News of the Week; May 20, 2020
DIGITAL
- Facebook to pay $9 million penalty to Competition Bureau
- Misleading Privacy Claims Results in $9 Million Dollar Penalty for Facebook
- High School Can’t Expel Student for Sharing Memes in Private Snapchat Conversation–JS v. Manheim Township School District (Eric Goldman)
- Covid-19 Just Triggered The Worst Quarter Ever For Cable TV ‘Cord Cutting’
- One Of The Few Government Officials Who Actually Can ‘Police Speech’ Whines Ridiculously About Facebook’s Oversight Board
- TikTok accused of breaching US child privacy regulations
- TikTok Broke Privacy Promises, Children’s Groups Say: Twenty consumer groups said the video app had failed to make some changes it agreed to carry out last year to settle federal charges.
- The Architect Behind Disney+, Kevin Mayer, Has Been Named CEO Of TikTok
- Court Tosses Lawsuit From Man Claiming Twitter Discriminated Against Him For Being A Heterosexual Christian
- The Associated Press Has Some Explaining To Do About Its ‘Tweeted Contract’ To Reuse Viral Content
- Failure to delete hate speech could cost Facebook, Google billions in France
- French Government Passes Hate Speech Law, Will Allow Law Enforcement To Run The Internet
- Google pledges not to make custom software for oil and gas extraction
- The COVID-19 misinformation crisis is just beginning, but there is hope
- Think Tank’s Posting of Substantially Cropped Photo of Heartthrob Governor Constitutes Fair Use
- Facebook Acquires GIF Database GIPHY In Reported $400 Million Deal
- Facebook is buying Giphy and integrating it with Instagram: Plans to integrate with Instagram and other apps
- All your reaction GIFs now belong to Facebook, as it buys Giphy for $400M
- Facebook takes on Amazon with online shopping venture
- Luxury and online marketplaces – the next chapter (Coty v Amazon)
- Man shoots down drone, gets hit with felony charges in Minnesota
- Doctors Are Tweeting About Coronavirus to Make Facts Go Viral: As dubious Covid-19 claims circulate online, UCSF’s Dr. Bob Wachter and others are taking to Twitter
- Twitch Reveals 8-Member ‘Safety Advisory Council’ Stocked With Streamers, Cyberbullying Experts
- How the ‘Plandemic’ Movie and Its Falsehoods Spread Widely Online
- Big Tech searches for a way back into healthcare: Despite past failures, Google and other tech giants see great promise in the sector
- Quarantine is a weirdly good time for animation: Going remote is giving animators lots of opportunities to shine.
- Nvidia ditches Intel, cozies up to AMD with its new DGX A100
- Huawei’s Google app loophole: Just keep re-releasing old devices
- Google CEO Sundar Pichai defends Pixel team, says “hardware is hard”
- Google-Fitbit Merger: Competition concerns and harms to consumers
- No, CDA 230 Isn’t The Only Thing Keeping Conservatives Off YouTube
- Top 50 Most Viewed YouTube Channels Worldwide • Week Of 5/18/2020
- Top 50 Most Viewed US YouTube Channels • Week Of 5/18/2020
- John Krasinski Tearfully Takes Hit YouTube Series ‘Some Good News’ On Hiatus
- YouTube Introduces New Grey ‘Clock’ Monetization Icon So Creators See Less Flip-Flopping
- YouTube’s First Virtual Brandcast Will Focus On Surging TV Viewership
- YouTube’s New Screen Time Management Feature Wants You To Go To Bed
- ‘YouTube Select’ Replaces Google Preferred Ad Program, With New Curated Content Lineups
- YouTube’s Virtual Graduation Ceremony Adds Beyoncé, Mark Rober, Emma Chamberlain To Lineup
- YouTube Music Names Latest Class Of Artists To Join Its Exclusive ‘Foundry’ Program
- Children’s Video Goliath ‘CoComelon’ Pacts With Roku In First Off-YouTube Distribution Deal
- James Charles’ YouTube Original Isn’t Just A Hit. It’s Catapulting The Channels Of Contestants.
- The Ad Council Taps Meghan Trainor, Addison Rae, Molly Burke For Mental Health Awareness Month
- $100 Million Deal Sees Joe Rogan’s Podcast Become A Spotify Exclusive—In Both Video And Audio Form
- Charli D’Amelio Accidentally Deleted — Then Quickly Reclaimed — Her Massive Instagram Account
- Houseparty Throws 3-Day Livestreaming Event Featuring Katy Perry, Snoop Dogg, Addison Rae
- After Years Of Fan Efforts, Zack Snyder’s ‘Justice League’ Cut Is Coming To HBO Max
- Apple TV+ Breaks From Originals-Only Plan To Acquire Legacy Films, TV Series (Report)
- Leaker claims to have seen “Apple Glass” AR glasses, details how they’ll work
- Rumor: Apple AR Glasses Leak Points to Name, Price & Possible Launch Window
- Apple confirms it bought virtual reality event startup NextVR
- Apple Confirms Acquisition of VR Live Streaming Company NextVR
- Apple acquired NextVR, suggesting it still harbors VR ambitions
- Apple reopens some US stores amid COVID-19, but they’ll work differently
- Samsung is Terminating Its VR Video Apps on All Devices
- Zoomism and Discipline for Productive Immobility
- Content Moderation At Scale Is Impossible: Google Removes Podcast Addict From Play Store Because It Has COVID-19 Related Podcasts
- Rethinking Digital Platforms for the Post-COVID-19 Era: As COVID-19 is a concern, aspects of daily life will be mediated by platforms that see human interactions as content to be moderated, and data to be monetized
- Emergency Room Doctor: Getting Best COVID-19 Treatment Ideas Via WhatsApp
- Is ICANN retiring some top-level domains?
- International online education programs: A global regulatory perspective
- The challenges ahead for online courts
- Digital sources and digital archives: historical evidence in the digital age (Trevor Owens, Thomas Padilla)
- I’m a doctor with quadriplegia—thanks to tech, I’m back at work
- From iOS to SQL: The world’s most incorrectly pronounced tech terms
A.I.
- When audio deepfakes put words in Jay-Z’s mouth, did he have a legal case?
- People who know more about self-driving technology trust it more
- Our AI Future – Sexbots, Toilet Drones, and Robocops?
- Reboot Required: Artificial Intelligence System Cannot Be Named As An Inventor Under U.S. Patent Law, USPTO Says
- USPTO Refuses to Recognize AI Inventorship, but Policy Questions Still Linger
- Using AI to invent therapeutics: should artificial intelligence be recognised for inventive activity?
- OK Computer: the creation and integration of AI in Europe (Bernardo Buarquea, Ronald Davies, Ryan Hynes, Dieter Koglera)
- Artificial Intelligence | How much attention should you pay to legal risks and data governance?
- Blog: Open-world enemy AI in Mafia III
COMMUNICATIONS
- Canadian Wireless Carriers Making A Killing During COVID-19, Won’t Remove Caps ‘For Safety’
- Beware Of Op/Eds Falsely Claiming The US Internet Only Works During A Pandemic Because Lobbyists Neutered The FCC
- Cell-tower attacks by idiots who claim 5G spreads COVID-19 reportedly hit US
- Idiots Begin Attacking US 5G Cell Towers Because, Idiots
- FCC Forced To Fine Sinclair $48 Million For Bullshitting Regulators
- Ajit Pai doubts Elon Musk’s SpaceX broadband-latency claims
- Bill Would Ban Broadband Shutoffs Until COVID-19 Pandemic Eases
- US and Chinese cloud companies vie for dominance in south-east Asia: Google, Amazon and Microsoft challenge Alibaba and Huawei in fastest-growing cloud market
- K-League 1 strikes record broadcasting rights deals following league restart
INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY
- A welcome and timely boost for trade secret protection in Canada
- Fashion House Sued for Lively Snaps
- The makeup of protection of a makeup store layout: a missed chance to apply the Cofemel decision?
- Quaran-streaming: Music licensing and your online business
- Copyright Making Sure That MTV Remains An Irrelevant Relic, Rather Than A Cultural Icon
- What’s the Deal with Comedians?: Too Late for Copyright Claim against Seinfeld
- Victory for Michael Jordan After 8-Year Chinese Trademark Battle
- Google v Oracle: The Copyright Case of the Decade
- IP update: recent development in EU copyright law: stim & sami v fleetmanager Sweden ab & nordisk biluthyrning ab (c-753/18)
- Copyright As Censorship: WSJ Identifies Hundreds Of Bogus News Takedowns; People Blame Google Rather Than Copyright
- Libraries Have Never Needed Permission To Lend Books, And The Move To Change That Is A Big Problem
- Canadian Federal Court of Appeal applies new standard of review in appeal of registrar
- New Nice Classification requirements – do classes matter in Canada?
- Sussex Royal – if at first you don’t succeed…
- What businesses need to consider before a brand (re)launch: lessons from SUSSEX ROYAL
- Federal Circuit Holds Packaging Color Combinations Can Be Inherently Distinctive
- The Parameters of Generic Marks: Booking.com before the Supreme Court
- Don’t SULKA: Trademark Plaintiff Must Demonstrate Intent, Ability to Use Mark
- No Luck Needed for Lucky Brand at the Supreme Court
- Supreme Court Rules Lucky Brand’s Defense Not Barred Under Defense Preclusion
- Get Lucky: U.S. Supreme Court Sides With Lucky Brand in Overturning “Defense Preclusion” Ruling
- The Supreme Court Declines to Revamp Preclusion Law in Lucky v. Marcel Trademark Dispute
- A Lucky Day for Lucky Brand: U.S. Supreme Court Rejects Second Circuit’s Defense Preclusion Test
- Defense in Trademark Action Not Precluded by Failure to Raise Same Defense in Earlier Action
- Romag Fasteners: SCOTUS Holds That Plaintiffs in Trademark Suits Need Not Show “Willful Intent” of Infringement to Recover Damages for Lost Profits
- IP Insight: DC Comics Prevail in Trade Mark Opposition against Magic Box
- HT Media and Hindustan Media Venture c. Brainlink International on hindustan.com: the chess game is underway
- Gömböc: CJEU provides clarity on the protectability of 3D trade marks
- How to bring an intermediary to justice in a domain name dispute
- WIPO data reveals rise in international trademark applications originating from Africa
- Focusing on Functionality, Software Claims Found Patent Eligible
- The “Plotting” Thickens: Claims that Solve Known Problem with Known Methods Are Obvious
- First decision under amended PMNOC Regulations: Federal Court finds Amgen’s filgrastim patent obvious
- G 3/19 – Tomatoes and Broccoli Now Overturned
- EPO Enlarged Board of Appeal Decision G 3/19 and the patentability of plant and animal products in Europe
- European Patent Office denies patentability of plants and animals obtained by essentially biological processes (G 3/19 “Pepper”)
- “Delivery Failed”: Shopping Notification Patent Lost Under § 101
- Managing Your VR/AR IP Portfolio During Covid-19
- Augmented Reality/Virtual Reality Patent Prosecution Update: 2020 Q1 Prosecution Statistics
- Thinking ahead: The impact of insolvency on IP rights
PRIVACY
- Cookies: A Bite in Cybernauts’ Privacy? A Canadian-European Overview
- It’s Impossible To Opt Out Of Android’s Ad Tracking; Max Schrems Aims To Change That
- Court Sends Google Assistant Privacy Lawsuit Back for a Redo
- A Spectacularly Bad Washington Post Story on Apple and Google’s Exposure Notification Project
- Now The Washington Post Misleadingly Complains About Google & Apple Protecting Your Privacy Too Much
- As Some Are Requiring People To Give Up Their Info To Dine, Stories Of Creeps Abusing That Info Come Out
- COVID-19 contact tracing hits Apple devices with iOS and iPadOS 13.5
- Privacy commissioners urge respect for privacy rights in using contact-tracing apps
- Everyone Agrees That Contact Tracing Apps Are Key To Bringing COVID-19 Under Control; Iceland Has Tried Them, And Isn’t So Sure
- The Case For Contact Tracing Apps Built On Apple And Google’s Exposure Notification System
- CSIS says proposed federal privacy reforms could hinder spy operations: Spy agency laid out argument in a 14-page submission to the Justice Department
- FBI Holds Press Conference To Claim Apple Prevented It From [Checks Notes] Verifying Attribution In The Pensacola Air Base Shooting
- iPhone crypto hid al-Qaida link to naval base shooting, AG fumes
- Uh Oh: FBI Serves Search Warrant On Senator Richard Burr, Seizes His Phone
- Senate passes spying bill without search and browsing history protections [Updated]
- Senate Passes Surveillance Reauthorization Bill 80-16 — One Stripped Of Almost All Of Its Reforms
- Can a company charge a fee for responding to a right to be forgotten request?
- Connected Vehicles and GDPR – A Status Update after the Public Consultation
- India was already a surveillance state. Its Covid-19 app goes even further
- Fever-Detecting Drones Don’t Work
- London’s Facial Recognition Rollout Trips Over The Pandemic As Facemasks Render The System Even More Useless
CREATIVITY
- Top Things To Know Before Running a Contest in Canada
- Judge Tells Devin Nunes’ Dad (And Lawyer Stephen Biss) To Put Up Or Shut Up In Defamation Lawsuit Over Esquire Article
- European Film Bonds A/S & other v Lotus Holdings LLC & others [2020]: High Court judgment in favour of film completion guarantors who have successfully avoided a potential liability of over €18 million.
- Seventh Circuit Rejects Court Intervention In Light Beer Ad Wars: Is A New Trend Brewing In False Advertising Law?
GAMES
- Nintendo sues Switch hack resellers in ongoing fight against Team Xecutor: Platform holder continues to crack down on groups enabling pirated games to run on its console
- With new Switch-hacking tech looming, Nintendo targets retailers
- Nintendo notes COVID-19 is delaying Switch production, might hit game development
- Ubisoft suing Google and Apple for selling Rainbow Six: Siege ‘carbon copy’
- G2A and Wube Software settle $40,000 chargeback dispute: Factorio developer “satisfied with the results” after marketplace operators conduct internal audit
- Disney clamps down on Club Penguin clones following abuse allegations
- Disney: If We Can’t Run Club Penguin, No One Can Run Club Penguin
- Top mobile trends (and some surprises) during COVID-19 lockdown: GameAnalytics CEO Ioana Hreninciuc explores the effect of the pandemic on player behaviour around the world
- Blizzard Takes New Stance on Custom Game IP
- Children and online harms
- What the Age Appropriate Design Code means for video games: The ICO’s Statutory Code regarding children’s personal data has implications for video games — Baker McKenzie’s Ben Slinn advises to start preparing now
- Swiss Game Developer Settles FTC Allegations Over COPPA Safe Harbor Claims
- Madden NFL’s technical problems were on full display in ESPN championship
- Gambling revenue around esports set to double in 2020
- More Than A Game: The COVID-19 Pandemic Has Turned Esports Into An Economy Of Its Own
- Esports: a new market for travel businesses after COVID-19?
- Video: How to consider player skill growth in esports-friendly games
- Rooster Teeth Forges Multi-Faceted Pact With U.K. Digital Gaming Brand ‘The Yogscast’
- Twitch unveils new Safety Advisory Council: Group of online safety experts and Twitch partners to advise on policies, products, and trends
- Doom Eternal reverses course, will remove kernel-level Denuvo anti-cheat
- Valve launches Play Next feature to help Steam users choose their next game
- Valve Releases ‘Half-Life: Alyx’ Steam Workshop Tools for Making & Downloading Mods
- King has opened up and relinquished control of the Defold game engine
- King makes Defold engine open source: Candy Crush firm sets up Defold Foundation to handle the tech’s development going forward
- Unreal Engine is Now Royalty-free for the First $1 Million in Revenue
- How Epic got such amazing Unreal Engine 5 results on next-gen consoles
- Epic rolls easier refunds, keyless third-party sales into its Epic Games Store
- Epic Games store integrates keyless purchasing with third-party platforms: Green Man Gaming, Fanatical, and Genba Digital join Humble in offering automatic purchases without key entry
- Epic denies disguising load times in Unreal Engine 5 demo: Spokesperson says the goal was to demonstrate the level of detail in the scene
- Controller pros are dominating PC Fortnite thanks to “overpowered” aim assist
- Epic Games confirms Fortnite as launch title for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X: Battle royale will be “optimised” for next-gen consoles, migration to Unreal Engine 5 due in 2021
- Free Grand Theft Auto 5 crashes Epic Games Store: Fortnite creator reports “most users” should now be able to access digital games marketplace
- Hey, Epic, If you’re Going To Boldly Give Away A Historically Popular Game For Free, Make Sure You Can Handle The Demand
- Fortnite surpasses $1b in lifetime spending on App Store alone: Epic’s battle royale sees mobile spending rise with Google Play launch
- Crucible, Amazon’s new online shooter: Alexa, does this game have a chance?
- Amazon throws itself into the Crucible of AAA at last: Lou Castle explains how Amazon’s hero shooter has evolved to be competitive, streamable, and standout in a crowded field
- UK Charts: Animal Crossing holds No.1 in another quiet week – No new releases in the retail charts this week
- Nintendo’s first rumored Mario game for 2020 has come true: Paper Mario in July
- Half of all New Horizons sales in the U.S., Japan, and Europe were digital
- Nintendo confirms 50% digital sales for Animal Crossing: New Horizons: New Horizons has already reached its lifetime sales target, according to Nintendo president Shuntaro Furukawa
- Nintendo warns of potential software delays due to remote working: “Since there are indeed big limitations on what can be done from home, we do think this will have a large impact”
- PlayStation Now has reached 2.2 million subscribers
- PlayStation Now reaches 2.2m subscribers: Sony’s service has doubled its reach in a single year, but still lags behind Xbox Game Pass
- PlayStation Plus reaches 41.5m subscribers: Subscriptions rose by 2.7 million in the first three months of 2020 alone
- Sony’s PS5 reveal will be all about the software | Opinion: The slow drip of PS5 information belies how much technical detail we already know — the real “unveiling” will likely be of a software slate
- Former Xbox exec J Allard is now Intellivision’s global managing director
- Xbox co-founder J Allard heads up Intellivision: Former Microsoft exec will oversee launch of upcoming Intellivision Amico console this October
- Take-Two plans to release 93 full titles in the next five years: Of those, 47 are expected to come from existing franchises, while 46 are new IP
- NBA 2K, GTA, and more push Take-Two’s net revenue over $3B for 2019-20 year
- Take-Two sets net bookings records as Q4 digital sales jump: Publisher looks ahead to a “light year” for new releases, but remains confident in success of back catalog, digital growth
- Game spending in the US reached a record quarterly high in Q1 2020: The NPD Group: Consumers spent nearly $10.9 billion on video games from January through March of this year
- Respawn opens Vancouver studio to focus on Apex Legends development
- Respawn marks its ten-year anniversary with a new Vancouver studio: Dusty Welch, Chad Grenier, Henry Lee, and Steven Ferreira discuss the new studio’s philosophy and goals for the longevity of Apex Legends
- Mobile battle royale game Free Fire has more than 80 million daily users
- The Dark Souls franchise has topped 27 million lifetime sales
- Ubisoft sales dropped by nearly 14% in fiscal year 2019
- Ubisoft beats Q4 forecasts, thanks in no small part to player recurring investment
- Ubisoft prepares for rebound with five AAA titles planned this fiscal year: Publisher reports full-year financials with expected lower revenues after multiple game delays
- Ubisoft offers Assassin’s Creed: Discovery Tour modes for free for one week – Educational explorations of ancient Greece and Egypt made available to encourage learning from home
- Humble’s indie game publishing biz is now Humble Games
- UK Games Fund selects 38 studios for next round of investment: COVID-19 pandemic caused the programme to be revised so more developers could benefit from funding
- Rewriting the playbook: The independent studios making sports work: We explore how developers are carving their own niches in the face of dominating franchises like FIFA and NBA 2K
- 2K and Hangar 13 get in on the classic game remake trend with Mafia: Definitive Edition
- NetEase revenues rise to $2.4bn: Fantasy Westward Journey publisher grows games business overseas with increased playerbase in Japan
- Keywords to raise £100m for acquisition of pandemic-hit companies: Share sale will allow the services firm to buy companies “less able to weather the disruption”
- Sumo Group acquires UK work-for-hire studio Lab42
- Sumo Digital acquires Lab42: Work-for-hire studio to will still operate independently as part of the Sumo group
- Game of War developer Machine Zone acquired by AppLovin: AppLovin will move its headquarters to studio’s Palo Alto office
- AppLovin acquires Final Fantasy XV: A New Empire dev Machine Zone
- Embracer Group sees record shift toward digital due to COVID-19
- Embracer Group’s games business grew by 31% last year
- Embracer Group’s full-year games revenue rose 31%: But the “first AAA games releases since Metro Exodus” won’t arrive until the year ending March 2022
- Mobile battle royale title Free Fire just hit 80 million daily active users
- Minecraft developer Mojang rebrands as Mojang Studios
- Mojang returns to its indie roots with Minecraft Dungeons: The 25-person team on turning one of the world’s biggest games into a dungeon crawler for everyone
- Minecraft has sold 200 million copies in 11 years
- Minecraft has sold over 200m copies to date: Mojang rebrands as Mojang Studios upon game’s 11th anniversary
- Planet Zoo has surpassed 1 million sales in under six months
- South Korean PC gaming cafes take a hit during COVID-19 peak: But the industry appears on the cusp of a rebound as restrictions lift
- Arcades vs COVID-19: How communities can save small businesses – Arcade owners across the world closed to protect their communities — now those regulars are the best hope for their survival
- Net sales down at Square Enix due to lack of major HD game releases
- Tencent is now working on OtherSide’s System Shock game
- Tencent expects revenues to “normalise” after strong Q1: Online and mobile game revenues soared during the COVID-19 pandemic
- 10 games, including Moss and Pistol Whip, have surpassed $2M revenue on Oculus Quest
- More than $100m has been spent on Oculus Quest content: Ten games have earned more than $2m in revenue, including PolyArc’s Moss and Cloudhead Games’ Pistol Whip
- SuperHot VR sells over 2m copies: Sales of all versions of the game passed two million last year
- Connecting through The Legend of Dragoon | Why I Love: Miriam Karina Melgoza on how the classic RPG forged a bond between father and daughter, and the power of games to bring families together
- War Stories: Alan Wake’s transformation emerged from a two-month “sauna”
- How a rejected My Little Pony game helped save a historic tournament
- Breath of the samurai: Sony’s Ghost of Tsushima finally looks like a video game
- Four better ways to talk about immersion in video games
- Game devs hold virtual meeting from hell in Mythic Quest: Quarantine teaser
- The sprawling, must-read history of Maxis’ former “serious games” division
- Q&A: Surviving failed Kickstarters and publishing woes to launch Song of Horror
- Q&A: Making XCOM tighter and more focused with Chimera Squad
- Don’t Miss: A look back at the creation and launch of Alan Wake’s American Nightmare
- Don’t Miss: A Postmortem of Double Fine’s seminal classic Psychonauts
- Don’t Miss: Composing the music of Red Dead Redemption
- Don’t Miss: Mafia 3 and the value of putting game developers in a box
- Don’t Miss: A classic interview with Castlevania composer Michiru Yamane
- Video: How Ubisoft handled NPC voice design for The Division 2
- Video: Democratizing real-time filmmaking techniques for indie devs
- Blog: Creating sequels as an indie developer
- Blog: How the Game & Watch impacted Nintendo’s handheld vision
- Blog: Beginning again at Spilt Milk Studios
- Blog: How Niantic’s response to COVID-19 has protected Pokemon GO
- Blog: Steam’s wishlist-to-sales %: thoughts & a call for data!
- Blog: Cultivating curation – A LudoNarraCon 2020 recap
- Blog: Adding life to worlds with dialogue barks
- Blog: Composing the interactive music of SPYDER – Part 2
- Blog: Developing multi-tile creatures in roguelikes
- Blog: The hidden Switch demo upside & more discoverability tricks
- Safe in Our World launches Level Up Mental Health campaign: Games companies unite to commit to supporting better mental health practices
- AccessJam announced to support Global Accessibility Awareness Day: Disabled game developers organisation Accessibility Unlocked kicking off month-long event on May 21
- U.S. Patent no. 10,315,113: System and method for simulating gameplay of nonplayer characters distributed across networked end user devices
Jon
News of the Week; May 13, 2020
DIGITAL
- Facebook will pay $52 million in settlement with moderators who developed PTSD on the job: Current and former moderators will all be paid a minimum of $1,000
- Facebook Agrees To Pay $52 Million To Content Moderators Whose Work Affected Their Mental Health
- Facebook settles moderator suit for $52M as hate speech on site increases
- As Facebook Agrees To Pay $52 Million In PTSD Payments To Moderators, Why Are Some Demanding More Human Moderators?
- Facebook’s Supreme Court Is In Place… And Everyone Hates It, Because Facebook Makes Everyone Hate Everything
- Amazon Sued For Saying You’ve ‘Bought’ Movies That It Can Take Away From You
- Amid Pandemic, Dozens Of Health Professionals Petition For Tech Companies To Curtail Misinformation
- Anti-Trump Ad Demonstrates Both The Streisand Effect & Masnick’s Impossibility Theorem
- How covid-19 conspiracy theorists are exploiting YouTube culture: Covid-19 conspiracy theorists are still getting millions of views on YouTube, even as the platform cracks down on health misinformation.
- YouTube, Vimeo, Facebook, Twitter Crack Down On COVID-19 Conspiracy Film ‘Plandemic’
- Twitter failing to curb misinformation “superspreaders,” report warns
- Twitter Making It Easier To Study The Public Discussions Around COVID-19
- ‘Smart’ Home Platform Wink Changes The Deal, Suddenly Imposes Subscription Fees
- Beyond Netflix and Spotify, what subscriptions are worth keeping in quarantine?
- Netflix’s first interactive sitcom: Good for laughs, deserves a better app
- Hamilton is coming to Disney+ a year early—just in time for Fourth of July
- YouTube Accelerates Launch Of Connected TV Ad Products Amid Coronavirus Viewership Boom
- YouTube’s FameBit Shutters Self-Service Influencer Marketing Platform To Prioritize In-House Matchmaking
- YouTube TV Adds BET, MTV, Comedy Central, Nick In Multi-Year Deal With ViacomCBS
- YouTube TV Adds ‘Court TV’ To Expanding Channel Lineup
- Court Dismisses Lawsuit Against Company that Added “Blockchain” To Its Name
- Twitch Developing Weekly Slate Of Unscripted, Interactive Shows (Report)
- ‘Twitch Roulette’ Spins Up Random Streamers With Few Viewers
- Jeffrey Katzenberg On Quibi’s 1.3 Million Active Users: “It’s Not Close To What We Wanted”
- Jeffrey Katzenberg’s Ego Decides That COVID-19 Must Be Why Quibi Totally Sucks And No One Wants It
- Studio71 And YouTube Animator Alex Clark Are Crowdfunding A Card Game
- YouTube Creator Corey La Barrie Has Tragically Passed Away On His 25th Birthday
- Family Of Late YouTuber Corey La Barrie Launches GoFundMe For Memorial Expenses
- Paul Vasquez, YouTube’s Joyful ‘Double Rainbow Guy,’ Has Passed Away Age 57
- YouTubers Kristin And Marcus Johns Both Recovering From Surgery After Devastating Hit-And-Run
- Studio71 UK Is Bringing TLC YouTube Series ‘Countdown To I Do’ To The Small Screen
- Top 50 Most Viewed YouTube Channels Worldwide • Week Of 5/11/2020
- Top 50 Most Viewed US YouTube Channels • Week Of 5/11/2020
- How Ad Council, Collectively, And Digital Brand Architects Are Evaluating Social Good Campaigns During COVID-19
- To compete with Gmail, Microsoft reveals plans for new Web-based Outlook features
- Bon Appétit’s Beloved ‘Test Kitchen’ Crew To Host Coronavirus Benefit Dinner On Instagram Live
- Charli And Dixie D’Amelio No Longer Affiliated With ‘The Hype House’ As A Business
- NBC Picks Up ‘A Little Late With Lilly Singh’ For Season Two, But Won’t Film Remotely
- BroadbandTV Signs Competitive Eater Matt Stonie, Jesse Wellens, Others
- English Law Challenges in Recovering Cryptocurrency Ransoms
- Alphabet’s Sidewalk Labs scraps its ambitious Toronto project
- Thunderspy: What it is, why it’s not scary, and what to do about it
- Coronavirus: Google ends plans for smart city in Toronto
- Google unifies messenger teams, plans “more coherent vision”
- Google Play Music dies this year, YT Music library imports begin today
- TikTok Goes On Hiring Spree In London, Which Will Serve As Center Of European Ops (Report)
- Facebook’s New Features Are Meant To Help Small Businesses See More “Virtual Foot Traffic”
- Zoomism and Discipline for Productive Immobility
- Choose your quarantine meme house: A taxonomy of the pandemic’s greatest meme hits.
- Bitcoin’s “halving” is bad for miners, good for everyone else
- What Do Platforms Do? Understanding the Gig Economy (Steven Vallas & Juliet B. Schor)
A.I.
- Thomson Reuters Accuses Ross Intelligence of Using Bot to Hijack Westlaw Data: Lawsuit against San Francisco-based Ross Intelligence could outline the often adversarial coexistence of copyrights and artificial intelligence.
- ROSS Fires Back At Thomson Reuters Over Data Case
- France is using AI to check whether people are wearing masks on public transport: The technology won’t be used to identify and punish individuals
- Blurring the Lines: When AI Creates Art Is It Copyrightable?
- CAA Signs Its First Virtual Client: Computer-Generated Instagrammer Miquela
- Shuttered restaurants, bars, hotels speed up TV cord-cutting even more
- All’s Clear for Deepfakes: Think Again
- Why Fake Video, Audio May Not Be As Powerful In Spreading Disinformation As Feared
- FTC Consumer Protection Director Provides Guidance on Use of Artificial Intelligence in Automated Decision-Making
- This ‘Beat Saber’ Project Uses AI to Generate Custom Beat Maps for Any Song
- Building the AI of F.E.A.R. with goal oriented action planning
- Response to the European Commission’s White Paper on Artificial Intelligence (Elettra Bietti)
- U.S. AI and IoT Legislative Update – First Quarter 2020
- Regulating Text and Data Mining in the European Union: Issues and Challenges
COMMUNICATIONS
- Why “Taking On” Google and Facebook Isn’t the Cure for the Media Sector’s Ills (Michael Geist)
- Shuttered restaurants, bars, hotels speed up TV cord-cutting even more
- No, Congress Can’t Fix The Broken US Broadband Market In A Mad Dash During A Pandemic
- COVID-19 Is Exposing A Virulent Strain Of Broadband Market Failure Denialism
- FCC fines Sinclair $48M, refuses to revoke its broadcast licenses
- FCC Makes it Easier for Broadcasters and Cable Operators to Rehire Laid Off Employees
- US military is furious at FCC over 5G plan that could interfere with GPS
- ISPs Finally Lifted Data Caps. It Only Took A Global Pandemic
- Comcast resists call to open home Wi-Fi hotspots, cites potential congestion
- Verizon’s nationwide 5G will only be a “small” upgrade over 4G at first
- Study Shows US 5G Is An Over-hyped Disappointment
- New AT&T CEO Says You’re A Moron If You Don’t Use AT&T Streaming Services
- Democrats try to ban Internet shutoffs until pandemic is over
INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY
- Wiseau Studio, LLC et al v Harper et al, (2020 ONSC 2504)
- Ontario Court finds room for fair dealing in documentary on The Room
- Intellectual Property litigation in the Federal Court
- Second Circuit Clicks “I Agree” Affirming Website Agreement Protects Web Application from Misappropriation by Users
- Fair Use Protects a Highly Cropped Photo–Harbus v. Manhattan Institute (Eric Goldman)
- “I’m [Not] Yours”
- “I’m Yours” Not Theirs: Jason Mraz Settles Dispute Over Beer Ad’s Allegedly Unauthorized Use of Performance Footage on Instagram
- Court Of Appeals Affirms Lower Court Tossing BS ‘Comedians In Cars’ Copyright Lawsuit
- Sixth Circuit Concurrence Fears Courts May Be Groovin’ to the Wrong Tune in Copyright Cases
- Eleventh Circuit: Guitar Designer Wasn’t Taking a Solo
- Second Circuit Limits Copyright Damages To Those Incurred Within Three Years Prior to Suit
- Does copyright subsist in the Brompton Folding Bicycle?
- Does the Cofemel decision mark the end of “artistic value”?
- Copyright protection for fabric designs
- Monkey Business (and Other Animal Non-Rights)
- Copyright Troll Richard Liebowitz Has Two Separate Courts Sanction Him For His Ongoing Copyright Trolling Failures
- Supreme Court: Willfulness Not Required for Profits Awards in Trademark Infringement Actions
- Supreme Court Holds Trademark Infringement Does Not Require a Finding of “Willful” Infringement To Recover an Award of Profits
- Without a Willfulness Requirement, Is the Path Clearer for Brand Owners to Pursue and Recover Trademark Damages?
- Supreme Court clarifies rules for remedies in trademark litigation
- Whether or not there’s a will, there’s still a way to infringers’ profits in Canadian trademark litigation
- Trademark Law Alert – A Book Title Sometimes May Prevent Registration of the Same Term for Other Goods
- 2(b) Prohibition On “Flag Marks” Bars Use of Flag as Part of a Mark
- Coachella may not be cancelled – but its EU trade mark has been
- Say It With Me Now, Australia: Beer And Wine Are Not The Same Thing, Not Even For Trademarks
- Freedom of expression counts in trademark law
- [Insert Yell Here]: Rapper Pitbull Receives Trademark Registration for “EEEEEEEYOOOOOO!” Sound Mark
- NCAA Issues New Name, Image, Likeness Guidance
- The Face(David)Off
- Bongo’s Bingo and Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah cause IP Hoo-Hah
- SkyKick: High Court narrows Sky’s trade mark protection and criticises the use of trade marks as a weapon
- Justices Voice Reservations About a Bright-line Genericness Test in Booking.com
- Can a mathematical mystery be registered as a trade mark?
- Tiger King – Battle of the Big Cat Trade Marks
- National Geographic Defeats Trademark Suit Over ‘Wild America’ and ‘Untamed Americas’ Claim
- Patent Filings Doom Registered Trade Dress in Seventh Circuit
- Combination Litigation: Recent Software Disputes at the Intersection of Trade Secret, Copyright and Patent Law
- Federal Circuit Rules that Moving Software to the Cloud Alone Is Obvious
- Importance of Determining Inventorship Prior to Patent Issuance
- Patentability of Covid-19 smartphone apps at the EPO
- Fed. Cir.: Threat of Suit Over Past Infringement Confers Standing
- The Federal Circuit Dismisses Pfizer’s Appeal for Lack of Standing
- Object detection in an augmented reality image: insufficiently disclosed
- Obvious to the Bone: Teva Wins Opposition against Eli Lilly’s Patent Application Covering Osteoporosis Blockbuster FORTEO®
- Analysis of the innovativeness of “zanubrutinib” from a patent perspective
- Finite Methods as a Ground for Obviousness
- The deadlock on the unified patent convention
- Actions Speak Louder Than Words: Germany’s Highest Court tells SEP implementers that simply saying that you are willing to license is not enough, and hold-out will not be tolerated
- The UKIPO investigates AI-powered prior art searches
- How combining blockchain technology and AI could benefit patent analysis
- The Inventinator: May AI “Inventors” get Patents?
- USPTO: Artificial Intelligence Systems Cannot Legally Invent
- Creative COVID-19 Collaborations – IP Agreements that Work
- White House Identifies Amazon Foreign Domains as “Notorious Markets” for Counterfeit Goods
- Federal Circuit Patent Update
- IP Litigation Quarterly Update
PRIVACY
- India is forcing people to use its covid app, unlike any other democracy: Millions of Indians have no choice but to download the country’s tracking technology if they want to keep their jobs or avoid reprisals.
- Zoom Reaches Agreement with New York Attorney General to Resolve Privacy and Security Issues
- Zoom to Implement New Security Measures in Deal with NY Attorney General
- Utah Pulls Plug On Surveillance Contractor After CEO’s Past As A White Supremacist Surfaces
- Google’s Privacy Policy Can’t Save it From Smartphone Spying Claim: California Privacy Laws Tested in Suit Alleging Big Tech is Letting Subcontractors Listen in on Your Conversations
- Cookie walls invalidate consent, says EDPB
- In Response To Getting Sued, Clearview Is Dumping All Of Its Private Customers
- EU Data Protection: Updated EDPB Guidance on Consent Clarifies the Mechanism for Cookie Consent
- The EU is trying to fix its abysmal cookie consent policy: The pain of cookie consent mechanisms is an international problem
- EUROPE: New privacy rules for connected vehicles in Europe?
