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News of the Week; August 17, 2016

By Jon Festinger on August 17, 2016

GAMES

  1. League of Legends maker goes to court to stop cheat programs: Riot says LeagueSharp “ruins the game… for players that take [it] seriously.”
  2. Riot takes aim at League of Legends cheating software in new lawsuit
  3. Riot sues League of Legends cheat-makers: Developer goes after hackers behind LeagueSharp subscription service “dedicated to destroying the LoL player experience”
  4. Riot Games Joins Blizzard In Misusing Copyright To Go After Video Game Cheaters
  5. Solid Oak Sketches LLC v. 2K Games Inc.
  6. ‘We don’t feel safe’: Metro Detroit couple sues Pokémon Go
  7. Pokémon Go players are wreaking havoc on a Toronto ferry terminal
  8. US police are using Pokémon Go to lure criminals to their stations: Virginia’s Smithfield Police Department invited eight ‘random citizens’ to catch super-rare Ditto in their processing room, after New Hampshire police employed same tactic
  9. Pokémon Go sponsorships will ease “that pressure” to dial up IAP: “It’s tough to be disciplined and understand where you want to draw the line between monetisation and fun gameplay” – Niantic CEO John Hanke
  10. Arrêté Pokemon: Monsieur le Maire a pris un arrêté interdisant l’implantation virtuelle de personnages Pokemon sur la commune de Bressolles.
  11. Catch ‘Em All Without Breaking the Law – A Pokémon Go Player’s Guide to Access Rights
  12. Pokémon’s Evolving Legal Landscape
  13. Gotta catch…a lawsuit? A legal insight into the battlefield Pokémon Go has downloaded onto smartphones and properties around the world
  14. Pokémon GO’s Impact on Smaller Developers
  15. No Man’s Stream: Leaks Mar an Indie Milestone – Ignorance or cynical self-interest; there’s no other explanation for broadcasting hours of footage of a leaked, unfinished game
  16. No Man’s Sky Windows port launched today, is kind of a mess: Button remapping woes, framerate hitches; first patch already online.
  17. Hack the galaxy: The nascent No Man’s Sky PC modding scene
  18. “Premium is dead. That’s a fact, so let’s deal with it”: With Lost in Harmony, Digixart’s Yoan Fanise confronted the death of premium on mobile, but that shouldn’t mean the death of variety
  19. Fernanfloo scores big with new free game: The El Salvador-based gamer’s new venture is part of BroadbandTV’s broader strategy to diversify creator revenue streams beyond ad sales.
  20. Marvel Contest of Champions bringing in over $25M a month
  21. Are paid apps dead? There’s only 1 among the US 50 top-grossing, and it’s Minecraft
  22. Why Video Game Scores are Useless
  23. Firefly Games targets Hollywood following $10M investment
  24. Robin Hunicke hopes her games ‘encourage people to help one another’
  25. Gambling on eSports under new scrutiny by UK Gambling Commission
  26. Virtual currencies, eSports and social gaming – discussion paper (U.K. Gambling Commission)
  27. Year of solid growth for UK industry sees employment and revenues rise: TIGA study says games contribute £1.25bn to UK GDP
  28. Tencent leads the US$226M financing of Twitch-like streaming site, Douyu TV: The company isn’t even the top dog in China, Huya TV can claim the title of most popular videogame streaming service.
  29. Bethesda: Long marketing campaigns are a distraction from game dev
  30. Turkish Reporter: These Grand Theft Auto Cheat Codes Are The Secret Messages Of The Failed Coup Attempt
  31. An Olympic Athlete Wore Witcher Gear During Competition: Vitalina Batsarashkina won silver in a shooting event.
  32. How video games suck you in: “Our sense of time becomes yoked, not to the ticking of the clock, but to the pattern of our interactions”
  33. 15 years later, dev releases source code of cancelled Game Boy Color RPG
  34. Why Super Metroid’s Hacking Community is Still Going Strong 

DIGITAL

  1. The copyright case that should worry all Internet providers
  2. This Daily Beast Grindr Stunt Is Sleazy, Dangerous, and Wildly Unethical
  3. Daily Beast removes Olympics Grindr article after backlash
  4. International Olympic Committee Cracks Down on Periscope Pirates
  5. Olympian posts photo of the armed boys he says robbed him in Rio, photo itself stolen from LA Times
  6. Bahamian sprinter’s finish line dive blows up the internet with these gold medal memes
  7. Which Crazy Copyright Holder Took Down Katie Ledecky/Carlos Santana ‘Smooth’ Mashup First
  8. Racial segregation is alive and well on social media
  9. Blacks more likely than whites to see – and post – race-related content on social media (Pew Research Center)
  10. A Possible Solution To Twitter’s Difficult Problem Of Abusive Behavior: Let People Speak, Don’t Force Everyone To Listen
  11. Section 230 Immunizes Twitter From Liability For ISIS’s Terrorist Activities–Fields v. Twitter (Eric Goldman)
  12. Judge On Whether Twitter Is Legally Liable For ISIS Attacks: Hahahahahaha, Nope.
  13. Kansas couple who live in a ‘digital hell’ sue mapping company MaxMind
  14. Amazon Case Means EU B2C Website Terms May Need an Update
  15. Disconnected in Silicon Valley’s shadow: While Facebook looks to bring internet access to India, many in nearby Fresno struggle with digital literacy.
  16. I’m deleting Snapchat, and you should too
  17. Can Facebook really make ads unblockable?
  18. Another Unfortunate Example Of Facebook Silencing Important Videos
  19. Disappointing: LinkedIn Abusing CFAA & DMCA To Sue Scraping Bots
  20. Russia Plans Social Media Piracy Crackdown
  21. Russia fines Google $6.75 million for Android antitrust violations: Google ordered to loosen restrictions on Android device makers after Yandex complaint.
  22. Sling TV will stream football games via NFL Network and NFL RedZone
  23. Irish court orders alleged Silk Road admin to be extradited to US
  24. Court: US seizure of Kim Dotcom’s millions and 4 jet skis will stand – 4th Circuit – Megaupload founder never came to US to face charges, so he’s a “fugitive.”
  25. Appeals Court Says It’s Perfectly Fine For The DOJ To Steal Kim Dotcom’s Money Before Any Trial
  26. Bleeping Computer countersues maker of SpyHunter: Upset over domain name registrations that “libel” Bleeping Computer.
  27. Podcasting patent troll fights EFF on appeal, hoping to save itself: Personal Audio’s appeal comes down to tiny differences in Web presentation.
  28. Canada’s Innovation Strategy Must Stop Tech Trolls (Michael Geist)
  29. Donald Trump’s plush Scottish golf resort flouted UK data law: Clerical oversight to blame, quickly registers to swerve watchdog.
  30. Yelp Warns Consumers About Legal Threats From Companies
  31. A prescription for preventing 3D printing piracy
  32. Can A.I. write a Hollywood film?
  33. Three Ways The Musical.ly App is Changing How We Interact With Music
  34. GoPro And ESPN Bring Sponsorship Legitimacy To US Drone Racing Championship
  35. Clouds of Things. Data protection and consumer law at the intersection of cloud computing and the Internet of Things in the United Kingdom (Guido Noto La Diega)
  36. The Internet of Heirlooms and Disposable Things (Woodrow Hartzog & Evan Selinger)
  37. Apple’s Emoji Gun Control (Jonathan Zittrain)
  38. Apple May Ultimately Regret its Success in Apple v. Samsung
  39. I was the victim of a Wikipedia troll attack: Or, how I had to prove to the encyclopedia of everything that I’m a nobody.
  40. Sex, Privacy, and Videotape: Lessons of Gawker’s Downfall
  41. Univision buys Gawker Media for $135 million: Gawker still has an outstanding judgment of $140M from Hulk Hogan libel case.
  42. Lots Of Newspapers Discovering That Paywalls Don’t Work
  43. New Audi cars can tell you when traffic lights will turn green: But only in some cities that have centralized traffic management systems.

CREATIVITY

  1. Why Does The Copyright Office Keep Acting Like A Lobbying Arm For Hollywood?
  2. No Inspiration Without Payment: Ed Sheeran Sued For Two Songs Sounding Too Similar To Old Songs
  3. Ed Sheeran: A Tale of Two Song Theft Lawsuits (and a Thousand Journalists) – How should reporters treat legal claims like the one that alleges the pop superstar infringed Marvin Gaye’s classic “Let’s Get It On”?
  4. A compulsive audience and a complicit news media: When is a distribution method that harms users’ brains no longer an acceptable cost of doing business?
  5. Fandom Culture In 2016: The Good, The Bad & The Ugly – Do fans own artists? Is social media damaging the culture?
  6. How America’s Surveillance State Shaped The Sound Of Rap: The narrative of post-prison rap albums has long been determined by the threat of un-freedom.
  7. Pancake flap: ‘Aunt Jemima’ heirs seek dough
  8. Copyright Owner Denied Attorneys’ Fees In Suit Against Popcorn Time User–Cobbler v. Doe (Eric Goldman)
  9. AT&T beats Citi challenge over saying ‘thanks’ to customers
  10. Hassles mount for journalists in Turkey after failed coup 

COMMUNICATIONS & BROADCASTING

  1. Canada the most expensive G7 country for cellphone service: study
  2. Thoughts on why Canadian prices are high (Timothy Denton)
  3. CBC Olympics commentator apologizes for saying Chinese swimmer ‘went out like stink, died like a pig’
  4. Rage at CBC commentator a common reaction during ‘anti-China Games’
  5. D’oh Canada: CBC calls entire race mixing up Michael Phelps and Ryan Lochte
  6. Oops? CBC announcer mixes up lanes, declares Ryan Lochte winner over Michael Phelps
  7. Shoalts: Sure, Elliotte Friedman goofed, but he also showed grace under fire
  8. After biggest blunder of his career, CBC’s Elliotte Friedman wants no sympathy
  9. The Rio Olympics are having a big problem getting people to watch
  10. TV Ratings For The Olympics In Rio Are WAY Down Compared To London In 2012
  11. Every major cable TV company lost subscribers last quarter: Top pay-TV operators lost 665,000 subscribers in Q2 2016.
  12. TV news channels have finally figured out how to call Donald Trump a liar, and it’s glorious
  13. Dick Morris: Fox News Grew More Biased Under Ailes in Recent Years
  14. Bias in Cable News: Persuasion and Polarization (Gregory J. Martin & Ali Yurukoglu)
  15. ISPs and FCC Republicans celebrate FCC’s court loss on muni broadband: FCC critics glad that commission can’t preempt state laws.
  16. Broadband Industry Think Tank Claims Comcast Plan To Charge More For Privacy ‘Pro Consumer’
  17. Google Fiber Hasn’t Hit A ‘Snag,’ It’s Just Evolving
  18. Web firms fear EU’s plans for new telco rules will destroy encryption: European Commission mulls inclusion of OTT players such as WhatsApp in ePrivacy law.

SURVEILLANCE & PRIVACY

  1. Facebook legal settlement risks teens’ privacy
  2. Reddit tells label it won’t cough up IP address of prerelease music pirate: Music label has embarked on “an impermissible fishing expedition,” Reddit says.
  3. Privacy lawsuit over Gmail will move forward: New plaintiffs hope to push ahead with a class of people who never used Gmail.
  4. Linux bug leaves 1.4 billion Android users vulnerable to hijacking attacks: Off-path attack means malicious hackers can be located anywhere on the Internet.
  5. Group claims to hack NSA-tied hackers, posts exploits as proof: Extraordinary claim gets attention of security experts everywhere.
  6. Confirmed: hacking tool leak came from “omnipotent” NSA-tied group – Rare crypto implementation in ShadowBrokers dump connects it to Equation Group.
  7. Snowden speculates leak of NSA spying tools is tied to Russian DNC hack: Former NSA security scientist concurs exposure by “Equation Group” connected to DNC leak.
  8. The World Series of Hacking—without humans
  9. Seeking a future where networks patch themselves, DARPA stages an AI vs. AI smackdown.
  10. Snowden Docs Show NSA, New Zealand Spied On Pro-Democracy Activists
  11. The Internet Doesn’t Route Around Surveillance
  12. New air-gap jumper covertly transmits data in hard-drive sounds: “DiskFiltration” siphons data even when computers are disconnected from the Internet.
  13. Volkswagen Created A ‘Backdoor’ To Basically All Its Cars… And Now Hackers Can Open All Of Them
  14. Nova Scotia ordered to pay in rural high-speed internet court case: The province ‘went through a backdoor’ for confidential research, Nova Scotia Supreme Court rules
  15. University Tracks Students’ Movements Using WiFi, But Says It’s OK Because It’s Not Tracking Students
  16. Copperhead OS: The startup that wants to solve Android’s woeful security – A multi-billion-dollar megacorp, Google, apparently needs help to secure its OS.
  17. EU-US Privacy Shield: How to Certify
  18. Opinion: Retailers like J.Crew are obsessed with data. (And it’s killing your shopping experience.)

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News of the Week; August 10, 2016

By Jon Festinger on August 12, 2016

GAMES

  1. New York Makes Playing Pokemon Go, Other Online Games A Sex Offender Parole Violation
  2. Pokemon Go legislation puts ESA in a tight spot: Will the industry side with sex offenders or risk legislators hobbling a new market just as it gets going?
  3. Pokemon Company Threatens Pokemon Go API Creator With CFAA Lawsuit
  4. Pokémon Go blocks third-party services as global rollout continues: Niantic’s game earned a reported $200 million in its first month, giving rise to a cottage industry of external sites
  5. Privacy Scandal Haunts Pokemon Go’s Ceo
  6. Niantic CEO explains takedown of third-party Pokemon Go apps
  7. Pokemon Go now banned in Iran due to ‘security concerns’
  8. Pokémon Go and the Evolving Arena of Clickwrap Enforcement against Children
  9. How hackers broke Pokémon Go’s anti-cheat technology in four days: Decrypted authentication hash again opens up unauthorized apps.
  10. What Makes Pokémon Go So Popular?
  11. Beware the Pokemon Go Bandwagon
  12. Skin Betting Crackdown: A Dozen Sites Rebuff Second Valve Cease And Desist Letter
  13. Dota 2 eSports prize pool eclipses $20 million
  14. SA government puts block on esports gambling
  15. The Wild West of E-sports Stats: The all-digital world of multiplayer online battle arena gaming should be the perfect petri dish for data analysis. As the popularity and profitability of the genre continue to soar, however, the statistical revolution is surprisingly struggling to keep pace.
  16. Online Olympic video streaming is big, but not as big as eSports: The world’s best athletes are on display, but don’t tell the dudes watching League of Legends on Twitch.
  17. Fan-made Metroid 2 remake celebrates series’ 30th year before Nintendo does: Free on Windows with redrawn graphics, slight twists, mechanics from other entries.
  18. Valve now prevents game trading for players caught cheating on Steam
  19. Valve will grant royalty-free licenses to anyone making SteamVR peripherals: Will allow anyone to build trackable sensors into hardware meant for VR experiences.
  20. ‘Favorable’ overseas sales steer Bandai Namco to solid quarter
  21. Overwatch helps drive record-breaking revenues for Activision Blizzard
  22. How Warner Bros. is making its game business digitally powered
  23. Xbox One controllers and Windows 10 PCs: It’s all a mess right now
  24. Sony cancels PlayStation Plus TV series Powers
  25. Zynga posts another up-and-down quarter
  26. No Man’s Sky street date broken by retailers, gameplay streams now online: Sony issues response, says pre-patch version is not a “fair depiction” of game.
  27. No Man’s Sky could alter the relationship between indies and publishers: Hello Games’ Sean Murray believes success could have a “real impact” on how big publishers see indie games
  28. Humble experiments with giving streamers a cut of game bundles they promote
  29. Hackers finally breach Denuvo’s impenetrable defences: “Denuvo allowed 650,000 pirates to breach their servers for 3 days. And they call themselves the most secure company?”
  30. PC game pirates begin to find cracks in Denuvo anti-piracy tech
  31. Ska Studios laments “toxic” trend in community attitudes: Delay to Salt and Sanctuary’s Vita port prompted a backlash from the game’s audience
  32. I got a glimpse into the future of women in gaming—and it was magical
  33. Playing a Video Game Could Cut the Risk of Dementia by 48%, Suggests a New Study
  34. What I learned playing Metacritic’s all-time worst-scoring PC games

