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News of the Week; June 8, 2016

By Jon Festinger on June 16, 2016

GAMES

  1. Fan-Made Star Wars Battlefront 3 Remake Approved For Steam – Don’t call it a comeback.: Fans have been working on a remake of the unreleased Star Wars Battlefront III, and it looks like it’s going to be released on Steam.
  2. The Paid Mods Question
  3. Maxis does away with gender boundaries in latest Sims 4update
  4. Maxis and GLAAD collaborate to remove gender restrictions from The Sims
  5. Chinese gov’t aims to tighten its hold on the mobile game market
  6. China tightens regulations around mobile games: Month-long process will root out undesirable content, adding yet more complexity to doing business in the world’s most populous country
  7. How an American company topped China’s mobile charts
  8. Sorry games industry, but VR won’t wait—Hollywood is coming for it: The likes of Take-Two might not believe in VR, but huge VFX studios like Framestore do
  9. Capcom bans pro player for sexual harassment: Noel Brown gone for the season after grabbing a woman on camera, second offense will result in lifetime ban
  10. eSports’ “path to profitability farther off than VR” for publishers – Pachter
  11. Why eSports Tournaments Make Great Venues for Research
  12. Spanish soccer club Valencia CF creates eSports team
  13. The Difficult History Of Videogames And Indigenous People
  14. Conflict mineral sourcing still hazy for games industry: Apple and Microsoft make significant improvements in their supply chains as Activision backslides; Time Warner and Facebook in apparent violation of SEC rules
  15. Overwatch Bans Thousands Of Cheaters: Blizzard takes a zero-tolerance stance on hacking.
  16. Overwatch surpasses 7 million players in just over a week
  17. Video game voice actors’ union calls on state regulator to improve working conditions
  18. SAG-AFTRA Asks for Investigation of Videogame Industry Over Vocal Safety Issues
  19. Frontier inadvertently drivesElite: Dangerous AI to create superweapons – “We don’t think the AI became sentient in a Skynet-style uprising!”
  20. Minecraft has sold over 100 million copies, says Mojang
  21. Mad Catz reports $11M loss following bad Rock Band 4 deal
  22. Vivendi buys out Guillemot family to seal Gameloft takeover
  23. Mohawk wants user reviews, sales, refunds removed from Early Access: Soren Johnson’s Offworld Trading Company postmortem highlights the tension between developer and consumer interests on Steam
  24. PayPal Refuses to Refund $50,000 to Twitch Donation Troll
  25. Sorry, the Xbox One isn’t going to be a DVR after all: Microsoft scraps plans to turn console into an over-the-air recorder.
  26. Tabletop games far outpace video games in pledge money, says Kickstarter
  27. Digital games to account for a third of console revenues in 2020 – PwC: “In some ways it’s surprising that physical game disks will continue to be a major force by 2020”
  28. Apple will allow subscriptions for games: App Store opening up option for all apps; revenue share for subscription devs will increase after a year
  29. ESA: The 50-plus gamer crowd has passed 40m in the US – 75% of the over 50 demographic plays games on a weekly basis; developers need to pay attention to this older audience
  30. Facebook signs deal to let users livestream Blizzard games
  31. Before Battlefield 1, EA Wasn’t Sure Young People Would Know WW1 Was A Thing
  32. How I connected with my autistic son through video games: A PlayStation game opened up a liberating world of play, interaction and co-operation for Keith Stuart and his young son. It continues to be a cornerstone of their relationship – and a place to have fun together as equals
  33. Surgeon Simulator Update Lets Players Go ‘Inside Donald Trump’: Make surgery great again.
  34. Computer scientists quantify just how hardSuper Mario Bros. is: Solving an arbitrary level belongs to a class of problems called PSPACE.
  35. The Incredibly Weird Story Behind Tetris
  36. Video games are evidence we’re living in a simulation, says Elon Musk: “The strongest argument for us being in a simulation is the following: 40 years ago, we had Pong. Two rectangles and a dot. Now, 40 years later, we have photorealistic 3D with millions playing simultaneously.” 

DIGITAL

  1. Russia Imprisoning Dozens Of Social Media Critics For ‘Hate Speech’
  2. How Donald Trump Hijacked the Authenticity of the Web: His credibility is zero, but by attacking political correctness he projects a true voice to his internet followers (David Weinberger)
  3. Two Separate Copyright Rulings Around The Globe May Finally Clear The Copyright Way For Sampling
  4. Madonna Gets Victory Over ‘Vogue’ Sample at Appeals Court: The 9th Circuit rules that a trivial taking isn’t enough to establish copyright infringement.
  5. De Minimis Music Sampling Isn’t Infringement–Salsoul v. Madonna
  6. The De Minimus Exception to Infringement is Now in Vogue for Sound Recordings
  7. VMG Salsoul LLC v. Madonna Louise
  8. Ciccone, United States Court Of Appeals For The Ninth Circuit, June 2, 2016
  9. Madonna’s Copyright Win Is Good News for Fans and Musicians
  10. Youtuber Sued Over Stanley Kubrick Movies Analysis
  11. Axl Rose tests the Streisand Effect by demanding Google removes fat photos: Singer’s heavy-handed attempt to suppress “fat Axl” meme hasn’t paid off.
  12. Donald Trump Meets Intellectual Property
  13. Another Entity Thinks A Random Bundle Of URLs Is A Legitimate DMCA Takedown Request
  14. California Ruling Against Facebook on Right of Publicity Blows Huge Hole in Section 230 Immunity
  15. WTF Is Going On With Section 230?–Cross v. Facebook (Eric Goldman)
  16. Another Bad Ruling In California Threatens To Massively Undermine Section 230 By Exempting Publicity Rights
  17. EFF Urges Supreme Court To Throw Out $399 Million Damage Award Against Samsung in Apple Smartphone Patent Case: ‘Total Profits’ Damage Awards For Infringing Design Patents Are Excessive, Unfair
  18. Digital Trademark and Design Patent Infringement
  19. Hacker Lexicon: What Is the Digital Millennium Copyright Act?
  20. Google’s fair use victory is good for open source (Pamela Samuelson)
  21. Judge Upholds Google’s Win Over Oracle in $9 Billion Trial Over APIs
  22. Oracle accused of cooking “cloud services” books to boost stock price: Accusations follow Oracle’s major defeat in API copyright suit against Google.
  23. Website blocking: saving Lotto Quebec from competition (Timothy Denton)
  24. How Binding Is Your Browsewrap Agreement?
  25. CurrentC—retailers’ defiant answer to Apple Pay—will deactivate its user accounts: The mobile payments scheme was distrusted before it even hit the big time.
  26. Warner Bros. DMCAs Insanely Awesome Recreation Of Blade Runner By Artificial Intelligence
  27. Here’s how Airbnb plans to tackle racism on the platform
  28. Here’s How Neo-Nazis Identify (((Jews))) on Twitter
  29. Putin’s Internet Trolls Mercilessly Smear Finnish Reporter Simply For Pointing Them Out
  30. Yelp Forced To Remove Defamatory Reviews–Hassell v. Bird
  31. Company Sues Customer For $1 Million, Claiming Yelp Review Was ‘Defamatory,’ Violated Non-Disparagement Clause
  32. Nest May Be The First Major Casualty Of Hollow ‘Internet Of Things’ Hype
  33. PwC: Internet Advertising Will Overtake Broadcast Advertising in the U.S. Next Year: Mobile to see biggest growth, report says
  34. The New Television: The next few years will see a massive shift of ads and attention from TV to mobile. A handful of companies, led by Facebook, are poised to make a killing.
  35. How YouTube May Now Be Worth $90 Billion (or More) on a Standalone Basis
  36. Facebook’s Race To Dominate AI
  37. Twitter Reportedly Held Merger Talks With Yahoo
  38. Cambridge’s Akamai will pay feds in Chinese bribery case
  39. Bad news for P.F. Chang -Court rules that all claims for 2014 data breach are not covered under its cyberinsurance! 
  40. The Ethical Quandary of Self-Driving Cars: When a crash is inevitable, autonomous vehicles will have to decide whom to collide with.
  41. Man v machine: can computers cook, write and paint better than us?: Artificial intelligence can now win a game, recognise your face, even appeal against your parking ticket. But can it do the stuff even humans find tricky?
  42. Can Artificial Intelligence achieve human-like consciousness?: A philosophical question — not a technical one.
  43. Software is still eating the world

CREATIVITY

  1. The Bezos Effect: How Amazon’s Founder Is Reinventing The Washington Post – and What Lessons It Might Hold for the Beleaguered Newspaper Business
  2. Hollywood Has a Huge Millennial Problem: 2016 is on pace to be the worst year for movies—by tickets bought per U.S. adult—since before the 1920s. What’s going on?
  3. The world’s tyrants clamp down on free speech — including against a king’s dog
  4. Under attack: Curbs on free speech are growing tighter. It is time to speak out
  5. Choosing Principles Over Publication: Psychology instructor withdraws book chapter after refusing to add language that he asserts a publisher demanded but he deemed too flattering to the textbook industry.
  6. Canada Post Drops Lawsuit Over Crowdsourced Postal Codes (Michael Geist)
  7. US District Court Finds Digitally Remastered Pre-1972 Sound Recordings Are “Derivative Works” Covered By Federal Law – Dismisses Suit against Broadcaster Seeking Over-the-Air Performance Royalties 
  8. Led Zeppelin’s ‘Stairway to Heaven’ to Be Scrutinized in Court in Copyright Case
  9. The Perversion Of Trademarks: Jose Mourinho Can’t Coach Man-U Yet Because Former Club Trademarked His Name
  10. Sid Vicious’s Photographer Sues Richard Prince for Copyright Infringement
  11. Appeals Court Burns Defamation Lawsuit Targeting ‘American Hustle’ Microwave Scene
  12. Tribune Publishing, now ‘tronc,’ issues worst press release in the history of journalism
  13. EU-Funded Study On The Cost Of Copyright Infringement Dismisses Key Real-World Factor As ‘Outside Its Scope’
  14. Our public institutions need fair use laws: We need reform to free libraries, archives and universities from unnecessary red tape.
  15. Why we’re terrified of fanfiction
  16. The ineffectiveness of publication bans
  17. 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?

COMMUNICATIONS & BROADCASTING

  1. Manitoba Consumers Fear Price Hikes, Data Caps If BCE Buys MTS: Poll
  2. The TPP’s Impact on Canadian Culture Emerging as Political Issue (Michael Geist)
  3. Federal Court issues interlocutory injunction directed at retailers of set-top boxes loaded with copyright infringing applications
  4. Tom Wheeler accuses cable companies of shutting out minority TV channels
  5. Broadband CEOs Admit Usage Caps Are Nothing More Than A Toll On Uncompetitive Markets
  6. Time Warner Cable Internet speeds are “abysmal,” NY AG claims
  7. Using Text Messages in Promotions and Contests? – $8,500,000 Settlement Provides Reminder to Make Sure You are Aware of TCPA Obligations 
  8. ‘Just can’t get enough’: Half of Canadian TV subscribers use streaming services like Netflix too, survey says
  9. Netflix, Inc: A Growing Threat For Cable Companies
  10. Canada’s Privacy Commissioner clamps down on spam and the automated harvesting of electronic addresses 
  11. Fantasy-League Media: If you could draft an all-star team of entertainment and media assets and capabilities, who would you pick?

SURVEILLANCE & PRIVACY

  1. Exclusive: Snowden Tried to Tell NSA About Surveillance Concerns, Documents Reveal
  2. Yahoo First Company To Publicly Acknowledge It Has Received National Security Letters
  3. Forty-One Secret Service Employees Punished For Illegally Accessing Congressman’s Private Data In Hopes Of Discrediting Him
  4. Appeals Court: As Long As The Government Has ‘Good Faith,’ It Can Root Around In Your Digital Files As Much As It Wants
  5. Turkish Constitutional Court: Monitoring Employee E-mail Accounts Does Not Breach Privacy Rights
  6. Mark Zuckerberg’s Twitter, Pinterest accounts compromised: Facebook denies hack of Zuck’s Instagram; LinkedIn 2012 password dump fingered.
  7. In 1971, Muhammad Ali Helped Undermine The FBI’s Illegal Spying On Americans

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News of the Week; June 1, 2016

By Jon Festinger on June 15, 2016

GAMES

  1. Texas court affirms game mechanics not protected under copyright law
  2. How and why a group of modders have kept NHL 2004 on PC alive
  3. Twitch streamers can now create and share 30-second clips of your game
  4. GOG Connect will let users import select Steam games
  5. Online Harassment and Trolling in Virtual Spaces
  6. No Man’s Sky delay results in death threats for dev
  7. No Man’s Anger: A peaceful game’s delay sparks online hate – Why is a two-month pushback generating death threats?
  8. I Got Death Threats For Reporting On A Video Game Delay [UPDATES]
  9. Mojang: Minecraft is not an advertising platform
  10. Mojang bars companies and politicians from promoting themselves in Minecraft
  11. No Consoles For Old Men: Ageism In The Game Industry
  12. Accessibility in gaming should be the rule, not the exception
  13. Apple, Arbiters Of Art, Say Game About Surviving The Gaza Strip Isn’t A Game, Even Though It Is
  14. Payday 2 dev abandons controversial microtransactions
  15. PlayStation 4 sales exceed 40m worldwide
  16. PlayStation has become Sony’s cornerstone: PS4 is great, and PSVR/Neo will drive hype – but Sony’s success is also down to its competitors’ failures giving it a clear run at a thriving market
  17. Take-Two CEO: ‘There Is No Market’ For VR Right Now
  18. Seven months later, Valve’s Steam Machines look dead in the water: Sales of under 500,000 machines so far show an utter lack of market demand.
  19. Supercell “printing money” with Clash games – SuperData: Both Clash of Clans and Clash Royale are generating $100m a month as digital sales in April climbed 5% to $6.2 billion
  20. Starbreeze acquires Payday rights for $30 million in shares
  21. Microsoft lends Fable license to former Lionhead devs
  22. It’s been over a decade since Valve first promised Half-Life 2: Episode 3 – Franchise has now been in limbo longer than entire lives of fourth-graders.
  23. Pro Counter-Strike: GO team Faze leaves World Esports Association
  24. As eSports rise, look back at one of the world’s first video game tournaments: “It may seem extraordinary that you can now fill arenas with people who want to watch videogames…but it’s a perfectly reasonable outcome of what you could already see in 1972.”
  25. Bud Light’s confusing entry into esports is sending the wrong message
  26. Activision still committed to toys-to-life
  27. Report: Vivendi continues Gameloft takeover after winning shareholder support
  28. Vivendi succeeds in hostile Gameloft takeover
  29. For this gadgethead, the HTC Vive may force my Oculus Rift to collect dust: After one month—and a lot of Elite: Dangerous—I know which one’s better for me.
  30. Benchmark: Video Games Now Realistic Enough For Racing Games To Factor Into Racing Certs

