News of the Week; July 25, 2018

MEDIA, COMMUNICATIONS & NET NEUTRALITY

1. Court Rules Quebec Plan for Mandated ISP Blocking of Online Gambling Sites is Unconstitutional
2. A $250,000 Reminder that “CASL” is Not Just an AntiSpam Law
3. CRTC Issues Penalties to Middle Men Under CASL to Combat Malware Installation
4. Audio Bulletin – CRTC Issues Penalties to Middle Men Under CASL to Combat Malware Installation
5. How far will the FCC pursue Sinclair Broadcasting’s “misrepresentations” now that Trump has intervened?
6. FCC votes against Sinclair/Tribune merger, likely dooming deal
7. FCC Confirms Sinclair Misled Agency To Try And Get Its Megamerger Approved
8. Trump tweets anger at FCC after Pai blocks Sinclair/Tribune merger
9. Comcast Drops Its Bid to Buy Fox, Meaning There’s Nothing Stopping the Disney Deal Now
10. Comcast admits defeat in bidding war for Fox, clearing path for Disney
11. Ajit Pai gets message from his hometown ISP: Don’t hurt us small ISPs
12. Viacom in Talks to Buy AwesomenessTV
13. Viacom In Advanced Talks To Acquire AwesomenessTV (Report)
14. Verizon Took A $658 Million Hit “Mainly Related To The Discontinuation” Of Go90
15. FCC will now take your comments on whether to allow T-Mobile/Sprint merger
16. Wireless Carriers Have A SIM Hijacking Problem They Don’t Want To Talk About
17. Massachusetts Just The Latest State To Embrace Net Neutrality
18. India Embraces Full Net Neutrality As The U.S. Runs The Opposite Direction
19. NYC Will Stop Gouging Incarcerated New Yorkers For Calling Home
20. Personal liability for directors over nuisance calls
21. Sen. Ron Wyden On Breaking Up Facebook, Net Neutrality, And The Law That Built The Internet
22. Survey: 5.4 Million Americans Will Cut The Cable TV Cord In 2018