- Conflict Between the Right to Privacy and the Right to Public Health: Global Phenomenon and Coronavirus Outbreak
- Your Boss May Soon Track You At Work For Coronavirus Safety
- Privacy litigation in the age of coronavirus
- As More Students Sit Online Exams Under Lockdown Conditions, Remote Proctoring Services Carry Out Intrusive Surveillance
CREATIVITY
- “Happy Cows” False Labeling Theory is Just “Half Baked”: Court Dismisses False Advertising Claims Against Ben & Jerry’s
- Counterclaims on the Cutting-Room Floor: How a Central District Court Cut Down the Writers Guild’s Countersuit Against Hollywood’s Talent Agencies
- HRH The Duchess of Sussex v Associated Newspapers Limited [2020] EWHC 1058 (Ch)
- Bud Light’s win on “corn syrup” ad offers valuable lessons on false advertisement claims
- Whoops! Whooper ad banned by the ASA
- The Impact of COVID-19 on Media and Entertainment Industry Transactions
- Art Law: Introduction
- First-step analysis: art law in USA (New York)
- Top 3 Legal Predictions on Fashion Law for 2020
GAMES
- Nintendo files lawsuit barrage to take down Super Mario 64 PC port
- A year of Riot’s diversity and inclusivity efforts mean it now employs 1% more women: And US operations have 1% more underrepresented minorities
- Riot “can’t solve society” but commits to combatting player abuse in Valorant: “Harassment and bullying in games is not a status quo I’m comfortable accepting,” says executive producer
- Riot wants to curb toxicity in Valorant without putting the burden on targeted players
- Riot Games’ Social Impact Fund has raised $10m so far: So far, the fund has provided $8 million in grands and funding to over 50 nonprofits
- Gaming Emote Litigation: Battle Royale Ensues Over Fortnite Emotes with Plaintiffs Testing Different Causes of Action
- Fortnite surpasses 350 million registered players
- Crytek Delays Launch of Lawsuit Against Star Citizen Devs Before Suddenly Settling
- Finnish Hockey League Championship Decided Via Stand-In Esports Playoff
- Ex-Respawn devs set up new studio Gravity Well as anti-crunch and pro-remote work
- Can video games depict war responsibly?: On the eve of the 75th VE Day, we explore how developers engage players in military conflict
- Animal Crossing boosts Nintendo sales despite COVID-19
- Animal Crossing: New Horizons sold 11.77 million copies in under two weeks
- Animal Crossing New Horizons hits 13.4m sales
- Animal Crossing New Leaf took six years to reach 12.6m sales — New Horizons surpassed it in six weeks
- UK Charts: Animal Crossing: New Horizons sales surge 135%
- Nintendo praises Switch momentum as lifetime sales eclipse 55 million units
- Switch passes 55m lifetime sales in a strong year for Nintendo: Pokémon and Animal Crossing were the standouts among 27 Switch titles that sold more than one million units
- Sales up at Nintendo due to ‘significant growth’ across the entire Switch family
- Animal Crossing is now the best-selling Switch game of all time in Japan: Island getaway game has sold 3.9 million copies, beat Final Fantasy 7 Remake in latest monthly charts
- Animal Crossing: New Horizons and its impact on a pandemic-stricken world
- Tales From The Quarantine: People Are Selling ‘Animal Crossing’ Bells For Real Cash After Layoffs
- Nintendo forecasts down year amid COVID-19 uncertainty: Switch maker expects to sell 17% fewer games, 9.6% less hardware for the fiscal year that started last month
- PlatinumGames apologises for blank Switch codes following The Wonderful 101 delay: Kickstarter backers complained of malfunctioning or empty codes, Japanese studio working on replacements
- Grand strategy title Stellaris has sold over 3 million copies in four years
- Twitch viewers watched 334m hours of Valorant in April: It was the most popular game on Twitch, and drove the rise of new streamers to the top ten
- Report: games market to generate $159 billion in 2020 thanks to coronavirus (Newzoo)
- Mobile games to see the least negative impact from COVID-19: Newzoo – All platforms will see growth, but low barrier to entry and simpler development will bolster mobile
- Report: COVID-19 spurns 45% growth in livestreaming viewership (StreamElements)
- COVID-19 and the Games Industry: Opportunities and Challenges
- Q&A: How Jackbox CEO Mike Bilder is grappling with quarantine-driven success
- The Resident Evil series has sold 98m units to date: Monster Hunter has sold 63 million total, Street Fighter is at 44 million
- Digital revenue and packaged game sales driving growth at Sega Sammy
- Surge in packaged games drive Sega’s full-year sales to $3.4bn: Boxed products were biggest revenue driver for games business, but future releases may be delayed by COVID-19
- Zynga posts its best-ever Q1 by way of $404 million in revenue
- Zynga COO: We could work from home forever if needed – Matt Bromberg says the social gaming company hasn’t skipped a beat because of social distancing
- Sledgehammer COO: “We’re ready and prepared to work this way indefinitely” – Andrew Wilson says the studio has overcome most work-from-home tech hurdles, but mental health still a challenge
- Sales down, profits up at Capcom
- Capcom posts record profits on sharply down sales: Despite revenues down 18.4% year-over-year, shift to higher-margin digital sales drives Monster Hunter maker’s bottom line
- Playrix sees best month ever as Gardenscapes lifetime revenue nears $2b – Sensor Tower: Mobile games publisher has surpassed 1.1 billion downloads across its entire portfolio
- Rogue Games nets $2 million to expand publishing business
- Rogue Games raises $2m toward expanding its publishing business: In total, the mobile publisher has raised $3.4 million
- Lack of big releases sees Square Enix sales drop to $2.4bn: But profits and operating income still show increases thanks to Final Fantasy XIV and Dragon Quest X expansions
- Nexon’s Q1 takes a hit from closure of PC gaming cafes in China: But Korean revenue remains strong due to MapleStory, FIFA Online 4
- Avalanche pushes in a new direction with Systemic Reaction: The Swedish firm’s rebranded self-publishing division is aiming for faster development with smaller teams
- Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1+2 will be remastered for a second time in Sept 2020
- The Culling is coming back, this time swapping free-to-play for one-free-play-per-day
- Xbox “set some wrong expectations” for next-gen livestream: Microsoft and Ubisoft mollify fans expecting to see promised Xbox Series X gameplay
- Xbox Series X showcase redefines “gameplay” | Podcast: Latest episode available now, focusing on last week’s special episode of Inside Xbox
- Some Xbox Series X games won’t hit 60fps “performance target”
- Microsoft shows off 13 “launch window” games for Xbox Series X
- New IP dominates first Xbox Series X game reveals: Nine new games will use Xbox’s ‘Smart Delivery’ offering that allows gamers to buy a game once for use across all Xbox consoles
- Every Xbox Series X game announced by Microsoft today: That’s a lot of games!
- Epic debuts free Online Services to help devs build cross-platform, cross-play games
- Devs using Unreal Engine won’t owe Epic royalties on a game’s first $1 million
- Unreal Engine is now royalty-free until a game makes a whopping $1 million
- Epic’s next-gen bid to knock down the walled garden: Tim Sweeney, Kim Libreri, and Nick Penwarden discuss Unreal Engine 5, next-gen development, and Epic’s efforts to make both open and accessible
- Epic Games announces Unreal Engine 5 with first PS5 footage: Beginning today, Epic will waive royalties on the first $1 million in game revenue for all Unreal Engine games
- Epic reveals next-gen Unreal Engine 5 tech running on PlayStation 5
- PS4 sales down at Sony, but network services revenue gets ‘significant’ boost
- Sony’s games business declines as new generation looms: PS4 sales passed 110m units in a down fiscal year, but PS5 is still set to launch in 2020
- First-party PlayStation games to be collected under new PlayStation Studios brand
- Sony announces new PlayStation Studios branding for its first-party PS5 games
- PlayStation Studios brand will launch alongside PS5: Check out the video that will open upcoming first-party PlayStation games
- Sony has suspended the PlayStation Store in mainland China to upgrade security
- Sony temporarily closes PlayStation Store in China: Platform holder says it is improving store security, no reopening date given
- Niko Partners: COVID-19 may slow consumer adoption of next-gen consoles
- UK: Ads on social media for esports betting come under the microscope
- Activision Blizzard brings in betting monitoring firm to observe its esports leagues: Overwatch League, Call of Duty League enter multi-year partnership with Sportradar
- Esports & the global pandemic
- Electronic Arts shifts playbook for all-digital esports events
- Fantasy sports firm Sleeper turns to esports after $20m round: Series B funding round closes ahead of new League of Legends fantasy esports game
- We talk esports vs. a pro racing simulator with Jaguar’s Mitch Evans
- Hologate Wants Its New VR Arcade Hygiene Standards to Inspire Confidence in a Wary Public
- Researchers Say Head-mounted Haptics Can Combat Smooth Locomotion Discomfort in VR
- VR could seize its moment — if the big players would cooperate | Opinion: VR has an opportunity to break out, but the mess of competing standards is holding back the whole sector
- Maze Theory raises £1.4m for Doctor Who VR trilogy: Studio receives investment from UK Creative Content EIS Fund, plus a second grant from government programme
- Can video games depict war responsibly?: On the eve of the 75th VE Day, we explore how developers engage players in military conflict
- Growing mobile games through user acquisition: Nordeus’ Andrej Kugonič takes a deep dive into UA for the GamesIndustry.biz Academy
- Starbreeze cuts losses by $7.2 million, calls Payday 3 publishing talks ‘positive’
- Starbreeze cuts losses to $9.9m: Payday 3 publishing plans hindered by travel restrictions
- Streaming startup Parsec raises $7m in funding: Series A round will fund push into streamed gameplay and remote development
- Scavengers Studio ends active development on Darwin Project
- How World of Warcraft has evolved with the Internet
- Here’s the surprisingly sweet origin story behind New Horizons’ sea bass gag
- Don’t Miss: Writing Deus Ex: Mankind Divided to ‘hold a mirror up to the world’
- Don’t Miss: Chris Crawford wants game devs to do long-term planning
- Don’t Miss: Ken Rolston’s development secrets of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
- Don’t Miss: A postmortem of Treyarch’s Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater for the Dreamcast
- Don’t Miss: Paradox Development Studio’s postmortem of Stellaris
- Q&A: Re-imagining 1998’s Half-Life for a 2020 audience in Black Mesa
- Video: Behind the beautiful audio of PSVR game Paper Beast
- Video: Balancing visuals and performance while art directing Forza
- Video: Using deep reinforcement learning for NPCs and playtesting
- Video: Understanding different specialties & approaches in game production
- Blog: Understanding open world level design – Part 1
- Blog: A data-filled deep dive into LudoNarraCon
- Blog: The calming effect of low stakes games4
- Blog: Tilemaps – More than a grid
- Insights: With Metaverse Talk Common Amid Pandemic, We’re Ready To Be ‘Player One’ Almost Anywhere Else
- U.S. Patent no. 10,315, 108: Local application quick start with cloud transitioning
Jon
News of the Week; May 6, 2020
DIGITAL
- Bye, Amazon (Tim Bray)
- Amazon VP Tim Bray Quits To Protest Employee Firings
- Amazon Vice President: ‘I Quit in Dismay’ at Company Firing Whistleblowers
- Tim Bray, Early Internet Guru, And Amazon VP Quits Over The ‘Chickenshit’ Company’s Targeting Of Employees Speaking Out About COVID-19
- An Amazon VP’s resignation has cast a spotlight on the company’s working conditions
- An Amazon VP’s resignation shows internal unrest is rising to the top: Tim Bray wrote that staying an Amazon VP would have meant “signing off on actions I despised.”
- “Chickens**t” whistleblower firings are “poison,” resigning Amazon VP says
- The Pandemic Has Ended the Amazon Debate: It’s clearer than ever that supporting Amazon is a tacit endorsement of abusive work policies and more
- An Amazon warehouse worker in New York has died of COVID-19: Amazon confirmed the death to The Verge
- House Panel Wants Bezos to Testify in Antitrust Probe: Amazon reportedly used sensitive seller information to develop its own competing products.
- Congress wants Jeff Bezos to testify in Amazon antitrust probe: A House subcommittee is scrutinizing whether the company unfairly competes against its own marketplace sellers.
- Amazon locks down internal employee communications amid organizing efforts
- Congress calls on Bezos to come explain Amazon’s possible lies
- The Decentralized Web Could Help Preserve The Internet’s Data For 1,000 Years. Here’s Why We Need IPFS To Build It.
- A Sure Way to Ruin My Day: The Phrase “Enforceable Browsewrap”–HealthplanCRM v. Avmed
- California sues to make Uber and Lyft drivers employees
- Uber lays off 3,700 people as its ride business craters
- Illinois Supreme Court Finds Daily Fantasy Sports to Be Legal, Rejects DFS Loser’s Gambling Loss Recovery Act Claim
- Is It Illegal to Prohibit Online Selling?: High Court has ruled on whether it is illegal for a business to restrict online selling by its retailers under competition law – Ping Europe Limited v Competition and Markets Authority
- Here We Go Again: Russia Gears Up to Interfere in 2020 Election With Coronavirus Disinformation: A campaign linked to Russia aims to manipulate this year’s elections in the United States and Europe.
- Inside the Early Days of China’s Coronavirus Coverup: The dawn of a pandemic – as seen through the news and social media posts that vanished from China’s internet.
- How Can Anyone Argue With A Straight Face That China’s Approach To Speech Online Is Better Than The US’s During A Pandemic
- China Tried To Get The EU Not To Release A Report On China’s COVID-19 Disinformation Efforts
- Cambodian Government Using Fake News Law To Silence Critics And Coronavirus Reporting
- Being Too Aggressive At Policing COVID-19 Disinformation Risks Breaking The Important ‘Collective Sensemaking Process’
- Coronavirus: David Icke kicked off Facebook – Facebook has taken down the official page of conspiracy theorist David Icke for publishing “health misinformation that could cause physical harm”.
- Ninth Circuit Revives Class Action Suit against Facebook for Selling Users’ Browsing History
- Court Approves Historic FTC-Facebook Settlement Giving Businesses 5 Billion Reasons to Reevaluate Privacy Programs
- Facebook’s Zuckerberg praises coronavirus lockdowns as Tesla’s Musk sees ‘fascism’
- Counter-archiving Facebook (Anat Ben-David)
- These are the people Facebook put in charge of deciding whether to delete controversial posts
- Why I’m Joining Facebook’s Oversight Board: Former Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger on why the social media giant ‘needs independent, external oversight’
- How Facebook’s oversight board could rewrite the rules of the entire internet: The new content moderation board is built so other companies could get in on the action. That could be a mixed blessing.
- Texas Appeals Court Brushes Off Section 230 In Allowing Lawsuit Over Sex Trafficking Against Facebook To Continue
- If You’re Complaining About COVID-19 Misinformation Online AND About Section 230, You’re Doing It Wrong
- Armslist Wins Another Section 230 Ruling–Stokinger v. Armslist (Eric Goldman)
- Senator Wyden And Others Introduce Bill Calling The DOJ’s Bluff Regarding Its Attempt To Destroy Section 230 & Encryption
- Twitter runs a test prompting users to revise ‘harmful’ replies
- Another Suspended Twitter User Loses in Court–Wilson v. Twitter (Eric Goldman)
- Twitter tests telling users their tweet replies may be offensive
- Supreme Court Streams Oral Arguments Live For The First Time (Thanks To The Pandemic)
- In an unusual investor call, Apple reports flat quarterly earnings amid COVID-19
- How ‘Karen’ Became a Coronavirus Villain: A popular joke about entitled white women is now a big pandemic meme.
- ICANN blocks controversial sale of .org domain to a private equity firm
- ICANN Board Blocks The Sale Of The .Org Registry
- It’s a No-Win for Gig Workers in the Covid-19 Moment
- Hedge Fund ‘Asshole’ Destroying Local News & Firing Reporters Wants Google & Facebook To Just Hand Him More Money
- Zoom matchmaking is giving lockdown singletons a shot at love: A reinvention of traditional matchmaking is helping the single, bored, and lonely meet like-minded people, wherever they might live.
- Zoom Video Conferencing: Data Privacy and Cybersecurity Implications
- Google Meet, Google’s Zoom competitor, gets wider Gmail integration
- New earnings report shows Microsoft’s shift to cloud and subscriptions is working
- ‘What are we doing this for?’: Doctors are fed up with conspiracies ravaging ERs: “I left work and I felt so deflated,” one doctor said about an effort to counter misinformation he saw on Facebook. “I let it get to me.”
- Medical students learn through virtual clinical rotations
- In rural Oklahoma, a Wi-Fi hot spot brings a dash of hope and excitement: At high schools, libraries, parking lots & side streets, Americans are tapping public Wi-Fi hot spots that are lifelines during the coronavirus pandemic.
- Zoom says it has 300 million daily meeting participants, not users
- Deplatforming: Following extreme Internet celebrities to Telegram and alternative social media
- The Power and Perils of Influencer Marketing: Recent Developments, Competition Considerations and Best Practices
- NFL Draft Prompts Big Social Media Spike
- YouTube Taps Barack And Michelle Obama, BTS, Jackie Aina, More For Virtual Graduation Event
- CAA Signs YouTube Beauty Guru Rachel Levin (Exclusive)
- YouTube Expands Recommendation-Filtering Feature ‘Topics’ To iOS, Browser Site
- Top 50 Most Viewed YouTube Channels Worldwide • Week Of 5/04/2020
- Top 50 Most Viewed US YouTube Channels • Week Of 5/04/2020
- YouTube To Let News Publishers Natively Vend Their Own Subscription Products By Year’s End (Report)
- Boots on the Moon! Netflix drops official Space Force trailer
- Hulu Becomes Latest HBO Max Launch Partner, Will Upgrade Current HBO Add-Ons For Free
- The Promise – and Risk – of a Career in TikTok: For many young people, being a paid content creator on social media is the dream job. But it’s not as easy as it may look.
- TikTok Has Reportedly Surpassed 2 Billion Global App Downloads
- Candidates Can’t Campaign, So They’re Trying To Go Viral: Down-ballot candidates are starting to look a lot like influencers
- The Biden campaign faces a mind-boggling challenge: How to make Joe go viral – The ex-veep’s small digital team has a tall order going up against Donald Trump, who intuitively understands what clicks.
- Straight from Monty Python – Implied Warranties: The British Columbia Dead Parrot Case
- This baby goat live stream is the mood-booster we need: Play, eat, sleep, repeat
- This Mental Health App Is Tailor-Made for Your Pandemic Woes: Covid Coach, from the National Center for PTSD, offers exercises and resources for dealing with uncertainty, isolation, and unemployment.
- Google tells employees they can’t expense food or other perks when working from home
- Google—Do Not Pass Go, Do Not Collect $200: Why the Tech Giant Is a “Bad” Monopoly (Alicia Ginsberg)
- Justin And Hailey Bieber Debut Self-Shot Facebook Watch Series During Quarantine
- Eko’s Tech Theft Lawsuit Against Quibi To Be Funded By New Investor Elliott Management Corp. (Report)
- Quibi Denies Purposely Leaking Users’ Emails, But Has Retooled Its Sign-Up Process
- Quibi Turns To YouTube For Audience Growth, Uploading Full Episodes Of Select Originals
- Quibi Is What Happens When Hollywood Overvalues Content And Undervalues Community
- Hulu Becomes Latest HBO Max Launch Partner, Will Upgrade Current HBO Add-Ons For Free
- Disney hammered by coronavirus shutdowns as operating income drops 37 percent
- The Black Box and Japanese Discourses of the Digital (David Humphrey)
- On the Relief of Ignoring the Internet in Fiction: Joyce Hinnefeld Considers the Obstacles of Digital Obsolescence
- After the Tech-Lash: Digital Policy Priorities in the Post-Pandemic World (Michael Geist)
A.I.
- Jukebox: Introducing Jukebox, a neural net that generates music, including rudimentary singing, as raw audio in a variety of genres and artist styles. We’re releasing the model weights and code to explore the generated samples.
- To Invent is Human: U.S. Patent and Trademark Office Rejects AI System as an Inventor
- Video: How 343 uses machine learning for optimal matchmaking
- US patent office rules that artificial intelligence cannot be a legal inventor: Only ‘natural persons’ need apply
- Does An Invention Discovered With Artificial Intelligence Obtain Patent Protection?
- Ha Ha, Our New Robot Overlords Can’t Get Patents
- USPTO denies patent application for invention by AI
- USPTO Rules Artificial Intelligence Cannot Be Named As Inventor for Patent Application
- Harrisburg University Researchers Claim Their ‘Unbiased’ Facial Recognition Software Can Identify Potential Criminals
- AI Software Gets Mixed Reviews for Tackling Coronavirus
- Drone-to-door medicines trial takes flight in Ireland
- An AI algorithm inspired by how kids learn is harder to confuse
- How well can algorithms recognize your masked face?
- How coronavirus set the stage for a techno-future with robots and AI
- “Deepfake” Technology: Very Real Marketing Value … and Risks
- Harnessing artificial intelligence (AI) to increase wellbeing for all: The case for a new technology diplomacy
- Volvo plans cars with lidar and “eyes off” highway driving by 2022
- US FTC Publishes Guidance on Using Artificial Intelligence and Algorithms
COMMUNICATIONS
- Advocacy group wants CRTC to do more to protect privacy amid contact tracing debate: Telecommunications Act requires privacy protections and monitoring and disclosing of contact tracing
- NYT defeats Ajit Pai as judge orders FCC to provide net neutrality records
- Judge Orders FCC To Hand Over Data On Fake Net Neutrality Comments
- CenturyLink still hasn’t met 2019 FCC deadline, now faces pandemic roadblocks
- AT&T CEO Steps Down After Bungled, Megamerger-Fueled TV Failure
- ‘Job Creating’ Sprint T-Mobile Merger Triggers Estimated 6,000 Non-Covid Layoffs
- Federal Communications Commission Penalizes Marriott Vacations for Unauthorized Transfer of Private Radio Licenses
- Comcast overcharged elderly couple $600, denied refund until contacted by Ars
- Comcast Graciously Extends Suspension Of Completely Unnecessary Data Caps
- Frontier, amid bankruptcy, is suspected of lying about broadband expansion
- What’s New in 5G – May 2020
INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY
- York University statement on recent court decision regarding Access Copyright
- Supreme Court May Weigh In on the Legality of Data Scraping
- Supreme Court Offers Guidance Regarding Eligibility of State Legislative Records for Protection Under the Copyright Act
- Allen v. Cooper and Georgia v. Public.Resource.org: The Supreme Court Navigates the Relationship Between State Government and Federal Copyright Law
- Jennifer Lopez sued for copyright infringement
- Once Upon a Time: Everything was Copyrighted
- 11th Circuit Tells Guitar Maker to Take a [Pantera] Walk on Delayed Copyright Claims
- Ricky Martin’s “Vida” Lives On, but Plaintiff Will Get Another Shot at It
- Hiring out cars with radios is not a “communication to the public”
- IP in Street Arts
- Surely Not The Equivalent Of The Mona Lisa?*
- EU Joins In The Bullying Of South Africa For Daring To Adopt US-Style Fair Use Principles
- IP Alert: Two Recent IP Rulings Have Far-Reaching Consequences
- Show me the money: Supreme Court rules that trademark infringers may disgorge profits even if the law was not willfully violated
- Supreme Court Raises the Stakes Against Unauthorized Resellers: Willfulness No Longer Required for Manufacturers to Obtain Profits in Trademark Cases
- Court Sides With Nike And Dismisses Kawhi Leonard’s Lawsuit Over ‘Klaw’ Logo
- Remix Culture Done Right: Wes Tank Mashes Up Dr. Seuss With Dr. Dre (And So Far The Copyright Police Have Left Him Alone)
- Can Smells be Trademarks?
- Ardbeg v AlbergWhisky
- Luxury Arcade Game Win
- Lion’s head trade mark not sufficiently distinctive for Parisian brand Pierre Balmain
- Bentley Clothing wins trade mark battle against Bentley Motors
- Highest EU court pours hot water on Coty v Amazon case
- High Court disarms ‘weaponised’ TMs in landmark ruling
- There are more things …than are dreamt of in your philosophy: Damages for infringing a revoked and unused trademark? Yes says the CJEU…
- C‑622/18 – AR v Cooper International Spirits LLC and Others – Damages for trade mark infringement possible where trade mark revoked for non-use
- Sky v Skykick – High Court decision
- Skykick liable for infringement of Sky’s trade mark registrations even after they are held to be partially invalid
- Are second hand sales use of a registered trade mark?
- SCOTUS Livestreams Oral Arguments on BOOKING.COM Trademark Registerability
- As Twisted as Cheese!
- Supplementary protection for vaccines: Canada diverges from Europe
- USPTO Reports on Examination Outcomes Post-Alice
- U.S. Patent Office Report Shows Improving Post-Alice Patent Examination Outcomes
- Fish Hook Claims Can’t Catch a Patent
- Fishing for Eligibility in Murky Waters
- Wurst Case Scenario: Sausage Tray Design Patent Found Obvious
- An Invention That Changes the Normal Operation of a System Is Not Abstract Under § 101
- A History of the Solar Cell, in Patents
- Wearable Technologies and Intellectual Property: Stand Alone Software and Software as Medical Devices
- Patent Infringement for the Public Good
- Patents – public interest argument fails in medical devices case
- Most number of Patent Applications filed by?
- Patent Litigation Filings on the Increase with the COVID-19 Pandemic
- We’re Saved! Company Claims It’s Patented ‘Containing the Spread of Disinformation’ And Will Stop COVID-19 Disinfo
PRIVACY
- UK City Leaves Nearly Nine Million License Plate/Location Data Records Exposed On The Open Web
- Suspected DNC & German Parliament Hacker Used His Name As His Email Password
- A facial recognition company wants to help with contact tracing. A senator has questions.: Clearview CEO Hoan Ton-That said it’s in discussions with federal and state agencies to help with contact tracing.
- Here’s how Apple, Google will warn you if you’ve been exposed to COVID-19
- Ethics of instantaneous contract tracing using mobile phone apps in the control of the COVID-19 pandemic
- Contact tracing, data and privacy: Technological choices in response to COVID-19
- Would you let Google, Apple contact-trace your family? Here’s what Reddit’s Alexis Ohanian says
- Court Filings Show NSO Group Ran Malware Attacks Through Servers Located In California
- Filings In Facebook’s Lawsuit Against NSO Show FBI Director Chris Wray Was For Encryption Before He Was Against It
- Hard Pass: Clearview Offers To Help Out With COVID-19 Contact Tracing
- Google Purged Almost 1,000 Abusive ‘Creeperware’ Apps. Now Some Are Coming Back.: Catch a Cheating Spouse now has more than 10,000 downloads
- Coronavirus Has Complicated California’s Internet Privacy Law: Business groups have asked the state to hold off on enforcement of privacy rules.
- South Korea is relying on technology to contain COVID-19, including measures that would break privacy laws in the US — and so far, it’s working
- Downloading COVID-19 contact tracing apps is a moral obligation
- Ring Docs Show Company Is Testing Consumer Enthusiasm For Facial Recognition, License Plate Reader Capabilities
CREATIVITY
- A $750,000 Foot Long: Costs Awarded to CBC in Failed Subway Defamation Suit
- Court Tosses Former Sheriff Arpaio’s Attempt To Relitigate His Libel Lawsuit The Court Tossed Last Year
- Devin Nunes’ Lawyer Facing Sanctions, While Nunes Himself May Have To Pay His Opponents’ Legal Bills
- Court Slaps Down Corporal Punishment Defamation Case Against Broadcasting Corporation
- What’s the ASA’s ‘beef’ with Burger King?
- Media consortium seeking search warrants from Nova Scotia mass shooting: Halifax Judge says she’ll push to hold hearings as soon as possible
- Journalism, press freedom and COVID-19 (UNESCO)
- A Brave New Art World Online
- How Art Movements Tried to Make Sense of the World in the Wake of the 1918 Flu Pandemic
- Thinking Through Covid-19 Responses With Foucault – An Initial Overview
- AMC Theaters Pouts Like A Child Because NBC Universal Proved Movie Release Windows Are Nonsense
- 2H 2019 and Q1 2020 Quick Links, Part 6 (Pornography/CSAM) (Eric Goldman)
- 2H 2019 and Q1 2020 Quick Links, Part 7 (Content Moderation, Censorship, Defamation, & More) (Eric Goldman)
GAMES
- Microsoft facing controller drift suit: Plaintiff in class-action suit says Xbox One controllers have problems with faulty analog sticks
- Who Owns the Ink?
- Billy Mitchell suing Twin Galaxies over disqualified Donkey Kong scores: Former record holder asserts leaderboard site “at least implied [that he was a cheater]”
- Billy Mitchell takes his Donkey Kong high-score cheating case to court
- No More Monkeying Around – Donkey Kong High Score Record Holder Sues Video Game Leaderboard For Defamation
- Drama in iRacing as IndyCar champ wrecks F1 star on purpose
- Why the makers of Plague Inc. are building a mode where you destroy the virus
- Sony says The Last of Us Part 2 leak didn’t leak from employees
- Sony says major The Last of Us Part 2 leak didn’t come from employee
- Proposed Anti-Spying Legislation May Not Be Cause for Alarm for Gamers in Congress
- Australia integrity boss eyes corruption threat in online games
- Gambling Games by Another Name? District Court Offers Clarity On Line Between Social Gaming and Gambling.
- ESRB and PEGI Introduce Loot Box Warnings
- Video Games: What’s in for the ‘Look and Feel’?
- Are bootleg game soundtracks damaging the industry?: The popularity of video game music clashes with its lack of availability in physical formats — we examine both sides of this complex issue
- Report: Work-from-home issues to blame as Nintendo axes June Direct
- Fans Port Mario 64 To PC And Make It Way Better, So Of Course Nintendo Is Trying To Nuke The Project
- Generating Game of Thrones characters in Skyrim’s character creator
- Beyond emulation: The massive effort to reverse-engineer N64 source code
- Shooter genre sees the most growth on PC in the midst of social isolation
- Roblox believes user-generated content will bring us the Metaverse
- Roblox Corp launches $2 million fundraiser to support COVID-19 charities
- Xbox Game Pass now has over 10 million subscribers
- Xbox Game Pass now has more than 10 million subscribers
- Why Gears Tactics is an important release for modern Xbox
- Phil Spencer says COVID-19 could delay Xbox Series X launch titles
- Amid “Significant Reduction” In Q1 Ad Buys, Video Game Marketing Is Showing “Relative Strength,” Facebook Says
- Rovio profits soar to $14 million as UA spending is cut by almost half
- Gaming viewership, playtime surged in China under lockdown: Niko Partners – But ad revenue dropped, and players gravitated toward familiar, not new, titles
- The “COVID bounce” in games shouldn’t obscure what lies ahead | Opinion: The spike in interest and revenue is temporary, says MIDiA Research’s Karol Severin, and will likely give way to recession and harder times
- MicroProse brand, known for X-COM and Civilization, has been revived
- MicroProse returns after two decade absence: The storied publisher is back with three new games, 18 years since its last release
- The resurrection of MicroProse and return of “Wild Bill” Stealey: The original publisher’s co-founder explains how he’s helping the new MicroProse’s CEO restore the brand to former glories
- Multiple EA titles are headed to Nintendo Switch this year: Publisher also planning a fourth sports title, an HD remake, and next-gen upgrades for some current games
- Electronic Arts beats investor expectations with $1.39 billion in Q4 revenue
- Live services drive fiscal 2020 rebound for EA: Publisher enjoys record net revenues, plans for continued focus on live services into 2021
- UK Charts: FIFA 20 reclaims No.1 from Animal Crossing New Horizons – Mario Kart 8 Deluxe speeds back into the top five
- Animal Crossing Pocket Camp enjoys halo effect from New Horizons: April was the mobile title’s highest ever month for revenue, according to Sensor Tower’s data
- How Animal Crossing’s fake industries let players afford real rent amid COVID-19
- Activision Blizzard bookings up 21% amid pandemic: New Call of Duty on track for fall, two other Activision IP titles in the works for current fiscal year
- Activision Blizzard posts $1.79 billion Q1 revenues as pandemic creates gaming surge
- Activision Blizzard raises full year outlooks as Q1 revenue beats expectations
- Activision Blizzard now fully WFH and covering employees’ COVID-19 costs
- Sensor Tower receives $45m investment: Private equity firm Riverwood Capital invests following record year for Sensor Tower
- After deadline issues for Doom Eternal’s OST, a new composer will score its DLC
- THQ Nordic and Koch Media trade IPs: Franchise swaps put Red Faction and Risen series closer to their original developers; Painkiller, Sacred, and more change hands
- Google’s Stadia controller will finally work wirelessly with computers starting this week: But it still won’t work wirelessly with a phone
- Cloud Gaming: Why It Matters And The Games It Will Create
- The impact of one streamer on a game after release
- Assassin’s Creed Valhalla won’t be launching on Steam
- New Guild Wars 2 content won’t have voice acting at launch due to COVID-19
- Indivisible publisher 505 Games says release tool mishap caused surprise launch
- Video Game Chic
- PewDiePie Signs Exclusive Livestreaming Deal With YouTube
- PewDiePie signs exclusivity deal with YouTube: Video platform secures live streaming rights for its most-subscribed content creator, with 104 million followers
- NBA 2K League to air live on ESPN2: Sports network gives esports league matches three Tuesday primetime slots this month
- ESPN to air live NBA 2K League games: On ESPN2, ESPN.com, and the ESPN app, depending on when you’re watching
- Tulip mania? The business of esports and its time in the sun
- Twitch is launching a dedicated esports channel
- Esports Conglomerate ReKTGlobal Pacts With Management Company TalentX On Gamer-Focused Firm
- RektGlobal launches talent agency for esports athletes and influencers: TalentX Gaming is a joint venture with TalentX Entertainment
- Fortnite World Cup and Dota 2 International cancelled
- There won’t be a Fortnite World Cup in 2020: All competitions will be online this year
- Epic Games Axes Second Annual ‘Fortnite World Cup’ Due To Coronavirus
- Fortnite Streamer Ewok Pens Sponsorship Deal with HyperX
- Fortnite’s newest mode cuts combat to create a purely social space
- Valve indefinitely delays Dota 2’s The International 2020: Valve’s annual Dota 2 championship is the latest event impacted by COVID-19
- Valve Drops Support for SteamVR on MacOS
- Valve drops SteamVR support for MacOS
- Valve ends support for SteamVR on macOS
- Analysis: ‘Half-Life: Alyx’ Adds Nearly 1 Million VR Users to Steam in Record Gain
- Half-Life: Alyx triggers surge in new VR users on Steam: But number of Steam players with virtual reality headsets is still less than 2%
- The Half-Life effect on PC-VR is the biggest Steam has ever seen
- Report: Facebook is working on an updated version of its Oculus Quest VR headset
- Magic Leap warns of “critical” battery safety issue
- Cedar Lane Technologies Inc. v. Corel, Inc.
- Sega launches new Sega Music brand
- The latest Unreal Engine update adds initial support for next-gen consoles
- Epic updates Unreal Engine to support next-gen development: Version 4.25 allows developers to build and ship games for PS5, Xbox Series X
- Microsoft will build Xbox Series X buzz with monthly ‘Xbox 20/20’ showcase
- Guilded raises $7m to build gaming chat platform
- Guilded raises $7 million to expand its community-focused game chat platform
- My.Games launches $10m hypercasual publishing programme
- My.Games launches $10 million publishing program for hyper-casual developers
- Finnish studio Dazzle Rocks nets $6.8 million to build social sandbox MMO
- Dazzle Rocks raises $6.8m for new social sandbox game: Galaxy Interactive leads Series A funding for Helsinki studio
- EA reports net revenue of $5.5 billion for fiscal 2020
- EA reaped $5.5 billion in revenue last year, most of which came from digital dealings
- Zynga reports $104M loss for Q1 despite record-setting revenues
- Zynga posts its best-ever Q1 by way of $404 million in revenue
- Zynga continues to post soaring revenues and deepening losses: For the fifth straight quarter, publisher says the bottom line has been hurt by success of 2018 acquisitions
- How big is too big for a popular game? | Opinion
- Review: Sagrada, a top dice-drafting board game, goes digital
- Unity has acquired visual scripting solution Bolt
- War Stories: How Prince of Persia slew the Apple II’s memory limitations
- Prince of Persia concept video appears—and confirms why series has been dormant
- Have a look at this pitch footage for a canned Prince of Persia game
- Don’t Miss: Creating a natural movement system for Dying Light
- Don’t Miss: A level designer breaks down The Last of Us 2’s trailer level
- Don’t Miss: A classic postmortem of BioWare’s Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic
- Don’t Miss: Balancing storytelling and player choice in Prey
- Don’t Miss: Examining the pay-to-flay monetization of Mortal Kombat X
- Don’t Miss: Games, psychology, and UX with Celia Hodent – GDC Podcast ep. 8
- Blog: Should players buy their own UI?
- Blog: Developing games for the Sinclair Spectrum Plus
- Blog: Tips for marketing your queer narrative indie game
- Blog: Anatomy of a failed Kickstarter – Part 3
- Blog: Five lessons learned growing a game dev start-up
- Blog: How to crack the match 3 code – Part 1
- Video: How NetEase applied reinforcement learning to build game AI
- Tales From The Quarantine: ‘Queer Eye’ Guy Now Offering Support And Advice On Your Video Game Home Furnishings
- Summer Game Fest 2020 Steps in to Fill E3 Void for Video-Game Biz
- GDC’s summer event will be digital only: The conference returns, sort of, in August
- Global Game Jam founders Susan Gold and Gorm Lai leave after 12 years
- U.S. Patent no. 10,313,679: Systems and methods for encoder-guided adaptive-quality rendering
Jon
News of the Week; April 29, 2020
DIGITAL
- How Facebook Works for Trump: Donald Trump won the presidency by using the social network’s advertising machinery in exactly the way the company wanted. He’s poised to do it again.
- Facebook Still Can’t Dismiss Sex Trafficking Victims’ Lawsuit in Texas State Court (Eric Goldman)
- Public Colleges Are Violating The 1st Amendment In Using Facebook Filters
- New York AG’s office questions Amazon over “inadequate” COVID-19 safety
- Senator pushes DOJ to launch criminal antitrust probe of Amazon: The other eleventy zillion probes are all civil matters.
- Amazon’s white-collar workers are starting to stand up for their blue-collar colleagues
- Why Am I Paying $60 for That Bag of Rice on Amazon.com?
- Amazon reportedly used merchant data, despite telling Congress it doesn’t
- Many supposedly grassroots reopen sites are tied to one pro-gun lobbyist
- Craigslist Denied Section 230 Immunity for Classified Ads from 2008–ML v. Craigslist (Eric Goldman)
- Section 230 Protects Hyperlinks in #MeToo “Whisper Network”–Comyack v. Giannella (Eric Goldman)
- Lime’s User Agreement Sends Another Case to Arbitration–Babcock v. Neutron (Eric Goldman)
- WhatsApp’s new limit cuts virality of ‘highly forwarded’ messages by 70%
- Snapchat’s Latest Ad Product Lets Marketers Purchase The ‘First Commercial’ Viewers See
- TikTok Is Sharing Proprietary Ad Performance Metrics And Targeting Data With Its New Partner, Sprinklr
- TikTok Will Let Parents Pair With Their Kids’ Accounts, Removes Direct Messaging For Those 16 And Under
- This Record Label Is Changing The Titles Of Songs That Go Viral On TikTok
- TikTok spikes persuade more labels to change track titles
- TikTok Ad Agency ‘The Network Effect’ Drives Billions Of Views By Partnering With Passionate Creators
- Charli D’Amelio Continues TikTok Reign As First Creator To Cross 50 Million Followers
- A3 Artists Signs Popular Pomeranian Jiffpom, With 20 Million TikTok Followers
- TikTok Hosting Weeklong Virtual Prom For Quarantined Teens With Patrick Starrr, Diplo, More
- TikTok Tests Ecommerce Waters With Branded ‘Small Gestures’ Program
- TikTok Added 12 Million Unique U.S. Visitors In March, As Watch-Time Surges In Quarantine
- Quibi Says It’ll Let Users Cast To TVs Next Month, Reveals Top 5 Most-Watched Originals To Date
- Wanted: New Tools To Tame the Wild West of the Internet
- Nvidia promises no layoffs, accelerating raises to help staff during pandemic: Technology firm says it will put “tens of millions of dollars in the hands of our families in the coming months.”
- Spotify launches curated podcast playlists in a bid to make the platform a podcast tastemaker: Localized playlists for six countries
- Netflix adds a ‘screen lock’ feature to prevent accidental pauses: Save yourself frustration by locking your screen
- Netflix Gained A Record-Setting 15.77 Million New Subscribers Last Quarter
- Disney and the unequal reality of coronavirus America
- Disney+ is giving us a peek behind the curtain of Mandalorian’s first season
- Disney Says If You Tweet #MayThe4th At It, You’re Agreeing To A Disney Terms Of Use (You’re Not)
- Tech giants set to lose billions in ad revenue in virus shutdown
- Facebook’s Non-advertising Revenue ‘primarily driven by Oculus,’ up 80% to $297M
- Facebook Comes For Zoom With New Videoconferencing Feature ‘Messenger Rooms’
- Google Meet, Google’s Zoom competitor, is now free for everyone
- Covid-19 has caused a major spike in anti-Chinese and anti-Semitic hate speech: Exclusive data shows that the pandemic has led to an extraordinary increase in hate speech, racism and incitements of violence online.
