News of the Week; May 30, 2018

MEDIA, COMMUNICATIONS & NET NEUTRALITY

  1. A Matter of Trust: What Is Happening at the CRTC? (Michael Geist)
  2. Who Needs an iPhone Tax: Canadian Music Industry Instead Calls for $40 Million Annual Handout (Michael Geist)
  3. Wireless Carrier Abuse Of Location Data Makes The Facebook, Cambridge Scandal Look Like Amateur Hour
  4. ESPN Analysts Routinely Told Execs Not To Worry About Cord Cutting
  5. No, Counting The Number Of Patent Infringement Lawsuits Is Not A Good Way To Quantify A Company’s IP Ethics
  6. No, The FTC Is Not Going To Do A Good Job Policing Net Neutrality
  7. Trump hits campaign trail to endorse key foe of net neutrality rules
  8. Shockingly, Streaming Providers Are Dominating Cable At Customer Satisfaction
  9. Comcast may soon control what you pay to watch your favorite sports teams
  10. Comcast Exposes Customer WiFi SSIDs and Passwords For Customers Paying To Rent A Comcast Router
  11. California Senate defies AT&T, votes for strict net neutrality rules
  12. FCC Republican asks Amazon and eBay to boost crackdown on pirate TV boxes
  13. Charter Claims NY Lawsuit Over Crappy Broadband Speeds Just An Evil, Netflix ‘Cabal’
  14. Submission of Civil Society Coalition at WIPO SCCR 36 on Broadcasters’ Rights Treaty

DIGITAL

  1. Google Fails To Amend Canadian De-Indexing Injunction Despite California Court Order: Equustek Solutions Inc. v. Jack, 2018 BCSC 610
  2. Court Says It’s Unconstitutional For Trump To Block People On Twitter, But Doesn’t Actually Order Him To Stop
  3. U.S. District Court Rules President Trump Can’t Block Critical Followers
  4. President Trump Violated the First Amendment by Blocking Users @realdonaldtrump
  5. Six or Seven Things Social Media Can Do For Democracy 
  6. Nurse Disciplined for Unprofessional Posts on Social Media Loses Appeal
  7. Cloud-based quantum computer takes on deuteron and wins
  8. Should Bots Have a Right to Free Speech? This Non-Profit Thinks So.
  9. Personalized, Brainwave-Guided Movies Are Cool, As Long As You’re The One Steering
  10. DHS Fusion Center Gets Request For Documents On Extremists, Decides To Hand Over Mind Control Docs Instead
  11. NHL Aims to Debut ‘Smart Puck’ Tech in 2019
  12. Alibaba’s Youku to Stream World Cup Soccer in China
  13. YouTube Confirms Test Of Subscriptions Feed Driven By Algorithm And Not Chronology, Angering Creators
  14. YouTube Premium To Launch Travel Soccer Series With Trickster Duo F2 Freestylers
  15. YouTube’s Live Stream Of The Recent Royal Wedding Drew 11.2 Million Total Viewers
  16. Spanish YouTube Star El Rubius Says He Has “Hit A Wall,” Announces Break From YouTube
  17. YouTube Has Deleted 30 ‘Drill’ Music Videos For Fueling Gang Violence In The U.K.
  18. Egyptian Government Set To Ban YouTube For One Month Six Years After Release Of Anti-Muslim Video
  19. YouTube Music will replace Google Play Music but won’t kill user uploads
  20. Two 18-Year-Olds Arrested In Paris For VEVO Hacks Of Top YouTube Videos Like “Despacito” 
  21. Vevo Is Killing Off Its Mobile Apps, Website to Refocus on YouTube
  22. Vevo To Shut Down Website, Apps In Order To “Remain Focused On Engaging The Biggest Audiences”
  23. Vevo Flop Shows, Once Again, How Badly The Record Labels Underestimate Technology
  24. Insights: Between ‘Solo’ Misfire And Comcast Pitch, Is Disney’s Streaming Strategy Still A Winner?
  25. Barack Obama Reveals General Content Plans For New Netflix Deal
  26. Netflix stocks hit record high making it more valuable than Disney – but only for a few hours: The streaming giant also surpassed estimations on subscriber growth, with a total of 125 million worldwide 
  27. Hulu Orders BuzzFeed-Produced Documentary About R. Kelly’s Alleged History Of Sexual Abuse
  28. Facebook Tools Are Used to Screen Out Older Job Seekers, Lawsuit Claims
  29. Facebook Will Label Political Ads, Reveal Who Paid For Them, And Show Who They Targeted
  30. Wherein Facebook Messes Up Elections By Trying Not To Mess Up Elections
  31. ‘FacePause’ Desktop Extension Automatically Halts YouTube Videos Upon An Averted Gaze 
  32. Facebook Funds Comedy Series From Sarah Silverman and Group Nine’s JASH
  33. Your Worst Alexa Nightmares Are Coming True
  34. Amazon confirms that Echo device secretly shared user’s private audio
  35. Amazon Alexa Instantaneously Justifies Years Of Surveillance Paranoia
  36. Don’t Freak Out About That Amazon Alexa Eavesdropping Situation
  37. Google Just Turned a Huge Corner in the Smart Speaker Game
  38. Google zooms by Amazon in smart speaker shipments, report says
  39. Yelp’s Newest Campaign: Asking Google To Do The Right Thing
  40. Court docs show Apple knew about the bendiness of the iPhone 6, 6 Plus
  41. 187 Things The Blockchain Is Supposed To Fix
  42. A Scottish Clinic Will Now Treat “Cryptocurrency Addiction”
  43. The DoJ is reportedly probing the murky world of bitcoin trading
  44. Sanctions: Iran, Russia, OFAC and cryptocurrencies
  45. Russian unit, GRU officer linked to 2014 shoot-down of airliner over Ukraine
  46. Uber’s Self-Driving Car Saw The Woman It Killed, Report Says
  47. NTSB: Uber’s sensors worked; its software utterly failed in fatal crash
  48. Tesla Agrees to Settle Class Action Suit Over ‘Essentially Unusable’ Autopilot Feature
  49. Snapchat Launches ‘Yellow’, A $1.5 Million Accelerator Program For Mobile Content Creators
  50. Forget The GDPR, The EU’s New Copyright Proposal Will Be A Complete And Utter Disaster For The Internet
  51. The Demise Of Copyright Toleration
  52. Why Is This Happening? The internet is terrible now, and Tim Wu knows why: Chris Hayes asks professor Tim Wu what created the conditions for the current angst surrounding our online experience.
  53. The Collapse of UN Talks on the Application of International Law in Cyberspace: Why It Matters to U.S. Businesses