DIGITAL

1. Microsoft exec: We stopped Russia from hacking 3 congressional campaigns
2. Yes, Russians Hacked U.S. Electric Companies, Homeland Security Confirms
3. Breaking With 30 Years Of Traditional Opacity, DOJ Releases FISA Warrant Applications For Surveillance Of Carter Page
4. Wikileaks Refused To Publish Manafort Family Texts, So Someone Else Did
5. Digital age reinforces the need for judiciary to act as a bulwark against tyranny
6. The ‘Guerrilla’ Wikipedia Editors Who Combat Conspiracy Theories
7. How Silicon Valley Turned Evil: What Mark Zuckerberg, Jack Dorsey, and Elon Musk can learn from their predecessors – before they destroy the world.
8. Is Any Press Really Good Press? California Supreme Court Rules on Fate of Defamatory Yelp Reviews
9. Facebook stock dives nearly 20% on warning of slow revenue growth
10. Facebook Just Learned The True Cost Of Fixing Its Problems
11. Facebook Sets Up China Subsidiary to Build Local Innovation Hub
12. After a single day, Facebook is pushed out of China again
13. Facebook follows SpaceX and OneWeb into high-speed satellite broadband
14. Senators Wyden & Rubio Ask Google And Amazon To Bring Back Domain Fronting
15. Google, Facebook, Microsoft, and Twitter partner for ambitious new data project: An open-source collaboration for ‘the future of portability’
16. Study: Analysis of top Facebook pages covering American political news – Study of 463 leading Facebook pages shows that partisan pages have roughly equal engagement, but right-wing pages drastically outnumber left-wing pages
17. Facebook bows to WA state pressure to remove “discriminatory” ad filters
18. Facebook’s Fight Against Fake News Keeps Raising Questions
19. Departing Facebook Security Officer’s Memo: “We Need To Be Willing To Pick Sides”: In a brutally honest note about his departure, Facebook’s Chief Security Officer Alex Stamos calls on his colleagues “to intentionally not collect data where possible”
20. Listen To Stephen Fry Perfectly Analogize The Moral Panics Around Facebook To The Ones Over The Printing Press
21. Should Your Family Be Able to Inherit Your Facebook Messages?
22. Appeals Court Won’t Yet Review Awful District Court Decision That Says Embedding Could Be Infringement
23. Does the Public Have a First Amendment Right to Post Comments on a Public Official’s Twitter Feed? First Amendment Challenges to Social Media Access in the 21st Century
24. Twitter courted comedians, then the opposition: How jokes became ammo during the social media platform’s shift from distraction to political warzone
25. Was It Ethical For Dropbox To Share Customer Data With Scientists?
26. The Internet Apologizes …:Even those who designed our digital world are aghast at what they created. A breakdown of what went wrong – from the architects who built it.
27. Cyberbullying
28. Leaders Who Pledged Not To Build Autonomous Killing Machines Are Ignoring The Real Problem
29. U.S. Department of Defense Established A Center To Better Integrate AI
30. ‘The discourse is unhinged’: how the media gets AI alarmingly wrong
31. We Need Transparency in Algorithms, But Too Much Can Backfire
32. Google’s iron grip on Android: Controlling open source by any means necessary
33. Advertiser’s Suit Against Google Loses for Third (and Final) Time–Abid v. Google
34. Google Wants You to Use Physical Security Keys So Bad It’s Willing to Sell You One
35. Google launches “Shielded VMs” to protect cloud servers from rootkits, data theft
36. Big News: Big Internet Platforms Making It Easy To Move Your Data Somewhere Else
37. Science Fiction Is Not Social Reality: The tech industry is inspired to create our world from linear, scripted science fiction stories.
38. Delete your account: It’s a “great shame,” says Silicon Valley insider Jaron Lanier, that so much of big tech’s AI has been aimed at manipulating you.­­
39. Brainwashing your wife to want sex? Here is adtech at its worst
40. Resale Price Maintenance, Pricing Algorithms and Monitoring Software: a Recipe for Disaster 
41. DARPA Is Funding Research Into AI That Can Explain What It’s “Thinking”
42. Robots And Racism (Bartneck, C., Yogeeswaran, K., Ser, Q. M., Woodward, G., Sparrow, R., Wang, S., & Eyssel, F.)
