MEDIA, COMMUNICATIONS & NET NEUTRALITY
- Bell Canada, et al. v. Attorney General of Canada (Motion to Stay CRTC Decision Denied, January 24, 2018)
- Vice’s Canadian cable TV channel is going off the air, after low ratings and reported losses for the $100 million joint venture
- Mozilla, Consumer Groups Sue The FCC For Its Attack On Net Neutrality
- Net neutrality comment fraud will be investigated by government: Democrats requested investigation after millions of people were impersonated.
- Net neutrality is bad? 1 million PornHub employees can’t be wrong. Oh, wait: Millions of comments sent to FCC through bulk system used fake email addresses.
- Senate Push To Save Net Neutrality Needs Just One Vote, But You Still Shouldn’t Get Your Hopes Up
- Sorry, FCC: Montana is enforcing net neutrality with new executive order – State enforces net neutrality in government contracts, despite FCC preemption.
- State AGs file protective petition to stop rollback of net neutrality rules; Senate Democrats announce plans to reverse FCC rule
- Montana Governor Takes Preserving Net Neutrality Into His Own Hands
- Montana becomes the first state to implement net neutrality: Democratic Gov. Steve Bullock signs executive order requiring ISPs with state contracts to treat all content equally.
- Montana Says It Won’t Do Business With Net Neutrality Violating ISPs
- AT&T CEO’s net neutrality plan calls for regulation of websites: AT&T also wants to make sure net neutrality law won’t be too strict.
- AT&T’s Bogus ‘Internet Bill Of Rights’ Aims To Undermine Net Neutrality, Foist Regulation Upon Silicon Valley Competitors
- FCC Won’t Redefine ‘Broadband;’ Move Could Have Worsened Digital Divide
- FCC Backtracks on Boneheaded Plan to Redefine Broadband
- FCC admits mobile can’t replace home Internet, won’t lower speed standard: Pai offers no data for claim that Title II repeal boosts broadband construction.
- FCC Backs Off Plan to Weaken Broadband Definition, But Still Can’t Admit Limited Competition Is A Problem
- Apple rejects net neutrality testing app, says it offers “no benefits to users”: Researcher’s iPhone app tests speeds of YouTube, Amazon, Netflix, and more.
- The net neutrality testing app that Apple rejected is available now: App tests video speeds to help researchers gather data for throttling study.
- Apple’s Incoherent App Approval Process Strikes Again, Net Neutrality App Banned For No Real Reason
- A Comcast net neutrality commitment from the NBC merger just expired: Comcast will no longer face FCC oversight on net neutrality.
- A Perfect Storm Of Comcast Unaccountability Is Brewing
- FCC Fines Sinclair Broadcast Group $13.3 Million for Failure to Disclose Paid Content
- Competition watchdog says Fox’s Sky takeover would result in the Murdoch family “having too much influence over public opinion”
DIGITAL
- Canadian Court Asserts Jurisdiction over Craigslist Based on Cloud-Based Virtual Presence in Canada
- Free Internet-Service Contracts Caught up by Consumer Protection Legislation in Quebec
- Appeals Court Says Accessing Data In A Way The Host Doesn’t Like Doesn’t Violate Computer Crime Laws
- DMCA Counternotification Doesn’t Create Personal Jurisdiction in Copyright Owner’s Home Court–Real v. Matteo (Eric Goldman)
- Tech Policy A Year Into The Trump Administration: Where Are We Now?
- Donald Trump one year on: How the Twitter President changed social media and the country’s top office – Mr Trump has weaponised Twitter, using it not just to reach the masses but to control the news agenda through bluster and distraction
- Senators ask social media execs to investigate “ReleaseTheMemo” hashtag: Meanwhile, WikiLeaks is offering to pay for a leaked copy of the memo in question.
