News of the Week

DIGITAL

1. Hollywood’s Use of “Stolen” Computer Technology Tests Ownership Theories: In a bid to dismiss a lawsuit, Disney, Fox, and Paramount distinguish between human and technological output.
2. Hulu Becomes First Streaming Service To Win Best Drama Emmy For ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’
3. To Fix Its Toxic Ad Problem, Facebook Must Break Itself
4. Exclusive: Facebook Silences Rohingya Reports of Ethnic Cleansing – The social network says it’s committed to helping the world ‘share their stories.’ But when people from Burma’s oppressed minority post, their stories have a habit of disappearing.
5. Facebook Enabled Advertisers to Reach ‘Jew Haters’: After being contacted by ProPublica, Facebook removed several anti-Semitic ad categories and promised to improve monitoring.
6. Could Facebook Have Caught Its ‘Jew Hater’ Ad Targeting?: “Facebook can monitor the things it does that make it money.”
7. Facebook’s Offensive Ad Targeting Options Go Far Beyond “Jew Haters”
8. Trump Retweeted A Video From An Anti-Semitic Account Showing Him Hitting Hillary Clinton With A Golf Ball: The original poster had previously tweeted several anti-trans and racist statements.
9. The Real Trouble With Trump’s ‘Dark Post’ Facebook Ads
10. Google Allowed Advertisers To Target People Searching Racist Phrases: Google prompted BuzzFeed News to run ads targeted to keywords like “black people ruin neighborhoods,” then allowed the campaign to go live.
11. Facebook’s Reckoning Draws Nearer: Sooner or later, the company will be forced to take on the responsibilities that come with being the world’s dominant news distributor.
12. ­Facebook’s war on free will: How technology is making our minds redundant
13. Should Facebook Ads Be Regulated Like TV Commercials?: The company’s sales to a Russia-connected troll farm raise big questions about free speech in advertising and beyond.
14. Alt-Right Twitter App Developers Sue Google After Gab.Ai App Is Kicked Out Of The Play Store
15. Google Paid HTC $1.1 Billion To Turn Itself Into A Phone Maker
16. Google/HTC deal is official, Google to acquire part of HTC’s smartphone team: $1.1 billion deal means HTC will still exist, while Google beefs up its hardware team.
17. Female ex-Googlers sue, claiming sex discrimination: Three former Googlers say women were funneled into less lucrative “job ladders.”
18. The Pao Effect Is What Happens After Lean In
19. Lost Context: How Did We End Up Here?: Facebook and Google’s advertising platforms are out of control. That used to be a good thing. Now…not so much.
20. Twitter rival Gab sues Google over app store rejection: Gab, an app popular with the alt-right, says Google violated antitrust law.
21. Twitter rival Gab faces domain loss over extremist content: After anti-Semitic post, registrar gives Gab five days to find a new provider.
22. The Super-Aggregators And The Russians
23. Facebook’s Russia data: What Mueller may learn
24. A Fishy Wikileaks Dump Targets Russia For A Change
25. New Group Of Iranian Hackers Linked To Destructive Malware
26. Snopes And The Search For Facts In A Post-Fact World
27. Unwanted ads on Breitbart lead to massive click fraud revelations, Uber claims – Uber: We paid Fetch Media for “nonexistent, nonviewable, and/or fraudulent advertising.”
28. Here’s a real-life, slimy example of Uber’s regulator-evading software: “In using Greyball, Uber has sullied its own reputation,” Portland says.
29. Waymo wants Uber to pay $2.6 billion in damages—just for starters: It’s the first hint of what Waymo might want as compensation for alleged theft.
30. Appeals court rejects Uber’s attempt to dodge trial: No arbitration – And, Levandowski can’t stop Waymo lawyers from reading a report on his startup.
31. Faced with a trove of new evidence in Uber case, Waymo asks to delay trial 
32. Uber: We don’t have to pay drivers based on rider fares – Contracts allow rider fares to be higher than what is known and paid to drivers.
33. Drone delivery startup is about to begin commercial operations: Startup envisions hundreds of drone delivery stations across metro areas.
34. Digital transformation: How machine learning could help change business – ML has more than just a learning curve to overcome before it transforms business.
35. HTML5 DRM finally makes it as an official W3C Recommendation: 30.8% of W3C members disapproved of the decision.
