to Be?
  10. Copyright History: The Strange Case Of A Book Authored By Mark Twain Via A Ouija Board
  11. Bob Marley copyrights: decision of the Court of Appeal: What do words mean? Back to basics
  12. Why the Oscars’ Diversity Issue Matters to All Employers
  13. Former N.W.A. Manager Seeks to Save ‘Straight Outta Compton’ Lawsuit: Jerry Heller argues against the idea that he’s a public figure.
  14. The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP): Implications for Canadian IP Law
  15. Texas Court of Appeals Chops Machete’s Hope for Texas Film Production Incentives 
  16. Desperation Shows As Critics Argue That Nominated Librarian Of Congress Is ‘Pro Obscenity
  17. Producing in Canada – A guide to Canadian film, television and interactive digital media incentive programs (Dentons)

COMMUNICATIONS

  1. Study: Netflix is a major reason people don’t watch network TV – But there are still some broadcast channels that Netflix users watch.
  2. Viacom International’s CEO explains why he’s not worried about cord-cutting
  3. Canadian Cablecos Dodge Government Demand For Cheaper TV Bundles — By Hiding Them From Consumers
  4. Giving Pick-and-Pay a Chance: Why Skinny Basic Is Just the Start of More Competitive TV Pricing (Michael Geist)
  5. Public Knowledge: Comcast’s Usage Cap Shenanigans Violate Neutrality, NBC Merger Conditions
  6. AT&T to sell DirecTV online—no satellite dish or set-top box required – Still TBD: Which channels are available and whether the service will be zero-rated.
  7. AT&T Buying Missouri State Law Ensuring Broadband There Continues To Suck
  8. Comcast gets big tax break that was designed for Google Fiber: Oregon law was designed to help Google Fiber, but Comcast benefits, too.
  9. Verizon’s “supercookies” violated net neutrality transparency rule: Verizon agrees to $1.35M fine and will make it easier to avoid tracking cookies.
  10. Poor Americans will get $9 a month to buy broadband or mobile data: Lifeline program shifting from phone subsidies to Internet service.

SURVEILLANCE & PRIVACY

  1. Apple files appeal in ‘All Writs Act’ San Bernardino case
  2. San Bernardino DA says seized iPhone may hold “dormant cyber pathogen”: He says iPhone might be “a weapon” to trigger some nefarious worm of some sort.
  3. What is a “lying-dormant cyber pathogen?” San Bernardino DA says it’s made up: He now says there’s no evidence of cyber doom, wants iPhone unlocked to be sure.
  4. Full Brief From San Bernardino District Attorney Even More Insane Than Application About ‘Dormant Cyber Pathogen’
  5. Congress Seems Pretty Angry About The FBI’s Belief That The Courts Can Force Apple To Help It Get Into iPhonesSurprise: Pro-Surveillance WSJ Editorial Board Sides With Apple Over FBI
  6. We Read All 20 Filings In Support Of Apple Against The FBI; Here Are The Most Interesting Points
  7. Feds: New judge must force iPhone unlock, overturning ruling that favored Apple – Prosecutors claim All Writs Act can compel Apple to help unlock an iOS 7 iPhone.
  8. Secret court approves classified rule change on how FBI can use NSA data: Sources speaking to The Guardian say privacy measures are enacted.
  9. Bye, bye Canadian P.I.?: What Apple’s fight against the FBI means for the protection of personal information in Canada
  10. FBI v Apple – how might this play out in Australia? 
  11. France votes to penalise companies for refusing to decrypt devices, messages
  12. French Parliament Votes For Law That Would Put Tech Execs In Jail If They Don’t Decrypt Data
  13. Brazil frees imprisoned Facebook exec who couldn’t decrypt WhatsApp messages: With the help of US tax dollars, WhatsApp upped its security back in 2014.
  14. Different Brazilian Judge Orders Facebook Exec Released After Arrest
  15. Russian Parents Can Now Get Text Message Alerts if Their Kids Search for ISIS Online
  16. Reflections on Bruce Schneier’s talk, titled “Security and Privacy in the World-Sized Web”,
  17. These researchers tracked Banksy like a serial killer to reveal his identity
  18. Hacker who exposed Bush family e-mails, photos will be extradited to US: “Guccifer” leaked George W. Bush’s amateur paintings, among other things.
  19. French Parents Face Fines, Lawsuits And Prison For Posting Pictures Of Their Own Children Online
  20. Germany launches antitrust probe over Facebook data harvesting: Data-hoarding giant’s biz tactics could be unfair for users, says cartel office.
  21. Google extends right-to-be-forgotten rules to all search sites: That includes Google.com for the first time—blocked via geolocation data.
  22. Broadband Industry ‘Studies’ Claim Users Don’t Need Privacy Protections Because ISPs Are Just Harmless, Innovative Sweethearts
  23. Interesting Research on the Economics of Privacy (Bruce Schneier)

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News of the Week; March 2, 2016

By Jon Festinger on March 2, 2016

GAMES

  1. PS4 to sell 100 million – DFC: Research firm predicts Sony to hold dominant lead in console space; Xbox One and PS4 revenues to be 50% digital by 2019
  2. PlayStation TV over in North America and Europe too
  3. Stream PS4 games to your PC or Mac with next system update: PS4 version 3.5 expands the useful feature past Vita, PlayStation TV.
  4. Moon Studios CEO calls out console firms for hardware secrecy: Thomas Mahler says Nintendo NX will “just not have any software support” at launch due to lack of devkits
  5. Cratering portable sales can’t prop up Nintendo’s business anymore: With 3DS sales declining rapidly, Nintendo needs NX to succeed fast.
  6. Microsoft needs to stop forcing console-like restrictions on Windows Store PC games: With the upcoming Quantum Break a Windows Store exclusive, users are up in arms.
  7. Rock group says Final Fantasy XIV song is “a straight up rip off”
  8. EA abandons “ghost” trademark application: Ubisoft’s objected due to the existence of its Ghost Recon franchise
  9. Capcom taking aim at Street Fighter V rage quitters
  10. Naughty Dog apologizes for Ubisoft art in Uncharted 4 trailer
  11. Ubisoft seeks Canadian investors to help stave off Vivendi takover
  12. Gameloft board advises against selling stock to Vivendi
  13. Harmonix launches Fig campaign for Rock Band 4 on PC
  14. Halo World Championship sports $2.5 million prize pool
  15. Valve raises Counter-Strike eSports prize to $1 million
  16. Valve boss Gabe Newell fires host and production company after problems at the $3 million Dota 2 Shanghai Major
  17. Lawyer’s perspective: A legal evaluation of Riot’s new competitive penalty policy
  18. ESL and Intel launch eSports diversity initiative
  19. YouTube dominating Twitch in gaming videos – Newzoo
  20. Inside the Artificial Universe That Creates Itself: A team of programmers has built a self-generating cosmos, and even they don’t know what’s hiding in its vast reaches.
  21. Decades later, players are still unlocking secrets in classic Mortal Kombat: Ed Boon’s arcade diagnostic menus have remained hidden since the early ’90s.
  22. You wouldn’t be able to pause your video games today without Jerry Lawson: Lawson was a pioneering black engineer back when it was even harder in Silicon Valley.
  23. McDonald’s is trialling Happy Meals that can turn into VR goggles
  24. VR could make games a political scapegoat again – Capps
  25. Second annual Chicago Video Game Law Summit set for April 16th

DIGITAL

  1. Silk Road 2.0 Court Docs Show US Government Paid Carnegie Mellon Researchers To Unmask Tor Users
  2. Judge confirms what many suspected: Feds hired CMU to break Tor
  3. Tidal Sued For Unpaid Royalties And Cooking The Streaming Counts
  4. Stupid Patent of the Month: 100+ companies sued over “personalized content” – Patent owner says EFF “calls inventors names” to help the “anti-patent movement.”
  5. China Imposes New Restrictions on Online Publishing
  6. Saudi Arabia Sentences Twitter User to 10 Years in Prison and 2,000 Lashes for Apostasy
  7. US military launches cyber attacks on ISIS in Mosul, and announces it: Secretary of defense reveals cyber attacks in advance of ground battle for city.
  8. White House Asked Google & Facebook To Change Their Algorithms To Fight ISIS; Both Said No
  9. Patreon Moves To Give Users A Chance To Respond To DMCA Notices Before Taking Down Content
  10. Can YouTube’s Video Claiming Policy Be Improved?
  11. YouTube Addresses Concerns About Its Video Claiming Policy, Promises Changes
  12. Top 100 Most Subscribed YouTube Channels Worldwide • January 2016
  13. “Privacy Shield” proposed to replace US-EU Safe Harbor, faces scepticism: Unlikely to satisfy Europe’s data protection watchdogs—or the EU’s top court.
  14. Bitcoin Is “Property,” Rules California Judge in Pivotal Bitcoin Case 
  15. Machinima Pays NYAG $50,000 Over Undisclosed Endorsements
  16. Clickwrap, Browsewrap and Mixed Media Contracts: A Few Words Can Go a Long Way 
  17. Prize-Winning Novelist’s Facebook ‘Joke About White Guys’ Is Gone—and Back—in Less Than 24 hours
  18. NLRB Rejects Employer’s Attempt to Restrict Content of Employees’ Emails Sent Over the Employer’s Email System
  19. Appeals Court Dumps Apple’s Slide To Unlock Patent, Tosses Massive Jury Award Against Samsung In The Trash
  20. Apple’s $120M jury verdict against Samsung destroyed on appeal: Autocorrect and “slide to unlock” patents are invalid in light of prior art.
  21. The Trouble With the TPP, Day 37: Breaking Digital Locks For Personal Purposes (Michael Geist)
  22. Tyler, TX Brags About Its “Friendliness” to Patent Trolls
  23. Deadpool face-animation tech now embroiled in Hollywood legal battle: Company hopes to block distribution of films using Mova, a tech it claims to own.
  24. Op-ed: The international politics of VPN regulation – Repressive nations are pursuing increasingly diverse strategies for curbing VPN use.
  25. Wikimedia Foundation Executive Director Resigns Amid a Community Revolt
  26. 50 Cent Breaks the Golden Rule of Social Media Posting
  27. NY Times recommends ad blockers after CEO mulls ad-block ban: CEO says apps “ask for extortion to allow for ads;” paper says they conserve battery.
  28. Can a Blind Person Read Your Website?
  29. The nightmare of watching Netflix while battling PTSD
  30. Google’s Artificial Brain Is Pumping Out Trippy—And Pricey—Art

