News of the Week; September 13, 2017

DIGITAL

1. Why Has the Government Failed to Act on Copyright Notice-and-Notice When Internal Docs Raise Abuse and Fraud Concerns? (Michael Geist)
2. RT, Sputnik and Russia’s New Theory of War: How the Kremlin built one of the most powerful information weapons of the 21st century — and why it may be impossible to stop.
3. The Fake Americans Russia Created to Influence the Election
4. Russia’s Facebook Fake News Could Have Reached 70 Million Americans: Facebook acknowledged that Russian propagandists spent $100,000 on election ads. It neglected to mention how many millions of people those ads reached.
5. Russian-made Facebook page invited Americans to protest “upsurge of violence”: Effort to unmask the Kremlin’s propaganda campaign takes a dark turn.
6. I Bought a Russian Bot Army for Under $100
7. Facebook May Have More Russian Troll Farms To Worry About
8. Russia Piracy Blocking: Four Thousand ‘Pirate’ Sites Blocked… Along With Forty Thousand Sites Worth Of Collateral Damage
9. Kaspersky software banned from US government agencies: Kaspersky: We have “never helped, nor will help, any government with cyberespionage.”
10. Social influence and political mobilization: Further evidence from a randomized experiment in the 2012 U.S. presidential election (Jason J. Jones, Robert M. Bond, Eytan Bakshy, Dean Eckles & James H. Fowler)
11. How Facebook Changed the Spy Game: I fought foreign propaganda for the FBI. But the tools we had won’t work anymore.
12. Facebook Wins, Democracy Loses
13. Why it’s so hard to trust Facebook
14. Facebook will ban monetizing on violence and tragedy, even for news and awareness
15. Facebook Sets Guidelines To Dictate What Types Of Content It Won’t Monetize
16. The Terrifying Power of Internet Censors
17. Facebook’s Failed $608 Million Bid For Cricket Rights Sends Strong Signal
18. Facebook To Spend $1 Billion On Original Content For ‘Watch’ Through 2018 
19. Make Mark Zuckerberg Testify
20. Facebook Wins Appeal Over Allegedly Discriminatory Content Removal–Sikhs for Justice v. Facebook (Eric Goldman)
21. The Fake News Pipeline: How A Small-Time Clickbait Farmer Is Spreading the Gospel of Big Oil
22. America Is a Cyberpunk Dystopia
23. Adding a “disputed” label to fake news seems to work, a little. But for some groups, it actually backfires: Labeling only some fake news stories as fake can make some people more likely to believe other fake news that aren’t labeled.
24. China’s Social-Media Smoke Screen
25. 1st Amendment wins in self-proclaimed e-mail inventor’s Techdirt libel suit: The truth, whatever that may be, is the best defense to defamation.
26. Texas AG’s office accuses ‘reputation management company’ of procuring fraudulent libel takedown lawsuits
27. Texas Attorney General Issues Complaint Against Reputation Management Company For Bogus Lawsuits
28. Blacklock’s Loses Appeal of Justice Barnes’ Costs Order: Dismissed from the Bench
29. Patent Trolls’ Favorite Judge Comes Up With Test To Keep Patent Cases In East Texas, No Matter What SCOTUS Said
30. The Latest Scam To Protect Sketchy Patents From Patent Office Review: Sell To Native Americans
31. YouTube stream-ripping site for the masses dead in wake of RIAA suit: Youtube-mp3.org facilitated 40% of illegal stream-ripping from YouTube globally.
32. Digital Network Collab Launches New Rights Management Tool
33. Facebook Testing ‘Instant Videos’ Feature That Enables Offline Viewing
34. The no-sports streaming bundle is coming soon from Viacom, Discovery, and others: The entertainment-focused service could cost less than $20 per month.
35. Verizon customers can sue ad company over “zombie” cookies, judges rule: Judges say ad company can’t use Verizon’s arbitration clause to avoid lawsuit.
36. Uber is apparently facing a third federal criminal investigation: Uber allegedly created fake Lyft accounts to gather data on drivers and prices.
37. The first man at trial over a “gig economy” job got dismantled on cross-examination
38. Amazon’s 1-Click Patent Is About To Expire. What’s The Big Deal?
39. Canadian cities jump at chance to play host to massive Amazon HQ
40. Amazon’s New Headquarters Should Be in Hell
41. White Supremacist Threatens to Sue News Outlet Over Photoshopped Gun (That He Tweeted a Month Earlier)
42. PewDiePie Draws More Ire By Using N-Word During Live Stream
43. PewDiePie Uses Racial Slur In Livestream, Game Dev Says He’s “Worse Than A Closeted Racist”: The super-popular streamer has found himself in hot water, again.
44. PewDiePie Is Inexcusable but DMCA Takedowns Are Not the Way to Fight Him
45. PewDiePie racial slur sparks backlash from Campo Santo, Simogo: Prominent YouTube streamers brace for fallout from “liability” PewDiePie’s actions
46. Why was it so easy to weaponize copyright against PewDiePie?
47. Let’s Play Copyright Threat Raises Questions About The Law And How To Use It
48. Campo Santo legally able to file DMCA against PewDiePie over racial slur: But court costs to enforce could be “well over six figures” so dangerous defence for indies and smaller studios
49. Here’s what the law says about PewDiePie’s fight with Campo Santo: Game company wants to take down YouTube star’s livestreams after n-word incident.
50. As PewDiePie Offers Apology For Racial Slur, YouTube’s ‘Let’s Play’ Gamers Worry About Financial Fallout
51. Ted Cruz Liked a Porn Tweet and I Can’t Even Decide Which Joke to Say 
52. Cruz blames ‘staffing issue’ for porn video ‘liked’ on his Twitter account
