DIGITAL
- Facebook Charged Biden a Higher Price Than Trump for Campaign Ads: In swing states, Biden paid average ad rates of $34 compared with Trump’s average of $17 in July and August
- The Trump Camp Has Bought YouTube’s Masthead Ad 20 Times This Election—Including On Election Day
- What Twitter Did After Trump Said Democrats Are Trying to “STEAL” the Election
- Trump’s campaign and family boost bogus conspiracy theories in a bid to undermine vote count: Campaign sent estimated 9 million texts according to anti-robocall firm, some seeking money to launch voting challenges
- Court tosses constitutional challenge to Trump order on social media
- Facebook targeted in U.K. legal action over Cambridge Analytica
- Facebook sued by UK group over Cambridge Analytica breach
- Insights: Social Media Platforms’ Election-Protection Plans A Start, But Not Nearly Enough Change For Long-Term
- What The Election Means For Tech
- While Social Media Was Quick To Highlight And Limit The Spread Of False Claims Of Election Victory, Traditional Media Just Let It Flow
- Another Court Rejects Trump’s Censorial Anti-TikTok EO–Marland v. Trump (Eric Goldman)
- Judge: Trump Admin‘s TikTok ban would cause “irreparable harm” to creators
- Three TikTok Influencers Influenced A Judge To Block Trump’s TikTok Ban
- TikTok Countersues Triller, Says Its Tech Doesn’t Violate Patent
- TikTok Re-Ups Licensing Deal With Sony, Adding Marketing, Artist Discovery Components
- Nixon Scandal Resulted In A Law To Prevent The Politicization Of Antitrust Cases; Meanwhile Trump Uses His Politicized Antitrust Effort In Campaign Ad
- As Trump falsely claims victory, Twitter and Facebook counter misinformation
- How Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Reddit are handling the election
- Turkish President Sues Dutch Lawmaker Over A Bunch Of ‘Insulting’ Tweets
- U.S. Department of Justice Sues Google for Antitrust Violations
- Google Kills Nest Secure, Can’t Be Bothered To Explain Support Roadmap
- Senate hauls Zuckerberg, Dorsey into hearing to yell at them about tweets
- The Senate Snowflake Grievance Committee Quizzes Tech CEOs On Tweets & Employee Viewpoints
- A Digital Tech New Deal to break up Big Tech: Antitrust efforts in the US are not enough to counter the global power of Big Tech.
- NZ Supreme Court Gives A Mixed Bag Extradition Ruling To Kim Dotcom; Extradition Still Alive, But He Can Raise Procedural Issues
- Transparency Is Important; Mandated Transparency Is Dangerous And Will Stifle Innovation And Competition
- Constitutional Challenge to Trump’s Anti-230 EO Fails–Rock the Vote v. Trump (Eric Goldman)
- Free Market Advocate Switches Sides, Calls For Direct Government Interference In Online Moderation Decisions
- Trump campaign out $2.3 million after hack of Wisconsin GOP
- Changing Section 230 Won’t Fix Politicians’ Issues With Section 230
- Twitter, Facebook, Google Heads Testify on Section 230 and Local Journalism
- Your Problem Is Not With Section 230, But The 1st Amendment
- Snapchat Isn’t Liable for Its Speed Filter (Even if Section 230 Doesn’t Apply)–Maynard v. Snapchat (Eric Goldman)
- Creators Are Starting To Make A Lot Of Money On Facebook
- Facebook’s Handy Identity Crisis: Publisher or bulletin board? Can it really give up news sharing? Why the tech giant works hard to resist definition.