CREATIVITY

  1. Harmonizing Tariff Regimes and Statutory Minimum Damages: A Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing? (Howard Knopf)
  2. Batiste v. Lewis
  3. Cabell v. Zorro Productions, Inc.
  4. Monkey-Selfie Case Returns – To Court & (Maybe) a Theater Near You 
  5. The Monkey Selfie Lawsuit Will Never, Ever Die: Appeals Court Judge Wants A Do Over
  6. Use of “sound-alike” music in advertising ‒ key legal issues
  7. Who owns an idea?: It’s a question the law can struggle to answer, particularly when it comes to fiction
  8. Canadian Copyright, Fair Dealing and Education, Part Three: Exploring the Impact of Site Licensing at Canadian Universities (Michael Geist)
  9. Canadian Copyright, Fair Dealing and Education, Part Four: Fixing Fair Dealing for the Digital Age (Michael Geist)
  10. Woof: The Prosecco People Successfully Oppose A Pet-Treat Company’s ‘Pawsecco’ Trademark Application
  11. On Graffiti, Public Art and Snoopy
  12. Copyright Term: When Does a Work Enter the Public Domain? 
  13. Amanda Palmer: Hands Up! I Have a Picture of a Toddler, and I’m not Afraid to Use it
  14. The right of communication to the public … in a chart (Eleonora Rosati) 

SURVEILLANCE & PRIVACY

  1. Guidance on Consent and Inappropriate Data Practices issued by Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
  2. Open Letter To Francisco Partners: Request For Follow Up On Apparent Misuse Of Sandvine Technology And Sale Of NSO Group To Verint Systems (Citizen Lab)
  3. U.S. Supreme Court Dismisses U.S. v. Microsoft as Moot After CLOUD Act Signed Into Law: Court Declares That There is No Longer a Live Controversy Over a Warrant Requiring Microsoft to Disclose Customer Data Stored Overseas
  4. DOJ, FBI Issuing Corrections To Statements, Testimony Containing Bogus Uncracked Device Numbers
  5. Apple’s Latest Transparency Report Shows Gov’t Still Not All That Interested In Seeking Warrants
  6. A trip to the ER with your phone may mean injury lawyer ads for weeks
  7. Yahoo hacker whose work compromised 500M accounts sentenced to 5 years
  8. SS7 routing-protocol breach of US cellular carrier exposed customer data
  9. Amazon confirms that Echo device secretly shared user’s private audio
  10. FBI tells router users to reboot now to kill malware infecting 500k devices
  11. Report On Milwaukee PD Body Cams Show Fewer Complaints, Fewer Stops, But No Reduction In Use Of Force
  12. ICE Trying To Deport Journalist For Reporting On Abusive ICE Behavior
  13. Europe’s New Data Protections Will Affect You Too. Here’s How.
  14. Dozens of American News Sites Blocked in Europe as GDPR Goes Into Effect Today
  15. The GDPR: Ghastly, Dumb, Paralyzing Regulation It’s Hard To Celebrate
  16. EU Parliament’s Own Website Violates The GDPR
  17. GDPR jokes to help ease the pain 
  18. Two States Are Trying To Give People Control Over Their Online Data