- Twitter begins emailing the 677,775 Americans who took Russian election bait
- Russia-linked Twitter accounts are working overtime to help Devin Nunes and WikiLeaks
- Here’s why the epidemic of malicious ads grew so much worse last year: Forced redirects from Zirconium group push phony malware and fake Flash updates.
- Italian Government Criminalizes ‘Fake News,’ Provides Direct Reporting Line To State Police Force
- Brazilian Government Mobilizes Federal Police To Handle ‘Fake News’ Problem
- Psychiatrist Bitterly Drops Defamation Lawsuit Against Redditors
- Battling Botnets – Evolving U.S. Government Policies and Frameworks to Address Security and Resiliency Challenges
- Apple Successfully Avoids $50 Billion in American Taxes
- iOS 11.3 will be about more than just performance throttling options; AR is the focus: iOS 11.3 will add a performance throttling toggle and updates to Messages.
- EFF to Court: Linking Is Not Copyright Infringement
- EFF Tells Court That Boing Boing Linking To Playboy Images Is Not Infringement
- YouTube Musician Chrissy Chambers Wins Benchmark Revenge Porn Lawsuit
- Southwest’s Nonsense Lawsuit Over A Site That Made $45 Helping People Book Cheaper Flights
- Philippines Trying To Shut Down Popular News Site For Reporting On President Duterte
- The Constant Pressure For YouTube To Police ‘Bad’ Content Means That It’s Becoming A Gatekeeper
- Facebook, Twitter, YouTube Receive Praise From European Commission For Anti-Terrorist Efforts
- What Has Tech Done To Fix Its Harassment Problem?
- YouTube is setting up an ‘Intelligence Desk’ to weed out dicey content before it raises bigger brand safety concerns
- Many Of YouTube’s Top Stars Have Come Out In Favor Of Partner Program Changes
- Logan Paul Returns To YouTube, Pledges To Donate $1 Million To Suicide Prevention Organizations
- Hotel Bans Influencers After YouTuber Proposes Free Stay In Exchange For Publicity
- Hotel That Banned Influencers Has Released #Bloggergate-Inspired Merch
- Millions of ‘Under-Connected’ American Families Experience A Whole Different Internet
- Demonized Smartphones Are Just Our Latest Technological Scapegoat
- Marriott Freezes Its Social Media Globally, And Makes Grovelling Apology To China, All For A Drop-Down Menu And Liking A Tweet
- China’s Solution To The VPN Quandary: Only Authorized, And Presumably Backdoored, Crypto Links Allowed
- Tunisia’s Plans To Bring In Its Own National ‘Aadhaar’ Biometric ID System Halted — For Now
- YouTube To Invest $5 Million In Creators Who Counter Hate And Promote Tolerance
- Insights: Facebook, Apple, Amazon, And Google’s Charm Offensive or: FANGs Make Nice With America
- Google CEO Reaffirms Firing James Damore Was the Way to Go, ‘I Don’t Regret It’
- Enforcement of Foreign Court Order. District court grants preliminary injunction preventing enforcement in the United States of Canadian court order requiring Google to delist certain search results worldwide
- Alphabet launches a cybersecurity company called “Chronicle”: It’s a “cybersecurity intelligence platform” powered by Alphabet’s servers.
- YouTube to Invest $5 Million This Year in Creators Who Promote ‘Empathy and Understanding’
- YouTube Deletes Channel Of Former USA Gymnastics Doctor Larry Nassar
- AARP Is Embracing YouTube, And The 50-Plus Crowd Is Sticking Around To Watch
- YouTube TV Has Amassed 300,000 Subscribers, While Hulu Live TV Counts 450,000 (Report)
- YouTube’s Consolidation Of Music Hubs Will Lessen Prominence Of Vevo-Branded Channels
- YouTube Will Merge Vevo Channel Subscribers Into Unified ‘Official’ Music Artist Accounts
- Competition in the digital age: How to tame the tech titans – The dominance of Google, Facebook and Amazon is bad for consumers and competition
- Amazon names 20 “finalist” cities in its new headquarters beauty pageant: Expansion candidates include most major East Coast cities, plus a few surprises.
