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News of the Week; February 12, 2014

1. Valve Wins German Lawsuit Concerning Used Digital Games Sales

2. Modchips now legal in the EU (as long as they’re not naughty)

3. U.S. Gaming Content Spending Topped $15.39 Billion in 2013

4. Original Dungeon Keeper Creator Calls New Mobile Game ‘Ridiculous’

5. Oculus VR Will Co-Publish Space Shooter EVE: Valkyrie

6. Gaming Minds Search for the Sweet Spot Between Physical and Virtual Worlds

7. Flappy Bird Soars, Then Disappears, Along With a Weekend

+ Flappy Bird Fallout: Piracy, Clones and eBay Auctions

+ 29-Year-Old Flappy Bird Creator Says Guilt Made Him Shut Down His Game: It Became ‘Addictive’

8. Why Indie Developers Go Insane

9. UMass Studies The Positive Effects of Casual Games

10. League of Legends developer promises it’s not a patent troll

11. Report: EA is Manipulating the Ratings for Free-to-Play Dungeon Keeper Game

12. Inside the Epic Online Space Battle That Cost Gamers $300,000

13. Amazon Boosts Gaming Cred With Acquisition of Double Helix Games

14. Games still seen as “social ill” but there’s opportunity in education – Hawkins

15. Why the Fighting Game Community is Color Blind

16. Twitch Beats Out Facebook and Amazon in Online U.S. Traffic

17. Life is a game. This is your strategy guide

18. Cisco Jumps Into The Fray: Fights Rockstar Consortium Patent Lawsuits

19. Court sides with T-Mobile, bans AT&T’s Aio Wireless from using magenta color

20. The Day the Internet Didn’t Fight Back

21. What happens with digital rights management in the real world?

22. Twitter Rejects NSA Agreement, Demands More Transparency

23. Turks bid farewell to the Internet in the face of brutal censorship/surveillance law

24. When Facebook’s Terms Of Service Decide What Kind Of ‘Speech’ Is Okay, Activists Get Silenced

25. Surveillance and Canada’s lagging law

26. Tim Berners-Lee: we need to re-decentralise the web

jon

News of the Week; February 5, 2014

1. U.S. District Court Dismisses GTA Online Class Action Lawsuit

+ Grand Theft Auto online delay not actionable

2. GTA V tops 32m shipped as Take-Two’s Q3 profits hit $578m

3. Blizzard sues Hearthstone clone developer

4. Someone Files Fake ‘Express Abandonment’ on Watch Dog Trademark, Ubisoft Fights Back

5. Pennsylvania’s Fact-Finding Commission on Video Games and Violence Fails to Find Facts

6. Violent video games may affect moral judgement in teens

7. Sony data breach case stripped down but not gone

8. Does the CJEU ruling in Nintendo and Others v PC Box Srl raise serious implications for device manufacturers?

9. Funcom: We Are Cooperating with Authorities in Insider Trading Investigation

10. The Squalid Grace of Flappy Bird

11. Well Played: volume 3 number 1

12. Games and the Public Domain

13. Keyboards, Kickstarter and Copyright Law: Elite Systems under fire

14. Video games, Down’s syndrome and my brother – a personal story

15. Digital Video Games and International Interactions

16. Struggling Zynga to Buy Mobile Game Maker

17. Remember Me developer files for bankruptcy – reports

18. Nintendo Buys Back 9.5 Million Shares for $1.13 Billion

19. Why Nintendo Won’t Give Up on the Wii U’s GamePad

20. Street Fighter II: An Oral History

21. CRA confirms its view of bitcoin transactions

22. Government of Canada tables five significant intellectual property law treaties

23. Tech startups: A Cambrian moment

24. Has the FCC Chairman Solved the Net Neutrality Quagmire?

25. LinkedIn claims breach of contract by bot users

26. Does Bitcoin Matter?

27. How DeepMind’s artificial intelligence will make Google even smarter

jon

News of the Week; January 29, 2014

1. Court overturns $11 million judgment for original Madden creator

2. Copyright Suit Over Second Life Terraforming Survives Summary Judgment, Then Settles — FireSabre v. Linden

3. Stoic: The Banner Saga Sequel Held Up By King Trademark Challenge

4. Candy Crush is everything that is wrong with trademark law

5. ‘Candy Crush Saga’ Creator Accused Of Cloning Indie Game

6. Nintendo vs Modchips

7. Report: Spy Agencies Collect Troves of Data From ‘Leaky Apps’ Like ‘Angry Birds’

8. “DayZ” Makes You Feel Every Murder You Commit. Can You Handle This?