36. EFF Resigns From W3C After DRM In HTML Is Approved In Secret Vote
37. HP Brings Back Obnoxious DRM That Cripples Competing Printer Cartridges
38. Adding clickbait title isn’t false advertising or fraud on author Dankovich v. Keller, 2017 WL 4081852, No. 16-13395 E.D. Mich. Sept. 15, 2017 (Rebecca Tushnet)
39. 5 reasons why people share fake photos during disasters
40. Do the distracted boyfriend memes infringe copyright?
41. The Blacklock’s Perfectly Predictable Costs Appeal Dismissal & a Preview of Potential Problems (Howard Knopf)
42. The Senate Is Close To Undermining The Internet By Pretending To ‘Protect’ The Children
43. Why SESTA Is Such A Bad Bill
44. The Wrong Answer to a Serious Problem: Senator Wyden’s testimony to the Senate Committee on Commerce at the legislative hearing titled “S.1693, The Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act of 2017”
45. The Top Ten Myths About SESTA’s (S. 1693) Impact On Startups
46. Senator Blumenthal Happy That SESTA Will Kill Small Internet Companies
47. Is There A Single Online Service Not Put At Risk By SESTA?
48. Free Software Foundation Europe Leads Call For Taxpayer-Funded Software To Be Licensed For Free Re-use
49. The Sex Trafficking Fight Could Take Down A Bedrock Tech Law
50. Music Industry Is Painting A Target On YouTube Ripping Sites, Despite Their Many Non-Infringing Uses
51. YouTube Apologizes To ‘Red’ Subscribers Who Were Served Ads, Says Fix Is In The Works
52. Yes, You Can Believe In Internet Freedom Without Being A Shill
53. Regulating Hate Speech?
54. The rise of AI is sparking an international arms race: Elon Musk thinks it’s the most likely cause of WWIII.
55. The AI Chatbot Will Hire You Now
56. AI: Scary for the Right Reasons
57. AI built profiles for every individual is a reality
58. AI Research Is In Desperate Need Of An Ethical Watchdog
59. Can Competition Act address Big Data cases?
60. Big data and Innovation: Implications for competition policy in Canada
61. Big data may become big antitrust concern
62. Google Chrome To Block Autoplay Videos With Sound Beginning In January
63. Google Chrome will block autoplay video starting January 2018: Only muted video and user “interest in the media” will be allowed by default.
64. Chrome Will Soon Block Autoplay Videos With Sound—Here’s Why You Should Be Worried
65. YouTube TV, Now Available In Eight More Areas, Nears Completion Of US Rollout
66. These Are The Types Of Influencers Who Get Paid Most Per Sponsored Post (Study)
67. Snapchat Is Pulling Out All The Stops For This Year’s Emmy Awards
68. Crowdfunding platform Patreon secures $60M investment
69. Are We Asking Too Much From Defamation Law? Reputation Systems, Adr, Industry Regulation And Other Extra-Judicial Possibilities For Protecting Reputation In The Internet Age: Proposal For Reform (Emily Laidlaw)
70. The Political Awakening of Silicon Valley: What happens when tech leaders, like Y Combinator’s Sam Altman, believe our system is broken? They treat it like a startup. 
71. “Skip intro”: Netflix could’ve saved TV title sequences, but now it’s killing them
72. Netflix Has Narcos Actors Threaten To Shoot The Families Of French People For Pirating The Show
73. Vancouver Canucks, Perspective Films Offer Virtual Reality Views
74. Baltimore Ravens Debut NFL’s First Augmented Reality Face Painting
75. Mizuno Introduces Smart Baseball With Internal Pitch-Tracking Tech
76. China’s Largest Messaging App ‘WeChat’ is Creating its Own AR Platform
77. It looks like China is shutting down its blockchain economy: Leaked regulation orders Chinese Bitcoin exchanges to shut down.
78. Bitcoin and Ethereum plunge on Chinese crackdown
79. The Pirate Bay Added a CPU-Hijacking Bitcoin Miner to Some Pages
80. Feds in California are aggressively going after Silk Road, AlphaBay vendors: Federal courthouse in Fresno is set to see a lot of action in coming months.
81. Your Digital Millennium Copyright Registration May Be About To Expire
82. Bored With Your Fitbit? These Cancer Researchers Aren’t
83. About FaceID
84. After 23 years, the Apple II gets another OS update: On 30th anniversary of Apple II GS, devoted developer releases ProDOS 2.4.
85. The Pluralist Model of Speech Regulation: Free Speech in the Algorithmic Society (Jack Balkin)
86. Free Speech in the Algorithmic Society: Big Data, Private Governance, and New School Speech Regulation (Jack Balkin)