43. Influence and responsibility: New Canadian influencer marketing guidelines emerge
44. The Database: A Look At The Growing World Of Streaming And Over-The-Top Video
45. Mozilla Exec Says YouTube Runs Five Times Slower Than Chrome On Firefox, Offers Solution
46. YouTube Streams Over 180 Million Hours to TV Screens Every Day
47. YouTube Deletes Videos Posted by Infowars, Suspends Alt-Right Channel From Live-Streaming
48. YouTube Issues Another Strike Against InfoWars For Hate Speech, Child Endangerment
49. Documentary Series ‘Best Shot,’ Co-Produced By Lebron James, Tips Off On NBA YouTube Channel
50. YouTube Will Distribute Grants To Education-Focused Channels Via ‘YouTube Learning’ Fund
51. YouTube shuts down FamilyOFive channel over ‘child endangerment’ concerns
52. YouTube Finally Terminates Channels Belonging To Notorious ‘DaddyOFive’ Parents
53. YouTube Blocks ‘FamilyOFive’ Account of Parents Convicted of Child Neglect
54. Carrie Hope Fletcher Urges Boycott Of Fellow YouTuber Alex Day’s Upcoming Book
55. Ahead Of Boxing Match, Deji Olatunji Says He’s Being Sued For Greg Paul Press Conference Assault
56. Logan Paul And KSI Have Launched A Pay-Per-View YouTube Channel Dedicated To Their Upcoming Boxing Match
57. YouTube Is Reportedly Combatting Instagram’s IGTV By Cutting Six-Figure Checks To Creators
58. YouTube Experimenting With ‘Explore’ Tab To Expose Viewers To Broader Video Variety
59. What would you do if your teenager became an overnight Instagram sensation?
60. Mac ’n Cheese bubbles over in Instagram copyright dispute
61. GoDaddy & Instagram Avoid Liability for Users’ Photos of Knockoff Goods–Franklin v. X Gear 101
62. Insights: As Subscriptions Drain Wallets, Ad-Supported Online Services Find New Fans
63. Netflix Launches Its First European Production Hub in Madrid
64. Shonda Rhimes’ Eight-Show Netflix Slate Has A Some Romance, Some History, Some Intrigue
65. Petition To Halt Release Of Netflix Series ‘Insatiable’ Garners 123,000 Signatures
66. Netflix Will Enable Subscribers To Use Its Popular Characters As Their Profile Icons
67. Sony Looking To Sell Stake In Crackle And Onboard Strategic Partner (Report)
68. Musical.ly Reportedly Shut Down Live.ly Because Its Owner Didn’t Want A LiveMe Competitor
69. How radio found new life on the internet and changed music discovery forever
70. Twitch Launches Creator Camp Channel To Help Its Users Become Better Streamers
71. Snapchat Opens A Private Marketplace For Brands To Buy Ads In Discover Shows
72. Snapchat and Nielsen Partner to Integrate Offline Data For Audience Targeting
73. Snapchat is shutting down Snapcash
74. Snapchat starts to syndicate video shows on Discover
75. Snapchat Is Launching A Show Where Parents Look At Their Kids’ Dating App Profiles
76. Sony’s Monstrous New Smartphone Camera Sensor Could Make Us Care About Megapixels Again
77. Research Confirms The Anecdotal Evidence: Internet Content Filters Are A Waste Of Money
78. ‘Piracy Audiences Are Untapped Pools of Wealth’
79. Chinese Citizens Are Using Blockchain to Warn Each Other of Unsafe Vaccines
80. CSA reinforces position that securities laws apply to cryptocurrency offerings, confirms regulatory scrutiny for industry participants
81. Hacker Exposes Security Vulnerability in Popular Cryptocurrency Site Etherscan
82. The Role of IP in the Crypto Bubble
83. Declining cryptocurrency prices are making graphics cards affordable again
84. Behold This Disastrously Bad Op-Ed Calling for Amazon to Replace Libraries
85. Amazon Studios’ Top Film Executive Is Departing Amid Strategic Shift
86. Best Buy Should Be Dead, But It’s Thriving in the Age of Amazon: The big-box retailer doesn’t just want to sell you electronics. It wants its in-home consultants to be “personal chief technology officers.”
87. Amazon’s Face Recognition Falsely Matched 28 Members of Congress With Mugshots
88. Can We Make Non-Racist Face Recognition?
89. For One Last Night, Make It a Blockbuster Night: Everything is 10 years behind in Alaska—including the way people see movies.But now, the late fees are finally coming due, and the end of the Blockbuster era is upon us.
90. Click-wraps the way of the future ‒ but make sure they’re legal
91. A new digital divide: Young people who can’t use keyboards