CREATIVITY

  1. Fairness Confirmed: Copyright Board Deals Another Blow to Access Copyright (Michael Geist)
  2. Access Copyright and Absent Universities & Colleges – As the Mandatory Elephant in the Room Patiently Waits and Watches (Howard Knopf)
  3. Quebec Court Dismisses Copibec Copyright Class Action Against Laval University (Michael Geist)
  4. Why Kesha’s Case Is About More Than Kesha: Lena Dunham + Lenny stand with Kesha, because we will not “accept shame and fear as the status quo.”​
  5. The Saddest Thing About the Kesha/Dr. Luke Lawsuit: It’s how familiar it all is.
  6. Pop music desperately needs more female producers
  7. This is everything Chris Rock said about race during his Oscars monologue
  8. Disney CEO asks employees to chip in to pay copyright lobbyists: Letter boasts of beating Aereo, getting TPP—and wants workers’ help in 2016.
  9. OMDC Response Confirms Minister Coteau’s Music Fund Claims Inaccurate (Michael Geist)
  10. Same Fears, Different Century: Stage Adaptation Of Orwell’s ‘1984’ Still Ominously Relevant
  11. China Won’t Broadcast the Hong Kong Film Awards Because of Dystopian Nominee ‘Ten Years’
  12. Egyptian Writer Ahmed Naji Sentenced to Two Years in Prison for his “Sexually Explicit” Novel
  13. Democracy warning as Canadian media outlets merge and papers close: Federal minister convenes talks as union calls for action over increasingly centralised ownership and publishers warn of threat to public interest journalism
  14. Court Beats Down Another Competitive Keyword Advertising Lawsuit–Beast Sports v. BPI (Eric Goldman)
  15. The Trouble With the TPP, Day 38: Limits on Canadian Digital Lock Safeguards (Michael Geist)
  16. The Trouble With the TPP, Day 39: Quiet Expansion of Criminal Copyright Provisions (Michael Geist)
  17. Canadian Libraries’ Response to Chapter 18 of the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement
  18. Disney CEO asks employees to chip in to pay copyright lobbyists: Letter boasts of beating Aereo, getting TPP—and wants workers’ help in 2016.
  19. Statutory rights to terminate copyright grants
  20. As Netflix Soars, HBO Comes Under Increasing Pressure
  21. 19 Reasons to be Thankful for “Fair Use”
  22. MashUp: The Birth of Modern Culture (Vancouver Art Gallery)
  23. Measuring Creativity: Learning from Innovation Measurement (WIPO)

 COMMUNICATIONS

  1. Bell tells staff to downplay new $25 basic TV package ordered by CRTC: Company is trying to make new, cheap TV package unattractive, Bell employee believes
  2. CBS Broadcasting Inc. v. FilmOn.com, Inc.
  3. ‘Wireless propaganda’ and the lame denials it inspires: Cellphone industry supporters and executives are trumpeting price studies that don’t mean anything. (Peter Nowak)
  4. Canada Forcing Cheaper, More Flexible Pricing On TV Industry March 1. Will It Work?
  5. Will ‘skinny packages’ tempt cable customers to stay connected?: Cheaper TV packages, ‘pick-and-pay’ channels available today
  6. FCC ‘Probing’ Whether Cable Companies Have Sabotaged Internet Video
  7. AT&T gave $62K to lawmakers months before vote to limit muni broadband: Missouri bill would make it difficult for cities to offer Internet service.
  8. AT&T Sues To Keep Google Fiber Competition Out Of Louisville
  9. AT&T sues Louisville to stop Google Fiber from using its utility poles: Lawsuit could delay Google construction, give AT&T head start in fiber race.
  10. When Comcast’s Business As Usual Turns Out to Limit Minority Access: What happens when a plutocrat’s “rational” decisions wind up affecting minority areas? Take a look at Hartford.
  11. One year later, net neutrality still faces attacks in court and Congress: FCC’s Title II and muni broadband rulings face uncertain future.
  12. Like the Internet itself, this policy debate should be open
  13. It took Verizon seven months to fix Internet outage in NYC building
  14. The Trouble With the TPP, Day 40: Mobile Roaming Promises Unfulfilled (Michael Geist)

SURVEILLANCE & PRIVACY

  1. Apple prevails in pre-San Bernardino forced iPhone unlock case in New York: All Writs Act can’t be used to achieve legislative goal that US Congress hasn’t granted.
  2. Apple prevails in forced iPhone unlock case in New York court – Ruling: All Writs Act can’t be used to achieve goal that Congress hasn’t granted.
  3. Judge In Different Apple Case Says That All Writs Act Doesn’t Mean Apple Needs To Help Feds Break Into Phone
  4. Federal Judge Says Third Party Doctrine A Perfectly ‘Good Law;’ No Warrants Needed To Obtain Cell Location Records
  5. Why the FBI’s Apple iPhone Demands Are Rotten to the Core (Michael Geist)
  6. We cannot trust our government, so we must trust the technology: Apple’s battle with the FBI is not about privacy v security, but a conflict created by the US failure to legitimately oversee its security service post Snowden (Yochai Benkler)
  7. Forcing Apple to Hack That iPhone Sets a Dangerous Precedent (Darrell Issa)
  8. Bill Gates refutes reports that he sided with FBI in Apple privacy fight
  9. Police chief: There’s a “reasonably good chance” not much is on seized iPhone – Top San Bernardino cop tells NPR there’s “low probability” unlocking it will reveal more.
  10. John McAfee better prepare to eat a shoe because he doesn’t know how iPhones work
  11. Apple tells court it would have to create “GovtOS” to comply with ruling: Claims in 65-page motion to vacate that it would have to build on-site FBI forensic lab.
  12. What’s At Stake In Apple/FBI Fight: Who Gets To Set The Rules That Govern Your Privacy & Security
  13. Apple CEO prepared to fight the FBI all the way to the Supreme Court
  14. The technology at the heart of the Apple-FBI debate, explained (Christopher Soghoian)
  15. FBI vs. Apple Establishes a New Phase of the Crypto Wars (Dan Froomkin & Jenna McLaughlin)
  16. Preliminary thoughts on the Apple iPhone order in the San Bernardino case: Part 3, the policy question (Orin Kerr)
  17. FBI is asking courts to legalize crypto backdoors because Congress won’t: The most lawmakers have done is float bill to create a “commission” to study issueApple’s encryption fight against the U.S. government could spill into Canada
  18. Why Canada isn’t having a policy debate over encryption
  19. Want To Report A Dangerous Drug Dealer? Just Enter Your Personal Info Into The DEA’s Unsecured Webform
  20. Most software already has a “golden key” backdoor: the system update – Software updates are just another term for cryptographic single-points-of-failure.
  21. Courts, DOJ: Using Tor Doesn’t Give You A Greater Expectation Of Privacy
  22. WikiLeaks Publishes NSA Target List (Bruce Schneier)
  23. Why Don’t Tech Reviews Discuss Gadget Security and Privacy? (Dan Gillmor)
  24. Online Privacy and the Invisible Market for Our Data (Rebecca Lipman)
  25. South Korea Embraces Ridiculous Right To Be Forgotten As Well
  26. 8th Circuit finds copyright preemption of publicity claim (Rebecca Tushnet)
  27. Eighth Circuit Tosses NFL Players’ Lawsuit

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News of the Week; February 24, 2016

By Jon Festinger on February 24, 2016

GAMES

  1. Seggie c. Roofdog Games Inc., 2015 QCCS 6462
  2. Nintendo-claimed video a “crystal clear case of fair use” says EFF attorney
  3. Nintendo addresses controversial Fire Emblem Fates scene by tweaking dialog
  4. PES 2016’s officially licensed Euro 2016 DLC only has 15 officially licensed teams: Republic of Ireland! Belgium! Sweden! More not included!
  5. Percentage of women devs “not good enough” – ESA CEO
  6. Vivendi in process of mandatory takeover bid for Gameloft
  7. Activision Blizzard-King acquisition closes: Publisher touts “largest game network in the world” with 500 million users
  8. Valve and HTC’s Vive priced at $800: VR kit will launch in April bundled with Job Simulator and Fantastic Contraption
  9. Will high-priced headsets kill mass-market virtual reality in its crib?: At $799, the HTC Vive isn’t exactly at a consumer-friendly price point… yet.
  10. The CW takes a gamble on primetime esports, with mixed results
  11. Jas Purewal on the business and law of eSports
  12. Rulesets within LCS and Global Leagues
  13. Do You Sell Games Online? Here’s A New Law You Should Probably Know About
  14. Are Video Games Art? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
  15. Kojima, del Toro vow to work together again after Silent Hills debacle: Pair of unlikely friends still eager to collaborate after Konami troubles.
  16. DICE bait: How open-world adventures took over gaming’s academy awards – Our definition of “Game of the Year” is getting a tad narrow and predictable.
  17. ARM: Mobiles will be graphically equivalent to PS4/Xbox One by 2017
  18. Smartphones that rival console performance are not a threat
  19. What dating a Japanese sim taught me about love
  20. Government recommends eight years in prison for Leland Yee 

DIGITAL

  1. Court Orders Uber To Control Its Google Search Results (Eric Goldman)
  2. Google’s appeal of worldwide injunction to be heard by Supreme Court of Canada
  3. Courtney Love Defeats Twibel Claims–Holmes v. Love
  4. Actor Can Proceed With Twitter Defamation Lawsuit, Likely to Unmask Anonymous Twitter User 
  5. Does it violate federal export law if a website publishes CAD files of firearms?: And does it matter if those files are already available on BitTorrent?
  6. Dentist said to hit patients will pay $12k for trying to out YouTube critic: “Psycho dentist” video remains up, and the attempt to remove it was costly.
  7. Online piracy: Dallas Buyers Club throws in the towel but the fight continues
  8. Appeals court says Apple’s settlement in e-book price-fixing case can stand
  9. Copyright As Censorship: Popular Twitter Account Keeps Getting Deleted Over Trollish DMCA Claims
  10. Using Copyright To Shut Down ‘The Pirate Bay’ Of Scientific Research Is 100% Against The Purpose Of Copyright
  11. Irony 101: Citing Copyright, Sony Takes Down YouTube Video About … Copyright; You can’t make this stuff up – An online lecture included as part of a course on U.S. copyright law offered by Harvard University in the U.S. and overseas has been taken down by YouTube due to a copyright claim by Sony Music.
  12. Three Strikes System In Australia ‘Too Costly’ For Industry; Seems Piracy Not Such A Massive Problem After All
  13. Posting Vacation Photos To Facebook Costs An Employee His Job
  14. This letter got me fired from my job at Yelp
  15. MindMaze Raises $100 Million with $1B Valuation for “Neural Virtual Reality Platform”
  16. Employers Must Be Careful Using Non-Disparagement Clauses to Discourage Employees’ Negative Online and Social Media Posts 
  17. Mozilla, EFF, and Creative Commons call for more openness in trade negotiations
  18. Robot Art Raises Questions about Human Creativity