CREATIVITY

1. Quebec Superior Court Rules on the Concept of Fair Dealing in Relation to the Substantial Reproduction of Journalistic Works
2. Off-Broadway ‘Grinch’ Parody Defeats Copyright Claims
3. Joy in Who-Ville? Playwright Wins Fair Use Copyright Dispute in Parody of “Grinch” 
4. Maradona sues Dolce&Gabbana over 2016 ‘MARADONA’ jersey 
5. Monkey Selfie Case Settled Out Of Court, Questions Remain (Andres Guadamuz)
6. Lawyer: Without The Monkey’s Approval, PETA Can’t Settle Monkey Selfie Case
7. Monkey See, Monkey Do… Monkey Own? The Curious Case of Naruto v. Slater 
8. Man who made “Pepe” wants his frog back, and he’ll use copyright to get it: Mike Cernovich won’t pay, threatens “to embarrass the f***” out of Pepe creator.
9. With Court Ruling, Fan Subtitles Officially Copyright Infringement In Sweden
10. Structural engineers score big as Federal Court recognizes and enforces copyright on structure of soccer complex
11. Canadian Government Publications Still Don’t Belong To The People As Ottawa Maintains Its Iron Grip On Crown Copyright
12. Melania Trump billboard removed in Croatia after legal action threatened
13. ‘Racist’ Paddy Power Floyd Mayweather ad dealt knockout blow by ASA
14. New patent review process has saved billions—so why is it under attack?: “Inter partes review” let a patent’s opponents be heard, without spending millions.
15. Doubling (& Tripling) Down on Trademark Protection For Secret Menu Items–In-N-Out v. Smashburger 
16. Yoko Ono halts sale of John Lemon lemonade: Polish company agrees to change its name to On Lemon after legal letters saying drink infringed trademark 
17. Kim Kardashian West’s trade mark woes and the love-hate relationship between celebrities and IP
18. New study claims Slender Man is in the commons, argues assertion of trademark rights “chills creativity”
19. Charles Harder Loses Again: You Can’t Just File Defamation Lawsuits In A Random State Because You Like Its Statute Of Limitations
20. Model Behaviour – Copyright infringement action brought against model Gigi Hadid
21. Why Copyright Term Matters: Publisher Study Highlights Crucial Role of the Public Domain in Ontario Schools (Michael Geist)
22. Buyer Beware: Make Sure Your Copyright Assignment Is Valid
23. The Business of Fandom: How Teenage Girls Predict the Future of Culture
24. 20 years in, Kid Rock, Eminem and ICP are politically relevant — and culturally divided
25. How Amazon is becoming the third force in advertising, making the duopoly an oligopoly
26. The Battle for Blade Runner
27. Vermont State Police Rewrite Press Rules To Withhold As Much Information As Possible
28. Bleistein, the Problem of Aesthetic Progress, and the Making of American Copyright Law (Barton Beebe)
29. First application of the Canadian parody exception (Sabine Jacques)