- Game Of (Internet) Life: How Social Media Reacts To Questionable News
- Public Interest Groups Ask Social Media Platforms To Preserve Data Regarding COVID-19 Content Moderation For Future Study
- HHS’ New Spokesman So Good At Communications Strategy That He Thinks He Can Delete Tweets From The Internet
- Casey Neistat Joined Celebs In A Twitch-Streamed Poker Tournament That Raised $1.75 Million For Feeding America
- Insights: Grading Video Streaming Services Six Weeks Into The Pandemic
- First Oxford vaccine woman alive after FAKE death reports
- The Very Real Threat of Trump’s Deepfake: The president’s first use of a manipulated video of his opponent is a test of the boundaries.
- For the Love of God, Not Everything Is a Deepfake: Donald Trump retweeted a gif of Joe Biden with his tongue out. No, it’s not a deepfake—or the end of democracy.
- Jay-Z Claims Copyright On Audio Deepfake Of Him Reciting Hamlet
- Facebook’s name-and-shame coronavirus groups are hellish: Thousands of people have joined ‘name and shame’ groups on Facebook. But these digital vigilantes can wreak havoc on innocent people’s lives
- Messenger Rooms are Facebook’s answer to Zoom and Houseparty for the pandemic
- Snap Stock Surges On User, Revenue Growth; Calls Out ‘Nikita Unfilitered’ For 20 Million Views
- Looking for Likes: Social Media Post Results in Unintended License to Share Photograph
- Bing disables “trending” feature after wildly inappropriate results
- Price Gouging Takedowns – The Online Platforms Have a Say
- Vox Furloughs Roughly 100 Staffers As Pandemic Continues To Hit Digital Media Business
- Show but don’t tell: why silent Zooms are golden for focusing the mind
- Will It Still be “In” When It Gets Here? Online Fashion Retailer Agrees to Largest Ever Settlement for Slow Deliveries
- Rainn Wilson’s SoulPancake Launches Instagram Series To Help Viewers Cope Through Coronavirus Crisis
- Instagram’s New Charity Tool Lets Creators Raise Funds While Livestreaming
- Sheriff Sued After Threatening To Arrest A High School Student Over Her Coronavirus-Related Instagram Posts
- How covid-19 could bring about new social contracts around data: The crisis could lead to a lasting shift in how we think about data. If we get this right we’ll see radically more data sharing where there is a public interest
- Crypto Company ‘Ripple’ Files Suit Against YouTube For Failing To Quell Giveaway Scams
- MrBeast’s ‘Creator Games’ Is YouTube’s Most-Watched Live Original Ever, With 662K Concurrent Viewers
- At 15, coronavirus is forcing YouTube to grow up faster
- YouTube Combats COVID-19 Conspiracies With Fact-Checking Panels In Search Results
- YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki Chats Site’s Evolving Policies, Viewership Trends Amid Coronavirus Crisis
- YouTube Changes Partner Lineup For Its Three-Year-Old ‘Measurement Program’
- YouTube Spaces Unveil Virtual Resources For Creators In Light Of Social Distancing
- Top 50 Most Viewed YouTube Channels Worldwide • Week Of 4/20/2020
- Top 50 Most Viewed YouTube Channels Worldwide • Week Of 4/27/2020
- Bon Appétit’s ‘Test Kitchen’ Crew To Host YouTube Variety Show Benefiting Coronavirus Relief
- YouTube Announces Slate Of COVID-19 Specials Starring MrBeast, Lele Pons, Luisito Comunica, More
- 200,000 Live Viewers Tune Into Premiere Of James Charles’ YouTube Competition
- YouTube Generated $4.04 Billion In Q1 Ad Revenue, But Brands Are Buying Less Inventory
- RuPaul’s DragCon Shifts Exclusively To YouTube In Wake Of Coronavirus Cancellation
- HBO Max Sets May 27 Launch, $14.99-Per-Month Price Tag
- Despite Sign-Up And Income Surge For Creators, Patreon Lays Off 13% Of Workforce
- Let there be light: the new must-have for celebrities in lockdown
- As We’re All Living, Working, And Socializing Via The Internet… MIT Tech Review Says It Proves Silicon Valley Innovation Is A Myth
- Walmart To Sell Video Rental And Streaming Service Vudu To NBCUniversal-Owned Fandango
- Warner Bros.’ Digital Studio Stage 13 Asks Fans To Share Love For Local Asian Eateries Amid Pandemic
- Insights: Old-School Stars Forced Online Will Help Change Hollywood Long After Pandemic
- Decade-Old Digital Talent Firm Gleam Futures Launches ‘Entertainment’ Unit For Traditional Celebs
- Cannes Lions Replaces Cancelled Festival With ‘Lions Live,’ A Monthlong Educational Event For Creatives
- ‘It’s like a sexy story just for me’ – how lockdown has triggered a wave of sexting: From celebrities posting photographs to sharing erotic challenges with each other, getting risqué online has become a welcome distraction
- Getting the next phase of remote learning right in higher education
- A Cryptocurrency Technology Finds New Use Tackling Coronavirus: Blockchain could be an efficient way to source medical equipment or validate Covid-19 immunity, experts say
- Balloons to Deliver Emergency Internet Across Kenya
- 2H 2019 and Q1 2020 Quick Links, Part 4 (Section 230) (Eric Goldman)
- Canadian Internet law update – 2019 (Bradley Freedman)
- Domain Name Disputes: ICANN Public Comment Period – Open through May 4, 2020
- Data Waste (Elettra Bietti & Roxana Vatanparast)
A.I.
- Politics of Adversarial Machine Learning: Adversarial machine-learning attacks and defenses have political dimensions
- Politics of Adversarial Machine Learning (Kendra Albert, Jonathon Penney, Bruce Schneier, Ram Shankar Siva Kumar)
- USPTO: AI Cannot Be Named as Inventor on Patent
- Covid-19: the rise of a global collective intelligence?
- Israel is using AI to flag high-risk covid-19 patients
- Doctors are using AI to triage covid-19 patients. The tools may be here to stay: Faced with staff shortages and patient loads, a growing number of hospitals are turning to automated tools to help them manage the pandemic.
- Hospitals are using AI to predict the decline of Covid-19 patients — before knowing it works
- Latin America Hopes Big Data Can Beat the Virus. But There Are Risks.
- AI can’t solve this: The coronavirus could be highlighting just how overhyped the industry is
- The Scramble for Delivery Robots Is On and Startups Can Barely Keep Up: Adoption of robots and drones carrying goods speeds up as a frightened world craves safe delivery of everything from medical supplies to food.
- LAPD’s Failed Predictive Policing Program The Latest COVID-19 Victim
- Companies bet on AI cameras to track social distancing, limit liability
- The pandemic is bringing us closer to our robot takeout future
- Blog: The story of AI-powered interactive drama Facade
- Blog: Using machine learning to create AI opponents
- Video: Better animation through machine learning
- Does the US Tax Code Favor Automation? (Daron Acemoglu, Andrea Manera, Pascual Restrepo)
- Bodies, Brains, and Machines: An Exploration of the Relationship between the Material and Affective States of Librarians and Information Systems (Stacy Allison-Cassin)
COMMUNICATIONS
- Ajit Pai uses bad data to claim ISPs are deploying broadband to everyone
- As Pandemic Exposes US Broadband Failures, FCC Report Declares Everything Is Fine
- TV ‘Cord Cutters’ Will Be The Majority By 2022
- Pandemic Builds Momentum for Broadband Infrastructure Upgrade: Coronavirus crisis shows need for widespread high-speed internet in U.S. homes
- Corona in 5G: A lesson to be learnt from the current crisis is that Europe needs to avoid being dependent in sensitive areas of production
- Media Roles in the Online News Domain: Authorities and Emergent Audience Brokers
- NY AG Opens Inquiry After Charter Spectrum Bungles Its Coronavirus Response
- FCC Issues Guidance on TV License Renewals and Announces New Ownership Question on Radio Renewals
- FCC Clarifies Certain Political Record-Keeping Requirements
- The FCC ratified Wi-Fi 6E this morning
- Space X Starlink Beta Starts In 6 Months, Bringing A Glimmer Of Hope To Crappy US Broadband Market
- AT&T CEO retiring as telco plans for three years of cost cuts and layoffs
- AT&T Preps For Even More Cuts After $42 Billion+ In Trump Tax Cuts And Regulatory Favors
- Comcast waives data cap until at least June 30 in response to pandemic
- Fancy That: Comcast’s Network Holding Up Fine Without Usage Caps
INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY
- Federal Court of Appeal Deals Access Copyright Huge Blow As It Overturns York University Copyright Decision (Michael Geist)
- The LawBytes Podcast, Episode 48: Sam Trosow and Lisa Macklem on Copyright and Fair Dealing During a Pandemic (Michael Geist)
- Access Copyright v. York – The Next Chapter
- Federal Court of Appeal Finds That Tariffs Certified by the Copyright Board Are Not Mandatory, and Fair Dealing Guidelines Are Not a Shield
- Canadian Publishing Group Says France Has The Right Idea, Presses For Its Own Google Tax
- Digital books and ownership rights in the information age
- Too Late Blues for Guitar Maker’s Copyright Ownership Claims
- Photographer Prods Actress Ellen Barkin With Copyright Infringement Suit
- From Tiger King To Censorship King: Copyright Lobbyist Cheers On SLAPP Copyright Suit Featured In Tiger King
- UNESCO Suggests COVID-19 Is A Reason To Create… Eternal Copyright
- Fash-Shunned: Selena Gomez Sues Fashion App for $10 Million for Allegedly Using Her Name and Likeness Without Permission
- Supreme Court Says Georgia’s ‘Official Code’ Is Public Domain — Including Annotations
- Supreme Court rules Georgia can’t put the law behind a paywall
- Supreme Court holds that Georgia cannot copyright the annotations to its laws
- SCOTUS Rules No Copyright in Official Annotated State Code
- Supreme Court says state laws aren’t copyrightable
- Mr Worldwide’s Great American ‘Scream’ – Protection granted for Pitbull’s famous yell
- Don’t POKE a trademark unless you have sufficient evidence to invalidate it
- Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it’s an infringement of a reputable mark!
- Battle of the ‘McGregors’ – UFC Champion loses legal battle in the EUIPO ring
- Hugo Boss versus Hugo Boss: Lessons from Lycett’s Antics
- Cyprus corrects halloumi trade mark mishap
- Supreme Court Decides Romag Fasteners, Inc. v. Fossil Group, Inc.
- US Supreme Court Rejects Willfulness Requirement for Profit Awards in Trademark Infringement Cases
- Supreme Court Confirms Profits Remedy in Trademark Cases is Not Conditioned on Proof of Willfulness
- High Court Rules That ‘Willful’ Trademark Infringement No Longer Required for Award of Profits
- Supreme Court Holds Disgorgement of Profits Available Absent Willfulness, for 1125(a) Infringement
- U.S. Supreme Court Holds That Plaintiffs Need Not Prove “Willful” Conduct to Recover Profits in Trademark Infringement Suits
- Supreme Court: Willfulness Unnecessary for Disgorgement of Infringer’s Profits Award in Trademark Cases
- U.S. Supreme Court Rules Trademark Infringer’s Profits at Risk in All Cases
- Comic-Con Canceled — But Comic-Con Trademark Survives
- Open COVID Pledge and Free Licensing Opportunities: Issues to Consider Before Accepting
- Conversant v Apple: old tech, new tricks
- Lawyers question need for Patent Act amendments as companies share IP during COVID crisis
- Canadian Federal Court’s Notice of Experimental Testing is Inapplicable to Testing Conducted Prior to Litigation
- Federal Circuit Feels the Beating of a Heart: CardioNet v. InfoBionic
- Federal Circuit Revives Cardiac Monitoring Patent, Not Directed to an Abstract Idea
- Federal Circuit: A Patent That Performs Computation Is Not Abstract, Is Patentable
- Claims Directed to Improved Cardiac Monitoring Technology Are Patent Eligible Under 35 U.S.C. § 101
- US Patent Office: Supreme Court Made Us Reject More Patents, But We’ve Now Fixed That And Are Back To Approving Bad Patents
- Library of Congress Launches Open-Source Hip-Hop Sampling Tool: Producers will have access to the library’s vast audio collection, which dates back more than a hundred years
- Melody makers
PRIVACY
- RCMP to boost social media mining for threats ranging from disease to shootings: The software would allow an RCMP officer to quickly mine data about a person’s internet activities
- Federal Court Says Baltimore PD’s High-Powered Aerial Surveillance Program Doesn’t Violate The Constitution
- China is installing surveillance cameras outside people’s front doors … and sometimes inside their homes
- Reluctant To Block Embarrassing Coronavirus Material Held On GitHub, China Targets The People Who Put It There
- Health vs. Privacy: How Other Countries Use Surveillance To Fight The Pandemic
- Covid-19: the controversial role of big tech in digital surveillance: Big tech can trace the movement of not only viruses, but also people, whether in an emergency or not
- From Aadhaar to Aarogya Setu: How surveillance technology is devaluing India’s democratic rights
- Privacy in a pandemic: Coronavirus is the first trial of the EU’s unofficial religion
- Europe’s Privacy Law Hasn’t Shown Its Teeth, Frustrating Advocates: Nearly two years in, there has been little enforcement of the General Data Protection Regulation, once seen as ushering in a new era.
- European Commission Wants Coronavirus Tracing Apps To Build In Strong Protections For Privacy — Unlike The French Government
- Israel’s High Court Blocks Country’s Hastily-Erected Domestic Coronavirus Surveillance Program
- How human-centered tech can beat COVID-19 through contact tracing
- Coronavirus: Australians download COVIDSafe contact tracing app
- Germany flips to Apple-Google approach on smartphone contact tracing
- Apple and Google pledge to shut down coronavirus tracker when pandemic ends
- Google to Require All Advertisers to be Verified
- Infrared Cameras Could Be the New CCTV: Employers rush to thermal imaging to catch sick workers
- Covid-19: the controversial role of big tech in digital surveillance: Big tech can trace the movement of not only viruses, but also people, whether in an emergency or not
- CEO of Surveillance Firm Banjo Once Helped KKK Leader Shoot Up a Synagogue: Documents reveal Damien Patton, CEO of SoftBank-backed Banjo, admitted to being a Neo-Nazi skinhead in his youth
- The CEO of Banjo, a SoftBank-backed neighborhood-watch app, has a hidden neo-Nazi past and once helped a gunman in a drive-by synagogue shooting
- We’ve made new rules to protect our families. We must protect kids’ privacy too.
- A Cryptocurrency Technology Finds New Use Tackling Coronavirus
- Piracy Sees ‘Unprecedented’ Pandemic Bounce, But So Does All Media Consumption
CREATIVITY
- Entertainment Industry: Competition, Foreign Investment and Regulatory Issues in Canada
- Sean Hannity Hires Charles Harder To Threaten The NY Times And Its Reporters, Because Of Course He Does
- “But It’s a Photo of Me!”-Celebrities Face Legal Action for Unauthorized Use of Images on Social Media
- Chinese state censorship of COVID-19 research represents a looming crisis for academic publishers
- Art for a Time of Uncertainty
- Filmmaking and Covid 19: Ethics, Craft and Safety
- Creation in Confinement: Art in the Age of Mass Incarceration
- Chinese state censorship of COVID-19 research represents a looming crisis for academic publishers
GAMES
- Coronavirus-themed game pulled from Steam in China: Coronavirus Attack developed in protest against Chinese government
- Fortnite’s Travis Scott concert attracts more than 12 million concurrent players
- Travis Scott’s In-Game ‘Fortnite’ Concert Nabs 12.3 Million Concurrents, Shattering All-Time Record
- Fortnite’s Travis Scott event reached 27.7m unique players: Updated figures show Epic’s playerbase took part in live concert 45.8 million times across the five events
- Fortnite’s virtual Travis Scott gig attracted a record 12.3 million concurrent players
- Fortnite’s “Party Royale” mode ditches the guns, asks players to “chill”
- Epic relents, puts Fortnite on Google Play: Company says it took 18 months to realize Google puts apps from outside its own Android storefront at a disadvantage
- Epic’s crusade against 30% takes a tumble | Opinion: Fortnite finally comes to the Google Play store, marking a significant setback for Epic Games’ quest to reduce the industry standard revenue share
- Sensor Tower revises European mobile game spending projections: COVID-19 impacts lead to expectations of slightly lower games revenues by 2022 across App Store, Google Play
- In F2P, chasing ‘whales’ is a mistake says Nexon CEO
- Google Play has been spreading advanced Android malware for years
- The Last of Us Part 2 leaked online: Major spoilers begin appearing online after gameplay and cutscenes leaked
- The Last of Us Part 2 gets a new release date: Naughty Dog’s sequel now planned for June 19; Ghost of Tsushima to follow in July
- Team Fortress 2, Counter-Strike Global Offensive source code leaked: Valve – “We have not found any reason for players to be alarmed or avoid the current builds”
- Indivisible launches on Nintendo Switch without developer’s knowledge
- 160K Nintendo accounts hacked due to Nintendo Network ID security breach
- Nintendo closing ‘limited’ Wii U and 3DS eShops in the Caribbean and Latin America
- Nintendo closing 3DS and Wii U eShops in Latin America and the Caribbean
- Trials of Mana demo taken down after crackers use it to enable piracy
- Lack of representation in games is “partly an issue of values, partly an issue of bravery”: Jesse Schell discusses the development of superhero dating sim Mission: It’s Complicated
- Gaming should take cues from NASCAR’s response to Kyle Larson | Opinion: This week, NASCAR proved it’s possible to drop celebrities who make racist remarks — it’s about time gaming did the same
- DayZ developer Bohemia Interactive shutters Bratislava studio
- How Bohemia’s “almost accidental” mod support became a staple of the studio: Karel Mořický talks about the benefits and challenges of the Arma and DayZ studio’s community development efforts
- Bohemia Interactive shuts down DayZ studio: Bohemia says decision was a mutual one between company and studio leadership
- Games getting us through COVID-19—blocks, roguelites, whatever Death Stranding is
- As Xbox hardware sales fall, stay-at-home orders help drive up content & services revenue
- Xbox’s Phil Spencer discusses “not exploiting” a global pandemic: Microsoft gaming boss assures business tactics have not changed as “big flood” of people come to Xbox for the first time
- Microsoft’s gaming revenues flat in Q3 2020
- Riot “looking into long-term solutions” to fight toxicity in Valorant
- Riot turns on ability to turn off kernel-level anti-cheat tool
- Riot Games offering up to $100,000 for Valorant exploits and security concerns: League of Legends publisher increases rewards in its Bug Bounty program, which has paid out $2 million to date
- Riot Games to set up shop in Singapore with new studio addition
- Riot Games to open new studio in Singapore: Company’s second Asia branch will also be headed up by Nathan Beemer
- Final Fantasy VII Remake ships 3.5m in three days: Square Enix says digital sales for PS4 exclusive launched earlier this month have been “exceptional”
- UK Charts: Physical game sales plunge 43%: Final Fantasy VII Remake tumbles to No.4
- EGDF survey shows fear of closure among European studios: Around 17% anticipate closure within three months due to the impact of COVID-19, says the EGDF’s Jari-Pekka Kaleva
- Epic Games Store now requires two-factor authentication to claim free games
- Transcend Fund is investing $50m in early stage game businesses: First announced investment was in Nifty Games’s upcoming licensed NFL mobile title
- Google abandons Stadia Base branding as it launches free tier: Free trials of Stadia Pro can essentially transition into free use of the service, now just called Stadia
- Game creation platform Crayta coming to Google Stadia this summer
- EA Partners With Google to Bring Games to Stadia Streaming Service
- PUBG comes to Google Stadia
- Stadia Connect brings PUBG to the cloud, details new ‘First on Stadia’ timed exclusives
- Stadia’s latest woe: Its PUBG port is overrun with official, crappy bots
- One million people have tried Google Stadia, mobile app estimates suggest
- Two months free offer pushes Stadia past 1m installs: Start of April saw biggest week of sign-ups to Google’s streaming service since launch
- Apple Arcade and App Store launching in 20 new countries: Brings the number of nations that can download iOS games to 175, with 500 million people using it every week
- Gaming Videos Keep Leveling Up Views Through March Into April
- UK games spending dipped to £5.35bn in 2019 ahead of next-gen consoles: Declines reported in both software and hardware revenues, but spending on games culture products is up almost 30%
- German games market grows to €6.2bn: Spending on in-game purchases helps drive growth despite the approach of next-generation consoles
- Blizzard co-founder Morhaime speculates on waning popularity of MMOs
- How Blizzard, Ubisoft, and other studios went remote in the time of COVID-19
- My.Games’ revenue and engagement spikes amid COVID-19 lockdown: Publisher fast-tracks digital storefront features to help players keep in touch during isolation
- GameStop starts re-opening stores closed by COVID-19: Retailer has begun the process of re-opening locations in Italy, Germany, Austria, and the states of South Carolina and Georgia
- Launching Streets of Rage 4 in the middle of a pandemic: Dotemu CEO Cyrille Imbert says production wasn’t hurt by COVID-19, but the long-term and psychological effects are still unknown
- Helsinki studio Reworks raises €4m: Funding round led by EQT Ventures, developer launches first title Redecor
- Stillfront Group acquires casual game maker Candywriter for $74.4 million
- Stillfront Group acquires Candywriter for at least $74m: Miami-based mobile developer of BitLife picked up amid growing series of acquisitions
- Scopely acquires Scrabble GO dev PierPlay
- 1939 Games secures $1.9m in latest funding round: Developer’s Second World War-themed digital card game Kards now boasts over 100,000 weekly active user
- Wolfenstein: The Board Game raises $480,000 on Kickstarter – Tabletop adaption of iconic board game franchise surpasses crowdfunding goal by over 1,000%
- Animal Crossing: New Horizons returns to No.1 in the UK – Switch boxed game sales surge as stock arrives on virtual shelves
- Animal Crossing New Horizons sold an estimated 5m digital units in March: Superdata – That’s a new record for the most digital units sold in a single month
- Around 160,000 Nintendo accounts comprised in data beach: Nintendo confirms breach following investigation into reports of unaurthourised third-parties accessing user accounts
- 160,000 Nintendo accounts were compromised—including one of ours
- Switch shortage reportedly driven by reseller bots: Free open-source tools are buying Nintendo’s console as soon as it is restocked
- Nintendo aims to boost Switch production: Company reportedly tells part suppliers to prepare for a 10% jump in output this year
- Activist investor ValueAct believes Nintendo can rival Netflix, Disney+: San Francisco company has built up $1.1 billion stake in the platform holder over the last year
- What’s fueling gaming content creator deals?: Peter Letz assesses the platform exclusivity trend and the surge in non-endemic brand interest in gaming personalities
- Bohemia Interactive shuts down DayZ studio
- Death Stranding PC delayed to July: Impact of working from home pushes Kojima Productions’ next release back by more than a month
- WWE 2K21 officially cancelled: WWE say there will be no game this year, publisher 2K Games teases more news on series’ future next week
- 2K names new WWE games boss ahead of series refresh: WWE 2K Battlegrounds to fill the void as simulation series takes a break
- Revenue up 43% at Team17 in 2019
- March US game sales jump 35% says NPD: Animal Crossing a stand-out success in a month of pandemic lockdowns and new releases
- Epic Games’ Live Meetup App Houseparty Has Gained 50 Million Users In 1 Month
- Tencent takes over China’s streaming market with $262m Huya stake: Company now dominates streaming space thanks to similar stake in Douyu, plus its own eGame platform
- Twitch Streamers Creating 89% More Sponcon, Getting 23% More Engagement Than They Did Pre-Pandemic (Report)
- New Facebook Gaming app to focus on streaming: Launch of the app brought forward as gaming surges during the global COVID-19 lockdown
- UK games industry launches ‘Games for Carers’ initiative to thank NHS workers
- Over 85,000 games made available for free to NHS workersz: Dozens of game companies partner with UKIE and Keymailer to support front line staff
- Side Quest aims to get 100,000 young people to build their first game at home: New UK industry initiative offers free software, masterclasses, and community to new, learning developers
- Facebook launches a dedicated gaming app to take on Twitch and YouTube
- Facebook Debuts Dedicated—And Ad-Free—Gaming App Months Before Planned Release
- Facebook Is Cool With Disguised Toast Revisiting Twitch—So Long As He’s Not Streaming Gaming Content
- Focus Home Interactive catalog pushes sales up 13%: World War Z publisher brought in €142.8 million as digital accounted for 82% of all sales, up from 66% the previous year
- Valve’s advice for making your game thrive after launch: Discovery on Steam is vital for indie developers — Valve’s Sophie Mackey offers six ways to improve your game’s visibility
- Valve’s top tips for launching a game on Steam: The GamesIndustry.biz Academy delves into localisation, wishlists, game tags, and other tools to ensure the best possible launch on Steam
- Gearbox is working on a Brothers in Arms TV series
- Morhaime says WoW accessibility push hurt social experience
- Call of Duty: Warzone off to strong start in China’s March streaming rankings
- PUBG Global Series cancelled, digital competition to replace it: PUBG Continental Series to offer total prize pool of $2.4m
- Call of Duty: Mobile esports tournament gets $1m prize pool – Competing teams will be drawn directly from the game’s community through four open qualifiers, starting April 30
- NHL Jumps On The Esports Bandwagon With Players Tournament, NHL Channel Broadcast
- Opera Event raises $5 million to help esports influencers join forces with advertisers
- FaZe Clan Raises $40 Million In Series A From Slew Of Top Rappers, Athletes, Music Execs
- FaZe Clan Forges Merch Deal With NFL In Honor Of League’s First Virtual Draft
- FaZe Clan Establishes ‘FaZe Studios’ To Create, Acquire Premium Projects For Film And TV
- Nintendo closing ‘limited’ Wii U and 3DS eShops in the Caribbean and Latin America
- Jagex sold for $530m: Fukong Interactive also sells RuneScape developer’s parent company to Macarthur Fortune Holding
- Scopely acquires Scrabble Go studio PierPlay: Strong early performance of Scrabble Go led to acquisition of the Los Angeles-based mobile developer
- Magic Leap lays off people “at every level”: AR company says pandemic prompted need to manage costs, shift focus away from consumer products to enterprise market
- Valve Ends SteamVR Support For macOS
- SuperData trims $1.4B off 2020 XR revenue projections as COVID-19 impacts supply
- Superdata downgrades XR projections for 2020 through 2023: COVID-19 manufacturing slowdown brings anticipated 2020 revenue down to $6.3 billion
- Disruptor Beam rebrands as Beamable: Star Trek Timelines studio drops games development to focus on back-end tech for free-to-play games
- Inkle turns to crowdsourcing for upcoming game Pendragon: Award-winning indie studio opens up for short stories submissions
- Finnish studio Reworks nets $4.3 million to grow home design game Redecor
- AuthorDigital nets $5.5 million to open new studio Adept Games
- Hello Neighbor test pilot racks up 11m views in a week: “The ‘indie publishing’ business is dead. It’s a game of brands now,” says developer
- Rovio slashes user acquisition spend to improve profits in Q1: Cost savings lead to 50% profit increase despite declining revenues
- The German game market grew by 6 percent in 2019 thanks to in-game spending
- Can virtual nature be a good substitute for the great outdoors? The science says yes.
- Music theory meets game theory in 400+ episodes of a great game-music podcast
- With Schools Shut Down, Educators Turn To Video Games To Help Educate Students
- What impact is COVID-19 having on video game deals? | Opinion: Wiggin LLP’s Ciaran Hickey and Gerard Lee discuss the prospects for investments and acquisitions during a pandemic
- Demand for Chinese, Italian localizations dipped last year: Translation firm LocalizeDirect says Thai, Polish, Turkish, and Vietnamese translations becoming more popular
- The uncertain, unflinching future of games media: Upon his departure from Kotaku to Bloomberg News, Jason Schreier talks about his experiences as a reporter, and games journalism’s present and upcoming challenges
- Dealing with delays, contracts and confidentiality during lockdown: Harbottle & Lewis’ Kostya Lobov offers advice on how to adapt to the pandemic without causing legal problems
- Techland’s shelved Hellraid project lives on as DLC in Dying Light
- Ziggurat Interactive acquires catalog of 3DO titles from Prism Entertainment
- How Manticore’s new Core platform aims to bring fresh blood into game dev
- How deeply personal RPG The Wagadu Chronicles explores new realms of Afrofantasy
- Don’t Miss: How Trinket found the right recipe while designing Battle Chef Brigade
- Don’t Miss: Games that cleverly incorporate texting and web browsing
- Don’t Miss: Behind the audio of Total War: Three Kingdoms
- Don’t Miss: How Bloodborne’s design makes players the experience points
- Don’t Miss: An in-depth look at the physics of trains in Assassin’s Creed Syndicate
- Blog: Black Mesa project lead Adam Engels on building the ambitious Half-Life mod
- Blog: Tales from Discoverabilityland – A story of three graphs
- Blog: Examining floating point combat systems
- Blog: Recording statistics – An exercise in minimalism
- Humble’s Conquer COVID-19 bundle raises $6.5 million for pandemic relief
- Bethesda donates $1 million to COVID-19 relief efforts
- Bethesda donates $1m to COVID-19 relief charities: Direct Relief, UNICEF, charities local to company’s studios to receive donations
Jon
News of the Week; April 22, 2020
DIGITAL
- TheDirty Easily Defeats Another Defamation Lawsuit–Laake v. Dirty World (Eric Goldman)
- Another Terrible Copyright Ruling on IAPs’ Liability for Users’ File-Sharing–Warner v. Charter (Eric Goldman)
- Section 230 Doesn’t Protect Advertising “Background Reports” on People–Lukis v. Whitepages (Eric Goldman)
- Ninth Circuit Reinstates Decade-Old Lawsuit Against Facebook For Tracking Logged-Out Users–In re Facebook Internet Tracking (Eric Goldman)
- Facebook Tells Court Laura Loomer’s Defamation Allegations All Target Protected Opinions
- Disgraced Former NASCAR Boss, Brian France, Uses SLAPP Suit To Silence Parody Twitter Account
- Federal Court Dismisses Twitter’s Long-Running Lawsuit Over NSL Reporting
- The Internet’s Titans Make a Power Grab: Facebook and other platforms insisted that they didn’t want to be “arbiters of truth.” The coronavirus changed their mind overnight.
- Facebook takes down event pages for several anti-quarantine protests
- Australia Gives Up Any Pretense: Pushes Straight Up Tax On Facebook & Google To Pay News Orgs
- Coronavirus has made Amazon a public utility – so we should treat it like one
- Amazon closes warehouses in France, tries to make US shoppers buy less
- No more negotiating: new rules could finally force Google and Facebook to pay for news
- Uber accuses Levandowski of fraud, refuses to pay $179M Google judgment
- Russia’s online disinformation has a 100-year history
- ICANN delays .org sale again after scathing letter from California AG
- Netflix streams some educational films on YouTube for free
- Consumers Seeking Uplifting YouTube Content During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Recent surveys found that majority consumers are seeking uplifting YouTube content during the COVID-19 pandemic.
- The Web-based version of Apple Music has officially launched
- Why Apple has stopped making small phones—and why it should start again
- Report: Apple’s Chinese contractors cut hours as iPhone demand falls
- Apple just announced one of its biggest regional expansions for the App Store ever
- The App Store and Apple Arcade rolled out in 20 more countries
- Fraggle Rock is back as Apple TV+ quarantine fodder—so here’s our fan-fiction
- A Lot Of YouTube Creators Just Disclosed Their Declining AdSense Rates Amid The Coronavirus Pandemic. Most Are Down At Least 20%, With A Few Bright Spots.
- New YouTube Updates Will Help Reduce Creator Workload and Emphasize Security
- Who’s Zoomin’ who? How the coronavirus crisis is finally putting the ‘social’ into social media
- The right to Internet as the right to health? Obligations to remove barriers to the access of information during a pandemic
- China’s NBA Free Speech Debacle Turned Out To Be A Prelude To Its COVID-19 Denialism
- Chinese Embassy Gets Briefly Suspended From Twitter; Insists ‘Free Speech Must Be Honored’ On Platform Banned Across China
- The Geopolitical Streisand Effect: The More China And The WHO Try To Silence Taiwan, The More Attention Its Success Fighting COVID-19 Gets
- People Are Making Bots to Snatch Whole Foods Delivery Order Time Slots: Developers are creating a tech divide between those who can use a bot to order their food and those who just have to keep trying during the pandemic.
- Coronavirus Could Lead to the Next Wave of Automation: A survey of executives found more than a third investing in automation in response to the coronavirus. Workers need to get organised.
- NYAG Announces Shut Down of More Than 20 Websites Promoting Coronavirus Scams
- Technology’s had us ‘social distancing’ for years. Can our digital ‘lifeline’ get us through the coronavirus pandemic?
- Straight to (CO)Video: We’re finally getting around to watching these things
- This Is No Time for an Internet Blackout: Citing security to silence dissent is always a bad look, but right now the side effects are especially cruel.
- A Snap Shot on Inadvertent Licensing Through Social Media
- How 3-D printing is helping the US fight medical equipment shortages and the coronavirus pandemic
- Ga. Supreme Court’s First Zoom Arguments to Run Monday Through Thursday: For its first-ever remote oral arguments, the Georgia Supreme Court will hear appeals of several murder convictions plus
- The Jury Is Still Out On Zoom Trials: Courts are moving online due to COVID-19. No one is sure if that’s a good thing.
- Mirror, Mirror on the Screen: The Tyranny of Zoom Calls – Working from home was supposed to turn people into slobs. But many say constant video calling has heightened their awareness of their appearance.
- The New White Lies of Lockdown: Spotty Wi-Fi, an upcoming meal, another Zoom happy hour—people are coming up with new excuses for ending social interactions.
- COVID-19 and Virtual Meeting Best Practices
- [Virtual] Data Overload: Data, Journalism, & COVID-19: Responsibly And Accurately Interpreting And Reporting Complicated Data
- Social-media companies must flatten the curve of misinformation: The pandemic lays bare the failure to quarantine online scams, hoaxes and lies amid political battles.
- Instagram Is Rushing To Roll Out A Memorial Account Feature Because Of COVID-19 Deaths: “We’ve been working on these updates…we’ve accelerated in light of COVID-19 to help support our community…”
- Instagram wants to move all of the Lives you’ve been watching to IGTV
- Spotify now lets Premium users hide songs they don’t want to hear from playlists: Skip that one track
- ‘Feasting on fantasy’ – my month of extreme immersion in Disney+: Disney’s streaming service arrived as the lockdown kicked in. It seemed like a sensible investment. Pretty soon, it was infiltrating my every waking hour.
- The Computer Scientist Who Can’t Stop Telling Stories: For pioneering computer scientist Donald Knuth, good coding is synonymous with beautiful expression.
- Even Cars and Coffee is going virtual thanks to COVID-19
- The race to save the first draft of coronavirus history from internet oblivion: How researchers, archivists, and citizens are racing to preserve a record of we lived and changed during this strange period of history
- Is this the end of Airbnb?: Hosts are calling it the Airbnb apocalypse. But it’s more akin to an enema
- “A Darwinian Moment”: The Coronavirus Is Blowing Up the Media Landscape: The 2008 financial collapse killed a lot of media dinosaurs. But the COVID-19 asteroid may be even bigger.
- The pandemic was bitcoin’s chance to shine. It hasn’t… yet
- Digital Finance & The COVID-19 Crisis
- Digital Ethics
- Logistics of the Future – Physical Internet and Its Practicality
- The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Facebook: Updating Identity Economics
A.I.
- Chinese Dreamwriter Decision: a Dream Come True for AI-generated Works?
- Fairness and AI: Sandra Wachter on why fairness cannot be automated
- When artificial intelligence is the inventor or creator: who claims the rights?
- Some countries in the Middle East are using artificial intelligence to fight the coronavirus pandemic
- Coronavirus: Will Covid-19 speed up the use of robots to replace human workers?
- AI Diagnostics & Digital Healthcare
- Delivery robots move medical supplies to help with COVID-19 response: The road-legal robots will be limited to 5 miles per hour for safety reasons.
- Navigating Artificial Intelligence and Consumer Protection Laws In Wake of the COVID-19 Pandemic
- AI lets you be Albert Einstein or the Mona Lisa on all your Zoom calls
- Artificial Intelligence: The Growing Role of AI on Patents
- A note on artificial intelligence and intellectual property in Sweden and the EU
- How much access to data should be permitted during the COVID-19 pandemic?: Urs Gasser explores the risks and benefits of mining data to combat COVID-19
COMMUNICATIONS
- Fox News hosts have measurable effect on COVID cases, study finds: Comparison of Fox News hosts reveals effect of disinformation on COVID-19 deaths.
- Misinformation During a Pandemic (Leonardo Bursztyn, Aakaash Rao, Christopher Roth, David Yanagizawa-Drott)
- Charter has 230 infected employees after resisting work-at-home requests
- Why the Murdochs backed Donald Trump’s COVID-19 denialism: Fox News has been accused of ‘deceiving the public’ in its coverage of the coronavirus pandemic. Has it finally gone too far?
- FCC Denies Application of Hoax Rule to Trump Press Conferences on COVID-19 – Looking at the First Amendment and the Commission’s Regulation of Political Speech
- FCC and Industry Groups Ask for Supreme Court Review of Third Circuit Ownership Decision
- FCC approves 5G network despite military saying it will harm GPS
- FCC blasted for “shameful” ruling against cities and fire department
- ISPs Ignore Toothless FCC Demand To Not Kick Users Offline During COVID-19
- Tracfone Made Up “Fictitious” Users To Defraud Taxpayers, FCC
- FCC Still Doesn’t Know Where Broadband Is As It Eyes $9 Billion In New Subsidies
- Spotty broadband is robbing students of their education during COVID-19
- AT&T gave FCC false broadband-coverage data in parts of 20 states
- AT&T Provided FCC Bunk Broadband Availability Data Across 20 States
- AT&T’s massive TV losses continue as another 900,000 customers flee
- Net neutrality: are ‘zero-rated’ bundles prohibited traffic management measures under regulation 2015/2120?
- Telecom’s Latest Dumb Claim: The Internet Only Works During A Pandemic Because We Killed Net Neutrality
INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY
- Access Copyright v York University: York Wins re “Mandatory Tariff” and Loses re Fair Dealing Guidelines (Howard Knopf)
- Two Montreal lawyers file application to trademark the term COVID-19
- A Copy of a Copy of a Copy: Internet Mimesis and the Copyrightability of Memes (Elena Elmerinda Scialabba)
- All’s Fair in Love and War . . . So What About Fair Use in the Time of Coronavirus?
- 3M files lawsuit in Canada against firm accused of price gouging on N95 masks: Ontario company allegedly claimed a phoney affiliation with the U.S. medical-gear maker
- Court Rules Photographer Gave Up Exclusive Copyright Licensing Rights by Posting to Instagram.