CREATIVITY

  1. Fairness Confirmed: Copyright Board Deals Another Blow to Access Copyright (Michael Geist)
  2. Secrecy around $30M Ontario music fund strikes wrong notes: Geist – The Ontario government has exaggerated the impact of the first round of funding with the creation of relatively few new full-time positions and limited international investment in the province.
  3. Secret Spending & Weak Results: Why the Ontario Government’s Music Fund Strikes the Wrong Note (Michael Geist)
  4. Chinese government will ban foreign media from publishing online in China: New regulations will also apply to films, music, and computer games.
  5. Facts Be Damned. China’s President Demands Media Outlets Parrot the Party Line
  6. China’s young reporters give up on journalism: ‘You can’t write what you want’: The ever greater constraints placed on news reporting by Xi Jinping mean many Chinese journalists see no point in pursuing a media career
  7. NYPD Says It Has No Record Of Asking Disney To Use Copyright To Shut Down Times Square Characters, Despite Public Admission
  8. Sneaky Change to the TPP Drastically Extends Criminal Penalties (EFF)
  9. Quiet ‘Legal Scrub’ Of TPP Makes Massive Change To Penalties For Copyright Infringement Without Telling Anyone
  10. NextDoor boots reporter for reporting on police press conference: Chief will hear your questions—if you can prove residency. Does that violate law?
  11. Twentieth Century Fox Television V. Empire Distribution Inc.: District court rules Fox’s hit television show “Empire” did not infringe or dilute trademark of record label Empire Distribution because Fox’s use of “Empire” was protected by First Amendment.
  12. Kesha Loses Bid To Be Freed From Contract With Dr. Luke
  13. Feeling The Burn: Bikram yoga poses are not copyrightable says the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. Copyright owners need to act, says Kristen McCallion and John McCormick.
  14. Original 1977 Star Wars 35mm print has been restored and released online: There’s no Jabba, no CGI, and Han most definitely shoots first.
  15. “Hoverboard” company that had competitor raided at CES backs down: The Chinese defendant lawyered up, defended itself—and wants attorneys’ fees.
  16. New study confirms: Hollywood is white as hell
  17. 6 white actors who won Oscars for playing people of color
  18. The Oscar goes to: Men who play criminals and women who play wives

COMMUNICATIONS

  1. Yachts and Helicopters?: Why All Stakeholders Should Be Concerned By Blais’ Blast (Michael Geist)
  2. FCC votes to “unlock the cable box” over Republican opposition: Customers should be able to watch TV on any device without CableCard, FCC said.
  3. FCC Votes to Dismantle Cable’s Monopoly Over The Set Top Box
  4. Looking at the Decision of the Copyright Royalty Board on Internet Radio Royalties for Commercial Webcasters – What are the Issues that the Judges Considered? 
  5. Verizon faces probe of falling poles, sagging cables, and infested cabinets 

SURVEILLANCE & PRIVACY

  1. Feds to court: Apple must be forced to help us unlock seized iPhone: Both sides will square off in federal court in Riverside, California next month.
  2. Apple CEO Tim Cook says company won’t build the FBI a backdoor for the iPhone
  3. McAfee will break iPhone crypto for FBI in 3 weeks or eat shoe on live TV: One man & his crew of hackers will save freedom by hacking where no one else dares.
  4. FBI’s Own Actions Likely Made Farook’s iPhone Data Inaccessible
  5. Encryption isn’t at stake, the FBI knowsApple already has the desired key: The FBI knows it can’t bypass the encryption; it just wants to try more than 10 PINs.
  6. Google CEO sides with Apple, opposes court-ordered device backdoors: Pichai says US gov’t forcing Apple to “hack customer data” sets a “troubling precedent.”
  7. Bill Gates sides with government in Apple v. FBI fight
  8. Bill Gates Is Confused About Apple FBI Fight, Makes Everyone More Confused
  9. Pew Asks Stupid Misleading Question About FBI Apple Fight, Gets Stupid Misleading Answers
  10. The Obscure 1789 Statute That Could Force Apple to Unlock a Smartphone
  11. That Apple FBI back door thing
  12. Footnote Reveals That The San Bernardino Health Dept. Reset Syed Farook’s Password, Which Is Why We’re Now In This Mess
  13. Senate intel chief backs off on bill criminalizing refusal to aid decryption: It’s been a whirlwind week surrounding the encryption debate.
  14. Preliminary thoughts on the Apple iPhone order in the San Bernardino case (Part 1) (Orin Kerr)
  15. Preliminary thoughts on the Apple iPhone order in the San Bernardino case: Part 2, the All Writs Act (Orin Kerr)
  16. The iPhone Writ Large (Derek Bambauer)
  17. Apple CEO Tim Cook: Complying with court order is “too dangerous to do”: Internal letter, Q&A lay out Apple’s rationale for fighting court order.
  18. The List Of 12 Other Cases Where The DOJ Has Demanded Apple Help It Hack Into iPhones
  19. FBI’s Scorched Earth Approach To Apple Means That Tech Companies Now Have Even Less Incentive To Help Feds
  20. Court Says EFF Can Move Forward With Discovery In Its Big Case Against NSA Surveillance
  21. ‘Difficult to determine’ scope of privacy breach in Five Eyes data sharing: Lack of information about metadata sharing ‘unconscionable’ and ‘irresponsible,’ privacy advocate says
  22. ‘Trust Us With More Data,’ Say Government Agencies Hacked By A 16-Year-Old
  23. Privacy Advocates and ISPs Spar over Targeted Ads 
  24. Australian Tribunal Says User’s IP Address And URLs Visited Are Not Personal Information
  25. Avvo misappropriated identity for commercial use, says lawyer in class action 
  26. No compelling interest in right of publicity for private figure, 9th Circuit rules (Rebecca Tushnet)
  27. Ninth Circuit Tosses Hurt Locker Case
  28. Introducing Safe Harbour 2.0: the EU-US Privacy Shield
  29. From “Safe Harbor” to “Privacy Shield”: laying the groundwork for a new agreement on transatlantic data transfer with the United States

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News of the Week; February 17, 2016

By Jon Festinger on February 17, 2016

GAMES

  1. Apple Rejects Game Based On Bible Story Due To Content Including Violence Against Children
  2. Apple’s Binding of Creativity
  3. Hatred Devs Next Game Has You Fighting An ISIS Invasion
  4. Bethesda gets appeal of German Fallout 3 ban
  5. Yes, you can rely on Amazon’s new game engine during the zombie apocalypse: Lumberyard terms of service features a carve-out in case of reanimated human corpses.
  6. Kids, forget console gaming—play the FBI’s browser-based game instead: “Slippery Slope to Violent Extremism” is an awful game unworthy of even pirating.
  7. War Stories: What It’s Really Like Working on AAA Games at Ubisoft – Or why I quit my dream job to go indie
  8. Zoe Quinn drops harassment suit against ex
  9. US game industry pulls in $23.5 billion in 2015
  10. Mad Catz axing 37% of staff as Q3 profit dips 10%
  11. Play 1,000 Windows 3.1 games for free on Internet Archive
  12. Twitch’s Users Watch More Video In A Month, On Average, Than Typical YouTube Users Do
  13. Activision Blizzard gunning for NFL-scale eSports revenue
  14. It’s Time To Think About Protecting Nicknames In Esports
  15. Zynga posts $117 million full-year loss
  16. King’s profit and sales fall in 2015
  17. Kickstarter “maturation means more money, but not for more people” – ICO
  18. Rise of the Tomb Raider wins Writers Guild award
  19. Mattel gets Halo master license
  20. Who Really Conceived Guitar Hero Live?: A former Activision developer says the game was his concept and he ought to be credited.
  21. Headshot: A visual history of first-person shooters
  22. Study: As gamers age, their competitive instincts wane
  23. ESA mourns Scalia: Industry trade group remarks on passing of Supreme Court Justice who wrote majority opinion in 2011 game legislation case

DIGITAL

  1. Women are better at coding than men—if they hide their gender
  2. High Schooler’s “Murder” Tweet Isn’t “Cyberstalking”–State v. Kohonen
  3. Wikimedia Takes Down Diary Of Anne Frank, Uses It To Highlight Idiocy Of DMCA Rules, Copyright Terms
  4. Embattled copyright lawyer uses DMCA to remove article about himself: Marc Randazza tells WordPress that the unflattering story “is not fair use.”
  5. Six Strikes gets another extension
  6. Dish Agrees To Cripple Its Ad-Skipping DVR To Settle Fox Lawsuit
  7. BT ad claims that the Internet was invented in the UK: Surely the telco giant should know the difference between Al Gore and Tim Berners-Lee?
  8. Viacom and Snapchat strike bigger ad and content deal
  9. Microsoft looks to be retreating from EU antitrust fight against Google – ICOMP lobby group’s long-running campaign against search and ad giant collapses.
  10. Judge: Google dominance didn’t hurt online maps competitor – StreetMap traffic fell after Google began showing map previews in search results.
  11. France says Facebook must face French law in nudity censorship case – Paris court says Facebook cannot mandate that its French users sue in California.
  12. Why Journalism is not Dying in the Digital Age (Michael Geist)
  13. This woman is sharing millions of research papers online—and making some major enemies
  14. Kids will soon make their own toys with Mattel’s $300 ThingMaker 3D printer
  15. One Year In: Why A Die-Hard Mechanical Watch Lover Can’t Get The Apple Watch Off His Wrist (And Why That Matters)
  16. Warning: Bug in Adobe Creative Cloud deletes Mac user data without warning
  17. The incredibly sad world of niche dating apps
  18. Moore’s law really is dead this time: The chip industry is no longer going to treat Gordon Moore’s law as the target to aim for.
  19. Barry Diller: Data is the new cable
  20. Cryptopolitik and the Darknet (Daniel Moore & Thomas Rid)
  21. Robot Art Raises Questions about Human Creativity
  22. On the Ethics of Online Shaming

CREATIVITY

  1. Sony Music Issues Takedown On Copyright Lecture About Music Copyrights By Harvard Law Professor
  2. Children’s show in tribute to Frozen cancelled after legal threat from Disney
  3. “Happy Birthday” is public domain, former owner Warner/Chapell to pay $14M – Winning lawyer says more bogus copyrights may come under legal attack.
  4. “Rime” Graffiti Case Against Moschino Survives Dismissal 
  5. It’s a Bird… It’s a Plane… It’s…Superdad? California District Court Rules That DC Comics Can Pursue Its Trademark Infringement Lawsuit Against T-Shirt Maker
  6. Without Copyright Infringement, Deadpool Doesn’t Get Made
  7. Pirates in your neighbourhood: How new online copyright infringement laws are affecting Canadians one year later
  8. It’s not just the Oscars. The Grammys are incredibly white, too.
  9. Unbelievable: Saudi Arabia’s Vice Police Arrests a “Female” Mascot
  10. After Revealing Workplace Sexual Harassment, an Iranian Newscaster Says It’s ‘Time to Break Free’
  11. Cross-Border Copyright Guide 2016 (RPC)
  12. The Good, the Bad and the Strange of the Department of Commerce’s White Paper on Copyright
  13. International Intellectual Property Alliance wants more countries on USTR’s ‘Watch List’
  14. Copyright Protection in Canada for Artists
  15. The Perils of Going Native: Why Canadians Should Heed US Guidelines on Native Advertising 
  16. NY Attorney General Announces 4 Settlements Over False Endorsements 
  17. Why student journalists at University of Kansas filed a federal lawsuit
  18. What Vanna White, Albert Einstein, and Johnny Carson have in common: the right of publicity 
  19. Lights, Camera, Love: From ‘The Dating Game’ to ‘The Bachelor,’ TV dating shows have reflected, and even influenced, how we date in real life
  20. Which Comes First in Contemporary Music Technology: the Musician or the Machine?
  21. Why messaging is the future of the news brand
  22. The Digital Dirt: How TMZ gets the videos and photos that celebrities want to hide.

