DIGITAL
- YouTube Suspends Donald Trump Indefinitely, Demonetizes Rudy Giuliani
- Parler’s attempt to get back on Amazon Web Services rejected by judge
- Judge Easily Rejects Parler’s Demands To Have Amazon Reinstate Parler
- Court Rejects Parler’s Demand That Amazon Host Its Services (Eric Goldman)
- This site posted every face from Parler’s Capitol Hill insurrection videos
- Facebook calls in its Oversight Board to rule on Trump ban
- Facebook’s Oversight Board to Decide on Trump Ban
- Oversight Board Agrees To Review Facebook’s Trump Suspension
- Donald Trump Permanently Suspended from Twitter
- Insights: The Donald’s Digital Death Penalty—Deplatforming, Politics, And The Future Of Social Media
- Disingenuous, Lying, Whining, Bloviating, Insurrection Encouraging Senator Josh Hawley Given Pages Of Major Newspaper To Explain How He’s Being Silenced
- Parole Violator Who Raided Senate Building Sold Out By The GPS Unit Attached To Him For Previous Parole Violations
- Let’s fix Facebook’s content issues
- California Appeals Court Says Section 230 Immunizes Twitter From Banned User’s Lawsuit
- Dozens Of Human Rights Group Tell Congress: Do Not Gut Section 230 On Our Behalf; It’ll Do More Harm Than Good
- Twitter is opening up its full tweet archive to academic researchers for free
- De-platforming Is a Fix, But Only a Short-Term One
- Have Social Media Companies Become Too Powerful?
- Twitter launches ‘Birdwatch,’ a forum to combat misinformation
- Planning to Sue Twitter Over an Account Suspension? YOU WILL LOSE–Murphy v. Twitter (Eric Goldman)
- Website ADA Lawsuit Filed Against Golden State Warriors
- NLRB Approves Workplace Social Media Policy Limiting Employees’ Online Communications
- EFF Tells Louisiana Court Satire Is Still Protected Speech Even If The Government Doesn’t Get The Joke
- Unfiltered: How YouTube’s Content ID Discourages Fair Use and Dictates What We See Online (EFF)
- Big Tech worldwide nerulation: not if, but how
- Google agrees to pay French news sites to send them traffic
- Google: We’ll shut down Australian search before we pay news sites for links
- Google Threatens To Pull Out Of Australia Entirely; Australians Demand That It Both Stay And Pay News Orgs For Giving Them Traffic
- Court Tosses RICO Lawsuit Demanding $90 Million And The Dissolution Of Google For Supposed Anti-Conservative Bias
- Google Maps will soon show COVID vaccine locations
- Google takes Tilt Brush open source as official development comes to an end
- Sexual Harassment: Now Digital and Still Happening
- Silicon Valley Takes the Battlespace
- The history of the connected battlespace, part one: Command, control, and conquer
- Why Red Hat killed CentOS—a CentOS board member speaks
- Antitrust and the Tech Industry
- Role Reversal: Ninth Circuit Rejects Consumer’s Attempt to Enforce Updated Arbitration Provision in Website Terms of Use
- Former US Ambassador Sues Apple Because Telegram Users Are Making Him Feel Scared
- House Republicans Have A Big Tech Plan… That Is Both Unconstitutional And Ridiculous
- How Can Conservatives Fight Back Against Big Tech? For A Start, Just Be Sane Again.