- Instagram Terms of Use Allows Mashable to Avoid Copyright Infringement Claim for Embedded Content
- It’s not infringing if it’s an authorized embedding
- Kendall Jenner Sued for Posting Video of Kendall Jenner
- Keeping Up with Copyright: Kendall Jenner Sued for Infringement over Instagram Video
- Cortés-Ramos v. Martin-Morales, aka Ricky Martin: In copyright suit against pop singer Ricky Martin, Court dismisses based on plaintiff’s failure to plead registration with Copyright Office should be without prejudice
- Purohit v. Legend Pictures, LLC: In suit alleging that film infringed on plaintiff’s book featuring mythological figure Krampus, court dismisses plaintiff’s claims, finding no substantial similarity between works
- An Untimely Copyright Lawsuit About a Timeless Guitar
- Making waves: Nike and Footlocker face challenge from the makers of ‘The Endless Summer’ film
- Copyright protection for original clothing designs
- Self-driving startup Zoox settles Tesla lawsuit, lays off 100 workers
- What’s Your Type? Intellectual Property Rights In Fonts And Typefaces
- What’s your type? Intellectual Property Rights in Fonts and Typefaces
- Constructing a firm foundation for copyright protection
- SCOTUS Redefines State “Piracy”
- CJEU’s in Coty v Amazon: storing without knowledge of infringement is not itself infringement
- Trademark infringement: Liability for counterfeit goods
- Balmain case highlights risk of using specialised public with low distinctive character marks
- INTA releases brand valuation report, offers blueprint to put trademark professionals at centre of conversation
- Implementation of the E.U. “Trademark reform package” in France: the French TM Office now competent to invalidate or revoke trademark registrations
- Trade Dress Update: Federal Circuit Holds that Multi-Colored Product Packaging Marks May Be Inherently Distinctive
- The Federal Circuit Reconsiders the Inherent Distinctiveness of Color Marks in In re Forney
- You can’t be blue anymore: Blame colour monopolies
- Bad Spaniels Dog Toys — Expressive Art or Noisy Trademark Infringers?
- Adding another dimension to your trademark portfolio: Securing registration in 3D trademarks
- How Will SCOTUS Resolve the Circuit Split on Recovery of Profits for Trademark Infringement?
- The impact of Brexit on the resale of software licences
- The Simpsons Shows Precisely How One Should Handle Derivative Homage Works
- Dog Toy Maker Wins Big in Appeal Against Jack Daniels
- Jack Daniels Gets Chewed Up In Trademark Case Over ‘Bad Spaniels’ Doggy Chew Toy
- Trademark Owners Can Protect Themselves from Unauthorized Distributors Price Gouging in Their Name
- Trade Secret Litigation: Activity on the Rise
- 3D printing — the value of patents for the future of manufacturing
- Australia Takes Its First Baby Steps On the Road To A Right-To-Repair Law, With A Consultation About Tractors
- IP protection in the autonomous vehicle space
- Open COVID Pledge Rolled Out to Make Patents and Other IP Available for COVID-19 Response
- Patents and Their Role in a COVID-19 Cure
- Key IP Considerations in Corporate Venture Capital Transactions
- The pursuit of balance between antitrust laws and Intellectual Property
- EU’s proposed post-Brexit trade agreement: three key IP takeaways for life sciences
- COVID-19 and its effects on Intellectual Property
- Innovation’s Relationship with IP and Antitrust Laws in Times of Crisis
- 2H 2019 and Q1 2020 Quick Links, Part 1 (Copyright, E-Commerce, Advertising) (Eric Goldman)
- 2H 2019 and Q1 2020 Quick Links, Part 2 (Trademarks/Keywords) (Eric Goldman)
- 2H 2019 and Q1 2020 Quick Links, Part 3 (FOSTA/Backpage) (Eric Goldman)
PRIVACY
- Facebook takes Canada’s privacy czar to court over personal data probe: A 2019 Privacy Commissioner investigation report found major shortcomings in Facebook’s procedures
- Revival of Facebook Internet Tracking Litigation Reveals Importance of CCPA Compliance and Highlights Ambiguities
- French Hypocrisy: Fines Google For Being Soft On Privacy; Now Angry That Google Won’t Let It Spy On Users
- IoT Update: FTC Settles with Smart Lock Manufacturer and Provides Guidance for IoT Companies
- A start-up is using photos to ID you. Big tech can stop it from happening again.
- Cybersecurity Firm Finds A Bunch Of Clearview’s Secret Stuff Sitting Around In An Poorly-Secured Cloud Storage Bucket
- Leaked pics from Amazon Ring show potential new surveillance features
- Hackers target oil producers as they struggle with a record glut of crude
- Apple and Google look like problematic heroes in the pandemic: New contact-tracing technology is supposed to go away after the pandemic. Privacy experts aren’t so sure it will.
- Google Apple Contact Tracing (GACT): a wolf in sheep’s clothes.
- 2 billion phones cannot use Google and Apple contact-tracing tech
- As Google becomes key infrastructure for new coronavirus relief, old issues haunt it
- NYC Mayor Asks Residents To Snitch On Social Distancing Violators, Gets Dick Pics And Hitler Memes Instead
- Surveillance, Privacy and COVID-19
- Coronavirus tests Germans’ devotion to privacy: New initiatives to limit the spread of Covid-19 have sparked a debate over how far the government can go to control the pandemic
- The secret behind “unkillable” Android backdoor called xHelper has been revealed
- Children’s privacy is at risk with rapid shifts to online schooling under coronavirus
- EU Publishes Common Toolbox and Data Protection Guidance on Tracing Apps to Fight COVID-19
- Europe’s coronavirus-tracing apps risk an unprecedented increase in mass surveillance, experts warned
- We need privacy and data laws to tackle this world pandemic: Governments are increasingly using digital technologies and big data analytics to address the Covid-19 pandemic.
- Tracking Covid-19 using big data and big tech: a digital Pandora’s Box
- The Privacy Factor in Ending the Lockdown: The only way to protect health and the economy is through tracking & tracing. To make this palatable in democracies, regulatory & technological hurdles need to be cleared.
- More surveillance and less privacy will be the new normal after the coronavirus pandemic
- Gulf states use coronavirus threat to tighten authoritarian controls and surveillance
- COVID-19 tracking data should be managed the way data trusts are
- Contact-tracing apps enjoy limited success amid privacy fears: Phone apps designed to help limit the spread of coronavirus have had only modest uptakes so far.
- A European Contact-Tracing App Might Be More Privacy-Invading Than Apple and Google’s
- The expansion of mass surveillance to stop coronavirus should worry us all
- Is Contact Tracing a Privacy Threat?
- German government might have lost tens of millions of euros in COVID-19 phishing attack: German state failed to put in place a citizen verification procedure and allowed fraudsters to steal millions of euros.
- Global Examples of COVID-19 Surveillance Technologies
- U.S Treasury Issues North Korea Cyber Threat Advisory
- Team Trump Turns to Peter Thiel’s Palantir to Track Virus
- Trump Admin Gives Coronavirus Tracking Contract to Peter Thiel’s Palantir: Report
- More surveillance and less privacy will be the new normal after the coronavirus pandemic
- Another Federal Court Says Chalking Tires Is A Violation Of The Fourth Amendment
- Opting Out: Biometric Information Privacy and Standing (Michelle Jackson)
CREATIVITY
- Court Tells Pro-Trump 12-Year-Old That Calling Him A Defender Of Racism And Sexual Assault Is Protected Speech
- Iraq Joins China In Suppressing Journalism About COVID-19
- Southeast Asia’s Coronavirus-Driven Censorship: Across Southeast Asia, there’s a worrying rush to sacrifice free speech in the name of nebulous benefits amid a crisis.
- The complicated issue of coronavirus merch: The next big fashion trend or simply problematic? We investigate.
- Daily Fantasy Sports Case Skillfully Comes to a Head
GAMES
- Selena Gomez suing fashion game makers for using likeness without permission
- Selena Gomez suing Chinese mobile publisher over using her likeness: Singer says she did not agree to appear in Clothes Forever – Styling Game, decries “unsavoury” microtransactions
- Infinity Ward updates matchmaking in Call of Duty to bring cheaters together
- NBA 2K Avoids Tattoo Copyright Infringement in Three Ways
- Video Game Tattoo Copyright Litigation: LeBron Scores a Slam Dunk While WWE Still Wrestling with Allegations
- Epic Sues Game Tester Over Trade Secret Breach
- Epic Games Dances Around Infringement Claims as Court Finds Transformative Use
- Report: Epic Games exploring funding round at over $15 billion valuation
- Cooking Mama creator threatens lawsuit over “unauthorized” Switch launch
- Gaming Emote Litigation: Battle Royale Ensues Over Fortnite Emotes with Plaintiffs Testing Different Causes of Action
- Google wins victory royale over Epic Games, snags Fortnite for Google Play
- Fortnite finally hits Google Play, but Epic still isn’t a fan of Google’s mobile tactics
- Valve confirms code leak for two online games
- Analyst: US game spend jumps during COVID-19 pandemic as more are encouraged to stay home
- Finland recognises the Demoscene as part of its cultural heritage: Subculture is now part of the National Inventory of Living Heritage, and can be nominated for UNESCO international heritage status
- Activist investor ValueAct believes Nintendo can rival Netflix, Disney+: San Francisco company has built up $1.1 billion stake in the platform holder over the last year
- Nintendo Switch sales doubled year-over-year in March
- Nintendo working with suppliers to boost Switch production in 2020
- Nintendo Account holders told to bolster security due to spike in ‘unauthorised activity’
- The curious case of Animal Crossing in China | Opinion: China plays a bigger role in console sales than people think, says Apptutti’s Daniel Camilo, and Nintendo’s game is compelling proof
- Nintendo isn’t saying, so here’s how to fend off the account hijacking spree
- Finally, you can build an entire “game” out of Super Mario Maker 2 levels
- Pokemon Rumble Rush shuts down: Service will end July 21, 2020, just over one year after launch
- Xbox Game Studios, Codemasters, and others pull games from GeForce Now
- Sony Plans Limited PlayStation 5 Output in First Year
- PlayStation’s low-key PC experiment | Opinion: Rumours of more PS4 exclusive titles following Horizon: Zero Dawn to PC have been squashed, but is that the end of Sony’s multiplatform strategy?
- Sony, Sega say PC listings for Bloodborne, Persona 5 and more were “not accurate”: Publishers shut down rumours of ports after several titles were listed on Amazon France
- Report: Sony scaling back initial PS5 production numbers
- Sony reportedly limiting PS5 launch window to 6m units: But sources suggests COVID-19 has not affected production of next-generation console
- Recession’s impact on next-gen consoles to be felt “later in 2021,” says analyst: Ampere’s Piers Harding-Rolls says downturn will inevitably undermine sales once early adopter crowd gets theirs
- Monster Hunter Riders tops 5 million downloads in Japan after two months
- Minecraft ray tracing is now live on PC—and it’s a must-play, if you can
- Keywords reports strong 2019 performance amid COVID-19 doubts: Revenue up 30% last year, but the company declines to offer guidance for 2020 due to pandemic disruption
- Superplus Games nets $4.7 million to create casual PvP titles for mobile
- Superplus Games raises $4.7m: Finnish studio currently working on multiple casual, PvP-focused mobile titles
- Report: The games industry braces for a recession (Ampere Analysis)
- European mobile game downloads growing faster than spending: Sensor Tower finds March new installs were up 19% over February while spending grew 12%
- Sega shuttering two mobile games after parting ways with developer Demiurge
- Facebook has launched its dedicated ‘Facebook Gaming’ mobile app
- Paradox reports “best” financial year in its history for 2019
- Newzoo: Shooter games are growing during coronavirus, but esports forecast takes a dip
- Nevada authorizes betting on League of Legends, Overwatch esports
- Paytm First Games teams up with ESPL for mobile esports tournaments in India
- BMW Motorsport is winning a lot in esports, and here’s why
- BMW teams up with 5 global esports teams in a brand alliance
- How COVID-19 Made Esports the ‘Only Game in Town’
- One Consequence Of The COVID-19 Shutdown? This Is Esports’ Moment
- Esports Milestone: Gambling On Esports Will Double To $14 Billion In 2020
- Riot Games lays out prize pools, no blood rule for Valorant esports: New shooter will cap prize pools at $10k for small tournaments, and $50k at medium tournaments
- Riot addresses “kernel-level driver” concerns with expanded bug bounties
- Riot posts $100,000 bug bounty to track down flaws in Valorant’s anti-cheat
- Riot Games acquires Hytale developer Hypixel Studios
- Riot acquires Hypixel: League of Legends maker was already an early investor in the developer of upcoming sandbox game Hytale
- One month after COVID-19 closures, GameStop readies to reopen stores
- Ubisoft Developing Senior Citizen Esports Movie From ‘I Feel Pretty’ Team
- Konami indefinitely delays PES Euro 2020 DLC, cancels boxed edition: Planned esports tournament will still take place, but London finals will now be played online
- In Half-Life’s improv scene, anyone can speak for Gordon Freeman
- Steam gets ‘editorial’ when we weren’t looking
- Final Fantasy VII Remake digital sales and shipments have topped 3.5 million units
- Oculus Connect shifts to digital as Facebook extends in-person event ban into 2021
- Bethesda Has “no update” on ‘Elder: Scrolls Blades VR’ Nearly Two Years After Announcement
- ‘Half-Life: Alyx’ Was Among the Best Selling Steam Games Released in March
- Magic Leap lays off staff in bid to ‘adapt to new market realities’
- Magic Leap Announces Layoffs & Pivot Away From Near-term Consumer Ambitions
- An extended interview with Homeworld designer Rob Cunningham
- Disruptor Beam completes pivot to tools provider with Beamable rebrand
- The enduring ripples of the Indie Megabooth: Founder Kelly Wallick shares her hopes for the Megabooth to drive industry-wide change toward diversity and sustainability
- Baba Is a tough act to follow: Arvi Teikari talks about following up the innovative Baba Is You with a “very traditional Metroidvania” and livestreaming development
- The design of Peggle-like dungeon crawler Roundguard
- Don’t Miss: Doing an HD remake the right way: Chrono Trigger edition
- Don’t Miss: A look at choice overload in games, and how to avoid it
- Don’t Miss: Veteran director Khris Brown on the secrets of great voice acting
- Don’t Miss: The secret history of Donkey Kong
- Video: Less stressful game development via DevOps
- Video: The origin story of Void Bastards’ striking art style
- Video: What you should know before making a cross-platform game
- Video: The Kine game dev postmortem
- Blog: Anatomy of a failed Kickstarter
- Blog: The production data and tools I used to develop Hang Line
- Blog: Prioritizing accessibility considerations
- U.S. Patent no. 10,290,142: Water surface rendering in virtual environment
- U.S. Patent no. 10,286,328: Modular accessory for video gaming
Jon
News of the Week; April 15, 2020
DIGITAL
- Federal government open to new law to fight pandemic misinformation: It’s one of several measures the government is considering to counter fake news about the virus online
- Puerto Rico Decides The 1st Amendment Doesn’t Apply To Its Citizens; Criminalizes ‘Fake News’
- French Government Says Google Must Pay French News Agencies For Sending Traffic Their Way
- French regulator says Google must pay news sites to send them traffic: Officials rejected Google’s plan to stop using snippets in news search results.
- YouTube Schools PragerU on Lanham Act in Censorship Case
- A First Amendment Win for YouTube!
- YouTube May Be An Enormous Town Square, But It’s Still Not Subject to The First Amendment
- Lessig Withdraws ‘Clickbait Defamation’ Lawsuit Against NY Times After Changed Headline
- Instagram’s TOS Authorizes Third-Party Embedding of Photos–Sinclair v. Mashable (Eric Goldman)
- Another Court Significantly Limits the Scope of Criminal CFAA–Sandvig v. Barr (Eric Goldman)
- Amazon fires at least 3 employees who criticized workplace conditions
- Nine Amazon workers describe the daily risks they face in the pandemic
- The pandemic is playing to almost every one of Amazon’s strengths
- Amazon was already powerful. The coronavirus pandemic cleared the way to dominance.: The global health crisis has forced 250,000 US stores closed, clearing the way to Amazon’s dominance.
- Amazon isn’t accepting new grocery customers while it strains to meet current demand
- Amazon pauses new grocery signups, hires another 75,000 workers
- Unsanitized: Why Amazon May Not Emerge From the Crisis Dominant
- Even Google and Facebook May Face an Ad Slump: Though ad sales at the two companies are expected to be down, they are likely to fare better than smaller peers and publishers.
- Senator Tillis Angry At The Internet Archive For Helping People Read During A Pandemic; Archive Explains Why That’s Wrong
- Florida Governor Responds To Lawsuit Over Coronavirus Infection Documents By Pressuring Newspaper’s Law Firm To Drop The Suit
- Alphabet CEO tells employees the company will slow hiring and other investments
- Judge Rakoff: MLB Broke the Hearts of All True Baseball Fans, But Did Not Break the Law
- Twitter will now give more of your user data to advertisers
- Oncologists Say The Absolute Best Information They’re Getting These Days Comes From Twitter
- How Steak-umm Became The Tweeting Voice Of Reason In A Pandemic
- Kate Klonick and Alina Polyakova on Pandemics, Platform Governance and Geopolitics
- Computer Service Providers Face Implied Limits on CDA Immunity
- Canadian Maker of Smart Locks Settles with FTC Over Deceptive Security Claims
- FTC The Latest To Discover ‘Smart’ Locks Are Dumb, Easily Compromised
- Your COVID-19 Internet problems might be COVID-19 Wi-Fi problems
- The Law of E-Signatures in the United States and Canada
- The Pandemic Sparked A 75% Jump In Views For YouTube’s News Content, Chief Product Officer Says
- As YouTube Traffic Soars, YouTubers Say Pay Is Plummeting: Advertising rates on the platform have dropped significantly during the coronavirus pandemic
- YouTube Testing ‘Chapters’ Feature To Help Users Better Navigate Lengthy Videos
- YouTube launches a free, DIY tool for businesses in need of short video ads
- YouTube Drops Free ‘Video Builder’ Ad Tool To Aid Small Businesses Amid Pandemic
- Coronavirus Survivors Tell Their Stories In Anthony Padilla’s New YouTube Series
- Andrea Bocelli’s Easter Concert Breaks YouTube Record For Biggest Classical Stream To Date
- Top 50 Most Viewed YouTube Channels Worldwide • Week Of 4/13/2020
- David Dobrik, Donald Trump, Charli D’Amelio Are Teens’ Top Social Influencers, Study Finds
- What Google and Facebook need to do to fight disinformation
- ‘Infodemic’ puts social media platforms under heightened regulatory scrutiny
- Hunting down the rumours of COVID-19
- Coronavirus Drives 30% Surge in Video on Demand Viewing for March
- 3D Printers Recast Virus-Weary Supply Chains
- Instagram has plans to help artists monetise livestreams
- Instagram announces new features for small businesses including gift cards, food orders and fundraisers
- Hearst pivots to Instagram Live while audiences are cooped up at home
- New Research Suggests Spotify Is Pulling Away From Apple Music: Despite having the largest user base, Spotify is growing faster than its peers.
- Spotify signs licensing deal with Indian company Shemaroo
- In 1 Week, ‘Parasite’ Becomes Hulu’s Most-Streamed Foreign-Language Film Ever
- Say goodbye to Samsung’s S-Voice—the servers shut down June 1, 2020
- IGTV Redesign Puts Creators Center Stage, Adds New ‘Discover’ Tab, Hands-Free Recording
- One Week After Launching In India, Disney+ Hits 50 Million Paying Subscribers
- Disney+ surpasses 50 million subscribers in just 5 months
- Remember: When Creatively Engaging With Socially Distanced Kids, Be Sure to Avoid Creating COPPA or CCPA Compliance Concerns
- Airbnb now offers virtual ‘travel’ experiences to keep you entertained at home: Virtually visit a goat farm or get your fortunes read
- Is virtual travel really a thing?
- Facebook is adding a Quiet Mode that silences push notifications on mobile: A new digital well-being feature for Facebook’s main mobile app
- Facebook Ad Rates Fall as Coronavirus Undermines Spending: Advertisers can reach more users per dollar – or save money for whatever is ahead
- Google wants to dump Qualcomm, launch smartphone SoC as early as next year
- Has Apple finally bitten off way more than it can chew?: Apple used to be about changing the world one magic box at a time. Now it’s fighting to conquer TV drama, healthcare, money, news and much else besides
- IBM scrambles to find or train more COBOL programmers to help states
- We Can’t Let Tech Companies Use This Crisis to Expand Their Power
- Navigating the ‘infodemic’: how people in six countries access and rate news and information about coronavirus
- Netflix Has Tripled Its Digital Ad Spend Since COVID-19 Hit The U.S. (Report)
- Netflix Hits All-Time Stock High, Making It Temporarily More Valuable Than Disney
- In Light Of Quarantine, Instagram Makes Live Streams Viewable On Desktops
- TikTok TikTok Boom! The ticking time bomb threat of copyright infringement claims for the burgeoning social media platform
- TikTok Pledges $250 Million For Coronavirus Relief, $125 Million In Ad Credits For Small Businesses And NGOs
- “Tech, lies and video-conferencing”: The Court’s implementation of remote hearings
- It’s Time for Online Dispute Resolution (a.k.a Virtual Mediation)
- Mark Carrigan Asks If We’re All Digital Scholars Now?
- When school is online, the digital divide grows greater
- Digital hoarders: “Our terabytes are put to use for the betterment of mankind”
- Do you even 10-key, bro? Our homage to the classic keyboard standard
- Community building on crowdwork platforms: Autonomy and control of online workers? (Christine Gerber)
- Navigating the ‘infodemic’: how people in six countries access and rate news and information about coronavirus (Rasmus Kleis Nielsen, Richard Fletcher, Nic Newman, J. Scott Brennen, Philip N. Howard)
- Federal Rules of Platform Procedure (Rory Van Loo)
- The coronavirus pandemic turned Folding@Home into an exaFLOP supercomputer
A.I.
- AI Update: FTC Provides Guidance on Use of AI and Algorithms
- Robots Welcome to Take Over, as Pandemic Accelerates Automation: Broad unease about losing jobs to machines could dissipate as people focus on the benefits of minimizing close human contact.
- IP Protection of Artificial Intelligence in Europe: Tailor-Made Solutions Required
- Meet humanity’s new ally in the coronavirus fight: Robots
- Update from LitLand: Vermont Attorney General Sues Clearview AI
- When artificial intelligence is the inventor or creator: who claims the rights?
- Facebook is building a hidden, bot-only platform to learn about trolls and scammers
COMMUNICATIONS
- Fox News Set the Stage for America’s Poor Coronavirus Response: The network has conditioned its viewers to hate experts and to trust miracle cures for 25 years.
- Charter still hates broadband competition, asks FCC to help prevent it
- Citing BGP hijacks and hack attacks, feds want China Telecom out of the US
- Trump Administration Establishes the Committee for the Assessment of Foreign Participation in the United States Telecommunications Services Sector
- President Trump Has Issued an Executive Order Formally Establishing a Committee to Assess Foreign Participation in the US Telecommunications Services Sector
- White House Clarifies and Expands Executive Branch Review of Foreign Participation in FCC Regulated Telecom Services
- A Formalized Team Telecom: White House Establishes Committee to Review Foreign Ownership or Control in U.S. Telecom Sector
- Canada’s Communications Regulators Take Action in the Fallout from COVID-19
- Shaw Communications temporarily lays off 10% of workforce
- TeamTelecom Recommends that the FCC Revoke China Telecom’s Authorizations to Provide International Telecommunications Services to and from the United States
- FCC Waives Gift Rules for Rural Health Care, E-Rate Entities in COVID-19 Response
- FCC Takes Action Against COVID-19-related Scam Robocalls
- It Shouldn’t Have Taken A Pandemic To Make Us Care About Crappy U.S. Broadband
- Dish’s Wireless Network, A Cornerstone of the T-Mobile Merger, Is Already On Shaky Ground
- Celebs share rumors linking 5G to coronavirus, nutjobs burn cell towers
- Dutch telecommunications towers damaged by 5G protestors: Telegraaf
- 5G coronavirus conspiracy theory driven by coordinated effort: Earlier this year, as COVID-19 began to spread, fringe groups began claiming the virus was linked to 5G technology.
- What’s New in 5G – April 2020
- Frontier bungles redaction of network audit that it doesn’t want you to see
- Want To Know Why U.S. Broadband Is A Bad Joke? Take a Close Look at Frontier Communications
- Frontier files for bankruptcy, says its broadband service won’t get any worse
- Major US ISP Frontier Files For Bankruptcy, Monopolistic Apathy Isn’t A Business Model.
- Verizon Quietly Stops Doing Broadband Installs, Repairs During COVID-19
- Why you’re still paying for sports on cable when there’s no live sports
- Corporations Not Happy Innovators Have ‘Hacked’ The Crappy U.S. Binding Arbitration System
INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY
- Canadian Federal Court Decides Patent Action by way of Summary Trial
- Canadian patents claiming a formulation for a medicinal ingredient may be eligible for patent term extension
- Federal Court Considers the Availability of Certificates of Supplementary Protection for Vaccines
- As Record Labels Still Are Demanding Mandated Filters; Facebook’s Copyright Filter Takes Down A Guy Playing Bach
- Did the Supreme Court Just Give States License to Pirate Copyrights? Protecting Copyrights Post Allen
- U.S. Supreme Court Confirms that States Have Sovereign Immunity from Copyright Infringement Suits–Allen v. Cooper (Eric Goldman)
- Judge smacks down copyright suit over Instagram embedding: Ruling could provide a stronger legal basis for embedding photos and videos.
- Court Decision Dismissing Photographer’s Lawsuit Shows Breadth of Rights Granted to Social Media and Denies Infringement Claim for Instagram Embedded Photo
- Sinclair v. Ziff Davis, LLC
- NY Court Tosses Lawsuit Over Street Art Depicted in Film
- Ninth Circuit Gleefully Rejects Copyright Claims against California High School
- Dark Horse Comes in Just at the Wire! A Music Copyright Analysis
- Retrograde in Taurus: Ninth Circuit Upholds Judgment That Stairway to Heaven Did Not Infringe Taurus
- VARA Lives On: A $6.75M Lesson on Respecting Moral Rights
- Internet Archive’s National Emergency Library: Public Service or Copyright Infringement?
- Shot on iPhone: Media Group Found to Infringe “Simple Picture,” Court Rejects Fair Use Defense
- Update On The “Mandatory Tariff” Issue, Fair Dealing And Copyright Advocacy In Canada (Howard Knopf)
- Photographer Unsuccessful in Copyright Case Over Use of Embedded Instagram Photo
- Embedding Photos from Instagram – Infringement or Licensed Use?
- Intellectual Property rights in the platform economy: A chance to rise or fall
- The esquivalience of mountweazels protecting copyright
- No Red Light: Fed. Circuit Opens Door for Registration of Multi-Color Product Packaging
- Criminal sanctions for trade secret disclosure and the implementation of CUSMA
- JaM Cellars Sues Franzia For Trademark Over ‘Jammy’, An Incredibly Common And Descriptive Term In Wines
- Authors and publishers — which elements of a book can you protect with trade marks?
- Planetart LLC v Photobox Ltd & Anor – Trade Mark Infringement and Passing Off in the context of mobile apps
- The Cold Hard Fact of Arctic Cat: Actual Notice is Necessary to Protect a Damages Claim from the Cold After Unmarked Patented Goods are Sold
- Manufacturers Refuse To Allow Hospitals To Fix Ventilators That Are The Last Hope For Many COVID-19 Patients
- Opening Up Information In A Pandemic, Rather Than Locking It Down: The Open COVID Pledge Is Important
- Copyright & Coronavirus: What You Need to Know
- No Trade Dress Protection for Functional Shape and Color Scheme
- U.S. Supreme Court Denies Review of ABPA v. Ford: Ford’s Win on Enforcing Replacement Parts Design Patents Stands
- Are There Patent Infringement Implications of 3D Printing PPE to Help Health Care Workers in the War Against COVID-19? Yes.
- A Patent Claim is not Indefinite Merely Because Infringement Can’t be Determined in Advance
- “Method of Preparation” Claims Found Patent-Eligible Under §101
- Similar Compounds at Overlapping pH’s Created Prima Facie Case of Obviousness
- Is it possible to patent Bitcoin?
- Belt Fastener Trade Dress Conveyed as Invalid for Being Functional
- Patent Pooling and its Contribution to Collaborative IP Attempts at Targeting Patent Access
- Bad Faith Required to Prevent Speech Regarding Potential Patent Infringement
- Good Friday 2020 and a History of Easter Eggs According to a Patent
- Recent IP Law Highlights
- Why Is The Copyright Office Celebrating That All Our Cute Pet Photos Are Locked Up Under Copyright?
- Happy Birthday, Statute of Anne
PRIVACY
- NSO Fires Back At Facebook, Says It’s Not Responsible For Malware Deployments By Foreign Governments
- Privacy in a pandemic: Privacy laws matter
- Some shirts hide you from cameras—but will anyone wear them?
- Has coronavirus opened the door to mass electronic surveillance in the UK?
- Apple and Google detail bold and ambitious plan to track COVID-19 at scale
- Apple, Google Join Forces To Create Free Tools For Coronavirus Tracking
- Apple and Google’s Coronavirus Tracking Plan Is a Symptom of Their Power: The tech giants power makes them the only available choices during a dire crisis. This influence is an enlarging feature of post-virus capitalism.
- Stop the Apple and Google contact tracing platform. (Or be ready to ditch your smartphone.)
- Apple and Google are launching a joint COVID-19 tracing tool for iOS and Android
- Will Google’s and Apple’s COVID Tracking Plan Protect Privacy?
- Tested positive for coronavirus? Health workers may share your address with police
- Coronavirus contact-tracing apps: What are the privacy concerns? – Special smartphone apps could help to reduce the spread of COVID-19, but they could also have profound implications for privacy in the long term.
- Can mobile contact-tracing apps help lift lockdown?
- The tech ‘solutions’ for coronavirus take the surveillance state to the next level (Evgeny Morozov)
- Public support for Live Facial Recognition and implications for COVID-19 policing
- What are the biggest holes in data privacy that have been exacerbated by coronavirus?: Geolocation services, the mass adoption of niche tools and weak encryption top the list of concerns for experts in Protocol’s Braintrust.
- UK government using confidential patient data in coronavirus response: Documents seen by Guardian show tech firms using information to build ‘Covid-19 datastore’
- Welcome To The Coronavirus Surveillance State: Digital technologies for tracking people and monitoring outbreaks may be the only way out of the crisis – but misuse could aid a slide into authoritarianism.
- Coronavirus: Surge in health surveillance apps in India, concern among privacy advocates
- Kushner’s COVID Task Force Is Looking To Expand The Government’s Surveillance Of Private Healthcare Companies
- Your Boss Is Spying on You
- To Zoom or Not to Zoom—Privacy and Cybersecurity Challenges
- US Senate tells members not to use Zoom
- Will the Pandemic Usher in an Era of Mass Surveillance in Higher Education?
- Coronavirus: As mental health services move online, problems of access and privacy emerge – Even in normal times, mental health services are not easily available to everyone. The coronavirus has deepened the divide.
- For non-intrusive tracking of Covid-19, smartphones have to be smarter: Monitoring the pandemic with personal technology is a thorny issue. We can get results without having our privacy on parade
- Global information governance in pandemic times: In the geopolitics of global health information, international institutional law is more important than ever
- Growth in surveillance may be hard to scale back after pandemic, experts say: Coronavirus crisis has led to billions of people around the world facing enhanced monitoring
- We Should Have a Democratic Debate About Trade-Offs Between Public Safety and Privacy
- Focus on Children’s Privacy Intensifies as Daily Life Moves Online
CREATIVITY
- Study with jazz improv musicians sheds light on creativity and the brain
- Dual-process contributions to creativity in jazz improvisations: An SPM-EEG study
- Knight First Amendment Institute Sues The CDC For Failing To Provide Details Of Its Media Gag Order
- ‘Free Speech’ Supporter Jerry Falwell Jr. Thinks It’s Criminal To Report On His Dumb And Dangerous Response To The Pandemic
- Trump Campaign Actually Sues TV Station Over Anti-Trump Ad
- The mural and the message: How a community advocate and a graffiti artist are spreading facts on the DTES
- Supreme Court Denies Cert in Transit Advertising Case, With Separate Opinion (and Warning) from Gorsuch and Thomas
- In a Bittersweet Victory, Second Circuit Affirms $6.75 Million in Damages to Artists for Destruction of Graffiti Art
- Universities Fill the Void: Working Across Borders to Solve the Pandemic Where International Institutions Have Failed
- ‘We are all Surrealists now’: how life with Leonora Carrington prepared me for coronavirus lockdown
- Counterpoint: MIT scientists translate coronavirus protein structure into music
GAMES
- In Legal Warfare Over HUMVEE Trademarks, the First Amendment Goes Beyond the Call of Duty in Dismissing AM General’s Claims
- Judge Daniels: Video Game “Call of Duty” Is Allowed to Feature Humvees
- Call of Duty streamer accidentally fires gun on-air, lands Twitch ban: Glock and awe.
- Chinese Government Bans ‘Animal Crossing’ After Hong Kong Gamers Stage Protests Inside The Game
- Amid in-game Hong Kong protests, Chinese retailers drop Animal Crossing sales
- Chinese e-commerce sites Pinduoduo, Taobao delist Animal Crossing: New Horizons – The game hasn’t been approved in China, and government regulator is now enforcing the ban
- Animal Crossing: New Horizons pulled from online stores in China
- Roundtable: The unique allure of Animal Crossing: New Horizons
- Duke Nukem Goes Retro in Music Copyright Suit
- Cooking Mama: Cookstar drama thickens as publisher asserts right to publish
- Cooking Mama license holder threatens legal action against Cookstar publisher
- Cooking Mama IP holder taking legal action against Cookstar publisher Planet Entertainment: Planet Entertainment responds, saying it was “fully within its rights” to publish Cookstar
- ESRB ratings will now note if in-game purchases involve random items
- Australian Parliamentary committee recommends loot box regulation: Also suggests mandatory age verification for purchases toward any simulated gambling elements in games
- Court Dumps Almost All Of A New York Sax Player’s Lawsuit Against Fortnite Over Use Of His ‘Likeness’
- Epic Games Does a Victory Dance Over Dismissal of Right of Publicity, Privacy, and Trademark Claims but False Endorsement Levels Up
- Who Owns an Athlete’s Tattoos? The Player? The Tattoo Artist? A Licensor?
- Washington State’s Nexus Blitz Against Riot Games
- Ring 0 of fire: Does Riot Games’ new anti-cheat measure go too far?
- ESRB intros new label for loot boxes: “In-Game Purchases (Includes Random Items)” designation created in response to concerns of players, not parents
- Zynga Hit With Class Action Lawsuit Over Data Breach: Lawsuit seeks to certify a subclass of young users of the company’s social games claiming that the minors aren’t bound by contractual terms forced on users upon sign-up.
- Pokemon Rumble Rush is being shut down one year after launch
- Nintendo’s latest Switch update ushers in system-level button remapping
- Switch firmware update adds controls remapping: Nintendo’s latest feature welcomed as “a great first step for accessibility” by AbleGamers founder
- Nintendo spent over $14m on TV ads in March: No other gaming brand cracked $1 million in TV ad spend last month
- COVID-19: The state of the games industry – From esports and events to development and retail, it’s a mixed bag for the games industry in the middle of a global upheaval
- Esports May Be the Best Play During the COVID-19 Pandemic
- All Sports Are Esports Now: The MLB The Show, Players Tournament Edition
- NASCAR driver fired for idiotic behavior in esports
- Formula E starts a new “battle royale” online series this weekend
- Esports Gets Local With Facebook’s New DIY Tournament Tool
- League of Legends players raised $6m for charities they’ll pick: Players will vote to determine which nonprofits the money raised in their region will support
- What does a year without events mean for indies?: A slew of cancellations due to COVID-19 has dealt a blow to smaller developers that depend on events to improve their chances of success
- The games industry must protect its vulnerable businesses | Opinion: People are buying lots of games, but the health of the games business is still in jeopardy
- Striking Distance in the era of social distance: Glen Schofield says shifting the PUBG-owned studio to remote work has changed his perspective on telecommuting
- Capcom implementing work-from-home policy until early May
- Capcom implements work-from-home policy through early May: Osaka, Tokyo now under state of emergency, but no government mandate to work from home
- WWE 2K21 reportedly cancelled in favour of new game: Former developer claims 2K will publish a different title following 2K20’s woes, 2K22 will skip next-gen
- Virtual racing series has injured Canadian driver Robert Wickens back on the ‘road’
- Xbox Game Pass to launch in Japan on April 14: Subscription service will go live in Japan next week for both PC and console
- Sony invests $400 million in Chinese entertainment platform Bilibili
- Sony takes $400 million stake in Bilibili: PlayStation maker picks up almost 5% of Chinese video and mobile game company
- PlayStation is pulling together a $10 million fund to support indie devs during COVID-19
- PlayStation reveals $10m fund to support indie developers during COVID-19: It’s also giving away Journey and Uncharted The Nathan Drake Collection as part of the Play At Home Initiative
- TurboGrafx-16 Mini review: Mostly best-in-class retro gaming, sometimes WTF
- The biggest ray-traced game yet: Minecraft RTX Beta debuts April 16 on PC
- CD Projekt Red: Cyberpunk 2077 “in a complete form,” further delays unlikely – Aside from minor localization difficulties, studio says development “business as usual” despite COVID-19
- CD Projekt reports yearly gains in sales as it looks toward Cyberpunk 2077 launch
- With well over 2.5 million sold, 2019 was The Witcher 3’s best-ever year on PC
- The Witcher 3’s second-biggest year drives CD Projekt revenues to $124.7m: Downloads drive RPG’s ongoing success, company still confident of September launch for Cyberpunk 2077
- Avalanche restructures, brands self-publishing unit Systemic Reaction: Just Cause creator will now operate as three units under the Avalanche Studios Group name
- Nordisk Film invests $4.5 million into Finnish mobile studio Nitro Games
- Nordisk Film invests $4.5m in Nitro Games: Investor’s funding will establish it as the studio’s largest shareholder
- Nifty Games secures over $12 million to develop sports titles for mobile
- Mobile sports startup Nifty Games raises another $12M, reveals NFL game
- Nifty Games raises $12m in Series A funding: Funding so far totals $15m, will support new, licensed NFL mobile title
- Valorant makes you watch before you play—that’ll change online games forever
- Valorant breaks Twitch single-day viewership records: It also ties League of Legends, Fortnite for concurrent viewership record
- Esports entertainment platform Players Netwrk launches today: Serial entrepreneur Stratton Sclavos lines up big names from the worlds of traditional sports and esports
- Twitch Rolls Out ‘Watch Parties’ Feature, Letting Partner Creators Livestream Amazon Prime Video Content
- Ecommerce Upstart NTWRK Leads FaZe Clan’s Latest Funding Round, Including Merch Pact
- New video game enlists players to help advance scientific research: Free downloadable content gives gamers the chance to contribute to the study of the gut microbiome
- Indie Megabooth winding down operations due to coronavirus
- Valve Explains the Deceptively Simple Design Process That Made ‘Half-Life: Alyx’ Excellent
- Resident Evil 3 remake ships 2 million in five days: Digital sales account for half of total as Capcom’s latest zombie shooter trails pace of last year’s Resident Evil 2 remake
- UK Charts: Final Fantasy 7 Remake is No.1 as boxed market grows again – But Square Enix’s new release sells half of Final Fantasy XV’s launch week
- Latest iteration of EGM ceases publication of daily features
- The industry mines for ’90s nostalgia | Opinion: Between Resident Evil 3 and Final Fantasy 7, we’re playing like it’s 1999 — but few other PlayStation-era titles justify this high-budget treatment
- Final Fantasy XIV Online delays next patch due to COVID-19: Director Naoki Yoshida says team is testing new remote work tools to help resume normal development times
- A bevy of COVID-19 issues lead to delay in planned Final Fantasy XIV update
- Ubisoft delays next For Honor season after sudden shift to work-from-home
- The evolution of Ape Out: Gabe Cuzzillo explains how a song helped defined the aesthetic for his BAFTA-winning action game
- Journey into the mysterious and unknown with Gothic 2: Why I Love – Gisle Sølvberg explains the appeal of playing an ambitious example of a genre he wasn’t familiar with in a language he barely understood
- Ethical community management in a struggling world: Kitfox Games’ Victoria Tran on the positive role of community management during times of stress and upheaval
- The five deadly sins of game attractiveness
- Blog: The likelihood of making $10,000 in your first month on Steam
- Blog: Animal Crossing in the age of social distancing
- Blog: The making of Warcraft II
- Blog: Inside the development of The Riftbreaker’s AI system
- Blog: Lessons learned from reviewing indie games
- Blog: Composing the interactive music of SPYDER
- Don’t Miss: Designing and structuring great boss battles
- Don’t Miss: How Maxis put the ‘sim’ in SimCity
- Don’t Miss: Firaxis Games’ classic postmortem of XCOM: Enemy Unknown
- Don’t Miss: The afterimage of Final Fantasy VII
- Deep Dive: The subtle art of building tension in Yes, Your Grace
- Video: Understanding the rules of Baba Is You
- Video: Understanding how people shop for games on Steam
Jon
News of the Week; April 8, 2020
DIGITAL
- Dear Jeff Bezos, instead of firing me, protect your workers from coronavirus: I spoke up for safety at an Amazon warehouse. Unfortunately I believe it cost me my job
- Leaked Amazon Memo Details Plan to Smear Fired Warehouse Organizer: ‘He’s Not Smart or Articulate’ – Written notes from the meeting, attended by CEO Jeff Bezos, detail Amazon’s strategy to fight union organizing,
- Leaked Amazon memo: Walkout leader “not smart or articulate”
- Amazon Confronts Coronavirus and Unions: One a Real Threat, the Other Overblown: As the world’s largest online retailer was coping with a global crisis, why did it create a new one for itself?