MEDIA, COMMUNICATIONS & NET NEUTRALITY

1.  Why Canadian cell phone bills are among the most expensive on the planet: As tech analyst Michael Geist has noted, cell phone companies keep raising prices ‘because they can’ 
2. Toronto Star receives $65,000 fine for violating CRTC Do Not Call List rules
3. Yet Another Report Says The Rate Of TV Cord Cutting Is Worse Than Anybody Thought
4. “Fake” net neutrality comments at heart of lawsuit filed against FCC –  Lawsuit: FCC ignored public records request for data on mass comment uploads
5. ‘I Want to Explode’ — A Roger Ailes Protégé Bares His Soul: Joe Lindsley was as close to the late Fox News chairman as anybody. Now, for the first time, he’s giving his account of their dramatic split.
6. The transformation continues (Timothy Denton)
7. Verizon Is Booting 8,500 Rural Customers Over Data Use, Including Some on ‘Unlimited’ Plans
8. Verizon Hangs Up On Tens Of Thousands Of ‘Unlimited’ Wireless Customers For Using Too Much Data
9. Comcast looks forward to more mergers during Trump presidency: Comcast VP is glad Trump is “less hostile” to mergers than Obama.
10. Comcast said he used too much data—so he opted to live without home Internet: Man said he didn’t go over his data cap; Comcast told him to trust the meter.
11. FCC’s New ‘Diversity Chair’ Has Long History Of Undermining Minority Consumers At Comcast’s Behest
12. T-Mobile’s unlimited plan will soon let you use 50GB before slowdowns: T-Mobile leaps further ahead of Verizon and AT&T with more data before slowdowns.
13. T-Mobile backtracks from plan to throttle Apple Watch speeds to 512kbps: T-Mobile initially planned $20 charge for watch LTE, but now it’ll be $10.
14. Unlimited Data Customers Report Fewer Network Problems Than Capped Users
15. SpaceX’s worldwide satellite broadband network may have a name: Starlink – Low-latency, gigabit network inches closer to commercialization.
16. A telemarketer called my elevator: The emergency intercom started speaking to me in a voice I’ve heard a thousand times.

SURVEILLANCE & PRIVACY

1. EFF, ACLU Sue Government Over Warrantless Electronic Searches At The Border
2. ISPs claim a privacy law would weaken online security and increase pop-ups: California to vote on privacy law opposed by AT&T, Comcast, Charter, and Verizon.
3. Closely watched California Internet privacy bill dies in final minutes of legislative session
4. California Sides With Comcast, Votes To Kill Broadband Privacy Law Favored By EFF
5. ISPs can keep sharing your browsing history after California no-vote: Lawmakers fail to vote on opt-in rule that would protect your browsing history.
6. Face Scanning Lawsuit Against Shutterfly Survives Motion to Dismiss
7. Trump Administration Says It’s Classified If They Can Let The NSA Spy On Americans
8. Equifax Officially Has No Excuse
9. Oh Man, You’re Gonna Hate What Equifax Just Admitted About That Security Breach
10. Equifax’s Chief Information Officer and Head of Security Are ‘Retiring’
11. Equifax CIO, CSO “retire” in wake of huge security breach: Press release – “The company’s review of the facts is still ongoing.”
12. DoNotPay chatbot adds feature allowing users to sue Equifax over data breach
13. Scammers keep trying to sell fake Equifax facts: Site offers “proof” of access to Equifax data, but it all appears to be fake.
14. FTC launches Equifax breach probe, warns consumers about credit scammers: Posing as Equifax employees, crooks are calling to verify your account information.
15. Equifax sends breach victims to fake notification site
16. Google stops challenging most US warrants for data on overseas servers: Microsoft keeps up the challenges while Supreme Court remains silent.
17. Secret Algorithms Are Deciding Criminal Trials and We’re Not Even Allowed to Test Their Accuracy (ACLU)
18. EFF Asks Court: Can Prosecutors Hide Behind Trade Secret Privilege to Convict You? (EFF)
19. Biased Algorithms Are Everywhere, and No One Seems to Care: The big companies developing them show no interest in fixing the problem.
20. Ad industry “deeply concerned” about Safari’s new ad-tracking restrictions: Apple’s limits on tracking will “sabotage the economic model for the Internet.”
21. How One Of Apple’s Key Privacy Safeguards Falls Short
22. Infrared signals in surveillance cameras let malware jump network air gaps: aIR-Jumper weaves passwords and crypto keys into infrared signals.
23. The CCleaner Malware Fiasco Targeted At Least 18 Specific Tech Firms
24. NSA Employees Routinely Undermined ‘Non-Attributable’ Web Access With Personal Web Use
25. How The NSA Built A Secret Surveillance Network For Ethiopia
26. Trudeau needs to deliver on his access-to-information promises
27. New law firm seeks would-be gov’t whistleblowers, requires Tor and SecureDrop: “We want to earn the trust of people who have been 20-year veterans at the NSA.”
28. Most-wanted criminal arrested after posting Instagram video of himself: Officials obtained fugitive’s GPS coordinates after he took to social media.
29. Apple’s FaceID Could Be A Powerful Tool For Mass Spying
30. Software Has A Serious Supply-Chain Security Problem
31. For $200 you can buy an NBA smart jersey and be a marketing pawn: Once activated, Nike knows where you live, and when and where jersey is scanned.
32. Internet-Connected Toys: Cute, Cuddly and Inherently Insecure
33. The Undue Influence of Surveillance Technology Companies on Policing (Elizabeth Joh)