COMMUNICATIONS

  1. Why watching online video in Canada sucks
  2. Comcast begs Atlanta customers not to switch to Google Fiber – Comcast touts more on-demand video, voice remote; leaves out price and data caps.
  3. CRTC CASL Compliance and Enforcement Update 
  4. The Trouble With the TPP, Day 29: Cultural Policy Innovation Uncertainty (Michael Geist)
  5. Do customers still want landlines? Telecom industry doesn’t want anyone to hear the answer
  6. Here’s Why CBS Is The Future Of Television No One Saw Coming (Except Les Moonves)
  7. Full Copyright Royalty Board Decision on Webcasting Royalties Now Public 
  8. Current Telecom Developments

SURVEILLANCE & PRIVACY

  1. Judge: Apple must help FBI unlock San Bernardino shooter’s iPhone – Specifically, Apple must create custom firmware file so FBI can brute force passcode.
  2. No, A Judge Did Not Just Order Apple To Break Encryption On San Bernardino Shooter’s iPhone, But To Create A New Backdoor
  3. It’s legal for GCHQ to break into computers and install spyware, tribunal rules: Investigatory Powers Tribunal also says “thematic warrants” to hack an entire city are fine.
  4. AT&T Does Not Care about Your Privacy (Bruce Schneier)
  5. Apple: Dear judge, please tell us if gov’t can compel us to unlock an iPhone
  6. ISPs want “flexible” privacy rules that let them “innovate” with customer data – ISPs should be able to choose how they protect customer data, they tell FCC.
  7. O2 customers will have their Underground journeys tracked, analysed by advertisers – O2 will sell anonymised bulk data of about 1 million Tube journeys per day to Exterion.
  8. Google Partially Caves To French Demands For More Global Censorship Of ‘Forgotten’ Links
  9. Internet of Things to be used as spy tool by governments: US intel chief – Clapper says spy agencies “might” use IoT for surveillance, location tracking.
  10. Pressure grows to rethink Snooper’s Charter as Labour winds back its support: Opposition’s initial enthusiasm for the Investigatory Powers Bill has apparently cooled.
  11. The Limits of Tower Dump Privacy Protections
  12. New report contends mandatory crypto backdoors would be futile: With two-thirds of crypto developed abroad, crooks have plenty of non-US alternatives.
  13. The Trouble With the TPP, Day 28: Privacy Risks From the Source Code Rules (Michael Geist)
  14. The dark side of big data

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News of the Week; February 10, 2016

By Jon Festinger on February 10, 2016

GAMES

  1. Take-Two sued over 2K16 tattoos
  2. Take-Two Interactive accused of infringing tattoos in NBA 2K video games: Lawsuit says game maker rejected licensing demand of $1.1 million.
  3. Complaint Alleges Copyright Infringement for Video Game Featuring LeBron and Kobe’s Tattoos 
  4. The King and his (tattoo artist’s) copyright
  5. Is LeBron James a “Medium of Expression” under the Copyright Act? We May Soon Find Out 
  6. The Binding of Isaac rejected by Apple due to violence towards children
  7. Nintendo and its fanboy – one of them doesn’t understand ‘Fair Use’
  8. How exactly did Nintendo change the ‘petting’ minigame in Fire Emblem Fates?
  9. Game cracking group takes a year off as a “genuine sales” experiment: But other piracy groups will no doubt fill the gap they leave.
  10. Mad Catz chairman, CEO, general counsel all resign
  11. Morhaime: “You can’t really distinguish eSports from game development”
  12. Kids who played shoot-em-up games in the ‘90s were probably (mostly) OK: Study looking at negative impacts of video games finds small effects.
  13. Sony further extends PS4’s console sales lead over the 2015 holidays
  14. Bandai Namco sees growth in video games arm
  15. Nintendo’s profits drop 30% year-on-year
  16. Niko Partners: Chinese mobile market has hit peak growth – Analysts still predict domestic mobile revenues will top $11bn in 2019
  17. One man’s strange interaction with Bethesda customer support
  18. Just Cause 3 prompts despair among Chinese pirates
  19. Glu’s celebrity strategy faltered on Katy Perry, James Bond games
  20. Unsung Story development halted
  21. Nintendo puts its sleep-tracker plans to sleep: First part of the new “Quality of Life” initiative isn’t product-ready.
  22. 22cans makes changes to Godus Wars following DLC complaints: “The extra content being a premium add on really isn’t a popular choice”
  23. Chief Justice sells at least $250K of Microsoft stock in advance of hearing: Three justices own individual stocks, and that’s created more conflicts recently.
  24. The ESA must adapt or die
  25. ESA: SuperData’s critique on us “gratuitous, misinformed” – Rich Taylor, ESA’s Senior VP, Communications and Industry Affairs, responds to Joost van Dreunen’s opinion piece
  26. VfL Wolfsburg signs English 22-year-old for FIFA eSports team
  27. Sonic The Hedgehog’s Long, Great, Rocky History

DIGITAL

  1. BroadbandTV takes over as No. 1 online video network worldwide
  2. The Publisher Turf Wars: Facebook Instant Articles, Ad Blocking And The Future
  3. Clock ticking for Facebook to stop tracking French netizens: “We’re confident we comply with EU Data Protection law,” says free content ad network.
  4. How Does Netflix Pay Studios? What the Streaming Giant Does to Obtain Content
  5. Netflix and Amazon’s deals at Sundance don’t make economic sense because they don’t have to
  6. Everyone hopes Snapchat can boost LA tech. But is Hollywood holding Snapchat back?
  7. Magic Leap Raises $793.5 Million Series C Investment to Accelerate Adoption of Secretive AR Tech
  8. Google Can Derive Undisclosed Economic Benefits From CAPTCHAs–Rojas-Lozano v. Google
  9. Europe’s top court mulls legality of hyperlinks to copyrighted content
  10. NBC, Filthy Pirates, Sued Over Use Of Photographer’s Work Without Permission
  11. Client’s scathing Yelp reviews net divorce attorney $350,000 in damages
  12. eBay has no plans to fix “severe” bug that allows malware distribution
  13. Fake Online Locksmiths May Be Out to PickYour Pocket, Too: Odds are good that when you search Google for someone to help you get into your home or car, results will include poorly trained subcontractors who will squeeze you for cash.
  14. TPP would be disastrous for Canada’s innovators, Jim Balsillie warns
  15. The Woman Who Created Netflix’s Enviable Company Culture
  16. Twitter Wants You to Know That It Is Fighting Terrorists
  17. Inside the conspiracy theory that Microsoft has rigged the Iowa caucuses for Marco Rubio
  18. It’s not Cyberspace anymore. (danah boyd)
  19. Fashion and the IoT
  20. Google’s AI will battle Go world champion live on YouTube: DeepMind’s AlphaGo will take on South Korea’s Lee Sedol in March
  21. Why lost phones keep pointing at this Atlanta couple’s home
  22. Just think of all the jokes you can make with this ‘Simpsons’ screenshot search engine
  23. 20 Years Ago Today: The Most Important Law On The Internet Was Signed, Almost By Accident

CREATIVITY

  1. David Bowie’s Legacy On Copyright And The Future Of Music
  2. Will Performance Royalties Create a New Class of Radio Pirate?
  3. Warner To Pay $14 Million In ‘Happy Birthday’ Settlement; Plaintiffs Ask For Declaration That Song Is In Public Domain
  4. Ridiculous Copyright Fight Still Keeping The Only Video Of The First Super Bowl Locked Up
  5. The NFL wants you to think these things are illegal: Yes, you can record Sunday’s game. And you can talk about it.
  6. NFL Edging Towards Claiming A Trademark On ‘The Big Game’ Again
  7. How Freddie Mercury Refused to Allow HIV to Derail His Art: 25 years ago Queen released ‘Innuendo,’ a return to form that held a powerful secret
  8. The Yakuza Are Running Japan’s Hollywood
  9. Political Interference? The Culling of Japan’s Broadcasters Culminates in a Respected Journalist’s Ouster
  10. Changes to Canadian Work Permit Categories for Television/Film and Performing Arts 
  11. Offensive trademarks: can they be registered in Canada and the US?
  12. A history of black contestants on ‘The Bachelor’ and ‘The Bachelorette’
  13. The People v. O.J. Simpson Creators on Their Relationship With Veracity and Why All Film Is Manipulation
  14. Extremism Threatens Press Freedom

COMMUNICATIONS

  1. Verizon’s mobile video won’t count against data caps—but Netflix does: Verizon Wireless tests limit of net neutrality rules by zero-rating own data
  2. Comcast Using Minority Astroturf Groups To Argue Cable Set Top Box Competition Hurts Diversity
  3. States Wake Up, Realize AT&T Lobbyists Have Been Writing Awful Protectionist State Broadband Laws
  4. Facebook’s free Internet app banned by India’s new net neutrality rule: Zero-rating targeted by regulators overseas while it remains legal in US.
  5. India Bans Zero Rating As The U.S. Pays The Price For Embracing It
  6. Nielsen Plays Catch-Up as Streaming Era Wreaks Havoc on TV Raters
  7. Exclusive: With full power at CBS, CEO Moonves sees more aggressive move to digital
  8. Toronto City Council Sides With CRTC in Rejecting Mayor Tory’s Support of Bell Appeal
  9. The Trouble With the TPP, Day 26: Why It Limits Canadian Cultural Policies (Michael Geist)
  10. New EU-US Safe Harbour Agreement

SURVEILLANCE & PRIVACY

  1. UK-US deal would allow MI5 to get chat, e-mails directly from US companies: Concern over “dumbing down” of protections because of UK’s weaker safeguards.
  2. Previously tame UK parliament watchdog rips into new Snooper’s Charter: Committee says IPB’s metadata collection is “inconsistent and largely incomprehensible.”