DIGITAL

  1. Chung c. Brandy Melville Canada Ltd.: When Using Photographs Posted on Instagram Can Result in Copyright Infringement
  2. Case launches testing anti-SLAPP laws
  3. Repeat Plaintiff Can’t Sue Search Engines Because Employers Won’t Hire Him–Despot v. Baltimore Life Insurance (Eric Goldman)
  4. Kansas couple sues IP mapping firm for turning their life into a “digital hell”: Company fixed the error, but it may be years before the issue is resolved.
  5. Twitter is not legally responsible for the rise of ISIS, rules California district court
  6. EFF Asks FTC To Demand ‘Truth In Labeling’ For DRM
  7. FTC Alleges 1-800-Contacts Bullied Rivals Out of Competing in Search Ads: Comeptitors Agreed Not to Buy Ads Against Each Others’ Brand Names
  8. FTC Sues 1-800 Contacts For Restricting Competitive Keyword Advertising (Eric Goldman)
  9. Even The Usual Defenders Of The RIAA Are Pointing Out They’re Simply Lying About YouTube
  10. 98% of YouTube Music Videos Are Completely Authorized. Now What?
  11. YouTube is stepping up its investment in original content: Early success of Red subscription service means more funding and support for creators like PewDiePie
  12. Rio 2016: Want to make Olympic GIFs? Not so fast, says IOC – International Olympic Committee prohibits media from making GIFs, WebMs, and Vines.
  13. Minnesota Carpet Cleaning Business Sues US Olympic Committee Over Its Ridiculous Social Media Rules
  14. Rio Olympics Videos Already Have a Billion-Plus Views
  15. Time Warner as sous-chef may enhance Hulu broth
  16. Hulu to End Free TV Service
  17. Hulu Ditches ‘Free’ Model Without Giving It A Chance To Succeed
  18. With Hulu’s Valuation at $5.8B, Where Does It Stand Next To Netflix, Amazon?
  19. FTC to Crack Down on Paid Celebrity Posts That Aren’t Clear Ads: The agency says brands and the social media stars who promote their products need to be more transparent about sponsored content
  20. Snapchat Influencers Start Labeling Social Endorsements as Paid Ads: FTC guidelines kick in with uptick in branded content
  21. The Coming Copyright Fight Over Viral News Videos, Such As Police Shootings
  22. Lifestyle Blogging, Supplement Dust, and Third Party Liability
  23. Competitive Keyword Advertising Lawsuit Will Go To A Jury–Edible Arrangements v. Provide Commerce (Eric Goldman)
  24. New York Legalizes Daily Fantasy Sports 
  25. These May Be the Only People Who Want Yahoo to Thrive
  26. Why are sex workers getting kicked off Airbnb and other platforms without explanation?
  27. Police Get Facebook To Kill Livestream Of Standoff Which Ended With Suspect Being Shot To Death
  28. Your ‘Smart’ Thermostat Is Now Vulnerable To Ransomware
  29. State Supreme Court Rolls Back Decision That Would Have Made Violating Company Computer Policies A Crime
  30. UK copyright extension on designed objects is “direct assault” on 3D printing: Industrial designs, like chairs and tables, now come with a copyright of 70+ years.
  31. Facebook continues its war on clickbait: New system “identifies words and phrases that are commonly used in clickbait.”
  32. Tinder terms of use “violate European law,” says MEP: Norway tells Tinder “this ain’t Texas.” But Tinder sees name victory over threesome app 3nder.
  33. The Making Of A “Facebook Murder”: People are actually killing other people for changing their relationship status
  34. Haters Gonna Hate — but They Better Stop Doing It on Twitter, or They Will Kill It.: Three years after the company resolved to solve harassment, the trolls are still winning.
  35. Blackberry enters a new era, files 105-page patent lawsuit against Avaya: Armed with 38,000 patents, BlackBerry CEO says he’s in “licensing mode.”
  36. Government Accountability Office Study Confirms: Patent Office Encouraged Examiners To Approve Crappy Patents
  37. Oracle fights back against Google’s attempt to sanction a lawyer after trial
  38. Apple, Google, Amazon, And The Advantages Of Bigness
  39. When Every Company Is a Tech Company, Does the Label Matter?
  40. Revisiting the graveyard of an early content farm: There are lessons still be learned from the dusty webpages of Demand Studios.
  41. The strange case of Marina Joyce and internet hysteria: Witch hunts and panic among communities are nothing new, but what happens when cyberspace intensifies the frenzy?
  42. The 10 Commandments of Internet Ethics 
  43. The first website went up 25 years ago today
  44. The bandwidth bottleneck that is throttling the Internet: Researchers are scrambling to repair and expand data pipes worldwide — and to keep the information revolution from grinding to a halt.
  45. How AI Will Redefine Love

CREATIVITY

  1. Getty Sued Again Over Abusing Copyright Law, Licensing Images It Has No Rights To
  2. Government-Backed Study Finds Piracy Fight a Low Priority for Canadian Rights Holders (Michael Geist)
  3. Musician Ed Sheeran faces copyright lawsuit over ‘Thinking Out Loud’
  4. Marvin Gaye Co-Writer Getting it on Again 
  5. Ed Sheeran sued for allegedly copying Marvin Gaye classic Let’s Get It On: Sheeran’s Grammy-winning hit Thinking Out Loud copied the ‘heart’ of Gaye song, says its co-writer Ed Townsend as he sues British artist in New York
  6. Franz Kafka literary legal battle ends as Israel’s high court rules in favor of library: Country’s supreme court rules manuscripts are the national library’s property – Estate’s heirs must hand over documents, which include unpublished writings
  7. MPAA Anti-Piracy Cutbacks Lead to “Bullying” Lawsuit
  8. Second Circuit Revives Copyright Claims Against Sony and Ghostface Killah 
  9. Primatologist Tells Court That Macaque Monkeys Are, Like, Super Smart, So They Should Totally Get Copyrights
  10. DOJ Recommends No Changes in ASCAP and BMI Consent Decrees, And Requires Full-Work Licensing – How It Affects Music Users
  11. DOJ Makes Smart Decision On Music Licensing… Music Publishers Completely Lose Their S–t
  12. The Growing List of How the Copyright Office Has Failed Us
  13. Photographers: Arkansas’ new image-rights law foggy
  14. Publishers Association Sends Whiny Complaint Letter To Dean After Academic Librarian Discusses Sci-Hub
  15. Want to Change Academic Publishing? Just Say No
  16. Viral Cow Video Copied In Ad Campaign, But Is It Copyright Infringement? (Andres Guadamuz)
  17. Here Is The End Result Of The USOC And NBC’s Over-Protectionist Olympic Nonsense
  18. Federal Court rules Olympic themed Telstra campaign is not misleading
  19. Australian Olympic Committee v Telstra: Federal Court draws a ‘fine line’ on ambush marketing
  20. ‘The Ring Games’: How ambush marketing can see brands benefit from multi-million dollar events for free
  21. Dirty Dancing with Trademark Rights: How Pop Culture References in Ads Can Raise Legal Issues 
  22. Josh Duggar Sued over Ashley Madison Profile: DJ Alleges Duggar’s Use of His Picture Cost Him Jobs
  23. The Plural Tort Structure Of Copyright Law
  24. A new milestone for black women in movies — and why it matters
  25. NFL Cuts Out Shout-Out To St. Louis In HoF Speech YouTube Upload, Streisand Effect Takes Over
  26. Journalism’s lack of diversity threatens its long-term future: The barriers faced by those from poorer backgrounds or minorities are getting higher – how can newspapers expect to stay relevant?
  27. Newspaper Association Of America Complains That Comedian John Oliver Failed To Solve Newspaper Biz Model Problem
  28. Picturing the Commons
  29. Functional Compilations (Pamela Samuelson) 

COMMUNICATIONS & BROADCASTING

  1. Roger Ailes Used Fox News Budget to Finance ‘Black-Room’ Campaigns Against His Enemies
  2. Roger Ailes’ Clothing Choices Perfectly Reflect His Personality: Gross on the outside. Gross on the inside.
  3. Will Megyn Kelly Dish About Roger Ailes In Her New Book?: Speculation is building around when and how the Fox News anchor will break her silence.
  4. The Donald Trump and Roger Ailes Mind-Meld: What Trump’s defense of Roger Ailes’ alleged sexual harassment reveals about the GOP nominee.
  5. How Unusual Is the Roger Ailes Sexual Harassment Case?
  6. CNN’s Brian Stelter: Fox News Sent A Staffer To Date Me And Spy On Me Ten Years Ago – Stelter – “I Was Going Out On What I Thought Were Dates … They Were Actually Spying On Me”
  7. Viacom CEO Philippe Dauman Is Overpaid and Should Be Fired, Parent Company Says: He’s “the third highest paid CEO in the United States and among the worst as measured by pay for performance,” NAI writes
  8. States win the right to limit municipal broadband, beating FCC in court: Major loss for Tom Wheeler in attempt to boost broadband competition.
  9. Appeals Court Strikes Down FCC Attempt To Eliminate Protectionist State Broadband Laws
  10. Copyright Office Outlines Concerns With Set-Top Box NPRM in Letter to Congress
  11. US Copyright Office sides with cable companies against FCC’s set-top rules: Set-top box rules could enable piracy, copyright official warns.
  12. Why Is The Copyright Office Lying To Protect The Cable Industry’s Monopoly Stranglehold Over The Cable Box?
  13. Programmatic Advertising Buying and the FCC’s Political Broadcasting Rules 
  14. AT&T, Comcast Fight Utility Pole Reform To Slow Google Fiber’s Arrival In Nashville
  15. Verizon faces customers’ wrath over poor Internet and phone service: Verizon disputes complaints, says it isn’t abandoning copper network in Jersey.
  16. BBC to deploy detection vans to snoop on internet users
  17. BBC Now Training Its Secret, Likely Imaginary, Fleet Of Detector Vans On Your WiFi
  18. The real scandal is that you still believe TV licence detector vans are real – Op-ed: No, the BBC can’t snoop on your Wi-Fi and sense that you’re using iPlayer.
  19. Comcast/NBC Ignores Lessons From The Cord Cutting Age, Buries Olympics Under An Ocean Of Annoying Advertising
  20. Olympics fan claims Twitter killed his account after he posted Rio videos: Venezuelan tweeter says short clips were legal under local laws—Twitter disagrees.
  21. Google Fiber re-thinks plans as it considers wireless alternative: Wireless could help Google Fiber avoid fights with incumbents over pole access.
  22. Ad board to Comcast: Stop claiming you have the “fastest Internet”: Comcast should also stop making confusing claims about Verizon, group says.

SURVEILLANCE & PRIVACY

  1. Vulnerability Exposes 900M Android Devices—and Fixing Them Won’t Be Easy
  2. Sent text messages not private: ruling
  3. Good Ruling In California Protects Anonymity Of Online Critics — Even When The Information Was False
  4. Tenth Circuit: Accessing email is a ‘search’ under the Jones trespass test (Orin Kerr)
  5. FISA Court Says FBI Must Review Its NSL Gag Orders Every Three Years, Rather Than Almost Never
  6. GCHQ faces human rights challenge over bulk hacking abroad: Privacy International to battle UK spooks at European Court of Human Rights.
  7. FBI chief Comey: “We have never had absolute privacy”: 650 phones are “a brick to us… Those are cases unmade, evidence unfound.”
  8. Microsoft v. United States: Court’s “Privacy” Ruling Is Not Really About Privacy at All
  9. An Assessment of the Anthem Data Breach Litigation Rulings
  10. Consumers Say DraftKings and FanDuel Aren’t Keeping Their Data Secure
  11. Has your Company Suffered a Data Breach? Expect to Lose $6.03 Million on Average
  12. Embarrassing Photos of Me, Thanks to My Right-Wing Stalkers
  13. Can We Trust Julian Assange and WikiLeaks?

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News of the Week; August 3, 2016

By Jon Festinger on August 8, 2016

GAMES

  1. 2K Sports scores partial victory in bizarre tattoo copyright lawsuit: Who owns the ink in another person’s skin?
  2. Failure to Register LeBron James’ Tattoo as Copyright Proves Costly
  3. Star Wars Battlefront fan game shut down by Lucasfilm
  4. Blizzard Allows Release Of Fan-Game It Initially Tried To Shut Down, Reaps Rewards It Should Have Had All Along
  5. Homeowner files lawsuit against Niantic over Pokemon Go trespassing
  6. Pokemon Go catches lawsuit for game’s creators: New Jersey man claims players attempting to trespass on his property in search of mythical monsters are creating a nuisance.
  7. Pokémon Go…es To Court! 
  8. Next Stop for Pokémon GO: Regulation & Litigation?
  9. The Case for Pokémon at Auschwitz: Playing the popular game in the death camp is a celebration, not a desecration
  10. Get Your Pokémon Off My Lawn!
  11. PETA’s L.A. Office Is Pokémon ‘Safe Zone’ Following Pokémon Go Release
  12. Most Pokémon Go tracking sites have now been shut down: Niantic is probably signalling the end of real-time Pokémon Go tracking sites.
  13. Pokemon Go Updates Will Be More Respectful to Real-World Places: Pokemon Company rep says it’s working on features that keep the game fun but also respect the world.
  14. New York governor calls onPokemon Go dev to block sex offenders
  15. New York State bans sex offenders from any form of online gaming: Governor ask Niantic for help in creating a “safer environment” for players
  16. New York bills target Pokemon Go, sex offenders: Legislation would ban registered sex offenders from playing AR games, require AR devs to create item-free zones around their homes
  17. 10 psychosocial reasons why ‘Pokémon Go’ is so appealing
  18. App Annie: Pokémon Go makes $10 million every day without cannibalizing other games
  19. 10 Unbelievable Pokémon Go-Inspired Products
  20. Counter-Strike eSports broadcast pulled following Munich shooting: ProSieben MAXX cancels ELeague coverage following German government linking the killer’s actions to his love of Counter-Strike
  21. Twitter Airs Eleague Final, Adds eSports to Live Streaming Lineup
  22. Several Skin Gambling Sites Still Operating After Valve’s Cease And Desist Window Expires
  23. CSGO Lounge move towards licenses in wake of Valve cease and desist
  24. Indie game key scammer says G2A is the best place to sell stolen keys
  25. YouTubers walk away from G2A sponsorship revenue: Accusations of fraudulent transactions on G2A’s marketplace has prompted some streamers to break their partnerships
  26. No criminal charges in 38 Studios collapse: Rhode Island says “no provable criminal violations” in Kingdoms of Amalur company’s downfall, but civil litigation still outstanding
  27. How localizers saved Final Fantasy X from its own voiceover
  28. Augs Lives Matter slogan an “unfortunate coincidence”: Deus Ex brand marketer defends use while Bioware’s Manveer Heir criticizes the developer’s controversial language choice
  29. Sony surges, Microsoft meanders and Nintendo nosedives
  30. PlayStation division more than doubles profits, sells another 3.5m PS4
  31. Digital sales prop EA up in quarterly earnings
  32. Google Play Family Library program will let up to six users share games
  33. Microsoft plans to sabotage Steam – Sweeney: Epic co-founder says Windows 10 updates will progressively break Valve’s storefront, Microsoft acknowledges that UWP is a work in progress
  34. Disney Infinity online services shutting down in 2017
  35. The Shutdown of Disney Infinity Is a Confusing Nightmare: Disney’s plans for the PC version are bizarre and unclear.
  36. Ghostbusters dev Fireforge files for Bankruptcy: Owes millions to part owner Tencent, according to filings
  37. Capcom’s fortunes falter due to a dearth of big releases
  38. Metal Gear series has sold 49m copies: Konami celebrates news in latest financial report
  39. Samsung Gear VR hits 1 million MAUs
  40. That time the industry almost killed E3 – 10 Years Ago This Summer: Publishers pursue an ill-advised adjustment to the Electronic Entertainment Expo and industry heavyweights make bold predictions of varying accuracy
  41. PC games revenue to hit $42 billion in 2020 – DFC
  42. The Relationship between Monetization and Gamer Behavior

DIGITAL

  1. Judge wipes out patent troll’s $625M verdict against Apple – Judge: Repeated references to an earlier trial prejudiced jury against Apple.
  2. Irony: Sony Pictures Sued For Failing To Stop Piracy
  3. Europe Has The Highest Online Piracy Rates, By Far
  4. App Store devs have earned $50 billion: A quick bit of news from the Apple empire, CEO Tim Cook today revealed on social media that developers have earned $50 billion from the App Store.
  5. Kim Dotcom’s lawyer will also represent alleged KickassTorrents founder: Ira Rothken has kept Megaupload founder free for years. Can he do it again?
  6. Arbitration rejected in antitrust suit against Uber
  7. Judge Declines to Enforce Uber’s Terms of Service–Meyer v. Kalanick
  8. Enforce Existing Laws to Combat Online Threats (Danielle Citron)
  9. Are Employers Responsible for Protecting Their Employees on Social Media? “Yes” According to a Recent Decision 
  10. Faced With False Online Client Reviews? Recent CA Ruling May Make It Easier To Force Yelp to Help
  11. Nvidia offers $30 to GTX 970 customers in class action lawsuit over RAM: Graphics card spec discrepancy could lead to a small payout for customers.
  12. Costs of ISP blocking injunctions: is there really an EU rule?
  13. Stiglitz Calls Apple’s Profit Reporting in Ireland ‘a Fraud’
  14. Facebook: We will fight IRS over billions in possible owed back taxes – “Facebook Ireland Holdings Unlimited” helped company lower its US taxes.
  15. Report: Apple’s negotiating tactics sunk its long-rumored TV service – Apple asked for too much in exchange for too little, TV executives tell the WSJ.
  16. Apple replaces the pistol emoji with a water gun
  17. Newest iOS 10 beta includes 100 new emoji, replaces gun with waterpistol: iOS will have the most diverse cast of emoji—including single-parent families.
  18. Is anyone at Yahoo paying attention? Probably not
  19. The Rise and Fall (OK — Mostly Fall) of Yahoo
  20. Verizon’s acquisition of Yahoo is a marriage of incompatible cultures. And it won’t end well.
  21. YouTube’s Dilemma: How Best To Monetizing Video Content
  22. YouTube’s Unplugged TV Dilemma, Part 2: Ad-Based Model’s Revenue Potential Quantified
  23. Streaming’s Ad Boom: Will the Millions Spent By Apple, Spotify, Pandora and YouTube Help Decide Who’s No. 1?
  24. Facebook’s Rich History Of Copying SnapchatHere’s Why Facebook Is So Desperate to Buy, Copy or Kill Snapchat
  25. You’re more valuable to Facebook than ever before
  26. Time Warner Buys 10% Stake in Hulu, Valuing It at $5.8 Billion: HBO owner joins Disney, Fox and Comcast in owning the streaming-TV service
  27. Bitcoin Drops Nearly 20% as Exchange Hack Amplifies Price Decline
  28. The IOC Announces The Olympic Channel: The New Year-Round Digital Home For Olympic Content
  29. BBC iPlayer users will have to pay TV licence fee from 1 September: Government pushed through plan to close ‘iPlayer loophole’, which costs the BBC about £150m a year
  30. County Employee Properly Terminated for Facebook Posts Criticizing Police–Palmer v. Anoka
  31. Nigerian authorities arrest alleged mastermind of $60M worth of online scams
  32. I’m With The Banned: What my evening with Milo told me about Twitter’s biggest troll, the death of reason, and the crucible of A-list con-men that is the Republican National Convention.
  33. After mass shooting, German police focus on “dark net” crime
  34. FTC Investigation Sparked Over Use of “Female Chat Bots” in Ashley Madison
  35. Houston Law Firm Sues Student With Severe Back Injuries For $200k After She Posts Negative Reviews To Yelp, Facebook
  36. Chung c. Brandy Melville Canada Ltd.: When Using Photographs Posted on Instagram Can Result in Copyright Infringement 
  37. Public Wi-Fi hotspots and you: Busting the many legal myths
  38. Are you a criminal because you share your Netflix password? 
  39. OECD broadband statistics update
  40. Internet Policy Review: Regulating the sharing economy [Volume 5, Issue 2]
  41. Let the geeks rule over the Internet
  42. Instagram will soon let you filter comments on your own account