CREATIVITY

1. The value of a copyrighted photograph is not necessarily in the eye of the beholder
2. When Does “All” Mean All?
3. Tesla clears the air with “farting unicorn” artist after copyright stink
4. Au Revoir, Droit de Suite—9th Circuit Narrows California Resale Royalty Act to a Single Year’s Sales
5. South Africa’s Proposed Fair Use Right In Copyright Bill Is Surprisingly Good — At The Moment
6. False Advertising in a Movie Trailer?
7. Who owns the Roger Federer RF monogram trade mark? 
8. Ecuador Will Imminently Withdraw Asylum for Julian Assange and Hand Him Over to the UK. What Comes Next?
9. The View From Somewhere: The Press Needs To Be Anti-Partisan, Not Bi-Partisan
10. Cambodian Government Latest To Stifle Press With ‘Fake News’ Legislation
11. The Daily News Was Superman’s Paper – Tronc Fed It Kryptonite: The owners fired half the paper’s staff Monday in a savage move that not only guts the newspaper, but also drastically diminishes the reporting of New York City.
12. Tronc Is Incompetent, but Gutting Newsrooms Is Just Normal Capitalism
13. If You’re A Journalist Hiring Lawyers To Intimidate Publishers Into Killing Stories About Your Misdeeds, You’re A Hypocrite
14. Disney confirms Guardians director fired over years-old tweets
15. James Gunn Will No Longer Direct Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 in the Wake of Appalling Tweets 
16. Hollywood’s Zero-Tolerance on Racism, Sexism Is the New Normal
17. The US Army Gets Armistice With NHL Team Over ‘Golden Knights’ Trademark
18. Four ways President Trump is changing prime time TV
19. The Propaganda Films That Saved Walt Disney’s Cartoon Empire
20. Marvel Offers Grief Counseling at Comic-Con for Fans Traumatized by the End of Infinity War 
21. Art technicians: The industry’s dirty secret, or all part of the process?
22. The Standard Consent Agreement That Protects Sacha Baron Cohen
23. The death of Don Draper: Advertising, once a creative industry, is now a data-driven business reliant on algorithms. The implications are deeply sinister – not only for the consumer but for democracy itself.
24. How The Global Music Copyright Business Grew By $1.5bn In 2016 (And Why That’s Amazing News Today)
25. Blurred Lines Between Inspiration and Infringement: Ninth Circuit Holds “Blurred Lines” Infringes Copyright
26. You Don’t Need to Be a Musician to Get a Record Deal in 2018: Streaming has upturned music’s status quo – and labels are looking farther afield for truly fresh talent
27. Trying to protect – and expand – Cuba’s undiscovered musical legacy

SURVEILLANCE & PRIVACY

1. Canadian Court Affirms Citizens Still Have An Expectation Of Privacy In Devices Being Repaired By Third Parties
2. Toronto Approves Gunshot-Detecting Surveillance Tech Days After Mass Shooting: Rattled by a string of gun violence this year, Toronto just approved ShotSpotter, a US-based audio surveillance system that purports to detect the sound of gunshots.
3. Public Facebook Profiles Not Equivalent to Public Information Under PIPEDA
4. Texas Judges Continue To Turn Expungement Orders Into ‘Right To Be Forgotten’ Requests
5. Snoopware installed by 11 million+ iOS, Android, Chrome, and Firefox users
6. Decade-old Bluetooth flaw lets hackers steal data passing between devices
7. Today’s the day that Chrome brands plain old HTTP “not secure”
8. In the Internet of Things, Opportunities Abound for Class Action Litigation
9. UK Court Rules a Suspect in a Criminal Investigation has Reasonable Expectation it will be Kept Private
10. UK Judge Says Accurate Journalism Is An Invasion Of Privacy In Cliff Richard Case
11. Congratulations and Celebrations to Sir Cliff Richards in High Court Privacy Success
12. Sir Cliff Richard wins landmark privacy battle against the BBC
13. Privacy Cliff’s courageous battle with the BBC brings the right outcome
14. Federal Judge Blasts FBI, Agent For Breaking The Law When Seeking Stingray Warrants
15. 24 people have now been sentenced in India-based phone-scam case
16. This school scans classrooms every 30 seconds through facial recognition technology
17. Uber, Lyft driver booted after newspaper reveals he was livestreaming passengers
18. Venmo’s terrible idea
19. British Airways asked customers to post personal information on Twitter ‘to comply with GDPR’
20. Irish Lawmakers Realizing The GDPR’s Consent Requirements Seem A Bit Onerous, Want To ‘Infer’ Consent
21. Demonstrating Compliance with both GDPR and CCPA
22. Cybersecurity, Privacy and Data Protection Alert: California Consumer Privacy Act
23. Once Again…California Sets the Tone for U.S. Data Privacy 
24. California Passes Groundbreaking Data Privacy Law with an Expansion of Consumers’ Privacy Rights
25. A First (But Very Incomplete) Crack at Inventorying the California Consumer Privacy Act’s Problems
26. The World Economy Runs on GPS. It Needs a Backup Plan: The small satellite network, which keeps global computer systems from freaking out, is shockingly vulnerable to all kinds of interference.
27. Ars on your lunch break: The consequences of a government genetic database