53. No “Contract By Tweet” for Plaintiff Who Pitches Movie Idea via Social Media (Eric Goldman)
54. Congress Is About To Eviscerate Its Greatest Online Free Speech Achievement (Eric Goldman)
55. Why Has the Government Failed to Act on Copyright Notice-and-Notice When Internal Docs Raise Abuse and Fraud Concerns?
56. LinkedIn’s efforts to stop the bots
57. Bitcoin investors could lose all their money, FCA warns: UK financial watchdog spells out risk for those participating in initial coin offerings using cryptocurrencie
58. CSA Staff Narrow the Path for Cryptocurrency Offerings
59. A Debate about Google and Its Critics: Recent allegations stoke growing ‘antitrust sentiment’ about Google.
60. Can You Get Addicted to Trolling?: It’s becoming increasingly evident that, for some people, trolling isn’t just playing an a—-le on the internet.
61. News Use Across Social Media Platforms 2017 (Pew Research Center)
62. A tech critic on the sham populism of Silicon Valley: Ex-New Republic editor Franklin Foer on the expansive power of big tech.
63. There’s Blood In The Water In Silicon Valley: The bad new politics of big tech.
64. Conservatives, liberals unite against Silicon Valley: The fading of the tech industry’s bipartisan glow in Washington puts it at risk for tighter regulations.
65. Tech Is Public Enemy #1. So Now What?: If tech wants to reverse the crushing tide of negative public opinion, it must start creating public good commensurate with its extraction of private profit.
66. Teen Girls With Smartphones Flirt Most With Depression and Suicide: A spike in the teen suicide rate parallels almost exactly the rise of smartphone use, especially among teen girls, who are the most vulnerable to cyberbullying and alienation.
67. Searching For Help: She turned to Google for help getting sober. Then she had to escape a nightmare.
68. Terms Of Service Aren’t Just Annoying—They’re A Failure
69. Phones Are Changing How People Shoot And Watch Video
70. Attacked by Rotten Tomatoes
71. Hollywood’s Movies Suck, and It Doesn’t Want You to Know
72. Lawyer who sued Gawker and Techdirt has a new target: Jezebel – “Whatever he says, goes,” former Superstar Machine member “Poppy” told Jezebel.
73. AG Szpunar advises CJEU on cloud-based recording and private copying exception
74. iPhone X: Software leak appears to confirm name, features, and specs – Meanwhile, iPhone 8 is an updated iPhone 7 with a glass back, and wireless charging.
75. The Biggest IPhone Leak Yet Won’t Bruise Apple
76. How Apple Finally Made Siri Sound More Human
77. Apple, Facebook And Disney To Shake Up Video Streaming With Original Content
78. Apple strikes deal with Warner Music, looks to pay labels lower rates: More paid subscribers means less money directly out of Apple’s pocket.
79. Should Spotify Try to Become the ‘Netflix Of Music’? Not So Fast
80. Disney To Move Marvel, ‘Star Wars’ Films From Netflix To Its Own Streaming Service
81. Disney is pulling Star Wars and Marvel films from Netflix: In 2019, you’ll have to subscribe to Disney’s service to stream these movies.
82. H3h3productions Raises Over $100,000 With Twitch Live Stream To Support Hurricane Harvey Relief
83. Artificial Intelligence’s Fair Use Crisis (Benjamin L. W. Sobel)
84. For Superpowers, Artificial Intelligence Fuels New Global Arms Race
85. Putin says the nation that leads in AI ‘will be the ruler of the world’: The Russian president warned that artificial intelligence offers ‘colossal opportunities’ as well as dangers
86. Elon Musk: Competition for AI Superiority at National Level Will Be the “Most Likely Cause of WW3”
87. Following Elon Musk Letter, UK Government Plans to Ban Fully Autonomous Weapons
88. Elon Musk auto-magically extended the battery life of Teslas in Florida to help drivers evacuate
89. MIT, IBM team up on $240 million effort to rule the AI world: The open-ended research will explore consumer tech, health, and security applications
90. Apple’s ‘Neural Engine’ Infuses The Iphone With AI Smarts
91. Brain-Machine Interface Isn’t Sci-Fi Anymore
92. How Seoul Is Reinventing Itself As A Techno-Utopia
93. Every NFL Football Will Have A Data Tracking Chip This Season
94. Are Your Jokes Always Bombing? This App Crowdsources Them
95. It Took A Natural Disaster For Me To Understand Snap Map
96. The Music Industry Bands Together To Finally Get Paid Online
97. Inside Juicero’s Demise, From Prized Startup to Fire Sale: The shuttering of the much-ridiculed Silicon Valley startup was the culmination of unsustainable costs, slow sales and unflattering media reports.
98. Before trying robot judges, let’s learn from robot referees: Automated rulings in sports can help inform the development of criminal justice tech.
99. How Indian Smartphone Makers Lost the War Against Chinese Companies
100. In Irma prep, GasBuddy downloads increased 10x, nuclear reactors stayed online
101. Tesla remotely extends the range of some cars to help with Irma: An over-the-air software update temporarily unlocks spare battery capacity.
102. Hurricane Irma took 7 million cable and wireline subscribers offline: Comcast, AT&T, other ISPs try to get customers online as power outages persist.
103. How Silicon Valley is erasing your individuality
104. Whose record is it anyway? Musical ‘crate digging’ across Africa
105. Are nonprofit news sites just creating more content for elites who already read a lot of news?
106. Internet Archaeology
107. The History Of The Music Industry’s First-Ever Digital Single, 20 Years After Its Release 