CREATIVITY

  1. Getty Images sued again over alleged misuse of over 47,000 photos
  2. Getty Makes Nonsensical Statement On Photographer Carol Highsmith’s Lawsuit For Falsely Claiming Copyright
  3. Irony: Sony Pictures Sued For Failing To Stop Piracy
  4. PETA Takes Infamous “Monkey Selfie” Lawsuit to Appeals Court
  5. The Selfie-Taking Monkey Who Has No Idea He Has Lawyers Has Appealed His Copyright Lawsuit
  6. Faulkner v. Hasbro Inc.: District court denies toy company’s motion to dismiss right of publicity claim brought by Fox News anchor Harris Faulkner, holding that fact that hamster doll in defendant’s Littlest Pet Shop toy line bore plaintiff’s “unusual celebrity name” name was sufficient to state claim.
  7. How the (Copyright Test) Was Won: Led Zeppelin Victorious in “Stairway to Heaven” Suit
  8. Lionsgate Gets Judge to Revive Trademark Claim Over ‘Dirty Dancing’ Ad Spoof
  9. Dirty Dancing remake: court grants reconsideration on dilution – Lions Gate Ent. Inc. v. TD Ameritrade Servs. Co., No. cv 15-05024  (C.D. Cal. Aug. 1, 2016) (Rebecca Tushnet)
  10. Why Stephen Colbert can’t be Stephen Colbert anymore (+video)
  11. Intellectual Property Fun: Is Comedy Central Claiming It Owns The Character Stephen Colbert
  12. Stephen Colbert Retires ‘Stephen Colbert.’ Please Welcome ‘Stephen Colbert.’
  13. Who Owns Stephen Colbert? 
  14. After Cracking Down On Tens Of Thousands Of Enemies, Erdogan Says He’s Dropping His 2000 Lawsuits Over Insults
  15. Canadian Comedian Plans To Appeal $42k For A Joke That Insulted Someone
  16. The Supreme Court Will Consider a Case About Cheerleading Uniforms
  17. Independent Artists Unite Online To Fight Zara: Claiming the popular brand stole their designs, more than 20 artists are working together to get compensation
  18. How California’s Identity Fraud Law Has Been Interpreted To Criminalize Defamation, Publicity Rights Violations And More
  19. Copyright Office Intent On Changing The Part Of Copyright That Protects Libraries & Archives, Even Though No One Wants It Changed
  20. No Alarms, No Surprises: Why Buying Concert Tickets Is a Rigged System
  21. The Trouble with the TPP’s Copyright Rules (Michael Geist)
  22. Court of appeals says FU to state university’s TM claim (Rebecca Tushnet)
  23. VCRs are cast into the dustbin of history
  24. What It Takes for an Independent Record Store to Survive Now: Even as legacy music shops continue to shutter across the country, Midwestern institution Used Kids has managed to stay afloat for the last 30 years and counting. How do they do it?
  25. IP and BREXIT: The facts
  26. Federal Court smiles at Telstra’s “I Go to Rio” advertising campaign
  27. Update: Australian Olympic Committee, Inc. v Telstra Corporation Limited [2016] FCA 857
  28. Kindling the Commons: History Reminds Us Why Sharing Our Creativity Matters

COMMUNICATIONS & BROADCASTING

  1. Trial on Sumner Redstone’s Mental Competence Set for October
  2. Philippe Dauman Gets Judge’s Go-Ahead in Lawsuit Over Removal from Sumner Redstone Trust
  3. Fox and friends with benefits
  4. Former Fox News Booker Says She Was Sexually Harassed and ‘Psychologically Tortured’ by Roger Ailes for More Than 20 Years
  5. Sex on TV: Final FAQs for employers about the Roger Ailes case 
  6. Laurie Dhue’s Lawyer Slams Fox’s Probe Into Roger Ailes Harassment Claims
  7. Copyright Office Jumps Into Set-Top Box Debate, Says Hollywood Should Control Your TV
  8. The Limits of Net Neutrality: Open access to the internet needs stronger curbs on big network operators. In the US and Europe, there’s authority to impose these. That’s easier than it sounds. (Susan Crawford)
  9. Broadband Industry Formally Tries, Once Again, To Kill Net NeutralityBroadband industry tries again to kill net neutrality and Title II: ISP lobby groups petition for full court review of decision that upheld rules.
  10. Washington state sues Comcast, says it sold near-worthless service plans: Comcast defends $5-per-month service plans, will fight $100 million lawsuit.
  11. Washington State Sues Comcast For Routinely Ripping Off Its Customers
  12. How Comcast convinced customers to buy “near-worthless” service plans: Lawsuit details Comcast sales script for unnecessary service plans.
  13. Comcast supports higher prices for customers who want Web privacy – Comcast: FCC rules shouldn’t determine whether customers make “good choices.”
  14. Comcast: The Economics Of Offering Cheaper, Better Streaming TV Service ‘Unproven’
  15. AT&T violated rule requiring low prices for schools, FCC says: AT&T claims it didn’t have to follow rule designed to give schools lower prices.
  16. Google Fiber stalls in Nashville in fight over utility poles: AT&T, Comcast resist Nashville plan to speed Google Fiber construction.
  17. After Ripping Off Cities, States For Years, Verizon Makes Some Familiar Broadband Promises To Boston
  18. Let’s Talk TV: CRTC Revises Policy Framework for Local and Community Television (Stephen Zolf)
  19. CRTC Publishes Enforcement Advisory on CASL Consent Records
  20. FCC Demands TP-Link Support Open Source Third-Party Firmware On Its Routers
  21. World’s first 8K TV broadcasts begin for Rio 2016 Olympics: Unless you have an 8K TV you’ll have to attend a special viewing theatre.
  22. Use a VPN or proxy in the United Arab Emirates, risk a £400K fine or prison: Latest move seems to be about protecting profits at country’s top telecom companies.
  23. Virgin Media red-faced after workers dig trench, block house, and disappear: Situation rectified a day later following flurry of bad press. Funny, that. 

SURVEILLANCE & PRIVACY

  1. How copyright is irreparably, fundamentally incompatible with privacy
  2. How a file-sharing lawsuit against Rogers threatens your Internet privacy: Geist – Voltage Pictures asked the court to order Rogers to disclose the identity of one of its subscribers in a reverse class-action lawsuit.
  3. Do You Consent? Four Ways to Strengthen Digital Privacy (Michael Geist)
  4. Oliver Stone asks moviegoers to power down phones—and leave them off: “This will be our undoing,” Snowden director says in stark pre-film warning.
  5. Comcast Tells The FCC It Should Be Able To Charge Broadband Users A Premium For Privacy
  6. State Supreme Court Says Secret Software Used In Sentencing Determinations Not A Violation Of Due Process Rights
  7. Trump’s wish for hacking powers sets up disaster scenario Snowden feared
  8. Documents Show FISA Court Refusing To Grant FBI’s Requests To Scoop Up Communications Along With Phone Metadata
  9. FBI Bugging On Courthouse Steps (Not Very Nice, But) Not an Illegal Search
  10. Court Says Bugs The FBI Planted Around California Courthouses Did Not Violate Anyone’s Expectation Of Privacy
  11. Federal Prosecutors Use All Writs Order To Compel Suspect To Unlock Phone With His Fingerprint
  12. Security Researchers Sued For Exposing Internet Filtering Company’s Sale Of Censorship Software To Blacklisted Country
  13. Federal court says state law can’t ban political robocalls: An Arkansas law can’t single out political robocalls exclusively in ban, judge says.
  14. Watchdog takes bizarre legal route in data privacy case – Analysis: Data commissioner takes needlessly costly route in Schrems case
  15. DNC staffers: FBI didn’t tell us for months about possible Russian hack
  16. By November, Russian hackers could target voting machines: If Russia really is responsible, there’s no reason political interference would end with the DNC emails.
  17. WikiLeaks Put Women in Turkey in Danger, for No Reason (Zeynep Tufekci)
  18. Mickey Mouse Club had Mickey Mouse security: Disney’s Playdom forum pours out passwords
  19. NSA Surveillance Compliance Reports Show Typos, Lack Of Communication Resulting In Erroneous Targeting And Collection
  20. Second Circuit’s Decision in Microsoft v. U.S. (Data Stored in Ireland): Good News for Internet Users?
  21. DOJ Responds to ‘Microsoft Ireland’ Decision With Proposed Legislation and Bilateral Agreements Allowing Cross-Border Data Searches
  22. US Internet Companies Are Not Government’s Eyes and Ears Worldwide (Anupam Chander)
  23. Director Of National Intelligence ‘Celebrates’ National Whistleblower Day… Without Mentioning Snowden Once

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News of the Week; July 27, 2016

By Jon Festinger on August 1, 2016

GAMES

  1. Pokémon Go is “new level of invasion,” says stony-faced Oliver Stone – Snowden director: “This data-mining game is what they call totalitarianism.”
  2. Nintendo posts biggest Q1 loss in five years: Last year’s profit turns to $232 million loss in the face of collapsing Wii U sales and the absence of new revenue streams
  3. Nintendo suffers huge first-quarter loss as Wii U and 3DS sales tumble
  4. Pokémon Go: Nintendo stock tanks after it issues profit warning: Nintendo admits to limited impact from app’s success—sees biggest shares drop since 1990.
  5. Nintendo issues reminder it didn’t make Pokémon Go, stock slumps 18%: $6.7 billion wiped from Nintendo’s market cap in its biggest one-day drop since 1990
  6. Nintendo’s stock drops as investors learn it didn’t createPokemon Go
  7. Nintendo stays the course despite flagging sales and profits
  8. Despite radical success, Pokemon Go won’t affect Nintendo’s bottom line
  9. Pokemon Go is popular but polarizing, according to Nielsen data
  10. The Endgame Grind Of ‘Pokémon GO’ Is Spirit-Crushing
  11. London restaurant drops Pokémon Go lures, revenues go up 26%: Covent Garden eatery has a dedicated employee who spends £100 per day on lures.
  12. Pair that brought guns to Pokémon tournament gets two years in jail: Sentencing comes after players showed off weapons in threatening online posts.
  13. Pokémon’s Big Carbon Footprint Illustrates Energy Reality
  14. How Pokémon Go changes the geography of cities
  15. The tireless, automated bots that want to play Pokémon Go for you: GPS-spoofing programs open up a big cheating problem for developer Niantic.
  16. Wherein An Associate Curses Out A Partner Over Pokémon
  17. Augmenting Reality: A Pokémon Go Business and Legal Primer 
  18. Expanded Video Game Liability Post-Pokémon Go? 
  19. The intriguing legal ramifications of Pokémon GO
  20. Pokémon Go — another reminder about the duty of competence for lawyers 
  21. Is Pokémon Go success going to come to a Weezing halt?: Garry Barter of PlayerXP analyses the customer feedback for Niantic’s AR giant
  22. Pokémon Go developer’s first game, Ingress, surges in Japan
  23. How The 23 Named Skin Gambling Sites Have Reacted To Valve’s Cease And Desist Letter
  24. Heroes of the Storm player arrested for death threats against Blizzard
  25. Man arrested for threats against Blizzard: California man faces up to five years in jail after repeatedly suggesting he might “pay a visit” with an AK-47
  26. The patented “superformula” that could cause a legal headache for No Man’s Sky: Drama comes as game has been finalized, is set to launch on August 9.
  27. Over 775K emails stolen in Warframe hack
  28. Humble Bundle clarifies fraud policies: “Let us take care of this for you using our infrastructure” it tells devs
  29. Humble Bundle outlines fraud prevention strategy following G2A fiasco
  30. Report: China pushes past US to lead the world in App Store game revenue
  31. Alibaba invests $150 million in esports
  32. Renegades, Riot and the danger of absolute power
  33. ESL: “The onus is on us to set the bar” – Spike Laurie talks regulation, responsibility and reaching the mainstream
  34. Dota 2’s The International prize pool is the richest in eSports — again
  35. Gaming revenues down 9% at Microsoft as hardware sales slow
  36. Xbox One drops to $249, now half of its launch-day price
  37. Study: Sexualized female characters in games down over last decade
  38. How Are Games Companies Dealing With Online Abuse?
  39. No Consoles For Old Men: Ageism In The Game Industry
  40. Games For Grandparents: How the game industry is leaving today’s (and tomorrow’s) seniors behind.
  41. Top 10 Worst Star Wars Games Ever Made: These aren’t the games you’re looking for.
  42. Political snarls drive prominent game educators out of Wisconsin

DIGITAL

  1. Photographer sues Getty Images for selling photos she donated to public: Firm demanded $120 from Carol Highsmith for alleged copyright violation of her own photo.
  2. Photographer Suing Getty Images for $1 Billion
  3. Highsmith v. Getty Images, Complaint USDC Southern District of New York, July 25, 2016
  4. EFF Lawsuit Takes on DMCA Section 1201: Research and Technology Restrictions Violate the First Amendment
  5. EFF sues US government, saying copyright rules on DRM are unconstitutional: DMCA’s “anti-circumvention” rule has rankled hackers and scholars for a long time.
  6. America’s broken digital copyright law is about to be challenged in court: The Electronic Frontier Foundation is suing the US government over ‘unconstitutional’ use of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act
  7. EFF Lawsuit Challenges DMCA’s Digital Locks Provision As First Amendment Violation
  8. China Clamps Down on Online News Reporting
  9. China To Ban Ad Blockers As Part Of New Regulations For Online Advertising
  10. Just As We Warned: A Chinese Tech Giant Goes On The Patent Attack — In East Texas
  11. Russian Copyright Law Allows Entire News Site To Be Shut Down Over A Single Copied Article
  12. It looks like Russia hired internet trolls to pose as pro-Trump Americans
  13. Unified Patents files legal challenges against top three patent trolls of 2016: Patent trolls sent hundreds of demand letters over package tracking and DRM.
  14. Qualcomm settles class-action gender bias suit for $19.5 million: Chip-maker will now address imbalance within its ranks, implementing reforms to improve pay and opportunities for women
  15. Search Engine Snippets Protected By Section 230–O’Kroley v. Fastcase (Eric Goldman)
  16. Appeals Court Rejects Silly Case Against Google Over Search Results Summary
  17. Paramount ends geoblocking tactics after EU antitrust breach warning: Movie studio commits to boldly allow access where no European had access before.
  18. Olympics Committee Says Non-Sponsors Are Banned From Tweeting About the Olympics
  19. Dear US Olympic Committee: Tweeting About The Olympics Is Never Trademark Infringement
  20. Batten down the hatches—Navy accused of pirating 585k copies of VR software: Bitmanagement Software says Navy “did not license” its virtual reality product.
  21. Message Board Operator May Be Liable For Moderator’s Content–Enigma v. Bleeping
  22. Isohunt Founder Settles With Music Industry For $66 Million
  23. IsoHunt Settles The Last Of Its Lawsuits, Laughably Agrees To ‘Pay’ Recording Industry $66 Million
  24. Will The FTC Investigate People & Companies Paid By Facebook To Use Facebook Live?
  25. Twitter Continues Push Into Live Sports Streaming With Announcement Of MLB And NHL Partnership
  26. Breaking Down Twitter’s Flurry Of Streaming Rights Deals
  27. The Future Of Live Streaming Sports Lies With Social Media Networks
  28. It’s Official: Verizon Buying Yahoo for $4.83B in Cash
  29. Official: Yahoo snapped up by Verizon in $4.8 billion deal – ’90s Internet pinups Yahoo and AOL together at last.
  30. Verizon Buys Yahoo In $4.8 Billion Attempt To Bore The Internet To Death
  31. Does The Snapchat Generation Even Know What Yahoo Is?
  32. Verizon To Unite AOL & Yahoo Against Facebook, YouTube
  33. How Yahoo Lost Its Way: The seminal early tech giant never quite found a way to successfully pivot.
  34. What Hot ’90s Tech Company Should Verizon Buy Next?: Yahoo today, maybe Neopets tomorrow
  35. Why Netflix Is Stumbling Overseas
  36. Facebook CEO: ‘In Five to Ten Years AR Will Be Where VR is Today’
  37. Massachusetts issues guidelines for using third-party robo-advisers 
  38. North Carolina Clarifies Digital Currency Amidst Growing Interest in Blockchain Technology
  39. Bitcoin ‘not real money’ says Miami judge in closely watched ruling – Defendant acquitted of illegally transmitting $1,500 worth of cryptocurrency – Judge: ‘Bitcoin has a long way to go before it is the equivalent of money’
  40. Florida judge: Bitcoins aren’t currency, so state money laws don’t apply
  41. In Rejecting Bitcoin as Money, Florida Court Sets Likely Precedent
  42. Leslie Jones And Twitter’s Troll Economics
  43. Twitter’s Wholesale Rejection of Donald Trump’s Speech Was Oddly Comforting
  44. Hillary 2016 app sees gamification of political activism for iPhone-owning Democrats
  45. The Strange Politics of Peter Thiel, Trump’s Most Unlikely Supporter
  46. MIT Media Lab Launched Disobedience Award, Funded By Reid Hoffman
  47. Canada’s National Digitization Plan Leaves Virtual Shelves Empty (Michael Geist)
  48. Why Canada should adopt a national IP strategy
  49. The rise in cyber attacks shows we need to change the way we think about crime

CREATIVITY

  1. Turkey Cracks Down on Journalists, Its Next Target After Crushing Coup
  2. Donald Trump’s Ghostwriter Tells All: “The Art of the Deal” made America see Trump as a charmer with an unfailing knack for business. Tony Schwartz helped create that myth—and regrets it.
  3. Donald Trump Threatens ‘Art Of The Deal’ Ghostwriter, Claiming His ‘Disloyalty’ Somehow Amounts To Defamation
  4. Demand Letter and Response re Author of Trump’s “Art of the Deal”
  5. Why Donald Trump Should Have Gotten Song Permission from The Rolling Stones (But Not Queen)
  6. But Wait: Copyright Law Is So Screwed Up, Perhaps The Rolling Stones Are Right That Donald Trump Needed Their Permission
  7. Whose Copyright Office? (Annemarie Bridy)
  8. Led Zeppelin Copyright Trial, Round 2: Band’s Accuser Files for Appeal
  9. The Hamster Case Continues as District Court Denies Hasbro’s Motion to Dismiss
  10. Harris Faulkner Says It Doesn’t Matter that Hamster Toy Doesn’t Look Like Her
  11. Daily Mail Must Face Defamation Suit After Using Photo of Porn Star in HIV Story: The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals concludes that reasonable readers could have assumed that Danni Ashe had tested positive.
  12. How to Libel a Porn Star (Noah Feldman)
  13. Gawker Founder Nick Denton Wins Temporary Reprieve From Hulk Hogan Judgment
  14. How the Real Edward Snowden Helped Write the Ending to Oliver Stone’s ‘Snowden’
  15. The weirdest ads made by your favourite filmmakers: Everybody needs to pay the bills – for directors that might mean surrendering creative control to a brand and making films you might not normally make
  16. Technology changes how authors write, but the big impact isn’t on their style 