- Not just MagSafe: Apple reminds users not to hold iPhones near pacemakers
- Apple reports double-digit sales booms for every product category in Q1 2021
- Loon’s bubble bursts—Alphabet shuts down Internet balloon company
- FTC Reaches Multi-Million Dollar Settlement With Ticket Brokers in its First BOTS Act Case
- Southwest Airlines Sues to Stop Web Scraping of Fare Information
- Labor Board Approves Carefully Crafted Social Media Policies
- FOSTA Survives Constitutional Challenge–US v. Martono (Eric Goldman)
- Comments on the “Protecting Constitutional Rights from Online Platform Censorship Act” (Eric Goldman)
- Lawyer Can’t Sue Google for Bad Client Review–Lewis v. Google (Eric Goldman)
- Content Moderation Case Study: Facebook Targets Misinformation Spread By The Philippines Government (2020)
- Content Moderation Case Study: Social Media Upstart Parler Struggles To Moderate Pornography (2020)
- Mirroring Qualifies for Section 230–Monsarrat v. Newman (Eric Goldman)
- An alternate dimension: Virtual influencers
- Instagram Launches Professional Dashboard For Creators Building Businesses
- The Number Of Channels Monetizing Via YouTube’s Partner Program Doubled In 2020, CEO Says
- YouTube Issues Significantly Expanded Guide To Self-Certification, Asks For Creator Feedback
- JoJo Siwa Allegedly Swatted By Paparazzi After Coming Out As Part Of LGBTQ+ Community
- Jake Paul Signs With Triller And Snoop Dogg-Owned ‘The Fight Club’ For April Boxing Bout
- Jake Paul To Battle UFC Fighter Ben Askren In Upcoming Triller Boxing Match
- Invite-Only Chat App Clubhouse To Develop Creator Monetization With Series B Funding
- Genflow, Which Helps enceruencers Build Their Own Brands, Raises $11 Million
- IAC’s Vimeo Raises $300 Million At $5.7 Billion Valuation, With Spinoff Slated For Next Quarter
- Vimeo Rolls Out Lead-Generation Integrations With Mailchimp, HubSpot, Constant Contact
- ‘Selma,’ ‘When They See Us’ Filmmaker Ava DuVernay Signs Exclusive Podcast Deal With Spotify
- Byte, Clash Merge To Take On TikTok
- Italian Data Protection Authority Orders TikTok To Block Underage Users Following Death Of 10-Year-Old Girl
- This Tiktok star uses astrology to predict bitcoin prices
- TikTok Testing Q&A Tool, Enabling Creators To More Seamlessly Respond To Viewer Inquiries
- TikTok Launches ‘Creator Portal’, A Hub For Educational Resources, Best Practices, More
- TikTok Helps Push 17-Year-Old Olivia Rodrigo’s “Drivers License” To No. 1 Billboard Debut
- TikTok To Lay Off Most Indian Staffers After Country Makes Ban Permanent (Report)
- Public Actors Without Public Values: Legitimacy, Domination and the Regulation of the Technology Sector
- A class for itself? On the worldviews of the new tech elite
- Evolving Trends in the Production and Distribution of Streaming Media
- Privacy, Digitalization, Rule of Law Some Contemporary Challenges
- Crypto Asset Regulation: Is the US or UK Keeping Up Best With This Emerging Market?
- Break the Backlog: The Durable Conclusions from the Online Courtroom Project
A.I.
- Valve’s Gabe Newell imagines “editing” personalities with future headsets: “Remember when Bob got hacked by Russian malware [and] ran naked through forests?”
- Facebook’s Post-Insurrection Purge Catches A Bunch Of Left Wing Accounts In Its AI Net
- Algorithms and consumer harm: CMA publishes new research paper and launches call for information
- Research and analysis – Algorithms: How they can reduce competition and harm consumers (Competition & Markets Authority, U.K.)
- A short primer on patenting AI and machine learning inventions at the European Patent Office
- Towards a deliberative framework for responsible innovation in artificial intelligence
- Sidewalk-robot startup celebrates 1 million deliveries
- Waymo CEO dismisses Tesla self-driving plan: “This is not how it works”
- AI and Life Sciences: Has protein folding been solved?
