DIGITAL
- San Francisco Pride Members Have Voted To Ban YouTube From This Year’s Parade
- Anonymous Internet Posters Not Immune To Default Judgment
- Your online activity is now effectively a social ‘credit score’: Especially when the Morality Police get acquired.
- Facebook Still Isn’t Obligated to Publish Russian Troll Content–FAN v. Facebook (Eric Goldman)
- Who is right about political ads, Twitter or Facebook?
- Turkish Government Finally Lifts Wikipedia Ban
- Harry and Meghan, the royal family of surveillance capitalism: From tabloid nationalism to international Instagram influencers – Meghan and Harry aren’t leaving the monarchy, they are leading it.
- Brazil charges American journalist Glenn Greenwald with cybercrimes
- Brazil prosecutes Glenn Greenwald in “attack on press freedom”
- In A Blatant Attack On Press Freedom, Brazilian Government Charges Glenn Greenwald With ‘Cybercrimes’ For Reporting On Leaked Documents
- The Similarities Between The US’s Case Against Julian Assange And Brazil’s Against Glenn Greenwald Are Uncanny
- PayPal Giving Fund Enters Multi-State Settlement to Ensure Transparency to Donors
- 23 Attorneys General Band Together to Make PayPal’s Charitable Donations Platform More Transparent
- Vimeo Defeats Lawsuit for Terminating Account That Posted Conversion Therapy Videos–Domen v. Vimeo (Eric Goldman)
- Does the principle of exhaustion apply to digital media? The CJEU provides clarity
- A Sale or Not a Sale? The Digital Advertising Debate
- Are legislators too slow to respond to digital trends?
- Disney Accelerates Rollout Of ‘Plus’ Service In Key European Markets
- Bad Ideas: Raising The Arbitrary Age Of Internet Service ‘Consent’ To 16
- The Silicon Valley Economy Is Here. And It’s a Nightmare.: Low pay, soaring rents, and cities littered with e-scooters. Welcome to the future.
- The psychology of Silicon Valley: We have to understand the people behind big tech in order to fix it
- Biden wants Sec. 230 gone, calls tech “totally irresponsible,” “little creeps”: Biden had harsh words about tech, seemingly spurred by anger with Facebook.
- Critics fear Facebook fact-checkers losing misinformation fight
- Facebook Watch Axes 2 Tentpole Series Amid Reported Shift Toward Unscripted Content
- UFC Signs 3-Show Deal With Facebook Watch, Aiming To Promote Its PPV Matches
- DraftKings Comes Under Fire Following Collusion Scandal Involving “Bachelor” Stars
- Amazon retains world’s most valuable brand title by smashing through $200 billion barrier
- TikTok Moves To Five-Floor Office In Culver City, Reportedly Looking For New CEO
- TikTok Brought In 500% More Revenue, 738 Million Downloads In 2019
- TikTok Entices Brands With Self-Serve Ad Buying, But Struggles With Lack Of User Data, Few Performance Metrics (Report)
- Famous Birthdays Surpasses 25 Million Monthly Visitors, Driven By TikTok Surge
- Report: TikTok owner ByteDance planning big push into mobile games
- Spotify Reportedly In Talks To Acquire Media And Podcast Upstart ‘The Ringer’
- Spotify’s new test lets influencers post Stories to introduce their own playlists
- Instagram is testing direct messaging on desktop
- Instagram is dropping the annoying IGTV button: ‘Very few are clicking into the IGTV icon’
- Instagram’s Standalone IGTV App Has Clocked Just 7 Million Downloads To Date
- Opinion: The Dishonest and Wasteful Practice Of Influencer Marketing – Stop chasing vanity metrics and unproven tactics, and return to the fundamentals of marketing and advertising
- ASA continues to focus on Influencer Marketing in 2020
- Influencer Marketing: Top Business and Legal Considerations for 2020
- Learn From Sofia Vergara – Are Your Online Ads Legal?
- Liza Koshy’s ‘Liza On Demand’ Gets Third Season Order At YouTube Originals
- YouTube Rolls Out Profile Cards, Which Display Users’ Comment Histories (Sort Of)
- Clorox Establishes Influencer Advisory Board, Tapping Hundreds To Bolster YouTube Presence
- Bombay High Court in a Landmark Decision Restrains Review Video by Youtuber and Emphasizes on Responsible Use of the Power of Social Media
- Leading European MCN Divimove Acquires Digital Talent Firm ‘Tube One’
- Creators Going Pro: Walk Off The Earth’s Gotye Cover Went Viral On YouTube. Less Than A Month Later, They Had A Record Deal.