- Facebook Takes Aim at NYU Web Scrapers
- This microscopic 3D-printed Star Trek Voyager can move on its own
- Apple One, Apple’s answer to Amazon Prime, is finally launching
- On The Podcast: All The Reasons Why Quibi Didn’t Work
- A Quick Bite Post Mortem For For Quibi: Hollywood Still Doesn’t Get The Internet
- BEN Group Acquires YouTube Channel-Optimizing Browser Extension ‘TubeBuddy’
- YouTube Hits $5 Billion In Ad Revenue, 30 Million Premium And Music Subscribers In Q3
- YouTube Soundtracking Service Epidemic Sound Launches ‘Music Recommender’ Tool For Creators
- Ryan Kaji Becomes First YouTuber To Be Featured In Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade In Roughly A Century
- “Baby Shark” Overtakes “Despacito” To Become YouTube’s Most-Watched Video Of All Time
- Tati Westbrook Sued By Former Business Partner In Her Halo Beauty Vitamin Venture
- David Dobrik Links Up With Leonardo DiCaprio For Second Voter Registration Contest
- Google says it’s “committed” to Nest Secure but won’t ship any new features
- Senate hauls Zuckerberg, Dorsey into hearing to yell at them about tweets
- Netflix Raises Subscription Prices In The U.S., Causing Shares To Jump 4%
- Spotify CEO Says ‘The Joe Rogan Experience’ Is No. 1 English Podcast, Has “Outperformed Our Expectations”
- Filtering feminisms: Emergent feminist visibilities on Instagra
- Creator Community Standard Beefs Up In-House Video Production With Acquisition Of Studio Mighteor
- The Ongoing Transformation of the Digital Public Sphere: Basic Considerations on a Moving Target
- Decentralize the feedback infrastructure! (Pedro Garcia Lopez)
- Revisiting the Black Box Society by rethinking the political economy of big data (Benedetta Brevini, Frank Pasquale)
- Dark pools and data markets: an exploration of the regulatory challenges
- The Janus faces of Silicon Valley
- Freedom of Expression and Alternatives for Internet Governance: Prospects and Pitfalls (Emma Ricknell)
- A Digital Tech New Deal: Digital Socialism, Decolonization, and Reparations for a Sustainable Global Economy (Michael Kwet)
- California votes against granting Uber and Lyft drivers employee status
- Who Needs to Tell the U.S. Internal Revenue Service About Their Cryptocurrency Activity?
- US Bank Crypto Services Proceed, Crypto Debit Cards Launch in US and Mexico, Blockchain Enterprise Developments, and Crypto Enforcement Continues
- Someone has transferred ~$1 billion from a bitcoin wallet quiet since 2015
A.I.
- A new way to plug a human brain into a computer: Via veins
- Acknowledging AI as an Inventor of IP – A Slippery Slope to Giving AI the Same Rights as Humans?
- AI use in U.S. criminal justice reinforced racialized decision-making: Law Commission of Ontario
- Racial Discrimination in Face Recognition Technology
- Legal and Ethics Checklist for AI Systems
- Draft Proposal for the Regulation of Ethical AI
- Weak Ties: The Urban History of an Algorithm
- Patent protection of machine learning and artificial intelligence inventions in Europe
- “Oh Jeeeesus”: Drivers react to Tesla’s full self-driving beta release
- Tesla raises “full self-driving” price from $8,000 to $10,000
- Connected cars must be open to third parties, say Massachusetts voters
- Content Moderation Case Study: Moderating An Anonymous Social Network (2015)
- Content Moderation Case Studies: Using AI To Detect Problematic Edits On Wikipedia (2015)
- Video: Character control with neural networks in Assassin’s Creed
- More Than a Feeling: Emotion detection doesn’t work, but it will try to change your behavior anyway (Frank Pasquale)
- No longer sci-fi: our bodies as computers
- Apply for UK Government funding for robotic AI by 20 November 2020
COMMUNICATIONS
- Altering the broadcasting landscape – Canada’s Broadcasting Act to be amended
- Feds propose changes to Broadcasting Act that may raise $800 million from streamers: New regulations would ensure streaming platforms face same rules as traditional broadcasters
- Broadcasting Act Amendments
- The Government’s Internet Regulation Bill: Why Bill C-10 Will Mean a CRTC-Approved Netflix Service, Reduced Consumer Choice, and Less Investment in Canadian Culture (Michael Geist)
- Heritage Minister Steven Guilbeault’s “Get Money from Web Giants” Internet Regulation Bill: An Unauthorized Backgrounder (Michael Geist)
- What’s Another Way Supporters of Mandated Facebook Media Payments Promote Their Position? Paid Facebook Advertising (Michael Geist)
- The tech antitrust problem no one is talking about: Americans pay more for broadband, have fewer choices than consumers in other countries.