- Is Amazon approaching its breaking point in the Covid-19 crisis?
- In a surprising change, Amazon now sells movies in its Prime Video iOS app
- TikTok Users In China Temporarily Banned For Speaking Their Own Cantonese Language Instead Of Using The Official Mandarin
- The limits of decentralization (Andres Guadamuz)
- Lessig v. NYT: Very. Good. News. (Lawrence Lessig)
- Social Links: Biden’s stance on CDA §230; liability for user-generated content; Twitter’s process for reviewing Trump’s tweets
- Twitter notifies users that it’s now sharing more data with advertisers: Users in Europe are the exception
- Twitter Updates its Policies to Allow Some Coronavirus-Related Advertising
- Rangers, NHL condemn racial slurs in hijacked player video chat
- The Coronavirus Reveals That the Stars Are Not Like Us: If there was ever a fourth wall dividing celebrities and the rest of us on social media, the quarantine has broken it.
- A Must For Millions, Zoom Has A Dark Side – And An FBI Warning
- Zoombombing is a crime, not a prank, prosecutors warn: Disrupting a Zoom meeting could lead to “law enforcement knocking at your door.”
- Using Zoom while working from home? Here are the privacy risks to watch out for: Don’t let tattle-tale software features disrupt your remote workflow.
- ‘Zoombombing’ Becomes a Dangerous Organized Effort: Zoom, the videoconferencing app, has become a target for harassment and abuse coordinated in private off-platform chats.
- Zoom brings in former Facebook security head amid lawsuits, investigations
- Zoom adds new security and privacy measures to prevent Zoombombing: Passwords and waiting rooms will be turned on by default
- Teleconferencing Company Zoom Pitching End-To-End Encryption That Really Isn’t End-To-End
- Senator Blumenthal Is Super Mad That Zoom Isn’t Actually Offering The End To End Encryption His Law Will Outlaw
- Senator backing anti-crypto bill calls out Zoom’s lack of end-to-end crypto
- A Big Zooming Mess: A Cautionary Tale
- Judge Isn’t Impressed By Lawyer’s Purported Unfamiliarity With LinkedIn–Reyes v. Tanaka
- Netflix will allow parents to remove movies and shows, filter by rating in new update: Making profile accounts for kids even more specific
- Netflix’s ‘Tiger King’ Is Most Popular TV Show In U.S., Spurring YouTube Views For Joe Exotic
- “When They See Us” Sees Dismissal of Defamation Claim
- Google revises COVID-19 ad ban after backlash: Democrats slammed Google for preventing them from criticizing Trump’s response to the crisis. Google said it will announce new policies in the coming days.
- YouTube says it will suppress content promoting false 5G coronavirus conspiracy: 5G masts have been set on fire in the UK
- Jon Cusack The Latest Celebrity To Spread Nonsense About 5G
- 5G Isn’t Interesting Enough To Warrant These Stupid Conspiracy Theories
- YouTube moves to limit spread of false coronavirus 5G theory: Decision comes as four more phone masts are attacked
- YouTube profits from videos promoting unproven Covid-19 treatments: New report finds company is running ads on videos pushing herbs and potentially unsafe over-the-counter treatments for virus
- YouTube Makes Select Premium Series Free To Watch Amid Ongoing Quarantining
- YouTube Kids App Sees More Usage Than All Major Video Platforms’—Including YouTube
- Composer Andrew Lloyd Webber Takes The YouTube Stage, Will Stream Free Musicals Every Friday
- Robin Williams Estate Launches YouTube Channel To Commemorate The Comedic Legend
- All Creators In The YouTube Partner Program Can Now Monetize Content About COVID-19
- Top 50 Most Viewed YouTube Channels Worldwide • Week Of 4/6/2020
- FTC Enforces against Advertiser and Influencers for Breaching Influence Marketing Practices
- Influencers and Targets on Social Media: Investigating the Impact of Network Homogeneity and Group Identification on Online Influence
- With Billions of Interactions Around COVID-19, Influencers Are Harnessing Their Platforms For Good
- How Children’s Social Video Content is Growing During Quarantines
- Navy Deploys USS Barbra Streisand After Firing A Captain For Expressing His Coronavirus Concerns
- Quibi, day one: This phone-focused TV service really isn’t that bad
- Mobile video service Quibi launches to mixed reviews
- Quibi Sees 300,000 Day 1 Downloads—Just 7.5% Of Disney+’s Debut Audience
- Hip-Hop and R&B Hitmakers Are Setting Viewership Records Via Instagram Live Battles
- How conspiracy theories about COVID-19 went viral: Why do epidemics breed conspiracy theories? And what do scientists say?
- Coronavirus, the ‘Soros Bio-weapon’: How Far Right anti- Semitic Conspiracy Theories Are Infecting Mainstream Politics – As the virus spreads white supremacists and the far-right are repackaging old anti-Semitic tropes
- Why pandemics are the perfect environment for conspiracy theories to flourish
- Why Wikipedia is winning against the coronavirus ‘infodemic’: Against all odds, Wikipedia’s eccentric volunteer editors are holding back the tide of coronavirus misinformation
- What Role Should Newsrooms Play in Debunking COVID-19 Misinformation?: When conspiracies pass a tipping point, newsrooms collectively pushing out strong debunks can slow the spread of myths and misinformation
- Why Wikipedia Is Immune to Coronavirus: As the pandemic has been accompanied by an ‘infodemic’ of bad information, Wikipedia has stepped in to provide relief. It has become the go-to source for COVID-19 information.
- Media deal with Facebook and Google more urgent with coronavirus taking jobs, says regulator: Australian Competition Commission pushing for code of conduct to ensure news businesses are treated fairly
- Content Moderation Is Impossible: Facebook’s Attempts To Block Mask Gouging Took Down DIY Face Mask Instructions
- Facebook to Hire 10,000 Workers This Year, Sets Plans for Doling Out $100M in Aid to Small Businesses
- Citing Virus Misinformation, South Africa Tests Speech Limits: Suppressing false Covid-19 information may have benefits, but as South Africa shows, combatting fake news isn’t simple.
- New Penalties for Posting Fake News on Social Networks
- Coronavirus: Uber and Lyft trying to evade driver unemployment costs, critics say: Ride-hailing companies pushed for direct aid to drivers
- Coronavirus slowed Uber and Lyft – but not their big-money efforts to undo AB 5: The gig economy companies added $267,000 to a California campaign that seeks to rewrite the rules for contract workers.
- Learning From Home Is Hard Enough. Try Doing It Where Wifi Is Illegal.: In the “valley of the telescopes,” remote education is a disaster.
- Can Airbnb Survive Coronavirus?: The short-term rental market is reeling from the coronavirus-driven tourism collapse. Can the industry’s dominant player stage a comeback after lockdowns lift?
- How the Covid-19 crisis locked Airbnb out of its own homes: The short-let platform’s business model has been exposed. Bookings have fallen off a cliff but Airbnb simply can’t change tack
- Airbnb may become obsolete depending on recovery of tourism after Covid-19 crisis: Bookings on Airbnb slumped from 96% to 41% this year due travel restrictions imposed by many countries in view of the pandemic.
- Airbnb has been rocked by COVID-19. Do we really want to see it recover?: It’s time to consider alternatives to the profit-driven models of platform capitalists.
- Airbnb is reeling from the coronavirus fallout
- Delivery apps have transformed urban life in China: They have also created a new kind of worker
- China Tech Looks Unready for What’s Coming Next: They survived the coronavirus lockdown, but even the biggest companies aren’t safe from the global recession.
- Lockdown was supposed to be an introvert’s paradise. It’s not.: Calendars cleared by coronavirus are filling up with virtual happy hours & some are starting to feel exhausted.
- Working, Working Together, And Networking During the Web-Hype of the ‘Corona Crisis’
- Snapchat Taps Will Smith For Quarantined Celebrity Talk Show, Set In His Garage
- Trial by video conference? Not yet, but coronavirus forces Bay Area courts to embrace more virtual proceedings
- Apple will battle COVID-19 by designing and making millions of medical face shields
- Apple doubles donation to China’s COVID-19 relief efforts: iPhone maker has now contributed $7 million to fighting the pandemic
- Spotify now works with Siri on the Apple Watch: Apple started allowing third-party Siri music support last year
- Spotify Expands Self-Serve Ad Studio to 18 Markets Around the World: Company has seen a 68% increase in monthly active advertisers in a year
- SoundCloud now lets artists add a direct donation button to their page: To help musicians affected by the pandemic
- Courts are moving to video during coronavirus, but research shows it’s hard to get a fair trial remotely
- ‘Beginning of a new era’: how culture went virtual in the face of crisis
- Livestreams Are Moving to Hard Tickets to Replace Lost Touring Revenue
- The coronavirus crisis could fundamentally alter the internet: The covid-19 pandemic has many of us stuck at home. The result could completely reshape how we use the internet
- Already Popular, the E-Signature Is Forever Part of Commercial Life
- The problem of innovation in technoscientific capitalism: data rentiership and the policy implications of turning personal digital data into a private asset
- Unblurring videoconferencing legal risks
- Vertical Restraints in a Digital World (David Evans)
- Intel’s 10th-generation H-series laptop CPUs break 5GHz
A.I.
- Robots help China manage the coronavirus pandemic
- The Far-Right Helped Create The World’s Most Powerful Facial Recognition Technology: Clearview AI, which has alarmed privacy experts, hired several far-right employees, a HuffPost investigation found.
- AI Startups Cut Staff as Coronavirus Slams Economy: Job and spending forecasts had been relatively optimistic for the sector
- ‘Show me your ID’: Tunisia deploys ‘robocop’ to enforce coronavirus lockdown – A police robot is patrolling the streets of the capital calling out suspected violators of the lockdown
- Robot Vehicles Make Contactless Deliveries Amid Coronavirus Quarantine
- Robots May Become Heroes In War On Coronavirus
- Even the Pandemic Doesn’t Stop Europe’s Push to Regulate AI
- How to Design AI for Social Good: Seven Essential Factors
- Capitalism’s mirror stage: artificial intelligence and the quantified worker
- Machine Learning Patentability in 2019: 5 Cases Analyzed and Lessons Learned Part 5
- When Computers Invent: How the Use of Artificial Intelligence to Treat COVID-19 Highlights Novel Inventorship Issues
COMMUNICATIONS
- SLAPP Suit Filed Against Fox News Over Awful & Dangerous COVID-19 Coverage
- TV stations don’t have to correct Trump’s COVID-19 statements, FCC says
- Ex-FCC Staffer Says FCC Authority Given Up In Net Neutrality Repeal Sure Would Prove Handy In A Crisis
- How the 5G coronavirus conspiracy theory tore through the internet: From an interview with a Belgian doctor to arson attacks, the conspiracy theory that 5G is linked to the coronavirus pandemic has spread unlike any other
- Why 5G is not causing the coronavirus pandemic, despite the conspiracy theory about towers, Wuhan and radiation: All scientific evidence points to 5G in its current form being non-harmful to humans
- Radio station sanctioned for misleading coronavirus interview
- White House Establishes Committee on Foreign Participation in U.S. Telecommunications
- Pandemic hasn’t crushed broadband networks—even rural areas are doing OK
- Fearing the Invisible: The long history behind the 5G COVID-19 conspiracy theory.
- CMF to Invest C$353M in Canadian TV, Digital Media Production
- T-Mobile, Sprint took a risk by finishing merger without Calif. approval
- The T-Mobile Merger Closes, Highlighting Vast U.S. Media, Legal, And Policy Failures
- FCC: TracFone made up “fictitious” customers to defraud low-income program
- Verizon refuses to give DSL users its low-income deals during pandemic
- Verizon canceling FiOS installs and telling customers to wait a few months
INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY
- Canada legislates the use of inventions during the pandemic
- Amendments to the Patent Act in response to COVID-19
- “Lightly Sketched” Characters Not Copyrightable
- The Batmobile is Copyrightable… Your Cute and Fuzzy Characters May Not Be
- Copyright Protection for the Selection and Arrangement of Uncopyrightable Elements: Gray v. Perry
- Court schools overzealous copyright licensor, holding that high school choir arrangement was fair use and awarding choir defendants their attorney’s fees
- That Coronavirus Image Is Public Domain, But That Won’t Stop Getty From Trying To Sell You A $500 License To Use It
- Lightbulb Moment: It’s Possible to Grant an Implied Copyright Sublicense
- Johannsongs-Publishing, Ltd. v. Rolf Lovland: Court grants summary judgment for “You Raise Me Up” finding it not similar to Icelandic song “Soknudur” excluding musicologist’s reports as unreliable and unhelpful.
- Waite v. Universal Music Group: In class action involving termination of grants of copyrighted under U.S. Copyright Act, court finds recordings were not works made for hire that would be ineligible for termination.
- Copyright Termination. Special Report: Two SDNY Decisions on the Same Day!
- World’s Worst Copyright Trolling Lawyer, Richard Liebowitz, Files Lawsuit Against Ellen Barkin For Posting Photo Of Herself
- SCOTUS Sinks the CRCA, Confirms States are Immune from Copyright Suits
- US Supreme Court Holds Unanimously That States Cannot Be Sued for Damages in Copyright Infringement Suits
- States Can Be Pirates: Managing Business Copyright Protections
- Response Clothing Limited v The Edinburgh Woollen Mill Limited: The Edinburgh Woollen Mill finds itself in a stitch following infringement of copyright in wave design fabric
- Ninth Circuit Rallies in Defense of a Parody Dog Toy–Bad Spaniels v. Jack Daniel’s
- Southern District of New York Revisits Tiffany v. eBay in Chanel’s Lawsuit Against The RealReal
- Court Approves Settlement Between BMI and Radio Music Licensing Committee, Though Terms Are Not Yet Public – Many Other Music Licensing Issues Still Facing the Radio Industry
- Anti-Piracy Copyright Lawyer Decides To Abuse Trademarks To Shut Down Pirates
- Protecting against digital trademark infringement
- Federal Circuit Says Logos Must Be Taken Seriously in Evaluating Infringement of Design Patents
- Bad Faith Finding Still Required to Ban Patent Infringement Accusations
- University libraries offer online “lending” of scanned in-copyright books
- Patents in Crisis: Is there a Solution in Sight?
- Predictive Text Patent Troll Tries To Shake Down Wikipedia
- Bad Idea Is Bad: Senator Sasse Wants To Give Whoever Patents COVID-19 Treatments 10 Extra Years Of Patent Protection
- How intellectual property rights can protect automotive designs
- Dr. Drew apologizes for being a COVID-19 denier after copyright silliness: Dr. Drew coronavirus supercut restored to YouTube after copyright takedown.
- Dr. Drew Pinsky Played Down COVID-19, Then Tries To DMCA Away The Evidence
- Should Your Company Grant a Free License to Your Company’s Intellectual Property in Response to the COVID-19 Emergency?
- COVID-19 and the future of open access
- 3D printing and IP in a pandemic
- Corona Beer vs coronavirus: effects on the company’s brand and its response
- Those Ex-Theranos Patents Look Really Bad; Contest Opened To Find Prior Art To Get Them Invalidated
- No Need to Wonder Anymore: Ninth Circuit Holds Stairway to Heaven Does Not Infringe Taurus
- The Final Revenge of Queen Anne’s Revenge: State’s Use of Photographs Is Not Piracy
- Role of IP in the Growth of Disney
- Sky v SkyKick: was the CJEU swayed by Sky’s well-known brand?
- Religious Institutions v. COVID-19: Why Religious Institutions Should Think Twice Before Live Streaming
- Supreme Court rules on balancing of copyright and fundamental rights (Sweeden)
- CJEU: hiring out cars with radio receivers not communication to the public
- “Don’t change the station! I like this song” – the CJEU clarifies ‘communication to the public’ (again)
- EU Says That, No, Rental Car Companies Don’t Need To Pay A License To Rent Cars With Radios That Might Play Music
- CJEU finds Amazon not liable for direct infringement by unwittingly stocking infringing goods being sold through its website
- European Court of Justice Holds Amazon Not Liable for Storing Third-Party Sellers’ Infringing Products, Another Reason Why Brands Must Take Greater Control In The European Market
- Amazon: no infringing use but online platforms still in hot water?
- Companies are Not only Sharing IP, They are Enabling Others to Copy Their Product
- Protecting Intellectual Property and Data if Employee Separation is Anticipated
- The issue of confidentiality in Intellectual Property litigation
PRIVACY
- Saudi Arabia Exploiting Wireless SS7 Flaw to Track Targets In The United States
- Website cookies in Canada: is consent required?
- Bugs that let sites hijack Mac and iPhone cameras fetch $75k bounty
- Attackers can bypass fingerprint authentication with an ~80% success rate
- Pixel 4 face unlock finally gains an alertness check
- Another Coronavirus Side Effect: In-Home Surveillance By Remote Workers’ Employers
- The Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act and Online Learning
- The publication of COVID-19 quarantine lists violates the right to privacy
- Google is releasing your anonymized location data to help health officials with coronavirus containment
- Your Phone May Be Contributing to Google’s Coronavirus Reports: Location data is a new, somewhat controversial tool in the fight against Covid-19
- Google knows if everyone in your county is actually staying home or not
- Tech firms, others gain waiver to share patient data, raising privacy fears: The waiver from DHHS, seeks to make it easier for public health authorities to utilize patient data in the fight against COVID-19.
- Coronavirus and the Future of Surveillance: Democracies Must Offer an Alternative to Authoritarian Solutions
- NASA sees an “exponential” jump in malware attacks as personnel work from home
- FTC Sends Warning Letters to VoIP Service Providers
- Civil society groups call for protection of human rights in digital surveillance amid COVID-19: The measures adopted should be lawful, necessary and proportionate, wrote the signatories
- Tracking coronavirus: big data and the challenge to privacy
- Using tech to fight the virus: How much privacy are South Koreans relinquishing in the battle against COVID-19?
- Covid-19: the race to create privacy-focused contact tracing tools
- The Right and Wrong Ways to Use Location Data in the Pandemic: Using smartphone information from to track coronavirus may be a good idea. But using it to track the movements of specific individuals is not.
- Pand-Veillance: The Catalyst Effect of Covid-19 on Surveillance Practices (Arthur Laudrain)
- COVID-19 and Applicable Law to Transnational Personal Data: Trends and Dynamics (Jie Huang)
- COVID-19 Will Someday Fade Away. The Wireless Location Data Practices Being Embraced To Track It Probably Won’t.
- Governments turn to tech in coronavirus fight – but at what cost?: Critics warn privacy, civil liberties may be at risk as govt’s turn to tech volunteers, companies in COVID-19 responses.
- COVID’s borders: between peer-to-peer surveillance and the “common good”
- Coronavirus: location-tracking apps could stop the disease – here’s how
- Data protection in times of COVID-19: the risks of surveillance in Brazil
- Privacy Experts Say Responsible Coronavirus Surveillance Is Possible
- Coronavirus is testing the limits of Russia’s surveillance state
- Make Europe capital of data sovereignty
- Enlisting tech to fight coronavirus sparks surveillance fears
- We Mapped How the Coronavirus Is Driving New Surveillance Programs Around the World: At least 28 countries are ramping up surveillance to combat the coronavirus
- Complex ecologies of trust in data practices and data-driven systems
- Plastic surveillance: Payment cards and the history of transactional data, 1888 to present (Josh Lauer)
CREATIVITY
- Journalism hit hard by corona crisis
- COVID-19 Entertainment Update: Silver Linings Playbook for Entertainment Companies
- Art matters more than ever during the COVID-19 crisis
- The Pandemic’s Effects on Museums and Art Schools
- HR ‘Don’ts’ Inspired by Netflix’s Tiger King
- Ten Years Later—Lessons Learned from the Museum of Fine Arts Boston Kokoschka Case
GAMES
- Activision scores First Amendment victory in Humvee trademark lawsuit
- Activision has a First Amendment right to use Humvees in Call of Duty
- Humvee Can’t Stop Depictions of Its Vehicles in the ‘Call of Duty’ Videogame–AM General v. Activision Blizzard (Eric Goldman)
- Activision Permabans 50,000 Players Amid Rampant ‘Call Of Duty: Warzone’ Cheating
- Xbox architect sues Atari over unpaid work on crowdfunded console
- Atari VCS system architect Rob Wyatt is suing Atari over missed payments
- Tin Giant sues Atari for unpaid work on VCS console: Xbox architect Rob Wyatt accuses Atari of breach of contract and defamation
- Tencent sues tech company for putting its games on rival cloud service without permission: League of Legends, CrossFire, and Dungeon Fighter Online allegedly made available without Tencent’s permission
- Who owns your video game?: An issue between the NFTS and its students has raised questions about IP ownership — Sheridans’ Tim Davies is here to help
- Pac-Man Owners Caught in Retro Game IP Maze
- Bears Versus Yetis the Triple Town Copyright Infringement Case
- Solid Oak Sketches, LLC v. 2K Games, Inc.
- Copyright Defenses When a Copyright Infringement Claim Gets Under Your Skin
- Watch as Charles Leclerc takes debut F1 Esports win in Virtual Grand Prix
- Bubba Wallace loses sponsorship after rage-quitting during NASCAR iRacing event
- Bubba Wallace rage-quit a NASCAR esports race, then lost his sponsor
- Maybe It’s The Quarantine Talking, But NASCAR’s Esports Takeover Is Hilarious Fun
- Racing turns hard into esports while the real world is on hold
- How are traditional sports and esports converging as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic?
- Esports Gain Prominence As Major Leagues Go Dark
- A pandemic proved that esports is more vital than ever for entertainment | Opinion: As the last sport left standing, esports is in a position to rally fans, new users, and curious onlookers
- Gaming hours, spend, digital purchases up as COVID-19 keeps players inside – Nielsen: 29% of gamers in the US say they’re playing online with friends more often
- Mobile games spending expected to see minimal impact from COVID-19 – Sensor Tower: Spending expected to reach $72b in 2020, near $100b by 2024
- The party goes on in massive online worlds
- Strange Times: During The COVID-19 Outbreak, Evictions Get A Pause…In Final Fantasy 14
- N3TWORK aims to help devs tackle UA and growth with $50 million fund
- N3twork announces $50m fund to scale published mobile games: Growth fund to support 100 games over the next year, alongside $1m pilot fund
- Over 1m boxed games sold in the UK in three weeks: But Resident Evil 3 disappoints in latest charts
- Bonuses: Gaming’s second favorite surprise mechanic | Opinion – Developers can push themselves to extremes in the hopes of a big payday, but there’s no guarantee success will be rewarded
- UK Government enlists game developers to push ‘Stay Home, Save Lives’ messaging
- UK developers work with government to fight COVID-19: King, Rebellion, and Codemasters to include “Stay At Home, Stay Safe” messaging in their games
- Getting the hate out of games: ADL’s Daniel Kelley says the industry can learn from social media to make communities welcoming to more players
- SMG Studio: Platform holders need to drive accessibility
- Report: Game X Change keeps stores open, gives staff bogus advice for facing COVID-19
- Game X Change remains open despite COVID-19, sends workers debunked health advice: Employees report store has also failed to provide stores with cleaning and safety supplies
- Phil Spencer talks how Xbox teams are weathering remote work in the lead-up to Series X
- Microsoft: Staggered launch would “hurt” Xbox Series X – Phil Spencer wants to keep global rollout for new console in the face of COVID-19 pressures
- Phil Spencer: Launch price will be ‘critical’ to the success of Xbox Series X
- Xbox cautiously rolling out Project xCloud preview in Western Europe: Registrations now open, streaming service will arrive when internet infrastructure is not overwhelmed due to coronavirus
- Over 1,100 Steam games earned at least $10k within two weeks of launch in 2019: That’s up 18% from last year, while new game release totals were up 11%
- Ars analysis: ~80% of Steam games earn under $5K in first two weeks
- Valve’s breakdown of Steam launch earnings says ‘success’ is on the rise4
- Embracer Group raises $164 million to acquire more studios and publishers
- Embracer Group raises $164m for acquisition and expansion: THQ Nordic parent company also issues COVID-19 business impact assessment
- Demiurge co-founder buys the studio back from Sega: Original CEO Albert Reed wants the Marvel Puzzle Quest developer to return to supporting work on AAA titles
- Stadia launches free tier including two-month trial of Stadia Pro
- Stadia’s wider launch begins with a two-month free Stadia Pro trial
- Google offers Stadia Pro for free for two months: But it’s still not the official launch of Stadia Base
- Stadia will lower default settings to reduce internet strain during COVID-19
- Amazon Makes Grab For Gaming With Development Of Stadia Competitor, PC Titles ‘Crucible’ And ‘New World’
- Report: COVID-19 could delay Amazon’s cloud-based gaming platform into 2021
- Coronavirus reportedly delays Amazon’s game streaming service Project Tempo into 2021: But internet giant will release first original IP Crucible next month, interactive casual games for Twitch in the summer
- Twitch breaks 3b total hours watched in a single quarter for the first time: Twitch, YouTube Gaming, and Facebook Gaming all see lifts in hours watched, though Mixer continues downward trend
- Twitch Expands Nudity Guidelines To Allow Cleavage, Swimwear, Breastfeeding
- Valorant’s closed beta debut lands Riot Games a new Twitch viewership record
- Quarantine questions for the streaming future | Opinion: The games industry has pinned its future to fast broadband infrastructure — but as the world self-isolates, the risks of those choices become clear
- The Last of Us Part II and Iron Man VR delayed as COVID-19 complicates release plans
- The Last of Us Part 2, Iron Man VR delayed “indefinitely”: PlayStation issues automatic refunds for digital pre-orders of both games
- ‘Iron Man VR’ for PSVR Delayed Indefinitely Amid Coronavirus Pandemic
- The Last of Us Part II is “nearly done.” So why is it being delayed?
- The next PlayStation controller is called DualSense, looks like a cool robot
- The PS5 DualSense gamepad doubles down on dream of next-gen immersion
- Don’t Miss: Mark Cerny’s 2013 ‘no holds barred’ PlayStation 4 hardware deep dive
- People Are Playing the Piano in ‘Half-Life: Alyx’ and It’s Magnificent
- How height, audio cues, and trust sculpted VR locomotion in Half-Life: Alyx
- The best practices and design principles of VR development
- “People are returning, and buying new stuff — that never happened before in VR”: Last year brought the next generation of VR hardware, says Ndreams’ and 2020 will see the same revolution in VR software
- Augmented Reality/Virtual Reality Litigation Update: Responding to Patent Litigation Threats from AR/VR Non-Practicing Entities
- GameStop ordered to close Boston store after violating lockdown: Retailer issued a nuisance order, staff had been serving shoppers through the door with hands wrapped in plastic bags
- Nintendo says “more systems on the way” as Switch sells out worldwide: Major retailer says that some customers are picking up PS4 or Xbox One instead
- Searching for the ultimate Super Mario Bros. player among the masses
- Report: Animal Crossing has sold over 2.6 million retail copies in Japan alone
- Animal Crossing: New Horizons sales top 2.6m in Japan: Nintendo’s latest drives Switch sales, towers over the competition in latest Japanese sales charts
- Parenting in a pandemic: Chaos, control, and an Animal Crossing meltdown
- Cooking Mama dev shuts down rumours of Switch version mining cryptocurrency: Studio says blockchain was never a feature, is “frustrated” by distribution problems
- Sony forms $100 million global relief fund to help those affected by COVID-19
- Sony sets up $100m COVID-19 Relief Fund: Company will fund support for frontline medical workers, educators, and the entertainment industry
- Electronic Arts pledges at least $2m in match-funded support for COVID-19 relief: Staff around the world lead grassroots efforts to support local frontline workers and relief organisations
- British government starts pushing social distancing via in-game ads
- Irish studio Vela Games raises $3.1 million to create ‘player first’ co-op titles
- You can help medical science just by playing a new Borderlands mini-game
- Gearbox to help scientists map the human gut with Borderlands Science: New puzzle game within Borderlands 3 will enlist players to make up for computer shortfalls
- After the lockdown: China studios on returning to work – Chinese developers share lessons learned from remote working and their efforts to prevent a second wave of COVID-19
- Facebook Gaming launches Tournaments: Starting today, Facebook Gaming users can create brackets for their friends
- SteelSeries acquires Nahimic: Accessories firm will use new subsidiary’s expertise to improve its proprietary audio engine
- Resident Evil 3: Critical Consensus – Capcom’s third remake finds the classic series at a turning point — and there are dissenting voices amid the critical praise
- Final Fantasy VII Remake spoiler-free review: Our kind of Cloud gaming
- Final Fantasy 7 Remake: Critical Consensus – Critics praise this impressive but bloated reimagining of the iconic RPG
- After over 300 weeks of releases, Ubisoft is ending work on new Rocksmith DLC
- Retro console Amico receives 10,000 pre-sales in one week: Upcoming console from Intellivision Entertainment also sells over 100,000 to major retailers ahead of October launch
- Designing around panic in The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners
- War Stories: How Homeworld brought the third dimension to real-time strategy
- Blog: Historians discuss Through the Darkest of Times
- Blog: The difference between random and randomized progression
- Blog: Getting the most out of player reviews
- Blog: What does games culturalization involve?
- Blog: Designing the art of Damaged In Transit
- Blog: Best virtual development practices for a COVID-19 world
- Blog: The impact of product managers on game design
- Blog: A postmortem of my rope-swinging action title Hang Line
- Don’t Miss: How Rogue Legacy handles tutorials without being boring
- Video: Learning from 2 case studies of LGBTQ+ representation in games
- Video: Overcoming creative block on Super Crush KO
- Video: Lessons learned about matchmaking for engagement in Halo 5
- Outer Wilds and Disco Elysium win big at BAFTA Games Awards
- Outer Wilds wins best game, original IP, and design at 2020 BAFTA Game Awards: Disco Elysium also takes home three honors for best narrative, music, and debut
- U.S. Patent no. 10,286,327: Multiplayer video game matchmaking system and methods
Jon
News of the Week; April 1, 2020
DIGITAL
- Court: Violating a site’s terms of service isn’t criminal hacking
- Levandowski says Uber must pay his $179 million judgment to Google
- Yet Another Court Says Suing Twitter For Terrorist Acts Is A Waste Of Everyone’s Time
- “Material Support for Terrorism” Lawsuit Fails a Third Time–Colon v. Twitter (Eric Goldman)
- Redbox’s Terms of Use Fail (OUCH)–Wilson v. Redbox (Eric Goldman)
- Section 230 Protects Classifying Non-Competitive Software as a Threat–Asurvio v. Malwarebytes (Eric Goldman)
- Broadband Speeds Dip In Major Cities Due To Covid-19
- Coronavirus misinformation is the latest test for social media platforms
- Study looks at how Russian troll farms are politicizing vaccines
- How China Built a Twitter Propaganda Machine Then Let It Loose on Coronavirus: ProPublica analyzed thousands of fake and hijacked Twitter accounts to understand how covert Chinese propaganda spreads around the globe.
- Coronavirus Conspiracy Theories Are a Public Health Hazard: It’s time to debunk the worst—and most dangerous—Covid-19 misinformation.
- The Digital Response to the Outbreak of COVID-19: Undeniably, we need to use technology as part of disaster response, but the regulatory immaturity of the industry makes technology companies risky allies
- Internet Archive offers 1.4 million copyrighted books for free online: Massive online library project is venturing into uncharted legal waters.
- Authors fume as online library “lends” unlimited free books
- Publishers And Authors Misguided Freakout Over Internet Archive’s Decision To Enable More Digital Book Checkouts During A Pandemic
- Streaming Gets Big Bump During Coronavirus Quarantines, Nielsen Says: SVOD platforms outpaced the overall gains in TV usage during the first few weeks of March.
- As More People Shelter At Home, Podcasts See 15% Drop In U.S.-Based Listeners
- Amazon: Walkout leader’s firing wasn’t due to his organizing efforts
- Amazon, Walmart Suspend Marketing Deals With Digital Media Firms
- Email, text message attacks surge during COVID-19 crisis
- An Internet Shutdown Is Keeping Coronavirus Information from Millions in Pakistan
- South Korea: Cyberbullying Amid Coronavirus – Some online trolls seem determined to infuse Korean politics and COVID-19 with racial tensions.
- Anti-Vaxxer Sues Facebook, In The Middle Of A Pandemic, For ‘In Excess’ Of $5 Billion For Shutting Down His Account
- Facebook spends US$100M to support local news amid pandemic
- Facebook invests $100M in journalism as COVID-19 makes it more vital than ever: In the form of direct grants and advertising spend
- Facebook Says Live Streams Have Increased 50% This Month, Will Expand ‘Stars’ Monetization To Musicians, More
- Facebook has a new way for communities to help each other through COVID-19: Its Community Help feature is expanding
- Tech giants are navigating an ‘infodemic.’ Are they doing it right?: Social media platforms have resisted being arbiters of truth for years, but COVID-19 has changed that, fast.
- How data-mining companies are set to gain from the Covid-19 pandemic: Their business model, challenged by numerous activists and analysts, is likely to gain further public acceptance, to the detriment of democracy.
- Democrats say Google’s COVID-19 ad ban is a gift to Donald Trump: “To not allow political candidates to mention or discuss COVID-19 is something that has the potential to dramatically bolster Trump’s…reelection.”
- Judge Allows PEN America’s Lawsuit Against Donald Trump Over Retaliation Against The Media To Proceed
- President Trump Is So Upset About This Ad Showing His Failed Handling Of COVID-19 That He’s Demanding It Be Taken Down
- Democrats Being Blocked From Advertising On Trump’s Failed COVID-19 Response Due To Content Moderation Rules
- How Do You Moderate COVID-19 Misinformation When It’s Coming From Official Sources?
- Jared Kushner’s Coronavirus Task Force Is Using Private Email Accounts To Conduct Official Business
- Google sent users 40,000 warnings of nation-state hack attacks in 2019
- Tech Firms Are Swooping in to Profit From COVID-19: Tech is winning gov’t contracts to roll out spurious apps & services. Innovation must be administered publicly to prevent the further commodification of health care.
- Tech giants should give away their money instead of their products: Anything helps, yes. But there’s a limit to even a billion dollars in donations – “Can’t make payroll on ad credits.”
- The Online Cold War: foreign hackers and trolls undeterred by virus crisis
- Apple acquires Dark Sky weather app, and that’s bad news for Android users
- Bogus coronavirus claims lead Google Play to finally give Infowars the boot: Apple kicked Alex Jones out of the App Store in 2018.
- Google Commits $800 Million, Mostly in Ad Credits, to Coronavirus Relief Efforts
- Don’t Click That Link! It Might Be Viral: There’s been an explosion of Covid-19-related websites, some real and some nefarious.
- Frequency of looking for and accessing information about the coronavirus pandemic among adults worldwide as of March 2020
- Snapchat preempts clones, syndicates Stories to other apps
- Snapchat Reports Engagement Records During the Coronavirus Pandemic: The app reached all-time highs in Snaps sent, Snap Games, time spent watching Shows
- Spotify is bringing its kids app to the US, Canada, and France: Just as kids are stuck at home because of the pandemic
- Spotify and Warner Music Group renew their global licensing deal, resolve issue in India
- HQ Trivia returns with surprise $1,000 show and $100,000 donation
- Resurrected HQ Trivia App Welcomes 100,000 Players For First Game Back
- HQ Trivia returns, reportedly acquired by private investor: Live mobile trivia competition to donate $100k to World Central Kitchen
- Will Airbnb Become Obsolete After the Coronavirus?: The world’s most-visited cities are deserted. When the virus passes, they will be durably changed.
- Patreon, Which Had 150,000 Pre-Pandemic Creators, Sees 30,000 Sign-Ups In March Alone
- B.C.’s Civil Resolution Tribunal keeps ‘doors open’ during pandemic: CRT is able to stay fully operational because it operates remotely
- COVID-19 court closures forcing long-overdue use of technology, say lawyers
- Vancouver studio uses 3D printers to make face shields for hospital workers
- Some Instacart and Amazon Workers Stay Home, Calling for More Pay in Coronavirus Pandemic: Coronavirus risks prompt walkouts, pay demands at delivery and retail companies
- “Amazon Is a Breeding Ground”
- Amazon fires warehouse worker who led Staten Island warehouse walkout
- No Masks and Uncertain Sick Leave: New York Whole Foods Delivery Workers Say Amazon Is Failing To Protect Them
- Amazon auditions to be ‘the new Red Cross’ in Covid-19 crisis | Free to read This could be the group’s finest hour but there are concerns about workers being put at risk
- Why Amazon Is Poised to Emerge from the Covid-19 Crisis Stronger Than Ever: Amazon has reacted to the coronavirus with restrictions designed to cement its market power at the expense of merchants and consumers.
