MEDIA, COMMUNICATIONS & NET NEUTRALITY
- Judge For Yourself: Bell Says It Didn’t Meet CRTC to Review the FairPlay Application, But Here’s the Slide Presentation (Michael Geist)
- Rupert Murdoch Believes In The Free Market… Until His Company Is Struggling: Then He Wants To Regulate Competitors
- Disney’s Plans to Buy Fox Just Hit a Major Snag and Its Name Is Comcast
- Comcast confirms plan to buy 21st Century Fox and control of Hulu
- Comcast bug made it shockingly easy to steal customers’ Wi-Fi passwords
- Comcast Found To Be Charging $90 Installation Fees At Homes Where Comcast Is Already In Use
- TV regulation in a digital age
- Senators Demand FCC Answer for Fake Comments After Realizing Their Identities Were Stolen
- Senators Ask FCC Why It Did Nothing To Stop Their Names From Being Fraudulently Used During Net Neutrality Repeal
- FCC is hurting consumers to help corporations, Mignon Clyburn says on exit
- Net Neutrality Is Just A Gateway To The Real Issue: Internet Freedom (Susan Crawford)
- Charter Uses Net Neutrality Repeal To Claim States Can’t Hold It Accountable For Shoddy Service, Failed Promises
- ISPs and Ajit Pai are really sad about Senate’s vote for net neutrality
- A preview of the FTC’s role in monitoring broadband markets following the FCC’s adoption of the Restoring Internet Freedom Order
- FTC Commissioner calls for stricter penalties and structural remedies against recidivist companies that violate consent orders
- T-Mobile should stop claiming it has “Best Unlimited Network,” ad group says
- Supreme Court Strikes Down Law against Sports Betting – But Broadcasters Need to Proceed with Caution
- Website leaked real-time location of most US cell phones to almost anyone
- Nearly Everyone In The U.S. And Canada Just Had Their Private Cell Phone Location Data Exposed
- FCC investigates site that let most US mobile phones’ location be exposed
- Verizon Begins ‘Testing’ DSL Usage Caps It Refuses To Call Usage Caps
- The ‘Race To 5G’ Is Largely Just Marketing Nonsense
DIGITAL
- Media can’t be an arm of the police, Vice lawyer tells Supreme Court hearing: Reporter Ben Makuch challenging ruling he must hand over info on terrorists to RCMP
- Trump’s Twitter blocking violates First Amendment, court rules: The “interactive space” around Trump tweets is a public forum, judge rules.
- Trump feels presidential smartphone security is “too inconvenient”
- President Trump Thinks Basic Phone Security Is Simply Too Inconvenient
- New Malaysian Prime Minister Who Promised To Kill ‘Fake News’ Law Decides It Might Be Useful Now That He’s In Power
- Turkish President Visits UK To Remind Everyone He Still Wants To Punish Critical Speech
- FBI seizes domain Russia allegedly used to infect 500,000 consumer routers
- Hackers infect 500,000 consumer routers all over the world with malware: VPNFilter can survive reboots and contains destructive “kill” function.
- All of Mugshots.com’s alleged co-owners arrested on extortion charges: Mugshots.com is a “business permeated with fraud,” California AG says.
- Mugshots.com Operators Arrested For Letting Money Influence Editorial Decisions
- North Korea-tied hackers used Google Play and Facebook to infect defectors
- Cambridge Analytica files for bankruptcy amidst “siege” of negative attention
- What Happened To Facebook’s Grand Plan To Wire The World?: Five years ago Mark Zuckerberg debuted a bold, humanitarian vision of global internet. It didn’t go as planned – forcing Facebook to reckon with the limits of its own ambition.
- Mark Zuckerberg Played Parliament for Fools and They’re Pissed
- Facebook Is Testing Its Own Influencer Marketing Platform
- Facebook Moderation Ramps Up In Germany And Everything Keeps Getting Worse For Its Users
- Instagram Finally Rolls Out ‘Mute’ Button, 3 Years After Twitter Unveiled Feature
- There Is No Magic Bullet For Moderating A Social Media Platform
- Fed Up With Apple’s Policies, App Developers Form A ‘Union’
- Small group of iOS devs form “The Developers Union” to request App Store changes: There’s little in the way of organization, but some notable names are attached.