- AI Update: UK Parliament Research Briefing on AI in the UK Healthcare System
- Andrew Gray and the AI Boot Camp
- Scale AI Valued at $3.5B After Series D Fundraising Round
COMMUNICATIONS
- Report calls for powerful new federal body to regulate social media
- Telecoms Paused PAC Spending To Insurrectionists, But Their Umbrella Lobbying Orgs Didn’t
- Democrat Jessica Rosenworcel replaces Ajit Pai, is now acting FCC chairwoman
- Rosenworcel Announces Staff Appointments
- New Interim FCC Boss Jessica Rosenworcel Will Likely Restore Net Neutrality, Just Not Yet
- SpaceX adds laser links to Starlink satellites to serve Earth’s polar areas
- CenturyLink, Frontier missed FCC broadband deadlines in dozens of states
- Outgoing FCC’s Last Act Is A Delusional Report That Pretends US Broadband Is Wonderful
- FCC Issues Declaratory Ruling on Pole Attachment Costs and Pole Replacements
- Biden Fires Steve Bannon Protege, Who Tried To Turn Voice Of America Into A New Breitbart
- Broadband Monopolies Keep Getting Money For Networks Never Fully Deployed
- AT&T eats a $15.5 billion impairment charge as DirecTV debacle continues
- AT&T may keep majority ownership of DirecTV as it closes in on final deal
- New US rules target use of Chinese IT and communications goods and services
- FCC Seeks Comment on Permitting Mobile Services in 12 GHz Band
- FCC’s Annual Broadband Deployment Report Shows Digital Divide Closing
- Can public service broadcasting survive Silicon Valley? Synthesizing leadership perspectives at the BBC, PBS, NPR, CPB and local U.S. stations (Erik Martin)
INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY
- Software-Generated “Infringement Report” Supports $262,931 in Remedies For Copyright Infringement
- Securing Copyright and Trademark Rights for Broadcasts and Promotions Related to NFL Championship Games and Super Bowl LV (55)
- Sony Music Entertainment v. Cox Communications (USDC, Virginia: January 12, 2021): Denies ISP’s post-trial motion to reduce $1 billion statutory damages award in copyright infringement action.
- The Tricky Issue of Joint Authorship in Copyright Works
- BMG, Aggressive Champion Of Copyright Enforcement, Accused Of Copyright Infringement By Jehovah’s Witnesses
- CASE-ing the Joint: The Copyright Alternative in Small-Claims Enforcement Act
- Turns Out That Brexit Means Rotting Pigs’ Heads, And Losing An EU Copyright Exception
- Finds Alleged Parody Fails on Copyright Fair Use Factors but Passes Rogers Test to Avoid Trademark Liability
- Sports data rights in 2021: the outlook
- Trademarks in 2020: Notable Canadian trademark cases and developments
- Are Trademark Injunctions Continuing their Awakening from Hibernation?
- Top 5 trademark considerations every cleantech entrepreneur should know
- Pearl Jam v Pearl Jamm
- Proud to Be an American, God Bless The USA, But Not Functioning as A Trademark
- What’s Cookin’? No Likelihood of Confusion Between Two KITCHEN Marks
- Tommy Hilfiger invalidates trademark piggybacking on its iconic flag logo
- Brizzy v. Vizzy: Molson Coors Obtains Cheers-Worthy Trademark Ruling at Fifth Circuit
- “Lettuce Turnip the Beet” Pun on T-Shirts Not Trademark Use, Ninth Circuit Affirms
- Trademarks and Expressive Works
- Stay A Lot More Than Six Feet From The NFL’s Trademarks! 2021 Update on Super Bowl Advertising and Promotions
- Laches and Acquiescence in Trademark Proceedings
- More ‘failure to function’ refusals in 2020
- Generic.com Terms are Not Ineligible for Registration
- Trademark Law Updates – Fees, Fraud and Injunction Presumptions
- January 2021 Trademark Update
- US Trademark Amendment Act Will Provide New Procedures for Challenging Use Claims
- UDRP on Gameroom.com: Facebook keeps its domain name
- How does Brexit affect European Trademark Rights?
- Can I keep my .eu domain name?