9. Former Global VR CTO Sentenced to Two Years in Prison

10. Report: Funcom Under Investigation for Insider Trading

11. EA beats guidance as sales shrink, losses deepen

12. Report: Iranian Man Arrested by Government for ‘Kill Dictators’ Game on Kongregate

13. Japanese Vita Game ‘ Monster Monpiece’ Gets Toned Down for Europe and North America

14. A Holodeck Videogame Designed to Train Soldiers

15. Biggest battle in EVE Online’s history leads to an estimated $500,000 in damages

16. What Games Are: Generation Gygax

17. FTC: Microsoft and EA Are Not Breaking Any Laws With YouTube Paid Endorsement Schemes

18. Net Neutrality and Gaming: Things Can Get A Lot Worse

19. How online gamers are solving science’s biggest problems

20. Is emoji death threat a criminal offense? Possibly, law prof says

21. Apple Patent Explores Mood-Based Ad Targeting

22. What If Your Autonomous Car Keeps Routing You Past Krispy Kreme?

23. Chinese Internet Traffic Redirected to Small Wyoming House

24. Watchdog report offers harshest critique of NSA metadata program to date

25. Told Ya So: NSA’s Collection Of Metadata Is Screamingly Illegal

26. Snowden Docs Reveal British Spies Snooped on YouTube and Facebook

27. Spanish Court Orders an ISP to Disconnect a Copyright Infringer

28. Apple Wins Temporary Stay on Court Monitor

29. Europe’s Highest Court Says DRM Circumvention May Be Lawful In Certain Circumstances + Decision

30. Study of French “three strikes” piracy law finds no deterrent effect

31. Corporations Abusing Copyright Laws Are Ruining the Web for Everyone

32. A Brief History of Sampling: From the Beatles to the Beastie Boys

33. Here We Go Again: Canadian Recording Industry Calls on Government To Regulate the Internet

34. The Internet Is the Greatest Legal Facilitator of Inequality in Human History

jon

News of the Week; January 22, 2014

1. Why did a SimCity offline option take so long?

2. Plastic surgery game removed from sale

3. Gaming Addiction Documentary ‘Love Child’ Debuts at the Sundance Film Festival

4. The Healing Power of Video Games

5. Dreamcasters: how video games alter our subconscious

6. Valve says virtual reality hardware could transform entertainment in two years

7. Stealth marketing: Microsoft paying YouTubers for Xbox One mentions

8. Could The (U.S.) Court’s Net Neutrality Ruling Affect Your Gaming?

9. Joint Namco-DeNA mobile venture to finish in March

10. Candy Crush maker King is a step closer to trademarking the word ‘Candy’

11. Some thoughts on game trademarks, King and Candy Crush

12. Google Remarketing Ads Found To Violate Canadian Privacy Law; To Revamp Ad Review System By June

13. The Problem with Facebook: “It’s Keeping Things From You”

14. NSA collects millions of text messages daily in ‘untargeted’ global sweep

15. Obama To End Mass Collection of U.S. Phone Data

16. Full Text of Obama’s Speech on NSA Surveillance

17. Obama’s Surveillance Reform Speech Draws Tepid Tech Response

18. Obama’s Path From Critic to Overseer of Spying