- Apple cracks down on CallKit-enabled apps in China’s App Store
- Apple, VW sign driverless car deal for Apple campus shuttles, NY Times sources say
- An Overview of Political Advertising Policies for Google, Twitter, and Snapchat
- Snapchat’s Parent Launches ‘Yellow’ Incubator Program for Mobile-Content Creators
- How Google-happy jurors are derailing Ontario trials
- Does Google’s Duplex violate two-party consent laws?
- Google Removes ‘Don’t Be Evil’ Clause From Its Code of Conduct
- Pretty Much All Tech Demos Are Fake as Hell
- Morgan Stanley Pegs YouTube’s Valuation At $160 Billion, Above Disney, Comcast, And Netflix
- Netflix and other online video are killing cable in customer satisfaction
- YouTube Red Renamed ‘YouTube Premium’, Price Upped From $10 To $12 Monthly
- New YouTube Music Premium costs $9.99 monthly, add $2 to get all Red perks
- Google announces YouTube Music and YouTube Premium: Goodbye, YouTube Red; hello, new premium services
- The Long, Checkered History Of YouTube’s Attempt To Launch A Music Service
- YouTube TV Channels For The Young Turks, Tastemade Now Live With 9 New Shows
- Rising NBA Star Jayson Tatum Learned Some Of His Best Moves From YouTube
- Lilly Singh Launches Inaugural Campaign As UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador To End Child Violence
- 89 Years After Popeye’s Introduction, The Sailor Man Is Coming To YouTube
- Twitch’s Longest TV Marathon So Far Will Include More Than 500 Episodes Of ‘Doctor Who’
- In New Video, Elle Mills Talks Mental Health, A Break From Social Media, And Being “Burnt Out At 19”
- Here’s How You Can Turn On The New YouTube Feature That Reminds You To Take A Break
- Magazine publishers with video ambitions see YouTube as safer bet than Facebook
- New Version Of YouTube Music Ready To Launch, Will Feature Smart Recommendations, Context-Based Search
- Barack And Michelle Obama Ink Multi-Year Content Partnership With Netflix
- How The Record Labels Screwed Up The Music Industry, And The Tech Industry Saved Them
- How The Recording Industry Hid Its Latest Attempt To Expand Copyright
- Minimize harmfulness of bots but don’t ban them
- Cross-sector code of conduct for AI – a solution with substance?
- New Requirements for Legal Analytics & Artificial Intelligence Under the GDPR
- Many Of Those Desperate GDPR Emails You’ve Been Getting Are Violating A Different EU Regulation
- Buyer Beware: Hundreds of Bitcoin Wannabes Show Hallmarks of Fraud – A Wall Street Journal analysis of 1,450 cryptocurrency offerings reveals rampant plagiarism, identity theft and promises of improbable returns
- Bitcoin Is Going To Use As Much Electricity As Austria By The Year’s End
- New study quantifies bitcoin’s ludicrous energy consumption
- “We have built the world that they told us existed”: Did the rise of young, white “Internet reporting” bolster the alt-right?
- Who Is Arthur Chu?: When Jeopardy ended, the real puzzles of online life began – Airing on PBS, new doc explores ups and downs of growing up – and growing in stature – online.
- The Balkanization Of The Internet (Andres Guadamuz)
CREATIVITY
- District Court in California recognizes plausible trademark rights over fictional Star Wars board game
- Congress’ Latest Move To Extend Copyright Protection Is Misguided (Lawrence Lessig)
- Who Needs a Copyright Small Claims Court? Evidence from the U.K.’s IP Enterprise Court
- Copyright fair use – “transformative” revisited: has the Second Circuit gone too far?
- Copyright Being Used To Prevent Actress From Showing Her Own Demo Reel
- Copyright Once Again Hiding Important Cultural Artifacts
- HBO Wins Stupid Copyright, Trademark Lawsuit Brought By Graffiti Artist Over 2 Seconds Of Background Scenery
- EPA boots reporters from meeting on chemicals called a PR disaster
- EPA’s War On Journalists Is Not A Good Look
- Fox News Staffers Reportedly Freaking Out Over New Workplace Rules
- And then, they took her cellphone
- This Video Explores the Experimental History of Scifi Book Covers
- Canadian Copyright, Fair Dealing and Education, Part Two: The Declining Value of the Access Copyright Licence (Michael Geist)
- Canadian Copyright, Fair Dealing and Education, Part One: Making Sense of the Spending (Michael Geist)
SURVEILLANCE & PRIVACY
- ICE Abandons Efforts for Social Media Vetting Algorithm
- ICE Drops Extreme Vetting Software Plan After Discovering No One Could Possibly Deliver What It Wants
- Judge Allows Fourth Amendment Challenge Of Warrantless Device Searches At The Border To Continue
- Michigan Takes On The NSA With New Law, But Probably Won’t Have Much Of An Impact
- Senators to DOJ: Reveal your secret paragraph-long explanation of stingrays
- Not Paying Attention in Class?: China’s “Smart Eye” Will Snitch on You
- Illinois Users’ Face-Scanning Privacy Lawsuit Against Facebook Headed to Trial
- Police Surveillance Is Getting a Helping Hand from…Amazon!