- Monopolistic U.S. ISPs Take Full Advantage Of The Covid Crisis
- “Stay Home” robocalls to voters prompt FBI, FCC investigations
- FCC forces T-Mobile to pay $200 million fine for subsidiary Sprint’s fraud
- Time to Treat Broadband Like the Essential Service It Is
- The Enormous Cost Of Digital Inequality
- Cable TV Execs Move Past Denial Stage, Now Fully Expect A ‘Cord Cutting’ Bloodbath
- FCC Approves All-Digital AM Radio Broadcasts
- FCC Establishes $9 Billion Fund to Support 5G Services in Rural America
- FCC to Lift Freeze on TV Station Technical Improvement Applications
- More on the FCC Rule Changes on Public Notice of Broadcast Applications and Required New Link on Station Homepages
- Comcast Tells Customers They May Lose Access To Comcast Channels If Comcast Can’t Agree With Comcast
- What’s New in 5G – November 2020
- Audiovisual Media Services Regulations 2020 Made
INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY
- Use Your Illusion: Rights in posthumous holographic performance
- Intellectual Property & Architecture – Copyright Protection in Focus
- Tenth Circuit Breathes New Life into a Spooky Skeleton Copyright Dispute
- Protect Your Posts: New Group Copyright Registration Option for Online Blogs and Articles
- The US election: a vote on IP?
- New Working Paper – Memes and Parasites: A discourse analysis of the Copyright in the Digital Single Market Directive
- Canada: Official marks can lead to damages for infringement of regular trademarks, according to Canada’s Federal Court of Appeal
- Procedures and strategies for anti-counterfeiting: Canada
- Ninth Circuit: Likelihood of Confusion Required to Sustain TM Counterfeiting Claim
- Hallmark Win in Greeting Card Trademark Dispute: Court Finds Unauthorized Sale of Cards Meant for Destruction Infringing
- Neat infringement claim leaves whiskey competitor’s trade mark on the rocks
- Counterfeit luxury goods
- Brand protection in the digital world
- Distilling the value of corporate trademarks
- Descriptive Use of a Registered Trademark is not Infringement
- Slogans as marks: when does a slogan function as a mark
- Trademark Cancellation Is Appropriate Sanction for Misconduct
- Cookie Trade Dress Infringement Case Crumbles in Face of Functionality Challenge
- A Clear Need: To Allege Misappropriation, Identify Trade Secret
- CIPO’s Patentable Subject-Matter Guidance – Same Code, Different Syntax
- The Canadian Patent Office Releases New Guidelines: The Diagnostic’s Industry Should Be Cautiously Optimistic
- Canadian Patents: What to Keep in Mind One Year After the Coming into Force of the New Rules?
- The Intersection between Drop-Shipping and Patent Infringement
- The Changing Patent Landscape in the Semiconductor Space
- Size Matters in Obviousness Analysis
- Marathon musings – Patenting running watch algorithms in Europe
- Five Patents You Should Know About for Halloween 2020
- Courtrooms and the America’s Cup – Patent infringement set to be the latest out-of-water battle
- A “Bitterly Divided” Federal Circuit Declines to Stay Decision Invalidating Car Driveshaft Patent
- Clearing the 5G Patent Forest!
- People With Silly Patents Would Really Like It If It Was Harder To Cancel Them
- Final PMPRB guidelines released
- “Zombie” Privacy & IP Rights: Protecting the Rights to an Individual’s Image after Death: Part 1 of 2
- “Zombie” Privacy & IP Rights: Protecting the Rights to an Individual’s Image after Death: Part 2 of 2
- How Might New Supreme Court Justice Barrett Rule on IP Cases?