COMMUNICATIONS & BROADCASTING

  1. Amid Sexual Harassment Allegations, Roger Ailes Resigns As Chairman And CEO Of Fox News
  2. What does Fox News do after Roger Ailes?
  3. RNC 2016 Ratings Have Fox News Flat, Big Jumps for CNN, MSNBC
  4. A Stony Silence at Fox News After Ailes’s Departure
  5. Why Did It Take Roger Ailes So Long to Fall?: The real surprise may be that some accusers were willing to step forward despite the likely consequences.
  6. Roger Ailes’s Fox News Ending Was The Story He Couldn’t Control
  7. Amazon, Cable Industry Molest The Definition Of Copyright In Ongoing Scuff Up Over Cable Box Reform
  8. Lawsuit Claims Frontier Misused Millions In Federal Broadband Stimulus Funds
  9. Verizon to disconnect unlimited data customers who use over 100GB/month
  10. Netflix’s cable box deal with Comcast won’t exempt it from data caps: Netflix video will stream on Comcast cable boxes—but without special treatment.
  11. Are You Compliant with Canada’s Anti-Spam Law? Expect the Multi-Million Dollar Lawsuits to Start Next Year
  12. AT&T to lead robocall “strike force”—after claiming it can’t block them: Industry might finally take stronger action against robocalls after FCC demands.
  13. NBC Turns to Digital Influencers to Draw TV-Averse Millennials to Olympics Coverage

SURVEILLANCE & PRIVACY

  1. Why this internet celebrity is hacking his fans’ social media accounts
  2. Pop star tells fans to send their Twitter passwords, but it might be illegal: #HackedByJohnson entices young fans so he can post cute messages in their name.
  3. All Signs Point to Russia Being Behind the DNC Hack
  4. Critics blast Trump calls for Russia to locate missing Hillary Clinton e-mails
  5. New evidence suggests DNC hackers penetrated deeper than previously thought: Consultant’s Yahoo Mail suspected of being targeted by state-sponsored hackers.
  6. Connecting the dots: How Russia benefits from the DNC email leak
  7. Wikileaks Leak Of Turkish Emails Reveals Private Details; Raises Ethical Questions; Or Not…
  8. Secret algorithms that predict future criminals get a thumbs up from Wisconsin Supreme Court
  9. In Secret Battle, Surveillance Court Reined in FBI Use of Information Obtained From Phone Calls
  10. Judge Orders Yahoo to Explain How It Recovered ‘Deleted’ Emails in Drugs Case
  11. Protecting the Fourth Amendment in the Information Age: A Response to Robert Litt (Cindy Cohn)
  12. Nonagenarian model citizen wants secret surveillance data on him deleted: Classed as a “domestic extremist,” the RAF veteran is suing UK police at the ECHR.
  13. A Side-By-Side Comparison of “Privacy Shield” and the Controller-Processor Model Clauses: The Easiest Way to Understand What Privacy Shield is and What You Need to Do to Use it
  14. Microsoft ordered to stop tracking Windows 10 user behaviour—or face piddling fine: France’s data watchdog also eyes Microsoft’s clasp of discredited Safe Harbour scheme.
  15. Police asked this 3D printing lab to recreate a dead man’s fingers to unlock his phone
  16. Apple’s Touch ID blocks feds—armed with warrant—from unlocking iPhone: Supreme Court has not ruled about compelled unlocking of fingerprint-locked devices.
  17. Snowden Designs a Device to Warn if Your iPhone’s Radios Are Snitching
  18. Hacker who published LA Times login credentials ordered to prison: Matthew Keys must begin serving two-year sentence for putting login info online.
  19. The Internet Of Things Is a Security And Privacy Dumpster Fire And The Check Is About To Come Due
  20. Oscar-Winning Screenwriter Mark Boal Sues U.S. Government Over Bowe Bergdahl Interviews: Boal says he shouldn’t be held in contempt in a military court for refusing to comply with a subpoena.
  21. FTC: Most Americans Don’t Know How Much Companies Track And Sell Their Data – As Americans face ubiquitous data collection with too little transparency or control, Edith Ramirez, the head of the Federal Trade Commission, wants a comprehensive privacy law.

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News of the Week; July 20, 2016

By Jon Festinger on July 25, 2016

GAMES

  1. Valve lawyers send cease-and-desist letters to Counter-Strike gambling sites: CSGOLotto, CSGOLounge among those told to cease “commercial use” of Steam accounts.
  2. Valve calls on 23 Counter-Strike gambling hubs to cease & desist
  3. 23 Skin Gambling Sites, Spanning Casino And Sports Betting, Targeted With Cease And Desist From Valve
  4. Are ‘Provably Fair’ CS:GO Skin Gambling Sites As Fair And Safe As They Claim?
  5. Seven Questions Raised By Valve’s Skin Betting Announcement
  6. Twitch pulls the plug on CS:GO gambling broadcasts
  7. Twitch Bans Top Counter-Strike Gambling Streamer
  8. Robert Yang calls out Twitch for “humiliating and dehumanising treatment”: Radiator 2 is the third Yang release to be banned by Twitch for its sexual content
  9. Fallout 4 DLC Quest Resembles New Vegas Mod; Bethesda Denies Copying It – “We love our mod community and would never disrespect them,” Bethesda says.
  10. Nintendo Breaks Stock Market Records Thanks To Pokemon: A whole lot of shares were traded in Japan.
  11. Pokemon GO drives Nintendo market cap past Sony: Nintendo’s value has doubled, approaching $40 billion, thanks to Niantic’s Pokemon mobile game
  12. Measuring the quotable pop culture impact of Pokémon Go
  13. Pokémon Go Maker Is Facing a Privacy Lawsuit Threat in Germany
  14. Pokémon Go Craze Brings New “Augmented Reality” Legal Issues Into Light (Michael Geist)
  15. I hired a Pokémon Go chauffeur and played in ultimate luxury
  16. Pokémon Go is barely a week old and Hillary Clinton is already using it to register voters
  17. T-Mobile’s Pokémon Go freebie data bad for net neutrality, cry activists: Gotta zero-rate ’em all if you want to preserve the open Internet.
  18. Fake Pokémon Go app on Google Play infects phones with screenlocker
  19. What can you do when Pokémon Go decides your house is a gym?: Augmented reality and private spaces don’t mix
  20. Pokémon Go in the Workplace: Oh Look There’s a Pikachu! 
  21. Providing for your Pokémon in your Will:  Everyone is talking about Pokémon Go but no one is asking the most important question of all – what happens to your Pokémon when you die?
  22. ‘Incredibly dangerous’ Pokemon Go stunt draws ire of TTC
  23. Sex offender arrested, accused of playing Pokémon Go with kids: Probation agent saw offender playing game with kids outside agency’s office.
  24. Nintendo Cracking Down On Pokemon Go ‘Pirates’ Despite The Game Being Free
  25. Pokemon GO is now the biggest US mobile game ever: Niantic’s insta-hit has topped Twitter’s daily users and sees more engagement than Facebook
  26. Pokemon GO is the perfect marriage of IP and technology
  27. The past and future of location based AR games like Pokemon Go
  28. Sales double at GameStops that are now PokeStops, says company chief
  29. What ‘Pokémon Go’ Could Be Like if it Was Really Augmented Reality
  30. Pokémon Go Ushers in a New, Augmented World of Legal Liability Concerns 
  31. Defense Department Issues Opsec Guidelines For Safe And Secure Pokemon Hunting
  32. Pokemon Go players: you have 30 days from signup to opt out of binding arbitration
  33. How hackers are revealing the hiddenPokemon Go monsters all around you: Deciphered server data provides precise locations in a handy Google Map.
  34. What Pokémon, Japanese Schoolgirl Punks, and Cocaine Have in Common: There wouldn’t be Pikachu without kawaii, Japan’s highly addictive cult of cuteness.
  35. Microsoft’s games revenue slips due to declining Xbox console sales
  36. The Call For Diverse Representation In Gaming: A Win In ‘Mirror’s Edge Catalyst’
  37. Shooter Raw Data becomes first VR title to top Steam charts
  38. VR “kind of scares me as an investor” – Lasky
  39. Pro-skier Matilda Rapaport dies whilst filming footage for Steep: Extreme sports star killed by avalanche during Ubisoft project
  40. Ubisoft’s sales climb 44% as Vivendi increases stake in publisher: Vivendi now holds over 20% of the voting rights in Ubisoft
  41. South Korean prosecutor arrested over ’05 purchase of Nexon stock
  42. Unity Raises $181 Million Series C in Anticipation of VR/AR Growth: Company reportedly valued at $1.5 billion
  43. The law in the world’s largest mobile gaming market has changed
  44. China overtakes US in iOS game revenues – App Annie
  45. Twitch viewers more likely to buy within 24 hours of stream
  46. eSports growth slowing but market to pass $1bn in 2017 – SuperData
  47. TV networks show they are ready to commit to esports
  48. Why sports teams are recruiting video gamers
  49. eSports’ “Wild West” period is drawing to a close
  50. Ubisoft’s fortunes rise thanks to strong Q1 sales of digital goods
  51. TIGA wants improved Game Tax Relief following Brexit
  52. TIGA issues ten-point report on preparing for Brexit
  53. Spanish games companies have “multiplied by a factor of 8” since 2005
  54. Breeding Season’s Patreon campaign turns sour: When sex and farming sims go wrong
  55. Hideo Kojima on Leaving Metal Gear Behind and Starting Anew
  56. Can ‘Minecraft’ Really Change the Way Teachers Teach?
  57. Matt Damon Would Love to Be in a Video Game, But No One’s Asked Him Yet

DIGITAL

  1. Google’s ad business “breaches” EU rules, says antitrust chief: Price comparison charges “reinforced,” fresh charges against ad practices coming.
  2. Alleged founder of world’s largest BitTorrent distribution site arrested: US prosecutors allege Artem Vaulin illegally distributed over $1 billion in IP.
  3. Twitter stirs debate as ‘troll’ banned over racist abuse
  4. Milo Yiannopoulos, rightwing writer, permanently banned from Twitter: Breitbart writer, who tweeted as @Nero, handed permanent suspension after claims he fanned flames of social media attack on Ghostbusters’ Leslie Jones
  5. Twitter vows to act more swiftly after banning Leslie Jones abuser: Twitter bars Milo Yiannopoulos for good after Jones quit the network following tweets that left her in ‘personal hell’
  6. Twitter opens up account verification, bans Breitbart editor over abuse
  7. Police Step Up Arrests For ‘Threatening’ Social Media Posts In The Wake Of The Dallas Shooting
  8. Paris Court Says Search Engines Don’t Need To Block Torrent Searches
  9. Google, Microsoft can’t be forced to censor “torrent” searches: Court disapproved of plaintiff’s attempt to use “torrent” as a badge of dishonor.
  10. Sideloading Service Defeats Copyright Infringement Claims–BWP v. Polyvore (Eric Goldman)
  11. Yelp Isn’t Liable For User-Submitted Photos Of Businesses–Albert v. Yelp (Eric Goldman)
  12. California Appeals Court Reaffirms Section 230 Protections In Lawsuit Against Yelp For Third-Party Postings
  13. Twitter May Be Liable for Sending Texts to Recycled Cellphone Numbers–Nunes v. Twitter
  14. Most of what you do online is illegal. Let’s end the absurdity: A hopelessly outdated law can criminalise things like using chat clients, playing games or watching sports. Worse, it make research into discrimination illegal
  15. Could Donald Trump Block Hillary Clinton’s Campaign From Visiting His Website Via The CFAA?
  16. Courts Approve Terms of Service-Based Arbitration Clauses for Uber and Groupon
  17. Does Snapchat’s Lenses feature violate Illinois’ biometrics law?: 2008 law warns “full ramifications of biometric technology are not fully known.”
  18. TOS agreements require giving up first born—and users gladly consent: Study says participants also agreed to allow data sharing with NSA and employers.
  19. A Binding “Clickwrap Agreement” From Paper?
  20. Turkey Blocks Wikileaks After It Dumps Nearly 300,000 Turkish Gov’t Emails
  21. As Erdogan Faces Turkish Coup, The Guy Who Once Banned Social Media Sites, Forced To Address Nation Via Facetime & Twitter
  22. Ninth Circuit Panel Backs Away From Dangerous Password Sharing Decision—But Creates Even More Confusion About the CFAA (EFF)
  23. Is It Really Illegal to Share Your Netflix Password?: The confusion over the 30-year-old Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.
  24. Plagiarism claims against BuzzFeed Video: a complicated tale of originality on the internet
  25. Google deletes artist’s blog and a decade of his work along with it
  26. When Tragedy Strikes Who Should Cash In on Viral Video?
  27. Pam Geller Sues The US Gov’t Because Facebook Blocked Her Page; Says CDA 230 Violates First Amendment
  28. Kim Dotcom to reboot Megaupload half a decade after FBI shut it down: File-sharing mogul still fighting against extradition to US.
  29. Facebook isn’t trying hard enough to increase its diversity: It’s blaming schools, not itself.
  30. Yahoo may not have “screwed Tumblr up,” but it has haemorrhaged money
  31. YouTube Is Becoming Many YouTubes to Keep Its Video Crown
  32. YouTube Pays Billions, But the Music Industry Says It’s Not Enough
  33. Owner Steve Ballmer shares his vision for an online streaming service run by the Clippers
  34. Twitter Live-Stream Of Two Original NBA Shows Is Huge For Basketball Fans
  35. Twitter Signs NBA Deal to Stream New Shows: Partnership won’t include digital rights to stream actual games
  36. Nick Denton Says Giving Up on Reader Comments Is a Big Mistake
  37. Unionizing the Digital Newsroom
  38. A European perspective on robot law: Interview with Mady Delvaux-Stehres
  39. Virtual Reality Gave Me My Brain Back
  40. Why Google DeepMind wants your medical records
  41. Here’s Why Google Is Open-Sourcing Some Of Its Most Important Technology
  42. Windows 10 to miss its target of being on 1 billion devices by 2018
  43. Newt Gingrich: Merely Visiting An ISIS Or Al Qaeda Website Should Be A Felony
  44. Major Tech Leaders Pen Brutal Condemnation Of Donald Trump – “We have listened to Donald Trump over the past year and we have concluded: Trump would be a disaster for innovation.”
  45. How the internet was invented: In 40 years, the internet has morphed from a military communication network into a vast global cyberspace. And it all started in a California beer garden 

CREATIVITY

  1. Melania Trump’s RNC Speech: Plagiarism, Copyright Infringement, or Both?
  2. Was Melania Trump’s Plagiarism Also Copyright Infringement?
  3. Queen want Donald Trump to stop using their music. But the law might be on Trump’s side.
  4. Ted Cruz Campaign Infringed On Copyright, But Will Probably Be Treated With Kid Gloves Just Because
  5. Why Is The UK’s Intellectual Property Office Praising National Portrait Gallery’s Copyfraud Claims Over Public Domain Images?
  6. Just As Open Competitor To Elsevier’s SSRN Launches, SSRN Accused Of Copyright Crackdown
  7. Treaty For The Blind Comes Into Force… But US Refuses To Ratify Because Publishers Association Hates Any User Rights
  8. More Copyright Law ≠ Less Copyright Infringement (EFF)
  9. Copyright small claims: an update on legislation
  10. Boilerplate: the Good, the Bad and the Ugly
  11. A Day In The Life of Fair Use: A Different Kind of Superhero at Comic-Con
  12. Digital domination? YouTube, Vimeo Crackle and more receive Emmy nods
  13. B.C. ruling means journalist must hand over notes
  14. How the CIA Hoodwinked Hollywood: Since its inception, the agency has wooed filmmakers, producers, and actors in order to present a rosy portrait of its operations to the American public.
  15. British teachers caught up in Turkey crackdown as Erdogan bans academics from leaving country and orders those overseas to return
  16. Trans-Pacific Partnership Would Harm User Rights and the Commons
  17. Here are 6 reasons why newspapers have dropped their paywalls: Sometimes it’s a response to a public emergency; sometimes it’s just to build audience.
  18. A Fan’s Case For Putting Batman & Superman In The Public Domain
  19. Featuring Someone’s Property in a Commercial Advertisement 
  20. Canadian copyright laws have been amended to make works more accessible to people with print disabilities
  21. American Medical Association Claims False Copyright Over President Obama’s Journal Article
  22. Julia Child Foundation Sues Airbnb for Using Her Name
  23. The Pleads Of The Many: 50 Years of Star Trek Lawsuits
  24. You As A Brand: A Legal History
  25. What can a crime drama teach us about justice?
  26. The new science of cute: Kumamon, a cartoon bear created to promote tourism in an overlooked part of Japan, has become a billion-dollar phenomenon. Now, a new academic field is trying to pinpoint what makes things cute – and why we can’t resist them
  27. An Art Historical Perspective on the Baton Rouge Protest Photo that Went Viral
  28. New Measures Initiated to Remedy the Surprising Pitfalls of Collecting Video Art
  29. Goold on Copyright Infringement as a Group of Torts
  30. Ginsburg on the Right to Be Recognized as Author of One’s Work
  31. Copyright infringement claim is dismissed after the Court finds the applicant is not the author and owner of the works

COMMUNICATIONS & BROADCASTING

  1. Sources: Megyn Kelly Told Murdoch Investigators That Roger Ailes Sexually Harassed Her
  2. Roger Ailes Petitions to Compel Arbitration of Gretchen Carlson’s Sex Discrimination Claims 
  3. Murdoch Brothers’ Challenge: What Happens Next at Fox News?
  4. Cable Industry’s False Copyright Claims Are Killing Cable Box Reform Efforts
  5. Set Top TV Boxes in the Eye of the Storm Over Copyright Claims
  6. FCC Chairman Announces No Changes in Good Faith Negotiation Standards for Retransmission Consent Agreements Between TV and MVPDs 
  7. Cable blackouts of “free” TV channels won’t be stopped by FCC: FCC won’t expand oversight of contract disputes that cause TV blackouts.
  8. BT’s poor customer record, failure to invest in fibre attacked by MPs
  9. Tim Berners-Lee slams “manipulative tactics” of telcos on net neutrality
  10. Mobile carriers aren’t doing enough to fight robocalls, senators say
  11. FCC will let jails charge inmates more for phone calls: Court rejected rate caps of 11¢ to 22¢ per minute.
  12. $700,000 to Be Paid By Media General to End Inquiry on its Attempts to Enforce a JSA – What are the Limits on the Enforceability of a Contractual Restriction on an FCC Licensee’s Sale of its Station? 