DIGITAL

  1. Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Microsoft agree to remove hate speech across the EU
  2. Top Internet Companies Agree To Vague Notice & Takedown Rules For ‘Hate Speech’ In The EU
  3. Google, Twitter, Facebook hate speech deal with EU is rash, say digi warriors: EDRi and Access Now warn against tech giants acting as online thought police.
  4. RPT-EU hate speech deal shows mounting pressures over internet content blocking
  5. Twitter Bans Obvious Putin Parody Account, Retreats After International Shaming
  6. Thailand Government Wants To Undermine Website Encryption, Hold ISPs Responsible For Third-Party Content
  7. Ontario Court Adopts New Cause Of Action To Combat Online Bullying
  8. This YouTube Star Got Sued, Raised $130,000, and Wants to Change the Site Forever: One of their own was in trouble. Now YouTube creators are fighting back
  9. Tunecore CEO: YouTube Is Not The Enemy – It’s A Goldmine Of ‘Found Money’
  10. GoFundMe For H3h3productions’ Copyright Suit Raises $100,000 From Philip DeFranco, Markiplier, PewDiePie
  11. YouTube Personality Files Bogus Copyright Infringement Lawsuit To Shut Up Two Critics
  12. Author Sues Publisher For Portraying eBook Licenses As ‘Sales’ To Pay Out Fewer Royalties
  13. Digital Deceit: Study Reveals Consumer Misconceptions About Ownership Rights
  14. Google Wins Trial Against Oracle, Saves $9 Billion
  15. Google beats Oracle—Android makes “fair use” of Java APIs: Oracle has spent many millions trying to get a chunk of Android, to no avail.
  16. Why Google’s victory in a copyright fight with Oracle is a big deal
  17. Why Google’s fair use victory over Oracle matters: Had Oracle won instead, a cascade of liability could have meant every Android phone owner in the world was breaching copyright law
  18. Big Win For Fair Use: Jury Says Google’s Use Of Java API’s Was Fair Use… On To The Appeal
  19. Google’s Fair Use Victory Is Good for Open Source (Pamela Samuelson)
  20. Thoughts on Google’s Fair Use Win in Oracle v. Google (Michael Risch)
  21. Who won Google VS Oracle? Developers won.
  22. Independent Musician Sues Justin Bieber & Skrillex For Copyright Infringement… Over A Sample They Didn’t Use
  23. Kraftwerk loses hip-hop music-sampling copyright case – German Supreme court: Kraftwerk copyright claim doesn’t outweigh “artistic freedom.”
  24. The German Constitutional Court on Sampling (31 May 2016)
  25. Fair Use In The Age Of Social Media
  26. Software patent post Alice world – Section 101 Patent Eligible Subject Matter – Enfish v. Microsoft, Fed. Cir. No. 2015-1244 (May 12, 2016)
  27. Google has increased its lead as the world’s top media owner and shows no signs of slowing
  28. Should it be legal to resell e-books, software, and other digital goods?: With e-book reselling heading to the EU Court of Justice, we examine the complexities of the law.
  29. The DMCA Should Not Be An All Purpose Tool For Taking Down Content; And It’s Espeically Bad For Harassment
  30. Why 3D scans aren’t copyrightable
  31. Youtube Threatens Legal Action Against Video Downloader
  32. Twitter’s Periscope Has A New Way To Deal With Trolls: Trial By Jury – An innovative moderation system will allow Periscope viewers to quickly zap abusive comments, while offering trolls a chance at redemption.
  33. Website for models can be sued for not warning users about rapists: Communications Decency Act doesn’t immunize Modelmayhem.com from legal liability.
  34. Government-Mandated Website Blocking Comes to Canada as Quebec’s Bill 74 Takes Effect (Michael Geist)
  35. News Use Across Social Media Platforms 2016 (Pew Research Center)
  36. Judge Says The FBI Can Keep Its Hacking Tool Secret, But Not The Evidence Obtained With It
  37. Why Netflix Isn’t a European Company
  38. Why can’t the Estonian president buy a song off iTunes for his Latvian wife?: Toomas Hendrik Ilves really, really wants a much more digitally integrated Europe.
  39. Bankruptcy Fight May Be The Least Of Team Prenda’s Concerns, As The FBI Comes Knocking
  40. ‘Black box’ no more: This system can spot the bias in those algorithms – Why was your loan denied? A university’s technique can shed some light
  41. I’m a black man. Here’s what happened when I booked an Airbnb.
  42. Facebook Wants to Help Sell Every Ad on the Web: The social network will show ads to non-Facebook users on other websites
  43. The inside story of Facebook’s biggest setback: The social network had a grand plan to connect millions of Indians to the internet. Here’s how it all went wrong
  44. The Playlist That’s Helping Spotify Win The Streaming Music Battle: Originally an experiment, Spotify’s Discover Weekly playlist now has twice as many listeners as Apple Music and Tidal combined
  45. Yahoo’s False Prophet: How Marissa Mayer Failed to Turn the Company Around
  46. The Myth of Sentient Machines: Digital computers might be fundamentally incapable of supporting consciousness.
  47. B.C. Court Grants Ex Parte Injunction Against Google and GoDaddy and Awards $1.2 in Damages in Internet Defamation Case 
  48. Microsoft gets into VR by letting others build HoloLens gear: Microsoft is opening up Windows Holographic at the perfect time.
  49. Beware the Trojan Horse: Elsevier’s repository pilot and our vision for IRs & Open Access
  50. Study Shows People Don’t Trust Robots – Unless They’re Carrying Cookies
  51. Internet trends report | Mary Meeker, KPCB | Code Conference 2016
  52. It’s Official: The ‘Internet’ Is Over

CREATIVITY

  1. Billionaire Peter Thiel funded Hulk Hogan lawsuit to take down Gawker
  2. Yes, A Billionaire Looking To Destroy A Media Organization Through Lawsuits Is A Big Deal Even If You Don’t Like The Media Organization
  3. Some Thoughts on Thiel’s Lawfare Against Gawker (Eric Goldman)
  4. How Can We Make You Happy Today, Peter Thiel?
  5. The legal campaign against Gawker has roots in the racist South
  6. Gawker Smeared Me, and Yet I Stand With It
  7. The Silencing of Japan’s Free Press
  8. CBS Beats Lawsuit Over Pre-1972 Songs With Bold Copyright Argument: A judge determines that remastered versions of old songs get copyright — and owners of the originals can’t stop the public performance of them.
  9. Maker of film critiquing Vancouver Aquarium wins right to appeal copyright ruling
  10. Star Trek Fan Film Axanar Lawyers Tell Court About JJ Abrams Claims Of Paramount Dropping Suit, Express Confusion
  11. Comic-Con, Costumes, and Copyright Concerns
  12. No Copyright in Facts
  13. Council of the European Union calls for full open access to scientific research by 2020
  14. Beyonce, Drake and the ‘Exclusives’ Explosion: How Streaming Has Changed the Way Albums Are Released
  15. The enduring whiteness of the American media
  16. Can Anyone Save The New York Times From Itself?: It’s been two years since Dean Baquet vaulted over Jill Abramson to claim the top editorial job, but the prospect of deeper change is still stirring at the 164-year-old Times. With longtime publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. seeking a successor, Baquet’s would-be replacements already jockeying for position, and drastic cuts looking all but inevitable, Sarah Ellison surveys the internal power players—past, present, and future—to see if any of them have answers to the existential questions plaguing the paper of record.
  17. Scientists show how we start stereotyping the moment we see a face
  18. How the Textbook Industry Tries to Hook Your Prof
  19. Open Letter on Ethical Norms in Intellectual Property Scholarship

COMMUNICATIONS & BROADCASTING

  1. CRTC reviewing controversial ‘zero-rating’ in internet plans: Inquiry has major implications for internet service, net neutrality advocates say
  2. Should broadband data hogs pay more? ISP economics say “no”: The idea has a certain logic—those who use more should pay more—but should it work IRL?
  3. Why Telecom Transparency Reporting in Canada Still Falls Short (Michael Geist)
  4. Why Bell’s Bid to Buy MTS is Bad News: Report Submitted to the Competition Bureau assessing Bell Canada Enterprises’ proposed bid to acquire Manitoba Telecommunications Services
  5. Bell customers to receive up to $11.82 million as part of Competition Bureau agreement: Agreement also requires Bell to donate approximately $800,000 to support public interest advocacy groups
  6. More Orphan Black, less Canadiana: An American on Canadian culture
  7. AT&T Falsely Blames The FCC For Company’s Failure To Block Annoying Robocalls
  8. ISPs and pay-TV lowest-rated industries, with Comcast worst in sector: Comcast ranks 289th out of 294 companies—and last in least-liked industry.
  9. Study: How Cable News Talks About Abortion – Anti-Choice Speakers And Misinformation Dominate Abortion Coverage On Evening Cable News
  10. Viacom in Turmoil: Will Shari Redstone Succeed in Seizing Control of Her Father’s Empire? 

SURVEILLANCE & PRIVACY

  1. Why Microsoft Is Suing the Feds Over Issues of Privacy and Security: President Brad Smith explains the company’s stance on searches and seizure of data in secret
  2. Privacy injunctions in the age of the Internet and social media: PJS v News Group Newspapers 
  3. Virtual assistants such as Amazon’s Echo break US child privacy law, experts say: Storing voice recordings of people younger than 13 via Alexa, Google Home and Siri appears to flout the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act
  4. How LinkedIn’s password sloppiness hurts us all: Second data dump lets hackers be 6 times better cracking future dumps.
  5. Uber Knows Too Much About You
  6. Doctors fire back at bad Yelp reviews — and reveal patients’ information online
  7. Cops can easily get months of location data, appeals court rules: Relying on third-party doctrine, Fourth Circuit finds for gov’t in US v. Graham.
  8. GCHQ and NSA routinely spy on UK politicians’ e-mails—report: Microsoft’s Office 365 and MessageLabs said to leave MPs’ e-mails open to snooping.
  9. Irish watchdog refers Facebook privacy case to Europe’s top court: EU-US data transfer debate intensifies as thorny “model contracts” are eyeballed.
  10. Surveillance technology has advanced far beyond the laws that govern it
  11. How Russia’s New Facial Recognition App Could End Anonymity: FindFace’s technology may one day allow anyone to identify you with their phone.
  12. How Genius annotations undermined web security: To comment on other people’s websites, Genius broke a 20-year-old browser security system
  13. Anonymized Data Really Isn’t Anonymous: Vehicle Data Can Easily Be Used To Identify You
  14. If, As Eric Holder Now Admits, Snowden Did ‘A Public Service,’ Why Does He Still Want Him In Jail?
  15. China Gets Its First ‘Right To Be Forgotten’ Lawsuit

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News of the Week; March 25, 2016

By Jon Festinger on May 27, 2016

GAMES

  1. Seggie v. Roofdog Games Inc.: Who is the Author of Videogame Software for Copyright Purposes?
  2. Former Valve employee alleges unfair treatment and unethical practices, seeks $3.1 million in damages
  3. Take-Two Says Tattoo Artist Can’t Get Statutory Damages Because He Only Registered Copyright In 2015
  4. Paradox removes “White Humans” Stellaris mod: “We expect our modders to help us keep the comment sections free of any racial slurs”
  5. Paradox steps in to remove ‘inappropriate’ Stellaris mod from Steam
  6. Paradox’s removal of Stellaris’ “Whites Only” mod draws controversy: Developer says “disturbing” description, not mod content, led to the takedown.
  7. Nintendo issues copyright claims on Mario-themed Minecraft videos: Move highlights a culture clash between two very different online philosophies.
  8. Minecraft videos based on Super Mario DLC hit with copyright claims: 4J Studios’ official Wii U add-on was supposed to be exempt from Nintendo’s insistence on taking a cut of YouTubers’ revenue
  9. Oculus puts the kibosh on ‘hack’ that let Vive owners play Rift games
  10. Oculus introduces DRM that kills Revive mod
  11. Oculus breaks promise, uses DRM to kill app that let you switch VR systems
  12. Oculus Is Hurting VR’s Development By Supporting Walled Gardens, Closed Ecosystems
  13. Alan Yates Says Rift’s Core Features Are a “Direct Copy” of Valve’s VR Research
  14. Studio Wildcard will pay for ARK: Survival Evolved mod content – The creators of two new maps were paid “several months salary” and hired by the company
  15. CryEngine source code now available on Github
  16. Former exec speaks to the risk-averse nature of Disney’s game biz
  17. Apple backtracks, publishes politically sensitive iOS title as a game
  18. Former Valve employee alleges she was fired for being transgender: Plaintiff says Valve referred to her as “it” – she’s seeking $3.1 million in damages
  19. Professionalism and toxicity threaten eSports’ breakthrough
  20. Twitch signs on to stream the eLeague, TBS’ televised eSports venture
  21. Investors pour $4.5M more into eSports coaching tool startup
  22. EA Sports Is Betting Millions You’ll Watch This Guy Play ‘FIFA’: The video game titan wants to put the “sports” in “e-sports.”
  23. Pac-12 athletic conference to host collegiate eSports tournaments
  24. Uncharted 4 is a paragon of AAA accessibility: Naughty Dog describes the new features in its latest blockbuster that make it more open to gamers with disabilities
  25. Uncharted 4 was inspired by the industry’s struggle against crunch: Naughty Dog embraced “downbeat moments” and reconsidered the importance of fun, to the chagrin of certain fans
  26. Uncharted 4 Sold 2.7 Million Units In Its First Week
  27. Playing For The Future: How Video Games Are Leading Innovation
  28. Sony predicts 20m PS4 sales in FY2016
  29. Microsoft has finally found a legal path to publishing Minecraft on Chinese PCs: Long-awaited news serves as reminder of China’s resistance to Western software.
  30. Report: ISP now blocking online games in Morocco due to VoIP ban
  31. Google’s (Day)dream: ‘Hundreds of Millions of Users in a Couple of Years’ – Company says goal is to foster a “multi-billion dollar” VR ecosystem on Android
  32. Google Play is adding an Early Access section
  33. Rovio’s Angry Birds film has earned $150 million worldwide: But after a $400 million Sony marketing push, how much further does it have to fly to return a profit?
  34. Video: Raph Koster recounts a history of virtual worlds, from MUDS to MMOs
  35. Skill-based, first-person gambling game coming to Atlantic City casinos