GAMES

1. Two Researchers Challenged a Scientific Study About Violent Video Games – and Took a Hit for Being Right: How two researchers paid a price for challenging a retracted study about violent video games.
2. Nintendo files lawsuit against two popular ROM websites
3. Nintendo to ROM sites: Forget cease-and-desist, now we’re suing
4. Nintendo files copyright infringement lawsuit against two console ROM websites: LoveROMs and LoveRETRO are “among the most open and notorious online hubs for pirated video games” says platform holder
5. Roblox: “Our work on safety is never-ending” – Developer behind popular kids game responds to recent gang rape incident, reiterates that hacker behind it has been banned
6. Roblox on track to pay in-game devs $70M in 2018, more than double 2017’s payout
7. Blind Mind Studios releases source code for Star Ruler 2
8. PUBG Corp apologizes, removes offensive Japanese mask from game
9. PUBG developer apologies after controversial World War II references found in game: Purchasable mask and AI bot caused offence across Korea and China with allusions to Imperial Japan
10. Video chat with PUBG creator: “We could put battle royale in everything”
11. PUBG Mobile reaches $30M in revenue 4 months after launch
12. How Landfall accidentally struck a vein with a joke battle royale game
13. Valve bans over 90,000 Steam accounts in one week
14. 90,000 Steam accounts banned in Valve’s biggest anti-cheat purge to date: Just under 30,000 cheaters dealt with on Wednesday, followed by a record-breaking 60,000 yesterday
15. Psyonix shares Rocket League loot box drop rates ahead of progression overhaul
16. Dota 2 loot boxes now reveal contents ahead of purchase for Dutch players
17. Niantic introduces three-strike policy for cheaters inPokémon Go
18. Niantic outlines Pokemon Go cheating policy: Developer offers clarity on three-strike disciplinary system as ban waves ramp up
19. Guiding children towards healthy gaming: “We have amazing materials for parents, we need to shout about them much more,” says Andy Robertson
20. For the record: Report on Saudi Arabia ban of 47 games inaccurate
21. Rebuilding MidBoss – Interim CEO and creative director discuss trying to save the 2064: Read Only Memories studio after sexual harassment and employee mistreatment scandal
22. Gaming’s toxic men, explained: Experts tackle the phenomenon of angry men, trolls, racists and misogynists who hover around the video game industry
23. The GamesIndustry.biz Careers Survey 2018: Lower pay but less crunch
24. Studio Pixel Punk: Getting diversity right means going beyond “good intentions”
25. 2K’s light slate belies bigger ambitions: President David Ismailer discusses publisher’s plans to grow, how it evaluates development partners, and thoughts on esports betting
26. International Olympic Committee hosts forum to discuss esports: Riots Games CEO hopes forum might lead to esports “being more legitimised the world over”
27. Esports Could Enter The Olympics Fray By The 2024 Summer Games In Paris (Report)
28. James Ohlen: Anthem failure won’t mean the end of BioWare – Long-serving designer also disputes “conspiracy theories” that EA is driving studio away from story-driven RPGs
29. Bandai Namco: “We want 50% of our games to be new IP” – Digital and marketing VP Hervé Hoerdt details how the Japanese publisher plans to create new brands that yield movies, toys and more
30. Bandai Namco Amusement Lab Inc. established for VR arcade development
31. Bandai Namco establishes new development team for VR, AR, MR: Bandai Namco Amusement Lab Inc. will focus on XR experiences primarily for arcades
32. This VR Horror Game Is Exactly as Scary as Your Body Can Handle
33. The Magic Hustle: Magic Leap not so Magical – Silicon Valley Global News SVGN.io
34. Unity: “Games wouldn’t see the light of day” without asset stores – Asset Store boss Peter O’Reilly on the misconception around “asset flips”, and why Unity won’t match the Unreal Marketplace’s 88/12 revenue split
35. Minecraft most downloaded Switch game in Japan so far this year: Retail version beats out all other packaged software for 2018 after less than one month on store shelves
36. Blog: Breath of the Wild and the Montessori method
37. Octopath Traveler impresses in European charts