- Today’s the day you can go to Amazon Go—a store with no queues and no cash: Until now, only Amazon employees could use the high-tech, hyper-convenient store.
- Amazon Go debuts, and its prying cameras foil our shoplifting attempts
- Netflix Added Record 8.3 Million Subs Last Quarter, Will Test 15-Minute Stand-Up Special Format
- Netflix Lost $39 Million After Canceling Kevin Spacey Projects
- The Internet Is Enabling a New Kind of Poorly Paid Hell: For some Americans, sub-minimum-wage online tasks are the only work available.
- A New Service Would Make Deep Learning More Accessible to Millions of Coders
- Why This Intercontinental Quantum-Encrypted Video Hangout Is A Big Deal
- We Need to Open the AI Black Box Before It’s Too Late
- Software used in judicial decisions meets its equal in random amateurs: Software used to predict if people being sentenced will commit another crime.
- Forget The Robot Singularity Apocalypse. Let’s Talk About The Multiplicity
- People Keep Confusing Their Teslas For Self-Driving Cars
- The End of the Awl and the Vanishing of Freedom and Fun from the Internet
- Spotify Launches Visual-Podcast Strategy in Bid to Expand Beyond Music
- Spotify’s Spotlight Section Will Blend Podcasts, Images, Videos To Create New Media Offering
- Spotify Retools Content Strategy With a Pivot Away From Video
- Users Can Now Share Snapchat Stories Outside Of Snapchat
- Snapchat is no longer a private, disappearing, messaging app
- Snapchat Stories Can Now Live Outside The App
- ESPN Finds Success With Katie Nolan Hosting SportsCenter On Snapchat
- Snap Lays Off Two Dozen Staffers — Predominantly Within Its Content Division
- New Report: Digital Threats to Democratic Elections
- Not Your Grandad’s Facebook? Targeted Social Media Ads Spur Age Discrimination Lawsuit
- Facebook’s Bad Idea: Crowdsourced Ratings Work For Toasters, But Not News – Opinion – User reviews might work when you’re shopping for a phone charger on Amazon, but crowdsourcing “news” was what got us into this mess in the first place.
- Facebook Has Coined a New Unit of Time Called “the Flick”
- I Can’t Believe How Dumb Facebook’s News Feed Update Is
- What the Heck Happened to the Cryptocurrency This Week?!
- Hackers Have Walked Off With About 14% of Big Digital Currencies
- Hacking and theft: the dark side of Blockchain
- Confessions Of A Bitcoin Sceptic (Andres Gudamuz)
- Major payment company: “Fewer and fewer use cases” for bitcoin payments – Stripe: bitcoin is “better-suited to being an asset than a means of exchange.”
- Marathon Patent Group Acquires Blockchain and Cryptocurrency Transmission Patents
- Here’s why you can’t buy a high-end graphics card at Best Buy: “Cryptocurrency can’t crash soon enough,” one gamer fumes.
- Blockchain technology could spell the end of DRM, says Robot Cache founder: Products tracked on the blockchain can’t be copied or altered, allowing users to resell their digital goods
- We Put The Entire Internet On The Blockchain—And You Can Too
- Rise of Blockchain and ICOs Brings Regulatory Scrutiny
- A Rescue Drone Saved Two Teen Swimmers on Its First Day of Deployment
- Intel in meltdown over security breach lawsuit
- Inside Intel’s Plans To Capture The Olympics In Virtual Reality
- The Digital Poorhouse
- Microsoft’s “Ink to Code” turns drawings into user interfaces: Early prototype is being developed as a “Garage” project.
- Sequel To ‘Man From Earth’ To Be Released On Pirate Sites By Its Creators
- Primary care online – A revolution in modern society or a professional minefield?