DIGITAL

  1. Court Says Google Doesn’t Have A First Amendment Right To Drop A Site From Its Search Results
  2. Oracle-Google Dispute Goes to Heart of Open-Source Software
  3. Google’s closing argument: Android was built from scratch, the fair way – “Oracle took none of the risk, but wants all the credit, and a lot of the money.”
  4. Why the Very Silly Oracle v. Google Trial Actually Matters
  5. John McCain, Forgetting His Own Support Of Fair Use On YouTube, Tries To Use Copyright To Take Down His Own Ad
  6. Fox ‘Stole’ A Game Clip, Used It In Family Guy & DMCA’d The Original
  7. Fox In The Henhouse: Uses Someone Else’s YouTube Clip In Family Guy, Then Takes Down The Original
  8. Videos of Nintendo-backed Minecraft Mario DLC trigger copyright crackdown — from Nintendo
  9. NYU Sues YouTube For Reposting Video After Video Poster Sent DMCA Counternotice
  10. Copyright As Censorship: Questionable Copyright Claim Forces Indie Musician To Destroy All Physical Copies Of New Album
  11. H3h3Productions Sued For Copyright Infringement By MattHossZone, Spotlighting Fraught Issue Of Fair Use
  12. Web Sheriff Abuses DMCA In Weak Attempt To Hide Info Under UK High Court Injunction, Fails Miserably
  13. Why Is Twitter Sending Legal Letters Warning People About Tweeting About The Gagged Topic Of A ‘Celebrity Threesome’
  14. Sex lives of Britain’s rich and famous stay private, for now
  15. Sony Thinks It Can Charge An ‘Administrative Fee’ For Fair Use
  16. Revealed: How copyright law is being misused to remove material from the internet – When Annabelle Narey posted a negative review of a building firm on Mumsnet, the last thing on her mind was copyright infringement
  17. A Report on Notice and Takedown in Everyday Practice
  18. Linking and secondary liability for copyright infringement. A look into the Spanish approach.
  19. Google Goes On The Offensive Against Troll Armed With Old Mp3 Player Patent
  20. FTC Rules On Machinima Case: Is This The End Of Influencer Marketing?
  21. Three starts network-level ad blocking trial: UK mobile carrier moving ahead after months of talks with the advertising industry.
  22. When YouTube Pranks Break the Law
  23. Machine Bias: There’s software used across the country to predict future criminals. And it’s biased against blacks.
  24. On the Design and Ethics of Virtual Reality and Immersive Experiences
  25. New York Times staffer tweets out op-ed critical of Trump, faces anti-Semitic avalanche
  26. Digital Assistants Get Women’s Names—Unless They’re ‘Lawyers’
  27. Facebook apologized after fat-shaming a model—but the damage was already done
  28. UK Queen’s Speech: More, Faster Broadband… But It Will Be Censored And Spied On
  29. Self-Proclaimed ‘Badass Lawyer’ Loses Defamation Suit Against Parody Twitter Account
  30. ‘Badass Lawyer’ Loses Lawsuit Over Parody Twitter Account–Levitt v. Felton
  31. Law Firm Subpoenas Glassdoor For Negative Anonymous Reviews, Supercharges Streisand Effect With Its Response
  32. Malaysian Government Pushes For Broad Internet Censorship Bill Following Internet Reporting On Gov’t Corruption
  33. China’s scary lesson to the world: Censoring the Internet works
  34. Study: One Out Of Every 178 Posts To Chinese Social Media Is Government Propaganda
  35. Terrorists no longer welcome on OneDrive or Hotmail: The company is also funding research to detect terrorist content.
  36. Chile’s New Copyright Legislation Would Make Creative Commons Licensing Impossible For Audiovisual Works
  37. Principles For Reassuring Authors Of Ssrn-Posted Papers Under Elsevier’s Ownership
  38. Do You Love Music? Silicon Valley Doesn’t (Jonathan Taplin)
  39. You’re Entitled To Your Own Opinions, But Not Your Own Facts About Copyright, NY Times EditionTaplin’s False Choice Between Music And Technology (Annemarie Bridy)
  40. Former exec speaks to the risk-averse nature of Disney’s game biz
  41. Everything You Know About Artificial Intelligence is Wrong
  42. Guest commentary: The real threat of artificial intelligence
  43. How Technology Hijacks People’s Minds — from a Magician and Google’s Design Ethicist
  44. A Few Late-Night Thoughts About Hostility On Twitter And Other Anti-Social Media (James Grimmelmann)
  45. Media executives: stop saying ‘platform.’ It’s a meaningless and dangerous word.
  46. ICANN Won’t Even Be Accountable in Becoming Accountable 

CREATIVITY

  1. Silicon Valley Billionaire Peter Thiel Accused Of Financing Hulk Hogan’s Ridiculous Lawsuits Against Gawker
  2. Peter Thiel just gave other billionaires a dangerous blueprint for perverting philanthropy
  3. Peter Thiel, Gawker and why all of this could matter during a Trump presidency
  4. Gawker Fails to Persuade Judge to Retry Hulk Hogan Case
  5. Paramount Apparently Going To Drop Lawsuit Against Axanar Fan Film, Produce ‘Guidelines’ For Fan Films
  6. Beating studios to the punch, J.J. Abrams says Axanar suit will be “going away”: Star Trek director says suing “was not an appropriate way to deal with the fans.”
  7. NCAA Petitions Supreme Court to Protect Uses of Athletes’ Names & Likenesses
  8. How Kesha’s contract became her cage
  9. Heirs Go Crazy: Prince’s Estate And Copyright’s Termination Of Transfer – The fight over Prince’s estate will dig deep into copyright law for a very long time
  10. Photojournalist Being Sued For Publishing Image Of Aftermath Of Paris Attacks
  11. This Silicon Valley Billionaire Has Been Secretly Funding Hulk Hogan’s Lawsuits Against Gawker
  12. Cop sued for drawing gun on man filming him: “Hey. You gotta take your hand out of your pocket.”—”No. I haven’t done anything.”
  13. Journalists Arrested In Ferguson Promise Not To Promote The Settlement
  14. Appeals Court Muddies Trademark Nominative Fair Use Doctrine (Eric Goldman)
  15. Music Industry Rep Hired by Copyright OfficeCanada’s Copyright Lobby Revolving Door Raises Fairness Concerns Ahead of 2017 Review (Michael Geist)
  16. Awesome Stuff: Art & Copyright
  17. Louboutin Loses Battle to Protect Red Soles in Switzerland
  18. SKIO Music seeks to ensure the survival of creativity
  19. Copying Pictures, Evidencing Evolution: Copying — unoriginal, dull, and derivative by definition — can be creative, contested, and consequential in its effects. Nick Hopwood tracks Haeckel’s embryos, some of the most controversial pictures in the history of science, and explores how copying put them among the most widely seen.
  20. Netflix CCO Ted Sarandos on how his ‘disruptive’ methods are insuring the future of film
  21. Film Dialogue from 2,000 screenplays, Broken Down by Gender and Age
  22. How Piracy Became a Cause Celebre in the World of Academics

COMMUNICATIONS & BROADCASTING

  1. Ontario commissioner extends legal battle with CRTC chairman
  2. Netflix, Amazon given quotas for EU-produced video, face new tax: 20% quota from European regulators to ensure some content is European in origin.
  3. Let’s Talk: Bell won’t about cops snooping on customers
  4. George Burger: Who’s afraid of competition for high-speed Internet? You’d be surprised
  5. EFF/Copyright professors’ comment on FCC’s proposed set-top box rule (Rebecca Tushnet)
  6. Hollywood Writers & Copyright Scholars Point Out That Piracy Fears Over Open Set Top Boxes Are Complete FUD
  7. Reddit, Mozilla, Others Urge FCC To Formally Investigate Broadband Usage Caps And Zero Rating
  8. Charter explains why it doesn’t compete against other cable companies
  9. Once Again With Feeling: Cord Cutting Is Not A ‘Myth’
  10. Hollywood Writers: Set-Top Box Piracy Fears Are Overblown
  11. A Streaming Live Sports Service Could Be a Cable Killer
  12. AT&T’s data caps impose harshest punishments on DSL users
  13. Criminal Charges: Prison phones are a predatory monopoly. One family fought back — and won.
  14. How the Internet works: Submarine fibre, brains in jars, and coaxial cables – A deep dive into Internet infrastructure, plus a rare visit to a subsea cable landing site.

SURVEILLANCE & PRIVACY

  1. Companies Not Saving Your Data
  2. Rogers reports marked decline in police requests for data: Telecom refused to release customer data without a warrant in 2015, after landmark Supreme Court ruling.
  3. Google strikes back at French global “right to be forgotten” order
  4. Google Appeals French Data Protection Authority’s Demand to Modify Search Results Worldwide
  5. Google To France: No You Don’t Get To Censor The Global Internet
  6. A principle that should not be forgotten
  7. Privacy Shield faces another setback after Eurocrats fail to agree on deal: Work on hammering out Safe Harbour replacement is progressing, EC insists to Ars.
  8. EU data protection chief: We have serious concerns about Privacy Shield – Watchdog prepares to weigh in on EU-US data sharing, calls on robust improvements.
  9. Identifying People from Their Metadata (Bruce Schneier)
  10. Focus: Are devices collecting information on you?
  11. You are being followed: The business of social media surveillance
  12. Anti-Choice Groups Use Smartphone Surveillance to Target ‘Abortion-Minded Women’ During Clinic Visits
  13. Right to Privacy: Does the Fourth Amendment Apply to Emails? 
  14. Were you a LinkedIn member in 2012?
  15. There Is No Such Thing as “Public” Data: And it’s not OK for researchers to scrape information from websites like OkCupid. (Woodrow Hartzog)
  16. Hack of Prince Philip’s e-mail in 1985 preserved by UK computing museum: Back then, hackers only came out to play at dusk because daytime dial-up was too pricey.
  17. Will the Spokeo v. Robins Supreme Court Ruling Favor Plaintiffs Or Defendants? Uh…
  18. Spokeo: Will U.S. Supreme Court’s Decision Impact Privacy Damages in Canada? 
  19. How the Pentagon punished NSA whistleblowers: Long before Edward Snowden went public, John Crane was a top Pentagon official fighting to protect NSA whistleblowers. Instead their lives were ruined – and so was his

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News of the Week; May 18, 2016

By Jon Festinger on May 23, 2016

GAMES

  1. ‘NBA 2K’ Videogame Maker Fights Lawsuit Over Copyrighted Tattoos
  2. ESL forms World Esports Association to professionalize and regulate eSports
  3. WESA grilled about potentially flawed eSports regulatory practices: “If we’re seen as legitimate as the NFL, we’re happy. We probably don’t have the same standards as you have.”
  4. Blizzard and Twitch pledge to fight racism with pilot program: An incident at a recent live-streamed Hearthstone tournament has highlighted the need for change in eSports
  5. Blizzard vows to make changes following racist abuse of Hearthstone pro: Blizzard CEO Mike Morhaime will take steps to prevent the kind of appalling racism faced by TerrenceM at Dreamhack.
  6. eSports supremacy beckons as Overwatch beta pulls 9.7m players
  7. Investment in esports smart play for ESPN
  8. Move Over, Twitch: Activision Blizzard Takes eSports To Facebook Live
  9. Facebook To Broadcast Major League Gaming In Another Victory For eSports
  10. Activision expands MLG.tv eSports broadcast network, builds Facebook partnership
  11. Riot owner Tencent to launchLeague of Legends-ready console in China
  12. Top German soccer club buys pro League of Legends team, Elements
  13. FaZe Clan leaving WESA over reports of exclusivity demands
  14. eSports “more a promotional tool than anything else” – Zelnick
  15. 65% of Twitch viewing time split between four games
  16. Blizzard vows to crack down on bad Twitch chat behaviour: CEO respond to Twitch chat’s racist comments
  17. Blizzard takes zero-tolerance stance on Overwatch cheating: Publisher will issue permanent bans for first cheating offense, “full stop.”
  18. Blizzard promises to permanently ban Overwatch cheats
  19. Microsoft vetoed a black woman on cover for Fable II: Ex-Lionhead art director recalls marketing department “just didn’t get it,” insisted on a white male for Xbox 360 RPG
  20. Lionhead tells all: Molyneux’s overpromises, Fable Legends’ $75M budget, more – Eurogamer feature also uncovers Milo and Kate’s failings, battles with Xbox marketing.
  21. Apple classifies Palestinian-developed game as not a game, due to war theme
  22. China doesn’t want your games
  23. Money for nothing? Gamers and the buying of ‘virtual assets’
  24. Games have left the shadow of the movie business: Disney’s cancellation of Infinity and move to a licensing model is just the latest step in a long, slow and inevitable divorce between games and movies.
  25. Nintendo lays out movie aspirations
  26. Nintendo preps expansion into medical device business
  27. Microsoft discontinues game-creation tool Project Spark
  28. One million dormant Xbox Live gamertags can be yours starting Wednesday
  29. Virtual Reality Simulation Is Pushing The Design And Technological Boundaries Of Future Motorsport Cars
  30. Gear VRs for everyone! Google turns Android into a VR-ready OS: Daydream
  31. Kids getting smartphones at 10, as portable console popularity shrinks
  32. Crytek adds 6 new unis to VR First: Includes University College London and Manchester Metropolitan University
  33. AwesomenessTV announces The Kids’ Game Awards
  34. How They Made Warcraft Into A Movie
  35. Tetris movie still in the works, now planned as a trilogy
  36. Could ‘Video Game Rap’ Be YouTube’s Latest Breakout Content Category?
  37. Long-lost NES game hits emulators 25 years after it was made
  38. “We are providing self-actualization for a great many of our players”: Electronic Arts CEO Andrew Wilson slots gaming just behind air, food, shelter, and water in the hierarchy of needs, says hardware refresh cadence has gone from six years to six months