- Who needs a government when you’ve got Amazon to keep things running?: While Trump blusters, the online giant has taken on the role of regulator and benevolent dictator
- Nationalize Amazon: Instead of letting Amazon use coronavirus to dominate even more of the economy, the company should be nationalized and reoriented to serve the public good instead of predatory capitalism.
- We Should Nationalize Food Delivery Apps and Turn Them Into a Public Food Service
- The Technology 202: Mask scams and misinformation still present on social media despite tougher policies
- Well Hyped Satellite Broadband Provider OneWeb Files For Bankruptcy
- OneWeb goes bankrupt, lays off staff, will sell satellite-broadband business
- Daisy Keech Moves Out Of ‘Hype House’ Mansion, Files Suit Against Ex-Business Partners
- John Krasinski Launches ‘Some Good News’ YouTube Channel, Gaining 330K Subscribers Overnight
- YouTube Taps Lilly Singh, Philip DeFranco, Others For Coronavirus Interview Series With Dr. Fauci
- “With me” videos on YouTube are seeing huge spikes in viewership as people stay home: A growth of 600 percent since social isolating started
- Reese Witherspoon Pacts With YouTube For Charitable ‘Shine On’ Series Amid Quarantine
- We Talked To Industry Insiders About How The Coronavirus Is Impacting YouTube Ad Revenues
- YouTube Sets 480p Resolution Limit On Android App Across India Amid Coronavirus Lockdown
- YouTube, Twitch, Facebook, Instagram See Significant Boosts In Traffic Amid Digital Ad Woes
- YouTube To Launch TikTok Competitor ‘Shorts’ Later This Year
- TikTok Strikes Short-Term Licensing Deals With Sony, Warner, Universal
- Facebook Hosts Beware: Potential Defamation Liability around the Corner
- FTC Paid Endorser Settlement Sets Framework for Advertiser Best Practices
- Rihanna’s ‘Fenty Beauty House’ Temporarily Shutters As Coronavirus Precaution
- Google Wants Your Data in Exchange for a Coronavirus Test: Public health shouldn’t mean surrendering privacy to Silicon Valley.
- Disney+ Is Reportedly Asking Users If It Should Offer Shows Aimed At Older Audiences
- Patreon, Which Had 150,000 Pre-Pandemic Creators, Sees 30,000 Sign-Ups In March Alone
- How U.S. Sports Are Publishing On Social Video Without Games Being Played
- BuzzFeed Cuts Staff, Executive Pay In Attempt To Prevent Coronavirus-Related Layoffs
- Some Silicon Valley Companies Are Booming as COVID-19 Rages: For some businesses, the novel coronavirus pandemic and efforts to contain it have been a boon, boosting their popularity if not yet their revenue.
- We just glimpsed how a “digital dollar” might work, thanks to coronavirus: Proposal for new government-run payment platform didn’t make it into the coronavirus relief plan. It won’t be the last we hear of the idea.
- Not having lockdown parties on Zoom? What are you waiting for?: Zoom birthday parties & virtual pubs demonstrate social distancing isn’t isolation – will the party stop when we can all go outside again?
- Coronavirus scammers are getting taken down by grassroots ‘hackers without borders’
- ‘The Valley has stepped up’: Ro Khanna on layoffs, bailouts, Trump and crisis innovation – Protocol talks with the California representative about how the tech industry is being affected by the crisis — and what comes next.
- New pandemic edtech power networks
- Ad Council’s COVID-19 PSAs Bring Together White House, Social Platforms, Tech Companies, Advertisers, And Influencers
- From female computers to male comput♂rs: Or why there are so few women writing algorithms and developing software
- The Law of Informational Capitalism (Amy Kapczynski)
- Digital Repression in Autocracies (Erica Frantz, Andrea Kendall-Taylor, Joseph Wright)
A.I.
- AI and big data won’t work miracles in the fight against coronavirus
- EU Parliament Told Predictive Policing Software Relies On Dirty Data Generated By Corrupt Cops
- As Platforms Rely Less on Human Content Moderators, What’s at Stake?: In response to COVID, some social media sent content moderators. This could be a glimpse into their desire to rely less on human labour
- Neural implants plus AI turn sentence-length thoughts to text
- Unity Game Simulation Lets Studios Use AI Bots To Playtest Games In Google Cloud
- CAA Signs Human Avatar-Fashioning Tech Startup ‘Soul Machines’
- The false positive problem of automatic bot detection in social science research: A study of Botometer’s diagnostic ability over time
- Emotional AI, soft biometrics and the surveillance of emotional life: An unusual consensus on privacy (Andrew McStay)
- The benefits of Artificial Intelligence in the field of IP
- Artificial Intelligence – Our March 2020 report
COMMUNICATIONS
- Video Streaming to TVs Soared 85% in U.S. in First Three Weeks of March, Nielsen Says
- Broadband speeds fall in dozens of big US cities during pandemic
- Alarm, Denial, Blame: The Pro-Trump Media’s Coronavirus Distortion – Hannity, Limbaugh & other commentators turned a pandemic into a battle of us vs. them – the battle President Trump has waged.
- Charter gives techs $25 gift cards instead of hazard pay during pandemic
- Comcast waiving data caps hasn’t hurt its network—why not make it permanent?
- Instead of COVID-19 Hazard Pay, Spectrum Is Giving Its Repair Techs $25 Gift Cards To Closed Restaurants
- Saudi spies tracked phones using flaws the FCC failed to fix for years
- Saudi Arabia reportedly tracked phones by using industry-wide carrier weakness
- Teardown of Huawei flagship phone finds US parts despite blacklisting
- AT&T, Verizon Will Waive Wireless Overage Fees During Pandemic. But You’ll Have To Ask.
- Verizon Is The Only US Wireless Carrier Charging Extra For 5G
- FCC Permits Schools and Libraries to Make Wi-Fi Available to Public
- FCC requires anti-robocall tech after “voluntary” plan didn’t work out [Updated]
- Goodbye, John Legere: CEO leaves as T-Mobile completes Sprint merger
- Frontier prepares for bankruptcy, regrets failure to install enough fiber
- China’s economy was hit hard by the pandemic. Its 5G ambitions could be crucial to its recovery
- Is the media an essential service?
- Opinion of the Advocate General of the Court of Justice on net neutrality and zero-rating
- Tone Deaf: Using COVID-19 As A Prop To Celebrate The Death Of Net Neutrality
INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY
- Bill C-4 Receives Royal Assent: Incoming Changes to the Intellectual Property Landscape
- EU: infringement of software license agreement can result in an intellectual property infringement
- The Open COVID IP Pledge
- IP monitor: Canadian Intellectual Property Office announces further extension of deadlines in wake of pandemic
- COVID-19: Canadian Government Can Now Use Patented Inventions to Respond to the Public Health Emergency
- COVID-19 Emergency Response Act: Amendments to the Patent Act
- COVID-19 and intellectual property
- Patents Concerning Coronavirus Treatments
- Evalve v Edwards – Review of competing public interests in grant of final injunctions
- Florida Atlantic University Suddenly Decides Owl Tutoring’s Name Is Trademark Infringement After Over A Decade
- Lean Trademark Strategies – For The Covid-19 Pandemic And Its Aftermath
- A “Dark Horse” Victory for Katy Perry: Central District of California Overturns $2.8M Copyright Verdict
- First Circuit Treads “Unchartered Waters”: Holds Copyright Sublicenses Can Be Implied
- RIAA Realizes It Sued Charter Over A Bunch Of Songs It Doesn’t Hold The Copyrights For
- A Snapshot From Section 101: Patent Directed to Image Cataloging Not Patent Eligible
- A Collision of Patents, Copyrights, and Piracy on the High Seas
- 67 Years Ago Today: Jonas Salk Announced The Polio Vaccine… And Did NOT Patent It
- Supreme Court Holds that States are Immune from Copyright Infringement
- GEICO Earns Victory at Intersection Between Copyright and Trade Secret Law Covering Source Code
- Top 3 legal predictions on Copyright for 2020
- Copyright Termination. Chapter One: What Kind of Grants Can Be Recaptured?
- Copyright Termination. Chapter 2: When Can a Grant Be Terminated?
- Is Your Character Entitled to Copyright Protection? The Ninth Circuit Reinforces High Bar for Copyright Protection of Characters
- The Pirates Of Precedence, or How a Modest Copyright Case Could Affect Controversial Supreme Court Cases
- Ninth Circuit Shows Led Zeppelin a Whole Lotta Love in ‘Stairway’ Copyright Win
- Copyright Is Broken: COVID-19 Pandemic Revealing Just How Messed Up Our Permission-Based Culture Is
- Permission Culture Gone Mad: Worries About Proper License For ‘Balcony Singing’ Lead Collection Society To Say It’s Okay, You Can Sing
- I Just Took a DNA Test . . . Am I the Joint Author?
- U.S. Supreme Court Holds Copyright Remedy Classification Act of 1990 Does Not Abrogate State Sovereign Immunity for Copyright Infringement: Allen v. Cooper
- Judge Ramos Finds “Bad Faith” Enforcement of a Patent is Not Patent Misuse
- Global patent law update
- Eli Lilly and Co v Genentech Inc: issue estoppel and abuse of process in patent cases
PRIVACY
- Zoom iOS App Sends Data to Facebook Even if You Don’t Have a Facebook Account: Zoom’s privacy policy isn’t explicit about the data transfer to Facebook at all.
- Zoom is being sued for allegedly handing over data to Facebook
- Zoom Meetings Aren’t End-To-End Encrypted, Despite Misleading Marketing
- Who’s Zoomin’ Who? Privacy and Data Security Concerns over Stay-at-Home Video Conferencing
- Zoom’s privacy problems are growing as platform explodes in popularity
- Attackers can use Zoom to steal users’ Windows credentials with no warning
- Researchers Say Kids’ Android Apps Are Still Riddled With Malware
- >4,000 Android apps silently access your installed software
- UK’s National Health Service Plans To Use Big Data Analysis To Fight COVID-19 — With The Help Of Palantir
- Can ProctorU Be Trusted With Students’ Personal Data?
- Moscow To Launch New Surveillance App To Track Residents In Coronavirus Lockdown
- Voluntary Virus Tracking Apps Seek To Get A Grip On The Coronavirus Problem
- How Much Data Does Clearview Gather On People? The Answer (Sadly) Will Not Surprise You.
- Maine Event: ISP Privacy Law Challenged on Free Speech Grounds
- Geolocation and the Fight Against COVID-19: Could the Emergencies Act Overrule Privacy Law Protections for Cellphone Location Data?
- Appeals Court Tells Baltimore PD To Start Coughing Up Information About Its Cell Site Simulators
- Countries are using apps and data networks to keep tabs on the pandemic: And also, in the process, their citizens
- Will Germans trade privacy for coronavirus protection?
- Australian state will install home surveillance hardware to make sure if you’re in virus isolation, you stay there: Could be a wearable, could be wired. Backed by big fines and jail
- Verily’s COVID-19 website becomes a health data privacy battleground: “These tools can be a helpful part of the solution during our ongoing public health emergency, but patient privacy shouldn’t be sacrificed as a result”
- Pitching trade against privacy: reconciling EU governance of personal data flows with external trade (Svetlana Yakovleva, Kristina Irion)
- Someone Convinced Google To Delist Our Entire Right To Be Forgotten Tag In The EU For Searches On Their Name
- Johnny Depp disclosure in libel case in English MAC Court Ruling
- The death of Hungary’s democracy is a worldwide press-freedom warning
- Judge Schofield: Claims Over White House Revocation of Press Credentials and Security Clearances May Proceed
- Call for Creatives: United Nations Opens Submission Process for COVID-19 Messaging Work
- ‘The real ideological war has just begun and Covid-19 is only the starting point’: Ai Weiwei on China’s response to the outbreak – The Chinese artist reflects on how authoritarian political systems tackle the crisis effectively
- The importance of art now and beyond Covid-19: The always deeply flawed and unequal conditions of labour for the artistic community have been revealed and made much worse by the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic.
- The importance of art in the time of coronavirus
- UK gallery curator calls for public art project in response to Covid-19: Ambitious national programme is needed to support artists and institutions, says Serpentine Galleries’ artistic director
- In a Pandemic, How Do You Make the Case for an Art Emergency?: Literary Arts Leaders are Bracing for Months of Financial Crisis
- ‘A Matter Of Common Decency’: What Literature Can Teach Us About Epidemics
- Insights: Adapting Hollywood To The Pandemic, And What Happens Hereafter
- Call for Depression Era-style Public Art Project
- This American Life host Ira Glass on storytelling during Covid-19
- The Architecture of Quarantine Is No Longer a Thing of the Past
- Ethics and Reporting Practices for COVID-19
- Disease control: Mapping violations of free speech under the cloak of the coronavirus crisis
- The ‘human canvas’ livestreams from Tasmanian museum
- Marvel, DC will delay digital comic books during brick-and-mortar closures
- Adam Schlesinger, Emmy Winner and Fountains of Wayne Cofounder, Dies of Coronavirus Complications
GAMES
- ‘NBA 2K’ Publisher Beats Copyright Suit Over LeBron James’ Tattoos: In a landmark decision on the tatto a federal judge rules that Take-Two’s depiction was de minimus and that an implied license was granted.
- Judge Swain: Depicting NBA Players’ Tattoos in Video Game Is “Fair Use”
- Court Manages To Get NBA2K Tattoo Copyright, Trademark Case Exactly Right
- Videogame Doesn’t Infringe Tattoo Copyright By Depicting Basketball Players–Solid Oak Sketches v. 2K Games (Eric Goldman)
- Videogame Can Replicate Musician’s “Signature Move” (Unless It’s a False Endorsement, Which It Isn’t)–Pellegrino v. Epic Games (Eric Goldman)
- US court dismisses Humvee trademark infringement suit against Activision: New York judge rules that use of Humvees in Call of Duty is protected as artistic expression
- Wargaming.net files lawsuit against group of former employees: Blitz Team says it has become target of “unfair competition and legal bullying” at hands of Wargaming
- Gamevice brings yet another accusation of Nintendo patent infringement: This is the peripherals manufacturer’s third attempt at such a complaint
- Nintendo Switch sells out at retail, leading to third-party price inflation
- The year of Mario: A ton of classic 3D games reportedly coming to Switch in 2020
- How SNES emulators got a few pixels from complete perfection
- Report: Gearbox overspent on Borderlands 3, and devs see bonuses cut in response
- Borderlands 3 devs accuse Gearbox of shorting bonuses: Kotaku reports that promised six-figure bonuses have been significantly reduced, studio planning an IPO
- Epic offers $1m reward for evidence of Houseparty smear campaign: Fortnite developers assures that app does not enable access to bank accounts or other services
- Activision has dished out over 50,000 permabans in Call of Duty: Warzone
- Activision permabans over 50,000 cheaters in Call of Duty: Warzone – Publisher says it has “zero tolerance” policy on cheaters and will issue regular updates on number of bans handed out
- Jedi Academy dev promises to fix mistake that let PC gamers slaughter console players
- Sony declines to sell Call of Duty in Russia (again): Modern Warfare 2 Remastered will not be sold through PlayStation Store
- Players host weddings, classes, more in online games during COVID-19 crisis
- Hyper casual dominated new mobile downloads in 2019: More than 75% of the 20 most downloaded new mobile games of 2019 were hyper casual
- Fox’s virtual Texas NASCAR race sets esports record with 1.3 million viewers
- NASCAR’s First Virtual Race Draws Record-Setting 903K Viewers, Seals Broadcast Deal For Rest Of Season
- Mobile esports team Tribe Gaming raises $1 million: Backers include NBA all-star Gordon Hayward, WWE wrestler Cesaro, and Super Evil Megacorp CEO Kristian Segerstrale
- During The Outbreak: All Sports Are eSports Now
- How to play Pokémon Go when everyone’s stuck inside
- Pokémon and Apex Legends esports events cancelled: Physical events scrapped amid coronavirus concerns, prize money shifted to online competitions
- Anybrain receives €1m investment form Trust Esport: Artificial intelligence startup works to secure online gaming and make esports more fair
- FaZe Clan, Verizon Host Charity ‘Fortnite’ Match For Coronavirus Relief Efforts
- ESL partners up with PUBG Mobile to host competitions for the game
- Andre ‘Typical Gamer’ Rebelo Signs Exclusive Streaming Deal With YouTube
- What is happening with video game sales during coronavirus: GamesIndustry.biz analyses the latest figures from GSD
- Pandemic has led to spikes in mobile gaming, says ironSource: App monetization firm reports daily average users, new game installs up in regions under lock down
- The rise and rise of video games: Covid-19 has drawn renewed attention to an under-appreciated industry
- Kojima’s GBA experiment—and the sunny island childhood it changed forever
- Kojima Productions working remotely after employee diagnosed with COVID-19
- Kojima Productions staff working remotely after employee diagnosed with COVID-19: Developer is working with health authorities to prevent further spread of virus
- UK retailer Game furloughs staff with full pay through April: However, company tells staff it cannot guarantee full pay or jobs past that point
- Twitch is holding a Stream Aid charity event to raise money for the fight against coronavirus
- Twitch ‘Stream Aid’ To Combat Coronavirus Raises $2.8 Million, Nabs 135,000 Concurrent Viewers
- A Twitch streamer is exposing coronavirus scams live
- Mojang shakes up AR game Minecraft Earth to adapt to shelter-in-place play
- Pokémon Go temporarily changes mechanics to reduce spread of COVID-19: Mojang follows suit with changes to Minecraft Earth
- Pokémon Go revenue spikes as game continues to adjust for COVID-19: Last week was its highest-earning week in 2020 so far, despite lockdowns
- Record number of Steam users online during coronavirus outbreak: Steam sees record numbers of users in-game, and record concurrent users for third week running
- With more people staying home, Steam makes changes to reduce bandwidth use
- GameStop turns a Q4 profit despite 28% dip in sales: Retailer says pandemic has increased demand; chain closed 320 stores last year and looks to close that many or more in the current year
- Amid pandemic closures, GameStop says it’s seeing increased business
- GameStop ends 2019 with sales down year-over-year, but ‘increased financial flexibility’
- GameStop to close at least 320 stores in 2020
- GameStop says no indication of PS5, Xbox Series X delays: Retailer says as of right now, pandemic has had “minimal” impact on product deliveries
- Sony says COVID-19 won’t impact PS5 launch (yet)
- Early Access MMO Last Oasis offering full refunds due to server problems: Game being taken offline for a week while developers fix issues
- Colopl acquires Steins;Gate developer Mages for $15 million: Studio will become a wholly owned subsidiary after mobile firm purchases all shares
- Koch Media, Kalypso Media expand physical publishing partnership
- South Australia launches second round of Games Innovation Fund
- Xbox encouraging devs to push updates during off-peak hours to lessen server strain
- Microsoft adjusts Xbox Live functionality due to pandemic: As demand for cloud services surges, custom gamerpics disabled and game updates only delivered in off-peak hours
- Future shuts down Official Xbox Magazine after almost two decades
- Official Xbox Magazine closed: Publication is reportedly one of six magazines Future has discontinued
- Sony doesn’t see pandemic affecting PS5 launch: Despite factory closures and downgraded profit forecast, Sony estimates no material impact on its gaming business so far
- Sony will begin limiting PSN download speeds in the U.S.
- Sony reduces PSN download speeds for the US: PlayStation maker expands European downgrade “to help ensure internet stability” during pandemic
- Bungie: Google Stadia an “amazing solution” for playtesting during lockdown – COO Patrick O’Kelley says Google’s streaming platform can replicate an essential aspect of game development
- Google Stadia, ‘beefy laptops’ drive Bungie’s remote work success
- Tencent and Huawei are working on a mobile cloud gaming platform
- All hail Nintendo’s animal overlords | Opinion: Animal Crossing looks set to be one of the year’s biggest games — we might reflect on what it says about the appetite for different kinds of escapism
- A Super Mario Christmas is the ideal counter to PS5 and Xbox Series X | Opinion: Why a bunch of Mario ports may be all Nintendo needs to face off against the new consoles
- Strong week for UK physical game sales despite lockdown: “Animal Crossing New Horizons” drops to No.3
- Final Fantasy VII Remake shipping early amid COVID-19 disruption: Square Enix reveals European and Australian players may receive the game sooner than April 10 launch
- Square Enix will ship ‘Final Fantasy VII Remake’ early to some countries: Disruption caused by the coronavirus will leave some players open to spoilers.
- Epic launches new publishing program with 50/50 profit sharing for developers
- Epic launches publishing label with Remedy, Playdead and GenDesign onboard: Epic Games Publishing will be multiplatform, cover as much as 100% of costs, and offer partners 50/50 profit share
- Epic Games is now a third-party multi-plat publisher, secures three big studios
- Epic signs Playdead, Remedy, and genDesign to new publishing label
- COVID-19 preventing Bethesda from hosting digital E3 showcase
- Star Citizen dev Cloud Imperium raises $17.25 million in funding
- Cloud Imperium secures $17.25m in additional investment: Existing investors pour more finance into Star Citizen developer
- Colopl acquires game and interactive novel developer Mages for $14.92 million
- Terraria has sold over 30 million copies across all platforms
- Niantic acquires 6D.ai to help map out the entire world for AR
- Niantic acquires AR mapping company 6D.ai: Location-based game developer working on dynamic, 3D map of the world
- How to Clean Your VR Headset
- Roto VR Picks up $1.86M Investment to Support Roll-out of Rotating VR Chair
- ‘Half-Life: Alyx’ Now Among Steam’s 10 Best Rated Games Ever, Surpassing All Other ‘Half-Life’ Titles
- With Half-Life: Alyx out, Valve shifts focus to its Hammer level editor
- Forte recruits 5 more high-end game studios to make blockchain-based games
- Wasteland 3 delayed due to COVID-19: Minecraft Dungeons also delayed into May for the same reason
- The Sandbox blockchain-based world will feature virtual Atari theme park
- Researchers turn to PC gamers for help with COVID-19: Folding@home downloaded onto over one million devices
- Tinybuild’s Hello Neighbour books have made $16m in revenue: Book series hits 2m sales as game franchise passes 30m downloads
- League of Legends: The art of balance – Summoner’s Rift team manager John Frank discusses the intricacies of balancing one of the world’s most successful competitive titles
- An extended interview with Crash Bandicoot designer Andy Gavin
- What happens when an outbreak ruins your game announcement plans?
- WHO and game companies launch #PlayApartTogether to promote physical distancing
- Industry launches #PlayApartTogether in fight against COVID-19 pandemic: Over 50 companies now using their platforms to spread key messages, organisers in talks 70 more
- Resident Evil 3 Remake review: Are we ready for pandemic nostalgia?
- Deep Dive: Making a cozy, therapeutic experience in Coffee Talk
- Don’t Miss: How Mario Kart influenced Nintendo’s fighting game, ARMS
- Don’t Miss: What it took to port Resident Evil 2 to the N64
- Don’t Miss: The Valkyrie Profile-inspired design of Indivisible
- Don’t Miss: Give players a place to feel ‘cozy’ and they’ll keep coming back
- Video: Storytelling with verbs to better integrate narrative and gameplay
- Video: Using forgiveness mechanics to design better games
- Video: How Gearbox baked accessibility features into Borderlands 3
- Blog: Understanding and effectively implementing live ops
- Blog: Differentiating narratives using the selfish story model
- Next big thing or next big bubble? – 10 Years Ago This Month: Streaming, motion controls, and stereoscopic 3D were all pushed as transformative technologies
- 28 years later, a no-disc version of the Sega CD exists—and it rocks [Updated]
- Insert Coin, the arcade documentary worth feeding all your quarters into
- Cyberpunk dev CD Projekt Red donates $950,000 to help fight COVID-19
- Eidos-Montreal hosting Deus Ex flash sale to help those affected by COVID-19
- Rockstar pledges 5% of Red Dead and GTA Online revenue to fight COVID-19
- Dozens of devs pitch in games for Humble’s all-for-charity Conquer COVID-19 bundle
- Game industry backs ‘Play Apart Together’ campaign to slow spread of COVID-19
- U.S. Patent no. 10,286,326: Soft reservation system and method for multiplayer video games
Jon
News of the Week; March 25, 2020
DIGITAL
- Freedom Of (All) The Press?: Impact of “Shelter in Place” Orders on Media Companies
- Coronavirus could delay tech antitrust action: “I would expect all of the timetables that authorities have developed are going to be stretched out,” former FTC Chairman William Kovacic said.
- COVID-19: Product liability for “fake news”?
- ‘The US of Amazon’: how the coronavirus has created a governance vacuum the tech giant is quickly filling
- American Amazon warehouse worker gets COVID-19
- Employees at nine Amazon warehouses have contracted the coronavirus
- Some Amazon Prime deliveries may take a month as demand surges
- Amazon and eBay failing to stop Covid-19 profiteers, says Which?: Consumer group finds ‘consistent overpricing’ on hand sanitiser, thermometers and baby formula despite crackdown
- Smartphones Aren’t the Problem – Capitalism Is: All of the fretting about social media addiction and smartphones destroying our attention span misses the point. Capitalism and the profit-seeking of big tech is the real problem.
- Snapchat rolls out mental health feature early due to the coronavirus
- A Snapchat-owned location app just added a leaderboard comparing who stays home the most: Zenly is gamifying social distancing
- Instagram prototypes Snapchat-style disappearing text messages
- Instagram Unveils New ‘Co-Watching’ Feature To Promote Social Distancing
- Coronavirus, cybercrime and the parasitising of a pandemic
- DOJ Correctly Takes Down Fraudulent COVID-19 Website Selling Bogus ‘Vaccine Kits’
- How Facebook is preparing for a surge in depressed and anxious users: And why it’s Mark Zuckerberg’s biggest worry about the user base
- Facebook says coronavirus is pushing usage through the roof, but its business is hurting: Total messaging has increased by 50 percent and video calling has doubled in some markets
- Facebook’s new design turns your PC into an enormous phone
- Why Silicon Valley Loves Coronavirus: Coronavirus is the shock that Silicon Valley needed to complete its workplace revolution – with new technologies mediating our daily lives in ways that will be difficult to reverse.
- YouTube Reduces Default Streaming Quality Globally In Light Of Congestion Concerns
- YouTube is reducing its default video quality to standard definition for the next month: You can still watch videos in HD, but you have to manually choose that option
- YouTube Launches ‘Learn@Home’ Educational Hub For Kids Kept Home By COVID-19
- YouTube Lowers Playback Quality In EU, U.K. To Stave Off Potential Coronavirus Congestion
- Top 50 Most Viewed US YouTube Channels • Week Of 3/23/2020
- YouTube Music, Spotify, Amazon, More Donate To Recording Academy’s COVID-19 Fund For Music Professionals
- Netflix, Disney Throttle Video Streams In Europe To Handle COVID-19 Internet Strain
- Comcast, Disney Embrace Faster Home Video Release Windows In Wake Of COVID-19
- Netflix, YouTube cut video quality in Europe after pressure from EU official
- Netflix, YouTube slow down streaming in Europe
- Netflix Establishes $100 Million Fund To Support Cast, Crew On Productions Halted By COVID-19
- Netflix Streaming Traffic Hits All-Time Highs on AT&T Networks
- Here’s the Netflix account compromise Bugcrowd doesn’t want you to know about [Updated]
- ‘Oprah Talks COVID-19’ Is Apple TV+’s Lo-Fi, Long-Distance Look At Coronavirus
- Apple Helps China Censor Citizens By Pulling The Plug On A Keyboard App That Encrypted Text Messages
- Quibi Reveals ‘&Music’ Series Featuring Ariana Grande, J Balvin, Ozzy Osbourne, More
- WhatsApp Is at the Center of Coronavirus Response
- Twitter Gains 12 Million Users, But Will Take Q1 Operating Loss Due To Pandemic’s Effects On Ad Revenue
- Insights: How Online Creators Can Thrive, And Help Others Survive, In Our Plague Year
- Coronavirus Social Video Stats: Yes, It’s The Main Topic People Are Talking About
- 20-Person Creator Collective Launches Facebook Hub To Stave Off Coronavirus Isolation
- As Pandemic Worsens, Influencers Could Face 15-25% Decrease In Sponsored Post Pricing (Study)
- Pornhub Sees 12% Global Visitor Growth Amid Coronavirus Lockdowns, Free ‘Premium’ Offers
- Coronavirus Cancels VidCon 2020, Organizers Hoping To Reschedule For This Fall
- Twitch Hooks Up With SoundCloud To Help Musicians Monetize Livestreams Amid COVID-19 Concert Cancellations
- Tours Are Canceled, So Musicians Are Turning To Twitch: “I’m just trying to survive, and Twitch has the highest earning potential.”
- SoundCloud and Twitch just made it easier for musicians to monetize live streams: SoundCloud artists can apply for Twitch Affiliate status
- Musicians ask Spotify to triple payments to cover lost concert revenue: Bandcamp relaxes charges in light of Covid-19 but there is growing pressure on streaming services to compensate artists more fairly
- Yes, Global Spotify Chart Streams Are Down This Week. No, That Doesn’t Mean Coronavirus Is Hurting The Record Industry.
- ‘A worldwide hackathon’: Hospitals turn to crowdsourcing and 3D printing amid equipment shortages
- Spotify Resurrects FaZe Banks And KeemStar’s ‘Mom’s Basement’ YouTube Series In Podcast Form
- Spotify opens its podcast catalog to third-party apps, but not for streaming
- Spotify Is Testing A Feature That Recommends Music To Match The ‘Moment And Mood’ Of A Photo
- Spotify is revoking support for all third-party DJ apps
- Spotify to let artists link to donation pages from their Spotify profile page: The changes come as part of the company’s measures to help artists hit hard by COVID-19
- Maryland General Assembly Votes to Adopt Digital Advertising Gross Revenue Tax & Expand Sales Tax to Digital Products
- OneWeb says it will have to cut workers amid economic crisis
- Beyond the Digital Analogy in Constitutional Law (Spencer Livingstone)
A.I.
- Why Don’t We Just Ban Targeted Advertising?: From protecting privacy to saving the free press, it may be the single best way to fix the internet.
- Artificial intelligence, transparency, and public decision-making: Why explanations are key when trying to produce perceived legitimacy
- Artificial Intelligence: Can a machine be an inventor?
- Speech recognition algorithms may also have racial bias
- Artificial Intelligence Platforms – A New Research Agenda for Digital Platform Economy (Tomasz Mucha, Timo Seppala)
- Echo Chambers and Competition Law: Should Algorithmic Choices be Respected? (Eran Fish, Michael Gal)
COMMUNICATIONS
- Comcast wins Supreme Court case over interpretation of civil rights law: Black-owned TV network alleged racism in Comcast decision not to carry channels.
- Comcast aggressively moves to work-from-home during pandemic
- Charter employees beg for work-from-home rights during pandemic
- Charter grudgingly lets up to 40% of call-center employees work from home
- Charter Spectrum Under Fire For Putting The Public At Risk During Coronavirus
- Should Zoom Be a Public Utility?: Online platforms like Zoom and Skype have become basic, public necessities as our lives are upended by the coronavirus. Should they be nationalized?
- How to get Verizon and AT&T data-cap fees waived during the pandemic
- AT&T CEO Nabbed Record $32 Million Compensation In 2019, Despite Rampant Bumbling, Layoffs
- Changes Affecting Telehealth Due to COVID-19 Pandemic
- HHS Removes Enforcement Barriers for Telehealth during COVID-19 Nationwide Public Health Emergency
- The FCC Exempts COVID-19-Related Health Care “Robocalls” From TCPA Liability
- FCC Issues Guidance on TV News Sharing Agreements During the Pandemic
- Libraries Want To Become Broadband Havens During The Pandemic, But Want More Help From The FCC
- Essential Planning for Broadcasters Facing Coronavirus Restrictions on Access to Facilities and News Events
- SpaceX gets FCC license for 1 million satellite-broadband user terminals
- Broadband Considerations for Schools and Libraries Impacted by COVID-19
INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY
- Awful, Awful People Keep Trying To Trademark COVID And Coronavirus
- The Utility of Recent Force Majeure Amendments to Canadian Trademark Law
- Federal Court of Appeal remands Remicade new use patent decision on anticipation and obviousness
- (Trade)mark America Great Again: Should Political Slogans Be Able to Receive Trademark Protection? (Katherine Kerrick)
- Newspaper Can Talk About “Derby Pies” Without Infringing Trademarks–Rupp v. Courier Journal (Eric Goldman)
- Supreme Court Decides North Carolina Is Immune from Filmmaker’s Copyright Suit
- Surprise: Judge Throws Out Jury’s Awful Copyright Infringement Decision Over Katy Perry Song
- Supreme Court rules states are immune from copyright law
- States Cannot be Sued for Copyright Infringement Says the Supreme Court
- SCOTUS Strikes Down Law Abrogating Sovereign Immunity to States for Copyright Infringement
- North Carolina Won’t Be Walking the Plank: Supreme Court Finds State is No Copyright Pirate in Blackbeard Ruling
- U.S. Supreme Court Rules That Sovereign Immunity Shields States From Copyright Suits
- Supreme Court Rules That States Cannot be Sued for Copyright Infringement, For Now…
- Brompton bike case unfolds as AG’s opinion indicates no copyright infringement
- A casual snapshot can make for a valuable copyright
- Responding to COVID-19 | Global intellectual property update
- COVID-19 and trademark-driven scams
- Judge Woods Finds Dating App Patent Doesn’t “Match Up” With Section 101
- Federal Circuit Adds “Method of Preparation” Claims to Bucket List of Claim Types that May Elude the Dreaded US 101 Invalidity Finding
- An Improved Step in a Diagnostic Method is Patentable Subject Matter
- Everyone’s Got A Pet Project: Patent Maximalist Says We Need Longer Patents To Incentivize Coronavirus Vaccines
- RIP to the Australian innovation patent
- ‘Upload filters’ and human rights: implementing Article 17 of the Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market
- Double Blow To The EU’s Long-Delayed Unified Patent Court, But Supporters Unlikely To Give Up
- Former Google engineer pleads guilty to stealing confidential document
PRIVACY
- Washington State Legislators Pass Bill Blocking Use Of Facial Recognition Tech Without A Warrant
- Governments Around The World Are Tracking Their Citizens’ Movements To Prevent The Spread Of COVID-19
- As Coronavirus Surveillance Escalates, Personal Privacy Plummets
- Privacy & Encryption Will Be More Important Than Ever In Wake Of Coronavirus
- The US Government Is Also Looking At Increasing Domestic Surveillance To Fight The Spread Of The Coronavirus
- VPN Review Site Creates Live Digital Rights Tracker To Compile Coronavirus-Related Surveillance Efforts
- Google v CNIL – an update on the right to be forgotten
- 9th Cir. Rejects Spokeo ‘Standing’ Objection to Nationwide Privacy Class Settlement
- New attack on home routers sends users to spoofed sites that push malware
- Israel uses mass cellphone surveillance to contend with coronavirus
- Trudeau leaves door open to using smartphone data to track Canadians’ compliance with pandemic rules: Cellphone companies are already sharing data with health authorities around the world
- Canada should ensure cellphone tracking to counter the spread of coronavirus does not become the new normal (Michael Geist)
- How Canada Should Ensure Cellphone Tracking to Counter the Spread of Coronavirus Does Not Become the New Normal (Michael Geist)
- Coronavirus is forcing a trade-off between privacy and public health: The crisis has governments and companies scrambling to decide when it’s appropriate to lift data privacy protections and AI ethics guidelines.
- Ring Continues To Insist Its Cameras Reduce Crime, But Crime Data Doesn’t Back Those Claims Up
- Privacy issues arise as governments track virus
- European Privacy Law and Global Markets for Data
- My Third Set of Comments to the CA DOJ on the CCPA Regulations (Eric Goldman)
CREATIVITY
- ‘A Whole Generation of Artists Might Be Wiped Out’: Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev on Museums, Care and the Covid-19 Crisis
- Covid-19 leaves creative industry vulnerable: As the coronavirus pandemic shuts down all but essential services around the globe, live entertainers are scrambling to find ways to earn an income from home.
- COVID-19 is spawning a global press-freedom crackdown
- Twitter Suspended Cory Doctorow For Putting Trolls On A List Called ‘Colossal Assholes’
- Interview With Liz Mair, Whom Rep. Devin Nunes Is Suing For $400 Million Because She Was Mildly Mean To Him
- Houston Police Chief Says He’ll Prosecute People For False Statements About COVID-19 Response; Won’t Debate 1st Amendment
- Big Telecom’s Quest To Use The First Amendment To Scuttle Privacy Laws Won’t Go Well, Experts Predict
- Judge To Art Licensing Agency: No, Your Stupid Unicorn Is Not More Important Than COVID-19 Right Now, Shut Up
- The only little movie screen in the capital of Texas
GAMES
- No Fun and Games: Blizzard Alleges Infringement by JoyFun Inc.
