Posts

GAMES

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

DIGITAL

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

CREATIVITY

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

COMMUNICATIONS

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

SURVEILLANCE & PRIVACY

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

jon

GAMES

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

DIGITAL

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

CREATIVITY

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

COMMUNICATIONS

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

SURVEILLANCE & PRIVACY

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

jon

GAMES

1. Lilith Games (Shanghai) Co. Ltd. v. Ucool, Inc. and Ucool Ltd., Case No. 15-CV-01267-SC., United States District Court, N.D. California., September 23, 2015.
2. Nintendo Wins Mii Patent Suit
3. Russian man sues Bethesda for ‘Fallout 4’ being so addictive
4. Extra Credits Tackles China’s Propaganda Game Sesame Credit
5. Propaganda Games: Sesame Credit – The True Danger of Gamification – Extra Credits
6. Xbox Live pummelled by DDoS attack; hacker group claims responsibility: Phantom Squad had threatened to mimic Lizard Squad, take down gaming services.
7. Two App Developers Settle FTC Charges They Violated Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act: Companies’ Apps Shared Kids’ Information with Ad Networks; Will Pay $360K In Civil Penalties
8. FTC announces settlements with LAI Systems and Retro Dreamer: Devs will pay a combined $360,000 in civil penalties for violating COPPA
9. New Research Suggests Compulsive Gamers’ Brains Are Wired Differently
10. When Does A Parody Twitter Account Constitute Criminal Identity Theft?–Sims v. Monaghan
11. One More Ruling in the O’Bannon v. NCAA Saga
12. eSports still waiting for its big “Supercell moment” (Jas Purewal & Peter Lewin)
13. Turner Is Giving Away $2.4 Million to Gamers in 2016
14. Tencent purchases remaining shares in Riot Games to hold 100% of equity
15. League of Legends now owned entirely by Chinese giant Tencent: Chinese conglomerate buys Riot Games’ remaining equity.
16. Rocket League revenues nearly $50 million: Psyonix’s $2 million bet on soccer-with-cars game is paying off in a big way
17. CastAR to pay back Kickstarter backers: “We want to do right by our backers and think that this is the right way to do that”
18. Twitter hires first ever director of game partnerships
19. Research: opinions on gaming differ among races
20. Staten Island man claims video games inspired his statements to police about a double murder
21. Curt Schilling will not testify before RI House Oversight Committee
22. Japan’s console market: Lost in Transition?
23. The Year that Handhelds Died 