DIGITAL

  1. Everything today is a lie: We’re officially in the era of the epic troll.
  2. The Information Age is over; welcome to the Experience Age
  3. YouTube Launches Dedicated App for Virtual Reality Videos
  4. Soon We Won’t Program Computers. We’ll Train Them Like Dogs
  5. Machine Unlearning: A possible crack in the brain-computer analogy.
  6. Google said to face “record $3 billion fine” in antitrust case: Search giant would have to change its business practices in Europe.
  7. A Bold New Scheme to Regulate Facebook
  8. Facebook And The First Amendment: Legal Challenges To Trending Controversy May Prove Difficult
  9. Facebook, YouTube, Twitter face hate speech complaints in France: Three French anti-racism bodies to file lawsuits against tech trio on Tuesday.
  10. Court Strikes Down Louisiana’s Attempt To Regulate Online Content ‘For The Children’
  11. Google’s 1st Amendment defense to search censorship fails in court: “Plaintiff has adequately alleged that it did not violate any of Google’s policies.”
  12. Judge Scolds Litigant For Making Facebook Account “Private” During Litigation–Thurmond v. Bowman
  13. What does the First Amendment look like in the digital age? Knight and Columbia are spending $60 million to find out
  14. What We Buy When We Buy Now (Aaron Perzanowski, Chris Jay Hoofnagle)
  15. FTC Wins Deception Case Over Faux User-Generated Content–Fanning v. FTC
  16. Amazon Liable For In-App Purchases by Kids
  17. Bing bans tech support ads—because they’re mostly scams: The ban is intended to improve user safety.
  18. $1B Bangladesh hackers implicated in attack on Vietnamese bank, Sony hack: The same code appears to have been used to attack Sony and banks in Vietnam, Bangladesh.
  19. How Trump’s troll army is cashing in on his campaign
  20. German Publishers Whine Because They Must Pay To Authors Misappropriated Copyright Levies
  21. Copyright trolls Rightscorp are teetering on the verge of bankruptcy
  22. Anti-piracy firm Rightscorp’s Q1 financials read like an obituary: Firm that bills online pirates $20 a pilfered song needs $1 million to stay afloat.
  23. ‘Working Here is Psychological Torture’: Law Firm Sues Over Anonymous Comments
  24. In Oracle v. Google, a Nerd Subculture Is on Trial
  25. How Java’s Inherent Verboseness May Mess Up Fair Use For APIs
  26. Google puts its expert on the stand to combat Oracle, wraps up its case
  27. Google just combined Chrome, YouTube, and Search into a single messaging app called Spaces
  28. Champions League and Europa League Finals Will Be Streamed Free On YouTube
  29. YouTube will offer classic NFL games as part of a new deal: The site’s NFL videos have almost 900 million views to date.
  30. NBA And BroadbandTV Launch Groundbreaking Multi-Platform Network: NBA Playmakers
  31. It’s 2016 and TV Execs Have Decided They Need a Digital Strategy
  32. The Music Industry Buried More Than 150 Startups. Now They Are Left To Dance With The Giants.
  33. Disappointing: Elsevier Buys Open Access Academic Pre-Publisher SSRN
  34. It’s the Data, Stupid: What Elsevier’s purchase of SSRN also means
  35. Warren Buffett Interested In Yahoo Because Why Not At This Point
  36. Man who claims to have invented e-mail sues Gawker for $35M in libel suit – Gizmodo: “Laying claim… for a universal technology gives you acres of weasel room.”
  37. New UK copyright enforcement strategy: “Track down” infringers, brainwash kids – Computing dominates the creative industries, so why aren’t its needs considered
  38. Germany plans to remove owner liability for piracy on open Wi-Fi hotspots—report
  39. Focus: Data doesn’t have borders
  40. Report: Apple is approving apps more quickly to increase Services revenue – Approval that took 8.8 days a year ago now takes around 1.95 days.
  41. How Instagram Is Changing the Art World
  42. Behind the Biggest Bitcoin Heist in History: Inside the Implosion of Mt. Gox
  43. A few controversial numbers may be illegal to share: Certain numbers could, in principle, get you into trouble – why?
  44. The History Of Social Networking

CREATIVITY

  1. Copyright in Film Parody: Brandishing Fair Use As A Sword, Second Circuit Finds Improv Version Of Point Break Copyrightable
  2. No copyright infringement in writing a book based on the facts in a film documentary
  3. Court Finds No False Endorsement over Use of Individual’s Name in Wendy’s Kid’s Meal
  4. Is Graffiti Ineligible for Copyright Protection Just Because the Act of Tagging is Illegal?
  5. Why Katy Perry’s dress could set a new legal precedent in the US 
  6. ASCAP Pays $1.75 Million to Settle Justice Department Probe
  7. Moving Toward A “Moral Right” Of Attribution In U.S. Copyright Law
  8. Name that tune: Musicians (and lawyers) are watching the copyright battle over Led Zeppelin’s ‘Stairway to Heaven,’ writes Josh O’Kane. A verdict against the group could have major consequences for the future of musical creativity
  9. Gene Kelly’s Widow Claims Copyright In Interviews Done By Gene Kelly, Sues Over Academic Book
  10. The End of Cadbury’s Purple Reign?
  11. Fawlty Towers and Faulty Towers. Is there an infringement of intellectual property rights?
  12. German Court Insults Free Speech, Bans Comedian From Mocking Turkish President
  13. Macedonia’s Government Is Subsidizing Bad Patriotic Rock Music and People Aren’t Happy
  14. Earnhardt Family Fighting Over Whether One Earnhardt Son Can Use His Own Last Name
  15. User Content Platforms Take the Heat for Artists’ Struggles at WIPO (EFF)
  16. Independent Publishing And Dmca Abuse, Or “How A Scammer Got My Book Blocked With Very Little Effort”
  17. Fossilized culture, not lack of funding, put news media on deathwatch
  18. Disney Defends Lawsuit Over Immigrants Replacing American Workers: A former Disney World worker aims to lead a class action claiming racketeering.
  19. Were Authorities Really Tricked Into Hosting a Cultural Revolution Throwback Concert? Chinese Are Skeptical.
  20. Why the ‘Black Panther’ movie shouldn’t give Marvel a free pass on diversity
  21. Ghost in the Shell and anime’s troubled history with representation: A controversial casting is exposing the many complications and contradictions of Japanese animation
  22. Men Are Sabotaging The Online Reviews Of TV Shows Aimed At Women
  23. Stats show that Eurovision song tempos may reflect economic inequality: Faster tempo may be an expression of stress felt in troubled countries.

COMMUNICATIONS & BROADCASTING

  1. How do we apply Canadian content rules to a world in which we’re all creating all the time?
  2. BBC iPlayer viewers will need a TV licence to watch programmes online: “Access should be conditional upon verification of licence fee payment,” says UK gov’t.
  3. “Mega Cable” arrives as Charter finalizes purchase of TWC
  4. Charter blocked customer-owned modems for two years, must pay fine: Under settlement, Charter must notify FCC each time it blocks a 3rd-party modem.
  5. Comcast Now Trying To Claim That Delivering Just TV To Third-Party Set Top Boxes ‘Not Feasible’
  6. Cable Lobbying Group Claims More Competition Would Hurt Consumers
  7. Cable Company CEO Calls TV Business A ‘Tragedy Of The Commons’ That Ends Badly
  8. Bell/MTS presents complex options for regulators
  9. From Broadcasting to Telecommunications and Everything in Between: Reflections on the Recent New Developments in Communications Law and Policy Conference 
  10. Canada’s New Telecom Policy Begins to Take Shape With Rejection of Bell Appeal, Support for Net Neutrality (Michael Geist)
  11. Add Philadelphia To The Long List Of Cities That Think Verizon Ripped Them Off On Fiber Promises

SURVEILLANCE & PRIVACY

  1. Then there were 117 million. LinkedIn password breach much bigger than thought
  2. CA Court Plays “Tag” – Judge Refuses to Drop Facebook Photo-Tagging Privacy Case 
  3. Amazon CEO Jeffrey Bezos: Debate between privacy and security is ‘issue of our age’
  4. Privacy, technology, and instant messaging – The British Columbia Court of Appeal sends a (instant) message
  5. Russia Provides Glimpse Of A Future Where Powerful Facial Recognition Technology Has Abolished Public Anonymity
  6. Mozilla Asks Court To Force FBI To Turn Over Information On Hacking Tool It Used In Child Porn Case
  7. Indefinite prison for suspect who won’t decrypt hard drives, US gov’t says
  8. Government Argues That Indefinite Solitary Confinement Perfectly Acceptable Punishment For Failing To Decrypt Devices
  9. FBI Doesn’t Want Privacy Laws To Apply To Its Biometric Database
  10. Here’s Why Lawyers Suggest You Stop Using Your Finger to Unlock Your Phone: You are protected against revealing passwords under the Fifth Amendment’s right against self-incrimination, but your biometrics are not.
  11. Lack of Trust in Internet Privacy and Security May Deter Economic and Other Online Activities
  12. Philly Cops Tried To Disguise An SUV With License Plate Readers As A Google Maps Vehicle
  13. District Attorney Arguing Against Encryption Handed Out Insecure Keylogging ‘Monitoring’ Software To Parents
  14. Philadelphia cops admit they put Google Maps sticker on surveillance vehicle: Who approved Google sticker on license plate reader-equipped car? Philly PD won’t say.
  15. The Intercept releasing docs leaked by NSA whistleblower Snowden: “Primary objective” of document dump is to allow public to scour them for stories.
  16. Who Will Own Your Data If the Tech Bubble Bursts?: Corporations, data brokers, and even criminals might buy failed companies just for their users’ personal information.
  17. Spanish Constitutional Court allows companies to monitor their employees with video surveillance cameras without being required to give explanation of their specific purpose
  18. WashU Expert: Spokeo decision has potential to expand privacy laws
  19. Supreme Court Says Plaintiff Must Show Actual Harm From Bogus Profile Created By Spokeo
  20. Supreme Court Issues Decision in Spokeo v. Robins; Must Allege Concrete Injury For Technical Statutory Violations 

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News of the Week; May 11, 2016

By Jon Festinger on May 16, 2016

GAMES

  1. Copyright Law Does Not Protect Structure and Game Play of Card Game 
  2. DaVinci Editrice S.r.l. v. Ziko Games, LLC et al, No. 4:2013cv03415 – Document 44 (S.D. Tex. 2014)
  3. Nintendo staves off latest in conga line of patent lawsuits
  4. Game Developer Forced To Change Game’s Name Because ‘Wasteland’ Is A Trademark, Apparently
  5. Disney Infinity shuts down as Disney drops out of game publishing: Company will take $147 million write down for shuttered toys-to-life line.
  6.  Disney Infinity is dead as Disney exits game publishing
  7. The Death of Toys-to-Life?: Was Disney Infinity’s demise on the cards, and will others follow?
  8. Why You Should Always Register the Trademark on your Kickstarter Game
  9. Advice To Immediately Trademark Kickstarter Projects Rests On Crowdfunding Not Being Commerce
  10. eSports awareness to surge past 1 billion consumers in 2016 – Newzoo
  11. Over a billion people will know about eSports in 2016, as audiences balloon
  12. Gambling On Strategy eSports Becoming A Big Business
  13. Activision is going all-in on eSports, and CEO Bobby Kotick sees the money
  14. West Ham becomes first English Premiership football club to sign an e-sports player
  15. League of Legends bans three teams from competition: Team Impulse, Renegades, and Team Dragon Knights banned for variety of offenses, have until May 18 to find new owners
  16. Riot hands down team bans in League of Legends, and one lifetime ban
  17. The man who tried to reform League of Legends player behavior leaves Riot
  18. Over half of Madden NFL’s dollar-sales were from digital downloads
  19. Cliff Bleszinski’s LawBreakers: A shooter inspired by sports, not video games – “Boston sports fans are very passionate, to the point of being insufferable.”
  20. GameStop CEO: Wii U ‘disappointing to everybody,’ including Nintendo
  21. Nintendo licenses out newCruis’n arcade game: Cruis’n Adventure
  22. Consoles Will Die Soon According To Electronic Arts Inc. (NASDAQ:EA) Exec
  23. PS4 and Xbox One have a new competitor in the Chinese console market: Fuze’s new Tomahawk F1 console is smaller and digital only, but the similarities are plain to see
  24. Tim Sweeney is still mad at Microsoft
  25. Video game sales on the up at Bandai Namco as profits falter
  26. New Call of Duty trailer racks up record ‘dislikes,’ but Activision’s unfazed
  27. Steam’s turned toxic, and Valve doesn’t care
  28. How big a deal is it to get featured by Apple? This big
  29. Does App Store placement still matter?: A new App Annie report shows daily download gains of between 100 and 500 per cent depending on territory
  30. Star Wars Battlefront ships 14m copies, EA enjoys “phenomenal” FY2016: “We grew non-GAAP net revenue, profitability and cash flow to record highs,” said CFO Blake Jorgensen
  31. Microsoft refused to sell Fable IP – Report: Suitors expressed interest in acquiring Lionhead, but refusal to include franchise in the deal cut talks short
  32. Metal Gear and mobile games give Konami a boost: Digital Entertainment division doubled its operating profit in the last fiscal year, but Konami sees decline in its future
  33. King pushes Activision Blizzard to record Q: Candy Crush acquisition and Activision performance more than offset a down quarter for Blizzard
  34. GAME acquires AR ads company
  35. Vive maker HTC hits rocky waters in latest results
  36. Microsoft’s new haptic VR tech blurs the lines between realities
  37. International eGames Committee names advisory board
  38. The Nürburgring may be the most-simulated location on the planet: Millions know it intimately more from video games than visiting the real thing.
  39. The 13 Biggest Video Games That Never Came Out: The saddest game cancellations from the NES era to present day.
  40. Biofeedback and Gaming: The Future Is Upon Us (Seriously)