- Who’s on the Line?: Protecting Your Trade Secrets on Zoom Calls
- Pepper Spray Manufacturer’s Successful Self-Defense Reinforces Best Practices for Design Patents
- Rothy’s v Giesswein – English Court leaves a lasting mark on EU Community design rights
- Federal Court of Appeal Cautions Against Use of Foreign Prosecution History
- Federal Court of Appeal affirms summary judgment in patent prosecutions: Court also upholds interpretation of file wrapper estoppel in precedent-setting case
- Federal Court continues trend of granting summary judgment in appropriate patent proceedings
- Federal Court upholds validity of two patents pertaining to ELIQUIS
- Non-practicing entity’s allegations of patent infringement against oil sands producer /operator dismissed
- Choueifaty patent application found to possess patentable subject-matter
- Federal Court finds silodosin formulation patent valid but not infringed
- Patent Appeal Board Allows Dosage Regimen Claims – No Physician Skill Needed
- PMPRB proposes to modify Guidelines definition of “gap medicine” to include medicines sold by July 1, 2021
- Patentee’s Success Story in a Hatch-Waxman Litigation Case
- A New Application of an Abstract Idea Is Still Abstract: Court Affirms Dismissal Under § 101
- Patentee Cannot Cure Lack of Written Description by Reference To Matter Present Only Foreign Priority Application
- Happiest Baby’s SNOO patent Rocks Baby Automatically
- Illuminating insufficiency: the English Patents Court examines “Regeneron ranges”
- Regeneron Recast – Mr Justice Birss provides illuminating insight into the law of sufficiency
- UKIPO “Green Channel” – can the patent system encourage more innovation in green technologies?
- Cannabis: Patents in Europe
- Senate Passed New Legislation to Punish Foreign Individuals and Corporations for IP Theft
- Biden administration promises hard stance against Chinese IP abuses
- Intellectual Property Issues for Foreign Enterprises Acquiring Chinese Companies
- Critical and curious terms from the world of Intellectual Property
- Top Enforcement Issues to watch in 2021
PRIVACY
- The CPPA’s Privacy Law Enforcement Regime
- ADT Tech Spied On Women For Four Years Before Getting Caught By Accident
- Britain Helps Children Learn From Home By Procuring Them Laptops Preloaded With Russian Malware
- North Korea hackers use social media to target security researchers
- Military intelligence buys location data instead of getting warrants, memo shows
- NYPD Still Blowing The Public’s Money To Keep The Public From Seeing The NYPD’s Misconduct Records
- New Yorkers Receive Postmortem Rights and Protection Against Digitization of Sexually Manipulated Content in New Right of Publicity Statute
- Chrome and Edge want to help with that password problem of yours
- Home alarm tech backdoored security cameras to spy on customers having sex
- Flo Period App Gets A Wrist Slap For Sharing Private Health Data
- United Kingdom: Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) issues statement on SolarWinds Orion compromise
- Amazon Ring App Found To Be (Again) Exposing User Locations, Home Addresses
- Court approves grocery store data breach settlement
- Appeals Court Rejects Clearview’s Attempt To Dodge A State Lawsuit By Trying To Make It A Federal Case
- 2020 Privacy Year In Review
GAMES
- Québec law firm files latest Nintendo Switch Joy-Con drift lawsuit: Lambert Avocat seeking compensation for all Québec consumers who bought Switch controllers since August 2017
- European Commission called to investigate into Joy-Con drift
- BEUC calls for Joy-Con Drift investigation after receiving 25,000 complaints
- Valve on trial for allegedly infringing controller patents: The Steam Controller is accused of being based on a patent belonging to SCUF
- US Court dismisses Wargaming lawsuit against former employees
- Jagex disputes Plutos Sama’s claims of ownership: RuneScape dev calls RICO lawsuit against former owner “meritless,” says it was fully acquired by Carlyle Group
- Runescape developer Jagex has been acquired by The Carlyle Group
- FTC Reaches Settlement with Tapjoy for Allegedly Deceiving Consumers About In-Game Rewards
- Mobile Ad Company Settles FTC Charges Over Misleading In-Game Rewards
- Epic’s Fortnite v Apple dispute arrives in the UK
- How Final Fantasy VII Remake legitimizes sexuality and gender identity
- Twitch bans Donald Trump’s account indefinitely
- Twitch indefinitely suspends account of former U.S. President Donald Trump
- Twitch permanently bans Trump, will update policy after Capitol siege: Streaming site says recent events have raised concerns over “rhetoric that encourages violence”
- Twitch’s new harassment policy goes into effect today: What’s new
- Activision Is Resisting Diversity Hiring Push by America’s Unions
- Activision Blizzard says interviewing diverse candidates for every opening “unworkable”
- Scavengers Studio creative director accused of belittling, screaming at, groping employees
- Report: Scavengers Studio co-founder allegedly groped, screamed at employees
- Scavengers suspends co-founder Simon Darveau
- Scavengers CEO steps down, suspends creative director after abuse allegations
- MAGFest executive director resigns after accusations of abusive behavior
- So, Uh, What’s Up With GameStop’s Stock?