- Apple TV+: Can it be saved before everyone’s free trials run out?
- Netflix Now Counts 2 Minutes Of Watching As A “View” — A Change That Boosts Its Viewership Figures By 35%
- Netflix To Spend An Estimated $17.3 Billion On Content In 2020
- Studio Ghibli Signs First Streaming Deals, Bringing 21 Films To Netflix And HBO Max
- Turner Sports Pacts With Twitch On Linear And Digital Series, ‘ELeague Super Punch’
- Smart scale goes dumb as Under Armour pulls the plug on connected tech
- Microsoft pledges to wipe out its carbon footprint by 2050
- Microsoft announces plans to be “carbon negative” by 2030: Company also plans to remove all its historical carbon emissions by 2050
- The PinePhone starts shipping—a Linux-powered smartphone for $150
- The Horizons of Technology and Digitalization in Arbitration
- Canadian Securities Administrators Provide Guidance on Platforms that Facilitate Crypto Asset Trading
- Somewhere over the rainbow: Dealing with evidence stored on a cloud
- Political information in the age of the internet (Filip Matějka & Guido Tabellini)
- Nobody can see all of CES. But I tried
A.I.
- Alexa, Should We Trust You?: The voice revolution has only just begun. Today, Alexa is a humble servant. Very soon, she could be much more – a teacher, a therapist, a confidant, an informant.
- Chinese court rules that AI article has copyright (Andres Guadamuz)
- The Killer Algorithms Nobody’s Talking About: Activists fret about armies relying on killer robots, but some forms of artificial intelligence that don’t actually pull the trigger could still be a nightmare
- Update on Federal Register Notice on Artificial Intelligence (AI) Patent Issues
- The rise of AI and WIPO consultation on intellectual property issues
- Why do we get sad when robots die?: It’s not about seeming “human” – it’s about the work machines do for us.
- And an Algorithm to Entangle them All? Social Credit, Data Driven Governance, and Legal Entanglement in Post-Law Legal Orders (Larry Backer)
- Robot Rights? Let’s Talk about Human Welfare Instead (Abeba Birhane & Jelle van Dijk)
- Artificial Intelligence and Community Well-being: A Proposal for an Emerging Area of Research (Laura Musikanski, Bogdana Rakova, James Bradbury, Rhonda Phillips, Margaret Manson)
- Artificial Intelligence, 5G and the Future Balance of Power
- Intellectual Property and Artificial Intelligence
- A Tangled Web: How the Internet of Things and AI Expose Companies to Increased Tort, Privacy, and Cybersecurity Litigation
- The machines are whispering: We tested AI Dungeon 2 and cannot stop laughing
COMMUNICATIONS
- Comcast settles lying allegations, will issue refunds and cancel debts
- Four defendants settle, six remain in FTC illegal robocalling suit
- Verizon Launches New Private Search Engine In Hopes You’ve Forgotten Its Terrible Track Record On Privacy
- Verizon Kills Cable Contracts As TV Sector Finally Starts Listening To Cord Cutters. Kind Of.
- FCC shuts New York out of $20B broadband fund, and senators are angry
- Smart homes will turn dumb overnight as Charter kills security service
- Real or fake: New NBC Peacock shows
- Combating Improper Robocalls: The TRACED Act Signed into Law
- Lowest Unit Charge Windows Open in About 30 States and Territories – Reviewing A Broadcaster’s Political Advertising Obligations
- Frontier, an ISP in 29 states, plans to file for bankruptcy
- After Years Of Scandal And Incompetence, US Telco Frontier Files For Bankruptcy
- The good, the bad and the 5G – an unprecedented level of threat (and opportunity)
- Globalization, International Organizations, and Telecommunications (Kirsten Rodine-Hardy)
PRIVACY
- Report: Bezos’ phone uploaded GBs of personal data after getting Saudi prince’s WhatsApp message – The gigabytes-big data grab allegedly came over WhatsApp text from Mohammed bin Salman.
- Report Says Saudi Prince MBS’s Whatsapp Account Personally Sent Jeff Bezos Malware Used To Access His Phone
- The Secretive Company That Might End Privacy as We Know It: A little-known start-up helps law enforcement match photos of unknown people to their online images – and “might lead to a dystopian future or something”
- Reuters: Apple cut backup end-to-end encryption plans after FBI complained
- New Report Says Apple Dropped Plans To Fully Encrypt Backups After FBI Complained
- The FBI Can Get Into The Latest IPhones, So Why Is It Asking Apple To Break Encryption On Older Models?