- ACLU Obtains Documents Showing Amazon Is Handing Out Cheap Facial Recognition Tech To Law Enforcement
- Police use of Amazon’s face-recognition service draws privacy warnings
- Report Confirms Deep Flaws Of Automated Facial Recognition Software In The UK, Warns Its Use In The US Is Spreading
- FBI exaggerated the number of phones it can’t unlock by up to 550 percent
- FBI Admits It’s Been Using A Highly-Inflated Number Of Locked Devices To Push Its ‘Going Dark’ Narrative
- EFF Asks FBI, DOJ To Turn Over Details On Thousands Of Locked Phones The FBI Seems Uninterested In Cracking
- Blunder burns unicorn attack that exploited Windows and Reader
- Warning: the Federal Trade Commission will prosecute companies over consumer data breaches – its recommendations should be heeded
- As the Web moves toward HTTPS by default, Chrome will remove “secure” indicator
GAMES
- Judge Rules Copyright Lawsuit Over Tattoo Use in Video Game Can Proceed: What Might This Mean for the Video Game Industry and Virtual Sports Betting?
- Opinion: Illuminating the shadowy group celebrating Valve’s latest censorship drive
- Valve threatens to pull games now deemed ‘sexually explicit’ from Steam
- Valve advises sexualized anime-themed titles to censor content or be removed from Steam: HuniePop, Mutiny!!, Tropical Liquor and more received warnings today for “pornographic content”
- Steam games warned for “pornographic content” have warnings dismissed, subject to re-review
- Crunch can put devs at odds with their own mental health, warns Blizzard dev
- With Steam Link app, your smartphone can be an imperfect gaming monitor
- We Happy Few refused classification by Australian ratings board
- We Happy Few denied classification in Australia
- ADL partners with Global Game Jam, NYU’s Game Center to reduce hate in games
- UK government takes aim at online games in Internet Safety Strategy response
- Lack of oversight led to use of Overwatch art in Paladins Strike ad, says dev
- Overwatch art used in Paladins Strike ad due to “not much oversight”
- Overwatch to get Lego sets and Nerf merch: Activision Blizzard Consumer Products Group reveals new projects as it pursues more partners at Licensing Expo
- Chinese Overwatch League team practices for twelve hours, six days a week: Team with the “most intensive training scheme” in the league has so far not won a single game
- ‘We can launch games whenever we’re ready and whenever we want,’ says Guillemot
- Less AAA competition makes delays easier – Ubisoft: CEO Yves Guillemot says “we can launch games whenever we are ready,” with digital content, live services, new markets offsetting any loss in revenue from smaller slate
- Far Cry 5 and Assassin’s Creed Origins lead to record profit and sales for Ubisoft
- Capcom bringing Resident Evil 7 to Switch with experimental pricing
- Capcom experiements with streaming and new pricing in Resident Evil 7 for Switch: Cloud version of acclaimed horror title will be streamed via wifi, costs just £13 / $18 for six-month ‘play ticket’
- Capcom requires high-speed streaming to play Resident Evil 7 on Switch
- Owlboy turned profit on Nintendo Switch within 24 hours of release: Switch success “bodes really well for funding our future projects” says D-Pad CEO Jo-Remi Madsen
- Nintendo is selling a dock-free ‘Second Set’ Switch bundle in Japan
- Hearts of Iron IV sells one million copies
- GTA V has sold over 95 million copies worldwide
- Gameloft revenues fell 13% in Q1
- Ubisoft posts record sales, delays Skull & Bones: Original IP pushed to next fiscal year as publisher sees pace of digital shift picking up, eyes expansion in PC, mobile, and China
- iOS gamers are more loyal than Android, suggests Priori Data
- Rovio sees profits rise amid strong revenues from Angry Birds 2
- Rovio doubles down on Angry Birds with new content roadmap: Multimedia strategy includes stage shows, location-based events, and long form animated series
- Paradox Q1 profits up 270% – despite only one new game release: Outgoing CEO Fred Wester says quarter shows the value of retaining loyal players with expansions and more