SURVEILLANCE & PRIVACY

  1. Our search warrant case: An important decision for people everywhere
  2. Microsoft win is a victory for privacy rights: A US court has ruled that Microsoft does not have to hand over data from an email account to the US authorities because the data is held on a server in Ireland.
  3. Second Circuit Holds That U.S. Cannot Compel By Warrant Microsoft’s Production of Emails Stored Outside of U.S., Citing The Stored Communications Act’s Privacy Protections and Lack of Extraterritorial Effect 
  4. Microsoft wins: Court rules feds can’t use SCA to nab overseas data – Outlook.com e-mail on Irish servers not covered by Stored Communications Act.
  5. In the Matter of Microsoft: Why It Matters
  6. The Microsoft Ireland Case and the Future of Digital Privacy (Jennifer Granick)
  7. DOJ Pushes Out Legislation Proposal To Undercut Microsoft Case Decision About Overseas Searches
  8. For The First Time, A Federal Judge Has Suppressed Evidence Obtained With A Stingray Device
  9. For The Third Time, Whatsapp Blocked (And Then Unblocked) By Brazilian Judges For Failing To Decrypt
  10. EU-U.S. Privacy Shield: Should You Sign Up?
  11. Five Ways that Privacy Shield is Different from Safe Harbor and Five Simple Steps Companies Can Take to Prepare for Certification
  12. A Québec Perspective on the “Right to be Forgotten” and the Removal of Personal Information Online
  13. Federal Court of Appeal Comments on New Tort of “Publicity Given To Private Life”, Overturns Certification Order
  14. Kim Kardashian v Taylor Swift: privacy on Snapchat and the legal gray areas
  15. Kim Broke The Internet. Did Kanye Break The Law? An Expert On Taylor Swift’s Case To Sue
  16. Former STL Cardinals Scouting Director Gets Jail Time For Illegally Accessing Astros Scouting Database
  17. The email, data and privacy implications of Microsoft’s acquisition of LinkedIn

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News of the Week; July 13, 2016

By Jon Festinger on July 15, 2016

GAMES

  1. The history of video games in court
  2. Checking In: Blizzard Still Suing Hack/Cheat Makers For Copyright Infringement? Yup!
  3. Pokemon GO’s launch was an unqualified success – almost
  4. Nintendo shares up as Pokemon Go heads toward global launch
  5. Location, location, location: Pokémon GO’s unique strength and biggest problem: Niantic eyes sponsored locations just as the complaints from real-world businesses start to roll in
  6. Cops warn Pokémon Go players: Please don’t trespass to catch ‘em all – “Please use caution as I do not believe the game was intended to be used while driving.”
  7. Some public places want more Pokémon Go—but the Holocaust Museum does not: Follows anecdotal police, medical reports of people using the app to their detriment.
  8. Armed Robbers Use Pokémon Go To Find 9 Victims
  9. Armed muggers use Pokémon Go to find victims: Police warn that muggers can “add a beacon to a Pokéstop to lure more players.”
  10. Gamer finds dead body while testingPokémon Go’s GPS features: App requiring users to walk to physical locations leads to disturbing discovery.
  11. ‘Pokémon Go’ Is Grabbing ‘Full Access’ to Some Players’ Google Accounts
  12. You can cheat and play Pokémon Go on PC: Android emulators and GPS spoofing work, but expect to be banned for your efforts.
  13. How Pokémon Go is creating a barrier for gamers with disabilities
  14. How TV and Streaming Networks Hope to Benefit From the Pokemon Go Frenzy: Hulu sees 10% daily jump in Pokemon viewing
  15. Pokémon Go, explained: Everyone is suddenly catching Pokémon fever again. Here’s what’s going on.
  16. Tracing Pokémon Go’s roots back to the ’90s MMORPG Meridian 59
  17. Catch them all – Pokemon Go and the law
  18. Pokemon Go Hysteria Again Highlights How Media Is Happy To Be Gullible And Wrong — If It Means More Ad Eyeballs
  19. Pokémon Go is so yesterday as cell phone gambling hits the Vegas strip: Gamblers compete against other MGM resort gamers in bingo, slots, and video poker.
  20. Warner Brothers fined for paying YouTube celebs to promote game
  21. Warner Bros. settles FTC influencer charges: Charges involved Shadow of Mordor, PewDiePie and cash
  22. Warner Brothers gets fined by FTC, PewDiePie skates free
  23. Disclosing paid content legally – a practical guide for developers and influencers
  24. The Counter-Strike Gambling Scandal, Explained
  25. YouTubers Behind Counter-Strike Gambling Scandal Get Sued
  26. YouTuber Trevor ‘TmarTn’ Martin has issued an “apology” over the CSGO Lotto scandal. 
  27. Mom takes on Valve, third-party “trading” sites, alleges “illegal scheme”: Suits call in-game skin system “an element of gambling and market economies.”
  28. YouTube corruption sinks even deeper into the gutter: Promoting illegal gambling could finally see governments on YouTube’s doorstep – and perhaps on Valve’s
  29. Valve can’t pass buck to third parties for teaching CS:GO kids to gamble – Opinion – Valve’s own Dota 2 and CS:GO much worse than third-party gambling sites.
  30. CS:GO gambling site accused of offering to rig bets for YouTubers
  31. Valve says it’s going after gambling sites that use Steam: Counter-Strike GO gambling sites asked to cease operations
  32. Valve demands that gambling sites cease operations through Steam: “We have no business relationships with any of these sites. We have never received any revenue from them,” says Valve’s Erik Johnson
  33. Blizzard casts silence on abusive World of Warcraft players
  34. G2A will allow developers to apply for royalties, adds seller verification: Controversial key reseller finally addresses major concern highlighted by Tinybuild’s Alex Nichiporchik
  35. China Forbids The Use Of English Words In Mobile Games
  36. Establishing Esports Oversight: The Groups, Issues, And Potential Challenges
  37. Wii U was expected to sell 100 million units: Nintendo talks about the failed console, and it now expects any new games to sell 2m units worldwide
  38. Microsoft quietly trims the scope of its ‘Play Anywhere’ Xbox initiative
  39. In an effort to find more players, Evolve is now free: Hope you didn’t buy the game last week or anything…
  40. Twitch’s research shows that livestreaming leads to better game sales
  41. Hollywood wants to make a TV show based on EA’s Battlefieldgames
  42. Jocks Without Borders: The majorly male spectators of e-sports are in league with a fantasy of globalized manhood
  43. Splash Damage sold to Chinese poultry firm: Leyou will acquire the developer from Paul Wedgwood, along with Fireteam and Warchest
  44. Record $18.6 billion games M&A to Q2 2016
  45. In the battle for gaming business, Vancouver is about to ‘git gud’: Quebec may lead in number of firms, but BC is closing in like a juggernaut  
  46. LucasArts’ long lost, 30-year-old MMO is now preserved on Github: Habitat restoration required recovering a 300-pound, circa-1989 server.
  47. Block Stop: The theatre company taking live-action video games to the stage – A London company is using live-streamed content to enhance interactivity.
  48. Kojima: Games’ ability to convey emotions will soon surpass that of real people

DIGITAL

  1. 9th Circuit: It’s a federal crime to visit a website after being told not to visit it (Orin Kerr)
  2. TOS agreements require giving up first born—and users gladly consent: Study says participants also agreed to allow data sharing with NSA and employers.
  3. Employees Bound By Clickthrough Agreements–ADP v. Lynch (Eric Goldman)
  4. YouTube to the music industry: here’s the money: Google’s new report on piracy makes the case YouTube is a boon to the music industry
  5. Google responds to music biz critics, points to $2B it has paid out
  6. Google Issues Its Latest ‘Stop Blaming Us For Piracy’ Report
  7. Apple’s Plan to Own the Entire Music Industry
  8. Sony Pictures Legal Affairs VP Files Bogus DMCA Notice Because His Salary Is Listed On Wikileaks
  9. Minneapolis PD Issues Questionable DMCA Notice To Bury Its Controversial Recruitment Video
  10. Relatives of Palestinian attack victims sue Facebook for $1 billion in U.S.
  11. Families: Hamas on Facebook, so firm must pay $1B after terror deaths – Facebook will likely argue for protection under Section 230 of CDA.
  12. Section 230 Protects YouTube’s Removal of User’s Videos–Lancaster v. Alphabet (Eric Goldman)
  13. How technology disrupted the truth: Social media has swallowed the news – threatening the funding of public-interest reporting and ushering in an era when everyone has their own facts. But the consequences go far beyond journalism
  14. Mom alerted to adult content on her teenage son’s Snapchat, so she sues: Snapchat spokesman: “We are sorry if people were offended.”
  15. Lawsuit Filed Against Snapchat Over Inappropriate Content Served To Minors Through Discover
  16. Live Footage of Shootings Forces Facebook to Confront New Role
  17. Facebook video shows black man killed by Minnesota police during traffic stop
  18. Philando Castile’s girlfriend says she filmed his shooting ‘so that the people could see’
  19. Baton Rouge Police Took Alton Sterling Surveillance Video Without a Warrant or Permission: The store’s owner said minutes after the deadly shooting, officers took a hard drive against his wishes and there’s no record they even asked a judge to do it.
  20. Witness videos and the conversation about race and policing
  21. The Gatekeepers Aren’t Gone: Viral content seems democratic. But it’s still mostly controlled by big media companies.
  22. The bias in our software: We’ve been sold the idea that social networks are neutral. They’re not.
  23. Activists Cheer On EU’s ‘Right To An Explanation’ For Algorithmic Decisions, But How Will It Work When There’s Nothing To Explain?
  24. How Uber secretly investigated its legal foes — and got caught: Faced with a class action suit, the company hired a CIA-linked intelligence firm to look into the plaintiffs and their lawyer, but a judge says they may have gone too far
  25. Twitter Prepares For NFL Live Stream With Wimbledon Coverage
  26. Twitter is talking to the NBA, MLS and Turner to buy rights to more sports streams: Twitter is looking to ink more NFL-style streaming deals.
  27. Smartphone=not-so-smart parenting?: Psychologists and other child development experts are exploring how parents’ use of technology affects kids and the best ways to help families reconnect in the Digital Age.
  28. Back to bricks and mortar: how e-commerce has embraced the real world – Many digitally born businesses are taking the plunge into physical retail as they tap into the rise of the experience economy
  29. TP-Link forgets to register domain name, leaves config pages open to hijack: The domain name’s new owners want $2.5 million to give it back.
  30. Virtual and augmented reality need a PG-13 moment
  31. Ashley Madison admits using fembots to lure men into spending money: The hookup site for cheaters admits its mistakes and tries to rebrand.
  32. Tesla’s Autopilot Driving Mode Is a Legal Nightmare
  33. Contracting for the Internet of Things’: Looking into the Nest (Guido Noto La Diega & Ian Walden)
  34. The Biggest Lie On The Internet: Ignoring The Privacy Policies And Terms Of Service Policies Of Social Networking Services (Jonathan Obar & Anne Oeldorf-Hirsch)

CREATIVITY

  1. Why a Canadian Composer’s Controversial 80s Work is Still Ahead of Today’s Copyright Laws
  2. The Tragic Downfall of British Media: How did the country that produced the BBC and the Economist fail so spectacularly at journalism in the lead up to     Brexit?
  3. A Fight to Make ‘We Shall Overcome’ and ‘This Land Is Your Land’ Copyright Free
  4. Two More Songs Could Follow ‘Happy Birthday’ Into the Public Domain
  5. Ted Cruz’s Presidential Campaign Apparently Committed Copyright Infringement. Oops. (Eric Goldman)
  6. Campaign IP Violations Part 3 – Huckabee’s Campaign Pays Up 
  7. Led Zep lawyers want $800k for defending “Stairway to Heaven” lawsuit: Lead attorney is billing at $330 an hour, says it’s “below” going rate.
  8. Long Island couple sues neighbors for trying to build their copyrighted mansion 
  9. Fox News fair use claim for Facebook post of 9-11 image remains unresolved
  10. B.B. King estate, Universal sued over blues legend’s photos
  11. How this millennial entrepreneur makes dance moves go viral
  12. Inequality in 700 Popular Films: Examining Portrayals of Gender, Race, & LGBT Status from 2007 to 2014

COMMUNICATIONS & BROADCASTING

  1. Anchor Gretchen Carlson files lawsuit alleging “pervasive” sexual harassment at Fox News: Fox News host Gretchen Carlson has filed a shocking sexual harassment lawsuit against Fox News chairman and CEO Roger Ailes, claiming that Ailes retaliated against her and ultimately fired her for refusing his sexual advances — and for complaining about repeated sexual harassment from her former Fox & Friends co-host Steve Doocy.
  2. Watch Gretchen Carlson’s “Fox & Friends” Colleagues Routinely Make Sexist Comments at Her
  3. Gretchen Carlson files sexual harassment suit against Fox’s Ailes
  4. The most shocking details from Gretchen Carlson’s lawsuit against FOX News CEO Roger Ailes
  5. Roger Ailes opts for secrecy, cowardice in face of Gretchen Carlson suit
  6. Gretchen Carlson’s Sexual-Harassment Lawsuit May Allow Murdoch Sons to Finally Oust Roger Ailes From Fox News
  7. How Rupert Murdoch’s media empire covered the Roger Ailes sex harassment suit
  8. ‘Daily Show’s’ Trevor Noah Defends Gretchen Carlson from Rampant Fox News Sexism
  9. Gretchen Carlson gets real
  10. CRTC faces allegations of racism at highest ranks: court documents
  11. D.C. Circuit Affirms FCC’s Net Neutrality Order
  12. Univision Sues Charter Communications Over Fee Payments: Media company accuses cable operator of using recent merger to try to pay lower rates
  13. Verizon ‘Competes’ With T-Mobile By Raising Prices, Then Denying It’s A Price Hike
  14. Big telcos promise awesome 5G—in exchange for weak net neutrality: BT, Vodafone, and chums all flex muscles, press for lighter regulation.
  15. European Telcos Threaten To Withhold Next Gen Wireless Upgrades If Net Neutrality Rules Passed
  16. Comcast Continues To Claim It’s ‘Not Feasible’ To Offer Its Programming To Third-Party Cable Boxes
  17. Here comes 5G: On July 14, the FCC will initiate a formal rule-making that will make the U.S. the first country in the world to open high-band spectrum for 5G networks and technologies.

SURVEILLANCE & PRIVACY

  1. Privacy Shield approved by EU member states, but 4 nations abstain: Safe Harbour replacement deal expected to be signed with the US next week.
  2. EU-US Privacy Shield – What’s new in comparison with Safe Harbor?
  3. Future of Privacy Forum Statement Regarding Finalization of the US-EU Privacy Shield Agreement
  4. iOS version of Pokémon Go is a possible privacy trainwreck – No user data has been accessed, and Google and Niantic are working on fixes.
  5. Pokémon GO, augmented reality, and privacy
  6. Niantic acknowledges Pokémon Go security fears, says fix is imminent
  7. Sen. Franken asks Pokémon Go creator: Why all the privacy problems?: What’s being shared and with whom? And why not an “opt-in” system?
  8. Appeals Court Says Government Email Stored On Private Servers Is Still Subject To FOIA Requests
  9. Appeals Court Says That Sharing Passwords Can Violate Criminal Anti-Hacking Laws
  10. Three years after taking off Guy Fawkes mask, Kentucky Anon indicted
  11. ‘KYAnonymous,’ who drew attention to Ohio rape case, indicted by federal grand jury
  12. UK Tor operator hit with bizarre EU arrest warrant from Polish prosecutor: Authorities want to track down anonymous user who “insulted” a small-town mayor.
  13. Fifteen secret warrants in force granting bulk data collection in UK: Watchdog reveals for first time number of orders imposed on telephone and internet firms under Telecommunications Act
  14. UK’s secret, ongoing mass surveillance rigorously frisked by watchdog: Warrants so hush-hush, affected telcos weren’t allowed to keep copies.
  15. Reports Shows UK Police Improperly Accessed Data On Citizens Thousands Of TimesIn Russia and China, Big Brother is watching you online
  16. FDIC was hacked by China, and CIO covered it up
  17. Putin Says All Encryption Must Be Backdoored In Two Weeks
  18. Major VPN firm pulls out of Russia, blames country’s new spy law: Abrupt exit comes in wake of controversial Russian online snooping legislation.
  19. The Difficulty of Routing around Internet Surveillance States (Bruce Schneier)
  20. 10 million Android phones infected by all-powerful auto-rooting apps: First detected in November, Shedun/HummingBad infections are surging.
  21. Firms must directly notify people affected by data breaches: watchdog
  22. Do you have privacy rights on social media? 
  23. Spoliation or Privacy “Right to be Forgotten”? – Google’s new service “My Activity” allows you to delete your history!