- Copyright in data file formats from SAS to Technomed
- Cloud Communities: The Dawn of Global Citizenship?
- The Cyberlaw Guide to Protest Art: Roadmap
- Twenty-Five Years Later: What Happened to Progressive Tech Policy?: A glimpse at how the Internet has changed over time
- Bring in the Nerds: Reviving the Office of Technology Assessment
CREATIVITY
- Now Another Judge Smacks Around A Guardaley Shell Company Acting As A Copyright Troll
- Hitting the right notes – Florence Foster Jenkins provides helpful guidance on joint ownership of copyright
- The Strange Copyright of Doctor Who
- Anything Your Heart Designs: Swarovski Hit with Copyright Infringement of Galatea’s “Two In One Heart” Design
- Grumpy Cat wins $710,000 payout in copyright lawsuit
- Protect your design: Recent developments in Canadian copyright law
- IP: Copyright – 3D Printing Complicates Copyright
- K-pop superstars T-ara vow to fight for rights to their name; experts predict bitter legal battle ahead
- Brexit: opportunity or threat for the Art industry?
- UK Begins Absolutely Bonkers ‘Education’ Of Grade Schoolers About Intellectual Property And Piracy
- US Army Files Dumb Trademark Opposition Against The NHL’s Las Vegas Golden Knights
- Censorship By Weaponizing Free Speech: Rethinking How The Marketplace Of Ideas Works
- Engineered for Dystopia: Engineering is full of authoritarians who, predictably, take all the wrong lessons from pop culture
SURVEILLANCE & PRIVACY
- Teen Hacker Who Social Engineered His Way Into Top-Level US Government Officials’ Accounts Pleads Guilty To Ten Charges
- A Bunch Of Politicians Who Complain About Trump’s Authoritarian Tendencies Just Gave Him 6 Years To Warrantlessly Spy On Americans
- Finding Your Voice: Forget About Siri and Alexa — When It Comes to Voice Identification, the “NSA Reigns Supreme”
- Tinder’s Lack Of Encryption Lets Strangers Spy On Your Swipes
- Want to see all data Windows 10 sends Microsoft? There’s an app for that: The next big update to Windows 10 will be even more transparent about what it collects.
- Artificial Intelligence Is Going To Supercharge Surveillance: What happens when digital eyes get the brains to match?
- Menacing Malware Shows The Dangers Of Industrial System Sabotage
- WTF is GDPR?
- GDPR compliance – the final countdown begins
- The right to data portability in the GDPR: Towards user-centric interoperability of digital services
- OnePlus got pwned, exposed up to 40,000 users to credit card fraud: A malicious script injected into OnePlus’ payment page went undiscovered for two months.
- Malicious Chrome extension is next to impossible to manually remove: Extensions remain the Achilles heel for an otherwise highly secure browser.
- Meltdown And Spectre Patching Has Been A Total Train Wreck
- Android Users: To Avoid Malware, Try The F-Droid App Store
GAMES
- Court rules illegal bot makers must pay $1.3 million to Twitch
- Judge Orders Makers Of Illegal Bots To Pay Twitch $1.3 Million
- It Kind Of Looks Like Crytek Sued Star Citizen Developer By Pretending Its Engine License Says Something It Doesn’t
- Legal Analysis of the ESL Genting Situation & DMCA
- Athletes’ Right of Publicity Claims Directed to Sports Video Games Not Preempted by Copyright Act
- Valve appeals $2.4M fine as Australian legal battle rages on
- Atari Settles Kit Kat Spat With Nestle
- Atari looks to equity crowdfunding for RollerCoaster Tycoon Switch release
- Professors Stick Up for Game Producers Against Lindsay Lohan Swipe
- The heavy cost of toxic work culture: Regardless of the truth of the allegations of harassment and toxicity at Quantic Dream, many in the industry will have found the claims all too familiar
- How crunch is more than a labor issue in the video game industry
- Trion Worlds adds premium server with “no lootboxes” to Rift: Rift Prime server’s “progressively unlocked content” a response to debate in the wider industry
- Report provides ethical ways for devs to monetize games
- PUBG Corp. to donate $2M in lootbox proceeds to charity
- PUBG Corp donating $2m to charity: $1m charity campaign planned for later in the year following various donations in 2017
- PUBG Corp. to kick off 2018 expansion with new Amsterdam office: CEO Chang Han Kim also explains why there is no PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds movie in the works
- Unlocked PS4 consoles can now run copies of PS2 games: Recent exploit also allows for homebrew and PS4 game piracy.