DIGITAL

1. Rightscorp wins landmark ruling, Cox hit with $25M verdict in copyright case: Case marks the first time an ISP has been held liable for user piracy.
2. $25 Million Jury Verdict In Rightscorp Case Raises Serious Questions About Copyright Law
3. BMG Rights Management (US) LLC, and Round Hill Music LP, v. Cox Communications, Inc., United States District Court, E.D. Virginia, December 1, 2015.
4. Bank of America gets Twitter to delete journalist’s joke, says he violated copyright: “I have no way of guessing what the objection was really about.”
5. Judge, siding with Google, refuses to shut down Waze in wake of alleged theft
6. Fox News Heads to a Jury Trial to Defend Its Use of 9/11 Photos on Facebook
7. Netflix, Technological Neutrality, Fair Dealing, Procedural Fairness and the Copyright Board of Canada
8. CRB Announces Webcasting Royalty Rates for 2016-2020 – Lower Rates for Broadcasters Who Stream, Minimal Change for Pureplay Webcasters 
9. Kim Dotcom to be finally extradited to the US, New Zealand judge rules: Megaupload founder promises new appeal in case that’s dragged on for nearly 4 years.
10. 42 percent of cord-cutters don’t even subscribe to home broadband
11. Russian Activist Gets Two-Year Sentence for ‘Calls to Extremism’ on Social Networks
12. Streaming TV Isn’t Just a New Way to Watch. It’s a New Genre.
13. Influencer Marketing: Tips for a Successful (and Legal) Advertising Campaign
14. The end for the Dallas Buyers Club Dispute and Speculative Invoicing? Or is it Just the Beginning
15. UK police busts karaoke “gang” for sharing songs that aren’t commercially available: Three old guys giving away karaoke tunes is now a “commercial-scale gang.”
16. Laws need a technology update: Tim Hudak makes some logical points about the sharing economy
17. How Our Digital Obsession With Artists Has Created A New Blueprint For Success
18. Google’s Move Toward Fair Use Comes In Anticipation Of YouTube Red
19. Amazon UK found selling illegal weapons including stun guns and pepper sprays: Guardian investigation finds third-party sellers and Amazon itself guilty of illegal sales.
20. Nova Scotia Court Strikes Down Province’s ‘Unconstitutional’ Cyberbullying Law
21. Trump Calls For Partial Shutdown Of The Internet, Doesn’t Understand What He’s Saying
22. WhatsApp blocked in Brazil for 48 hours by court: Unknown petitioner gains injunction blocking Facebook’s popular messaging service used daily by 93 million users in the country
23. As Venezuelan economy collapses further, gov’t targets US-based currency news site: Pres. Nicolas Maduro said he’d ask US to extradite “bandits” behind DolarToday.com.
24. The Multiverse – AR + VR + More
25. A Timeline of Fashion’s Early Experiments With Virtual Reality
26. New York Times CEO Mark Thompson says there will still be a print paper in 10 years, but he’s really into virtual reality
27. BBC to machine-translate TV news into Japanese and Russian: Content will still be checked by human journalists before it’s uploaded online.
28. Appeals Court Rejects Prior Restraint In Defamation Case; Could Have Gone Further
29. In a first, East Texas judge hits patent troll with attorneys’ fees: eDekka LLC had a patent that “teaches someone… a new way of doing things.”
30. 16 mobile theses
31. The Star Wars social network
32. Pricing Algorithms and the Digital “Smoke-Filled Room”
33. EFF releases 2015 Holiday Wishlist 

CREATIVITY

1. In the War of Music vs. Terror, Bet on Music
2. When a Quirk of Copyright Law Creates a Christmas Classic: It’s a Wonderful Life and the Public Domain 
3. Copyright Lawsuit Over ‘Who’s On First’ Doesn’t Get Past First Base
4. A dreaded sunny day for Abbott & Costello heirs: play made fair use of Who’s On First – TCA Television Corp. v. McCollum, No. 15 Civ. 4325 (S.D.N.Y. Dec. 17, 2105)
5. Famed Artist Jeffrey Koons Sued For Alleged Copyright Infringement…Again 
6. Photographer Sues Artist Jeff Koons for Infringement of Gin Ad
7. Copyright: No Longer a Property Right? (Jane Ginsburg)
8. This season, a notorious pirate gives the music industry an expensive gift: It’s a little machine that’s already “cost” the music industry millions of dollars.
9. Appeals Court Says US Government Cannot Deny Trademarks For Being ‘Disparaging’
10. Are Legal Restrictions On Disparaging Personal Names Unconstitutional?–In re The Slants
11. Asian-American band “The Slants” overturns USPTO rule on “disparaging” trademarks: Federal Circuit ruling arrives as Washington Redskins fight a similar battle.
12. Defendant can’t take advantage of TM abandonment it created
13. Fears for Hong Kong’s Press Freedom Follow Alibaba’s Purchase of the South China Morning Post
14. News: Court of Appeal dismiss Mirror Phone Hacking Appeals on all grounds
15. How “Homeland” Helps Justify the War on Terror
16. The American Papers that Praised Hitler: They fell hard for the job-creating Führer with eyes that were like ‘blue larkspur.’ Why did so many journalists spend years dismissing the evidence of his atrocities?
17. The New Breed of Newspaper Mogul? On Sheldon Adelson’s Purchase of the Las Vegas Review-Journal
18. Star Wars’ Legacy II: An Architect Of Hollywood’s Greatest Deal Recalls How George Lucas Won Sequel Rights
19. How #BlackLivesMatter Changed Hip-Hop and R&B in 2015: Kendrick Lamar and D’Angelo spoke to the struggle — but so did Black Twitter, the most radical hip-hop voice of all
20. Music In 2030
21. How Art Became Irrelevant: A chronological survey of the demise of art
22. Diverse movies are a huge business. Why doesn’t Hollywood make more?
23. An Oral History of Transgender Representation on Scripted TV