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News of the Week; July 6, 2016

By Jon Festinger on July 11, 2016

GAMES

  1. Blizzard ups the ante against Overwatchcheats by filing lawsuit: Hostilities reopen between Blizzard and longtime rivals Bossland.
  2. Blizzard files suit for copyright infringement against Overwatch hack developer
  3. YouTubers under fire for promoting their own CS:GO gambling site in videos: Syndicate and TmarTn promoted CSGO Lotto, but didn’t disclose that they own it.
  4. Prominent YouTubers revealed as owners of controversial CS:GO gambling site: Pair had heavily promoted use of service without disclosure, alleges video
  5. YouTube gamers caught in gambling row
  6. Popular YouTubers scrutinized over Counter-Strike gambling scandal
  7. Steam warns users against gambling site after YouTube stars discovered as owners
  8. To get young people gambling, casinos embrace video games
  9. Nintendo issues DMCA takedown against Kickstarter for NES photobook
  10. Video game art swiped this week by Beijing hockey team, Ford dealership: Guild Wars 2, Firewatch are latest victims of “infinite free content” syndrome.
  11. eSports Integrity Coalition launches
  12. British eSports Association formed
  13. Manchester City sign 18-year-old eSports player: Kieran ‘Kez’ Brown to play Fifa 16 for the team, live streaming on Twitch and making YouTube videos
  14. Sources: Sporting Lisbon enters League of Legends and FIFA esports
  15. ESPN partners with Evo to put Street Fighter V finals on live TV
  16. PlayStation Plus now has 20.8m paying subscribers
  17. GameStop sells out of PS VR pre-orders… again: Second allotment sells out in 4 minutes
  18. Sony’s entire future now rests on PlayStation: As Kaz Hirai’s painful restructuring comes to a close, a new Sony emerges – one whose growth is almost entirely centered on the success of PlayStation
  19. Sony Locks Up The PSN Account Of A Man Named ‘Jihad’ Because You’ll Never Guess Why
  20. The Legend of Zelda fans decry lack of female lead as ‘lazy’ and ‘laughable’: Video game hero Link often interpreted as androgynous, but producers maintain that he will remain male
  21. Microsoft aims to upgrade Xbox avatar program with wheelchairs
  22. Nintendo May Skip VR for its Forthcoming NX Console, Report Suggests
  23. With NX in the wings, Nintendo execs seek to reassure investors
  24. Japanese LittleBigPlanet servers shutting down
  25. Only 3.5% of gamers make in-app purchases – AppsFlyer
  26. Ubisoft expands board of directors to combat Vivendi influence
  27. Video games on Kickstarter raise just $8.2m in first half of 2016 – ICO: That’s down from more than $20m in the previous period, but the ratio of successfully funded projects has increased
  28. Steam Spy: Steam summer sale revenues rise nearly 50% year-over-year
  29. HTC Vive spearheads $10bn VR VC group: 27 firms have joined with HTC Vive in the VR Venture Capital Alliance
  30. TIGA asks UK government to protect status of existing EU workers: Migrant workers fill vital gaps in country’s skillset, says body
  31. How virtual racing is turning gamers into drivers
  32. The ethical decisions and factional politics of Stellaris
  33. Social Dynamics Within Sony’s PlayStation VR Social VR Experiments
  34. Source code for Lucasfilm Games’ ’80s MMO Habitat released
  35. Inside The Art Of Atari: Take a look at a book about console gaming’s earliest days
  36. The Secret History of Donkey Kong 

DIGITAL

  1. Internet piracy falls to record lows amid rise of Spotify and Netflix
  2. American Copyright Trolls Continue To Abuse Canadian Courts In Search Of Easy Settlements
  3. Google Asks to Punish Oracle Lawyer Who Spilled Apple Secrets
  4. NRA Trademark Complaint Over Yes Men Parody Takes Down 38,000 Websites
  5. ACLU Files Challenge To CFAA Over Blocking Research Into Discrimination Online
  6. China restricts online news sites from sourcing stories on social media: News outlets forbidden from using “conjecture and imagination to distort the facts.”
  7. Spotify says Apple won’t approve a new version of its app because it doesn’t want competition for Apple Music: “We cannot stand by as Apple uses the App Store approval process as a weapon.”
  8. For The First Time In Olympic History, Virtual Reality Broadcast Programming Will Be Available
  9. Internet Access Is Now A Basic Human Right
  10. Facebook’s News Feed: Often Changed, Never Great
  11. Spotify And Apple Are At Each Other’s Throats – With The Music Biz Caught In The Middle
  12. The tick-tock story of how LinkedIn shopped itself to Microsoft, Salesforce and Google
  13. The mad rush to own the rights to the blockchain
  14. This chatbot appeals parking tickets and wins 60 percent of the time: Available in NYC and London for now; 160,000 tickets challenged so far.
  15. The Good, the Bad and the Weirdest “Internet of Things” Things: Why haven’t all of our objects gone wireless? Because nobody’s buying this stuff
  16. VidCon 2016: Innocence Lost?
  17. Paid / Sponsored Content Disclosure: A Practical Legal Guide for YouTubers and Streamers (Jas Purewal & Pete Lewin)
  18. IP for AIs?
  19. A women’s History of Silicon Valley: Let’s lionize these seven technologists who kicked off the computer revolution and happen to be female.

CREATIVITY

  1. Two Courts Throw Out Turkish President’s Bid To Obtain An Injunction Against German Media Boss
  2. Peter Thiel Is Not an Enemy of Journalism (He Just Wants to Destroy It): And what may be one of the most significant First Amendment fights in history.
  3. Thin-Skinned Chinese Govt. Declares Media War On Lady Gaga For Meeting With The Dalai Lama
  4. Movie theater chain demands $700,000 from victims of the Aurora shooting to recoup legal fees
  5. Ford Dealership Swipes Game Image For Ad, Thinks It’s Kosher Because It Came From A DMCA Compliant Site
  6. Media coverage in politics: court draws line between critical political reporting and defamation
  7. A $10 Billion Idea, without a Patent, is just an Idea
  8. Happy Birthday: my campaign to liberate the people’s song – video
  9. Dish Agrees To Make Ad-Skipping DVR Less Useful In Settlement With Comcast, NBC Universal
  10. Licensed To Fail: How licensing ended ‘established and respected’ international document supply service
  11. The FEC has no business judging Fox News’s debate
  12. The AP’s New Baseball Reporter Is Not Human
  13. Track Changes: A Literary History of Word Processing review – did tech change literary style?
  14. A Philosophy of Intellectual Property (Peter Drahos)
  15. New study could explain why we remake certain movies over and over again: Unfortunately, there is no method for eliminating bad reboots.
  16. Data Mining Reveals the Six Basic Emotional Arcs of Storytelling: Scientists at the Computational Story Laboratory have analyzed novels to identify the building blocks of all stories.

COMMUNICATIONS & BROADCASTING

  1. Reining in the Cable Killers: Federal Court Orders Crackdown on TV Set-top Boxes with Copyright-infringing Applications 
  2. Canadian Battle over “Zero Rating” Places Net Neutrality Safeguards at Risk (Michael Geist)
  3. Kickbacks And Legal Tricks Are Protecting Mega-ISPs From Apartment Broadband Competition
  4. FCC Pressure Helps Bring Netflix To Comcast Cable Boxes
  5. Comcast Incorrectly Bills Customer $1,775, Tells Him To Figure It Out With His Bank
  6. Amazon offers smartphone discounts in exchange for baked-in ads: Amazon brings ad-supported hardware model from the Kindle to Android phones.
  7. Dish Sues Tribune Because It Called The Company ‘Dishgusting’ 

SURVEILLANCE & PRIVACY

  1. Facebook wins privacy case, can now track any Belgian it wants: Facebook can go back to tracking Belgians who aren’t logged in or don’t have an account.
  2. Illinois Court Says State’s Cyberstalking Law Is Unconstitutional
  3. Man arrested for taking video of cops sues NYPD
  4. I helped draft the Freedom of Information Act 50 years ago. Here’s what I learned about government secrecy.
  5. Government Surveillance of Internet Traffic 
  6. 2015 Wiretap Report Doesn’t Have Much To Say About Encryption, But Does Show Feds Run Into Zero Judicial Opposition

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News of the Week; June 29, 2016

By Jon Festinger on July 10, 2016

GAMES

  1. Sony Settlement Gives PS3 Owners $9 After Company Made Console Less Useful Via Firmware Update
  2. Optimistic about VR and games, Sony raises its earnings forecast
  3. Counter-Strike Player Sues Valve Over ‘Illegal’ Weapon Skin Gambling
  4. Lawsuit Against Valve Over Skin Gambling Could Face Significant Hurdles
  5. EA Sports won’t be beaten at its own game – Escaping potential liability through successful § 101 motion to dismiss
  6. EA punts, gives $600k to former football star in Madden NFL rights flap: But EA is fighting a similar suit that could represent thousands of NFL players.
  7. EA pays $600k to settle legal fight with former NFL star Jim Brown
  8. Tinybuild: G2A “facilitates a black market economy” – SpeedRunners dev claims $450,000 of its games were sold through unofficial marketplace, “thousands” of which were fraudulent
  9. Game key reseller G2A offers to pay devs royalties from third-party sales
  10. G2A now allowing developers to apply for royalties: “This initiative invites developers to become accomplices,” says Alex Nichiporchik
  11. G2A, Piracy, and the Four Currencies
  12. Developer claims Valve removed its game from Steam at Activision’s behest
  13. Game devs weigh in on the ‘Brexit’ decision
  14. Ukie issues statement on Brexit: “Ukie is committed to ensuring the UK is the best place in the world to make and sell games”
  15. TIGA calls for government to reassure UK games industry: Post-Brexit Britain will be a harder place to do business, warns body
  16. Brexit: UK game developers share their concerns – “The negative revolves around skilled talent not wanting or being able to stay, or come to UK.”
  17. HQ Vancouver: Why global gaming giants set up shop in Vancouver
  18. PlayStation Plus hits 20.8 million subscribers
  19. Moore: “We want to make stars of all our players” – EA’s Chief Competition Officer lays out company plans for eSports
  20. How the law matters in eSports’ Wild West
  21. Will E-Sports Ever Work on TV?: With eLeague, TBS is going to find out.
  22. Overwatch tops League as the most-played game in South Korean ‘net cafes
  23. Report: China is now the global leader in video game revenues
  24. Xbox Fitness Users Shelled Out Big Bucks For Workout Programs They’ll Soon Be Totally Unable To Use
  25. Xbox Fitness users will soon lose access to workout videos they bought: Microsoft’s “sunset” plan will cut users off from content they paid for.
  26. Nintendo is closing servers for Devil’s Third
  27. Our social network is in another castle: The new face of Nintendo – Response to social-media outrage is latest sign of a very different “gaming” company.
  28. Action Henk devs would rather you torrented their games than buy from resellers
  29. New South Park Game Lets You Play as a Girl, Game Reacts to You Differently
  30. Hands-on with the emulator that adds depth to old 2D NES games: Standalone 3DNES emulator is a promising starting effort with some rough edges.
  31. Firaxis partners with GlassLab for educational version of Civilization V
  32. Truth and Protection: Where is the Line When Teaching Kids about the Video Game Community
  33. Smithsonian to document evolution of game industry with Video Game Pioneers Archive
  34. Xbox Scorpio, PlayStation Neo an “incredibly positive evolution”: Electronic Arts, Ubisoft and Take-Two discuss why Microsoft and Sony launching new consoles more quickly is a big win
  35. Microsoft Discontinues Xbox Fitness Programs To The Dismay Of Users
  36. The Minecraft Movie Has A Release Date!

DIGITAL

  1. NRA Complaint Takes Down 38,000 Websites
  2. Digitising public domain images creates a new copyright, rules German court: Wikimedia Foundation says that it intends to appeal against the decision.
  3. Terrible Ruling In Germany: Digitizing The Public Domain Creates New Copyright
  4. Leave to Appeal to SCC: Rogers v SOCAN (2016 FCA 28) re Ringtones and Ringbacks
  5. Woman Sues Microsoft Over Unwanted Windows 10 Upgrade, Wins $10,000
  6. Researchers Sue the Government Over Computer Hacking Law
  7. First Look Media Works, Inc., Plaintiffs, -v.- Loretta Lynch, in her official capacity as Attorney General of the United States, In The United States District Court For The District Of Columbia
  8. Judge Calls Out Malibu Media For Its Attempt To Cut And Run When Faced With Challenge To Its Infringement Claims
  9. Malibu Media Sues Its Former Lawyer Over Missing Funds, Breach Of Bar Rules
  10. Porn studio that sued thousands for piracy now fighting its own lawyer
  11. Two Judges Punch Holes In Copyright Trolls’ Claims That An IP Address Is The Same Thing As A Person
  12. Web Host Defeats Copyright Liability Despite Mishandled Takedown Notice–Hydrenta v. Luchian (Eric Goldman)
  13. LOL! OMG. HUH? Court Finds That Text Message Can Form Binding Contract 
  14. Could This Silicon Valley Algorithm Pick Which Homeless People Get Housing?: A new approach seeks to find the most desperate people on the streets—with data.
  15. Your Favorite Website Might Be Discriminating Against You
  16. Testing whether the web is discriminating against you shouldn’t be a crime
  17. EU regulations on algorithmic decision-making and a “right to explanation” (Bryce Goodman & Seth Flaxman)
  18. On second thought, Facebook doesn’t care so much about news publishers: Says news feed has “far too much information,” will downgrade content from “pages.”
  19. Twitter Deletes SCOTUSblog Twitter Account Briefly Thinking Its Running Of The Trolls Meant It Was Hacked
  20. How Brexit affects the global technology industry
  21. Many UK voters didn’t understand Brexit, Google searches suggest: “What happens if we leave the EU?” and “What is Brexit?” were top search terms.
  22. Lindsay Lohan gifted us with epic Brexit tweets, and then deleted them mysteriously
  23. The replies to this idiotic Donald Trump Brexit tweet are beautiful
  24. Donald Trump Is Not a Troll: Calling him a troll trivializes his repulsive comments.
  25. Mapping online hate speech: You might think from anecdotal evidence that hate speech on social media by individuals and groups appears quite a lot, but one of first academic studies to examine the empirical data concludes that these extreme forms of speech on Facebook are marginal as compared with total content.
  26. Exclusive: Google, Facebook quietly move toward automatic blocking of extremist videos
  27. This Algorithm Could Wipe Out ISIS Propaganda Online: The creators of a new software technology claim it can expunge extremist content from social media. But will a wary Silicon Valley warm to it
  28. Rather Than Launch A Massive DDoS Attack, This Time China Just Asks GitHub To Take Down Page It Doesn’t Like
  29. County Attorney’s Deletion of Constituent’s Facebook Comment May Violate First Amendment
  30. Google secretly deletes inactive YouTube accounts
  31. Google is Adding a VR Shell to Chrome to Let You Browse the Entire Web in VR
  32. Microsoft Says It’s in Love With Linux. Now It’s Finally Proving It
  33. The Sacramento Kings’ New Stadium Is Wired for Virtual Reality: The wireless Internet at the NBA team’s new arena is designed to let fans watch virtual reality replays from any seat in the house.
  34. Apple Wins Patent For Technology To Disable iPhone Camera And Bar Photography
  35. FTC Is Cracking Down On Failure To Disclose Influencers’ Connections
  36. How Sony, Microsoft, and Other Gadget Makers Violate Federal Warranty Law
  37. Tax Treatment of Bitcoin Has Many Open Questions 
  38. Lessons From The Downfall Of A $150M Crowdfunded Experiment In Decentralized Governance
  39. Do you trust the government to set morals for AI (Artificial Intelligence) to drive cars? 
  40. Artificial Intelligence Has a ‘Sea of Dudes’ Problem: AI software depends on data sets, and data sets have to be created by computer scientists. What happens when most of those researchers are men?
  41. Ad firm: It doesn’t matter that migrant app doesn’t work, it’s the idea that counts – “I Sea” claimed its users could help migrants via “real-time” satellite imagery.
  42. Reverse Engineering The YouTube Algorithm
  43. Oculus Reverses DRM Course After Public Backlash
  44. Exclusivity can be a driving force for VR, says Oculus founder
  45. New VR venture capital supergroup gathers $10B to invest in VR dev
  46. You can now livestream right from the YouTube app: Press capture, pick a thumbnail, and you’ll be live streaming to the world.
  47. Take it from a viral media star: Stop signing away your ideas
  48. Following a period of turmoil, Wikimedia Foundation appoints new director: Tension over a “Knowledge Engine” led to previous director’s resignation.
  49. Op-Ed:  Why notice-and-takedown is a bit of copyright law worth saving (Chris Springman & Mark Lemley)
  50. Computer-Generated Works Outside The Box (James Grimmelmann)
  51. How Google Is Remaking Itself As a “Machine Learning First” Company: If you want to build artificial intelligence into every product, you better retrain your army of coders. Check.
  52. Chatbot lawyer overturns 160,000 parking tickets in London and New York: Free service DoNotPay helps appeal over $4m in parking fines in just 21 months, but is just the tip of the legal AI iceberg for its 19-year-old creator
  53. The New Yorker, BuzzFeed, and the push for digital credibility
  54. Inside ‘The Next Rembrandt’: How JWT Got a Computer to Paint Like the Old Master – The project leaders explain their brilliant, troubling masterpiece 
  55. The Laws of Mixed Reality: A vision of the future, without the rose-colored glasses
  56. The Partnership of the Future: Microsoft’s CEO explores how humans and A.I. can work together to solve society’s greatest challenges.
  57. Instagram and the Fantasy of Mastery: A “look” is a kind of instant style – quickly executed and dispatched, immediately understood and overcharged with incident. It is time for a new view.
  58. The Fintech Bubble (Joi Ito)
  59. AI bests Air Force combat tactics experts in simulated dogfights
  60. Alchemy Can’t Save Moore’s Law
  61. My friend, the bot: How our friendships change over time — and technology
  62. Man Marries His Smartphone
  63. From file-sharing to prison: A Megaupload programmer tells his story