DIGITAL

  1. Stakes Are High in Oracle v. Google, But the Public Has Already Lost Big (EFF)
  2. Google to jury: Android was built with our engineers’ hard work – “Android is precisely the kind of thing that fair use was intended to encourage.”
  3. Sun’s Jonathan Schwartz at trial: Java was free, Android had no licensing problem – Schwartz parries attacks by Oracle’s lawyer suggesting he was a terrible CEO.
  4. Facebook Wins Trademark Case In China Over Chinese Beverage Company
  5. HBO Censors Game of Thrones Spoilers With Dubious Copyright Claims
  6. Can you get kicked off YouTube for spoiling Game of Thrones?
  7. “Venting” on Facebook Leads to $65,000 Defamation Judgment and Liability for 3rd Party Comments
  8. Former Facebook Workers: We Routinely Suppressed Conservative News
  9. Facebook Rebuts Criticisms About a Bias Against Conservatives
  10. Facebook now directly denies report of biased trends, says there’s no evidence
  11. Maybe the real Facebook suppression is of shoddy news, not conservative news
  12. The Real Problem With Facebook And The News
  13. Want to Know What Facebook Really Thinks of Journalists? Here’s What Happened When It Hired Some.
  14. Publishers Strike Back at a Browser That Replaces Their Ads
  15. Should it be against the law to share tragic images on social media?
  16. Episode 173: Ashley Madison Class Action – No Anonymity for Class Representatives
  17. Guy Who Didn’t Invent Email Sues Gawker For Pointing Out He Didn’t Invent Email
  18. Hail and Farewell to The Google Books Case: Google’s scanning project and the subsequent lawsuits once commanded the attention of the publishing, tech, and library worlds. (James Grimmelmann)
  19. At Brandcast, YouTube Touts Audience Scale vs. Primetime TV
  20. “Amazon Video Direct” takes aim at the professional side of YouTube: Machinima, TYT Network, Jash, and other pro YouTubers sign up for distribution.
  21. Could children one day sue parents for posting baby pics on Facebook?: Pictures once kept hidden in family photo albums are now being shared with the world, and children may not appreciate it in the future
  22. Russian Court Sentences Internet User to Two Years Behind Bars for VKontakte Reposts
  23. Craigslist seller sentenced to 12 years for armed robbery of a buyer: Records search of phone number used on Craigslist posting led police to suspect.
  24. Canada Removes Ban on Exports and Technology Transfers to Belarus
  25. Will Yahoo Become A Patent Troll?
  26. Who Is Ready for Baseball’s Robot Umpires?: With the proliferation of technology in modern lives, Jason Gay asks where professional sports should draw the line
  27. NBC Is Going To Use Snapchat To Expand The Reach Of Its Rio 2016 Olympic Content
  28. YouTube Star Hank Green Rebukes ‘Value Gap’ Arguments
  29. Emojis: Copyright Law Can Turn Fun Little Symbols Into Big Headaches 
  30. Do You Own What You Own? Not So Much Anymore, Thanks To Copyright
  31. Regulators In Canada and the U.S. Signal Increasing Interest in the Internet of Things 
  32. Millennials prefer Netflix to live TV
  33. Streaming music has become Warner Music’s biggest business
  34. Will the Trans-Pacific Partnership Turn Silicon Valley Into Detroit?
  35. Marquette University’s Troubling Report on Faculty Blogger
  36. ‘The Revolution Will Be Digitized’: Panama Papers Leaker Speaks Out

CREATIVITY

  1. The Rolling Stones demand Trump stop using its music at rallies, but can the band actually stop him?
  2. Turkish President Erdogan Now Demands Injunction Against German Media Boss For Saying He Laughed At Anti-Erdogan Poem
  3. Evidence of gang ties does not include music on cell phones, court says: Use caution “when drawing conclusions from a defendant’s musical preferences.”
  4. There’s no cushioning this blow: Comparative advertising is copyright fair use (Rebecca Tushnet)
  5. Judge Refuses to Dismiss Lawsuit Over Crowdfunded ‘Star Trek’ Film: The use of Klingon — a language allegedly not copyrightable — in a not-yet-produced feature film can’t doom this lawsuit.
  6. Judge Says Copyright Case Against Star Trek Fan Film Can ‘Live Long’ And Possibly ‘Prosper’
  7. Minnesota Legislators Go Crazy, Pushing Dangerous PRINCE Act (EFF)
  8. Minnesota’s Broad Publicity Rights Law, The PRINCE Act, So Broad That It May Violate Itself
  9. Hasty action on a PRINCE Act would be pure folly: Take time to weigh the complex issues surrounding publicity rights, free speech, taxes and copyrights.  (William McGeveran)
  10. Public Enemy #1: The Trans-Pacific Partnership vs. Free Expression
  11. Trainor pulls video after she says her waist was altered
  12. Snowden interview: Why the media isn’t doing its job
  13. Meet the Woman Who Invented Cosplay: Myrtle R. Douglas, otherwise known as Morojo, rarely gets the credit she deserves for the worldwide phenomenon
  14. Exposing the David Miscavige of Furries: Dominic Rodriguez, director of the doc Fursonas, on the furry community—adults interested in dressing like anthropomorphic animals—and its charismatic, abusive de facto leader.
  15. Hollywood’s special effects industry is cratering, and an art form is disappearing along with it
  16. Signs with registered English only trademarks in Québec? Not a problem if you have sufficient and visible French somewhere close by
  17. The digital age of data art
  18. Baidu Pushes Back On Chinese Gov’t Investigation By Freeing Up Images Related To Tiananmen Square

COMMUNICATIONS & BROADCASTING

  1. Forget a Netflix Tax: How The Digital CanCon Review Can Shake Up the Status Quo (Michael Geist)
  2. BCE Strikes $2.5 Billion Deal for Manitoba Telecom
  3. Why Bell’s Bid to Buy MTS is Bad News
  4. Europe’s antitrust chief rejects Three-O2 merger in UK: Commissioner Vestager kills takeover plan, citing significant UK competition concerns.
  5. Europe’s Flimsy Net Neutrality Rules Go Live, Are Actually Worse Than No Rules At All
  6. The Disturbing Decline Of Sumner Redstone
  7. Cable lobby group: Broadband competition is bad for customers – FCC requires Charter to overbuild competitors, angering small cable providers.
  8. Feds probe mobile phone industry over the sad state of security updates: FCC and FTC coordinate probe of OS developers, hardware makers, and carriers.

SURVEILLANCE & PRIVACY

  1. Commissioner seeks public input on consent (Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada)
  2. Facebook Loses Bid to Dismiss Privacy Lawsuit Over its Facial Recognition Feature
  3. Facebook Gets Bad Ruling In Face-Scanning Privacy Case–In re Facebook Biometric Information Privacy Litigation
  4. Lauri Love case: NCA’s legal backdoor for crypto keys bid rejected by judge – National Crime Agency must use existing RIPA powers, judge rules.
  5. When A Fingerprint IS The Password, Where Does The Fifth Amendment Come Into Play?
  6. Is It Really That Big A Deal That Twitter Blocked US Intelligence Agencies From Mining Public Tweets?
  7. FBI Harassing Core Tor Developer, Demanding She Meet With Them, But Refusing To Explain Why
  8. Homeland Security Wants To Subpoena Us Over A Clearly Hyperbolic Techdirt Comment
  9. Oregon DOJ Encourages Surveillance Of First Amendment Activities; Acts Surprised When Agents Do Exactly That
  10. The Panama Papers — it’s still not over, source says
  11. Chinese ARM vendor left developer backdoor in kernel for Android, other devices
  12. UK Sports Star Threatens American Newspaper For Posting Public Information About His New Home
  13. Facing Privacy Tradeoffs to Restore Trust and the Rule of Law
  14. Is Blackberry’s Enhanced Security a Myth?
  15. Do Babies Have the Right to Privacy?
  16. The New Age of Surveillance

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News of the Week; May 4, 2016

By Jon Festinger on May 13, 2016

GAMES

  1. inXile legal challenge forces indie dev to rebrand game: The Alien Wasteland now called Action Alien following cease and desist letter over “Wasteland” trademark
  2. Steam’s Sega Genesis mods: Tweaks, translations, and copyright infringement – New Steam Workshop support allows for uploading of arbitrary ROMs.
  3. Blizzard agrees to meet with team behind shut-down “pirate server”: “We are the ambassadors of a larger movement for the entire WoW community”
  4. PS4 boosts Sony to first full-year profit in three years
  5. Sony’s games business bolstered by rising PS4 sales
  6. Sony shipped 17.7 million PS4s in the last fiscal year: Operating profit for games up 84 per cent, while Network revenue doubled year-on-year
  7. How consoles survived the rise of the smartphone
  8. Nintendo stops selling indie game in an attempt to cut off 3DS hackers
  9. Smart device pivot could cost Nintendo at home
  10. Nintendo’s president gets grilled on its mobile business, NX plans
  11. “The roadmap for a successful Nintendo console is unclear”
  12. Nintendo to sell majority stake in Seattle Mariners
  13. Chinese mobile games market is now the most valuable in the world: Newzoo and TalkingData report pegs annual revenue for 2015 at $7.1 billion, rising to $10 billion this year
  14. Zynga’s latest results: Steady as she goes, under new CEO Gibeau
  15. Vivendi increases its stake in Ubisoft to almost 18%
  16. Gears of War 4 would have cost Epic $100m – Sweeney: Epic CEO also laments how “toxic and destructive” some publishing arrangements can be
  17. Survey: Less than half of U.S. households own dedicated game consoles
  18. Game over: Windows 10 update crashes pro gamer’s broadcast session on Twitch
  19. 7 million unsalted MD5 passwords leaked by Minecraft community Lifeboat: Worse still, service recommended “short, but difficult to guess passwords.”
  20. ZOMG! ACCC beats US gamers Valve and proves ACL applies to foreign companies
  21. How Games Are Helping Veterans Recover From Injury: Amputees and PTSD patients turn to virtual worlds
  22. Australian Parliament report calls for renewed game industry funding
  23. ESA loses three members
  24. Riot’s path to building a collegiate eSports program
  25. Social media is most common way to follow eSports – Survey
  26. Almost twice as many UK games now supported by Games Tax Relief
  27. Greenlighting a Niche Game: The Long Journey Ahead
  28. Guinness Record Set With 25 Continuous Hours in Virtual Reality
  29. Researcher Espen Aarseth wins $2.3M grant to create a theory of games 

DIGITAL

  1. On Trolling ([Aristotle] translated by Rachel Barney)
  2. How IBM’s new five-qubit universal quantum computer works
  3. Strange Smoke Signals From the NFL: The drama surrounding Laremy Tunsil underlined the ludicrousness of NFL Draft weekend, and the surreal environment of modern digital life
  4. Could YouTube Replace Your Cable TV?
  5. FTC strikes a blow against Amazon in IAP lawsuit: US judge calls out, “millions of dollars billed to Amazon customers without a mechanism for consent”
  6. Redaction Failure In FTC/Amazon Decision Inadvertently Allows Public To See Stuff It Should Have Been Able To See Anyway
  7. FTC rules don’t explain excessive redactions in FTC v. Amazon
  8. Voltage Pictures Launches Canadian File Sharing Lawsuit With Reverse Class Action Strategy (Michael Geist)
  9. Done properly, can a Creative Commons license make for an easy defense?
  10. Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood Withdraws Google Subpoena As Google Appeals Court Ruling
  11. EU Regulators Can Barely Contain Their Desire To Attack Google And Facebook, Believing It Will Help Local Competitors
  12. Google Isn’t Required To De-Index Negative Ripoff Report (Eric Goldman)
  13. YouTube amends Content ID dispute process: Videos can now earn revenue while a Content ID claim is being disputed
  14. French National Assembly Votes (Sorta) To Finally Kill Its Three Strikes Hadopi Program
  15. Lessons From Prince’s Legacy And Struggle With Digital Music Markets
  16. Public Opinion toward Internet Freedom in Asia: A Survey of Internet Users from 11 Jurisdictions
  17. Nvidia and Samsung settle all existing patent litigation
  18. Death by GPS: Why do we follow digital maps into dodgy places?
  19. Bad drivers don’t think they’re bad: What Twitter tells us about road rage – Road deaths may be down, but accidents are on the rise.
  20. 10-year-old gets $10,000 bounty for finding Instagram vulnerability: Facebook pays out as part of its bug bounty program.
  21. Yahoo Just Lost a Deal Worth $100 Million a Year: More bad news for Marissa Mayer.
  22. The White House Considers Artificial Intelligence an Important Policy Issue
  23. Digital Gerrymandering and the Dangerous Influence of the Internet on Politics
  24. Rethinking Knowledge in the Internet Age (David Weinberger)
  25. Yes, All DRM (EFF)