CREATIVITY 

1.  Judge throws out 57-year-old copyright on “We Shall Overcome”: Pete Seeger asked for his name to be removed from the copyright in 1994.
2. Monkey selfie case settles out of court 
3. Lawsuit settled over rights to monkey’s selfie photo
4. PETA drops lawsuit arguing animals have right to own property: Naruto can beat his chest: Monkey’s habitat wins 25% stake in the selfies.
5. Monkey Selfie Case Reaches Settlement — But The Parties Want To Delete Ruling Saying Monkeys Can’t Hold Copyright
6. 9th Circuit’s VidAngel decision vindicates lawful video filtering service
7. Federal Court Says Utah Theater Can Serve Up Beer And R-Rated Movies Simultaneously
8. Another Craft Beer Brand Gets Bullied To Death Over Shaky Trademark Claims
9. Why Is This Peppa Pig Cartoon Banned In Australia?
10. Can a tattoo on human flesh be copyrighted? We’ll soon find out: Is the human body a protectable medium of expression for purposes of copyright?
11. Is Moviegoing Dead? Lessons Learned From The Worst Summer At The B.O. In Over A Decade
12. America’s local newspapers might be broke – but they’re more vital than ever: Local journalism is doing great work across the country while fighting cutbacks and tight budgets.
13. Intellectual Property and Architecture
14. Boats Are Art; Is Fashion?
15. Who Cares Whether Cake-Baking Is “Expressive”? The Doctrinal Costs of Focusing on Private Burdens Rather Than Governmental Purpose
16. UGC Uncertainty Consternation Continues 
17. Pop Stars or Porn Stars? ‘Blurred Lines’ Book Examines Music’s Role In Sexual Assault on Campus
18. Dr. Phil Misuses Copyright In A False Imprisonment Claim
19. Police Chief Says He’ll Decide Who Is Or Isn’t A Real Journalist
20. Effectively Regulating E-Cigarettes and Their Advertising—and the First Amendment (Eric Lindblom)
21. How Don Hewitt Invented 60 Minutes And Changed Journalism Forever
22. Why the Fall TV Season is Like Your Junk Drawer
23. Nicolas Cage Believes His Scrapped Superman Movie Is Better Than Man of Steel, Because It Exists Only in Our Minds
24. Imagination is ancient: Our imaginative life today has access to the pre-linguistic, ancestral mind: rich in imagery, emotions and associations