PRIVACY
- Alberta Court of Appeal rules that searches of electronic devices at the border are unconstitutional
- Cybersecurity Among Factors Driving Privacy Law Reform in Canada
- Use of Facial Recognition Software for Customer Analytics
- California Voters Approve New Data Privacy Law
- California Voters Pass Proposition 24 – the California Privacy Rights Act
- California Passes Proposition 24: California Privacy Rights Act to Become Law
- California Voters Approve Reworking of Landmark Consumer Privacy Law – What CCPA 2.0 Will Mean for Businesses and Consumers
- Clearview Resurfaces To Make Some Empty Promises About Keeping Cops From Abusing Its Tech
- Portland, Maine has voted to ban facial recognition
- Risks and Compliance Under the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act: No Actual Harm Required for Private Cause of Action
- One Clear Message From Voters This Election? More Privacy
- Stanford Research Shows VR Users Can Be Identified Using Only 5 Minutes of Motion Data
- How the Upcoming Election Could Change Privacy Law in the U.S.
- Google’s Project Zero discloses Windows 0day that’s been under active exploit
- EFF Asks Government To Dump DHS’s Plan To Massively Expand Its Biometric Collections
- Senator Wyden Wants To Know If The NSA Is Still Demanding Tech Companies Build Backdoors Into Their Products
- ICO fines Marriott 18.4 million pounds for failing to secure customer data
- A New Wave of Class Action Lawsuits is Targeting Online Customer Tracking
- UK Privacy Regulator Dramatically Reduces Fine for British Airways’ GDPR Violations
- Swiss-U.S. Privacy Shield Invalidated by Swiss Commissioner
- Dr. Strangenet—or, how I stopped worrying and embraced the WFH IT apocalypse
CREATIVITY
- Trump Appointee Removes ‘Firewall’ Preventing Administration From Meddling In VOA Reporting
- President-For-Life Hopeful Donald Trump Issues Executive Order Mandating ‘Patriotic’ Education For Kids
- Johnny Depp loses high-risk libel trial against NGN and Dan Wootton
- To Prevent Free, Frictionless Access To Human Knowledge, Publishers Want Librarians To Be Afraid, Very Afraid
GAMES
- Bandai Namco, AtGames resolve legal dispute: Judge dismisses lawsuit over Ms. Pac-Man rights, clearing way for re-release of AtGames’ Namco arcade microconsole
- EA fined €10m over loot boxes as Dutch court sides with gambling authority: District court unmoved by FIFA publisher’s defenses, denies its bid to keep fines from being made public
- Dutch judge rules that EA should be fined €500k every week until it removes FIFA loot boxes: FUT Had Been Deemed In Violation Of Gambling Rules
- Opening Pandora’s Loot Box? Canadian Class Action Lawsuit Over Loot Boxes May Provide Guidance On The Legality of Loot Boxes in Canada
- Sony legal threat compels PS5 faceplate company to cancel all orders: CustomizeMyPlates also had to rebrand from PlateStation5 following complaints from platform holder
- Judge rejects Google’s attempt to push Epic case to October 2022: Fortnite firm has suggested February 2021 as judge tells both companies to “get moving”
- Amazon patents method of grouping toxic players together online: Patent filing suggests gamers would be able to specify preferences for the behaviours they would accept
- Ubisoft investigating after ransomware group claims to have leaked Watch Dogs source code: 560GB code for Legion reportedly available online, could endanger anti-piracy measures
- Reports of Watch Dogs Legion source code leak prompts Ubisoft investigation
- Take-Two Finds Less Success with Second Take on Copyright and Tattoos
- Randy Orton’s Tattoos Divide Courts as Gamers Prepare for PS5 and Xbox Series X
- 2020 is already a record year for games investment: $5.2 billion in investment in Q3 alone brings the year’s total to $9.9 billion so far
- Scopely raises $340 million at $3.3 billion valuation as mobile games thrive during pandemic
- Newzoo raises its annual games industry forecast for 2020 once again: COVID-19’s impact on the market expected to bring industry revenue to $174.9 billion this year
- Billy Mitchell’s Defamation Case Against Twin Galaxies Over ‘Donkey Kong’ High Score Can Go Forward
- Opportunity for Game Publishers & Developers: Over a Quarter of Western Lapsed Gamers Are Looking to Play Again
- Lab Zero founder Mike Zaimont suspended from work on Guilty Gear update
- Standing on the shoulders of Riot Grrrl: Story Juice and punk feminism in games: “When you can’t see your stories and perspectives in an industry, then you have to put them there,” says studio founder Dr Hannah Wood
- Game developers have too much job security | 10 Years Ago This Month
- Biden/Harris Campaign Deploys Custom ‘Fortnite’ Map To Teach Voters About Key Policies
- Old School Runescape breaks concurrent player record during Leagues II event
- Is the games industry open to working class people?