- High Fashion Invades Runeterra – Fascinating IP Issues in the Collaboration Between League of Legends and Louis Vuitton
- Nintendo presses Sony to remove Mario creations from Dreams: Sony confirms ongoing case-by-case purge of Nintendo IP from creation game
- Nintendo Gets ‘Dreams’ Mario Taken Down Because Of Course It Did
- Nintendo donates 9,500 face masks to US emergency services: Highly sought-after face masks will be distributed across the City of North Bend and surrounding area
- After Years Of Being Blamed For Everything, The World Turns To Video Games To Escape During Coronavirus Shut-In
- Game platforms respond to increased demand amid coronavirus quarantines [Updated]
- Record number of Steam users online during coronavirus outbreak: Steam sees record numbers of users in-game, and record concurrent users for third week running
- Game Discoverability: The Steam & Epic stores, circa early 2020
- F1 Is Cancelled, So Drivers Will Race Each Other In The Official Video Game
- Formula 1 officially goes virtual from this weekend: Endorsed races with real-life talent begin this Sunday
- Missing live sports? There’s a lot more esport racing this weekend
- Entire Spanish Soccer League, Including Barcelona And Real Madrid, Are Going To Play Each Other In FIFA [Update: Real Madrid Wins]
- Keywords Studios staff criticize pandemic response: Testers say company made QA staff show up while management worked from home, adopted lax sanitation processes
- UK retailer GAME keeping its Belong arenas open for now – Update: Retailer has now decided to close them until further notice
- UK games retail shifts online as government orders closure of all non-essential stores: CEX, GAME, Argos and more shut their High Street branches to prevent the spread of coronavirus
- Sony will ‘manage’ PSN download speeds in Europe to preserve internet access
- Sony to Slow PlayStation Downloads in Europe Amid Coronavirus Pandemic
- Sony throttles back game downloads in Europe: PlayStation maker says gameplay will be unaffected but players may see slower or delayed downloads to reduce strain on ISPs
- Sony and Microsoft are playing different card games | Opinion: Sony and Microsoft’s next-gen communications strategies tell us almost as much as the tech specs themselves
- GameStop rules itself ‘essential retail’ and therefore immune to lockdown closures
- GameStop pauses trade-in program for 9 days due to COVID-19 concerns
- GameStop shuts down regular operations amid coronavirus closures [Updated]
- GameStop bumps up Doom Eternal release to cut back on in-store crowds
- Retailers break Doom Eternal street date over COVID-19 fears: GameStop and other retailers are selling Bethesda’s game early to avoid overcrowding in-store
- Bethesda apparently broke its own Denuvo protection for Doom Eternal
- Finnish-Icelandic studio Mainframe nets $8.3 million to create cloud-native games
- Animal Crossing: New Horizons smashes sales records in the UK – It is the fastest-selling single Switch game ever
- Report: Animal Crossing: New Horizons sets new Switch launch sales record in Japan
- Animal Crossing: New Horizons breaks Switch sales records in Japan – Famitsu data reveals Nintendo’s latest has sold 1.88 million copies in just three days
- Why Nintendo’s new Animal Crossing features allow instant change in the real-time game
- Report: The Nintendo Switch has now outsold the Wii in Japan
- Nintendo shuts down U.S. repair centers due to COVID-19
- Top three unchanged in App Annie’s annual mobile publisher chart: Tencent, NetEase and Activision Blizzard lead a top ten with only two new entries
- Mobile versions of Call of Duty and PUBG driving game revenue at Tencent
- All US GameStop stores closed except for curbside pick-up: Retailer will pay US employees for lost hours for next two weeks; Canadian EB Games stores shut entirely
- GameStop reportedly shutting down all stores in California: Retailer had previous tried to remain open despite shelter in place order, saying it was “essential business”
- GameStop keeping stores open as government orders lockdowns: San Mateo county says GameStop is not an “essential business,” GameStop says it can have “positive impact”
- GameStop abruptly shuts down all stores in California
- GameStop closing U.S. storefronts to customers amid COVID-19 pandemic
- Google Play’s malicious app problem infects 1.7 million more devices
- Exclusive: Google mobile downloads suggest Stadia has sold 107,000 units in the last two months
- Stadia to offer dev kits, funding, and more through new Stadia Makers program
- Stadia launches Makers program to attract experienced indies: Google offers tech help, hardware, and funding to devs using Unity and including Stadia among launch-day platforms
- Unity debuts new cloud-based platform for simulating game playtests
- Unity offers up free game dev courses and tutorials during coronavirus pandemic
- Big Run Studios nets $1.4 million to create mobile titles for ‘underserved’ audiences
- Koei Tecmo found global success by focusing on its Japanese identity: CEO Hisashi Koinuma on being trusted with big IPs, making an asset of the firm’s Asian identity, and its goal of making a 5m-selling original IP
- Square Enix implements work-from-home policy due to COVID-19
- Call of Duty: Warzone passes 30 million players in ten days
- ‘Half-Life: Alyx’ Review – Valve Delivers One of VR’s Best Games Yet
- Half-Life: Alyx review: The greatest VR adventure game yet—and then some
- ‘Half-Life: Alyx’ Breaks Concurrent User Record for VR Game on Steam
- Mods that cut VR from Half-Life: Alyx will only show how vital its VR is, says Valve
- Don’t Miss: The making of Half-Life 2
- ‘Half-Life: Alyx’ Tops ‘Fortnite’ and ‘Warzone’ with 300K Concurrent Twitch Viewers on Launch Day
- Half-Life: Alyx — Critical Consensus: Critics praise the frightening, tactile and brilliantly detailed return of Half-Life — but will it be 13 years until the next one?
- HP, Valve, and Microsoft team up for ‘next-gen’ PC VR headset
- Valve: “VR has been missing a big game that everyone can get excited about”
- Gabe Newell: “Competition in game stores is awesome…but ugly in the short term”: Valve CEO – “We get a lot more freaked out not by competition, but by people trying to preclude competition”
- How Amazon Web Services is powering some of the world’s biggest video games: Leading developers discuss how they’re using the company’s tech to solve their challenges
- MTG says COVID-19 could sink esports revenues by 45%: DreamHack and ESL parent warns investors about first-half financials, proposes post-pandemic stock buybacks
- Gfinity’s CEO and chairman step down ahead of 60% cost reduction plan: Esports firm secures new income through ad deal with Bidstack and Venatus
- What does a chain of esports restaurant arcades do in a pandemic?
- Twitch hands indefinite ban to “Kaceytron” for COVID-19 comments: Kacey “Kaceytron” Caviness joked about virus fatalities, will need to appeal ban to be reinstated
- Bohemia Interactive grossed $68m last yearz: DayZ and Arma 3 developer makes over 4.5 million software sales in 2019
- Blizzard and Paradox arrange care packages for remote-working staff during coronavirus lockdowns: Meanwhile, Sega added to growing list of games firms sending employees home to work
- Scopely increases series D round to $400m
- Mobile studio Scopely nets $200 million for more acquisitions
- Robin Games raises $7m to create “lifestyle gaming”: New studio formed by former Jam City exec Jill Wilson, has primarily women-led team
- Eight principles for making a game influencer-friendly: ICO Partners’ David Ortiz Lapaz lays out ways developers and marketers can make games work for content creators
- Superdata – February digital game spending up 4%: Console revenues down 22% on weaker release slate, but “many titles” are seeing spikes due to pandemic shutdowns
- World’s Greatest Teacher Delivers VR Math Lesson In Half-Life: Alyx
- This Developer Turned His Apartment Into a VR Game
- Ukie launches industry-specific online wiki: Ukiepedia is free resource of games industry facts, insight, resources and links
- Untitled Goose Game, A Short Hike take home top prizes at GDC and IGF Awards
- GoldenEye 007, Guitar Hero among 2020 World Video Game Hall of Fame finalists
- Polish government running games development course for quarantined kids: Webinars, game jam and a building competition on Minecraft launched as part of digital education efforts
- Microsoft says it can still make Xbox Series X despite coronavirus concerns
- Minecraft gets free educational content to help enable distance learning
- Xbox curates free educational marketplace in Minecraft: Meanwhile, Outright Games partners with Digital Schoolhouse for computer science workshops
- Routing Around Damage: Censored Reporting Hosted In Custom-Built Minecraft ‘Library’
- Another port bites the dust: Xbox Series X drops S/PDIF audio
- DirectX 12 Ultimate brings Xbox Series X features to PC gaming
- TIGA calls for increased game tax credits due to COVID-19
- Playtika delivers food packages to vulnerable people amid pandemic: Mobile developer to distribute thousands of packages per week across Eastern Europe and Israel
- BBTV Pacts With Latin American YouTube Phenom Mariale On Mobile Puzzle Game
- CAA Signs Online Gaming Entrepreneurs Jesse Cox And Bruce Greene
- Blog: Building a historical game based on real-world struggles
- Blog: Rethinking progression in mobile puzzle games
- Blog: A guide to working remotely in games
- Blog: VR/AR – A renaissance art form
- Blog: How lore and storytelling can make puzzlers more replayable
- Blog: Why the world needs game developers right now
- Video: The benefits of Paradox’s long-term DLC model
- Video: Storytelling lessons learned in 14 years at BioWare
- Video: Designing great UI that helps immerse players in your game
- Don’t Miss: The aggressive resource management of Doom Eternal4
- Don’t Miss: Where next for the video game power fantasy?
- Don’t Miss: Designing Grindstone’s super satisfying board-clearing gameplay
- Ninja and wife donate $150,000 to Feeding America amid coronavirus pandemic: Streamers encourage other influencers ask their followers to stay at home and observe social distancing
- Games industry rallies in fight against COVID-19: IMVU raises over $100,000 to send supplies to hospitals fighting COVID-19
- Razer will start manufacturing surgical masks to help fight COVID-19
- Plague Inc. dev Ndemic donates $250,000 to COVID-19 response funds
- The UK National Videogame Museum starts fundraiser after COVID-19 puts future at risk
- COVID-19 “threatens the very existence” of National Videogame Museum: British Games Insitute launches campaign to save nation’s only dedicated games museum
- Plague Inc. rolling out new mode where you fight to contain the outbreak
- ASCII art + permadeath: The history of roguelike games
- GDC 2020 talks are now available to watch for free on the GDC Vault!
- U.S. Patent no. 10,286,323: Dynamic difficulty adjustment
- Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice named game of the year in 2020 SXSW Gaming Awards
Jon
News of the Week; March 18, 2020
DIGITAL
- Law Commission of Ontario recommends sweeping changes to law of defamation to address challenges of internet age
- LCO recommends new regime for online defamation
- French antitrust watchdog hits Apple with its biggest fine ever: $1.2 billion
- SoftBank Owned Patent Troll, Using Monkey Selfie Law Firm, Sues To Block Covid-19 Testing, Using Theranos Patents
- The Internet is drowning in COVID-19-related malware and phishing scams
- Capitalism’s Addiction Problem: The biggest, best-known companies in the digital economy are getting their users hooked on their products – and undermining the pillars of America’s market economy.
- Why Tech Might Actually Be The Solution To Capitalism’s Addiction Problem
- Online Harms Part 1: The new regulatory framework requiring businesses to protect online users against harm
- Another Troubling Courtroom Loss for Online Marketplaces–Massachusetts Port Authority v. Turo (Eric Goldman)
- Online Platforms Sidestep Claims over User Content Decisions and Social App Functions
- As Politicians Are Still Looking To Destroy The Internet, Covid-19 Reminds Us Why Social Media Is Not Just Good, But Saving Lives
- Burning The Ladder: Match.com Supports Burning Section 230 To The Ground, Despite Relying On It To Exist
- TikTok Moderation Guidelines Show Users Were Punished For Political Content, Being “Ugly” Or “Slummy”
- Invisible Censorship: TikTok Told Moderators to Suppress Posts by “Ugly” People and the Poor to Attract New Users
- As Legal Dispute Intensifies, Early ‘Hype House’ Star Looks To Launch Rival TikTok Group
- Insights: Taking TikTok Hype Houses Mainstream—What Could Go Wrong?
- 80% of TikTok’s Ad Spend is Dedicated to Snapchat, Reports MediaRadar
- New York Attorney General Continues Aggressive Enforcement Over Coronavirus Claims
- The Tort of Conversion in the Electronic Age: A Case Study
- Social Media Promised To Block Covid-19 Misinformation; But They’re Also Blocking Legit Info Too
- People In Kashmir Can’t Access Coronavirus Information Because The Government Is Crippling The Internet
- Why is Meetup helping people organize meetings during a pandemic?
- Major tech platforms say they’re ‘jointly combating fraud and misinformation’ about COVID-19
- How Wikipedia Prevents the Spread of Coronavirus Misinformation: A group of hawk-eyed experts operate on a special track to monitor medical information on the site.
- Android surveillanceware operators jump on the coronavirus fear bandwagon
- Verily’s COVID-19 screening site goes live, is already over capacity
- Facebook was marking legitimate news articles about the coronavirus as spam due to a software bug
- Reputable sites swept up in FB’s latest coronavirus-minded spam cleanse [Updated]
- Facebook Pledges $100 Million To Small Businesses Affected By Coronavirus, Partners With WHO To Remove False COVID-19 Content
- Here’s how social media can combat the coronavirus ‘infodemic’: Facebook and Twitter are major sources of Covid-19 news. They’re also where misinformation thrives. How can platforms step up?
- Facebook is shutting down MSQRD, the AR selfie app it acquired in 2016
- Instagram’s IGTV Reaching Out To “Emerging” Creators For Ad-Share Tests This Spring
- Facebook announces $100 million program for small businesses impacted by coronavirus
- Facebook unleashes the legal hounds against deceptive web domain names
- It’s Not Just the Content, It’s the Business Model: Democracy’s Online Speech Challenge
- Apple Music Signs New Licensing Deals With Majors
- Apple Music reaches new deals with major labels sans “Apple Prime” bundle agreement
- Apple’s WWDC is happening this year after all—but it has a new format
- Apple’s WWDC to take place entirely online: Conference will be held in June with online keynote and sessions
- There Are No Plans To Cancel Or Postpone VidCon, Organizers Say
- Social Media Influencer Marketing and FTC Enforcement
- Spotify Patents A Voice Assistant That Can Read Your Emotions
- Google and Verily clarify their roles in the US coronavirus response [UPDATED 3/15]
- YouTuber Loses Lawsuit Over Channel Termination–Mishiyev v. Alphabet
- YouTube Closes Some Content Moderation Offices Due To Coronavirus, Warns Creators It’s Temporarily Relying On Automated Systems
- YouTube Warns Video Takedowns Could Be Higher During Coronavirus Crisis
- YouTube Warns That, Thanks To Covid-19, It’s Handing Over More Content Moderation To The Machines And They Might Suck
- Here’s Why Google Broke Out YouTube’s Ad Revs For The First Time Last Quarter
- YouTube Officially Removing ‘Trending’ Tab From Mobile App In Favor Of ‘Explore’
- Top 50 Most Viewed YouTube Channels Worldwide • Week Of 3/16/2020
- Will Wall Street Get In The Way Of Jack Dorsey’s Lofty Plans To Turn Twitter Into A Protocol?
- Fox Sells Stake In Roku To Purchase Ad-Supported Streamer Tubi For $440 Million
- Snapchat Introduces DIY Augmented Reality Tool for Brands: Advertisers can customize Lens Web Builder with logos, images
- Snapchat joins forces with WHO to combat coronavirus misinformation
- Twitter Will Increase Its Use of Automation Tools as It Looks to Ensure Accuracy in COVID-19 Discussion
- World Health Organization Launches Daily Livestreamed Concert Series With Coldplay, John Legend, More
- Amazon Music launches analytics for artists with a mobile app
- What it’s like to own Vancouver’s last two video stores during a pandemic
- Amazon hiring 100,000 warehouse workers amid coronavirus boom
- Coronavirus Is Speeding Up the Amazonification of the Planet: As restaurants, bars, and local shops close down, platform-based monoliths are vacuuming up customers and jobs
- World Health Organization Launches Daily Livestreamed Concert Series With Coldplay, John Legend, More
- Netflix Suspends All Scripted Productions In U.S., Canada
- Netflix Party lets you have movie night while social distancing
- Coronavirus Shutdowns Could Increase Viewers’ Content Consumption By 60%, Per Nielsen Data
- Competition Law and Online Sales Restrictions: UK Court of Appeal Judgment in Ping
- Online casino fined £3 million for “systemic” AML failings
- Sonos Backs Off Plan To Brick Older, Still Functioning Speakers
- Bill Gates steps down from Microsoft board
- Bill Gates steps down from Microsoft board of directors: Corporation’s co-founder will focus more on his philanthropic activities
- Bitcoin loses 21 percent of its value in broad cryptocurrency rout
A.I.
- AI is an Ideology, Not a Technology: At its core, “artificial intelligence” is a perilous belief that fails to recognize the agency of humans.
- Gabe Newell on Brain-computer Interfaces: ‘We’re way closer to The Matrix than people realize’
- How can machine learning be applied to game development?
- Coronavirus: Social giants police web with AI as staff sent home
- “High-risk AI”: A European approach to excellence and trust
- The challenges of Artificial Intelligence in the field of IP
- Who owns AI creations? Comment on WIPO’s ‘Draft Issues Paper on Intellectual Property and Artificial Intelligence’ (Guido Noto La Diega)
- Identifying the Legal and Business Risks of Disinformation and Deepfakes: What Every Business Needs to Know
COMMUNICATIONS
- TELUS Corporation obtains court order to hold virtual-only shareholder meeting
- California AG Announces Settlement Agreement with T-Mobile and Sprint
- US Cable Companies Lost 5 Million Paying Customers Last Year Alone
- AT&T waives data cap during coronavirus; Comcast keeps charging overage fees
- US ISPs Drop Usage Caps, Pledge To Avoid Kicking Users Offline During Coronavirus
- Comcast and T-Mobile upgrade everyone to unlimited data for next 60 days
- Comcast’s Broadband Market Domination Continues To Grow
- Charter engineer quits over “reckless” rules against work-from-home
- Amid pandemic, T-Mobile gets emergency access to Dish’s 600MHz spectrum
- AT&T CEO pay rose to $32 million in 2019 while he cut 20,000 jobs
- Patient Distancing: The Critical Role Telehealth Will Play During the Coronavirus Pandemic
- President Trump Signs Legislation to Enhance Efforts to Secure U.S. Telecommunication Networks
- President Trump Signs Huawei/ZTE Replacement Funding Legislation; FCC Pushes for Necessary $1 Billion Appropriations Bill
- FCC’s 2018 Abolition of Main Studio Rules Means Broadcast Studios Do Not Need to Be Open to the Public During Coronavirus Outbreak
- After deregulatory blitz, FCC scrambles to prevent ISP abuse during pandemic
- President renominates FCC commissioner O’Rielly
- Data From Italy, China Suggests The US Internet Isn’t Likely To Choke On COVID-19 Broadband Usage Spike
INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY
- Volunteers 3D-Print Unobtainable $11,000 Valve For $1 To Keep Covid-19 Patients Alive; Original Manufacturer Threatens To Sue
- Industry Committee Recommends Adding Digital Lock Exception to USMCA Copyright Provisions (Michael Geist)
- False Start for Paparazzi in Copyright Suit
- Cruz v. Cox Media Group: District court holds Cox Media Group liable for copyright infringement due to publication of bystander’s photograph of 2017 terrorist attack in conjunction with news story, finding no fair use.
- LinkedIn Appeals Important CFAA Ruling Regarding Scraping Public Info Just As Concerns Raised About Clearview
- After A Long Climb, Led Zeppelin Prevails In The Stairway To Heaven Copyright Battle
- Is “This Land is Your Land” in the Public Domain?
- The Freewheeling, Copyright-Infringing World of Custom-Printed Tees: Print-on-demand companies allow anyone to upload designs for T-shirts, mugs & other items. But many images violate I.P. rights.
- Cofemel decision applied for the first time by UK court
- The Philadelphia Phillies Are Phighting for Their Rights to the Phanatic
- March Madness Trademarks: Avoiding a Foul Call from the NCAA (2020 Update – Part 1)
- March Madness Trademarks: Avoiding a Foul Call from the NCAA (2020 Update)(Part 2 – Even if the Tournament is Off)
- Google’s Servers Hosted by Third Parties Do Not Establish Patent Venue
- Failure to Mark Can Put Damages Underwater
- Protecting Trade Secrets During a Pandemic
- Natural Language Processing
- Former Refrigerator Manufacturer Says Companies Using Open Source, Royalty-Free Video Technology Must Pay To License 2,000 Patents
- Patent Marking – Federal Circuit Clarifies Noncompliance is not Cured by Ceasing to Sell Products or by Willful Infringement
- 2020: A Busy Year for CRISPR Patents at the EPO
- Firm wielding Theranos patents asks judge to block coronavirus test [Updated]
- After Theranos suit, Fortress makes patents available on royalty-free basis for COVID-19 tests
- Softbank-Owned Patent Troll Now Promises To Grant Royalty-Free License For Covid-19 Tests; Details Lacking
- True or false: testing limits of comparative advertising
- Patent-Eligible Improvements to Computer Functionality Must Be Directed to an Improvement of the Computer or Network Platform
- Claims Using Naturally-Occurring Phenomenon in Method of Preparation Found Patent Eligible
- Choosing Advocacy over Candor Renders Patent Unenforceable
- Unitary Patent and Unified Patent Court – Is it all over or is there a Plan B?
- The Growing Importance of International Arbitration for Intellectual Property Disputes
- Intellectual property law: a year in review
- As Congress Explore New Awful Copyright Plans, Maximalists Look To Rewrite The History Of SOPA/PIPA
PRIVACY
- Why the Coming Battle Over Canadian Privacy Reform Starts at Home (Michael Geist)
- Housebound Blues: Considering the Privacy and Data Security Consequences of Remote Work
- Clearview Was A Toy For Billionaires Before It Became A Toy For Cops
- Best Practices for Maintaining Employee Privacy Regarding Covid-19
- The government might want your phone location data to fight coronavirus. Here’s why that could be okay.: Privacy advocates want restrictions on how much phone location data the government gets from tech companies.
- How China built facial recognition for people wearing masks
- Since The FBI Can’t Be Bothered To Do It, Motherboard Has Compiled A Database Of Attempts To Access Encrypted IPhones
- We need privacy and data laws to tackle this global pandemic
- TikTok Says New ‘Transparency Center’ Will Invite Outside Experts To Observe Its Content, Data Practices
- What industries utilize opt-in cookie banners the most, and the least?
- High-stakes security setups are making remote work impossible
- Study ranks the privacy of major browsers. Here are the findings
- Local Government Employee Fined For Illegally Deleting Item Requested Under Freedom Of Information Act
CREATIVITY
- Eighth Circuit Serves Another Round of First Amendment Protection for Alcohol Advertising
- China Expels U.S. Journalists
- Insane: China Expels American Journalists In Ridiculous, Unhelpful Spat About Covid-19
GAMES
- The coronavirus pandemic has sparked a rise in online gaming in the U.S.
- Gaming Usage Up 75 Percent Amid Coronavirus Outbreak, Verizon Reports: Video streaming has also seen a bump, up 12 percent during peak usage hours.
- Crunching devs share the human cost of development at Naughty Dog
- Dreams dev testing the waters of letting players monetize their work
- F1 drivers and other pros switch to esports in the age of the coronavirus
- Board finds that Nintendo Joy-Cons don’t infringe on Gamevice controller patents
- Nintendo wins patent dispute against Gamevice: Patent Trial and Appeal Board invalidates all 19 of mobile accessories maker’s claims against platform holder
- Nintendo tells employees to self-quarantine: Measure taken after employee in Redmond, Washington offices tests positive for novel coronavirus
- Nintendo staff working from home after employee tests positive for coronavirus
- Ittle Dew 2+ returns to Nintendo Switch: Former publisher Nicalis denies allegations it attempted to re-publish title without permission
- Animal Crossing: New Horizons review: A quarantined life has never been cuter
- Nexon to close down MapleStory 2 global servers this spring
- Gaming and live streaming rise globally amid COVID-19 crisis: Games industry in a strong position to weather pandemic, say analysts
- A short history of banned games in Germany: Beiten Burkhardt’s Andreas Lober explores Germany’s fractious relationship with video games — and the age rating issues that still lie ahead
- The developer of Journey bucks the trend of “predatory” monetisation
- What a WoW virtual outbreak taught us about how humans behave in epidemics
- Call of Duty: Warzone crosses 15 million players in four days
- Call of Duty: Warzone surpasses 6 million players in 24 hours
- Call of Duty: Warzone hits six million users in 24 hours – Activision’s free-to-play battle royale launch dwarfs competition
- Free press advocates unveil new library of censored works — in Minecraft
- Reporters Without Borders builds censorship-free zone in Minecraft: The press freedom group will publish articles censored in their country of origin via in-game books
- Samsung is discontinuing its PC-to-phone game streaming app PlayGalaxy Link
- Samsung scraps PlayGalaxy Link streaming service: Games streaming service canned after five-month beta trial period, ends March 27
- Why culturalisation matters as much as localisation: Kate Edwards discusses how to approach culturalisation, and how to navigate sensitive themes so your game can reach wider markets
- The four pillars of good representation: GDC 2020 – Proletariat’s Tori Schafer offers key considerations for studios including LGBT+ representation in their games
- Forza creative director on the hardest part of fostering inclusivity: Dan Greenwalt talks about the never-ending work of creating a workplace where developers feel safe to call out mistakes
- GameStop cancels in-store events indefinitely in response to COVID-19: But employees reportedly struggle with lack of cleaning supplies or emergency sick leave
- 505 Games, Activision, Nintendo 2019’s Best Publishers Says Metacritic, Sony Not in Top 20
- February US sales down 29%, says NPD: Tracking firm reports no new releases cracked the top 20 as every platform saw hardware sales drop year-over-year
- UK Monthly Report: GTA V reigns again as The Division 2 bounces back in February: Software market drops more than 15% and console sales continue to tumble
- Niantic updates Pokémon Go in effort to limit coronavirus spread
- Niantic just made it easier to play Pokemon Go in self-isolation
- Pokémon Home grosses $2.6m in first month: US leads in player spend and installs as total downloads exceed 2.3 million
- Monster Hunter World: Iceborne ships 5m units: Series lifetime sales exceed 62 million as Iceborne expansion maintains strong performance
- Doom Eternal is a masterful twitch shooter symphony with one sour note
- Doom Eternal: Critical Consensus: Id Software’s latest shows brilliance in its bombast, but dabbles in platforming and world building with less success
- Google details what you need to play Stadia games in 4K on the web: Mac users need not apply.
- Blog: Nvidia’s brilliance, Google’s foresight, and the necessity of adding something new
- UK Charts: Nioh 2 takes No.1 as Mario Kart 8 races up the charts
- Assassin’s Creed Unity was one of the best-selling games in the world last month: Latest EMEAA charts puts Ubisoft’s 2014 title at No.1
- Lego teams up with Nintendo for Super Mario brick-based game
- Lego Super Mario toys announced: New line incorporates interactive electronic character with traditional building block elements
- Pokimane, DrDisrespect sign multi-year Twitch exclusivity deals: Two top streamers opt to remain while other popular names move to YouTube, Mixer, Facebook
- Twitch Indefinitely Bans Lifestyle Streamer Kaceytron For Coronavirus Comments
- Ubisoft, EA, Bethesda, and more enact remote working policies due to COVID-19
- Twitch Partners With Measurement Firm Comscore To Amp Up Ad Data
- Coronavirus-induced school and office closures have been great for Twitch streamers
- Esports: how can travel businesses take advantage of this exciting new market?
- EA, Rockstar, others shift to remote working amid pandemic: FIFA publisher also cancels all live events until global situation improves
- Square Enix warns of Final Fantasy VII Remake shipping delays: Worldwide release still set for April 10, but publisher says it’s “increasingly likely” that copies may be delayed in delivery
- Genvid Technologies secures $33m in Series B funding round: Interactive streaming developer backed by Samsung, Huya and NTT Docomo
- Miniclip acquires UK mobile studio Eight Pixels Square
- Miniclip acquires Eight Pixels Square: UK mobile developer joins Swiss development and publishing outfit
- Animal Crossing: New Horizons – Critical Consensus: Kind, community escapism just when we needed it
- Overwatch League cancels all March and April live events in response to COVID-19: Scheduled matches will still be played and broadcast online
- Call of Duty League cancels all scheduled live events due to COVID-19: All planned matches will go forward online-only, with live broadcasts
- Fullscreen’s Dustin Glass Exits To Head Gaming For Digital Video-Focused Reach Agency
- Twitch Dives Into Exclusive Livestreaming Deal With Dr DisRespect
- Back-end engine developer Pragma closes $4.2m seed round; LA-based startup provides “back-end as a service” solution set to launch later this year
- Making remote work work: Two developers from Endless’ global workforce focus on communication, trust, and culture in distributed development
- GDC 2020 virtual talks, awards streaming for free all week! Here’s the lineup
- Microsoft Build conference, DOTA and League of Legends esports among latest events to be cancelled
- Microsoft drops full Xbox Series X tech specs, reveals ‘storage expansion cards’
- Xbox Series X specs revealed, aims for “a minimum doubling” over Xbox One X: Microsoft’s upcoming console will also dramatically improve the performance of current and previous gen games
- Xbox announces, retracts Thanksgiving 2020 launch for Series X: Larry Hryb says Microsoft is “committed to launching holiday 2020”
- The new Xbox Wireless Controller will reduce latency and allow instant sharing
- Going for speed: The load-busting, lag-limiting tech of the Xbox Series X
- Sony details PlayStation 5 tech specs in extensive ‘deep dive’
- 5 highlights from PlayStation’s big PS5 system architecture deep dive
- Sony lays out more PS5 details: Mark Cerny talks about the promise of system’s 825GB SSD and Tempest 3D Audio Tech, offers details on backwards compatibility and expanded storage
- PlayStation’s switch to a SSD for the PS5 aims to ‘give the game designer freedom’
- Sony details PS5’s fast SSD, variable clock rates, 3D audio tech [Updated]
- Ex-Vainglory devs raise $2.5m for Bazooka Tango: Seed funding will help new studio create debut title set in Vainglory universe, built in Super Evil Megacorp’s engine
- A year without E3 is a chance to take stock | Opinion: The ESA’s show has failed to articulate what function it will serve to the modern industry — this year’s cancellation will force that discussion to happen
- Epic Games acquires facial animation tech studio Cubic Motion
- Epic acquires Cubic Motion: Unreal Engine maker picks up the company behind facial animation tech in God of War and Hellblade – Senua’s Sacrifice
- Manticore Games is building a “truly level playing field” for game development: CEO Frédéric Descamps hopes to disrupt game creation in the way that YouTube and Twitch did broadcasting
- Deca Games acquires DragonVale following Backflip Studios closure
- Stuck at home? Binge on some “War Stories” gaming videos!
- Don’t Miss: Neo Cab and the effort to make an empathetic game about gamification
- Don’t Miss: The story behind Remedy’s viral dog mocap star
- Don’t Miss: A 2012 look at CDPR’s Cyberpunk plans, and lessons learned from The Witcher
- Don’t Miss: Evolving the combat design of id Software’s Doom Eternal
- Don’t Miss: Naughty Dog’s Jak and Daxter: the Precursor Legacy postmortem
- Video: Making better games by understanding human error
- Report: AR Startup Magic Leap is Looking for a Buyer
- Magic Leap looks for buyers
- Report: AR headset maker Magic Leap exploring a sale at $10 billion valuation
- Games industry raised over $5.5m for Australian bushfire relief; Humble Bundle, Call of Duty DLC and Bungie T-shirts lead fundraising efforts
- Red Magic 5G gaming smartphone has 144hz display, internal cooling fan
- Video Gaming/E-Gaming Law Update
- U.S. Patent no. 10,286,314: System and method for providing continuous gameplay in a multiplayer video game through an unbounded gameplay session
- BAFTA opts for online-only game awards as COVID-19 concerns grow
- Untitled Goose Game nabs Game of the Year at the 2020 Game Developers Choice Awards!
Jon
News of the Week: March 11, 2020
DIGITAL
- Facebook Hit with Anti-Trust Lawsuit
- Facebook pulls Trump campaign ads for fake census claims
- Twitter, Facebook Target Trump Campaign’s Latest Biden Video, Labeling It “Manipulated,” “Partly False”
- Facebook slaps “partly false” label on Trump-endorsed video of Biden
- How new rules at Facebook and Twitter led to a warning beneath a Trump retweet: The spread of the video shows how even clear warnings can be little match for the power of the social media infrastructure.
- President Trump Prohibits Chinese Acquisition of U.S. Software Company
- Why Is Fox News Acting As State Media, Announcing Trump’s Lawsuits Before They’re Filed And Failing To Point Out How Frivolous They Are?
- Donald Trump And Charles Harder Continue Their Assault On The 1st Amendment, Suing The Washington Post
- Trump Campaign Suing All His Media ‘Enemies’: Files Another Silly SLAPP Suit Over CNN Opinion Piece
- Study: Facebook’s fake news labels have a fatal flaw
- Facebook Still Can’t Admit That Launching Libra During An International Privacy Scandal Is Idiotic
- Facebook Brings Suit against Mobile Marketing Firm for Siphoning User Data without Authorization
- Surge of Virus Misinformation Stumps Facebook and Twitter: Secret labs. Magic cures. Government plots. Despite efforts by social media companies to stop it, false information about the coronavirus is proliferating.
- Facebook Bans Ads for Face Masks
- Facebook’s experimental Stories feature lets users cross-post to Instagram: An older tool released in 2017 can only cross-post Stories from Instagram to Facebook.
- Containing the Infectiousness of Fake News: Developments in Singapore’s Online Falsehoods Laws Amidst the COVID-19 Outbreak
- Before it sued Google for copying from Java, Oracle got rich copying IBM’s SQL
- How China is using QR code apps to contain Covid-19
- ‘This may be the last piece I write’: prominent Xi critic has internet cut after house arrest
- Content Moderation At Scale Is Impossible; Naughty Kids In Wuhan Edition
- Online Harms White Paper – UK government publishes its initial consultation response
- COPPA Author Senator Ed Markey Introduces KIDS Act Targeting Sponsored Content, Unboxing Videos
- Quibi Accused Of Stealing Technology, Trade Secrets From Interactive Video Company Eko
- Senate Democrats Introduce Legislation to Ban Certain App Features and Types of Advertising Aimed at Children Online
- New Bill Seeks to Impose Design Restrictions on Kids’ Online Content and Marketing
- Bad Ideas: Newark Stupidly Threatens ‘Criminal Prosecution’ Against Anyone Who Reports ‘False’ Info About Covid-19
- Reddit ran wild with Boston bombing conspiracy theories in 2013 and is now an epicenter for coronavirus misinformation. The site is doing almost nothing to change that.
- Twitter expands hateful conduct rules to ban dehumanizing speech around age, disability and now, disease
- Full Count: Retweet Copyright Dispute Against Cubs Moves Forward
- Twitter Reaches Deal With Activist Fund That Wanted Jack Dorsey Out
- Jack Dorsey To Stay CEO After Twitter Reaches Deal With Investors Elliott, Silver Lake
- Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey Backpedals On Africa Plans Amid Reports He’s Being Pushed Out
- NBCUniversal Has Sold Its $500 Million Stake In Snap, But Will Continue On As Content Partner
- So Wait, People Seriously Think Bill Barr Will Rein In Tech Monopoly Power?
- Sorry, Tulsi Gabbard, Google can’t violate the First Amendment
- Court Explains 1st Amendment To Tulsi Gabbard In Dismissing Her Ridiculous Lawsuit Against Google
- First Voters Reject Tulsi Gabbard, Then a Judge Does–Gabbard v. Google (Eric Goldman)
- Google tells employees to work from home to prevent coronavirus spread
- How Wikipedia’s volunteers became the web’s best weapon against misinformation
- Insights: The Death Of Cookies Opens New Opportunities For Influencer Marketing
- Celebrity Influencers Receive Warning Letters From Federal Trade Commission
- FTC Settlement Provides Detailed Guidance on Influencer Campaigns
- FTC Action Says Influencers Made False Claims and Failed to Include Proper Disclosures
- Will New FTC Endorsement Guidelines Make A #Hashtag of Influencer Advertising?
- Marketers Beware: Deceptive Health Claims and Social Media Influencer Practices Remain High Priorities for FTC Enforcement
- Despite Some Naysayers, Influencer Marketing Set For Big Growth In 2020
- FTC Puts Influencers and Sponsors on Notice with $15.2 Million Judgment
- FTC targets Teami’s Unsupported Health Claims and Use of Social Media Influencers
- Cannabis Company is Sued for Showing Mural in Advertising Campaign
- A Legal Fissure Appears To Be Taking Shape Among Early Members Of ‘The Hype House’
- OG Pet Influencer And Senior Adoption Activist ‘Marnie The Dog’ Has Passed Away
- Quibi Reveals Launch Slate Of 51 Shows And Movies, Offers 90-Day Free Trial
- Quibi Sued by Eko for Patent Infringement, Theft of Trade Secrets
- ByteDance Launches Standalone Music Streamer In India Armed With Sony, Warner, T-Series Licensing Deals
- Rihanna Launches TikTok Collab House For Her Fenty Beauty Brand
- Markiplier Blasts Unauthorized Biography Being Sold Without His Consent
- Canadian court awards significant defamation damages — are online platforms immune?
- Proposed bill would end “likes” for young teens’ online content
- YouTube Will Allow “A Limited Number Of Channels” To Monetize Coronavirus Content, CEO Susan Wojcicki Says
- YouTube children’s content faces a new threat from the KIDS Act: The KIDS Act could dramatically affect kids’ channels
- YouTube Cancels ‘Impulse’, One Of Its Last-Remaining Scripted Series, After 2 Seasons
- YouTube To Stream This Year’s Brandcast Due To Coronavirus, As NewFronts Recommends Other Presenters Do The Same
- Senators Hawley & Feinstein Join Graham & Blumenthal In Announcing Bill To Undermine Both Encryption And Section 230
- Why Does The NY Times Seem Literally Incapable Of Reporting Accurately On Section 230?
- Privacy Issues in the Ongoing Controversy Over Section 230
- DOJ’s Latest Ideas For Section 230 Reform Dumber Than Even I Expected
- 46 Academics Encourage Congress To Consider Section 230’s Benefits (Eric Goldman)
- The EARN IT Act Partially Repeals Section 230, But It Won’t Help Children (Eric Goldman)
- Recap of the USDOJ’s Section 230 Roundtable (Eric Goldman)
- Are Cuts Coming to the “Twenty-Six Words That Created the Internet?”
- Amazon, counterfeits and memes: Online IP developments
- Amazon offers no-checkout technology to other retailers
- YouTube will slowly start monetizing coronavirus videos following creator anger: Weeks after YouTube declared automatic demonetization
- YouTube Is Demonetizing Coronavirus Videos Under Its Long-Standing “Sensitive Events” Policy
- YouTube To Stream This Year’s Brandcast Due To Coronavirus, As NewFronts Recommends Other Presenters Do The Same
- YouTube’s New Subscriber Notification Metrics Show Creators Exactly How Many Are (And Aren’t) Sent Per Upload
- YouTube TV Drops 3 Fox Regional Sports Networks Amid Contract Kerfuffle With Sinclair
- YouTube To Introduce Themed Content Shelves Within Nascent ‘/Fashion’ Hub
- Bernie Sanders’ Social Video Lead Shrinks As Joe Biden Overtakes Delegate Count
- Spotify is working on voice activation for its apps: You’ll be able to summon the app with ‘Hey Spotify’.
- Spotify rolls out a more personalized home screen to users worldwide
- Spotify Unveils New Radar Global Emerging Artist Program
- Spotify, Amazon to Argue Against Songwriter Rate Hike in Court of Appeals
- Instagram Reportedly Toying With ‘Video Response’ Feature For IGTV
- Netflix Continues To Release CYOA Content, Doesn’t Refer To It As ‘CYOA’…For Now
- The Obamas’ Next Netflix Feature To Tackle Refugee Crisis With Russo Brothers
- Sonos decides bricking old stuff isn’t a winning move after all: Software support for the products is ending, but you can still pass them along.
- You Don’t Own What You Buy Episode 9,000: Philips’ Light Bulbs Lose Functionality
- eBay bans sale of masks and hand sanitizer over gouging concerns
- Microsoft asks employees to work from home over coronavirus fears
- City of Austin cancels SXSW 2020, citing COVID-19 concerns
- Apple, Netflix, WarnerMedia, and LinkedIn pull out of SXSW appearances
- Apple warns staff of product shortages, but IT workers have already seen them
- Apple’s new App Store policies fight spam and abuse but also allow ads in notifications
- Hulu’s live TV doesn’t work on T-Mobile home Internet
- .eu domain names, the transition period and update on GDPR restricted ICANN registrant data
- The grandfather of distributed computing projects, SETI@home, shuts down
- Interaction Between Privacy and Competition Law in a Digital Economy Part-2
- The economic cost of major tech events canceled due to coronavirus has passed $1 billion: Some of the industry’s biggest events have been postponed, moved online, or canceled altogether.
- Kiva Partners With Mari Malek, Shahrzad Rafati And Others To Redefine What A “Powerful Woman” Is And Drive Loans To Over 12,000 Women During International Women’s Day
- 16 women in tech who are driving BC forward
- Deported By Silicon Valley
- Ancient animistic beliefs live on in our intimacy with tech
- Voluntary Parting Exclusion Bars Coverage for Social Engineering Scheme
- Administering Estates With Digital Assets
- Environmental activism goes digital in lockdown – but could it change the movement for good?