- The EU might ban facial recognition in public for five years
- We’re Banning Facial Recognition. We’re Missing the Point. (Bruce Schneier)
- California’s Ban Of Facial Recognition Tech Killed Off San Diego’s Mostly Useless Biometric Program
- GirlsDoPorn website goes offline after $13M judgment, criminal charges
- Privacy issues with e-discovery in Canada
- WeLeakInfo gets pwned by FBI; Dutch, N. Irish police arrest alleged breach brokers
- A Georgia election server was vulnerable to Shellshock and may have been hacked
- Bipartisan Legislation Aims to Expand Federal Protections for Children’s Online Privacy
- The AdTech and the data protection debate
- Study Shows The Internet Is Hugely Vulnerable To SIM Hijacking Attacks
- Dear Reuters: This Is NOT How You Report On Dishonest, Disingenuous Talking Points From US Officials Regarding Encryption
- Another reason to hurry with Windows server patches: A new RDP vulnerability
- Researchers find serious flaws in WordPress plugins used on 400k sites
- Top Issues in 2020: Privacy & Cybersecurity
- What percentage of United States retailers have decided to block European visitors from reaching their websites?
INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY
- IP Insight – Harry and Meghan Prioritise Trade Marks
- Harry and Meghan seek global trademark for ‘Sussex Royal’ brand: Filings suggest plans for items and activities from clothing to ‘emotional support groups’
- The “M” Word in Canadian Copyright Law – The “Mandatory” Matter (Howard Knopf)
- Exceptional Circumstances Now Required for Extensions In Trademark Examination
- Peppa Pig Owner Wins Copyright Infringement Case
- Zazzle’s Insufficient Copyright Oversight Procedures Support Willful Infringement Finding
- Fifth Circuit Holds Failure to Mitigate is No Bar to Statutory Damages Under Copyright Act
- Federal Court dismisses patent infringement action for delay
- Facebook Surges in U.S. Patent Rankings Due to Mounting AR Strategy
- Trademark Opposition Stupidly Prevents Indians Pitcher Shane Bieber From Telling Everyone He’s ‘Not Justin’
- Fair use or fair dealing? Where are we now?
- A Blog’s RSS Feed May Not Grant an Implied Copyright License–MidlevelU v. Newstex (Eric Goldman)
- CRISPR Patent – “Appeal Dismissed, Patent Revoked”
- Breaking: EPO Board of Appeal upholds invalidation of Broad’s CRISPR-Cas9 patent
- Patent battle over CRISPR
- A Mixed Bag on New Rules – Juggling Copyright Preclusion and Patent Infringement
- How Sonos’s case against Google could help shift the US patent narrative
- Trade secret or patent protection – how do we decide?
- Can newly discovered cannabis compounds be protected by patents?
- Beat the Weeds: File Your Cannabis Trademarks in Canada
- Intellectual Property Outlook: Cases and Trends to Follow in 2020 – PART 1
- China update: IP section in the China-US trade deal (phase one)
- EU Advocate General suggests pay-for-delay settlement agreements may be an abuse of dominant position
- A new route to patent protection in Italy from July 2020
- The EU Copyright Directive: Potential Copyright Liability and a “Best Efforts” Standard for Platforms
CREATIVITY
- No cameras in the courtroom in Meng Wanzhou case, B.C. judge rules: 13 Canadian and international media outlets had applied for right to broadcast extradition hearing
- Why Is The NYC MTA Going After A Random Artist Who Created A Different Subway Map For Infringement?