CREATIVITY

  1. Led Zeppelin didn’t steal music for ‘Stairway to Heaven,’ jury finds
  2. ‘Stairway’ Verdict May Rein in Lawsuits Claiming Song Ripoffs
  3. VMG Salsoul, LLC v. Madonna Louise Ciccone, et al.: Why a Bright Line Infringement Rule for Sound Recordings is no Longer in Vogue
  4. This Song Belongs To You And Me: Lawsuit Filed To Declare Woodie Guthrie’s Classic In The Public Domain
  5. Copyright does not monopolize facts – documentary filmmakers’ claim against book author and publisher fails
  6. Historical Facts and Copyright: the Maltz v. Witterick Case
  7. Fictional Claims: Why Kids Are Not Suffering With Canada’s Copyright Fair Dealing Rules (Michael Geist)
  8. Copyright Small Claims Court: Not Just a Dream
  9. Apple’s Patent Could Finally Put a Stop to iPhone Concert Photography
  10. MPAA Boss: Actually Being Good To Consumers Would Be Horrible For Hollywood
  11. The Official Star Trek Fan Film Guidelines Are Here and They Are Onerous
  12. As CBS/Paramount Continue Lawsuit Over Fan Film, It Releases Ridiculous & Impossible ‘Fan Film Guidelines’
  13. Unswayed by Axanar, CBS and Paramount offer 10 rules for fan film makers: New rules forbid unofficial merchandise, alcohol use, long episodes.
  14. Airbnb Faces Suit for Using Julia Child’s Name in a Contest 
  15. Boiler Plate Inked: Copyright Actions Brought by Tattooists Threaten Athlete Endorser Publicity Rights
  16. Kirtsaeng v. Wiley And The Purpose Of Copyright
  17. Censorship In The Guise Of Authorship: Harmonizing Copyright And The First Amendment (Hon. M. Margaret Mckeown)
  18. Trump Promises to Restore Washington Redskins’ Trademark on Day One of Presidency
  19. 5 Questions for Simon Tam, Founder of The Slants: Tam wants the Supreme Court to join his band’s case to the Redskins’ case. Curiously, he still thinks the Redskins’ name is racist.
  20. Brexit and IP: A Primer
  21. On the Charter, Freedom of Expression, and Scientific Research (Stephen Armstrong)
  22. Reading List: The Copyright Wars (Rebecca Tushnet)
  23. Hillary Clinton’s Intellectual Property Platform: Too Vague & Confusing
  24. New York Times reports plagiarism in Trump textbooks
  25. CafePress Takes Down T-Shirt Calling Donald Trump A Cheeto-Faced S—gibbon, Saying It Violates Frito-Lay’s Trademark
  26. Huckabee’s anti-gay-marriage rally leads to copyright suit, $25,000 payment: Huckabee’s still paying for a copyright snafu from his campaign’s early days.
  27. Russian Culture Minister Claims Netflix A U.S. Mind Control Effort
  28. Portrait of an artist dying intestate: How a Toronto gallery owner is negotiating the delicate matter of who owns Vivian Maier’s iconic art
  29. #OscarsLessWhite: the Academy just invited nearly 700 new members to improve diversity — but there’s still a long way to go
  30. How the Gawker Media Bankruptcy Will Work
  31. Good News at the Washington Post: Inside the paper Jeff Bezos bought –&– Donald Trump banned.
  32. No Light Between Diversity and Free Expression (John Palfrey)
  33. Privilege for patent and trademark agents now in force in Canada

COMMUNICATIONS & BROADCASTING

  1. CRTC commissioner departs after more than a year of legal battles
  2. Let’s Talk TV: CRTC Revises Policy Framework for Local and Community Television
  3. Six companies pay $1.23 million for making telemarketing calls to Canadians
  4. Bell Canada loses second attempt to limit competitor access to its fibre networks
  5. FCC Chairman Releases Summary of Media Ownership Reform Proposals – Little Change in Existing Ownership Rules, Reinstatement of JSA Ban 
  6. Dear Landlord: Don’t Rip Me Off When it Comes To Internet Access: When building owners get kickbacks from big providers it’s the tenants who lose (Susan Crawford)
  7. Comcast took $1,775 from man, only gave it back after he contacted media: Comcast wrongly debited early termination fee, provided no refund for 18 months.
  8. How Comcast and Charter are trying to fix their awful customer service: Two biggest cable companies pledge improvements at Senate hearing.
  9. Cable company overcharges might be even worse than you realized: Senate report compares billing and service records, finds massive overcharges.
  10. Senate Hearing Shows Cable Companies Routinely Overbill Customers, Do Little To Correct Errors
  11. European supreme court adds to Telefónica’s woes after Brexit slump: Court upholds antitrust decision as O2 owner struggles post UK referendum.
  12. Why ISPs’ fight against net neutrality probably won’t reach Supreme Court: There are no major questions for the Supreme Court to decide, some experts say.
  13. New FCC Online Public Inspection File Goes Live Today – Top 50 Market Radio Stations To Start Transition

SURVEILLANCE & PRIVACY

  1. How a file-sharing lawsuit against Rogers threatens your Internet privacy: Geist – Voltage Pictures asked the court to order Rogers to disclose the identity of one of its subscribers in a reverse class-action lawsuit.
  2. Canadian File Sharing Lawsuit Could Upend Copyright Privacy Protections (Michael Geist)
  3. EU-US Privacy Shield sent to national reps for approval—by next week: European Commission sends updated text to Article 31 and demands answer by Monday
  4. Judge Says FBI Can Hack Computers Without A Warrant Because Computer Users Get Hacked All The Time
  5. Federal Court: The Fourth Amendment Does Not Protect Your Home Computer (EFF)
  6. Crook who left his phone at the scene has “no reasonable expectation of privacy”: Judge says it’s OK that a phone found at a burglary leads to kidnapping evidence.
  7. Post Gag Order, Lavabit Founder Reveals Non-Secret That Feds Were After Ed Snowden’s Emails
  8. Russia’s new spy law calls for metadata and content to be stored, plus crypto backdoors: Snowden calls it “an unworkable, unjustifiable violation of rights.”
  9. Russia’s Problem (According To Russian Politicians): Not Enough Mass Surveillance
  10. EU data flows to China is next fight on privacy warriors hit list: MEPs want answers from Brussels on protecting personal data of EU citizens.
  11. Brexit. Privacy. What You Need to Know.
  12. Private right of action under Canada’s Anti-Spam Law (CASL)
  13. FTC Reaches $950,000 Settlement Over Location Tracking 
  14. FTC Updates Consumer Guidance for Online Tracking 
  15. Facebook Using Physical Location to Suggest Friends (Bruce Schneier)
  16. Facebook says it did ‘a test’ last year using people’s locations to make friend suggestions
  17. Facebook is using your phone’s location to suggest new friends—which could be a privacy disaster
  18. The Freedom of Information Act—and the Hero Who Pioneered It: Celebrating the curious and deeply unpopular political career of John Moss, godfather of the FOIA.
  19. I, Snowbot: For A Man Accused Of Espionage And Effectively Exiled In Russia, Edward Snowden Is Also, Strangely, Free.
  20. This paparazzi-proof scarf is the closest thing to an invisibility cloak

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News of the Week; June 22, 2016

By Jon Festinger on June 27, 2016

GAMES

  1. Sony settling PS3 Other OS suit: Six-year court battle over removal of Linux installation option to end with payouts of up to $55 per affected owner
  2. Sony agrees to pay millions to gamers to settle PS3 Linux debacle: As many as 10 million PS3 console owners will be eligible for payment.
  3. No Man’s Sky Settles With Sky TV So It Can Have ‘Sky’ In Its Name
  4. Hello Games settles “secret stupid” legal dispute with Sky: Telecomms company’s problem with the title of No Man’s Sky took three years to resolve
  5. Trademark dispute with Sky broadcasting sought name change for No Man’s Sky: Dispute ends after “three years of secret stupid legal nonsense.”
  6. Epic sues German modder for selling Paragon hack
  7. Mount & Blade 2 dev will release gameplay code to support modders
  8. Bethesda implements Steam-linking to protect modders from piracy
  9. Professors File Brief Supporting Review of O’Bannon and Fixing Right of Publicity Mess
  10. Star Citizen’s refunds process just got more complicated: A provision allowing refund requests after a release date is missed by 18 months has been removed from its terms of service
  11. Crowdfunded Game Console Is Made Out of Tape, Cardboard, and Fake Circuits
  12. Fable Fortune Kickstarter canceled after private investor steps up
  13. Fable Fortunes closes Kickstarter in favour of private funding: Undisclosed sources to bring ex-Lionhead’s card game to life
  14. Overwatch losing ‘Avoid this player’ feature after top players can’t find games
  15. VR not ready for the mainstream – Fils-Aime: Nintendo of America president says the company will adopt VR once it’s mass market approachable
  16. Nintendo Is in Trouble and E3 Didn’t Help
  17. Major Gaming Industry Players Jump into VR at E3 2016
  18. Oculus and Valve send mixed messages on VR exclusivity
  19. Newell weighs in on VR exclusives: Valve head says tying development funds to specific hardware is bad for customers and developers
  20. A Third of Valve is Now Working on VR and the Next Generation of Headsets
  21. Fantastic Contraption adds built-in mixed reality and Twitch chat functions
  22. PlayStation VR demos hit stores starting tomorrow: Sony rolling out hands-on kiosks at hundreds of North American locations this month
  23. Sony promises all Playstation Neo games will work on PS4
  24. Sony is the real winner of E3 2016, says Facebook data
  25. Sky Sports Will Air Dedicated eSports TV Channel
  26. Facebook hires former pro player Snoopeh in bid for eSports stars
  27. Heads up Twitch, Facebook just hired gamer Snoopeh for its e-sports division
  28. Peter Moore and EA’s eSports masterplan
  29. Skillz is the biggest e-sports company gamers have never heard of
  30. At Least One Type Of Esports Betting Could Be Happening In Atlantic City Casinos Today
  31. Virtual Weapons Are Turning Teen Gamers Into Serious Gamblers: The boom in pro video gaming is fueled by $2.3 billion in online bets.
  32. E3 highlights surge in female game designers: After a handful of women show the way, some schools see more women entering field than men
  33. Square Enix chief champions development of premium mobile games: “It’s important for [the mobile] market to have quality premium games as well. If those kinds of games were a viable option, it would draw more developers to give that market a second look.”
  34. Daybreak shuts down servers for Planetside 1, Legends of Norrath
  35. Analysts give Tencent-Supercell thumbs up: Newzoo calls $8.6 billion for 84% of Clash of Clans developer “a good deal”; Superdata says acquisition “comes at an opportune time”
  36. Tencent acquires Supercell: Online giant picks up SoftBank’s share of Clash of Clans developer in deal valuing studio at $10.2 billion; SoftBank president resigns
  37. Vivendi ups Ubisoft share ownership to 20%, but delays takeover
  38. E3 Live completely disappoints fans: “I expected more, at least to play some more…I was like c’mon man, I didn’t come here to buy stuff”
  39. Scorpio is a beast, but Microsoft needs to explain it better: The company needs to find a coherent party line about Scorpio, One S and Windows 10, and stick to it
  40. Jeff Minter: iOS games ended up costing us money: Space Giraffe creator shares App Store angst
  41. Defender dev Eugene Jarvis on the bright future of arcade games
  42. The role of Space Invaders as the archetypal action videogame, and why its theme of ‘One Versus Many’ is so successful
  43. Going Down the Rabbit Hole: Simulation Theory, AI, & the Battle for Reality
  44. Warcraft, Angry Birds movies cashing in: Critically dismissed flicks poised to become the highest grossing game adaptations of all time
  45. Vice to launch new video game site headed by Giant Bomb’s Austin Walker
  46. Catching up with the guy who stole Half-Life 2’s source code, 10 years later: From Death by Video Game: can you love a game so much you must take its sequel?
  47. How Brexit could impact the UK games industry: From developers to retailers, this is what leaving the European Union would mean for one of the UK’s most important creative industries

DIGITAL

  1. DMCA wins big in record label lawsuit against Vimeo: Case questioned if DMCA gave immunity to providers for their users’ infringement.
  2. Appeals Court Gives Big Loss To Record Labels In Their Quixotic Lawsuit Against Vimeo For Lipdubs
  3. Global ad expenditures to reach $537BN in 2016: Global advertising expenditure across all platforms will grow 4.1% in 2016, reaching $537 billion, according to a survey by ZenithOptimedia.
  4. Twitch takes legal action against bot creators
  5. Twitch pledges to stamp out viewbot services: First lawsuit filed against sellers of bots that artificially inflate viewers, followers and chat activity
  6. Twitch Tries to Exterminate Bot Infestation With Legal Action
  7. Disappointing: Twitch Brings CFAA & Trademark Claim Against Bot Operators
  8. It’ll be very hard for terrorism victim’s family to win lawsuit against Twitter – Victim’s father: Twitter, Google, and Facebook profit off of terrorist propaganda.
  9. Judge Doesn’t Find Much To Like In ‘Material Support For Terrorism’ Lawsuit Against Twitter
  10. Blockchain Company’s Smart Contracts Were Dumb
  11. Data May Be Key in Microsoft-LinkedIn Probe, EU’s Vestager Says
  12. Apple and Microsoft reportedly vetoed a rifle emoji
  13. Feminist hacker barbie is finally a real thing: Barbie introduces a ‘Game Developer’ doll, and she’s even cooler than you thought.
  14. Mark Zuckerberg Needs to Dump Peter Thiel From the Facebook Board of Directors. He Won’t.
  15. What does Facebook think about board member Peter Thiel secretly funding lawsuits against a publisher? No comment (for now).
  16. Why Mark Zuckerberg Should Remove Peter Thiel From Facebook’s Board: The Facebook CEO needs to prove he believes in freedom of expression.
  17. Facebook sticks by Gawker attack funder Peter Thiel
  18. Facebook Still Deleting Non-Offensive Posts For Being Offensive
  19. Eshoo: Protecting people from lawsuits for speaking out
  20. ‘A shakedown against Canadians’: Hollywood still telling internet pirates to pay up – Critics say it’s time for federal government to rewrite rules for piracy notices
  21. GOP cuts off US House cameras, so Democrats Periscope gun control sit-in: Rep. Scott Peters turns to social media to broadcast protest.
  22. As Republicans Turn Off House Live Feed, Reps & C-SPAN Turn To Periscope And Facebook Live Video To Cover Sit In
  23. MPAA Happily Gets Into Bed With Russian State Censor Agency… To Protect Copyright!
  24. Beijing Regulators Block Sales Of iPhones, Claiming The Design Is Too Close To Chinese Company’s Phone
  25. E-books fair game for public libraries, says advisor to top Europe court – AG opinion: Digital lending should be subject to same rules as library loans.
  26. This Comment Was Sponsored By …: The Federal Election Commission can’t figure out what to do about paid speech online.
  27. Mobile Advertising Network InMobi Settles FTC Charges It Tracked Hundreds of Millions of Consumers’ Locations Without Permission: Company Will Pay $950,000 For Tracking Children Without Parental Consent
  28. The Art of Disclosure: Fashion’s Influence Economy and the FTC: As the importance of native advertising continues to grow, are brands and digital influencers coming clean with consumers about the deals that power fashion’s influence economy?
  29. Twitter is getting roasted for a new app that caters to celebrities and their problems
  30. Steve Ballmer Wants The Clippers To Launch Their Own Streaming Service
  31. Netflix overtakes YouTube in US
  32. YouTubers band together to form Internet Creator’s Guild: “There are lots of organisations that among the interests they have is supporting creators, but no organisation with that sole interest”
  33. Magic Leap’s Next Move? Bringing C-3PO to Your House
  34. The First Big Company to Say It’s Serving the Legal Marijuana Trade? Microsoft.
  35. Apple wants to kill a bill that could make it easier for you to fix your iPhone
  36. The Forrest Gump of the Internet: Ev Williams became a billionaire by helping to create the free and open web. Now, he’s betting against it.
  37. New York legislature passes bill legalizing daily fantasy
  38. How Fans Tune In to Sports on YouTube
  39. Artificial intelligence: ‘We’re like children playing with a bomb’: Sentient machines are a greater threat to humanity than climate change, according to Oxford philosopher Nick Bostrom
  40. Computers will overtake us when they learn to love, says futurist Ray Kurzweil

CREATIVITY

  1. New York Times Settles Copyright Case Over Thumbnail War Photos
  2. Using generic art that may evoke plaintiff is fair: Sturgis Motorcycle Rally, Inc. v. Rushmore Photo & Gifts, Inc, 2016 WL 3282197 (Rebecca Tushnet)
  3. U.S. Supreme Court Rules in Kirtsaeng v. John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
  4. Supreme Court Revisits Copyright’s Attorney Fee Shifts–Kirtsaeng v. Wiley (Eric Goldman)
  5. The Supreme Court Instructs District Courts to Put Substantial Weight on the Reasonableness of a Losing Party’s Position in Determining Fees in Copyright Cases
  6. A Circuit Split at Last: Ninth Circuit Recognizes De Minimis Exception to Copyright Infringement of Sound Recordings 
  7. Access Copyright v. York U – The Final Trial Arguments Are Set to Unfold
  8. Screenwriters Accuse Christian Movie Studio Of 9th Commandment Violations Over General Script Ideas
  9. Open access: All human knowledge is there—so why can’t everybody access it?: We paid for the research with taxes, and Internet sharing is easy. What’s the hold-up?
  10. Scientific publishers are killing research papers: Pressure to publish short articles removes details, leaves readers confused.
  11. The shadowy war on the press: How the rich silence journalists
  12. Local news isn’t dead. We just need to stop killing it.
  13. Trump, Propaganda, And The Loss Of Media Authority: The G.O.P. nominee is spouting Orwellian double-speak, and the media can’t stop him.
  14. The challenges in covering Trump’s relentless assault on the truth
  15. This Harvard study is a powerful indictment of the media’s role in Donald Trump’s rise
  16. 50 Cent, Dr. Dre, Ed Sheeran, Led Zeppelin… Are These Copyright Lawsuits a Good Thing for Music
  17. Led Zeppelin’s Jimmy Page spars with attorney over ‘Stairway’ plagiarism allegations
  18. Led Zeppelin ‘Stairway to Heaven’ copyright trial: Robert Plant says he has ‘no memory’ of watching Spirit play: Plant and guitarist Jimmy Page are accused of stealing their iconic riff from Spirit song ‘Taurus’
  19. Why “Stairway to Heaven” Doesn’t Infringe “Taurus” Copyright: analysis & demo of “scenes a faire” motif common to both
  20. Lawyers who yanked “Happy Birthday” into public domain now sue over “This Land – Attorneys: Song, published in 1945, should have passed into public domain in 1973.
  21. Eat Your Art Out: Intellectual Property Protection for Food
  22. Are Native American Pottery Designs Copyrightable?
  23. How it works: Understanding Copyright Law in the New Creative Economy (Rebecca Tushnet)
  24. Paramount Beats Musicians Guild in Lawsuit Over Outsourcing Film Scores: A judge figures out the meaning of “producer” and “employer” in Hollywood.
  25. Who Owns Star Trek?
  26. Can Plaintiffs Sue a “Celebrity Spokesperson”?
  27. White Supremacy and the Intractability of the Fight Over the Redsk*ns
  28. Vice Media Settles With Indie Band ViceVersa, Showing That Trademark Bullying Totally Works
  29. Broadway economics: Breaking down Broadway
  30. Why Are So Many Vogue Cover Stories Written by Men?
  31. In 60 days, drone journalism will be legally possible in any U.S. newsroom: “There are still challenges, and we haven’t even talked about state and local laws that have been piling up while the FAA lumbered toward today. But the future of drones in journalism is much brighter today than it has ever been.”
  32. ‘Hamilton’ And Copyright: Lin-Manuel Miranda Had His Eyes On Music History