GAMES

1. To tackle toxicity, Overwatch now mutes Xbox One players with bad Live rep
2. Blizzard has taken disciplinary action against 480,000 Overwatch accounts: Jeff Kaplan’s team devotes “a tremendous amount of time and resources to punishing people,” and it’s slowing progress of the game
3. Campo Santo’s DMCA strike against PewDiePie accepted by YouTube: Felix Kjellberg believes Campo Santo’s position wouldn’t “hold up in court” and amounts to abuse of the DMCA system
4. Gaming YouTube must get its house in order: The risk posed by PewDiePie’s outbursts isn’t confined to his career; Google won’t tolerate a sector that keeps dragging down YouTube’s commercial prospects
5. YouTube Gaming ups community-building tools with paid ‘sponsorships’
6. Bungie Explains How Offensive Symbol Made Its Way Into Destiny 2: Vetting process didn’t catch image’s “vile derivation that has been repurposed by hate groups.”
7. Bungie explains how a hate symbol ended up in Destiny 2
8. Bungie promises deeper content vetting over Destiny 2 symbol: Bungie will conduct a process review after completely “scrubbing” the symbol from the game and promotional materials
9. YouTube Launches Moneymaking Sponsorships For All “Eligible” Gaming Creators
10. YouTube introduces Twitch-style sponsorship service for streamers: Trials of the $4.99 per month model have proven successful as platform abandons paid channel service
11. In the wake of CSGO Lotto, FTC takes to Twitter to clarify its disclosure policy
12. Russian Antifa Developed SharpShooter3D, A Nazi-Hunting Video Game
13. Playing with politics: How real-world politics could improve your game
14. “There will be hate you cannot control. In all honesty, it’s defeating”: Square Enix’s Amy Graves discusses the pressures community managers face ahead of her UKIE Careers Bar talk next week
15. Why I deleted my Steam account: Valve’s dominance in the PC gaming space is made more harmful by its tolerance for toxic users
16. Steam considers preventing review bombs, adds graphs instead: “In the end, we decided not to change the ways that players can review games, and instead focused on how potential purchasers can explore the review data.”
17. Steam has a “review bomb” problem—but will today’s new feature fix it?: Follows a September 2016 overhaul which aimed to remove fraudulent reviews.
18. Overwatch development hampered by toxic players, says director
19. Overwatch now mutes Xbox One players with bad reputation: Further efforts to stem toxicity after revelation that abusive players hold back development
20. Blizzard: Toxic Overwatch players are hurting the game’s development – This is why we can’t have nice things, apparently.
21. Game: Interrupted – How a teenage gamer in the hottest new esport, Overwatch, became a reluctant icon for South Korea’s feminist movement.
22. Video: How game communities build eSports scenes from the ground up
23. As NFL ratings drop, a new internet study says young men like watching eSports more than traditional sports
24. How Misfits went from League of Legends minnows to the World Championship: Team manager Joe Elouassi on managing burnout, the Overwatch League, and esports becoming an Olympic event
25. Unity debuts open-source beta of a new machine learning AI toolkit
26. Unity introduces Machine Learning Agents to help AI advancement: New feature goes into beta, primarily for researchers but engine firm keen to see what developers can do
27. Battleborn is Battledead: Updates halted after ~16 months – Servers will stay up, but Gearbox seems to be transitioning to Borderlands 3.
28. There’s Seemingly A NES Emulator And Game Hidden On Every Nintendo Switch
29. Every Nintendo Switch appears to contain a hidden copy of NES Golf: What’s more, it might have a first for an emulated NES game – motion control.
30. Hidden Switch game is actually a tribute to former Nintendo president: Unlock method seems designed to work only on July 11, the day Satoru Iwata died.
31. How to (Maybe) Play the Super Secret Copy of NESGolf Hidden on Your Nintendo Switch
32. Hackers Say Nintendo Switch Contains A Game That Unlocks On The Date Of Satoru Iwata’s Death
33. The coming game cartridge renaissance?: Street Fighter II’s SNES rerelease could be the start of a trend.
34. Nintendo Switch lands Doom and Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus – Plus, Nintendo’s Arcade Archives retro classics, red JoyCon, and a Pokemon-themed 2DS.
35. Doom, Wolfenstein II and Honor of Kings boost Switch third-party line-up: Bethesda shows its commitment, while Tencent is bringing China’s most popular game to the platform as Arena of Valor
36. Nintendo Switch, Madden can’t stop August sales dip – NPD: Despite Madden topping the charts and Switch continuing to sell, total US game sales fell 2%
37. Nintendo spent an estimated $4.5m on TV ads in August – Report: According to iSpot.tv Nintendo outspent other video game brands during the month to promote the new-look 2DS XL
38. Nintendo shares riding nine-year high: Stock price closes the day up 7% as Switch maker tests heights not seen since the Wii’s heyday, considers Chinese expansion
39. How Planet of the Apes is using console gamers to reach its real audience: The Imaginati’s Martin Alltimes talks us through the unusual business model behind narrative adventure spin-off Last Frontier
40. Nintendo investors seem pumped about Tencent bringing its MOBA to Switch
41. How much does it cost to develop a videogame?
42. EA CEO Andrew Wilson joins Intel’s board of directors
43. Hilarious, spectacular EVE betrayal destroys player group, costs trillions: Infighting and Cold War-style espionage led to largest theft in game’s history.
44. ‘Star Wars: Battlefront II’ Won’t Be Supporting PSVR Headsets After All
45. No VR for Star Wars Battlefront II but still “very important” for Criterion: UK studio says Rogue One demo “informed” Starfighter Assault mode, but sequel will not support virtual reality
46. Someone has created a VR headset for the Commodore 64
47. Developer gets a Game Boy emulator running on the Apple Watch, because he can: “Giovanni” emulator doesn’t quite fit full speed or compatibility on Series 2.
48. Report: Magic Leap Could Reach $6B Valuation, First Device Shipping in 6 Months to “small group of users”
49. Niantic: “AR is not just visual” – Pokémon Go developer suggests that audio will play a vital role in the design of its next game
50. Mind the gap: Fortnite error briefly allowed cross-platform PS4/XB1 play
51. Error leads to Fortnite cross-platform play between Xbox and Playstation: Issue fixed but Xbox head “would have liked to see them leave it on”
52. The iPhone X’s ‘notch’ is powered by the same tech as the Kinect
53. Disruptor Beam: Big name IP is about player retention, not acquisition – CEO Jon Radoff shares takeaways from making mobile games for Star Trek, Game of Thrones, and The Walking Dead
54. How to launch a mobile game in multiple countries: Tappx CMO Ignasi Prat offers advice to developers hoping to release their app in as many markets as possible
55. How has the flood of Steam games affected the average indie dev?
56. Steam Direct fails to prevent revenue drop for indies: Average first month sales down by 39% since 2015, average naive revenue down by almost 50%
57. Battlegrounds breaks the all-time Steam concurrent player record
58. PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds smashes Steam records for concurrent users: Surpasses Dota 2’s player peak by less than 50,000
59. Steam adds histograms to address review bombing: Ability to see how user reviews change over time one step on the way toward prediction-based review scores
60. Rovio values itself at $1bn ahead of IPO
61. Developers say a Star Citizen guild did not get $45,000 refund: Cloud Imperium says refund was actually for just $330
62. McLaren builds a virtual hypercar for the next Gran Turismo game
63. Blizzard chief explains how he raised money to start the company
64. Classic Postmortem: How Maxis avoided sequel-itis on The Sims 2
65. The Life and Merciful Death of the Fad Controller
66. “There’s no better environment than AAA to develop your skills”: Playground Games’ Nick Duncombe discusses the benefits of working at an established studio rather than forming your own ahead of his UKIE Careers Bar talk
67. Build, gather, brawl, repeat: The history of real-time strategy games: As we wait on a new Age of Empires this fall, let’s revisit the RTS genre’s highs and lows.
68. Wireless PC Gaming At Lightspeed: Wireless mice that are now faster than wired
69. How playing games can advance science
70. How one man turns Garry’s Mod scenes into art
71. The Most Popular Mod For Fallout 4 Is The One That Removes The Title Screen Crawl For Bethesda’s ‘Creation Club’
72. Tracing the path an Israeli folk song took to end up in Japanese video games
73. Humble has now raised over $100M for charity
74. 15 practical pieces of advice, stuff that I learned the hard way
75. 2 Games in 2 Months with a Stranger from Reddit
76. Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite isn’t the same without arcade-era pixel art – A look back at the Marvel vs Capcom series and the evolution of pixel art to 3D.
77. Richard Garriott remembers calling his parents to settle a fight over Ultima IV’s design
78. NBA Commissioner Adam Silver wants sports on television to look more like video games