- Radiohead.com unveils “The Radiohead Library,” an official band repository
- Radiohead Public Library: archive of band’s work goes live – Band collate music videos, newsletters and other ephemera on site, and upload rarities to streaming services
- Rep. Lieu Tells Rep. Nunes He Looks Forward To Discovery, As More Evidence Of Nunes Connections With Parnas Emerge
- Airbus Asks Court To Dismiss Chuck Yeager’s Lawsuit, Pointing Out It Doesn’t Allege Anything Actionable
- “Come See Us At The Superb Owl” – Don’t Try This At Home! 2020 Update on Super Bowl Advertising and Promotions
- Advertising – False Advertising Claims: Opting for Court
- Klimt art thieves confess to stealing then returning painting: Portrait of a Lady was hidden in same Italian gallery from which it went missing in 1997
- Additional Compliance for the Art World
- Digital Street Culture Decoded: Why Criminalizing Drill Music is Street Illiterate and Counterproductive (Jonathan Ilan)
GAMES
- California claims $10 million gender discrimination settlement lets Riot off lightly
- Nintendo Wins Battle with Pirates on UK Seas
- Court Sides With Nintendo Over RomUniverse In Atttempt To Dismiss The Former’s Lawsuit
- Court overturns $10.1 million verdict against Nintendo in Wii Remote lawsuit
- Court reverses $10.1 million judgement against Nintendo in Wii patent case
- Patent infringement ruling against Nintendo Wii Remotes overturned: Dallas federal court declares patent invalid, nullifies $10m payout to iLife Technologies
- Nintendo can continue preventing cancellation of pre-orders in Germany: Lawsuit instigated by Norwegian Consumer Council dismissed, but may be appealed
- Unsubtle Rainbow Six Siege DDoS dealers hit with Ubisoft lawsuit
- Ubisoft files lawsuit against site that enabled Rainbow Six Siege DDoS attacks: Publisher claims group behind ShortNameGame sold the software used to disrupt the game
- Crytek, Cloud Imperium battle over how to end Star Citizen lawsuit
- Cloud Imperium responds to Crytek’s attempt to dismiss its own lawsuit: Star Citizen developer maintains engine providers claim “is and always has been meritless”
- Researchers Scientifically Create Video Games To Benefit Cognitive Function
- UK’s top mental health nurse wants crack down on loot boxes
- NHS mental health director calls for loot box ban: UKIE responds, emphasising that industry already addresses spending caps and disclosed drop rates
- UK lays out standards for handling children’s data: Information Commissioner finalizes Age Appropriate Design Code with 15 standards for developers to meet
- Joe Biden Can’t Tell The Difference Between The 1st Amendment & Section 230; Still Thinks Video Games Cause Violence
- Women suing Riot Games may be entitled to $400m not $10m: Two state regulators attempt to intervene with gender discrimination class action lawsuit in plaintiffs’ favour
- The top 7 reasons women quit game development
- Game dev union leader: “Dream job” passion “can open us up to exploitation”
- Activision Blizzard, EA, Sony, Microsoft included in HRC’s 2020 Corporate Equality Index
- GTA developer Rockstar pushes back against UK tax abuse allegations
- Rockstar responds to claims it abuses tax relief: But Grand Theft Auto developer makes no comment on reports it has not paid corporate tax in four years
- The best-selling games of the decade show AAA was left behind by innovation | Opinion: The games industry has made great strides forward in the past ten years – but none of that is apparent in the retail charts
- Stillfront Group acquires Dragon Story dev Storm8 for as much as $400 million
- Stillfront Group acquires Storm8 for up to $400m: Game studio coalition also raises $220m in additional financing
- Current Prison Architect developer Double Eleven opens Malaysian office
- Digital Bros. to buy Starbreeze assets from Smilegate: The €19.2m deal will give Italian publisher 30% of Starbreeze stock and 40% of voting rights
- Tencent wants to fully acquire Conan Exiles developer Funcom
- Tencent bids to acquire 100% of Funcom: Proposed deal would value the Norwegian studio at around $148 million
- Tencent intends to further diversify investments outside of games
- Tencent ramping up investments – but may veer away from games: Having already poured money into eleven games firms, Chinese giant is concentrating on new industries such as ‘smart retail’
- Daybreak Games restructures internal studios around key franchises
- Following Cyberpunk delay, CD Projekt Red expects dev team crunch
- Cyberpunk 2077 release pushed back to September 17, 2020
- CD Projekt Red delays Cyberpunk 2077 from April to September
- Cyberpunk 2077 pushed to September: CD Projekt reveals that development staff have been required to crunch on upcoming RPG
- Dying Light 2 delayed, no new release window given: Techland drops spring release target for open-world zombie shooter, says it will have more details “in the coming months”
- Leaked images show Xbox Series X is missing Xbox One’s HDMI input
- Xbox continues to expand Project xCloud’s preview library as testing continues
- Microsoft goes all-in on the ‘evergreen platform’: Bowing out of launch exclusives for Xbox Series X means Microsoft is now fully committed to the bold vision it’s talked about for so many years
- Report: Major PlayStation-exclusive series will get a PC port this year
- Report: The Switch Lite topped 1 million sales in Japan in three months
- Switch sales up 29% in Japan for 2019 as PS4 sales drop 29%: Famitsu numbers have hardware unit sales flat for the year; Switch Lite moves more than 1 million in just over three months
- YouTube TV comes to PS4, replacing PlayStation’s own doomed TV service PS Vue
- YouTube TV comes to PS4 as PS Vue moves out: Sony hardware maintains a live TV option at about the same price
- Google expects 120 games to hit Stadia this year, including some exclusives
- Stadia embracing timed exclusive strategy: Google says it wants to have more than 10 games debuting only on its streaming service in the first half of this year
- BT becomes first European partner for Google Stadia: Google attempts to address Stadia lag problems with new high-speed broadband deal
- Report: Google wants to bring the Steam game store to… Chrome OS?