CREATIVITY

  1. Looking for art in artificial intelligence
  2. Supervising Automated Journalists in the Newsroom: Liability for Algorithmically Produced News Stories
  3. Supreme Court to hear copyright fight over cheerleader uniforms: 3D printing companies are cheering for a cheerleading industry underdog.
  4. Did litigation kill the Beatles?
  5. ‘Zappa Plays Zappa’ Pits Zappa vs. Zappa
  6. Zappa Threatens Zappa Over Zappa Plays Zappa
  7. Copyright Holders Try To Stop Ravel’s ‘Bolero’ From Entering Public Domain Using Co-Author Trick
  8. Summary Judgment Upheld In Avatar Creators’ Favor After California Appellate Court Determines That Film Is Not Substantially Similar To Plaintiff’s Sci-Fi Work 
  9. The potential impact of Brown v. Canada on ownership of intellectual property by employers
  10. The New ‘Defend Trade Secrets Act’ Is The Biggest IP Development In Years (Eric Goldman)
  11. Productivity Commission calls for free import of books, copyright shake-up
  12. Australian Gov’t Commission: Copyright Is Copywrong; Hurting The Public And Needs To Be Fixed
  13. Productivity Commission’s recommendations on IP reform likely to be lost in election haze
  14. Illegality doesn’t negate copyright protection
  15. This Amicus brief written partially in Klingon is the nerdiest legal document you’ll read today
  16. Paramount Copyright Claim on Klingon Language Challenged in Klingon Language
  17. Salvatore Ferragamo Brings Trademark Claims Against Former NFL Quarterback’s Ferragamo Winery 
  18. Vice Media Sends Cease And Desist To ViceVersa Over Trademark Infringement
  19. What Happens in the U.S. Stays in the U.S.: IP Dispute Against Canadian Company Will Not be Moved to Canadian Forum 
  20. High Court finds that there was no goodwill in colours
  21. Why Do So Many Asian Brands Hire White Models?
  22. How Superman Defeated the KKK

COMMUNICATIONS & BROADCASTING

  1. The Digital CanCon Review: Be Wary of Old Whine in New Bottles (Michael Geist)
  2. The challenge of reshaping Canada’s cultural landscape
  3. New tariffs on the horizon after CRTC revamps rate-setting process for wholesale broadband Internet services 
  4. FCC proposes new price regulations for cable—but not for home Internet: New “special access” rules would put cable and phone companies on equal ground.
  5. Tom Wheeler: Comcast’s TV app proves the FCC is right about set-top boxes – Rules are needed, because “that which Comcast giveth, Comcast can taketh away.”
  6. ‘Broadcast’ rights do not cover internet streaming rights, says Australian Court
  7. EU slashes mobile roaming charges again, debuts net neutrality rules
  8. Brazil Has To Pause Adoption Of Broadband Usage Caps After Consumers Revolt

SURVEILLANCE & PRIVACY

  1. Challenges with the implementation of a right to be forgotten in Canada
  2. Canada’s spies in spat over privacy breach reporting: Communications Security Establishment says reporting details of privacy breaches would jeopardize secret spying operations.
  3. Secret US spy court approved everysurveillance request in 2015: Perfect batting average continues with the FISA Court two years in a row now.
  4. FBI Spent $1.3 Million To Not Even Learn The Details Of The iPhone Hack… So Now It Says It Can’t Tell Apple
  5. US woman forced to provide her fingerprint to unlock seized iPhone
  6. The government wants your fingerprint to unlock your phone. Should that be allowed?
  7. National Intelligence Office’s Top Lawyer Fires Off Spirited Defense Of Bulk Surveillance, Third Party Doctrine
  8. Legal quirk enabling surveillance state expansion absent Congressional vote
  9. Toymaker’s website pushes ransomware that holds visitors’ files hostage: Out-of-date Web app on Maisto.com causes site to attack its visitors.
  10. Privacy Commissioner of Canada cracks down on Mobile Health Devices
  11. You Can’t Escape Data Surveillance In America: The Fair Credit Reporting Act was intended to protect privacy, but its provisions have not kept pace with the radical changes wrought by the information age.
  12. The Chilling Effect Of Mass Surveillance Quantified
  13. Can Americans Resist Surveillance? (Ryan Calo)
  14. Norms of Computer Trespass (Orin Kerr)
  15. Incoded counter-conduct: What the incarcerated can teach us about resisting mass surveillance (Jessa Lingel, Aram Sinnreich)
  16. Berkeley Technology Law Journal Volume 30, Issue 3 (Open Data, Privacy Issue)
  17. If the Empire in Star Wars Had Big Data . .  (Daniel Soleve)

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News of the Week; April 27, 2016

By Jon Festinger on May 1, 2016

GAMES

  1. Korean authorities arrest 8 forStarCraft II match-fixing
  2. 1666: Amsterdam legal battle ends – Patrice Désilets to obtain rights to 1666 Amsterdam from Ubisoft
  3. Blizzard finally breaks silence over Nostalrius’ closure
  4. Blizzard: Allowing pirate WoW servers would “damage [our] rights” – “Tremendous operational challenges” to setting up official “classic” servers.
  5. Ex-Game Maker Atari To Argue To The US PTO That Only It Can Make ‘Haunted House’ Games
  6. Sega enables legal modding of console games with Mega Drive emulation hub: Steam Workshop support will allow players to modify retro games such as Ecco the Dolphin, Golden Axe and Streets of Rage
  7. Alex St. John: Shut up and be grateful for your 80 hour weeks – “Wage slaves” should “shake off mental shackles” says multi-millionaire. [UPDATE: St. John’s daughter blasts his “toddler meltdown”]
  8. I am Alex St. John’s Daughter, and He is Wrong About Women in Tech
  9. UK games industry behind in female employment
  10. Hack affects 7 million Minecraft players: Lifeboat Network compromised in January, but company never informed player community
  11. PewDiePie asks fans to confront his “immature” past: YouTube has “grown past” insensitive use of language, but his community still pines for the good old days
  12. Entering the matrix: CJ Wilson Racing launches a virtual racing series – The team has recreated its car in Forza and is holding an e-racing championship.
  13. ESL launching 24/7 eSports channel
  14. Toca Boca acquired by Canadian toy firm Spin Master
  15. When mobile game investments dry up, that’s when Disney swoops in
  16. Titan MMO’s “horrific” collapse led to the creation of Blizzard’s Overwatch: Game director Jeff Kaplan describes his team’s, “ravenous hunger to show the world that we’re not failures”
  17. Microsoft financials: Minecraft’s doing better as Xbox revenues falter
  18. Mobile to overtake PC in $99.6bn global games market – Newzoo
  19. Nintendo’s tumbling profits underline need for new hardware
  20. See just how revenues split across PC, mobile, console, and handheld
  21. Hearthstone hits 50m players
  22. How Infocom fell to ruin under Activision’s watch
  23. How could an AI take down the world’s best StarCraftplayers?
  24. The Top 10 Weird Children Of Video Games and Neuroscience

DIGITAL

  1. Dissidents Worry #TwitterisDead After Company Hires Former Chinese Military Officer
  2. NYT: China bans Apple’s iBooks and iTunes Movies stores – Ban comes about six months after the services were introduced in the country
  3. In a first, US military plans to drop “cyberbombs” on ISIS, NYT says: Cyber Command plans to mount hacking attacks that disrupt ISIS operations.
  4. Tech titans are busy privatising our data: When Facebook and Google finally destroy the competition, a new age of feudalism will arrive (Evgeny Morozov)
  5. Just After EU Goes After Google For Antitrust, Microsoft Agrees To Drop All Antitrust Complaints About Google
  6. News Corp. Claims Google News Is An Antitrust Violation In Europe
  7. Why the EU is going after Google and not Apple
  8. Facebook defamation case awards significant damages
  9. Facebook Isn’t the Social Network Anymore
  10. The Shame and Glory of Yahoo’s China Adventure: In 2005, Yahoo got lucky when it made a deal with Jack Ma for a huge chunk of Alibaba stock. It also got humiliated when it revealed a dissident to the authorities
  11. Evidentiary Failings Undermine Arbitration Clauses in Online Terms
  12. Google is turning its search engine into a live TV guide
  13. Twitter CEO says ‘almost every sports league in the world contacted us’ after inking NFL deal
  14. Washington Redskins Appeal To SCOTUS On Trademark And Seek To Tie Their Case To That Of The Slants
  15. Steam expands its streaming movie biz with Lionsgate partnership
  16. Social Media and Jury Selection
  17. New Jersey Supreme Court Questions Ethics of “Friending” a Litigation Foe 
  18. How the DMCA silences cybersecurity experts, and makes all of us more vulnerable
  19. Court Dismisses Trademark Suit Brought By Racetracks Against Gaming Company Referencing Historical Races
  20. When a Robot Kills, Is It Murder or Product Liability?: An expert on robotics law responds to Paolo Bacigalupi’s short story “Mika Model.”
  21. Robots That Act Differently When You’re Around: The machines of the future will tailor their behavior to humans—and even individual personalities.
  22. How to Be Good: Why you can’t teach human values to artificial intelligence.

CREATIVITY

  1. Opinion: Aqua-gag — How the Vancouver Aquarium abuses copyright law to silence criticism (Katie Sykes)
  2. Copyright Maximalists And Lobbyists Celebrate Vancouver Aquarium Censoring Critical Documentary With Copyright
  3. The Prince of Copyright Enforcement
  4. Prince And Negativland: Strange Bedfellows Tilting At A Similar Copyright Windmill
  5. Lego Admits It Was a ‘Mistake’ Refusing Ai Weiwei Bricks for Art Exhibition: ‘Danish toy maker says it has changed policies on bulk sales to avoid future disputes
  6. The Erdogan Insult Mess: Dutch Reporter, German Politician Arrested For Mocking Erdogan; Swiss Art Exhibit Targeted Too
  7. Iranian Cartoonist Atena Farghadani’s Prison Sentence Reduced From 12 Years to 18 Months
  8. Copyright chaos: Why isn’t Anne Frank’s diary free now?
  9. Our Dated Model of Theatrical Release Is Hurting Independent Cinema
  10. For enthusiast media, ethics can be costly
  11. About Violence Against Women: If your job requires writing about important issues, having some idea of what you’re talking about is kind of necessary.

COMMUNICATIONS & BROADCASTING

  1. Why Federal Leadership on Universal Broadband is a Need, Not a Want (Michael Geist)
  2. A Radical Broadband Internet & Cultural Policy for Canada
  3. Federal Government Launches Review of Law and Policy on Canadian Cultural Content in an Age of Digital Disruption
  4. Regulators OK Charter-Time Warner merger
  5. FCC To Ban Charter Communications From Imposing Usage Caps If It Wants Merger Approval
  6. Comcast Preventing Customers From Accessing Starz Streaming App, Can Only Offer Flimsy Reasons Why
  7. Cold call firms that hide numbers face £2M fine, warns UK government: Repeat offenders also face fines of up to £500,000 from the UK’s data watchdog.
  8. When Music Pirates Used Pirate Ships: Renegade radio stations in the ’60s challenged government control of the airwaves from international waters and helped launch the rock revolution. 

SURVEILLANCE & PRIVACY

  1. BeautifulPeople.com Leaks Very Private Data of 1.1 Million ‘Elite’ Daters — And It’s All For Sale
  2. From Ashley Madison to the Panama Papers: Is Hacked Data Fair Game?
  3. FBI Allegedly Paid More Than $1 Million To Get Into Encrypted iPhone… And To Avoid Setting Legal Precedent It Didn’t Like
  4. FBI paid at least $1.3M for zero-day to get into San Bernardino iPhone: FBI Director James Comey: “But it was, in my view, worth it.”
  5. Feds: someone gave us the passcode in NY drug case, so we don’t need Apple – In February, judge warned of “virtually limitless expansion” of gov’t authority.
  6. UK intel agencies spy indiscriminately on millions of innocent folks: Docs revealed by court order show only flimsiest safeguards against abuse.
  7. Court Says National Security Letters Are Now Constitutional Under USA Freedom Act
  8. FISA Court Still Uncovering Surveillance Abuses By NSA, FBI
  9. House Reps To James Clapper: No, Really, Stop Ignoring The Question And Tell Us How Many Americans Are Spied On By NSA
  10. Indian Government Agencies Demand Access To WhatsApp Messaging Groups
  11. Court Tells Cops They Can’t Open A Flip Phone Without A Warrant
  12. The Fourth Amendment in the Information Age (Robert S. Litt)
  13. Chilling Effects: Online Surveillance And Wikipedia Use (Jonathon W. Penney)

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News of the Week; April 20, 2016