38. Square Enix bets on game streaming with Blacknut partnership
39. Square Enix partners with Blacknut for cloud gaming: Partnership will bring Lara Croft Go, Hitman Go, more to Blacknut-supported devices
40. UK Charts: Crash Bandicoot holds No.1 as Xbox exclusives dominate Top Ten
41. Microsoft’s streaming Xbox will split up games to keep latency low
42. Forward-box: Xbox Adaptive Controller’s packaging is a good Microsoft move
43. Designing accessible packaging for the Xbox One Adaptive Controller
44. Candy Crush Saga revenue spikes 18% in Q2 to over $200m: King’s six-year-old game ranked No. 7 for global app spending and No. 6 for games
45. Next Games looks to The Walking Dead for growth after €7m H1 loss
46. Layoffs at OnRush developer after racer fails to gain traction
47. Onrush struggles lead to Evolution layoffs: Driveclub director Paul Pustchynsky among those who have been made redundant as Codemasters “decapitates” studio
48. Raiders of the Broken Planet going free-to-play less than a year after launch: MercurySteam’s online shooter also rebranding as Spacelords as of August 23rd, director says episodic model “didn’t work as planned”
49. Apple promotes iPhone gaming performance with new ad
50. Analyst: Fortnite now rakes in $2 million per day on iOS alone
51. Fortnite daily mobile revenue reaches $2m: Launch of Season 5 sets new record of $3 million revenue in a single day
52. Why the world loves “Fortnite” and I don’t
53. Epic releases postmortem for Fortnite’s playground mode
54. How Fortnite Captured Teens’ Hearts and Minds: The craze for the third-person shooter game has elements of Beatlemania, the opioid crisis, and eating Tide Pods.
55. Video: The unconventional launch of Fortnite 
56. Report: Epic’s net worth could rise to $8B thanks toFortnite
57. Breaking down Azeroth’s gates: Nostalgia is a powerful force for millions of former WoW players; but to convince them that they can re-engage without facing a time-sink, Blizzard needs to innovate once more
58. In A New Game Available On YouTube, Video URLs Are Hidden Inside Puzzles
59. YouTube Stars Kristopher London, Jesser Play ‘NBA 2k19’ With The Lakers, Get Scanned Into The Game
60. Matthew Patrick Announces The Passing Of Game Theorists Editor Ronnie “Oni” Edwards
61. Halo devs not working on battle royale mode for Infinite
62. Rockfish: Live Steam broadcasting will change the game for indie marketing – Valve’s store page streaming beta helped Everspace to its highest ever single-day revenue, says CEO Michael Schade
63. Blog: Being a solo indie in a post-Steam Greenlight world
64. Oculus Go supporting otherwise faltering VR headset market: Q2 shipments show waning interest in VR as Pokemon Go continues to popularize AR
65. No Man’s Sky Next update attracts over 40,000 players on Steam
66. Bethesda unlikely to use external developers in future
67. Bethesda’s growth makes it ‘less likely’ it’ll let external devs tackle its IP
68. Google Play continues to widen global download gap with iOS: Android storefront saw over 20 billion app downloads in Q2, iOS downloads around 8 billion
69. Microsoft ends fiscal year with $10 billion in games revenue, more Xbox Live users
70. Microsoft annual gaming revenue tops $10 billion: Xbox maker’s full-year results show year-over-year growth in sales, Xbox Live active users
71. Jurassic World Evolution hits one million sales
72. Jurassic World Evolution has sold over 1 million copies
73. Defiance 2050 developer Trion Worlds lays off 15 staff
74. Trion Worlds eliminates 15 positions post-Defiance 2050 launch: MMO studio says round of layoffs necessary to enable continued development on upcoming projects
75. UK tax breaks have helped finance 480 video games: In fact, more games have benefitted from tax relief than TV productions
76. How piracy led to GOG encouraging DRM-free releases
77. Muriel Tramis becomes second-ever game designer awarded the Legion of Honour
78. Understanding the human cost of creating No Man’s Sky
79. Writers discuss the evolving role narrative has in game development
80. Former BioWare dev James Ohlen discusses creative freedom and burnout
81. A quick word on which versions of Mega Man X Legacy Collection to get—or avoid
82. The Game Outcomes Project: How teamwork, leadership and culture drive results

Jon