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News of the Week; February 3, 2016

By Jon Festinger on February 3, 2016

GAMES

  1. Take-Two sued over portrayal of player tattoos in NBA 2K16
  2. Who owns the word “Ghost”? Ubisoft, EA fight it out: Ubisoft worries EA’s Ghost Games will be confused with “Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon”
  3. Atari and Haunted House Tycoon square off at upcoming USPTO hearing
  4. Sony’s “Let’s Play” Trademark Application Denied For A Second Time
  5. Sony is trying – and failing – to trademark “Let’s Play”
  6. PlayStation’s move to America won’t change its DNA
  7. Sony sold 8.4 million PS4s in Q3: 15.4 million after nine months, already higher than the whole of the last fiscal year
  8. Don’t look now, but the PC is the world’s biggest gaming platform: But it’s free-to-play and social gaming that’s driving the most revenue.
  9. EA lets slip lifetime Xbox One and PS4 consoles sales: 55 million units combined, minus Sony’s 36 million, leaves 19 million for Microsoft.
  10. EA goes solo for E3 Expo
  11. EA’s absence from E3 is not a death knell
  12. Star Wars Battlefront passes 13m shipped as EA exceeds Q3 guidance: GAAP net revenues were flat, however, and the publisher lost $45 million [UPDATE: physical sales dominated digital for Star Wars]
  13. EA: We’re on a “journey to regain trust of the PC gamer”
  14. GameStop makes publishing debut with Insomniac’s Song of the Deep
  15. Hearthstone’s new formats and the rise of digital scarcity: Old downloadable goods aren’t hard to produce, but they could soon be hard to get.
  16. USC to start publishing label focused on “innovative work”: USC Games Publishing aims to become the industry’s equivalent of the MIT Press
  17. Blizzard launches Heroes Of The Dorm 2016
  18. Icejam raises $3 million to develop “Playable Data” platform
  19. MGS V sells 6m, pushes Konami digital profits up by 150%
  20. Niantic’s Ingress has over 14m downloads
  21. Gameloft will have to return $3 million New Zealand grant: Closure of Auckland studio prompts government agency to “claw back” R&D grant
  22. Stump The Trump 2016 lets players squash Donald Trump
  23. Survival Island 3: Australia Story 3D game that encourages players to bludgeon Aboriginal Australians to death causes outrage
  24. ‘Tomahawk’ class in Bravely Second: End Layer altered for Europe, North America
  25. YouTube Personalities Use ‘Minecraft’ to Prey on Underage Fans

DIGITAL

  1. YouTube mobile reach ‘outstrips US cable nets’
  2. Alphabet’s market cap tops Apple, is now the world’s most valuable company
  3. Facebook prohibiting private firearms sales from unlicensed sellers: The company will remove posts reported by its users that violate the policy.
  4. Google to divert extremist searches to anti-radicalisation websites: Search engine giant reveals plans for pilot scheme to home affairs committee hearing, with Facebook and Twitter also probed over extremism policies
  5. Go, Marvin Minsky, and the Chasm that AI Hasn’t Yet Crossed: An expert in AI separates fact from hype in the wake of DeepMind’s victory over humans in the most challenging game of all
  6. Google’s AI beats Go champion, will now take on best player in the world: Google sets a neural network loose on the ancient Chinese game Go.
  7. The Internet of Emotions: Putting the person back into personalization
  8. Future of VR is social, say Steam VR developers
  9. The End of Twitter
  10. How India Pierced Facebook’s Free Internet Program
  11. Indonesian Carrier Blocks Netflix Streaming Service
  12. The esoteric debate that’s tearing the Bitcoin world apart, explained
  13. Has a Royalty Change Doomed Small Webcasters?
  14. YouTube community ‘reacts’ to questionable trademark filing
  15. Fine Bros back down, rescind trademark claim on the word “react”: Claim was for “programs… in the field of observing, interviewing groups of people.”
  16. How Two of YouTube’s Biggest Stars Became Its Biggest Villains Overnight
  17. The Fine Bros Plan Is Actually Pretty Cool If You Get Past How They Announced It
  18. Anti-swatting US Congresswoman targeted in swatting attack: Computer-generated voice called in threat to author of Internet Swatting Hoax Act.
  19. What’s stupid this month: Xerox patents sharing documents online
  20. DOJ Lies To ‘FOIA Terrorist’ Jason Leopold; Claim They Have No Documents On Aaron Swartz
  21. What’s the Legal Definition of a “Social Media Site”? Uh… (People v. Lopez) (Eric Goldman)
  22. The Twitter trial you never heard about: Toronto man found guilty of harassing Michelle Rempel
  23. Writer Claims Libel, Copyright Infringement When Screencap Of Her Tweet Is Used In An Online Article
  24. Newegg sues patent troll that dropped its case: “They started the litigation, and it would be irresponsible to not finish it.”
  25. Ecuador Continues To Use US Copyright Law To Censor Critics
  26. Ruling creates a ‘bizarre scenario,’ says lawyer: A flawed Small Claims Court decision vindicates critics who said digital lock amendments to the Copyright Act enacted in 2012 were too broad, according to a Toronto intellectual property lawyer. 
  27. Lawyer facing discipline for internal e-mails
  28. The Trouble with the TPP, Day 19: No Canadian Side Agreements to Advance Tech Sector (Michael Geist)
  29. Inside The Most Vicious Conflict On The Internet: When the internet’s pit bull obsessives grab ahold of something, they don’t let go.
  30. The Tragic Data Behind Selfie Fatalities
  31. Wikimedia’s newest board appointment steps down amid editor hostility: In a non-binding vote, 290 editors had asked for Geshuri to be removed.
  32. Closing the Tech Industry Gender Gap
  33. Hacking Technology’s Boys’ Club
  34. Nest Thermostat Goes From ‘Internet Of Things’ Darling To Cautionary Tale
  35. First-person drone racing is much harder than I expected: Apparently, strapping goggles to your face is the best way of piloting a drone.
  36. Can Robot Racing Win Human Hearts?
  37. Tech Companies Are Leading The Rise Of Crowdsourced A&R
  38. Will Machines Eliminate Us?: People who worry that we’re on course to invent dangerously intelligent machines are misunderstanding the state of computer science.
  39. Surveying Ten Years Of Top Internet Law Developments (Eric Goldman)
  40. Modern Grief: Confronting my husband’s digital ghosts—one email at a time

CREATIVITY

  1. The Trouble with the TPP, Day 18: Failure to Protect Canadian Cultural Policy (Michael Geist)
  2. Hasbro Sued For Font Piracy On My Little Pony Merchandise
  3. Monkey See, Monkey Do, But Judge Says Monkey Gets No Copyright
  4. Pick A Side: Video Of Creepy Girls Singing To Donald Trump Taken Down Over Copyright On WWI Song
  5. Commerce Department Wants To Fix Some Of The Worst Problems Of Copyright Law: Reform Crazy Damages
  6. New York Times Sues Publisher Over War Photos, Fair Use At IssueSeventh Circuit: Water Scientist Gagged By Lobbying Group’s Bogus Copyright Injunction
  7. USPTO white paper on remix, first sale, and statutory damages
  8. Party Raising “First Sale” Defense to Copyright Infringement Bears Initial Burden of Proof
  9. The S—–ness Of IP Law Has Taught The Public That Everything Is Stealing And Everyone Is Owed Something
  10. For Canadian innovators, will TPP mean protection – or colonialism?
  11. State of the Netflix union discussion with chief content officer Ted Sarandos
  12. Why ‘Kung Fu Panda 3’ Might Be The Most Important Hollywood Movie Of 2016
  13. The Future of the Humanities: Reading – As technology advances, doomsaying remains constant.

COMMUNICATIONS

  1. Canadian wireless bills: that’s a lot of coffee!
  2. CRTC executes another raid in malware investigation
  3. New Report To FCC Details How Binge On Violates Net Neutrality
  4. Lest there be doubt (Timothy Denton)
  5. The Trouble with the TPP, Day 20: Unenforceable Net Neutrality Rules (Michael Geist)
  6. Why Canadian Telecom Companies Must Defend Your Right to Privacy (Michael Geist)
  7. Ignoring cable industry protest, FCC says it will “unlock the set-top box”: Cable TV customers could save a lot of money on set-top box rental fees.
  8. Tom Wheeler fires back at cable lobby, says cable box fees are too high
  9. Cable lobby is really mad about FCC’s set-top box competition plan
  10. Inside the FCC’s audacious plan to blow up
  11. MLB Settles, Leaving Unanswered Questions: Do Sports Leagues’ Regional Blackout Agreements Violate Antitrust Laws?

SURVEILLANCE & PRIVACY

  1. Ontario Superior Court creates new privacy tort in revenge porn case
  2. Ontario court explicitly adopts new privacy tort: public disclosure of private facts
  3. New Privacy Tort: Public Disclosure of Embarrassing Private Stuff 
  4. Canada Temporarily Drops Out Of Five Eyes Spying Coalition, After Realizing It Wasn’t Properly Protecting Information
  5. Last-gasp Safe Harbor “political deal” struck between Europe and US: Draft EU-US Privacy Shield framework won’t be drawn up for several weeks, however.
  6. EU And US Come To ‘Agreement’ On Safe Harbor, But If It Doesn’t Stop Mass Surveillance, It Won’t Fly
  7. Interview: Safe Harbour 2.0 will lose again, argues Max Schrems – “Silicon Valley doesn’t rule world. Respect laws in each country,” says privacy campaigner.
  8. U.S. takeover of network carrying sensitive federal data raises security concerns
  9. How an Overreaction to Terrorism Can Hurt Cybersecurity: Encryption could have prevented some of the worst cyberattacks. Giving back doors to law enforcement will make matters worse (Bruce Schneier)
  10. Felon’s lifetime GPS monitoring upheld by US federal appeals court: Burden on privacy “must in any event be balanced against the gain to society.”
  11. Feds don’t need crypto backdoors to spy—your TV and toothbrush will do: Internet of Things opens government access to real-time, recorded communications.
  12. Uber has started monitoring smartphones to see when drivers are speeding
  13. Security And Privacy Standards Are Critical To The Success Of Connected Cars
  14. Databases create access to police misconduct cases and offer a handy tool for defense lawyers
  15. Employee GPS Tracking – Is it Legal? 
  16. Does property owner have the right to shoot down hobbyist’s hovering drone?
  17. “Don’t Panic”: Making Progress on the “Going Dark” Debate (Berkman Center)
  18. Protecting Children Vs. Protecting Privacy

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News of the Week; January 27, 2016

By Jon Festinger on January 27, 2016

GAMES

  1. Lawsuit against Oculus founder can proceed, judge rules
  2. Oculus Faces Messy Ownership Claims Over Its Head Mounted Display–Total Recall v. Luckey
  3. Call Of Duty Again Sued Over Another Historical Figure… Who Is A Good Guy In The Game
  4. Guitar Hero YouTuber Sings Acapella Version To Get Around ContentID Takedowns… Probably Is Still Violating Copyright Law
  5. Nintendo removes controversial “gay conversion” scene in Fire Emblem: Fates – US, European version won’t show female gay character getting drink spiked by male.
  6. Yandere Simulator banned from Twitch
  7. Nüdtendo series depicts Nintendo characters in the buff
  8. EA struggles to secure Unravel trademark
  9. Warner Bros. ignores PC players, drops Windows support for Mortal Kombat X: Following buggy PC launch, upcoming DLC will only come to consoles
  10. Skype to hide IP addresses by default, protecting gamers everywhere: Comms software has been widely blamed for enabling denial-of-service attacks.
  11. Capcom giving eSports a fighting chance
  12. Skillz launches new eSports multiplayer platform
  13. eSports market to grow 43% to $463m in 2016 – Newzoo
  14. PC trumps mobile, console in booming $61bn digital games market
  15. Game software to bring in $90 billion in 2016
  16. Sony unites PlayStation and Network operations under one division
  17. Why Women Now Outnumber Men At The Top US Video-Game Design School
  18. Donald Rumsfeld releases first game
  19. Minecraft Education Edition: why it’s important for every fan of the game – Microsoft has been demonstrating its new schools version of the blockbuster, but crucially this spin-off could break off from the original Minecraft modding community
  20. Virtual reality is about to completely transform psychological therapy
  21. Redbubble launches fanart program for indie devs: Studio-curated collections generate revenues for artists and IP owners
  22. Canadian man gets $8K refund from Microsoft for in-game purchases
  23. Research: Game-Based Learning Can Help Nontraditional Student
  24. Gamer reflects on how games helped shape his teenage attitudes towards women