COMMUNICATIONS & BROADCASTING

  1. Federal court dismisses Bell appeal in mobile television ruling
  2. Federal Court of Appeal Upholds CRTC Ruling That Bell Mobile TV Service Violated Telecom Law (Michael Geist)
  3. Ignore the Scare Tactics: The Real Future of Bell Investment in Fibre Networks (Michael Geist)
  4. Why the Federal Court Crackdown on Set-Top Boxes Threatens to Chill Canadian Tech Innovation (Michael Geist)
  5. Rogers Communications Inc. v. Châteauguay (City) (Supreme Court of Canada, June 16, 2016)
  6. The (In)effectiveness of Telecommunications Transparency Reports (Christopher Parsons)
  7. CRTC Creates a New Framework for Local Programming and News
  8. Consumer Groups Say AT&T, Comcast Violate Privacy Law By Hoovering Up Cable Box Data Without Full User Consent
  9. Study Finds That T-Mobile’s Binge On Is Exploitable, Unreliable, And Still Violates Net Neutrality
  10. Tim Wu Joins NY AG’s Office In Shaming ‘Abysmal’ Cable Broadband ISPs
  11. 23% of US Millennials are OTT-only
  12. Viacom Director Has Uphill Battle in Case Against Redstone
  13. Sumner Redstone moves to oust CEO Philippe Dauman, others from Viacom board

SURVEILLANCE & PRIVACY

  1. Smile, you’re in the FBI face-recognition database; Driver license, passport, visa pics in database—despite no criminal affiliation.
  2. Mark Zuckerberg—paranoid or just sensible about the big, bad Web?
  3. How Hired Hackers Got “Complete Control” Of Palantir: Palantir hired a cybersecurity firm last year to test its digital defenses. A confidential report shows how the pro hackers were able to dominate the tech company’s network.
  4. This Russian technology can identify you with just a picture of your face
  5. Global Internet commission: Leave crypto alone, ditch opaque algorithms – Governments should agree on a list of “legitimate targets” for online attacks.
  6. Supreme Court Knocks A Little More Off The 4th Amendment; Gives Cops Another Way To Salvage Illegal Searches
  7. Eighth Circuit holds that accessing credit card magnetic stripe is not a ‘search’
  8. Handing over cell phone to police and giving password is consent to search
  9. “Guccifer” leak of DNC Trump research has a Russian’s fingerprints on it: Evidence left behind shows leaker spoke Russian and had affinity for Soviet era.
  10. Guest editorial: The DNC hack and dump is what cyberwar looks like – Elections are critical infrastructure that should be hands-off for governments.
  11. Apple’s Differential Privacy (Bruce Schneier)

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News of the Week; June 15, 2016

By Jon Festinger on June 19, 2016

GAMES

  1. Riot uses LoL chatlogs to weed out toxic employees
  2. League of Legends admits to using chat-log analysis in employee reviews: Toxicity analysis looks for context, such as “using their [developer] authority.”
  3. Game publishers treading carefully at E3 in wake of Orlando tragedy
  4. The Division dev upgrades to permanent bans for first-time cheaters
  5. No more Mr. Nice Ubisoft: First-time Division cheaters now banned permanently – Stricter punishments come amid claims of improved cheat detection tools.
  6. New Xbox community features will create “virtual safe spaces”: “The anonymity of the internet doesn’t always lead to the best behaviour”
  7. Why PlayStation VR Will Dominate The Virtual Reality Market
  8. Valve releasing free virtual reality world-builder, Destinations
  9. Overwatch player count hits 10 million after three weeks
  10. League of Legends generates $150m a month – SuperData
  11. Report: Tencent’s Supercell takeover valued at $9 billion
  12. Why Lionhead sank beneath the weight of Fable Legends: “The original pitch was for a really cheap game – it certainly wasn’t the $75m we ended up spending…But as time wore on, there were various voices that made it more complicated.”
  13. Spider-Man leads Marvel’s “epic” new console strategy: Comic company moving away from movie tie-ins, says the future of Spider-Man games is with Sony and Insomniac
  14. Sony’s E3 surprises with God of War, Resident Evil VII VR: Kojima Productions’ Death Stranding, Insomniac’s Spider-Man, the return of Crash Bandicoot, and Days Gone can’t even crack the headline
  15. E3: EA focuses on sports, charities and indie devs
  16. Electronic Arts CEO: Competitive Gaming Is Here to Stay
  17. New Sports Related Games, $1 Million Madden Tournament Unveiled At E3
  18. Madden NFL 16 championships will be broadcast live on ESPN2: Another milestone for the rapidly growing eSports industry.
  19. Microsoft gets deeper into eSports with Arena for Xbox
  20. E3: Microsoft announces Xbox One S, Scorpio and Play Anywhere
  21. Why Scorpio and Xbox One S sales don’t actually matter: Phil Spencer explains why you shouldn’t think “that everything we’re doing is about selling you an Xbox console”
  22. Say goodbye to the way the game console market works: Microsoft’s Scorpio, Sony’s Neo make game consoles more like mobile phones or PCs.
  23. Minecraft Realms brings cross-platform play to Windows 10, iOS, Android, Gear VR: Mods and extensions will come later this year.
  24. Ubisoft CEO stresses creative independence as Vivendi takeover threat looms
  25. Bethesda banks on eSports with Quake Champions
  26. Does Overwatch have what it takes to become a popular eSport?
  27. Twitch’s E3 livestreams watched by a staggering 925K concurrent viewers
  28. Valencia CF Becomes First La Liga Club To Sign An eSports Team
  29. Meet the Plaid Parliament of Pwning, one of the world’s elite hacking teams
  30. Twitch’s 100 million viewers watched 800 million hours of esports in the last 10 months
  31. Report: ESL is the top eSports tourney broadcaster on Twitch (that’s not Riot)
  32. Assetto Corsa – Modding Forums Shutdown Update
  33. To run WoW legacy servers, Blizzard must reverse-engineer its own game
  34. How Will Wright and SimCityshaped the course of game dev history: “You can see traces of SimCity in many if not most of the games we play today, from casual social games to hardcore CRPG and strategy titles. Sid Meier, when asked in 2008 to name the three most important innovations in the history of electronic gaming, listed the invention of the PC, the Nintendo Seal of Quality… and, yes, SimCity.”
  35. What Does $1MM Buy in Game Development?
  36. The Warcraft fan’s dilemma: A movie, but it’s based on the 1994 DOS game?! – Orcs made it to the big screen—iconic characters, diverse combat, and epic stories didn’t.
  37. Court rules in favor of cloned tabletop game – No protection under US copyright law

DIGITAL

  1. Why I Quit Twitter — and Left Behind 35,000 Followers (Jonathan Weisman)
  2. Trump Supporters Hurl Anti-Semitic Twitter Attacks at ‘New York Times’ Editor
  3. NYT editor Jonathan Weisman blasts Twitter over anti-Semitic trolling
  4. Twitter won’t explain why it flip-flopped on NYT editor’s complaints of anti-Semitic abuse
  5. My Dinner With Peter Thiel: A window into the secret reality of Silicon Valley.
  6. Judge blasts Oracle’s attempt to overturn pro-Google jury verdict: Oracle’s cross-examination of Schwartz “focused on character assassination.”
  7. Appeals Court Trashes Prenda’s Appeal, Affirms Sanctions
  8. Prenda lawyers lose key appeal, will pay $230k sanction: “Courts started catching on to plaintiffs’ real business of copyright trolling.”
  9. Twitter, Facebook & Google Sued For ‘Material Support For Terrorism’ Over Paris Attacks
  10. Another chapter of the Google Books Copyright dispute – does the US Supreme Court decision affect Australia? 
  11. Weinstein Company Requests Takedown of Katie Couric Interviews Featured in Free Beacon Story: Free Beacon fighting the takedowns
  12. Another Day, Another Horrible Ruling That Undermines The First Amendment And Section 230
  13. Axl Rose DMCA Takedown Notices Illustrate the Difficulty With Safe Harbor Reforms – User-Generated Content and Fair Use Issues
  14. Apple opens its Siri voice assistant up to devs via new API
  15. Six Ways Site Design Can Potentially Render TOS Agreements Unenforceable
  16. Five subtle ways Facebook could influence the US presidential election this fall
  17. Donald Trump’s Response To The Orlando Massacre Will Make You Sick To Your Stomach (Tweets)
  18. Inside Donald Trump’s Twitter-Bot Fan Club
  19. Trump Implicitly Suggests That His DOJ Would Take Down Amazon For Antitrust
  20. How Clinton aims to trump Trump on Twitter: Her newly aggressive social media strategy aims to turn the presumptive GOP nominee’s own words against him.
  21. Scammers have already started trying to exploit Orlando shooting for bitcoins: Fake Twitter account for Pulse nightclub asks for “contributions” through scam site.
  22. The global village of violence
  23. EFF, Public Citizen Enter Legal Battle That Started With Defamation But Is Somehow Now All About Copyright
  24. Review Website Gets Hammered In Court–Consumer Cellular v. ConsumerAffairs (Eric Goldman)
  25. NC Supreme Court strikes down cyberbullying statue
  26. North Carolina State Supreme Court Strikes Down Cyberbullying Statute
  27. Newspaper Association Thinks FTC Should Force Readers To Be Subject To Godawful Ads And Invasive Trackers
  28. Red astroturf: Chinese government makes millions of fake social media posts – “50-cent” posters aim to distract from dissent rather than confront it.
  29. Music Royalties Initiative Unites YouTube, Spotify, Labels: Open Music Initiative, led by Berklee College of Music and MIT, aims to improve how artists and labels collect money from streaming
  30. Europe Is About To Create A Link Tax: Time To Speak Out Against It
  31. What the heck is ancillary copyright and why do we call it the Link Tax?: What the heck is ancillary copyright anyway? And why does it matter? And why do we keep calling it the link tax? All will be revealed within.
  32. Yes, Getting The US Government Out Of ‘Managing’ Internet Domain Governance Is A Good Thing
  33. Twitter forces password reset on millions of accounts, denies hack
  34. “Spam King,” who defied nearly $1B in default judgments, sentenced to 2.5 years: Sanford Wallace hijacked Facebook accounts to send 27M spam messages.
  35. Microsoft is buying LinkedIn for $26.2 billion: CEO Satya Nadella says the acquisition will be “key to our bold ambition to reinvent productivity and business processes.”
  36. Microsoft’s planned acquisition of LinkedIn is one of biggest ever in the tech industry
  37. LinkedIn CEO: Why the Microsoft deal won’t be a disaster
  38. Microsoft buys LinkedIn for $26.2 Billion – Antitrust Issues? 
  39. I’ve slept on it—and I’m still baffled at Microsoft buying LinkedIn for $26.2B – Analysis: Microsoft is buying the cow when all it wants is some milk.
  40. Is YouTube Building A New Music Industry?
  41. How Netflix Became Hollywood’s Frenemy: The streaming service is changing the way TV shows and movies get made—whether studios and networks like it or not.
  42. Whatever happened to MCNs?
  43. YouTube stars more popular than mainstream celebrities among teens
  44. YouTube Stars Form New Guild To Give Creators A Stronger Voice: One of YouTube’s most popular creators, Hank Green, launched the nonprofit to actively promote the interests of online video makers.
  45. Is Reddit Dead? Welcome to the Propaganda Machine.
  46. Twitter Invests $70 Million In Soundcloud: If you can’t buy a company, getting a stake in it is the next best thing.
  47. Snapchat Launches a Colossal Expansion of Its Advertising, Ushering in a New Era for the App: Unveils new API and $1 billion goal
  48. Is Virtual Reality going to transform cinema?: VR is slowly becoming the new norm and in twenty years time a lot of what we do will be accessed through virtual reality – so how it will affect the film world?
  49. Cyber insurance is changing the way we look at risk
  50. Movie written by algorithm turns out to be hilarious and intense
  51. How to Preserve Cultural Memory in the Digital Age

CREATIVITY

  1. Artist Rights and the Many Shapes of Censorship
  2. Steal This Riff: How To Fix Copyright Law And Set Musicians Free: Could Compulsory Sample Licenses Solve A Problem That Has Vexed Hip-Hop And Dance Musicians For Decades?
  3. Former Copyright Board Chair Vancise Takes Aim at the Board Critics (Michael Geist)
  4. Ruling From EU’s Top Court Confirms Copyright Levies Are A Ridiculous, Unworkable Mess
  5. Watch The President Use Fair Use To Support A Trade Deal That Undermines Fair Use
  6. New York Times Says Fair Use Of 300 Words Will Run You About $1800
  7. The Bezos Effect: How Amazon’s Founder Is ReinventingThe Washington Post – and What Lessons It Might Hold for the Beleaguered Newspaper Business
  8. Trump revokes Washington Post’s campaign press credentials
  9. How to Cover Donald Trump Fairly: A Style Guide
  10. Now Peter Thiel’s Lawyer Wants to Silence Reporting on Drumpf’s Hair
  11. Peter Thiel’s Gawker-Killing Lawyer Now Issuing Bogus Defamation Threats Over Story On Donald Trump’s Hair
  12. Peter Thiel’s Plan To Destroy Gawker Went Way Beyond Hogan’s Case
  13. Gawker filing for bankruptcy – Report: Kotaku owner chooses Chapter 11 over paying lawsuit judgment, could be sold to IGN parent Ziff-Davis
  14. Gawker declares bankruptcy, will auction itself off in wake of Hulk Hogan lawsuit: Chapter 11 filing would help shield the company from Hogan payment (for now).
  15. Did Led Zeppelin rip off “Stairway to Heaven?” Ooh, it makes me wonder: Jury trial starts Tuesday. Infringement is in the ear of the beholder.
  16. Beyoncé faces lawsuit over claims Lemonade trailer ‘copied’ ideas: Film-maker Matthew Fulks says two-thirds of the pop star’s album promo was based on his short film seen by one of her collaborators
  17. Ed Sheeran the latest target of copyright lawsuit
  18. Ed Sheeran Sued for $20M for Allegedly Copying Song Released by ‘X Factor’ Winner
  19. Bieber Fever running high, “is it too late now to say I’m SORRY?” – allegations of copyright infringement against The Biebs (aka Justin Bieber)
  20. Jimi Hendrix Portrait Denied Copyright Protection For Lack of Originality
  21. ‘Rephotographer’ Richard Prince Is Being Sued Again
  22. Celebrity Chef Sues to Cancel Contract Transferring His Right of Publicity
  23. Jesse Ventura’s $1.8M Legal Win Over ‘American Sniper’ Chris Kyle Overturned on Appeal
  24. Citigroup trademarks “THANKYOU” and sues AT&T for thanking clients: Not to be outdone by Citigroup, AT&T has applied to trademark “AT&T THANKS.”
  25. In re Tam: Federal Circuit Holds the Lanham Act’s Antidisparagement Provision Unconstitutional.
  26. Supreme Court Just Made It Easier For Patent Trolls
  27. Supreme Court says win for patent holders won’t embolden patent trolls: Enhanced damages should not be granted in “garden-variety cases,” justices rule.
  28. Muhammad Ali: The original rapper – Legendary emcee Chuck D of Public Enemy talks Ali’s impact on hip-hop
  29. New ESPN Series Shows How O.J. Simpson Changed Advertising—and It Changed Him: Hertz ads, not football, made ‘the Juice’ a superstar
  30. Canaries in the Elsevier Mine: What to watch for at SSRN
  31. Don’t Tell Me What Happens. I’m Recording It. – Chuck Klosterman asks: What is the future of TV?
  32. State of the News Media 2016 (Pew Research Center)
  33. How Le Monde transformed its business model to become a profitable news publisher
  34. Not The Onion: Morocco Bans Sharing Newspapers To Protect Publisher Business Models
  35. The definition of commercial speech

COMMUNICATIONS & BROADCASTING

  1. ‘No Netflix tax’, but the future of Cancon is up for debate, says heritage minister Melanie Joly
  2. CRTC improves support for local news
  3. CRTC partners with global agencies to enforce spam and telemarketing rules
  4. Judge orders interim ban on digital TV boxes over copyright claims from Bell, Rogers, Videotron
  5. Court Upholds Net Neutrality Rules On Equal Internet Access
  6. Appeals Court Fully Upholds FCC’s Net Neutrality Rules
  7. UNITED STATES TELECOM ASSOCIATION, ET AL., PETITIONERS v. FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION AND UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
  8. After net neutrality loss, ISPs get ready to take case to Supreme Court: FCC won in all facets of today’s decision, but ISPs are not out of options.
  9. In shocking twist, senators scrutinize cable companies instead of FCC: Congress takes break from castigating FCC to focus on cable TV’s bad behavior.
  10. Viacom Has Few Options for Fighting National Amusements
  11. From radio waves to packets with software defined radio
  12. Why the Privacy Commissioner Doesn’t Need Legal Reforms To Require Transparency Reports (Michael Geist)
  13. 500 channels and nothing to see: The former head of Apple engineering really likes a new curated, app-based TV interface called Molotov — and sees a future business model in it.
  14. WIN v Nine Network Australia – Putting the ‘broad’ in ‘broadcasting’ 

SURVEILLANCE & PRIVACY

  1. The RCMP Surveilled Thousands of Innocent Canadians for a Decade
  2. Canada’s Surveillance Crisis Now Hiding In Plain Sight (Michael Geist)
  3. FBI says utility pole surveillance cam locations must be kept secret: “Disclosure of even minor details about them may cause jeopardy,” bureau says.
  4. FBI Sues To Block Disclosure Of Surveillance Cameras Locations Because It Would Violate The Privacy Of Those Surveilled
  5. New Report: FBI Can Access Hundreds of Millions of Face Recognition Photos (EFF)
  6. Appeals Court: No Expectation Of Privacy In Credit Card Magnetic Strips
  7. What to Consider When Drafting or Reviewing a Privacy Policy
  8. The emerging ethical standards for studying corporate data: How Facebook’s “emotional contagion” controversy led to the company’s new research review policy
  9. What is Differential Privacy?
  10. Hackers invade Dems’ servers, steal entire Trump opposition file: Intrusion was so thorough it exposed almost a year’s worth of e-mail and chats.

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