By Jon Festinger on April 29, 2016

GAMES

  1. Ark dev settles lawsuit over game’s origins and staff
  2. Sega embraces legal console game modding with new Genesis PC emulation hub: Steamworks integration allows for legit distribution of modified console classics.
  3. The Mess That Came After Nintendo Fired An Employee
  4. This horrifying and newly trendy online-harassment tactic is ruining careers
  5. Sexual harassment in online videogames: What we found so far
  6. Rust hits 3.5m sales amidst concerns over gender, race assignment: Facepunch has found success in Early Access, but recent changes have ignited a debate within its audience
  7. The Great Grand Theft Auto Lawsuit Explained
  8. Fable Legends’ closure marks the end of Lionhead Studios: Microsoft is in the process of issuing refunds to those who purchased in-game currency after beta is taken offline
  9. Shining light on the unregulated gambling rings ofCounter-Strike: GO
  10. Division players could be “punished” for using in-game glitch: Ubisoft struggling with reportedly widespread use of hacking and exploits.
  11. The eGames Are Hoping To Be The Olympics Of eSports And They Are Coming To Rio 2016
  12. Survey: eSports fans are a small (but overwhelmingly male) demographic
  13. eSports involvement actually greater among women than men – PwC: “The eSports consumer is young, racially diverse, tech-savvy and often female”
  14. Survey: First-person shooters are the most popular eSport to watch
  15. Collegiate League of Legends clash to be televised in the U.S.
  16. GameStop unveils publishing label GameTrust
  17. Mobile games help China leapfrog Japan on iOS revenue charts
  18. Superdata downgrades VR forecast again
  19. Oculus “don’t condone” HTC Vive software hacks
  20. Inside ‘La Guilde,’ Quebec’s new independent development cooperative
  21. F1 and Dirt dev Codemasters posts first profit in five years
  22. How League of Legends dev Riot is using science to create safer online spaces
  23. The Minecraft Generation: How a clunky Swedish computer game is teaching millions of children to master the digital world.
  24. The player dynamics of a World War in EVE Online
  25. How video games helped the world cozy up to computers
  26. New study examines ‘violent-sexist’ video games’ affect on player empathy towards female victims of violence
  27. The Game Outcomes Project, Part 4: Crunch Makes Games Worse
  28. New Magic Leap Video Shows Your Home as a User Interface
  29. Hyper Vision: The world’s hottest startup isn’t located in Silicon Valley—it’s in suburban Florida. KEVIN KELLY explores what Magic Leap’s mind-bending technology tells us about the future of virtual reality.
  30. After nearly 20 years, game modding hub GameFront is shutting down
  31. Help save 17 years of PC game modding history: Download your backups before GameFront’s mod-hosting platform shuts down April 30.
  32. Achievement locked: Microsoft ceases Xbox 360 production

DIGITAL

  1. Supreme Court Says It Won’t Hear Authors Guild Appeal Over Google Books Ruling
  2. Be Glad the Supreme Court Ended the Google Books Case
  3. Important Fair Use Decision Stands, Helps Keep Authors’ Works Findable (Pamela Samuelson)
  4. Authors Guild Petulantly Whines About How Wrong It Is That The Public Will Benefit From Google Books
  5. The ghost of Aereo rises: Local TV streaming coming to Sling TV, sources say – With a box called “AirTV,” people could have local TV beamed to the Sling app.
  6. Kanye West promises Tidal exclusive, fan sues when new album surfaces elsewhere: Lawsuit says Tidal now has the ill-gotten personal information of millions of users.
  7. USTR Finally Recognizes That The Internet Matters… And That Censorship, Site Blocking & Link Taxes Are Barriers
  8. Anti-innovation: EU excludes open source from new tech standards
  9. EU Regulators Seem To Think They Can Tell YouTube That Its Business Model Should Be More Like Spotify
  10. EU Officially Goes After Google’s Android On Antitrust Grounds
  11. Antitrust chief: Google’s restrictions on Android device makers breach EU law – Google has three months to respond to charges imposed on it in prelim EU decision.
  12. Competition Bureau completes extensive investigation of Google: Bureau continues to monitor competition issues in the digital economy
  13. Optometrists Push For State Laws Blocking Online Eye Exams
  14. Analyst: Netflix largest US network by 2019
  15. Swedish Women’s Soccer League Chooses To Broadcast Via Digital Instead Of Televisio
  16. Investigating the algorithms that govern our lives
  17. The Secret Rules Of The Internet: The murky history of moderation, and how it’s shaping the future of free speech
  18. How Hacking Team got hacked
  19. Sevens Marry Sevens: Is Online Dating Making Mixed-Attractiveness Couples More Rare?
  20. What happens when robots are assigned ethnicities?

CREATIVITY

  1. Copyright Injunction Covers Vancouver Aquarium Video
  2. Klingon Language Creator Responds To Ownership Claims: Marc Okrand doesn’t own it, but not sure if Paramount or CBS does either
  3. Artist who painted nude Donald Trump portrait says his legal team has threatened lawsuit 
  4. Interlocutory injunction orders removal of 15 segments from published movie
  5. You Pay to Read Research You Fund. That’s Ludicrous
  6. Public Domain Citation Book, Baby Blue, Renamed To Indigo Book, Following Harvard Law Review Threats
  7. Can Lawyers ‘Overcome’ The Bogus Copyright On ‘We Shall Overcome’ And Free It To The Public Domain?
  8. Academics to PricewaterhouseCoopers: You Got It Wrong on the Benefits of Fair Use
  9. Reconceptualizing Copyright’s Merger Doctrine (Pamela Samuelson)
  10. I Photoshopped Kanye Kissing Himself And A Famous Artist Reportedly Made $100,000 Off It
  11. DreamWorks: Stop Whitewashing Asian Characters!
  12. Bernie Sanders’ Campaign Joins Too Many Other Presidential Campaigns In Abusing Trademark Law
  13. Yes, Led Zeppelin took from other people’s records – but then they transformed them: Life as a Zeppelin fan would be much easier if they had come up with every idea themselves. But they always turned their borrowings into something greater than the source
  14. Foundation for the Lost Boys and Girls of Sudan v. Alcon Entertainment (N.D. Georgia, March 23, 2016) 
  15. Canadian Copyright Bill for the Blind in Need of Fine Tuning (Michael Geist) 

COMMUNICATIONS & BROADCASTING

  1. Guilty Pleasures and Proper Needs: Who Gets What Kind of Internet, and Who Decides? (Dwayne Winseck)
  2. Telus Trifles with Telephone History to Service its Constrained View of Universal, Affordable Broadband Internet Access Today
  3. House votes to undermine net neutrality rules, and ISPs cheer: Vote to ban “rate regulation” would limit FCC’s consumer protection powers.
  4. White House Threatens To Veto Bill Attempting To Gut Net Neutrality, Defang FCC
  5. Obama supports cable box competition and—surprise—cable lobby is angry
  6. From Russia with a licence? The Federal Court of Australia on retransmission of international TV broadcasts and proving licences

SURVEILLANCE & PRIVACY

  1. Apparently Hacking Syed Farook’s iPhone Accomplished Nothing (Other Than Making Everyone Less Safe)
  2. Apple holds steadfast, refuses to help feds access seized iPhone in NY drug case – Apple: Feds have not shown they have “exhausted other potential repositories.”
  3. Canadian Law Enforcement Can Intercept, Decrypt Blackberry Messages
  4. UK secret police are indiscriminately spying on millions of innocent people: New docs revealed by court order show staggering surveillance by MI5, MI6, GCHQ.
  5. Microsoft Sues Government Over Its ECPA-Enabled Gag OrdersUS court agrees with feds: Warrants aren’t needed for cell-site location data – Data placed suspects near a string of Radio Shack and T-Mobile store robberies.
  6. EFF Sues DOJ Over Its Refusal To Release FISA Court Documents Pertaining To Compelled Technical Assistance
  7. Government Access to Private Data: Microsoft Opens a New Front in the Battle for Consumer Privacy 
  8. Want to sue Ashley Madison over data breach? You must use your real name: Judge weighing if data hacked from the cheating site may be used at trial.
  9. Rejection is coming: Obama’s Game of Thrones screener is likely FOIA-proof

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News of the Week; April 13, 2016

By Jon Festinger on April 18, 2016

GAMES

  1. Leslie Benzies suing Rockstar over $150 million: Key GTA developer accuses publisher, Houser brothers of forcing him from company, withholding royalties
  2. Take-Two sued by former Rockstar North president for $150 million in unpaid royalties
  3. Rockstar: Benzies’ claims “downright bizarre”
  4. Grand Theft Auto devs planned to leave Take-Two: Leslie Benzies lawsuit says he and the Houser brothers set up an independent company that would still work on publisher’s IP
  5. 5 things to know about GTAproducer Leslie Benzies’ legal fight with Rockstar
  6. Blizzard shutters popular private WoW server with threat of legal action
  7. Blizzard shuts down popular fan-run “pirate” server for classic WoW: Nostralrius servers claimed 800K users are playing 2006-era World of Warcraft.
  8. The Ultimate In CwF: How Lovers Of Stardew Valley Fought Piracy By Buying The Game For Pirates
  9. Game Studio’s Plan To Deal With Critic Of Games: Sue Him To Hell
  10. UK Government-backed eSports competition to debut alongside Rio Olympics
  11. Wargaming wants an eSports players union
  12. Twitch and Faceit partner for new eSports initiative with $3.5m prize pool
  13. Activision Blizzard boasts new CS:GO eSports viewership record – A record-breaking 45 million hours of live broadcast were watched
  14. Sports satellite radio channel expands to cover eSports
  15. Bottom of Form: Rock Band 4 Fig campaign raises half its $1.5 million target
  16. Twitch users can now live stream Android games from their PC
  17. Codemasters pulls DriveClub developer Evolution back from the brink
  18. Oculus shipping dates pushed back again as pre-order woes continue
  19. Beamdog CEO stands up to bullies, says harassing tactics won’t work
  20. Jack Thompson and how I started with GamePolitics
  21. All Those Evil Violent Video Games Apparently Failed At Turning Kids Into Deviant Murder-Terrorists
  22. Fewer dumb things are said about video games these days
  23. Looking back: Brown v. EMA
  24. Looking back: GamerGate
  25. For Good Men To See Nothing
  26. Can a video game company tame toxic behaviour?: Scientists are helping to stop antisocial behaviour in the world’s most popular online game. The next stop could be a kinder Internet.
  27. Survey: Video ads are the #1 way players prefer to ‘pay’ for mobile games
  28. This Assetto Corsa Mixed Reality Video Shows VR Racing’s Potential
  29. Accessibility in VR game design: The Fantastic Contraption approach

DIGITAL

  1. European Court of Justice – Posting a hyperlink to a website which published photos without authorisation does not in itself constitute a copyright infringement
  2. Linking to pirated material doesn’t infringe copyright, says top EU court lawyer: Key question is whether the Court of Justice of the European Union agrees with him.
  3. The Legality of Selling “Used” Digital Songs and Movies Headed to Appeals Court
  4. Is Purchase of a Google AdWord use of a Trade Mark? Case Examined by Australian Federal Court
  5. 3D-printed masterpiece? Computer mimics brushstrokes of Rembrandt: New portrait created using machine learning algorithms with help from Microsoft.
  6. Scientists Create a New Rembrandt Painting, Using a 3D Printer & Data Analysis of Rembrandt’s Body of Work
  7. The dark side of Guardian comments: As part of a series on the rising global phenomenon of online harassment, the Guardian commissioned research into the 70m comments left on its site since 2006 and discovered that of the 10 most abused writers eight are women, and the two men are black. Hear from three of those writers, explore the data and help us host better conversations online
  8. Facial-Recognition Software Might Have a Racial Bias Problem: Depending on how algorithms are trained, they could be significantly more accurate when identifying white faces than African American ones.
  9. From Siri to sexbots: Female AI reinforces a toxic desire for passive, agreeable and easily dominated women
  10. Ethics and Artificial Intelligence: The Moral Compass of a Machine
  11. In China, Alleged Assault Footage Helps Muffle Panama Talk
  12. How an internet mapping glitch turned a random Kansas farm into a digital hell
  13. NCAA Reverses Their Ban On Social Media And Texting Communication Between Coaches And Recruits
  14. Is The Era of Live Sports Streaming Upon Us?
  15. Vancouver-based BroadbandTV trails only Google, Facebook for online video views
  16. Global PC shipments continue to fall in 2016
  17. Online courses’ metadata helps NCAA catch cheating coaches red-handed: Head coach sent grad students all over the country to complete online coursework
  18. YouTube Copyright Claim Strips Audio Out of Conference on Surveillance Overreach

CREATIVITY

  1. More People Recognizing Copyright’s ‘Free Speech Problem’
  2. Led Zeppelin’s Stairway to Heaven may be partly stolen, judge says: ‘Substantial’ similarities are enough to warrant a trial over whether Robert Plant and Jimmy Page lifted opening chords from Taurus by the band Spirit
  3. Led Zeppelin ‘Stairway To Heaven’ Copyright Case Will Go To A Jury… Meaning Band Will Almost Certainly Lose
  4. Theft or inspiration: A musical guide to copyright lawsuits – The Song Remains… Similar?
  5. Lawyers who won Happy Birthday copyright case sue over “We Shall Overcome”: Civil rights anthem never should have been copyrighted, plaintiffs say.
  6. Lucasfilm Threatens And Threatens Non-Profit Over Lightsaber Battle Event
  7. Richard Prince – an update
  8. Right of Publicity Claim over Straight Outta Compton Gets Kicked Straight Outta Court
  9. The Future of Digital Cinema May Be At Stake in Lawsuit Over Interoperability: GDC and Dolby go to war over whether the messages and commands that allow motion pictures to play on screen are a protected form of intellectual property.
  10. When you can parody another’s work or mark
  11. Authorship and the Boundaries of Copyright: Ideas, Expressions, and Functions in Yoga, Choreography, and Other Works (Christopher Buccafusco)

COMMUNICATIONS & BROADCASTING

  1. Canadian Government Fails To Force Cheaper TV Options, Blames Consumers For Not Trying Harder
  2. Cable cord-cutting numbers soar in Canada thanks to Netflix, high prices, says report: 80% more people cut the cord in 2015 compared with 2014, says report
  3. Affordable Internet access is everyone’s business: Geist
  4. Intervening at the CRTC: Nothing Encourages Participation Like Background Checks and Legally Mandated Undertakings (Michael Geist)
  5. Three-O2 merger hits major snag as UK competition watchdog wades in
  6. Silverpush Stops Using Sneaky, Inaudible TV Audio Tracking Beacons After FTC Warning
  7. Verizon won’t fix copper lines when customers refuse switch to fiber
  8. FCC: Carrier pocketed $10M in bogus cell phone subsidies – Record $51M fine proposed for carrier accused of enrolling ineligible customers.
  9. How Big Telecom Gets Away With Rewriting America’s Laws

SURVEILLANCE & PRIVACY

  1. Apple won’t demand to learn how FBI cracked terror suspect’s phone: Gadget maker said it did not know whether FBI employed a software or hardware hack.
  2. US government still pursuing court order to unlock iPhone in New York case: “The government’s application is not moot,” Justice Department says.
  3. Privacy watchdog to investigate RCMP over alleged ‘stingray’ cellphone surveillance: The commissioner has opened an investigation into the use of International Mobile Subscriber Identity (IMSI) catchers, otherwise known as stingrays, by law enforcement.
  4. FBI paid “gray hats” for zero-day exploit that unlocked seized iPhone: Washington Post says feds likely bought hack from “ethically murky” researchers.
  5. The Senate’s Draft Encryption Bill Is ‘Ludicrous, Dangerous, Technically Illiterate’
  6. MIT Tech Review Tries To Blame Apple Encryption For Wrongful Arrest
  7. Oculus brings real (and pervasive) data-mining to virtual reality
  8. Senator Al Franken questions Oculus’ data collection, calls for transparency
  9. EU-US Privacy Shield in big trouble, may not pass muster, suggests German leak: EU data authorities might push for top EU court case if Commission forges ahead anyway.
  10. Microsoft Endorses the EU-US Privacy Shield. Will Others Follow?
  11. Privacy Shield doesn’t do enough to curtail US surveillance, say EU data watchdogs: “Great step forward,” but still work to do, say privacy experts.