DIGITAL

  1. Putin’s top Internet adviser seems to own a piracy torrent site: Site owner is also head of Russia’s Internet Development Institute.
  2. Meet the Thai Facebook User Sentenced to 60 Years in Prison for Insulting the Monarchy
  3. Appeal dismissed; use of trademarks in metatags in this case found not to be copyright or trademark infringement
  4. Constitutional challenges bring an end to Canada’s only provincial cyberbullying-specific legislation
  5. Judge Tosses Out Criminal Case In Canada Over Twitter Fight
  6. Evidence and Social Media: Notes from the Canadian Twitter Trial 
  7. It’s Not Harassment To Talk Tough About Your Court Case (And Litigation Opponent) In Social Media
  8. Posting Mocking Photo To Social Media May Be Tortious….If You’re Shaq–Binion v. O’Neal
  9. Forget TV, Netflix and YouTube dominate kids’ viewing
  10. Mozilla co-founder unveils Brave, a browser that blocks ads by default: Brave will replace blocked ads with its own ads, taking a 15% cut of revenues.
  11. Spotify Songwriter Lawsuits: What, Why And What Happens Next?
  12. Netflix starts blocking VPNs, proxies, and other unblocking services: Australian VPN company reports that Netflix has started blocking its IP addresses.
  13. Row erupts over MCN content takedown
  14. Censorship in the social media age
  15. If You Use An Adblocker You Hate Free Speech, Says Internet Ads Guy
  16. The Trouble with the TPP, Day 17: Weak E-commerce Rules (Michael Geist)
  17. Wait… we sued who?! Patent troll drops case one day after Newegg’s lawyer calls: Minero wants to tax every USB hub sold, but it will skip Newegg’s house brand.
  18. Google paid Apple $1 billion to be the default search on iOS: That number is the latest revelation from the ongoing court case between Oracle and Mountain View.
  19. Goldman Sachs Files Patent for Cryptocurrency “SETLcoin” 
  20. Three reasons why Bitcoin isn’t dead yet
  21. It’s Complicated: How Netflix and Amazon Add a Big Wrinkle to Sundance Deal-Making
  22. The Robots, AI, and Unemployment Anti-FAQ
  23. How the smartphone changed everything, or, the rise of BYOD in the workplace: Since the Blackberry, IT has struggled to keep up with demands for ubiquitous mobility.
  24. In South Korea, a rehab camp for Internet-addicted teenagers
  25. How a College Student Used Creative Commons to Dominate Political Photography
  26. When Virtual Reality Meets Education
  27. Wikipedia editors revolt, vote “no confidence” in newest board member
  28. The spreading of misinformation online
  29. Top 10 Internet Law Developments of 2015 (Eric Goldman)
  30. The Trouble with the TPP, Day 16: Intervening in Internet Governance (Michael Geist)
  31. Signing vs. Ratifying: Unpacking the Canadian Government Position on the TPP (Michael Geist)
  32. Age Of Abundance: How The Content Explosion Will Invert The Media Industry

CREATIVITY

  1. NYT throws hissy-fit, sues over use of thumbnails in critical book (Rebecca Tushnet)
  2. Vibrant Lives of Afghan TV Crew, Erased in a Taliban Bombing
  3. Morocco ramps up crackdown on press freedom with trial over citizen journalism
  4. Clinic Works w/Law Scholars to Argue Against Copyright in Legal Codes
  5. Why authors don’t need copyright protection long after death
  6. Fair Access: Striking the Right Balance on Education and Copyright (Michael Geist)
  7. Piracy Can Boost Digital Music Sales, Research Shows
  8. Copyright Is Nothing To Joke About
  9. Journalism Education’s Big Miss: Ignoring the Business Side
  10. How racially skewed are the Oscars?
  11. Social Media Slams India’s Judgmental Journalist
  12. SpringOwl’s 99 Page Presentation On Turning Around Viacom
  13. The Epic Fail Of Hollywood’s Hottest Algorithm: When Ryan Kavanaugh wasn’t hanging out with Bradley Cooper, or leasing a horse for Kate Bosworth, or negotiating a Golden Globes shout-out from Christian Bale, or bringing a baby wolf to the office, he was talking up the sweetest game in Hollywood – the chance to invest in movies that seemed certain to succeed.
  14. Can film help save the world?
  15. Chinese Firm Now Owns The Rights To Tiananmen Square Tank Man Photo; What Could Possibly Go Wrong?
  16. France says AZERTY keyboards fail French typists: “Almost impossible” to write correctly in French with a French keyboard, officials say.
  17. Nestlé vows to battle on after latest Kit Kat blow in the High Court
  18. Transparent and Participatory Processes Are Vital to Creating Copyright Rules that Work for Everyone

COMMUNICATIONS

  1. ESPN Pretends It Saw Cord Cutting Coming, Says Departing Subscribers Old And Poor Anyway
  2. ISPs try to kill open-access fiber network, avoid competition
  3. AT&T CEO Thinks You’re A Forgetful Idiot, Hilariously Gives Apple Encryption Advice 

SURVEILLANCE & PRIVACY

  1. Phone Companies after R v. Rogers: Constitutional Guardians or Agents of the State?
  2. Canadian Supreme Court Tightens Up Rules On Law Enforcement’s Use Of Cell Tower Dumps
  3. Almost 12 Years After Calling a Reporter, DOJ Whistleblower Slapped With Ethics Charges
  4. Ethics charges filed against DOJ lawyer who exposed Bush-era surveillance: Thomas Tamm exposed “the program” which provided the fodder for a Pulitzer Prize.
  5. When You Crack Open The Surveillance Door, The Food Police Will Want Your Metadata
  6. Shodan Lets You Browse Insecure Webcams
  7. How to search the Internet of Things for photos of sleeping babies: Shodan search engine is a creepy reminder of why we need to fix IoT security.
  8. “Internet of Things” security is hilariously broken and getting worse: Shodan search engine is only the latest reminder of why we need to fix IoT security.
  9. Ding-Dong — Your Easily Hacked ‘Smart’ Doorbell Just Gave Up Your WiFi Credentials
  10. Meet the shadowy tech brokers that deliver your data to the NSA: These so-called “trusted third-parties” may be the most important tech companies you’ve never heard of. ZDNet reveals how these companies work as middlemen or “brokers” of customer data between ISPs and phone companies, and the U.S. government.
  11. What’s The Difference Between ‘Mass Surveillance’ And ‘Bulk Collection’? Does It Matter?
  12. AT&T CEO okay with giving the US government encryption backdoor access
  13. AT&T CEO won’t join Tim Cook in fight against encryption backdoors
  14. Why Apple Defends Encryption
  15. France Rejects Backdoors in Encryption Products
  16. How The UK’s Counter-Terrorism And Security Act Has Made Law Enforcement Into The Literal Grammar Police
  17. The White House Asked Social Media Companies to Look for Terrorists. Here’s Why They’d #Fail.
  18. The Trouble with the TPP, Day 13: Ban on Data Transfer Restrictions (Michael Geist)
  19. The Trouble with the TPP, Day 14: No U.S. Assurances for Canada on Privacy (Michael Geist)
  20. The Next Social Media We Want and Need!: Crypto giant David Chaum explains his PrivaTegrity, and tells why it’s so vital
  21. Cute to “a little sinister”—the beauty of US spy satellite rocket launch logos
  22. Should Animals Have a Right to Privacy?: Some animals are internet stars. Others are subject to obsessive data collecting in the wild. But this visibility comes at a price.

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News of the Week; January 20, 2016

By Jon Festinger on January 20, 2016

GAMES

  1. Activision sued for portraying Angolan rebel as murderous “halfwit”: Family of Jonas Savimbi object to his depiction in Call of Duty: Black Ops II
  2. Call of Duty publisher sued by family of Angolan rebel: Jonas Savimbi is portrayed as a ‘barbarian’ in Call of Duty: Black Ops II say three of his children who seek €1m damages
  3. Supreme Court will hear Microsoft’s appeal in Xbox 360 case: Microsoft wants the disc scratching class-action lawsuits thrown out
  4. Big Fish’s Virtual Casino Doesn’t Violate Washington’s Gambling Statute
  5. What legal experts think of Sony’s ‘Let’s Play’ trademark claim
  6. Can Sony Trade Mark ‘Let’s Play’?
  7. Law Firm Challenges Sony’s ‘Let’s Play’ Trademark Before It’s Too Late
  8. American game developer freed from Iranian custody after four years: Amir Mizra Hekmati convicted of espionage over “documentary” war games.
  9. Life Is Strange sparks Square Enix anti-bullying campaign
  10. Twitch’s #GeekGirlDinner
  11. Feminist Frequency announces format change for remaining Tropes vs Women videos
  12. Vivendi sells its stake in Activision Blizzard: Former parent company unloads remaining 5.7% interest in publisher for $1.1 billion
  13. Analysts cool on VR, eSports: Deloitte Global restrained about growth markets’ 2016 performance, expects mobile to get tougher for devs
  14. A final nail in the coffin of cloud streaming: Streaming gameplay from data centres was never a good idea, and now it’s a dead one – but the tech that drove it is helping to reshape our industry
  15. The Oculus Rift is Now 4 Months Backordered
  16. New Hitman game switches to episodic model: “We fully acknowledge that the decision may frustrate some players”
  17. PewDiePie Gets To Be The Boss Of His Own YouTube Network Thanks To Disney
  18. ESPN ramps up eSports coverage
  19. ESA: People “deserve better” than NPD numbers: Trade group upset that released data doesn’t take digital or mobile revenues into account
  20. Kickstarter: $46 million pledged to video games in 2015
  21. Real Sports Money Moves Into Video Game Sports?: Investors, some with big-league sports backgrounds, are transforming the most prominent competitive video game league.
  22. Duke Nukem actor refused gig as voice of Republican presidential ad campaign
  23. Dan Pinchbeck wins Writer’s Guild award: Chinese Room co-founder picks up prize for Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture
  24. Microsoft, Crytek launch educational gaming initiatives
  25. Much more than Mario Kart: The history of kart racers

DIGITAL

  1. Netflix cracks down on customers using VPNs, proxies, and unblockers: It may affect all VPN users, not just those trying to evade license restrictions.
  2. How Twitter quietly banned hate speech last year: Company now emphasizes safety and free expression rather than lack of censorship.
  3. Apple axes free iTunes Radio service, directs listeners to Beats 1 instead
  4. Access Copyright Demands Higher Royalties Due to Education Investment in Technology (Michael Geist)
  5. Big Data Can Be Used To Violate Civil Rights Laws, and the FTC Agrees
  6. FTC Issues Report (and Warning Shot) on Big Data Use 
  7. After five years of conflict with Apple, some Samsung phone features are banned: The injunction on old phones still irks Samsung.
  8. The Trouble with the TPP, Day 10: Criminalization of Trade Secret Law (Michael Geist)
  9. The Perkins v. LinkedIn Class Action Settlement Notification Was Badly Bungled (Eric Goldman)
  10. PC shipments showed record decline in Q4 2015
  11. The Complicated Relationship between DMCA Takedown Notices and the Word “Expeditious”
  12. The Dangers of a Blockchain Monoculture
  13. Ad Blocking: A Primer
  14. YouTube star Colleen Evans gets her own Netflix show based on Miranda Sings
  15. NBC Exec: Netflix Poses No Threat To Us, God Wants You To Watch Expensive, Legacy TV
  16. Mom and Dad swiped right: Meet the Tinder babies! 