- Paradox: “People were coming to us in droves asking if we could make board games” – And the Swedish publisher is now licensing its biggest IPs to do just that
- Less management, more success: Inside Supercell’s ‘upside-down’ organization
- Tencent acquires majority stake in Path of Exile dev Grinding Gear
- EA acquires talent, tech from GameFly’s cloud gaming service
- EA acquires GameFly subsidiary for cloud gaming: Israel-based team and technology will expand EA’s ability to offer its games across multiple devices
- FIFA and Call of Duty driving viewer growth in console esports: 20 million hours of console events watched in 2018 so far, but still only a fraction of esports’ overall viewership
- Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 won’t have a single-player campaign but will offer battle royale
- Black Ops 4 ditches single-player campaign, adds battle royale mode
- Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 ditches Steam in favor of Battle.net
- Analysis: Player interest in Call of Duty’s campaigns is cratering
- Gamelynx raises $1.2 million to develop esports games on mobile
- Gamelynx raises $1.2 million for mobile esports development: Investors include Riot Games, Y Combinator, and Skycatcher Fund
- NBA 2K League announces State Farm sponsorship
- Microsoft partnership brings video game event to Special Olympics USA Games
- One hundred meeeeellion dollars: Epic dumps serious cash into Fortnite esports
- Epic Games to provide $100 million prize pool for Fortnite esports this year
- Epic Games puts up $100M for Fortnite esports prize pool
- Fortnite Developer’s $100,000,000 Prize Pool Is Great News For Streamers
- ‘Fortnite’-Branded Products In The Works Following Pact Between Epic Games, IMG
- Battlegrounds mobile attracting over 10 million daily active users
- Oculus & ESL Partner on eSports VR League with $220,000 in Prizes, Including ‘Echo Combat’
- HTC Says Watching ‘Ready Player One’ Boosts VR Purchase Intent in China
- Oculus adds DLC support for mobile VR apps: Beta test opens up a new revenue stream, with Rift DLC support still to come
- Crowdfunded 3D Headphone Startup OSSIC is Shutting Down, 99% of Orders Go Undelivered
- Microsoft launches Xbox Adaptive Controller to make games more accessible
- Microsoft’s next Halo game is an arcade cabinet
- Minecraft surpasses 100M users in China on PC and mobile
- Eurogamer scoops multiple awards at first-ever Games Media Brit List
- ESRB points devs toward IARC ratings as it looks to phase out short-form option
- ESRB dropping short form ratings for digital games in June: Developers will still be able to get rated at no cost via IARC
- God of War helps PlayStation smash records in April NPD stats: Kratos’ return was best ever launch for a PlayStation exclusive, PS4 game sales reaches new high for the month
- Sony: PlayStation 4 is entering ‘final phase’ of its lifecycle
- Sony prepares for the “final phase” of PlayStation 4’s life-cycle
- Sony: Next PlayStation is at least three years off
- Sony: The next PlayStation is another three years away
- Reassessing the legacy of PlayStation Vita: As software production ends, it’s a good moment to reassess Sony’s handheld – its commercial failure looms large, but its innovations remain hugely influential
- PlayStation Vita game production will continue in Japan: Sony confirms physical games will still be released in home market beyond March 2019
- Sony: PS4 Enters “final phase of life cycle,” Next PlayStation to Come in 3 Years
- Sony takes a page from Microsoft by licensing customizable PS4 gamepad
- The future of PlayStation may be portable, says Sony exec
- Portable gaming shouldn’t be separate from consoles – PlayStation head: Newly appointed John Kodera says company is considering portable gaming options, signalling a change from previous management’s thinking
- Jagex shutting down RuneScape Classic after 17 years
- Jagex shutting down RuneScape Classic: Problems with community safety, botting, and bugs led to the decision to shut down the 17-year-old game
- Wargaming Seattle is shutting down
- Cultural approaches to horror game design
Jon