Jon

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

DIGITAL

1. Case Dismissed: Judge Throws Out Shiva Ayyadurai’s Defamation Lawsuit Against Techdirt
2. Judge dismisses Shiva “I Invented EMAIL” Ayyadurai’s libel lawsuit against Techdirt
3. Court Dumps Lawsuit Against Zillow Over Its Inaccurate ‘Zestimates’
4. Blogger Isn’t Liable for Anonymous Comments–Griffith v. Wall (Eric Goldman)
5. Lawsuit: Amazon sold eclipse glasses that cause “permanent blindness”: “Eye injury ranging from temporary discomfort to permanent blindness.”
6. Spotify: Don’t Compare Us to Napster – The company has responded to a copyright lawsuit by challenging what rights are truly implicated by streaming.
7. Spotify Finally Realizes That Streaming Isn’t Reproduction Or Distribution
8. Steve Jobs gave us President Trump
9. The ‘internet of things’ is sending us back to the Middle Ages (Joshua Fairfield)
10. CBS Welcomes Amazon’s NFL Streaming But Sees ‘Competitors’ In Future
11. Apple, Amazon bid for James Bond film rights- Hollywood Reporter 
12. Kaspersky Gets Awful Patent Troll To Pay Up To Drop Its Own Case
13. Reports of Russia’s Election Hack Keep Getting Scarier
14. Thousands Of Facebook Ads Tied To Bogus Russian Accounts
15. Facebook says it sold political ads to Russian company during 2016 election
16. Facebook sold 2016 election-related ads to “shadowy Russian company”: 470 “suspicious and likely fraudulent” FB accounts all tied to same Russian firm.
17. The Devil’s Pact: Putin, the “Alt-Right” and the Long Shadow of History – The Russian president’s claims of “historical victimhood” in World War II try to justify his country’s present-day destructive behavior.
18. Twitter Suspends Reporter’s Account… After He Gets Targeted By Russian Twitter Bots
19. How Russian & Alt-Right Twitter Accounts Worked Together to Skew the Narrative About Berkeley: #Antifa and #Berkeley were hot topics last weekend in America — and in Russia
20. Fear And Loathing On Social Media
21. Digital property rights debate heats up in NAFTA renegotiation
22. Leaked Plans Shows Top EU Body Backing: Copyright Industry Against The Public, The Internet, And Innovation
23. Tech companies declare war on hate speech—and conservatives are worried: In light of Charlottesville, Silicon Valley revisits its absolute approach to free speech.
24. AI is Developing Faster than Experts Imagined. Do We Need a Speed Limit?
25. Google And Microsoft Can Use AI To Extract Many More Ad Dollars From Our Clicks
26. How to Regulate Artificial Intelligence
27. A Serf on Google’s Farm
28. Reporter: Google successfully pressured me to take down critical story – Google allegedly told Forbes “the article was problematic and had to come down.”
29. Google is losing allies across the political spectrum: Antitrust sentiment grows, so does skepticism about Google on both the left and the right.
30. Google promised not to scan Gmail for targeted ads—but for how long?: Google tells judge it might resume targeted advertising “to meet changing demands.”
31. Third-party Google Assistant speakers put “OK Google” in tons of form factors: The Google Assistant comes to speakers from Sony, JBL, Onkyo, Panasonic, and others.
32. Say Goodbye To The Blob. Google’s New Emoji Have Arrived
33. The YouTube Generation And 6-Second TV Ads
34. Facebook’s YouTube Competitor, ‘Watch’, Rolls Out Nationwide
35. Facebook launches Watch video service in U.S. to take on YouTube for ad dollars: The move comes as advertisers are shifting budgets from television to online as more viewers prefer to watch their favourite shows on smartphones and tablets
36. Facebook is offering the music industry millions to let its users upload songs in videos
37. Inside the black market where people pay thousands of dollars for Instagram verification
38. Internet’s Most Popular “Stream Ripping Site” Shuts Down As Result Of Legal Settlement
39. A Popular Third-Party YouTube Video Player Has Been Removed From The App Store
40. Music Industry Halts Popular YouTube Piracy Service
41. YouTube Live Now Supports Ultra-Low Latency, More: YouTube launched a series of updates for its livestreaming service
42. The ‘demonetized’: YouTube’s brand-safety crackdown has collateral damage
43. Why Alphabet’s Shares Are Soaring in 2017
44. Bitcoin falls as China bans initial coin offerings
45. How Netflix’s Content Strategy Is Reshaping Movie Culture
46. Time Inc shifts toward video as eyeballs move online
47. Time Inc, publisher of magazines including People and Sports Illustrated, is turning to the internet to distribute its growing cache of video material and television shows, part of a plan to counter fast-declining print advertising revenue.
48. The Agony and Ecstasy of Building an Online Music Business 
49. In a blast from the past, Logitech releases a new trackball: It’s the company’s first new trackball in nearly a decade.
50. As Uber struggles, Lyft expands into 32 more states: 94 percent of the US population will now be able to access Uber’s top competitor.
51. Squeezed for profits, maker of $400 connected juice press closes up shop
52. The Risks Of Demonizing Silicon Valley
53. From Apple to Y Combinator—tech sector denounces new “Dreamers” plan: “It’s against our values to turn our backs on #DREAMers,” Uber’s new CEO tweeted
54. Boston Red Sox caught red-handed using Apple Watch to steal signs: Boston was apparently stealing signs from opposing teams’ catchers and pitchers.
55. Apple bids farewell to Apple Music Festival after 10 years: As Apple’s focus shifts to original video content for its services business.
56. Samsung is Developing VR Tools to Help Diagnose Mental Health
57. One of the biggest challenges of self-driving cars: The humans inside them.
58. Stupid Patent Of The Month: JP Morgan Patents Interapp Permissions
59. Surviving This Summer On The Internet
60. Catching Up on Ninth Circuit CFAA Jurisprudence: Internet Law Casebook Excerpt (Eric Goldman)
61. Global Content Removals Based on Local Legal Violations: Internet Law Casebook Excerpt (Eric Goldman) 