- Black representation in games | Podcast
- Twitch Marketing Promo Over Golden Emoji Goes Horribly Wrong After DMCA Nuclear Strike
- Hasan Piker’s Twitch Stream Is the Future of Election Night Coverage: Last night’s Twitch stream was so thoroughly modern that I was actually able to calm down.
- Elastic Audio announces Intonal, a new audio programming language for games: CEO Andrew Beck says Intonal would allow game sound design to be as reactive and adaptive as graphic design
- Pokémon Go’s 2020 revenues estimated at $1bn so far: Niantic game on course to record its best year ever, third biggest mobile game globally
- Digital and catalog sales continue to drive growth at Capcom
- Capcom’s games business rescues six-month results: Total revenue and profits increased despite the impact of COVID-19 on arcades and amusement centres
- Frostpunk board game raises over €2m on Kickstarter
- Guild Wars 2 pauses Steam plans to focus on expansion development
- Steam rolls out built-in playtest invite and management tool beta for devs
- The Lego Group helps Builder’s Journey dev Light Brick go independent
- PUBG Mobile has ceased operations in India due to government ban: Tencent statement defends protection of user data — “we deeply regret this outcome”
- Tencent shutting down PUBG Mobile in India following government ban
- Tencent leads $25 million investment in Avakin Life dev Lockwood Publishing
- Tencent invests in Lockwood Publishing: Chinese tech giant leads a $25 million investment round in the Avakin Life creator
- Tencent-owned Honor of Kings is recording 100 million average daily active users
- Sega Sammy sells off arcade business as COVID takes its toll
- Sega Sammy sells arcade business Sega Entertainment to Genda Inc: Company says arcades suffered due to COVID-19; expects “extraordinary losses” for fiscal year related to the sale
- Gfinity cuts costs, seeks stability following another year of losses: Operating loss for the year was £5.5 million as company ponders acquisitions, partnerships, or sale
- Zynga posts record quarterly revenues, bookings: Social publisher sees even more acquisitions in its future as revenue, engagement metrics grow, but net loss remains
- Stillfront acquires collectible card game developer Everguild for $1.37 million
- Stillfront Group acquires Everguild for £1.06m: Studio collective expands into the CCG genre with Madrid-based developer
- Curve Digital acquires For the King developer IronOak Games
- Curve Digital acquires IronOak Games: Canadian studio behind For the King becomes Curve’s second studio acquisition
- UK startup Sugar closes £1.5m pre-seed round: Passion Capital leads investment in new firm offering finance to games studios wishin to avoid equity funding
- Phil Spencer: “Our motivation is not to turn everybody into a subscriber” – The Xbox chief renewed his commitment to retail and said Game Pass is not here to “take options away from people”
- Phil Spencer calls for more diverse leaders in games: Having “visible leaders” should be the industry’s focus, Xbox chief said, addressing the role Microsoft has to play against racial inequity
- Bethesda exec says an Xbox-exclusive Elder Scrolls is “hard to imagine”
- Bethesda, Microsoft Make Conflicting Statements About Game Exclusivity After Studio Purchase
- Microsoft tightens Xbox security to prevent DDOS attacks: Xbox players were being targeted through “random party invites” in multiplayer titles
- Xbox Party Chat security is being improved to protect IP addresses
- PlayStation boss prefers organic studio growth over ‘frenzied’ spending
- PlayStation CEO Jim Ryan on making PS5 more successful than PS4: “I’ve done them all, and this has easily been the most extraordinary PlayStation launch of any of them.”
- Sony expects PS5 to exceed PS4’s 7.6m launch sales this fiscal year: But CFO Hiro Totoki says each unit will make a “negative contribution to earnings for the time being”
- The big boost – PlayStation Plus & Fall Guys’ success?