COMMUNICATIONS

1. Shaw Communications buying Wind Mobile in deal valued at $1.6 billion
2. YouTube mad at T-Mobile for throttling video traffic: T-Mobile’s “Binge On” reduces quality to 480p to reduce data usage.
3. AT&T, DirecTV Deliver ‘Merger Synergies’ By Raising Rates In Perfect Unison
4. Comcast customer discovers huge mistake in company’s data cap meter: Comcast said he used 120GB of data while on a multi-week vacation.
5. TPP Ratification Process Grinding To A Halt As Canada Launches ‘Widespread Consultations’ On The Deal
6. FCC Bureau Extends Open Internet Order’s Small Provider Exemption Until December 2016; Table Set for Full Commission Review in December 2016 
7. Is CHCH newsroom now operated by ‘related employer?’ 

SURVEILLANCE & PRIVACY

1. EU Broadens Right To Be Forgotten In Dangerously Vague Ways With New ‘Data Protection’ Directive
2. Final Draft of Europe’s “Right to be Forgotten” Law – Daphne Keller
3. NY Times Warns About Europe Expanding The ‘Right To Be Forgotten’
4. Using Law Against Technology (Bruce Schneier)
5. Appeal In EFF’s Big Lawsuit Against NSA Dismissed For ‘Lack Of Jurisdiction’; Heads Back To Lower Court Again
6. Why The New CISA Is So Bad For Privacy
7. Congress approves surveillance legislation tucked into budget package
8. RCMP pushes for new law to get Canadians’ private information without a warrant
9. The US Gov’t Says Backdoors Are Great For You — But A Serious Security Risk For Them
10. Australian government tells citizens to turn off two-factor authentication: When going abroad, turn off additional security. What could possibly go wrong?
11. Manhattan District Attorney Still Totally Ignorant About Encryption, Slams Tim Cook & Demands Legislation To Wipe Out Encryption
12. It Must Be Christmas Time, Because Target Is Losing People’s Personal Information Again
13. From Hello Kitty To Major League Baseball, Companies Are Leaking Kids’ Data All Over The Web
14. The Return of the Privacy Injunction? Some Practical Considerations
15. Bahamas man accused of hacking celebs, stealing movie scripts & sex tapes
16. “The Medieval Origins of Mass Surveillance” (Bruce Schneier)
17. More Writings on the Second Crypto Wars (Bruce Schneier)

jon

VIDEO GAMES

1. Report: Kojima prevented from picking up award by Konami
2. Report: Konami lawyer barred Hideo Kojima from accepting any Metal Gear Solid awards
3. Steam Under Fire – New Case: Ironburg Inventions v Valve (NDGA 2015)
4. Steam tightens trading security amid 77,000 monthly account hijackings: Traded items will be “held” for days unless you have two-factor security.
5. Modder/Hacker’s Work Pushes Sony To Release Its Own PS4 Remote Play For PC App
6. Patent For Mini-Games Within Loading Screens Expires; Explosion In Better Game Loading Screens Forecasted
7. The Year of Pokémon: the Potential & Pitfalls of AR Gaming
8. Woman who killed her daughter ‘for interrupting her video game’ in 1994 gets parole
9. EA disputes GameStop’s claim that Star Wars: Battlefront underperformed
10. Video Game Stocks Bounce Back in 2015
11. Sega cuts full-year profit estimate by 90 per cent
12. VR to hit $70 billion by 2020 – Report
13. Magic Leap raising additional $827 million – Report
14. Double Fine launches crowd-funding campaign for ‘Psychonauts 2’
15. Welcome to the post-indiepocalypse
16. Time killers: The strange history of wrist gaming
17. Why AI Systems Are Learning to Play Old-School Video Games
18. Twitch’s gaming empire: How streaming changed the way we play
19. eSports network Azubu raises $60 million
20. Eight PS2 games coming to PS4
21. PlayStation VR expo round-up: Impressive Rez Infinite leads killer line-up: Other stunners include Until Dawn light gun game, Eve Valkyrie, Harmonix experiment.
22. The Art of Escape: What do we gain from giving inmates access to video games?
23. These are the most popular gaming videos on YouTube this year