19. Guess Who Owns The Patent to RSA’s Backdoor Algorithm? Blackberry

20. America’s Spies Want Edward Snowden Dead

21. AMC movie theater calls “federal agents” to arrest a Google Glass user

22. What is the big brother problem? by Jonathan Zittrain

23. Why Alyssa Milano created a comic book tribute to Anonymous

24. Closing Time for the Open Internet

25. Copyright’s Not Getting its Job Done

26. Copyright Week: If We Want To Get Copyright Right, It’s Time To Go Back To Basics

27. Report: Japan to Tax Digital Goods from Foreign Sources in 2015

28. .CA Domain Names Held To Be Personal Property

29. Canada Says Bitcoin Isn’t Legal Tender

30. Why Bitcoin Matters

jon

News of the Week; January 15, 2014

1. Court upholds findings in $9.2M Epic Games, Silicon Knights lawsuit

2. Why The Violent Game Debate Actually Isn’t Over

3. Nintendo Secures IA Labs Patents in Sherriff’s Sale

4. Schilling Attorney Claims New Documents Prove Rhode Island’s Lawsuit is ‘Baseless’

5. SimCity reversal: EA finally adding offline mode

6. China drafting new rules for consoles, disallows products ‘hostile to China’

7. Candy Crush Is Turning Children Into Obsessive Gamblers

8. Xbox 360 app made $1m in 4 months for Pizza Hut

9. Can an iPad Game Detect Alzheimer’s?

10. Federal Court of Justice bans ads for virtual items in online game – reasons for judgment available, but not final (Germany)

11. New Research Explores Why Some Players Cheat and Troll in Online Games

12. IGDA Applauds South Australian Government’s Decision to Take Down Anti-Videogame Billboards

13. 2013 for games on Kickstarter

14. Ethical Free-to-Play Game Design (And Why it Matters)

15. Intellectual Property Fosters Corporate Concentration

16. Top Ten Internet Law Developments Of 2013

17. Can an Emoticon be Protected as a Trademark?

18. Clickable Consent at Risk in Internet Privacy Lawsuits

19. LinkedIn Sues to Fend Off Content-Scraping Bots

20. Apple and Samsung Agree to Mediation in Patent Dispute

21. Is Uber’s Surge-Pricing an Example of High-Tech Gouging?

22. The REAL Real Problem with Facebook

23. No copyright on yoga: HC (India)

24. Federal Court in Virginia Court Says Domain Names Are Not Property, But Contractual Rights

25. Social Data by Woodrow Hartzog

26. The NSA Even Spies on Congress

27. A New Hampshire Rebellion for Aaron Swartz

28. On the anniversary of the death of Aaron Swartz, Anonymous hacks MIT again

29. Members Of Congress Ask Eric Holder To Try Again In His Explanation Of The Prosecution Of Aaron Swartz

30. European Report Says Canadian Privacy Law Should Be Re-Examined Due to Surveillance Activities

31. Court of Appeals Nullifies Part of FCC’s Open Internet Order

32. What you need to know about the court decision that just struck down net neutrality + Link to decision

jon

Playstation 4 v. XBox One

XBox One or Playstation 4? Which do you want/have?

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News of the Week; January 8, 2013