- NetEase launches own digital distribution platform in China
- OpenCritic reviews have been added to the Epic Games Store
- Epic Games Store avoids review bombing with OpenCritic integration: Review aggregation site will display how many critics recommend purchase on each title’s store page
- Scopely acquires Marvel Strike Force dev FoxNext Games from Disney
- Disney confirms sale of FoxNext, Cold Iron Studios to Scopely: Acquisition does not include Fox IP licensed games, which will stay with Disney
- Significant layoffs at Super Lucky’s Tale developer Playful Studios
- Playful Studios “significantly reduces” full-time staff: Super Lucky’s Tale devs undergoes layoffs amid transition to new production model
- Amazon’s Twitch Drops Sharp after YouTube, Microsoft Say ‘Game On’
- Only YouTube Gaming saw hours watched, streamed, and concurrent viewership up last quarter: Streamlabs – Twitch viewership began a decline in 2019, but other platforms have a long way to go to catch up
- Video: YouTuber Mark “Markiplier” Fischbach reflects on his video history
- Call of Duty Modern Warfare was the best-selling game of the year in the US: But Nintendo thrived in hardware and software sales at the end of its competitors’ console generations
- Grand Theft Auto V was the best-selling game of the decade in the US: Joining it in the top ten – Seven Call of Duties, Red Dead Redemption II, and Minecraft
- UK Charts: Star Wars Battlefront II returns to Top Five: Otherwise, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare is No.1 again
- Dragon Ball Z and 3DS conquer latest UK Charts
- The transcendent appeal of Mount & Blade Warband – Why I Love: The difficulty got John Nejady interested in TaleWorlds’ medieval battle game, but the community he found made it something more
- Why the traditional product lifecycle “maybe doesn’t apply” to League of Legends: After ten years, League of Legends is still one of the most popular games on earth and Riot Games is riding that wave into new spaces
- Report: PS4 exclusive Horizon Zero Dawn could come to PC
- Horizon Zero Dawn reportedly coming to PC: Current PS4 exclusive may be part of suggested Sony strategy to “lean into a wider installed base”
- Don’t Miss: Designing the stealth, economy, and encounters of Horizon Zero Dawn
- Don’t Miss: Making Horizon Zero Dawn’s Machines feel like living creatures
- 2020 African Games Industry Trends: Games Industry Africa’s Vic Bassey forecasts seven key storylines for the continent’s developing market in the year ahead
- Media firm behind Autosport plans to “change the landscape” of racing games: Ex-Codemasters creative director Stephen Hood on how the new Motorsport Games group can disrupt the market
- What is the best game engine for your game?: In-depth guides to finding the best game engine to develop your game, including Unreal, Unity, GameMaker, and more
- How to apply for Video Games Tax Relief and make a VGTR claim
- China Leading Esports Boom: More than a quarter of Internet users in China watch esports at least once per month, a new report finds, more than double the rate of audiences in the U.S. and Western Europe.
- Turner Sports Pacts With Twitch On Linear And Digital Series, ‘ELeague Super Punch’
- Oculus Go Now Permanently Priced at $150, All Supported Countries to See Similar Drop
- Every classic Half-Life game is now free on Steam
- Valve Makes All ‘Half-Life’ Games Free to Play Until ‘Half-Life: Alyx’ Launches in March
- Valve: ‘Half-Life: Alyx’ Dev Team is the ‘single largest we’ve ever had’
- Valve opens up about Half-Life: Alyx, Source 2 engine on Reddit
- No plans for a full Source 2 SDK, and other tidbits from Valve’s Half-Life: Alyx AMA
- Valve Confirms ‘Left 4 Dead’ VR Game Not in Active Development
- Designing the mind-bending perspective puzzles of Superliminal
- Don’t Miss: Deconstructing the success of The Witcher 3’s open world
- Q&A: Evolving the combat design of id Software’s Doom Eternal
- Blog: Resources for video game music composers – The big list 2020
- Blog: How to keep adding content without hitting a limit
- Blog: Is your 21st century games career what you thought it’d be?
- Blog: Video game marketing predictions for 2020
- Video: How to talk about games with those who don’t approve
- Video: A performance and memory postmortem of Middle-earth: Shadow of War
- Humble Bundle joins efforts to raise money for Australian bushfire relief: Meanwhile, Warframe dev Digital Extremes donates $30,000 to two chairties
- U.S. Patent no. 10,278,001: Multiple listener cloud render with enhanced instant replay
- U.S. Patent no. 10,279,252: Game execution environments
Jon