CREATIVITY

  1. Croatian cake pirates threatened with lawsuits: If you have Disney characters on your confections, you will be sued.
  2. Bernie Sanders lawyers to Wikipedia: Take down our logo, you’re violating DMCA – In today’s political DMCA spat, $10 sticker sales are pitted against fair use.
  3. Hollywood Helps Show Why DMCA Takedowns Are Dangerous, By Taking Down Links To MPAA’s Search Engine
  4. Judge Swain Rejects Artist’s Copyright Claim Against Starbucks Over Ad Campaign 
  5. Metallica Sends 41 Page Legal Threat To Canadian Cover Band 
  6. God v. Copyright: Mike Huckabee Invokes Religion In Copyright Suit
  7. The use of “iwatch” as an AdWords keyword by Apple does not infringe an earlier third party’s trademark, says the IP Court of Milan
  8. Newspaper bosses ‘paralyzed’ by change, clueless about paid content, says Steve Brill
  9. ‘Cartel’ Author Don Winslow Responds To Sean Penn: “Call It Anything You Want – Except Journalism”
  10. Lego Says It Is Changing Its Policy After Ai Weiwei Controversy
  11. Lego Reverses Policy On Block Orders For Political Projects After Public Shaming
  12. Disney Stock Crashes Due to ESPN Concerns. Is This a Buying Opportunity?
  13. What was the TV channel?: In the midst of cable’s existential meltdown, ABC Family rebrands to Freeform
  14. Supreme Court takes up copyright case over resold textbooks—again
  15. Copyright Question: Does David Bowie Get The Copyright On Computer Generated Lyrics?
  16. A Lesson from the History of Italian Opera: Some Copyright Good/More Copyright Useless
  17. Copyright and Creativity – Evidence from Italian Opera (Michela Giorcelli & Petra Moser)
  18. in defense of fair dealing (Meera Nair)

COMMUNICATIONS

  1. Big Three wireless carriers to raise prices as low loonie takes toll
  2. Verizon Wireless selling data cap exemptions to content providers: Video, music, app downloads, and ads can be exempted from caps for a fee.
  3. What Washington Has in Store for Broadcasters in 2016 – Looking at the Legal Issues that the FCC Will Be Considering in the New Year 
  4. Regulator raises questions about future Internet services as ‘dark cloud’ looms 

SURVEILLANCE & PRIVACY

  1. Ontario court rules police orders breached cellphone users’ Charter rights
  2. Top European court to snooping governments: Mass surveillance needs judicial oversight – ECHR rules Hungarian anti-terror law infringes on basic human rights. Watch out, UK.
  3. European Court Of Human Rights May Have Just Outlawed Mass Surveillance Without Most People Realizing It
  4. UK Appeals Court Says UK Terrorism Act’s Detention Clause Violates Press Freedoms
  5. EFF Wants Cisco Held Responsible For Helping China Track, Torture Falun Gong Members
  6. Australia’s new metadata retention laws
  7. BlackBerry — Which Said It Wouldn’t Protect Criminals — Assures Criminals Its Phones Are Still Secure
  8. Rightscorp agrees to pay $450,000 for illegal robocalls: Class action ends after plaintiffs suffered an anti-SLAPP setback last year.
  9. More Data Breach Lawsuits Fail In Court–Michaels Stores and SuperValu
  10. Should We Allow Bulk Searching of Cloud Archives? (Bruce Schneier)
  11. A Few Keystrokes Could Solve the Crime. Would You Press Enter? (Jonathan Zittrain)
  12. Another US ag-gag law outlawing data collection is challenged in court: Bill bans secret filming or sound recording on an employer’s premises.
  13. Feds Confirm Cardinals Accessed Astros System With Old Password, File Unauthorized Access Charges
  14. The Trouble with the TPP, Day 11: Weak Privacy Standards (Michael Geist)
  15. The Trouble with the TPP, Day 12: Restrictions on Data Localization Requirements (Michael Geist)
  16. Sean Penn’s Opsec (Bruce Schneier)

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News of the Week; January 13, 2016

By Jon Festinger on January 13, 2016

Games

  1. Will Supreme Court tackle 1st Amendment issue in Madden NFL litigation?: Expression in movies, plays, books, music, and video games hangs in the balance.
  2. Virtual Casino Doesn’t Violate California’s Gambling Law–Mason v. Machine Zone
  3. Fake Minecraft sequel pulled from App Store
  4. Just Cause 3 prompts despair among Chinese pirates
  5. Major piracy group warns games may be crack-proof in two years: The never-ending game-cracking battle may be tilting toward digital protection.
  6. Nintendo claims fanboy’s YouTube video, fanboy extends middle finger
  7. Canadian father gets nearly $8K credit card bill for FIFA purchases
  8. “I am not a terrorist”: Muslim man barred from playing Paragon beta – Florida professor shows up on government terror watchlist, can’t sign up to play.
  9. Sony fails to secure “Let’s Play” trademark: Refused by USPTO because “consumer confusion is likely”
  10. Sony Just Tried To Trademark ‘Let’s Play’ And Failed For The Wrong Reason
  11. Luckey: “I handled the messaging poorly” – Oculus founder apologises for pricing shock, but maintains that “we don’t make money on the Rift”
  12. Oculus must open the warchest and show us the software: $600 makes Oculus Rift into a platform, not a gadget – and that makes it absolutely essential that Oculus prove its worth in software
  13. Oculus: PlayStation VR addresses “a separate market”
  14. VR game devs ready for a slow launch after $599 Oculus Rift reveal: Early-bird studios prepared for a long wait before VR reaches the mainstream.
  15. Oculus open to subsidizing Rift in the future
  16. Oculus founder: “Your crappy PC is the biggest barrier to [VR] adoption” – Luckey says demand will force down the costs for VR’s underlying hardware.
  17. A negative-sum game: Policing Counter-Strike: GO cheaters with Overwatch – In battling cheaters, Valve crowdsources the judge, jury, and executioner.
  18. Xbox only hurting itself by refusing to share sales numbers: Microsoft’s fear of comparisons to the PS4 is taking focus away from the Xbox One’s considerable successes
  19. EA launches $5 monthly subscription plan to access “vault” PC games
  20. EA expands US parental leave policy
  21. Marc Laidlaw retires from Valve: Half-Life writer confirms departure from studio after nearly 20 years
  22. New approach by Valve pays dividends in Steam Winter Sale
  23. Early Access angst? Why it’s OK to sell unfinished games
  24. GameStop rakes in nearly $3 billion over holidays: New console sales and collectibles drive revenues up slightly; thin Nintendo lineup blamed for lower software sales
  25. Report: game industry spent $629.2 million on TV ads in 2015
  26. Xbox only hurting itself by refusing to share sales numbers
  27. Games dominated the UK’s entertainment top 10 in 2015: Three of the top five were games, digital revenue rose by 17 per cent
  28. Writers Guild of America doles out game nominations
  29. How a game-playing robot coded “Super Mario Maker” onto an SNES—live on stage: Writing a level editor atop active code with the controller ports and 8KB of SRAM.
  30. Norwegian high school puts e-sports and gaming on the timetable: Students will have five hours a week of reflex training, nutrition advice, and game study.
  31. Research finds positive correlation between playing action video games and the acquired capability for suicide
  32. That Dragon, Cancer: A game that wrestles with grief, hope, and faith
  33. Razer to donate That Dragon, Cancer proceeds to charity

Digital

  1. Appeals court upholds deal allowing kids’ images in Facebook ads
  2. Yahoo settles e-mail privacy class-action: $4M for lawyers, $0 for users – Company won’t stop scanning e-mail for ads, but plaintiffs now seem unbothered.
  3. Online Dating Services Must Give California Users a “Cooling Off” Period–Howell v. Grindr
  4. German Publishers Still Upset That Google Sends Them Traffic Without Paying Them Too; File Lawsuit
  5. European Court of Human Rights Rules Turkey’s YouTube Ban Violated Rights to Receive and Impart Information
  6. Why Is The Federal Government Shutting Down A CES Booth Over A Patent Dispute?
  7. ESPN Employees Keep Failing To Disclose Their Advertising Tweets As Advertising
  8. The Trouble with the TPP, Day 4: Copyright Notice and Takedown Rules (Michael Geist)
  9. The Trouble with the TPP, Day 5: Rights Holders “Shall” vs. Users “May” (Michael Geist)
  10. The Trouble with the TPP, Day 6: The Price of Entry (Michael Geist)
  11. The Trouble with the TPP, Day 7: Patent Term Extensions
  12. Living in a Nonmaterial World: Determining IP Rights for Digital Data
  13. ProPublica Launches the Dark Web’s First Major News Site
  14. The high-tech cop of the future is here today
  15. Peak content: The collapse of the attention economy
  16. Insiders say what’s going on inside $11 billion Pinterest — and it’s not all good
  17. YouTube’s Robert Kyncl says digital video will trump TV by 2020
  18. YouTube’s CES Keynote: Four Reasons Why Digital Video Will Win the Decade
  19. Before Rachel Bloom was a Golden Globe winner, she was a YouTube star
  20. Periscope Videostreams Now Appear — And Autoplay — Inside the Twitter App
  21. Streaming Music Platforms Soar, Apple Surpasses 10M Subscribers
  22. Netflix says it’s ‘not obvious’ how to limit use of VPNs
  23. Virtual reality: A new frontier in journalism ethics
  24. Virtual Reality Could Provide Healthy Escape for Homesick Astronauts
  25. A Strategist’s Guide to Blockchain: The distributed ledger technology that started with bitcoin is rapidly becoming a crowdsourced system for verifying transactions of all types. Could it replace central banks, notary publics, and manual vote recounts?
  26. Intel continues diversity initiative and announces new one to combat online harassment
  27. Meltdown at Wikipedia?
  28. Inside LaPresse+ Decisive and Final Move to Digital
  29. Why Programmatic TV is Still Stuck in First Gear: TV industry slow to adopt digital ad practices, though certain tactics show promise
  30. Bill Ford Isn’t Scared of Apple: Henry’s great-grandson explains how the automaker can become a software-driven service company that makes cars, too
  31. People call me Aaron