CREATIVITY

1. “Monkey Business” settled
2. Awful Court Decision Says Dr. Phil Producer’s Video Not ‘Fair Use’
3. Mickey singer Toni Basil sues Disney and South Park
4. Why Notoriously Litigious Disney Is Letting Fan Stores Thrive: The Mouse isn’t bringing cease-and-desists down on Instagram darlings like Cakeworthy or The Lost Bros.
5. Insurer Attempts To Fight Back Against Kanye West’s Touring Company’s Lawsuit 
6. New York Times 1; Sarah Palin 0 
7. Court battle over one driver’s pay could have big impact on “gig economy”: Was Raef Lawson an employee or a business owner when he drove for GrubHub?
8. High-profile “gig economy” trial turns on a part-time actor’s job woes: A surprising plaintiff is challenging worker classifications in the gig economy.
9. Judge Sweet: Lynyrd Skynyrd Movie Cannot Proceed 
10. Coachella Sues “Filmchella” for Trademark Infringement 
11. Terry Pratchett and protecting artistic legacy
12. Can Rotten Tomatoes Crush a Movie at the Box Office?: Moviegoers, critics, and filmmakers weigh in on the website that is torturing major studios and redefining how we decide whether to go to the theater
13. Theater of War: He traveled to some of the world’s most dangerous places to disarm militias, negotiate with gangs, and defy terrorists. But Bill Brookman was just a clown.
14. Activists want to fight sex trafficking by changing a key Internet law: The 1996 law Section 230 is widely seen as a foundation of the Internet economy.
15. Al Jazeera Gives A ‘Voice To The Voiceless’ By Killing News Comments
16. What Makes Information Valuable? Information Quality, Revisited (Urs Gasser) 

MEDIA, COMMUNICATIONS & NET NEUTRALITY

1. Senate Democrats fight FCC plan to lower America’s broadband standards: You can’t fix the US broadband problem by redefining it, senators tell FCC.
2. FCC’s Broken Comments System Could Help Doom Net Neutrality
3. FCC “apology” shows anything can be posted to agency site using insecure API: FCC API could be misused to host malware on FCC’s domain.
4. FCC makes net neutrality complaints public, but too late to stop repeal: 13,000 pages of net neutrality complaints released, but comment deadline passed.
5. Apple Throws Its Support Behind Net Neutrality. Sort Of.
6. Apple’s Real Reason For Finally Joining The Net Neutrality Fight
7. AT&T Blatantly Lies, Claims Most Consumers Want Net Neutrality Killed
8. Large ISP & Silicon Valley CEOs Were Too Afraid To Publicly Testify On Net Neutrality
9. Comcast sues Vermont to avoid building 550 miles of new cable lines: Vermont is trying to make Comcast bring TV and Internet to unserved areas.
10. FTC slaps Lenovo on the wrist for selling computers with secret adware: Companies need user “affirmative consent” to preinstall MITM adware, FTC says.
11. Video Chat Price-Gouging Costs Inmates More Than Money
12. More and More Actions on Pirate Radio – What is Next? 
13. Bouyant RTL fully acquires SpotX
14. BMG Continues Growth Spurt as Revenues Top $276 Million
15. Antitrust Is Back — But The Media Industry Doesn’t Need It 
16. How I Became Fake News: I witnessed a terrorist attack in Charlottesville. Then the conspiracy theories began.

SURVEILLANCE & PRIVACY

1. Instagram Done Got Hacked
2. Site sells Instagram users’ phone and e-mail details, $10 a search: Leak suggests this week’s Instagram breach was bigger than first thought.
3. Celebs’ phone numbers and e-mail addresses exposed in active Instagram hack: Hackers exploited app bug, then advertised data in underground forums, researchers say.
4. FDA, Homeland Security Issue First Ever Recall, Warnings About Flimsy Pacemaker Security
5. Military Appeals Court Says Demands To Unlock Phones May Violate The Fifth Amendment
6. The Epic Crime Spree Unleashed By Onity’s Ambivalence To Its Easily Hacked Hotel Locks
7. Court Finds FBI’s ‘Malware’ Deployment To Be Perfectly Constitutional
8. UK’s Terrorism Law Reviewer Says Tech Companies Shouldn’t Offer Encryption To Anonymous Users
9. Officers With Personal Body Cams Taking The ‘Public’ Out Of ‘Public Accountability’
10. As a general rule, body cam footage across US is not a public record: “The patchwork releases of body camera footage only sow further public distrust.”
11. UK Police Test Facial Recognition Tech At Carnival, Rack Up 35 Bogus ‘Hits’ And One Wrongful Arrest
12. Data Breach Exposes Thousands of Job Seekers Citing Top Secret Government Work
13. Exploit goes public for severe bug affecting high-impact sites: Apache Struts bug opens banks, insurance cos., and Fortune 500s to code-execution hacks.
14. Taking Stock Of Trump’s Cybersecurity Executive Order So Far
15. Companies should treat cybersecurity as a matter of ethics
16. The Feds Promised To Protect Dreamer Data. Now What?
17. Canadian Cops Belatedly Asking For Authorization To Deploy Stingray Devices They’ve Been Using For Years
18. The Privacy Battle Over the World’s Largest Biometric Database: A new ruling could jeopardize India’s controversial collection of citizens’ fingerprints, photographs, and iris scans.
19. Hacker Lexicon: What Is DNS Hijacking?
20. Above Devastated Houston, Armies Of Drones Prove Their Worth