- “We are giving back the true ownership of the assets to players”: French startup B2Expand is using blockchain tech to let players own and sell in-game items for Beyond the Void, and Ubisoft is helping
- ESA: The U.S. game industry saw $36B in revenue in 2017
- US games industry revenue hits record $36bn in 2017: Industry revenue sees 18% growth over 2016 with strong performance from hardware and software sales
- US console, PC market up 11% in 2017 – NPD: Hardware sales drove growth and Switch drove hardware sales as number of retail releases trend upward
- Digital game sales up 17% in December – Superdata: Research firm finds gamers worldwide spent nearly $10 billion on games as Call of Duty – World War II and Grand Theft Auto Online break records
- Mobile gaming sessions down by 16% in 2017 but users spending more money than ever: Meanwhile, larger high-end mobile devices seize 55% of market
- Ubisoft adds a digital assistant to its Ubisoft Club companion app
- Google Play aims to “fundamentally change the trajectory” of Indian game revenues: Director of Apps & Games Purnima Kochikar on the role of India in teaching developers to “build for billions”
- Aristocrat buys Big Fish for $990 million: Australian casino firm follows up $500m Plarium acquisition with another huge deal
- Denuvo Sold To Irdeto, Which Boasts Of Acquiring ‘The World Leader In Gaming Security’
- Game security outfit Denuvo acquired by cybersecurity specialist Irdeto
- Is Patreon a viable alternative to funding the indie dev dream?: Breaking the mould: Sokpop’s antithetical approach to games development
- Teaching players to rig elections
- Xbox is preparing for a post-console future: The latest Game Pass subscription offering is the next step in Microsoft’s hardwareless future
- Xbox Game Pass service getting first-party exclusives at launch
- Xbox Game Pass subscription service to include all first party games: Sea of Thieves, Crackdown 2 and State of Decay 2 will launch day and date on the service
- Minecraft sets new monthly active users record at 74M
- Minecraft reaches 74m MAUs from 144m sales: Monthly active users are up 35 per cent in the space of a year
- EVE Online community raises $119k in memory of departed dev
- Nintendo Labo: the next Wonderbook?: The Switch’s latest bold attempt to win over kids can’t work, can it?
- Nintendo’s share price jumps on Labo reveal: Games giant returning to ten year-high after major project showcase
- Crazy kaiju-robot antics only hint at Nintendo Labo’s true potential: We examine limited footage to figure out the robot suit—and predict Labo’s future.
- Gamasutra Asks: What to make of Nintendo Labo?
- Switch sold 1.5 million in US for December: Nintendo says its latest is the fastest-selling home console in US history; 3DS posts best monthly sales in three years
- Nintendo hardware sold a combined 2.6M units in December alone
- GDC State of the Industry: Dev interest in Nintendo Switch up, VR interest down
- Stardew Valley was the most-downloaded Switch title in 2017
- Stardew Valley was the world’s most downloaded Switch title in 2017 – But Minecraft: Switch Edition dominates in home territory of Japan
- Nintendo doesn’t seem to be “looking into” VR very much anymore: 4K update doesn’t seem to be in the immediate cards for the Switch, either.