MEDIA, COMMUNICATIONS & NET NEUTRALITY

1.  TV Ad Spend To Remain Flat Through 2021 As Cord-Cutting Surpasses Projections (Report)
2. More on Media Deregulation – Chairman Pai Speaks to NAB Radio Show and Promises to Propose the Repeal of a Rule Each Month 
3. Comcast Whines That The Net Neutrality Debate It Keeps Rekindling Is A Lot Like ‘Groundhog Day’
4. Comcast Continues To Insist Its Sneaky, Misleading Fees Are Just The Company’s Way Of Being ‘Transparent’
5. Comcast Sues Vermont, Insists Having To Expand Broadband Violates Its First Amendment Rights
6. Comcast raises sports and TV fees again, says it’s about “transparency”: Charges fees even in areas where Comcast owns local sports networks.
7. Comcast puts YouTube in its TV boxes to entice would-be cord-cutters: YouTube follows Netflix to a prime spot on Comcast’s X1 set-top boxes. 
8. Senators Blast The FCC For Weakening The Definition Of Broadband To Try And Hide The Industry’s Lack Of Real Competition
9. AT&T’s John Stankey hopes to avoid a disconnect in merger with Time Warner
10. This Sinclair-Tribune merger is a rotten deal for America: What’s to be done about “the most dangerous company most Americans haven’t heard of?”
11. New analysis suggests Fox News is working, shifting votes to R column: Research relies on Americans being too lazy to keep channel surfing.
12. Dirty, big secrets: Why won’t CNN and Fox account for their mistakes? 

SURVEILLANCE & PRIVACY

1. Judge won’t release man jailed 2 years for refusing to decrypt drives: Kid-porn suspect to remain jailed pending 5th Amendment appeal to Supreme Court.
2. Remember the artist whose iPhone was searched at border? He’s suing the feds: “The border doctrine does not say that the Constitution doesn’t exist at the border.”
3. MA SJC Ruling on Bail Instructive Re: Algorithms and Criminal Justice
4. NSA Broke The Encryption On File-Sharing Apps KAZAA And EDONKEY
5. What you should know about privacy and Apple’s FaceID on iOS 11: Your rights may differ if phone is locked via biometrics compared to a passcode.
6. New AI can guess whether you’re gay or straight from a photograph: An algorithm deduced the sexuality of people on a dating site with up to 91% accuracy, raising tricky ethical questions
7. So, Equifax says your data was hacked—now what?: 143 million now face identity theft threat, so here’s what to do if you’re one of them.
8. Why the Equifax breach is very possibly the worst leak of personal info ever: Consumers’ most sensitive data is now in the open and will remain so for years to come.
9. Equifax Breach Response Turns Dumpster Fire
10. Equifax Security Breach Is A Complete Disaster… And Will Almost Certainly Get Worse
11. Why Some Are Recommending ‘Credit Freezes’ in the Wake of the Gigantic Equifax Data Breach
12. Are you an Equifax breach victim? You could give up right to sue to find out: Visiting Equifax site to see if you’re a victim can require you to waive lawsuit rights.
13. Failure to patch two-month-old bug led to massive Equifax breach: Critical Apache Struts bug was fixed in March. In May, it bit ~143 million US consumers.
14. Don’t waste your breath complaining to Equifax about data breach (Bruce Schneier)
15. Apple’s IOS 11 Will Make It Even Harder For Cops To Extract Your Data
16. It’s about to get tougher for cops, border agents to get at your iPhone’s data
17. The DNC’s Technology Chief Is Phishing His Staff. Good.
18. Mandatory Data Breach Reporting One Step Closer with Publication of Proposed Regulations