DIGITAL

1. “Repugnant” online discussions are not illegal thoughtcrime, court rules: Judges also rule prosecutors abused the anti-hacking Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.
2. Pakistan Aims To Take Home ‘Worst Cybercrime Legislation In The World’ Trophy With Prevention Of Electronic Crimes Bill
3. Eric Schmidt Suggests Building A ‘Spell Checker’ For Online Harassment And Other Bad Things Online
4. Florida newspaper fighting judge’s order to unpublish online news
5. ZenithOptimedia Sees TV Ad Share Shrinking: Internet to be top global medium in 2018
6. Trump says “closing that Internet” is a good way to fight terrorism: Because ISIS recruits kids from the Internet, you see.
7. The Smartphone Is Eating the Television, Nielsen Admits
8. RIAA lawsuit kills Popcorn Time-like free music streaming site
9. Is “this video has been removed for violating the ToS” commercial advertising?: Darnaa, LLC v. Google, Inc., 2015 WL 7753406, No. 15-cv-03221 (N.D. Cal. Dec. 2, 2015) (Rebecca Tushnet)
10. Can YouTube ‘Remove And Relocate’ User Videos Capriciously? (Eric Goldman)
11. Microsoft settles lawsuit against Ballmer, Gates, others over browser ballot blunder’s $732M fine
12. TPP language on copyright open to interpretation, needs to be more clear, say experts: ‘I think before you go and sign something you should have a better sense of what you are signing for,’ says University of Ottawa professor Michael Geist.
13. As an academic, Liberal MP critiqued TPP copyright rule he may have to support
14. Intellectual property biggest issue for Canada in TPP, says Doer
15. BREAKING: EU Commission unveils next steps for copyright reform, including draft content portability regulation
16. New EU copyright rules would give travelers cross-border Netflix access: Rules keep geo-blocking in place, could also introduce “Google tax” on snippets.
17. Set the data free, Mr. Trudeau (Michael Geist)
18. Why the Government’s Commitment to “Open by Default” Must Be Bigger Than Open Data (Michael Geist)
19. The Internet’s Loop of Action and Reaction Is Worsening
20. The online ad industry made a huge mistake 20 years ago that’s still costing it dearly today
21. Bitcoin’s Creator Satoshi Nakamoto Is Probably This Unknown Australian Genius
22. This Australian Says He and His Dead Friend Invented Bitcoin
23. Who is the hacker that outed Craig Wright as the creator of Bitcoin? Maybe Craig Wright himself.
24. Supreme Court Reaffirms Technological Neutrality in Copyright Royalty Disputes: Description of technological neutrality may be at odds with prior case law
25. 9% of Kickstarter projects fail – Study
26. Yahoo wants to spin off Yahoo, become a holding company for Alibaba shares
27. Kickstarter hires reporter to probe startup that collapsed after raising $3.4M: Crowdfunding firm: We are entitled to further info from Torquing Group.
28. Advances in Robotics Pose Legal, Ethical Questions
29. Insurer now offering “troll insurance” for victims of online harassment: Claims of up to $75,000 can be made for counseling, relocation, or missed work.
30. HTTPS Lawsuits, A New Low For Patent Trolls (Andres Guadamuz)
31. Snapchat’s Move Into Real-Time News is Fascinating
32. Comedians Are Loving This Whole Periscope Thing
33. The self-driving car – a new legal frontier?
34. There’s No Such Thing as a Computer-Authored Work – And It’s a Good Thing, too (James Grimmelmann)
35. When Ethical Hacking Can’t Compete: Companies are paying “white hat” hackers to probe their cybersecurity systems for weaknesses—but some say that so far, they aren’t paying enough.
36. Artificial Intelligence Ethics a New Focus at Cambridge University
37. The “Founder” Generation’s Creation Myth