- Oculus creates a new, open source unit of time to measure frame rates
- Video: Examining educational games through the lens of ‘fun’
- Facepunch Studios’ Rust to leave Early Access after four years: February release will arrive without any “big reveals”, but will come with more stable development and a $15 price increase
- Years after predicted “death,” game consoles are doing better than ever: Switch leads the way, but the entire console market is thriving.
- An MMO goes full circle, promises to bring subscriptions back this year: Rift went F2P in 2013. Rift Prime will undo that change—and on a separate server, to boot.
- Chinese mobile game market sees consumer spending rise by 250% since 2015
- Overwatch League player benched following homophobic remarks during livestream: Dallas Fuel’s Felix “xQc” Lengyel suspended until February 10
- Athletes’ right of publicity claims directed to sports video games not preempted by Copyright Act
- Is eSports the next big sensation?
- Mail.Ru Group acquires Russian eSports leader ESforce for $100M
- Mail.Ru acquires largest Russian esports company in $100m deal: Esports “forecast by some to overtake the traditional sports market over the next decade,” says Mail.Ru CEO
- Nazara buys majority stake in Indian esports firm: Nodwin Gaming sells 55 per cent stake, will now operate as a subsidiary of Nazara
- Facebook signs eSports streaming agreement for CS: GO Pro League and ESL One
- ESL signs exclusive streaming deal with Facebook for CS:GO, Dota 2 esports: The esports league will also create a new show for Facebook Watch
- Facebook Goes Deeper Into Twitch’s Territory With Exclusive Esports Streaming Deal
- Gfinity: “We’re getting ready for when the esports revenue finally takes off” – Esports firm discusses its Elite series, why it’s partnering with EA and getting ready for the inevitable esports revenue
- Anthem delayed to 2019 – Report: BioWare devs tell Kotaku the studio is feeling the pressure of EA’s expectations and YouTubers’ anger
- Twitch inks deal to broadcast exclusive content from top Disney YouTubers: What do you Maker that.
- Twitch challenges YouTube with new video producer tools, Disney partnership: Four of YouTube’s most popular gamers will produce “exclusive” Twitch content.
- Twitch reaches exclusive Disney deal, swipes at YouTube with prerecorded video tools
- Maker’s Jacksepticeye, Strawburry17 To Create Exclusive Twitch Content As Part Of New Disney Deal
- Echo Fox President Jared Jeffries On Crossover Of NBA And Esports
- ESports Disputes: Choosing your battleground
- MLB Is Making R.B.I. Baseball 18: Priced at $29.99 on PS4, Nintendo Switch and Xbox One.
- Do we even need a Netflix for games?: All forms of entertainment have perfected the on-demand model – except video games. We speak to the firms striving to rectify this
- Investors Poured a Record $2 Billion into VR/AR in 2017, But Early Stage Funding Slowed
- ‘VRChat’ Reaches 2 Million Installs, Doubling in the Last Ten Days
- Virtual Reality Users Watch Helplessly as Another User Has In-Game Seizure: “There was nothing we could do.”
- U.S. Olympic Athletes Are Using Virtual Reality to Train for Events
- U.S. Ski Team Trained In Virtual Reality For Pyeongchang Olympics
- More data, “real feedback” would greatly benefit indies – Clever Endeavour CEO: Ultimate Chicken Horse developer Richard Atlas lays out the biggest challenges he sees facing his studio after its first success
- UK Games Fund opens for fourth round, grants of up to £25,000 available: Pitch development programme announced for developers who don’t meet the UKGF criteria
- Drawn to Death developer lays off ‘vast majority’ of staff
- To build a future, Italy’s games industry must reckon with its past: Cultural prejudice against games remains strong in Italy, but the AESVI and its development community have gained vital ground on the path to acceptance
- The Mysterious Japanese Game That Took 14 Years To Officially Come Out
- Call of Duty WWII and Historical Memory
- Virtual Worlds Designed by Their Inhabitants
Jon