News of the Week; December 30, 2020

DIGITAL

1. Ninth Circuit Says Amazon Isn’t “Seller” of Marketplace Items–State Farm v. Amazon (Eric Goldman)
2. Amazon Acquires Podcast Network Wondery In Reported $300 Million Deal
3. Amazon still hasn’t fixed its problem with bait-and-switch reviews
4. European Union Rules: Facebook Hopes Limits on Apple, Too
5. Facebook Isn’t a Constructive Public Trust–Cameron Atkinson v. Facebook (Eric Goldman)
6. Chinese Government Sentences Journalist To Four Years In Jail For Reporting On The Spread Of The Coronavirus
7. Reddit clone Voat, home to hate speech and QAnon, has shut down
8. Computer repairman suing Twitter for defamation, seeks $500 million
9. Repair Shop Owner Who Supposedly Had Hunter Biden’s Laptop Sues Twitter For Defamation… Has Lawsuit Tossed The Same Day
10. Private party app pulled from App Store by Apple
11. Ushering in a new age of accountability for big tech- UK government response to Online Harms White Paper consultation
12. EU turns the screw on Big Tech: The Digital Services Act Package
13. Revamp image rights to fight deepfakes (Andres Guadamuz)
14. Washington State Attorney General’s Office Announces $65,000 Settlement with Online Retailer for Illegal Online Tobacco Sales
15. Unimpressed Judge Tosses One Of Devin Nunes’ SLAPP Suits Against The Washington Post
16. When You Can’t Innovate, You Litigate: Oracle Gleefully Takes Credit For Attacks On Section 230 And Google
17. House overrides Trump veto, defying demand to repeal Section 230
18. McConnell introduces bill tying $2K stimulus checks to Section 230 repeal
19. Mitch McConnell Using Section 230 Repeal As A Poison Pill To Avoid $2k Stimulus Checks
20. Coalition Of Internet Companies Who Are Decidedly Not ‘Big Tech’ Raise Their Voices About The Importance Of Section 230
21. Who’s responsible for content posted on the Internet? Section 230, explained
22. Section 230 Isn’t A Subsidy; It’s A Rule Of Civil Procedure
23. 2H 2020 Quick Links, Part 2 (Section 230) (Eric Goldman)
24. Content Moderation Case Study: Profanity Filter Causes Problems At Paleontology Conference (October 2020)
25. Content Moderation Case Study: Understanding Cultural Context To Detect Satire (2020)
26. Elsevier Wants To Stop Indian Medics, Students And Academics Accessing Knowledge The Only Way Most Of Them Can Afford: Via Sci-Hub And Libgen
27. After 2020’s Crucial Role In Our Lives, Social Media Will Face A Far More Critical 2021
28. Discord Raises $100 Million, Rolls Out Much-Requested Feature Amid Boom In User Acquisition
29. WW1984 lassos solid box office return, record downloads for HBO Max
30. TikTokers’ Collaborative ‘Ratatouille’ Musical To Star Wayne Brady, Tituss Burgess, Adam Lambert
31. Google Is Testing A Search Feature That Exclusively Serves Short Videos From TikTok, Instagram
32. MrBeast, Jimmy Fallon, MatPat, And More Join YouTube’s NYE Special ‘Hello 2021’
33. ‘Wonder Woman 1984’ Was Watched By “Nearly Half” Of HBO Max Subscribers On Christmas Day
34. TikTok Taps Brittany Broski, Lil Yachty To Host Live New Year’s Eve Festivities
35. Ontario Amends Rules of Civil Procedure to Embrace Virtual Proceedings and Electronic Processes
36. All I want for Christmas is an awesome new curriculum
37. Divers recover a WWII Enigma Machine from the Baltic Sea

A.I.

1. Google develops an AI that can learn both chess and Pac-Man
2. House of Lords Committee publishes new report “AI in the UK: No Room for Complacency”
3. Facial Recognition Helps New Jersey Cops Jail The Wrong Man For Ten Days
4. 2020 In Review: An AI Roundup
5. Why AI is so power-hungry

COMMUNICATIONS

1. FCC Seeks Input on FM Booster “Zonecasting” Proposal 
2. FCC Threatens Large Fines Against Landlords Who Allow Pirate Radio Broadcasts on Their Property 
3. Congress Appropriates $7 Billion to Fund Broadband Initiatives
4. Impact of Section 889’s Telecommunications and Video Surveillance Equipment Prohibitions on Federal Grant and Loan Recipients
5. Verizon’s Latest 5G Innovation: A 5G ‘DSS’ Network That’s Slower Than 4G
6. Comcast’s Pandemic Price Hike Bonanza Continues
7. FAA finally sets rules for piloting small drones

INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY

1. Ninth Circuit Provides Holiday Win to Copyright Owners with Fair Use Decision
2. Neoprene Tote Bags: Watertight Not Copyright
3. Corellium notches partial victory in Apple iOS copyright case 
4. The Man With The Tiger Tattoo Prances Forward*
5. Copyright Claims Board To Be Established; Criminal Streaming Law 
6. Substantial similarity in copyright: It matters where you sue
7. EUIPO report on online copyright infringement of film, TV and music – so what’s popular?
8. 2H 2020 Quick Links, Part 1 (Copyright) (Eric Goldman)
9. US Trademark and Copyright Reforms Accompany COVID-19 Relief 
10. A brand story: Santa and Coca-Cola 
11. Girl Scouts Continuing To Fight Boy Scouts Of America Over Trademarks, Branding 
12. Congress Passes the Trademark Modernization Act
13. Avoid New Trademark Email Scams
14. Brexit – Are you prepared? Pending UK Trade Mark proceedings: 3 key points to remember 
15. UDRP: hydroquébec.com 
16. Design disputes: combatting copycats with a collection of IP rights – Freddy SPA v Hugz Clothing Ltd 
17. Snapshot: procedure for design registration in USA
18. Quebec Court finds price and revenue calculation provisions of amended PMPRB Regulations unconstitutional 
19. Federal Circuit Finds Video Signal Conversion Claims Patent Ineligible 
20. Senators Tell The USPTO To Remove The Arbitrary Obstacles Preventing Inventors (Especially Women Inventors) From Getting Patents 
21. Why Everyone Is Patenting Software Inventions 
22. Inventions behind the music: From Eddie Van Halen to Michael Jackson and beyond 
23. Towards a Better Patent System for Europe: The Unified Patent Court (UPC)
24. Chinese Court Rules that It Can Set Patent License Terms outside China 
25. The Wuhan Submarine surfaces at Christmas, to be met by a Texan TRO
26. Lewis Hamilton’s IP struggles highlight some important issues
27. Cloud computing: A brief overview of intellectual property issues “in the cloud” 

PRIVACY

1. Responding to the SolarWinds Breach: Compliance and Oversight Considerations
2. ICO issues statement on potential data breaches resulting from the recent SolarWinds Orion cyber-attack
3. United Kingdom: Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) issues statement on SolarWinds Orion compromise
4. Five Things to Do in Response to SolarWinds Compromise
5. Marriott and BA fined a combined £38.4m for data security failures
6. Tweeting Tardy: Twitter fined $500,000 for GDPR breach
7. Canada: Watch out, GDPR – Canada proposes strict new privacy law framework backed by significant fines
8. Brexit Deal Keeps EU-UK Data Flows Open as Parties Pursue Mutual Adequacy
9. The Deal is There! EU-UK Trade Agreement Facilitates Data Transfers
10. Brexit Deal Copied And Pasted Recommendations For Netscape, Outdated Encryption
11. How your digital trails wind up in the hands of the police
12. How Sweepstakes Compliance Can Save Your Reputation
13. Can a litigant use an access request as a means of obtaining quasi-discovery?
14. Still Not ‘Going Dark:’ Device Encryption Still Contains Plenty Of Exploitable Flaws
15. 2020 had its share of memorable hacks and breaches. Here are the top 10
16. The decade-long quest to stop “Spamford” Wallace

GAMES

1. CD Projekt Red investors sue company over Cyberpunk 2077 debacle
2. Apple reportedly warns devs of more app takedowns in Chinese App Store
3. What makes for a good game publishing contract?
4. Nier: Automata surpasses 5 million shipped
5. Steam’s end of year bonanza gets ‘experimental’
6. Blackstone makes big investment in mobile ad firm Liftoff
7. Parents Who Gift Quest 2 to Kids Under 13 Years Old are in for an Unfortunate Surprise
8. Games of the Year 2020 | Xbox Game Pass
9. Moving Out | Games of the Year 2020
10. Gamasutra’s Best of 2020: Kris Graft’s top 5 games (+1)
11. Gamasutra’s Best of 2020: The top 10 games of the year

Jon