- GameStop stock hits new highs as Redditors and stock market short sellers wage war
- For Basically No Reason, Gamestop’s Stock Price Is Rollercoastering In A Tug Of War Being Fought On Reddit
- The complete moron’s guide to GameStop’s stock roller coaster
- A Fight Over GameStop’s Soaring Stock Turns Ugly: The denizens of the WallStreetBets subreddit helped push the flailing stock to dizzying heights – while a short seller alleged an accompanying harassment campaign.
- How WallStreetBets Pushed GameStop Shares to the Moon
- Discord bans r/WallStreetBets server (for hate speech)
- GameStop share price reaches record high amid Reddit-driven short squeeze
- GameStop shares continue to soar following Elon Musk tweet
- GameStop stock soars, craters, closes up
- GameStop stock up 135% in 24 hours, Biden administration “monitoring the situation”
- All eyes on GameStop stock: The White House is now ‘monitoring the situation’
- Google halts Play Store ‘review bombing’ by GameStop traders
- Google Play bans video app for standard “.ass” subtitle support
- The Pokémon Company takes measures against Sword and Shield hackers
- The Pokemon Company is clamping down on Sword, Shield, and Home hackers
- Rovio quietly shutters game streaming service Hatch
- EA forms new studio Full Circle to revive Skate franchise
- Codemasters directors to vote in favour of EA bid
- Codemasters’ directors vote in favor of $1.2 billion EA acquisition
- Huuuge Games IPO could raise almost $400m
- Developers should be wary of the IPO’s siren call | Opinion:
- As CD Projekt Red’s Cyberpunk woes turn legal, developers with an eye on the stock market should think carefully about doing business under that level of scrutiny
- Cyberpunk 2077’s launch month sets digital sales record despite refunds
- Was the Cyberpunk 2077 launch a perfect storm? | This Week in Business
- CDPR working to navigate physical Cyberpunk 2077 returns as refunds roll out
- How India’s shifting political climate is influencing local game development
- Romania: Copyright Perspective – Legal nature of Video Games
- New York Times Decides Kids Are Playing Too Many Video Games During The Pandemic
- Dead by Daylight studio apologises following developer comments about colourblind mode
- Plex adds game-streaming as paid add-on, completely botches the landing
- Xbox Live price increase reversed after less than one day
- Microsoft’s rolled back its Xbox Live Gold price increase
- Xbox Live Gold price hike reversed, service to no longer be required for free-to-play games: After outcry, Microsoft reverses course and goes a step further
- Xbox U-turns on Gold subscription price hike after fan backlash
- Opinion: Xbox’s Gold pricing flipflop & Game Pass ramifications
- Xbox Series X|S launches help push Microsoft gaming revenue up 51%
- Microsoft earnings: Xbox hardware sales shot up 86% with Series X/S
- Xbox revenue up 51% in a quarter defined by Game Pass growth, Series X|S debut
- Xbox Game Pass driving revenue at Microsoft after crossing 18 million subscribers
- Here’s Every Game Coming to The PlayStation 5 And Xbox Series X In 2021
- Can the games industry keep its COVID customers?