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News of the Week; April 6, 2016

By Jon Festinger on April 7, 2016

GAMES

  1. Valve misled Australian consumers, says court: Valve found to be in violation of Australian consumer law because Steam didn’t have a refund policy
  2. Nintendo denies bowing to GamerGate pressure in employee firing: Former staffer Alison Rapp was the subject of intense online harassment in the month preceding her dismissal
  3. Studio cancels Wii U game in protest of Nintendo firing employee: Necrosoft Games’ Brandon Sheffield calls on Mario maker to be an industry leader in fight against online harassment
  4. IGDA critical of Nintendo’s decision to fire Alison Rapp
  5. Surprise: Court Allows Lindsay Lohan’s Suit Against Take-Two Interactive To Go Forward
  6. EA issues DMCA takedown on video that overlays footage of Trump onto Mass Effect 2 trailer
  7. EA DMCAs Trump/Mass Effect Mashup Video Claiming Trump Re-Tweeting It Made Its Use ‘Political’
  8. EA: Trump video “an unauthorized use of our IP” – Presidential candidate tweets fan-made, Mass Effect robbing video
  9. Oculus apologises for “unexpected component shortage”
  10. How Japanese Mobile Game Makers Go After Whales: 5 Popular Gacha Mechanics
  11. Gameloft lays out all the reasons the Vivendi takeover is a bad idea
  12. Disney Infinity and the problem with Apple TV’s gaming ambitions: Five months in, signs point to an anemic start for Apple’s living room gaming push.
  13. EVE Online’s big battle proves players are the content in a sandbox MMO
  14. Blizzard signs children’s book deal: Scholastic will publish World Of Warcraft series
  15. Inside the lo-res Roguelike FPS inspired by Canadian politics
  16. University of California, Irvine announces a League of Legends scholarship: UC Irvine will be the first public, state-run school to officially support esports
  17. eSports driving over 21% of Twitch viewership – Newzoo
  18. Alibaba investing in 1200 Chinese eSports events in 2016
  19. Vainglory dev and Twitch announce multi-million dollar eSports partnership
  20. FACEIT and Twitch launch esports league following the example of traditional sports leagues
  21. The British government wants to create the Olympics of esports
  22. Any retail Xbox One can be used as dev kit starting now
  23. Using retail Xbox Ones as dev kits comes with significant caveats
  24. Square Enix backs Final Fantasy XV with feature-length movie
  25. To build a new Baldur’s Gate, Beamdog had to reverse-engineer the original
  26. Mind Craft :Microsoft’s popular video game Minecraft helps kids learn everything from programming, science and math to art, languages and history.
  27. See just how fast mobile has overtaken the rest of games
  28. Slice: Mobile gamers spend average of $87 on in-app purchases – Game Of War players spend, on average, $550 to achieve victory
  29. The average U.S. paying mobile game player spent $87 on F2P IAP last year
  30. Rovio writes off 2015 as an ‘expected’ loss
  31. Rock Band 4 crowdfunding campaign fails to take flight
  32. GamePolitics shutting down: Entertainment Consumers Association pulls the plug on specialist gaming site after 11 years
  33. That Dragon, Cancer Discusses Let’s Play Issues While Clearing Content IDs
  34. Players watch streams of the games they like, then buy them
  35. eSports driving game purchases – NPD
  36. Congressman blames son for spending $1,300 in campaign funds on Steam games: FEC questions California rep for unauthorized “personal expenses.
  37. Sony staffer crafts custom PS4 gamepad for player with cerebral palsy
  38. The View From the Tower: Why Cambridge graduates struggle to get into the games industry

DIGITAL

  1. Twitter Makes Huge Move In Winning Rights To Live Stream NFL Thursday Night Football Games
  2. Yahoo Will Stream One MLB Game Every Day For The Rest Of The Season
  3. The Legality of Selling “Used” Digital Songs and Movies Headed to Appeals Court
  4. For The Fifth Time Now, German Court Says Adblocking Is Legal
  5. Supreme Court Agrees to Consider Samsung-Apple Patent Case
  6. $85 million patent verdict, largest ever against Google, wiped out on appeal: Patent describes a failed company’s 1996 desktop notification system.
  7. Using Adblock Plus to block ads is legal, rules German court—for the fifth time: Adblock’s whitelisting scheme for advertisements also acceptable, Munich court says.
  8. Linux kernel lawsuit SCO v IBM is alive, 13 years and counting: Suit claims IBM allegedly placed commercial UNIX code in the Linux kernel’s codebase.
  9. Oracle will seek a staggering £6.5 billion in second copyright trial against Google: Oracle will ask another jury to make Google pay the biggest IP verdict ever.
  10. Quebec bill would force Internet firms to block access to online gaming sites
  11. Degrees of Freedom, Dimensions of Power (Yochai Benkler)
  12. Chinese Censors Erase #PanamaPapers Evidence From Web
  13. A spiritual successor to Aaron Swartz is angering publishers all over again: Meet accused hacker and copyright infringer Alexandra Elbakyan.
  14. Posting Photos of Red Bowls on Facebook Is Now Deemed Seditious by the Thai Junta
  15. DMCA’s Notice And Takedown Procedure Is A Total Mess, And It’s Mainly Because Of Bogus Automated Takedowns
  16. RIAA: How Dare The Internet Use The DMCA That We Wrote To Build Useful Services!
  17. Our Comment On DMCA Takedowns: Let’s Return To First Principles (And The First Amendment)
  18. More Evidence That Tons Of DMCA Takedowns Are Bad News… And That People Are Afraid To Counternotice
  19. CNBC Asks Readers To Submit Their Password To Check Its Strength Into Exploitable Widget
  20. How to Make a Bot That Isn’t Racist
  21. Microsoft accidentally revives Nazi AI chatbot Tay, then kills it again: A week after Tay’s first disaster, the bot briefly came back to life today.
  22. Microsoft reactivates Twitter bot ‘Tay’, and it promptly tweets about smoking weed in front of cops
  23. Clippy’s Back: The Future of Microsoft Is Chatbots: CEO Satya Nadella bets big on artificial intelligence that will be fast, smart, friendly, helpful, and (fingers crossed) not at all racist.
  24. Regulators grapple with how a robo-adviser can be a fiduciary: SEC commissioner Kara Stein says agency is being ‘disrupted’ by technology along with everyone else
  25. The biggest mystery in AI right now is the ethics board that Google set up after buying DeepMind
  26. Meet the Robocar, an autonomous racing car: Yes, it does look like something straight out of Hollywood.
  27. Man who sued over a patent on online photo contests must pay fees to EFF: “Ranking things in categories… was well known before the Internet.”
  28. This Russian Website Uses Neural Networks to Combine Images, With Awesome Results
  29. So Teenagers Now Prefer YouTube To Netflix And TV: According to a new survey, it’s *all* about vloggers and viral vids these days…
  30. There Are Now 2,000 YouTube Channels With At Least One Million Subscribers
  31. Marissa Mayer vs. “Kim Kardashian’s A__”: What Sunk Yahoo’s Media Ambitions?
  32. Stupid Patent Of The Month: Mega-Troll Intellectual Ventures Hits Florist With Do-It-On-A-Computer Scheduling Patent
  33. Why we’re talking differently about the web: The ways in which we talk about technology – and how we communicate through it – are rapidly changing. What does this mean for the future of our language?
  34. Adventures in the Trump Twittersphere
  35. Swedish Court: Wikipedia Hosting Photos Of Public Artwork Is Copyright Infringement For Some Reason

CREATIVITY

  1. Lions Gate Entertainment Inc. v. TD Ameritrade Services Co. Inc.: District court holds Lions Gate’s trademark-related claims under Lanham Act and related state law are preempted by Copyright Act in suit over financial services ad campaign that used modified version of famous line “Nobody puts Baby in a corner” from movie “Dirty Dancing.”
  2. Court Rules Against Lionsgate In TD Ameritrade Suit For Dressing Up Copyright Claim As A Trademark Claim
  3. Abdullah v. Walt Disney Co. – USDC, C.D. California, March 14, 2016: District court grants motion to dismiss children’s author’s copyright infringement lawsuit, holding that defendant Walt Disney’s animated film “Frozen” is not substantially similar to plaintiff’s copyrighted children’s story “The Snow Princess.”
  4. Don’t Mention the IP Law: John Cleese and The Faulty Towers Dining Experience – So there’s this dinner theatre show called The Faulty Towers Dining Experience. It’s been running for years. But apparently John Cleese has only just heard about it and he’s not too pleased. The similarity with his own Fawlty Towers is obvious and TFTDE is clearly ‘dining out’ (yes) on the popularity of Cleese’s show.
  5. John Steinbeck Heirs Now Feuding Over Steven Spielberg ‘Grapes of Wrath’ Adaptation
  6. Gawker begins appeal against $140M Hulk Hogan sex-tape verdict: Was it wrong for a jury to decide “what’s news?”
  7. The science behind the insane popularity of “react” videos on YouTube: Controversial theory may explain why we love watching people experience stuff.
  8. Competition Bureau releases updated Intellectual Property Enforcement Guidelines
  9. Campaign IP Violations Part 2 – Trump Sued for Copyright Infringement 
  10. The Latest In Reputation Management: Bogus Defamation Suits From Bogus Companies Against Bogus Defendants
  11. How Reporters Pulled Off the Panama Papers, the Biggest Leak in Whistleblower History
  12. Ontario Music Fund Oversight Hits Sour Note: Gov Docs Discuss “Breach of Integrity” (Michael Geist)
  13. Kylie Jenner’s new ‘Paper’ cover reveals how teens and social media are reshaping print publications
  14. Did the city steal the idea for its Toronto sign? Mayor, councillors and city face $2.5M lawsuit over concept
  15. 27 Stores That Were Named By Absolute Geniuses: Grab some baked goods at “Bread Pitt,” then get your laundry done at “Lord of the Rinse.

COMMUNICATIONS & BROADCASTING

  1. Netflix throttling itself isn’t a net neutrality problem, FCC chair says: Wheeler disappoints Netflix critics who called for investigation.
  2. FCC votes to help poor people buy broadband and protect privacy online: 3-2 votes anger Republicans after last-minute compromise is dropped.
  3. FCC’s “nutrition labels” for broadband show speed, caps, and hidden fees: New labels will help ISPs comply with net neutrality transparency rules.
  4. Painful Comcast cancelation phone calls targeted by California legislation: Bill requiring online cancellation a response to infamous Comcast call.
  5. ISPs Now Charging Broadband Users A Steep Premium If They Want To Avoid Usage Caps
  6. CRTC enters into MOU with FTC on spam and unlawful telemarketing 

SURVEILLANCE & PRIVACY

  1. The Scarlett Johansson Bot Is the Robotic Future of Objectifying Women
  2. WhatsApp is Now End-to-End Encrypted (Bruce Schneier)
  3. Reddit’s Warrant Canary Just Died (Bruce Schneier)
  4. Reddit removes “warrant canary” from its latest transparency report – CEO is staying mum: “I’ve been advised not to say anything one way or the other.”
  5. Canadian Court Says Vice Magazine Must Hand Over Its Communications With A Suspected Terrorist
  6. Cases highlight legal debate over texting privacy rights
  7. Appeals Court: No stingrays without a warrant, explanation to judge: Police also barred from shrouding stingray use in ridiculous NDAs.
  8. Appeals Court Says Indiana’s Bad Anti-Texting Law Can’t Be Used To Justify Stops Or Searches
  9. UK Law Enforcement Trying To Force Man They’ve Never Charged With A Crime To Decrypt His Computers
  10. UK cops tell suspect to hand over crypto keys in US hacking case: Lauri Love faces extradition to US over hitting Federal Reserve, among others.
  11. Hacking Team Has Lost Its License to Export Spyware
  12. Hundreds of requests to unlock phones flood FBI
  13. FBI Won’t Tell Apple How It Got Into iPhone… But Is Apparently Eager To Help Others Break Into iPhones
  14. Feds used 1789 law to force Apple, Google to unlock phones 63 times: “These cases predominantly arise out of investigations into drug crimes.”
  15. How a spy probe wound up as a child pornography prosecution
  16. Foia Request – Government Attempts To Access Encrypted Messages: Request for records related to attempts by the government to access encrypted messages sent using the messaging platforms of mobile communications providers. (ACLU)
  17. Brussels terror attacks: Why ramping up online surveillance isn’t the answer – Op-ed – Brief moratorium needed on calls for new spying laws after atrocities.
  18. Privacy and Cybersecurity Issues in Canadian M&A Transactions

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