GAMES

1. Nintendo ordered to pay $10M following Wii patent infringement suit
2. Jury finds Nintendo Wii infringes Dallas inventor’s patent
3. Nintendo “disagrees” with $10m lawsuit verdict: Texas jury rules that platform holder’s best-selling Wii console infringes on iLife’s patents
4. Killing Nazis, fighting religious fanaticism the focus of upcoming video games: Games take on new relevance in the current political climate
5. No Violent Video Games In The Olympics, Says IOC President
6. IOC President Tosses Shade At Including eSports In Olympics Over Concerns About Violence And Doping
7. “The fact is that most League of Legends teams lose money”: H2K says Riot is “subsidized” by European LoL teams’ losses in a financial system that is “neither rational nor fair”
8. Drone Racing League Expands Coverage To Asia For 2017 Season
9. Nominees revealed for the inaugural Women In Games Mobile Awards
10. Nominees revealed for first ever Women In Games Mobile Awards: South Park Phone Destroyer, A Normal Lost Phone and more in the running for September 6th event
11. Gamegate Target Zoe Quinn Can Teach Us How to Fight Online Hate
12. PUBG: “When you ask about growth on PC, I just look at League of Legends” – Brendan Green on PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds’ growth, raising price-points, and the fringe benefits of working with Microsoft
13. Battlegrounds breaks 10M sales less than 6 months into Early Access
14. PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds tops 10 million sold: Bluehole hit shooter racks up another milestone after less than six months in Early Access
15. Mixed Reality is Microsoft’s biggest 2017 launch: With strong partnerships and control of the Windows ecosystem, is Microsoft positioned to win the VR/AR race in the long run?
16. PuttView Shows Pros What Augmented Reality Golf Outdoors Looks Like
17. Minecraft Marketplace creators have earned $1M by selling user-made content
18. As far as console launches go, the Switch has out-paced the PS4 in Japan
19. Nintendo: Switch games may require external storage
20. Nintendo meets need for external Switch storage with official cards: “A microSD card will be needed for certain Nintendo Switch games that contain an especially large amount of content”
21. The Pokemon Company CEO Thought Switch Would Fail, Hints At Pokemon Switch Ideas
22. Pokemon Company CEO sees a bright, rumbly future for AR games post-Pokemon Go
23. Pokémon Go will get monster trading, one-on-one battles: Long-promised features are still coming to fix the “local spawn issue”
24. GameStop: Forced bundles are for customer convenience – Retailer defends practice of requiring online purchasers of high-demand items to pay for additional merchandise
25. Making Games in Tehran: A massive market, disconnected: The first Tehran Game Convention gave Brie Code insight into an emerging industry hobbled by sanctions and restrictions
26. Amazon Associates lets Twitch viewers buy while streaming: Meanwhile Twitch Extensions enables developers to build interactive overlays for streamers
27. Channel 4’s games publishing arm breaks out, goes independent: All 4 Games will be spun out as an independent publisher, although still retain ties with UK broadcaster
28. Minecraft Marketplace creators have earned over $1m: Community-driven marketplace has been a success for the Minecraft ecosystem
29. Ubisoft opens new studio to kick-start Quebec expansion
30. Ubisoft creating 1,000 new jobs with two new Quebec studios: Publishing will invest $780m in growing its presence within the region by 2027, Saguenay studio opens early 2018
31. Angry Birds maker Rovio confirms it’s planning an IPO
32. Rovio details plans for $36m IPO: CEO says share sale will be “an important milestone” for Angry Birds developer
33. Rovio launches ‘MumJam’ to help mothers get into the games industry
34. Twitch introduces ‘Extensions’ suite to help foster engagement
35. Super Mario Kart at 25: Dissecting a revolutionary game design
36. Retro revival: Capcom re-releasing Street Fighter II on the SNES
37. Masterpiece: Street Fighter II – Street Fighter II is an arcade monster that has stood the test of time.
38. PAX West: At least eight of UFO 50’s games are instant retro classics – Preview – NES-styled game anthology is off to an amazing start.
39. How Can Gameplay Allow Players to Get Creative?
40. Choices in games should be deeper than good vs. evil, argues Obsidian co-founder: “It can’t just be do you shoot grandma or do you help her across the street.”
41. Game Developers Explain Some Of Their Favorite Ways To Trick The Player 
42. How Neversoft twisted Tony Hawk to let players step off the board
43. How Japanese and Western game dev differ, from a dev that has experienced both
44. Urban Design and the Creation of Videogame Cities
45. The PC issues that need fixing before Final Fantasy XV launches on Windows: PAX West demo may not be indicative of final PC product. We sure hope not.
46. Could A Videogame Strengthen Your Aging Brain?
47. 5 key lessons from the candid game dev book, Blood, Sweat, and Pixels
48. Warner Bros donating Shadow of War DLC revenue to family of late producer: Mike ‘Forthog’ Fogey passed away during development of original, will be honoured as orc
49. All proceeds from Shadow of War DLC will go to Michael Forgey’s family: Warner Bros. has clarified that it will make no profit from the DLC, regardless of where it is sold
50. Earnings report roundup: Game industry winners and losers in Q2 2017

Jon