GAMES

  1. PUBG Corp files copyright lawsuit against Epic Games: Korean developer began proceedings in January, alleging Fortnite plagiarises PUBG
  2. PUBG Corp. files copyright infringement lawsuit against Fortnite dev Epic Games
  3. Fortnite sold 5 million battle passes on the first day of Season 3: Analyst Michael Pachter relates success, predicts more games moving to cosmetics as a result
  4. Fortnite, God of War break monthly revenue records –  Superdata: Epic’s battle royale makes $296 million in April; God of War becomes fastest-selling PS4-exclusive
  5. Interactive Gaming Ventures and Epic Games team up to fund UE4 indies
  6. Gamers involved in December’s “swatting” death just got indicted
  7. Charity calls on Valve to remove ‘school shooting simulator’ from Steam store: Game described as “horrendous” by Infer Trust
  8. Valve removes mass shooting game and its ‘troll’ dev from Steam
  9. School Shooting Game Angers Steam Users, Developer ‘Likely’ Changing It
  10. Valve removes school shooting game, along with developer’s entire catalogue: Creator of Active Shooter identified as previously banned ‘troll’ developer Ata Berdiyev
  11. Opinion: So, you want to talk about porn on Steam
  12. Valve’s Steam Link app blocked by Apple due to ‘business conflicts’
  13. Apple has rejected iOS version of Steam Link app, Valve says
  14. Steam Link app rejected by Apple: Valve’s appeal has been denied; Android version already in beta
  15. Syrian refugee games developer denied UK visa ahead of awards ceremony: Path Out co-creator Abdullah Karam feels “sad and mistreated” as his misses out on Indie Prize ceremony
  16. Honesty contributed to Subsurface Circular’s 2 percent refund rate
  17. US has the largest gender pay gap for video game streamers: Half of US women streamers go unpaid despite country’s higher-than-average spending on influencer support
  18. DICE GM pushes back against Battlefield V anger: “Player choice and female playable characters are here to stay,” says Oskar Gabrielson after complaints over game’s inclusion of women
  19. Battlefield V ditches season pass and loot boxes, takes on Red Dead Redemption 2: Electronic Arts plans to monetise upcoming blockbuster shooter with live service and cosmetics after its arrives on October 19th
  20. Battlefield V Shows How The Video Game Industry Is Turning On Loot Boxes
  21. Trade group prez: Loot box regulation “challenges our freedom to innovate”
  22. ESA: We can’t go to the “lowest common denominator of government” on loot boxes – Mike Gallagher warns against “over-reactions” to loot boxes influencing the industry
  23. Op-ed: Game companies need to cut the crap – loot boxes are obviously gambling – Much as game companies try to deny it, the truth is plain to see.
  24. Sony’s PlayStation 5 hints confirm an eight-year PS4 lifespan: Rejecting hardware updates in favour of a full generational refresh, Sony implies a PS4 successor will come in 2021 – but how big a leap can that offer?
  25. Hacker gets Super NES games running on unmodified NES
  26. Nintendo offers dockless Switch in Japan: The reduced-price ‘2nd Unit Set’ is being marketed to households that already own a Switch
  27. Nintendo starts selling cheaper, dock-free Switch, but only in Japan
  28. The first Pokemon RPG on the Switch takes cues from Niantic’s Pokemon Go
  29. Pokémon’s first Switch game launches in November, connects to Pokémon Go
  30. Game Freak & Nintendo debut a phone-friendly Pokemongame on the Switch
  31. Pokémon’s new evolution was inevitable: With two generations of fans, The Pokémon Company has made some big changes
  32. Pokémon profits down nearly 50% in company’s second most profitable year: Pokémon Go, Sun, and Moon accounted for the 2016 spike and subsequent fall-off
  33. Pokemon Company annual profits drop to a mere $80.8 million
  34. Zynga acquires mobile game dev Gram Games for $250 million
  35. Zynga splashes $250 million on Gram Games acquisition: But Frank Gibeau tells GamesIndustry.biz recovering firm is “not on a buying spree”, pips Merge Dragons as new “forever franchise”
  36. Hacker gets Super NES games running on unmodified NES
  37. The NES Classic Is Back – Here’s How To Make Sure You Get One
  38. Detroit Become Human: Critical Consensus –