- Does PlayStation need to buy more games studios? | Opinion: With Microsoft snapping up major studios and publishers in recent years, we consider the implications for Sony
- Sony reportedly puts a stop to third-party PS5 faceplate plans
- War Stories: How Nintendo sold the NES to a skeptical country
- Bringing more franchises to mobile is Activision Blizzard’s biggest opportunity, says COO
- Activision-Blizzard needs to hire 2,000 people to meet production demands: Publisher to beef up for franchise-focused strategy a year and a half after laying off 800
- Activision Blizzard reports $1.95 billion in revenue
- Activision Blizzard beats forecasts with $1.95 billion in Q3 net revenue
- Call of Duty drives Activision Blizzard revenues up 52% year-over-year: Modern Warfare reboot sets franchise record for first-year premium sales as engagement dips for Blizzard, King
- Far Cry 6, Rainbow 6 Quarantine delayed: Ubisoft pushes upcoming games into next fiscal year as it reports record profits for first half of year
- Live games keep cash flow steady as Ubisoft readies for big launches
- Some current-gen Ubisoft games are forward compatible on Xbox but not PlayStation
- Ubisoft ‘undertook profound actions’ to address studio culture concerns, says CEO
- Ubisoft’s strong earnings benefit from live service games and back catalog sales during pandemic
- Facebook’s cloud isn’t for the birds | Opinion
- CD Projekt Red’s stock fell 25% in two months amid Cyberpunk uncertainty: Negative stories about the production and release of Cyberpunk 2077 coincided with €2.5b decline in market cap
- CD Projekt attributes new Cyberpunk delay to working with current-gen consoles: Co-CEO Adam Kiciński apologizes to staff for “demeaning and harmful” comments about crunch during investor call
- CD Projekt: Cyberpunk crunch ‘not that bad’, ‘mostly’ hits QA, engineers, programmers
- Developer talent representation evolving alongside the industry: CAA head of games Derek Douglas discusses how Hollywood agencies have handled gaming over his 15-year career
- Friday the 13th: The Game winds down with final patch, end of dedicated servers
- Skate 3 returns to top three ten years after release | UK Digital Charts: But FIFA 21 remains at the top
- Soft opening week for Watch Dogs Legion and Pikmin 3 | UK Physical Charts: New Dark Pictures game breaks Top Ten
- What could game publishers be doing better?
- Gears Pop! to shut down as long-term support becomes unfeasible
- Light Brick Studio splitting off from Lego: Builder’s Journey developer goes indie with investment from Lego Ventures, will continue to work on Lego games
- Caspar Lee-Founded Fund Invests In Spanish Creator Monetization Startup ‘Streamloots’
- Oculus Quest 2 pre-orders were five times higher than Oculus Quest: Mark Zuckerberg sets a target of “ten million active units” to make Facebook’s VR platform self-sustaining
- PlayStation boss suggests the ‘meaningful’ future of VR is still years away
- Jim Ryan: “We’re more than a few minutes from the future of VR” – PlayStation’s CEO said VR will not be “meaningful component of interactive entertainment” until at least 2022
- Sony to give away adapters to allow VR use on PlayStation 5: PSVR is not compatible with the PS5 out of the box, but Sony will start shipping adapters for free from the end of October
- The PlayStation 5 only supports PlayStation VR for PS4 games right now
- Saved by Morrowind, striving for Starfield: Todd Howard and the story of Bethesda
- Blog: Breaking down the level design of Die Young: Prologue
- Blog: A study on modern mobile design
- Blog: What I learned after making an Among Us-like game in 10 days
- Blog: What is the Unity Asset Store and how to make money on it?
- Video: Designing the robot dinosaurs of Horizon Zero Dawn
- Video: Creating Michelangelo’s David in VR
- Don’t Miss: The six year journey to Donut County
- Don’t Miss: Game dev advice for creating terrifying and memorable 2D monsters
- Don’t Miss: Building the PvE features in World of Warcraft: Battle for Azeroth
- Don’t Miss: Building a light-hearted puzzle game around Friday the 13th
- Don’t Miss: 6 techniques to make game narratives more dynamic
- Video: Building a writer’s room for Life is Strange: Before the Storm
- Mobile game sales deep dive: Meteorfall: Krumit’s Tale
- Thanks To Fair Use, One Man Is Trying To Preserve Old School Video Game Manuals
Jon