- Epic Games Pushes Into Film With Funding For Animated Feature ‘Gilgamesh’
- Using player-avatar relations to make more engaging and successful games: Avatars can be the key to offering more intense and satisfying game experiences, and inspiring loyalty among players
- Steam ‘prologues’… do they really help?
- Hitman 3 surpasses its predecessor to claim No.1 | UK Boxed Charts
- Hitman 3 recoups project costs in under a week
- IO Interactive’s Hitman 3 made back its dev costs in a single week
- FIFA 21 was Europe’s best-selling boxed game in 2020
- Switch expanding the console market, says Interpret
- What a Wipeout spiritual successor can teach investors about games
- Capcom raises forecasts thanks to growing digital sales
- Capcom raises full year earnings forecast thanks to strong digital sales
- Resident Evil VIII gets May release date, massive preview, playable demo
- Digital sales now make up 91 percent of Focus Home Interactive’s revenue
- Hyrule Warriors drives record Q3 for Koei Tecmo
- Deep Rock Galactic has topped 2 million sales
- Konami restructuring internal departments, has not dissolved games development teams
- Tencent acquires minority stake in Dontnod
- Tencent picks up minority stake in Dontnod for $36.3 million
- Tencent invests 30 million euros into DONTNOD, funding self-publishing
- Sagard NewGen nabs minority stake in Flight Simulator dev Asobo Studio
- Blizzard absorbs acclaimed Activision studio as a dedicated “support” team
- Vicarious Visions merged into Blizzard
- Vicarious Visions is now a part of Blizzard Entertainment
- DualShockers acquired by GRV Media
- Jagex sold to Carlyle Group
- RuneScape publisher Jagex acquired by The Carlyle Group for at least $530 million
- Team 17 acquires Golf With Your Friends franchise for $16.4 million
- Team17 acquires Golf With Your Friends for £12m
- Nacon acquires Big Ant Studios for €35m
- Nacon acquires Cricket 19 developer Big Ant Studios for $42.5 million
- Azerion fully acquires Habbo Hotel developer Sulake
- Habbo developer Sulake to be fully acquired by Azerion
- Imvu receives $35m investment
- Together Labs nets $35 million to fund avatar-based social platform IMVU
- MegaDev secures $1.9m for PC cheat platform Plitch
- Huuuge ambitions: How a $300m IPO will make the Polish mobile studio last forever
- Sagard NewGen acquires minority stake in Asobo Studio
- Tencent made record number of games M&A deals in 2020
- Tencent acquires majority stake in Klei Entertainment
- Games projects raised $23m on Kickstarter in 2020
- The rise of Fall Guys and how Mediatonic plans to take it higher
- The Esports Industry Grew; Now It’s Time For It To Grow Up
- PlayVS expands to Canada with GameSeta acquisition
- Epic pledges $20 million for Fortnite esports in 2021
- Rival Peak reaches 22m views
- GamersNexus’ Steve Burke overclocks his YouTube channel’s best comments
- Apple reportedly planning VR headset for next year
- Report: Apple’s VR headset will be a pricey, high-end niche standalone
- PSVR 2 could be the hottest VR headset yet | Patent Trawling
- Pokémon Crystal keeps us interested by telling us less | Why I Love
- The ‘fab four’ game marketing maxims to live by
- Blog: The scary secrets of horror design from Silent Hill 4
- Blog: Everything you need to know about LiveOps in 2021
- Blog: Microtransations and the race to the bottom
- Blog: Using data-driven lessons from Academia: School Simulator to understand discounts
- Blog: A design discussion on Death Stranding
- Video: Behind the massive crowds of Assassin’s Creed Unity
- Video: The tech behind Inkle’s interactive film scripts
- Don’t Miss: The Cabal – Valve’s design process for creating Half-Life
- Don’t Miss: How Monster Hunter: World’s director breathed new life into the series
- The Last of Us Part II leads the 2021 DICE Awards nominations
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