  39. Quantic Dream has sued journalists for negative coverage, but judging from the reviews for the studio’s Detroit Become Human, the media isn’t holding it against the studio.
  40. Detroit: Become Human review: Robotic in all of the wrong ways
  41. ‘Detroit: Become Human’ dehumanizes everything it touches
  42. Wolfenstein 2 accounted for speedrunners in its design
  43. H1Z1 gains early F2P traction on PlayStation 4
  44. Caffeine rolls out stream monetization program, complete with payouts for devs
  45. Mixer rolls out MixPlay, a tool for creating interactive stream overlays
  46. US has the largest gender pay gap for video game streamers: Half of US women streamers go unpaid despite country’s higher-than-average spending on influencer support
  47. Battle royale players are among the most engaged gamers, report finds – Newzoo: 88 per cent of battle royale players spend money in-game, compared to 75 per cent of traditional competitive game players
  48. Kids On YouTube Keep Making Videos About Scamming Fortnite V-Bucks From Their Parents
  49. ESPN+ to Live-Stream ‘League of Legends’ Esports Events Under New, Non-Exclusive Pact
  50. Minecraft reaches 100 million downloads in China: Approaching 250 million downloads worldwide
  51. How premium PC games continue to rise, surprise in China
  52. Media Molecule: Avoiding the “soul tax” of making games – At the Nordic Game Conference, Siobhan Reddy offered advice on protecting people and culture against the pressures of development
  53. Echo and Little Nightmares clean up at 2018 Nordic Game Awards: Ultra Ultra’s sci-fi adventure wins three categories, including Game of the Year, while Tarsier Studios’ dark title takes two
  54. Former Dragon Age director reflects on the ups and downs of development
  55. Mobile dev Voodoo secures an estimated $200M investment from Goldman Sachs
  56. YoYo Games opens publishing division to elevate GameMaker Studio 2 projects
  57. Wargaming reportedly closes Seattle studio: Formerly Gas Powered Games, the studio employed around 150 people
  58. Just Cause dev Avalanche Studios acquired by Nordisk Film 
  59. UK indie chain Games Centre enters liquidation: Another games retailer disappears from the High Street
  60. After 3+ decades as a private firm, UK dev Codemasters is going public
  61. Codemasters valued at £280m as it prepares to go public: Developer expected to raise £15 million for expansion into mobile
  62. Voodoo secures $200m Goldman Sachs investment: French mobile developer looks to double its staff by year’s end
  63. Andrew Maximov: “Technology is actually going to make us better artists” – Industry veterans say artificial intelligence will enable artists, not replace them
  64. Video: How inequality (both real and virtual) shapes player behavior
  65. Carmack: New 5K × 5K Mobile VR Playback Tech Will ‘set the bar for VR video quality’
  66. Qualcomm launches a new chip specifically for standalone AR and VR devices
  67. Revenue expected to double this year for augmented and mixed reality: Virtual reality revenue will fall behind AR/MR by 2021, says SuperData
  68. HTC Announces Strategic Partnerships With MLB & McLaren Formula One Team
  69. How the BattleTech devs built an engrossing tactics game on a budget
  70. Video: What game designers really want out of AI
  71. Researchers teach AI to play ‘hard’ games by showing it YouTube videos
  72. Video: Unproven game AI techniques that might just work
  73. Nintendo, Microsoft and EA Veterans Join to Create the Future of Blockchain Gaming
  74. Players get credit for evolution–and stagnation–of gaming narrative: What Remains of Edith Finch developer Ian Dallas says the market is pushing the medium forward in some ways, tying its hands in others
  75. Insights: We Have Influencers And Games, But Why Not More Games From Influencers?
  76. What does GDPR mean for PR?: Leading UK games agencies tell us how new privacy regulations are refining their processes and better relationships with press
  77. GDPR changes prompt Torn Banner Studios to shut downMirage: Arcane Warfare
  78. A Critical Analysis of Kinect Star Wars’ “I’m Han Solo” Song, the Definitive Text on the Character

Jon

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