Creativity

  1. Court Finds Monkey Can’t Own Selfie Copyright
  2. Monkey selfie case: judge rules animal cannot own his photo copyright – A San Francisco court said that while the protection of law could be extended to animals, there was no indication that it was in the Copyright Act
  3. No Monkeying Around: Judge Rules That Animals Cannot Hold Copyrights, Do Not Have Standing to Sue 
  4. Louis Vuitton Loses Trademark Lawsuit Over Joke Bag; Judge Tells Company To Maybe Laugh A Little Rather Than Sue
  5. Why Radio Stations Probably Couldn’t Just Play David Bowie Music As A Tribute: Copyright Law Is Messed Up
  6. Once Again, Piracy Is Destroying The Movie Industry… To Ever More Records At The Box Office
  7. Hateful Eight Pirated Leak Harms Film All The Way To Box Office Records
  8. Censor or die: The death of Mexican news in the age of drug cartels
  9. The Case of the Missing Hong Kong Book Publishers
  10. How Mickey Mouse Evades the Public Domain
  11. How much election influence does “the media” really have? Digging into the data
  12. Devil Music: A History of the Occult in Rock & Roll – From The Beatles and the Stones to Led Zep, Alice Cooper and Black Sabbath, how the dark arts cast a spell on popular music

Communications

  1. The Battle Over the Future of Broadband in Canada: Mayors Tory & Watson v. Nenshi (Michael Geist)
  2. Zero for Conduct: On the surface, it sounds great for carriers to exempt popular apps from data charges. But it’s anti-competitive, patronizing, and counter-productive. (Susan Crawford)
  3. With Fixed Costs And Fat Margins, Comcast’s Broadband Cap Justifications Are Total B.S.
  4. T-Mobile Doubles Down On Its Blatant Lies, Says Claims It’s Throttling Are ‘Bullshit’ And That I’m A ‘Jerk’
  5. John Legere asks EFF, “Who the f**k are you, and who pays you?”: T-Mobile CEO takes on digital rights group that objected to video throttling.
  6. T-Mobile’s John Legere Goes Off The Deep End: ‘Who The F*** Are You, EFF?‘
  7. T-Mobile to meet with FCC over Binge On
  8. Streaming Video Company Drops Out Of BingeOn To Protest John Legere’s Attack On EFF; It Will Still Get Throttled, Though
  9. John Legere apologizes to EFF for mocking group in throttling debate: “I am a vocal, animated, and sometimes foul-mouthed CEO,” T-Mobile boss says.
  10. John Legere Just Can’t Stop The Misleading B.S. About BingeOn
  11. What T-Mobile Is Really Doing And Why It Violates Net Neutrality
  12. AT&T’s unlimited smartphone data is back—but only for TV subscribers: No tethering, and the $100 plan is only for DirecTV and U-verse TV customers.
  13. AT&T Is Happy To Remove Wireless Broadband Caps, But Only If You Sign Up For Its TV Services
  14. ISPs mad that FCC wants faster broadband deployment: FCC insists that US can do better, with 10 percent still lacking access.
  15. House Rushes To Gut FCC Authority To Prevent Inquiry Into Comcast Broadband Caps
  16. Settlement Reached In Class Action Lawsuit Against Rightscorp For Robocalls
  17. CASL – year in review
  18. Canadian Anti-Spam Enforcement 2015: A Year in Review
  19. Replacing Judgment with Algorithms (Bruce Schneier)

Surveillance & Privacy

  1. Two months after FBI debacle, Tor Project still can’t get an answer from CMU
  2. Saudi Arabia Arrests Samar Badawi for Tweeting on Behalf of Her Jailed Husband
  3. Juniper drops NSA-developed code following new backdoor revelations: Researchers contradict Juniper claim that Dual_EC_DRBG weakness couldn’t be exploited.
  4. Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Twitter, Yahoo slag Snooper’s Charter: US Internet companies warn that harmful moves by the UK will have global impact.
  5. Canadian Cops Can Decrypt PGP BlackBerrys Too
  6. The Internet of Things that Talk About You Behind Your Back (Bruce Schneier)
  7. The risks — and benefits — of letting algorithms judge us (Bruce Schneier)
  8. US Intelligence director’s personal e-mail, phone hacked

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News of the Week; January 6, 2016

By Jon Festinger on January 10, 2016

GAMES

  1. “World of Warcraft” Creator Takes Battle to Court over Game’s Characters
  2. $100M Copyright Infringement Lawsuit Settled For…An Apology?
  3. Ember settles Machine Zone copycat suit with an apology
  4. FTC Closes 2015 With No New Secret Shopper Survey
  5. VR sticker shock: How Oculus failed to prepare the world for a $599 Rift
  6. CNN phones it in with ‘Internet gaming addiction’ report
  7. Activision Blizzard buys MLG for $46 million
  8. Report: Major League Gaming acquired by Activision in $46 million buyout – Majority of the cash will go towards paying off MLG’s mounting debts.
  9. Activision confirms MLG buyout to create “ESPN of eSports”
  10. Garry’s Mod passes 10m sales barrier
  11. Steam hosted $3.5 billion in paid game sales last year
  12. PS4 sales nearing 36 million: Sony added 5.7 million systems to installed base over the last six weeks of 2015
  13. Oculus Rift priced $600, ships in March: The much anticipated VR headset finally has a retail price [Update – Palmer Luckey says Rift “obscenely cheap”]
  14. Oculus rewarding dev kit backers with free Kickstarter Edition Rift
  15. Report: VR will be worth $5.1 billion in 2016
  16. VR installed base to hit 38.9m by year-end – SuperData
  17. Playing for Time: A father, a dying son, and the quest to build the most profound videogame ever

DIGITAL

  1. Understanding David Lowery’s Lawsuit Against Spotify: The Insanity Of Music Licensing
  2. How Spotify Pays (or Doesn’t Pay) Songwriters
  3. Homeland Security Admits It Seized A Hip Hop Blog For Five Years Despite No Evidence Of Infringement; RIAA Celebrates
  4. French Government Ordered to Adopt Decree providing for ISP Compensation
  5. Richard Prince Finally Sued (Again) For Copyright Infringement Over His ‘Instagram’ Art
  6. Lumosity pays $2 million to FTC to settle bogus “Brain Training” claims: FTC said company “simply did not have the science to back up its ads.”
  7. Ninth Circuit Appeals Court Decision On Fair Use And Right Of First Sale Fails To Budge The Needle On Either Issue
  8. Rules of procedural fairness breached by refusal to allow Netflix to be heard on new provisions in tariff
  9. UN Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods applies to certain software license agreements
  10. Cisco gets a big patent win despite Supreme Court loss, overturns $64M verdict: Cisco calls the seven-year litigation initiated by a patent troll a “travesty.”
  11. How the Internet of Things Limits Consumer Choice: A recent dustup over smart light bulbs illuminates a larger problem.
  12. Are Movie Theaters Actually Fueling Piracy?
  13. Consenting to Computer Use (James Grimmelmann)
  14. Tech Law in 2016: Previewing Some of the Tough Policy Choices (Michael Geist)
  15. Online copyright – Hyperlinking and accessibility
  16. App Store sees $1.1 billion in sales over Christmas
  17. Believe It or Not, YouTube May Spend More on Content than Netflix Does
  18. Five Streaming Video Predictions for 2016
  19. There’s No Such Thing as an MCN. It’s a Figment of Your Imagination
  20. For Many Nonprofits And Causes, YouTube Stars Are The New Guides To Growth
  21. The Triumph of Email: Why does one of the world’s most reviled technologies keep winning?
  22. Virtual Reality Therapy: Treating The Global Mental Health Crisis
  23. The problem with self-driving cars: who controls the code?: Should autonomous vehicles be programmed to choose who they kill when they crash? And who gets access to the code that determines those decisions? (Cory Doctorow)
  24. Turkish Hackers Claim Credit for Hijacking Top Russian Official’s Instagram
  25. A Politics For Technology
  26. Film vs. digital: the most contentious debate in the film world, explained – Why knowing how a movie was shot is so important before you go to the theater.
  27. The Trouble with the TPP, Day 2: Locking in Digital Locks (Michael Geist)
  28. How The TPP Is Trouble: Public Interest Explicitly Tossed In Favor Of Corporate Interests
  29. Paul Graham is Still Asking to be Eaten: An Obviously Critical Response to Paul Graham is Still Asking to be Eaten: An Obviously Critical Response to “Economic Inequality” by Paul Graham
  30. Amazon customer complains, finds spiteful 10-inch dildo in his shopping basket: Watch out: If you provide honest answers in a satisfaction survey, you might be next.
  31. Aaron Swartz’s Quest to Keep Corporations From Privatizing the Internet

CREATIVITY

  1. Public Domain Day outside the USA: what Canada and the rest of the world get today
  2. What Could Have Entered the Public Domain on January 1, 2016?: Under the law that existed until 1978 . . . Works from 1959
  3. Hong Kong Bookseller’s Disappearance Stokes Fears of Cross-Border Kidnaps by Mainland Chinese Police
  4. The Adelson forces buy a newspaper, journalists fight back: a journal of my updates on this story
  5. Inside Ethiopia’s Self-Defeating Crackdown on Oromo Musicians
  6. The First Amendment Protections Afforded To A “Tattoo Establishment” 
  7. The Trouble with the TPP, Day 3: Copyright Term Extension (Michael Geist)
  8. The Reasons You Can’t Stop Binge Watching: There are psychological and neurological explanations for why we pay so much attention to our favorite shows.
  9. The Celebrity Surgeon Who Used Love, Money, and the Pope to Scam an NBC News Producer: When Benita Alexander fell for celebrated doctor Paolo Macchiarini—while filming a documentary about him—she thought her biggest problem was a breach of journalistic ethics. Then things got really interesting.

COMMUNICATIONS

  1. EFF blasts T-Mobile’s Binge On, calls for FCC investigation
  2. T-Mobile throttles all video streams and downloads to 1.5Mbps, EFF says: T-Mobile’s claim that it’s “optimizing” video disputed by EFF tests.
  3. Will the Proposal for an Online Public File for Radio and Cable and Satellite TV Be Adopted Soon?
  4. Broadcasters, Others Underscore Need for Foreign Ownership Rule Changes in FCC Comment

SURVEILLANCE & PRIVACY

  1. Report: China hacked Hotmail accounts and Microsoft didn’t notify customers
  2. Microsoft decided not to warn Tibetan and Uyghur e-mail hack victims: Microsoft feared angering Chinese gov’t. Now it will notify of state-sponsored attacks.
  3. House Intelligence Committee Orders Investigation Into Surveillance Of Congress That It Authorized
  4. In 2015, promising surveillance cases ran into legal brick walls: Attorneys everywhere are calling things moot after the phone metadata program ended.
  5. Dutch government: Encryption good, backdoors bad
  6. FTC Wields COPPA Cudgel Against App Developers
  7. Parents are worried about the new WiFi-connected Barbie, but should they be?
  8. Pew Research Center Issues Report on Attitudes Toward Sharing Personal Information with Private Sector
  9. New Year’s Resolution for GCs in 2016: Establishing a Data Governance Committee

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