1. Nintendo must pay percentage of 3DS sales to infringed patent holder

2. The violent game debate is over

3. Lanza’s Violent Video Game Play Overblown

4. Are the Xbox and unleaded gas helping keep you safe from violent crime?

5. Penny Arcade’s Gabe Apologises For Being A “Bully”

6. Online Gaming Is South Korea’s Most Popular Drug

7. Happy pirates, wider audience: Why making sure a pirated game works is good business

8. Zynga Links Up With BitPay For A Bitcoin Payment Test In FarmVille 2, CityVille And Other Web Games

9. Blizzard Makes Changes to Default Battle.net Parental Control Settings Related to ‘Buying Things’

10. 3DS Users Create Region Locking Work Around

11. PS4 to “win” console wars – Analyst

12. Chinese gaming market tops $13 billion

13. China Cracks Open the Door for Video Game Consoles, but Doubts Abound

14. U.S. Patent No. 7,697,015: storage medium and game device storing image generating program

15. U.S. Patent No. 7,695,368: Game program, game device, and game method

16. Idea vs. Expression – What is protected under copyright law?

17. Multiple gaming platforms hit with apparent DDoS attacks

18. The top four tech legal cases to watch in 2014

19. Technology and the Law in 2014: 14 Questions in Need of Answers

20. Studios win again in fight over user content: “safe harbors” not so safe, websites find

21. Apple Calls NSA a ‘Malicious Hacker’

22. ACLU Files Appeal in Case Against NSA

23. French Telco Orange Plans To Sue The NSA For Tapping Its Undersea Cables

24. How the NSA Almost Killed the Internet

25. Losing Aaron

26. How Netflix Reverse Engineered Hollywood

27. Listen to Pandora, and It Listens Back

28. Peering into the future: Google Glass and the law

29. Why movie studios happily violate journalists’ copyright

jon

News of the Week; January 1, 2014

1. Rockstar Tells Honest GTA Online Players Not to Worry About Money Hack Issues

2. The 10 worst games of 2013

3. Teen’s Late Night Gaming Saves Family from Fire

4. Crazy race tests whether virtual driving skills carry over to real life

5. Internet Archive releases hundreds of classic game console ROMs

6. U.S. Patent No. 7,713,116: Inventory management of virtual items in computer games

7. Applicant For UND Head Football Coach Cites Video Game Experience As His Qualifications

8. Judge Grants Motion to Dismiss in NSA Surveillance Case

9. Leaked documents detail 2008 NSA program to hack and remote control iPhones (video)

10. When Does Technology Change Enough That the Law Should Too?

11. Considering the Future of Internet Governance

12. The Year Government Lost Its Grip on Information

13. The NSA and the Corrosion of Silicon Valley

14. The inside story of Aaron Swartz’s campaign to liberate court filings

15. Google fights back against Rockstar patent group

16. How Iron Maiden turned piracy into paying customers

17. Experts Concerned about The Negative Impact of Tablets on Young Children

18. 2013 was a lost year for tech

19. How Netflix Reinvented HR

20. Hells Angels club sues often to protect its intellectual property

jon

News of the Week; December 25, 2013

1. Investor sues EA over Battlefield 4 bugs

2. Zynga founder asks President to pardon Snowden

3. Chinese Wow Hackers Get Prison Time, Fines

4. Texas Judge Rules LoL Player’s ‘Terrorist Threat’ Case Will Move Forward

5. Think your game is exempt from COPPA? Think again.

6. Flights of fancy: Inside the intense world of virtual pilots

7. Resurgent Game Console Market Keeps Supplies Sparse

8. A YouTube Powerhouse Looks Beyond Its Gamer Base

9. Turn Off the Data Vacuum NY Times Editorial

10. GCHQ, NSA Spied On Known Terrorist Haven… UNICEF

11. Smooth operators: why phone companies don’t fight the NSA

12. What Surveillance Valley knows about you

13. Daniel Clowes Pursuing His Legal Options Regarding Shia LaBeouf’s Plagiarism

14. Bitcoin, Magical Thinking, and Political Ideology

15. Inside the Web’s $156 Billion Invisible Industry

16. Government Requests to Remove Online Material Increase at Google

17. Top Dozen Tech Events of 2013

And in the isn’t this a huge liability issue department:

18. Report: NSA paid RSA to make flawed crypto algorithm the default

jon

News of the Week; December 18, 2013

1. YouTube goes nuts flagging game-related content as violating copyright

2. Another Reason Why YouTube’s Video Game Copyright Crackdown Doesn’t Make Sense

3. YouTube copyright fiasco sparks INDmusic and TuneCore music claims

4. NSA’s virtual waste of time? Spying in ‘World of Warcraft’ is harder than you think

5. Playing video games could lead to life-threatening blood clots: Study

6. Smithsonian calls video games art, adds two to permanent collection

7. Big Huge Games Assets Sell for $320K

8. Microsoft launching original programming on Xbox in first half of 2014

9. 20 Contract Questions: how should I negotiate a contract? Gamer|Law

10. Defining 2013 in Games

11. Federal judge finds NSA phone spying likely unconstitutional

12. Judge Rules Against Collection of Phone Data by N.S.A.

13. NSA ruling fallout hits White House

14. NSA goes on 60 Minutes: the definitive facts behind CBS’s flawed report

15. Why Did 60 Minutes Let the Head of the NSA Fool Its Audience?

16. Surprise: White House’s Intelligence Review Task Force Suggestions Much More Than Just Cosmetic

17. President’s Review Board Says: Protect Thy Neighbor’s Privacy

18. Google Removes Vital Privacy Feature From Android, Claiming Its Release Was Accidental

19. Google Inc facing heat from Competition Bureau over alleged anti-competitive behaviour

20. Korean Court Rejects Samsung Lawsuit Against Apple

21. ‘Everything Is A Remix’ Takes On The iPhone [Video]

22. Microsoft and Apple group use ancient Nortel patents to sue Time Warner Cable, Cisco

23. For Bitcoin, Square Peg Meets Round Hole Under the Law

24. The Bitcoin Ideology

25. The ethics of crowdfunding

26. Watch your mark – navigating the prohibitions on immoral, scandalous and disparaging trademarks

jon