GAMES

1. FTC Settles Complaint Against ‘Let’s Play’ YouTube Stars, Sends Warning Letters To Other Influencers And Demands Responses
2. FTC demands disclosure from influencers following TmarTn CS:GO scandal – Commission rules that influencers must “clearly and conspicuously” identify links to products and services
3. YouTubers escape fines for promoting their own CS:GO gambling site – FTC settlement extracts a promise not to do it again and not much else.
4. Individual Influencers Settle With The FTC Over Undisclosed Endorsements
5. Bungie pulls Destiny 2 item resembling white supremacist symbol
6. Bungie removes hate symbol from Destiny 2: Developer says legendary gauntlets’ similarity to “Kekistan” flag was unintentional, doesn’t reflect its values
7. Religious fighting game gets Steam banned in Malaysia: Valve pulls Fight of Gods after local ISPs were ordered by government to block access to digital storefront
8. Funcom: Steam user reviews should be region gated – With “review bombs” now a common occurrence, CEO Rui Casais believes Steam should follow other stores and ditch “global” user ratings
9. Blizzard brings forward annual charity drive to provide disaster relief
10. Rovio IPO: A stark lesson in timing – Once the biggest company in mobile gaming, the Angry Birds creator now plans an IPO far more modest than its past ambitions
11. Nintendo: Switch demand might outweigh supply during the holidays
12. Nintendo wary of potential Switch shortages this holiday: Reggie Fils-Aime says “supply chain is there” but is cagey about whether platform holder will meet demand
13. Switch version of Wonder Boyoutsells all other platforms combined
14. Nintendo Switch versions of indie games outselling others: Wonder Boy, Forma.8 and Oceanhorn proving more successful than on other platforms, say devs
15. For No More Heroes dev Goichi Suda, ‘the Switch is a punk console’
16. For the first time in 15 years, Doom is coming to a Nintendo console
17. Nintendo Urges Public: Don’t Pay More Than $80 for SNES Classic
18. Nintendo bringing back NES Classic Edition in 2018: Super NES Classic Edition manufacturing to continue through next year as well
19. Behind the effort to archive Nintendo’s disappearing social network: Scraping and saving millions of posts before Nintendo deletes them all on Nov. 7.
20. Bandai Namco on the hunt for mobile mergers and acquisitions: Japanese publisher hopes to expand mobile business as it pursues global growth strategy
21. Nintendo Still Not Ready For VR, Not Enough “Truly Fun” Experiences
22. Niantic: Focus on visuals makes AR look like “a gimmick that lacks utility” – CEO John Hanke posts cool response to Apple’s reveal of the iPhone X’s capabilities
23. Nazara’s $550m plans for India’s first games industry IPO: Mumbai-based mobile games publisher preparing for public listing
24. Animal Farm developer: “I wish more games made a statement”: Imre Jele on why a team of highly experienced creators are revisiting Orwell’s 1940s classic
25. Breaking the outrage cycle: Anger and abuse from fan communities have become a routine part of the games industry, but they don’t have to be
26. Zoë Quinn: What Happened After GamerGate Hacked Me
27. Women In Games Mobile Awards winners revealed: Plus Anita Sarkeesian given honourary Hall of Fame prize
28. PAX Report: Rep. Jayapal speaks on players and political consciousness
29. Video: A game dev guide to fostering a positive community
30. Crunch mentality is ‘misguided and old-fashioned,’ says Tim Schafer
31. Facebook: “We’re going all in with esports”: The leading social network explains why it is partnering with so many developers and their professional gaming leagues
32. Facebook Pushes Further Into Esports With Paladins Partnership
33. Blizzard is opening its own eSports venue in California
34. Blizzard opening dedicated esports production facility: Blizzard Arena Los Angeles will include soundstages, practice facilities, merch store, seating for about 450 fans
35. Lambton College announces plans for academic Esports program, officially opens campus gaming arena
36. How can Riot Games fix League of Legends esports in Europe?: A prominent team has accused the European League Championship Series of being “neither rational nor fair,”, and Riot’s big changes have yet to arrive
37. Two new Overwatch League teams point to strong US emphasis – report: Houston and Philadelphia teams would give the US 8 out of 11 spots in Activision Blizzard’s new competition
38. Iron Galaxy’s Adam Boyes breaks down the pros and cons of game funding deals
39. How to avoid getting sc—ed in a game publishing deal: Indies, don’t be afraid to negotiate and realize your value, says games lawyer Zachary Strebeck
40. BIG List of Incubators, Accelerators and Funding Opportunities
41. Gaming’s move away from ownership model is inevitable – EA: Publisher’s VP of investor relations says the technology is already in place for a shift to an access model like Spotify or Netflix
42. Battlegrounds has surpassed 1M concurrent players on Steam
43. 1,300 new games have been released since Steam Direct launched: The total number of games for this year has already exceeded 2015, says Niko Partners
44. Raptr shutting down as optimization services become obsolete
45. 14 Racing Games That Want To Win Over Your Wallet: It’s a good year to be a gearhead.
46. Path of Exile Economy: Currency Trading
47. Games writers now eligible for Nebula Award: Writers also able to apply for Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America membership
48. The Secret Power of Play
49. Games aren’t always fair, the magic lies in making you think they are: Behind the scenes with the neuroscience of game design
50. Custom Xbox One S That Lights Up Revealed By Microsoft, Made In Collaboration With Chainsmokers: DJ duo behind “Closer” worked with Microsoft on this system.
51. How the longest-running web series, Rooster Teeth’s ‘Red vs. Blue,’ makes money

Jon