CREATIVITY

1. Russian Film Festival Gets Official Warning After Promoting Anti-Corruption Documentary
2. Turkish Court Establishes A Special ‘Expert Panel’ To Determine If Comparing Prime Minister To Gollum Is An Insult
3. Copyright case over “Happy Birthday” is done, trial canceled: Settlement details aren’t yet public, but Warner/Chappell isn’t happy.
4. Pharrell Williams, Robin Thicke will appeal “Blurred Lines” copyright ruling: Jury ruled that the 2013 hit was too much like Marvin Gaye’s “Got to Give it up.”
5. The Selfie Monkey Strikes Back: Lawyers Claim Of Course Monkeys Can Sue For Copyright
6. Op-ed: Extending copyright to The Diary of Anne Frank is wrong
7. For Journalists in Myanmar, an Atmosphere of Fear and Repression
8. Journalists storm San Bernardino shooters’ apartment after landlord pries open door
9. Ryan Seacrest: The Mogul Next Door – “I don’t believe I’ve ever done anything on camera or on the microphone without thinking of the back house opportunities and the next business play.”
10. Turmoil in the Weird Karaoke Market
11. Meet the “Real” Cookie Lyon: Lydia Harris was instrumental in the founding of a major hip-hop record label and had to fight to get what she deserved. Sound familiar?
12. Natalia Antonova: Journalist and Playwright Caught Between Russia, Ukraine, and the West
13. Are We Different People In Different Languages?: On Being A Multilingual Writer In The 21st Century
14. Scott Weiland’s Family: ‘Don’t Glorify This Tragedy’

COMMUNICATIONS

1. CRTC battles forces of dorkness, takes action against notorious botnet
2. Canada’s role in international botnet takedown 
3. CRTC Executes CASL Warrant as Part of Botnet Take-down
4. What email marketers should know about the EU’s new data law
5. John Doyle: CRTC should listen to TV critics, just like everyone else
6. European Commission publishes guidance on transatlantic data transfers
7. Max Schrems launches new legal broadside at Facebook: Facebook can’t protect Europeans’ data from U.S. spying, says man who brought down Safe Harbor pact
8. U.S. Jurisprudence Hurting U.S.-EU Data Privacy Relations
9. Turkey’s YouTube Ban Breached Right To Information, Says European Court Of Human Rights
10. Big Cable’s Sledgehammer Is Coming Down: Why usage-based billing is a threat to the open internet, and what can be done to stop it (Susan Crawford)
11. The FCC Is Being Forced to Defend Net Neutrality in Court
12. AT&T Pretends It Was Just About To Offer A Bunch Of Awesome Services, But Then Net Neutrality Happened
13. Net neutrality just went to court. Here’s how it did.
14. Net neutrality supporters optimistic after court arguments: Judges seem to accept FCC’s Title II authority, lawyer says.
15. Sling CEO: Comcast data caps so low they hurt competing video providers: Five hours of TV streaming a day could blow through a Comcast data cap.

SURVEILLANCE & PRIVACY

1. European Court of Human Rights says blanket surveillance is a violation: The ruling also applies to the UK, and might be used against the new Snooper’s Charter.
2. With gun control off-limits, politicians want tech sector to fight terror
3. After Paris Attacks, French Cops Want to Block Tor and Forbid Free Wi-Fi
4. SEC enforcement director tells House Judiciary Committee that investigation agencies should not need warrants to access to email data directly from internet service providers 
5. James Comey, Dianne Feinstein Team Up To Mislead About Encryption; Promise Legislation To Undermine National Security
6. Former FCC Commissioner Idiotically Claims Net Neutrality Helps ISIS: From the a-new-low dept
7. Protecting Free Speech on the Internet From the State of Louisiana
8. Lawsuit Reveals Extent of FBI Internet and Telecom Surveillance 
9. New EU cybersecurity rules neutered by future backdoors, weakened crypto
10. Using Content Delivery Networks To Circumvent The Great Firewall Of China
11. Anonymous Divided: Inside the Two Warring Hacktivist Cells Fighting ISIS Online

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