- Chinese beauty bloggers: amateurs, entrepreneurs, and platform labour (Zexu Guan)
- How Dictators Control the Internet: A Review Essay (Eda Keremoglu, Nils Weidmann)
- Disruption, embedded. A Polanyian framing of the platform economy (Gernot Grabher)
A.I.
- ACLU Sues ICE Over Its Deliberately-Broken Immigrant ‘Risk Assessment’ Software
- AI Company Has Access To Pretty Much Every Piece Of Surveillance Tech The State Of Utah Owns
- Much ado about Clearview: Facial recognition is here to stay
- Engineer at the center of Waymo/Uber legal battle declares bankruptcy
- Blog: Designing the enemy AI of The Division 2
- Does my AI own the IP that it creates? If not, who?
- The Social Life of Robots: The Politics of Algorithms, Governance, and Sovereignty
- Political warfare in the digital age: cyber subversion, information operations and ‘deep fakes’ (Thomas Paterson, Lauren Hanley)
- The Robots Are Coming: Ethics, Politics, and Society in the Age of Artificial Intelligence (Kenneth Taylor)
- The Social Lives of Generative Adversarial Networks (Michael Castelle)
COMMUNICATIONS
- The Cancon Conundrum: Why Policies to Promote “Canadian Stories” Need an Overhaul (Michael Geist)
- Bains’ Other Wireless Affordability Problem: The Broadcast Panel Plan for WhatsApp, Skype and Other Internet Services to Pay Canadian Broadband Taxes (Michael Geist)
- A CRTC Without the West: Why an MP Is Calling a Broadcast Panel Recommendation “Discriminatory” and Warning it Could Further Alienate Western Canada (Michael Geist)
- FCC Proposes Over $200 Million in Fines to Big Four Wireless Carriers for Allegedly Selling Customer Data Without Safeguards
- FCC Proposes Over $200 Million in Fines to AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile and Sprint for Not Protecting Customers’ Location Data
- Cable Sector Likely To Freak Out At New Service That Streamlines Streaming TV Password Sharing
- Congress Forces FCC To Go Beyond Its Tame, ‘Voluntary’ Anti-Robocalling Plan
- AT&T Can’t Get Out Of Its Own Way As It Tries To ‘Disrupt’ Traditional TV
- Comcast, Charter expand broadband domination as cable hits 67% market share: Cable soars again as telcos fail to deploy enough fiber to offset DSL losses.
- Comcast accidentally published 200,000 “unlisted” phone numbers
- FCC to require anti-robocall tech after “voluntary” plan didn’t work out
- FCC Opens Proceeding to Reinvigorate Opportunities for TV White Space Devices
- ICO Issues Record Fine for Nuisance Calls
- Huawei expects a 20% drop in phone sales, thanks to lack of Google apps
- Wireless Carriers Are Training Consumers To Equate “5G” With Bluster And Empty Promises
INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY
- How Explaining Copyright Broke the YouTube Copyright System
- NYU Law School’s Video Teaching Copyright Completely Flummoxed YouTube’s Copyright Filters
- Protective Orders Alive and Well in Canadian IP Litigation: The Federal Court of Appeal has recently put to rest concerns about the availability of “protective orders” in IP litigation.
- Managing Canadian Trademark Applications Under CIPO’s New Restrictions on Extensions of Time
- Led Zeppelin wins latest battle in Stairway to Heaven legal fight
- 9th Circuit Gets It Right: Says Led Zeppelin Didn’t Infringe; Dumps Dumb ‘Inverse Ratio’ Rule
- Ninth Circuit Affirms Non-Infringement Judgment for Led Zeppelin’s Stairway to Heaven
- Skidmore v. Led Zeppelin: 9th Cir. reinstates jury verdict that Stairway to Heaven did not infringe copyright to song Taurus, ruling that sound recordings of Taurus were properly excluded at trial.
- Ninth Circuit Watch: En Banc Court Overturns Rule That a High Degree of Access to Copyrighted Material Reduces Plaintiff’s Burden to Show Substantial Similarity
- Fantasies About a Formula for Fair Use
- Augmented Reality/Virtual Reality Litigation Update: Virtual Immersion Technologies Litigations
- Hugo Boss – aka comedian Joe Lycett – takes on Hugo Boss
- In New 5Pointz Decision, Second Circuit Concludes That VARA Trumps The Constitution
- Street artists spray paint legal victory across walls
- No success for Questor in its quest for an injunction
- NFL Gets Shopify To Take Down Clear NY Jets Parody Merch Site With Trademark Complaint
- A Bite in the Apple: Apple Inc. v. California Institute of Technology, Appeal Nos. 2019-1580, -1581 (Fed. Cir., March 5, 2020)
- Gender inequality — How many patent offices does it take to fix a leaky pipeline?
- It might be good enough to eat, but is your product good enough to protect?
- Software Can Make Non-Abstract Improvements to Computer Technology Just as Hardware Can (But Didn’t Here)
- Haptic feedback assisted text manipulation: technical
- UK opts out of Unified Patent Court regime
- UK will not be part of the Unified Patent Court or Unitary Patent system
- Will I be able to enforce my European intellectual property rights in the UK?
- Key Estate Planning Considerations for Individuals with Intellectual Property (Part III: Patents)
- Key IP trends to watch for in 2020
- Intellectual Property Protection Strategies for Successful Business in the US and Canada
- Intellectual Property Issues for Foreign Enterprises Acquiring Chinese Companies
- Mastering the patent application process
- Publicity Rights and Its Scope in Intellectual Property Laws
PRIVACY
- Vermont sues Clearview, alleging “oppressive, unscrupulous” practices
- Clearview Sued By Vermont Attorney General For Violating The State’s Privacy Laws
- Justice Department Issues Guidance on Online Intelligence Gathering for Cybersecurity
- Proposed US law is “Trojan horse” to stop online encryption, critics say
- Porn, gore, and gambling habits aired in Virgin Media breach
- Some mobile ad-blockers and VPNs siphoning user data, report finds
- Intel SGX is vulnerable to an unfixable flaw that can steal crypto keys and more
- UK Government announces plans to strengthen the security of internet-connected devices
- Vegas Casinos Are “Cash Only” After Suspected Ransomware Attack
- 5 years of Intel CPUs and chipsets have a concerning flaw that’s unfixable
- The Internet of Things (IoT) and cybersecurity: key challenges and new regulation
- Hackers can clone millions of Toyota, Hyundai, and Kia keys
- What percentage of websites actually deploy a cookie banner?
- What percentage of websites utilize a banner that seeks opt-in consent before deploying cookies?
- Mitigating Cybersecurity Risks Related to the Coronavirus
- GDPR-ish Wisconsin Privacy Bills Go Together Like Beer, Bratwurst and Polka
- Austria, EU privacy and the ongoing Schrems v Facebook case
- Expect Increased Privacy Regulatory Enforcement in 2020
- Ad Industry Split on Cookies and CCPA
- The end of anonymity
CREATIVITY
- Radio Hosts Aren’t Liable for Online Attacks Against Beleaguered Referee–Higgins v. Kentucky Sports Radio (Eric Goldman)
- Lt. Governor Of Texas Gets Offended By An Anti-Police Shirt, Decides He Needs To Start Violating The First Amendment
- UK ASA Bans Coronavirus-Related Ad for Causing “Serious and Widespread Offense”
- Sen. Wyden And Rep. Khanna Introduce Bill That Would Protect Journalists And Whistleblowers From Bogus Espionage Prosecutions
- Japan Approves New Law To Make Manga Piracy A Criminal Offense
- False Advertising: What You Need to Know
- New York Court Halts Dog Food False Ad Suit
- Tate’s racy exhibition debuts Aubrey Beardsley’s double-sided painting
- Art fair drops New York dealer for inciting coronavirus prejudice
- Do Your Sponsorship Agreements Address Event Cancellation?
- Creative industries shocked by UK withdrawal from £1.3 billion EU arts fund
- Challenging the media on coverage of a personal nature – Part 1
- Challenging the media on coverage of a personal nature – Part 2
- Challenging the media on coverage of a personal nature – Part 3
GAMES
- Take-Two: Another step in the High Court’s battle against cheating in video games
- Bold: Matthew Storman, Sans Lawyer, Counter Sues Nintendo For False Allegation Of Copyright Infringement
- Joy-Con drift lawsuit denied dismissal, but referred to arbitration: 18 plaintiffs have joined suit against Nintendo, claiming unfair and deceptive business practices
- Nintendo Switch Joy-Con drift class action lawsuit paused as case moves to arbitration
- Australian Parliamentary committee recommends loot box regulation: Also suggests mandatory age verification for purchases toward any simulated gambling elements in games
- Bungie will no longer sell randomized loot boxes in Destiny 2: Bright Engrams will still be available through the game’s free season pass
- APA warns against linking violent video games to real-world violence
- APA: Video games’ link to aggression doesn’t tie games to violent behavior
- APA reaffirms stance on video games and violent behaviour: “Attributing violence to video gaming is not scientifically sound and draws attention away from other factors,” says APA president
- ESA’s Game Generation leads us down a dark path of denial | Opinion: Amid threats of regulation, the games industry still fails to recognise the importance of honesty and transparency
- How to approach mental health issues in the workplace: Games studios championing mental health awareness tell the GamesIndustry.biz Academy about how to support and safeguard your staff’s emotional well-being
- 2K Games is the latest publisher to pull games from GeForce Now
- 2K pens deal with the NFL to develop multiple new football games
- The next “NFL2K” won’t be a simulation—here’s what that might mean
- Mod.io raises $1 million to help game devs support user-generated content
- Tim Sweeney says Epic will throw support behind Nvidia GeForce Now
- Nvidia’s GeForce Now loses 2K games, gains Epic support: Another publisher pulls from streaming service as Tim Sweeney declares it most “developer and publisher-friendly” option
- Epic Games Store adds wishlists: Steam’s biggest rival adds essential marketing tool for independent developers
- Unity acquires AI-driven art software company and ArtEngine maker Artomatix
- Unity acquires Artomatix: Engine maker picks up creator of ArtEngine AI-assisted art tool promising time-saving texture techniques
- 2K partners with the NFL to create multiple, non-simulation football titles: Publisher looks to create football games that are “accessible and approachable” to a broader audience
- Playing To Win: The Post-Alice Video Game Patent Landscape
- A video game is being used to help fight coronavirus: “We’re calling on YOU to help design antiviral proteins against coronavirus.
- Pay to watch play: Florida DOR concludes that video game streaming site subscriptions are subject to Florida communications services tax
- Learning the lessons of the PlayStation 2 | Opinion: Twenty years after it arrived in Japan, the most successful console of all time still has lessons that are relevant to the industry today
- Horizon Zero Dawn confirmed for PC: But PlayStation committed to dedicated consoles
- First-party PlayStation exclusive Horizon Zero Dawn arrives on PC this summer
- The world’s only known Nintendo PlayStation has sold for $300,000 [Updated]
- UK Charts: Pokémon Mystery Dungeon debuts at No.1: Nintendo Switch remake beats out Call of Duty Modern Warfare
- Call of Duty: Warzone offers a free-to-play, cross-platform battle royale mode
- Pokémon Sword and Shield remain top-sellers in Japan months after release: Persona 5 Scramble – The Phantom Strikers tops Japanese charts for February with over 160,000 units sold at retail
- PlatinumGames raises over $2.2m for The Wonderful 101 Remastered: Kickstarter campaign closes well above $50k goal
- Sega invests in music startup Flutin: Sonic publisher’s efforts to expand into other areas of entertainment continue with indie artist discovery app
- Steam Labs’ latest addition is a dedicated News Hub for news and events
- Apex Legends dev says Forge stab-and-switch was meant to foil data miners
- Disruptor Beam lays off devs as it transitions to a game tech provider
- Disruptor Beam lays off nine as it pivots away from game development: Final game project canceled, company to focus solely on Disruptor Engine platform
- Game Informer non-editorial staff hit by layoffs: Business unit restructuring sees long-time publisher Cathy Preston retire as six others lose jobs
- Coronavirus delays TG-16 Mini launch, are PS5 and Xbox Series X next?
- E3 2020 cancelled due to ‘overwhelming’ coronavirus concerns
- E3 2020 has been canceled
- Xbox plans digital event to replace E3 conference
- Microsoft confirms more Xbox Series X details: Console will feature quick resume for multiple games, 12 teraflops GPU, first-party games can be bought once and played on Xbox One or Series X
- Xbox boss calls for greater transparency on key issues: Phil Spencer says the industry should lead public discussion of problems like crunch and “game loops that are exploitative”
- E3 cancelled: Troubled event postponed due to coronavirus concerns
- E3 2020 Canceled After ‘Overwhelming Concerns’ About Coronavirus
- TurboGrafx-16 Mini indefinitely delayed due to coronavirus: Impact on manufacturing and shipping in China means Konami’s classic console will not arrive this month as planned
- Take-Two CEO: COVID-19 may make believers out of remote work skeptics in games
- Elite developer Frontier now making F1 management games: Gear change.
- HTC hosting conference in virtual reality to mitigate coronavirus risk: This year’s Vive Ecosystem Conference will have ‘cloned rooms’ so no limit for attendance
- Bungie activates remote work policy in response to COVID-19 outbreak
- Microsoft aims to give hourly staff their full pay despite COVID-19 cutbacks
- Microsoft asks employees to work from home over coronavirus fears: Nintendo also encourages remote working for staff based in Washington and California
- Streamline: COVID-19 will delay games and not just consoles – Reliance on Chinese outsourcing for game development is likely to cause delayed launches, says Streamline Media Group CEO Alexander Fernandez
- COVID-19: Bungie activates remote work policy – “This includes delivering on our current content plans, the maintenance and upkeep of Destiny 2, as well as continuing development of the game,” says developer
- GDC offers talks for free following event cancellation: Previously-accepted talks will be streamed via Twitch next week, and archived for free in the coming weeks
- Game Developers Conference 2020 announces virtual awards and talk schedule
- Salvaging the opportunites lost by GDC’s cancellation: We speak to the people offering financial relief to indies, or alternatives for those forced to still travel to San Francisco
- Game Informer lays off 6 staff in restructure as publisher Cathy Preston retires
- Activision Blizzard cancels March and April Overwatch League events over COVID-19
- Mojang and EA cancel live events in response to COVID-19: Minecraft Festival cancellation joined by Apex Legends and FIFA 20 esport events
- Game Connection America 2020 postponed due to COVID-19 concerns: Last-minute decision made following updated health recommendations from San Francisco leadership
- Psyonix cancels Rocket League World Championship over coronavirus concerns: Remainder of Season 9 League will play as scheduled, but all broadcast coverage will be completely online
- Esports Players League raises $1m in seed round: 500 Startups led investment in the amateur-focused esports firm
- WME Hires 2 Former FaZe Clan Execs As Gaming Agents
- FaZe Clan Teases New Los Angeles Mansion With Rumored $10 Million Pricetag
- PUBG CEO reportedly will also lead parent group Krafton Game Union
- Pokimane Becomes Twitch’s Latest Talent Lock-In With Multiyear Exclusive Livestreaming Deal
- Twitch streamers make thousands by literally just sleeping
- GameOn Technology scores $10.5 million in financing for sports and gaming chat platform
- Report: Twitch viewership drops, while YouTube and Facebook Gaming rise
- TinyBuild says traditional indie publishing unsustainable, opens new studio with HakJak
- GameStop’s concept stores: A “laboratory,” not a Hail Mary: In Tulsa, Oklahoma, the gaming retailer is taking its time trialing new, interactive store experiences focused on the local community
- Reggie Fils-Aimé to join GameStop board of directors
- Discord loosens streaming limits to help teams work remote during COVID-19
- Frontier Developments signs exclusive license for multiple F1 management games: A total of four games are planned, with the first anticipated in F1’s 2022 racing season
- Building Ori and the Will of the Wisps with 80 people working from home: Moon Studios’ Thomas Mahler reveals the challenges and solutions to managing a distributed development team
- HBO, PlayStation announce Last of Us TV series—the “first of many shows”
- Writing, directing, and designing FMV censorship simulator Not for Broadcast
- The Last of Us is being adapted into an HBO series: Creative director Neil Druckmann onboard as executive producer with Chernobyl creator Craig Mazin
- Annapurna signs multi-year deal with Simogo: Sayonara Wild Hearts publisher and developer re-team to make more games across all platforms
- The Strong Museum and Kongregate partner to preserve Flash games
- Team17’s full-year profits rise to £30m: Indie publisher enjoyed record growth in 2019, expanded headcount to 200
- Playrix acquires Armenian casual mobile game developer Plexonic
- Call of Duty: Mobile devs scrap Zombies mode due to quality concerns
- Activision unveils standalone Call of Duty battle royale: Warzone launches tomorrow, will be free-to-play with microtransactions including $10 battle pass
- That time Activision dishonorably discharged Call of Duty’s star dev duo – 10 Years Ago This Month: Jason West and Vince Zampella were marched out of Infinity Ward right into the eager arms of EA
- Call of Duty’s free-to-play, cross-platform battle royale launches March 10
- Fortnite removes abusable “legacy” aim assist for controller players: Tracking hidden players with “left trigger spam” will soon be a thing of the past.
- Naughty Dog’s The Last of Us is getting a live action adaptation courtesy of HBO
- An upcoming UI tweak will make The Outer Worlds infinitely more accessible
- Bethesda wants to bring humanity to Fallout 76 through NPCs: Wastelanders designer Ferret Baudoin on why a game populated with real people needs fake ones for a more human experience
- How an unlikely Tencent project is helping China’s indie scene
- “Where should you put your time in marketing? Fun fact: emails”: Crows Crows Crows founder on how an email newsletter became a more effective marketing tool than Twitter, Facebook and Instagram combined
- Conducting the interactive opera of Evergreen Blues: David Su and Dominique Star on the musical design of their free, co-op song suite
- Creative Chronicles: A balancing post-mortem of Total War Three Kingdoms – GamesIndustry.biz Academy & Creative Assembly to publish its Creative Chronicles video series, today focusing on strategy game balancing
- Creative Chronicles: tutorials and insights into game development – Total War developer Creative Assembly share its tips on all aspects of building games, in its game development tutorial series Creative Chronicles
- Op-ed: The upsides, downsides, and future of AAA game development
- Blog: Making particles twice as fast through cache optimization
- Blog: How I built a game studio from the ground up
- Don’t Miss: The shape of God of War III
- Don’t Miss: A Game Design Deep Dive into Amnesia’s ‘Sanity Meter’
- Augmented Reality/Virtual Reality Litigation Update: Virtual Immersion Technologies Litigations
- How ‘classical game mechanics’ and physics converge in VR hit Boneworks
- U.S. Patent no. 10,286,299: Transitioning gameplay on a head-mounted display
- U.S. Patent no. 10,286,307: Game controller with removable faceted finger pad
Jon
News of the Week; March 4, 2020
DIGITAL
- Data shows who was reading “fake news” before 2016 US election
- Spanish Government Moves Ahead With First ‘Fake News’ Prosecution
- Reddit Cofounder Steve Huffman Calls TikTok “Spyware” That’s “Fundamentally Parasitic”
- How Information on the Coronavirus is Managed on Chinese Social Media
- How Hackers and Spies Could Sabotage the Coronavirus Fight: Intelligence services have a long history of manipulating information on health issues, and an epidemic is especially tempting for interference.
- Turns Out Most People Still Don’t Hate ‘Big Internet’ As Much As Politicians And The Media Want Them To
- Defeating Tech Giants With Open Protocols, Interoperability, And Shared Stewardship
- Did Apple throttle your iPhone? Settlement will give you a whopping $25
- Apple can’t break up with China, Wall Street Journal report argues
- It’s not just ‘big tech’ that should be wary of regulatory changes
- Everyone agrees: Facebook, Twitter should block disinfo—but probably won’t
- 8chan Founder, Who Has Denounced The Site, Now Facing ‘Criminal Cyberlibel’ Charges From Current Owner
- Facebook Gives Thumbs Up to Sponsored Content by Politicians
- Facebook Announces Restrictions on Coronavirus-Related Ads
- Facebook Messenger is getting a much simpler new design: Chatbots and games are gone as part of a broader streamlining of Messenger
- Who’s Afraid of the IRS? Not Facebook.: Social media behemoth is about to face off with the tax agency in a rare trial. But onerous budget cuts have hamstrung the agency’s ability to bring the case.
- Facebook Files Anti-SLAPP Motion Against Defunct App Developer Who Sued Over Revamp Of Facebook’s App Platform
- Facebook cancels F8 conference over coronavirus fears
- Facebook denies reports it is backing away from Libra cryptocurrency
- Cisco: Avoid coronavirus, stay home, use Webex
- Google cancels I/O developer conference amid coronavirus concerns
- Fantasy Baseball Players Sue MLB, Houston Astros, and Boston Red Sox
- Twitter’s New Investor Wants To Replace CEO Jack Dorsey
- Twitter’s newest major investor wants to oust CEO Jack Dorsey
- Twitter Introduces ‘Fleets,’ Its Years-Late Version Of The Stories Format
- Twitter is testing ephemeral tweets in Brazil and calling them ‘fleets’: Snapchat Stories finally arrive on Twitter
- Snapchat’s Speed Filter Protected by Section 230–Lemmon v. Snap (Eric Goldman)
- Defendants Keep Getting Arbitration Despite the Anarchy in Online Contract Formation Doctrine (Eric Goldman)
- YouTube Isn’t a State Actor (DUH)–PragerU v. Google (Eric Goldman)
- Yelp Finally Defeats a False Advertising Lawsuit Over Its Review Functionality–Demetriades v. Yelp (Eric Goldman)
- Pricing and the online channel
- Microsoft expects to miss Q3 targets due to coronavirus: Supply chain returning to normal at a “slower pace than anticipated”
- Amazon Removes More Than One Million Products for Inflated Prices or False Coronavirus Claims
- Amazon’s New Grocery Store Is Watching Our Every Move. But We Asked For This.
- Making History at Amazon: If they can disrupt the supply chain, Amazon workers could transform an industry that constitutes one of the commanding heights of the twenty-first-century economy.
- Tech firms push telework as Amazon employee confirmed with coronavirus
- Quibi Closes $750 Millon Round, Bringing Total Funds Raised To $1.75 Billion
- Quibi Closes Upsized $750 Million Second Round of Funding for Mobile-Video Launch
- LinkedIn tests Stories feature to be like Snapchat too: Even LinkedIn is copying Snapchat now.
- Supreme Court Decides Intel Corporation Investment Policy Committee v. Sulyma
- Food Delivery Drivers Open to Unionization – Expanding Labour Relations to E-commerce
- How e-commerce platforms get drawn into global war on counterfeit goods
- Mind the Wrapping: Ensuring the Validity of Online Agreements
- Can YouTube Quiet Its Conspiracy Theorists?
- YouTube’s Plan to Stop Recommending Conspiracy Theory Videos Is Actually Working
- YouTube Is Considering Letting Creators Sell Their Own Ads
- YouTube May Allow Content Creators to Sell Ad Space on their Own Videos
- BTS Shatters Record For Biggest YouTube ‘Premiere’ With 1.54 Million Concurrent Viewers
- Meghan Rienks Says Her Channel Has Been Hacked, Rebranded For 2 Months Amid Idle Response From YouTube
- YouTube Rolls Out Kids App To 11 More Countries
- YouTube TV Is Dropping YES Network, Fox Sports Networks
- After 109,000 Video Removal Appeals Last Quarter, YouTube Says It Reinstated 22%
- YouTube’s New Subscriber Notification Metrics Show Creators Exactly How Many Are (And Aren’t) Sent Per Upload
- Top 50 Most Viewed YouTube Channels Worldwide • Week Of 3/02/2020
- FX launches on Hulu, offering over 40 shows and originals`
- Netflix Takes The Stage With First-Ever Live Comedy Festival Featuring Wanda Sykes, Jane Fonda, David Letterman, More
- Vine Successor ‘Byte’ To Launch Pooled Monetization Program On April 15
- Abrams Artists Signs TikTok Stars Avani Gregg, Andre Swilley, And Tayler Holder
- Chipotle Says Its #Boorito TikTok Campaign Got 3.9 Billion Views In 4 Months. But What Exactly Does TikTok Count As A “View”?
- TikTok Owner ByteDance Launches Resso App in India, Taking on Spotify
- MTV’s New Digital Series Sees Sneaker Influencers Compete In Customization Battles
- FTC Guidelines: Possible Civil Penalties to Deter Deceptive Influencer Marketing
- The Influencer Industry: Constructing and Commodifying Authenticity on Social Media (Emily Hund)
- Actor Steven Seagal Settles With SEC Over Improper Endorsements
- Emma Chamberlain Unveils Reimagined Podcast With Broader Focus: ‘Anything Goes’
- Casey Neistat Joins Advisory Board For Social Stock Market Investment Startup ‘Public’
- New Platform Taki Lets Digital Creators Share Their Skills With Fans Through Custom Commissioned Videos (Exclusive)
- Spotify tries making its app easier to use in latest update
- Kevin Hart’s LOL Forges Multi-Year Deal With ‘Advertising Week’ For Podcast, Branded Studio, Event Integrations
- Yelp Names And Shames Business Buying Reviews
- Endeavor Invests In Latest $13 Million Round For Creator Marketplace ‘Tongal’
- PetNet ‘Smart’ Pet Feeders Go Offline For A Week, Customer Service Completely Breaks Down
- Bernie Sanders Captures Commanding Social Video Lead Among Democratic Hopefuls
- Bogus Automated Copyright Claims By CBS Blocked Super Tuesday Speeches By Bernie Sanders, Mike Bloomberg, And Joe Biden
- European Commission’s communication on the European digital agenda: shaping Europe’s digital future
- Maryland hearing on Digital Advertising Tax highlights problems, hints at amendments
- The Evolution of E-Money: What Is In A Definition?
- Regulators Unveil Guidance On Best Practices for Internet Vehicle Sales
A.I.
- The pope’s plan to fight back against evil AI: The Vatican’s interest in artificial intelligence isn’t new, but pay attention to the tech companies that are joining along.
- AI has no personality: EPO rules that an AI machine cannot be an inventor in patent applications
- How do you keep an AI’s behavior from becoming predictable?
- Bringing Washington D.C. to life: The AI of The Division 2
- Big Data promises better deals. But for whom?
- AI Outlook: Europe initiates AI regulation introducing the principle of trustworthy AI
- European Commission Unveils Bold European Approach to AI Regulation
- SEC Issues Guidance on International Intellectual Property and Technology Risks
- Ars Technicast special edition, part 3: Putting AI to work defending your stuff
- Chinese Hospitals Deploy AI to Help Diagnose Covid-19
- Machine Learning Patentability in 2019: 5 Cases Analyzed and Lessons Learned Part 3
- Two New California Laws Tackle Deepfake Videos in Politics and Porn
- Patenting Artificial Intelligence and quantum technologies
- Social work thinking for UX and AI design
- OPC Consults on Regulation of Artificial Intelligence
- New entry in commercial quantum computing, using entirely different tech
COMMUNICATIONS
- Ontario’s Record Breaking, Multi-Billion Dollar Film Production Year: “A Healthy Balance Between Domestic and Foreign Production” (Michael Geist)
- The CUSMA Culture Poison Pill: Why the Broadcast Panel Report Could Lead to Millions in Tariff Retaliation (Michael Geist)
- Clarence Thomas Regrets Brand X Decision That Paved Way For The Net Neutrality Wars
- FCC issues wrist-slap fines to carriers that sold your phone-location data
- FCC To Dole Out Some Dainty Wrist Slaps For Wireless Carrier Location Data Scandals
- T-Mobile Cares So Much About Consumer Privacy, It’s Fighting The FCC’s Flimsy Fine For Location Data Sharing
- Right On Cue, Post-Merger T-Mobile Layoffs Begin
- T-Mobile conducts layoffs as it prepares to complete Sprint merger
- DOJ Sues Telecommunications Operators Over Robocalls
- New Charges Leveled Against Huawei, et al.
- Congress gives small ISPs $1 billion to rip out Huawei, ZTE network gear
- Many of Cable TV’s Dumbest Habits Will Make The Leap To Streaming
- AT&T’s new online TV has contracts, hidden fees, big 2nd-year price hike
- Struggling AT&T plans “tens of billions” in cost cuts, more layoffs
- FCC Proposes Over $200 Million in Fines Against “Big 4” Carriers for Failing to Protect Consumer Location Data
- FCC chair reportedly seeks fines for carrier sharing of location data
- FCC Adopts Notice of Proposed Rulemaking Looking to Allow Higher Power and Greater Height for Unlicensed White Space Devices Operating in the TV Bands
- Old Media Content – Not Dead Yet
- Telemedicine and the Coronavirus Crisis: Key Legal Issues for Providers to Consider
INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY
- Can someone copyright every possible melody? (Andres Guadamuz)
- Simple Solutions Simply Don’t Suffice to Solve the Slew of Song Infringement Substantial Similarity Suits
- Castillo v. G&M Realty L.P.: 2nd Circuit affirms $6.75 million damages against property owner for painting over graffiti art at 5Pointz exhibition, ruling that works were protected under Visual Artists Rights Act of 1990.
- Second Circuit Affirms $6.7M VARA Judgment for Aerosol Artists
- United Kingdom: Court of Appeal Clarifies When a Work is a Product of Joint Authorship
- Netflix argues ‘Choose Your Own Adventure’ has become a generic term
- Netflix Seeks Cancellation Of “Choose Your Own Adventure” Trademark
- Court Dismisses Author’s Claim that TV Series “Billions” Copied Her Work – No Substantial Similarity Under Any Applicable Test
- The Vatican Apostolic Library enters the digital age – and promptly asserts copyright
- Bobby Brown’s Claims for the Use of His Name and Likeness Not His Prerogative
- Copyright Registration – A Prerequisite to a Copyright Infringement Suit
- Landmark ruling of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) on Digital Exhaustion in the Tom Kabinet Case
- Clash of IP and competition to pharma’s detriment? The CJEU’s decision in the GSK case
- Google v. Oracle – Copyright Battle of the Tech Titans
- Breaking Down the Briefing in Google v. Oracle: Petitioner’s Brief
- Four major factors at play in the Google-Oracle IP rights dispute
- U.S. Copyright Office: Renewal of DMCA Designated Agent Required for DMCA Safe Harbor
- Fifth Circuit Tosses Statutory Damages Award, Reinforcing the Importance of Early Copyright Registration
- Geo-blocking of copyright protected content: The elephant in the room
- Copyright: protection of designs as copyright works
- Who Owns the Copyright? Work-Made-For-Hire Edition
- Move to terminate Paramount Decrees may effect IP in the film industry
- UK confirms withdrawal from the Unitary Patent
- The UK will not be part of the UPC, Prime Minster’s Office confirms to IAM
- The European unified patent court – a Brexit casualty?
- Federal Court of Appeal remands REMICADE new use patent decision on anticipation and obviousness
- A Practical Guide to the transition to Canada’s new Patent Act and Rules
- Music – First Sale Doctrine, Fair Use and Protectability
- Key Estate Planning Considerations for Individuals with IP (Part I: Introduction & Copyrights)
- The Past and Future of Canada’s Criminalization of Trade Secret Theft – Part I
- The Past and Future of Canada’s Criminalization of Trade Secret Theft – Part II
- Intellectual Property Outlook: Cases and Trends to Follow in 2020 – PART 3
- Banking on Intellectual Property | Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) in Banking
- Millennium and Janssen seek leave from Supreme Court in Section 8 bortezomib case
- Architects’ copyright
- The Future of Patent Research
- Senator Thom Tillis Pushed Awful Patent Reform Idea Last Year; Now Looks To Top It With Awful Copyright Reform This Year
PRIVACY
- State Actors Are Increasingly Targeting Journalists With Surveillance Malware
- “We Don’t Have Any Specific Analysis”: CUSMA Negotiators Surprising Admission On Key Privacy Issues (Michael Geist)
- HTTPS for all: Let’s Encrypt reaches one billion certificates issued
- Hoping To Combat ISP Snooping, Mozilla Enables Encrypted DNS
- State Court Says It Isn’t Theft To Remove An Unmarked Law Enforcement Tracking Device From Your Car
- FBI And DOJ Personnel Confirm Agents Frequently Fudge Facts When Seeking FISA Warrants
- From Wi-Fi to Spy-Fi—we test Plume’s new motion detection feature
- Should Antitrust Laws Tackle Privacy Issues? DOJ and State AGs Continue Google Investigations in Response to Privacy Concerns
- No, Google Isn’t Hiding Elizabeth Warren’s Emails To Promote Mayor Pete
- Disruptionware II – The “Cyber Terminator” and What This New Threat Means to You and Your Data
- How a hacker’s mom broke into prison—and the warden’s computer
- Documents Show Clearview Is Selling Facial Recognition Tech To Retailers, Fitness Centers, And Human Rights Violators
- More than 2,200 agencies and companies have tried Clearview, report finds
- Clearview Is Handing Out Access To Dozens Of UK Entities, Setting Up Accounts For Congressional Reps
- ‘Consumer Privacy Act’ Introduced in the Land of Lincoln
- The Washington Privacy Act Is Back
- Stealing advanced nations’ Mac malware isn’t hard. Here’s how one hacker did it
- Year in Review: Federal Privacy Enforcement Summarized
- The Year of Record Penalties: The Federal Trade Commission’s 2019 Privacy & Data Security Update
- 2019 Cybersecurity and Data Privacy Year in Review
- What’s scarier than hosts gone rogue? Westworld’s idea for privacy laws
CREATIVITY
- I Wish More Countries ‘Stole’ Our Movies
- Sixth Circuit: Criticizing Refs Is Protected Speech, Even If Lots Of Sports Fans Are A-holes
- Court Dismisses Defamation Claim Against Crain Communications
- The Law Doesn’t Care About Your Feelings: 9th Circuit Slams Prager University For Its Silly Lawsuit Against YouTube
- Trump Campaign Files Laughably Stupid SLAPP Suit Over A NY Times Opinion Piece
- Another Day, Another Bogus SLAPP Suit From Devin Nunes And Steven Biss
- Watchdog Group Asks Congressional Ethics Office To Investigate How Devin Nunes Is Paying For His Many SLAPP Suits
- Shia LaBeouf Walks Into a Bar . . . And Ends Up Losing an Anti-Slapp Motion
- NY Times Political Reporter Believes Telling Right From Wrong Is Beyond His Job Description; He’s Wrong
- Mamadou Sakho allege that WADA is liable for negligence and defamation
- Why the Success of The New York Times May Be Bad News for Journalism: Our new media columnist says The Times has become like Facebook or Google – a digital behemoth crowding out the competition.
- NBCUniversal Fined €14.3 Million as European Commission Completes Trilogy of Sales Restriction Cases
- Unpaid Interns and a Lunch Order Gone Bad: Jury Returns FLSA Retaliation Verdict Against Martina McBride’s Production Company
- Hollywood Action Star Settles SEC Charges for Failing to Disclose ICO Promotion Payments
- The Tail of the Phillie Phanatic – The Hidden Underbelly of the New-Look Mascot
- U.S. Immigration Considerations for Media and Entertainment Industries
GAMES
- Plague Inc. pulled from Chinese App Store over ‘illegal’ content
- Pandemic simulation game Plague Inc. pulled from iOS App Store in China
- Statement on The Removal of Plague Inc. From the China App Store
- Plague Inc. pulled from Chinese App Store: Developer Ndemic Creations says outbreak simulation game removed because it “includes content that is illegal in China”
- China Bans ‘Plague Inc.’ Amid Coronavirus Outbreak
- Zynga faces class action lawsuit over 2019 data breach
- Zynga faces class action lawsuit over data breach: Plaintiffs warn that millions of users, including minors, will be at risk of fraud and identity theft “for years to come”
- Grand Theft Auto cheat software; an infringement story
- FaZe Clan Indefinitely Suspends Fortnite Star ‘Dubs’ For On-Stream Racial Slur
- Smaller devs say they won’t back Stadia due to a lack of incentives
- Google Stadia Lacks Games In Its Library, Isn’t Shelling Out For New Games
- Modus Games’ narrative puzzler Lost Words becomes ‘First on Stadia’ exclusive
- Google picks California as the home for its second Stadia studio
- Stadia opens new studio in Playa Vista: Ex-Sony Santa Monica head Shannon Studstill will oversee a team creating exclusive games for Google’s streaming service
- The Division 2 is headed to Stadia this month with PC cross-play
- Real Property Dispute in a Virtual World
- Hinterland Studio pulls The Long Dark from Nvidia GeForce Now
- Nvidia didn’t ask permission to host The Long Dark on GeForce Now, says dev: Hinterland Studio becomes third game company to pull its content from fledgling streaming service
- New publisher Ziggurat Interactive to revive dormant IP for PC and console: Company has access to over 140 titles from as far back the ’80s, first three games revealed
- Why Destiny 2 is leaving cosmetic loot boxes behind and working to balance ‘FOMO’
- China and Asia show their influence over the top grossing mobile games: Sensor Tower’s data for January 2020 underlines the commanding role Asian markets play in the global games industry
- NetEase revenue and profits ride high on the back of diverse portfolio: World of Warcraft Classic drives WoW subscribers to record heights in China
- Improbable’s losses rose 65% last year to £63.7 million: But SpatialOS developer says accounts do not reflect “major changes” that have taken place in the last nine months
- Echo Fox admits to defamation charge in settlement: Esports organization agrees former general partner Rick Fox made false statements that harmed a co-founder and investor
- FIFA pro is “done” after server issues force Rock, Paper, Scissors decision
- FIFA 20 esports qualifiers decided by Rock, Paper, Scissors when players can’t connect: Another pro defaulted after he was unable to connect for three hours
- EA is working with FIFA 20 players to test and fix connectivity issues
- Torque Esports to operate Overwatch Collegiate League: Participating schools to compete for $40,000 in esports scholarships
- Twitch To Surpass 40 Million Monthly U.S. Viewers Next Year, Report Finds
- My.Games annual revenue spikes by 23% to $474m: Top-performing franchise Warface surpasses 85 million registered users
- Roblox closes $150m funding round: Investment lead Andreessen Horowitz also tenders $350 million minority stake offer
- Kwalee and the power of profit sharing: Pocketing the extra cash would have a “detrimental effect on the success of the company” says CEO David Darling
- Games firms “have to be ready” to support employees with mental health issues: Safe In Our World’s Kim Parker-Adcock offers advice on how to cultivate a more understanding work environment
- Six ways video game composers are missing out on money: Video game music is more accessible than ever before, but a lack of business knowledge among composers means money is being left on the table
- UK Charts: Two Point Hospital debuts at No.2 – Call of Duty Modern Warfare returns to No.1
- Free-to-play PS4 and PC game Let it Die surpasses 6 million downloads
- Pokerist maker KamaGames grows revenue 18% to $90.4 million in 2019
- Mobile studio FunCraft nets $1.8 million to push into casual market
- What does $1M in Steam sales look like? Academia: School Simulator case study
- GOG will now refund games within 30 days, even if they’ve been played
- Labworks secures £500,000 investment for voice game subscription service: “The new service will be designed to cater for both gamers and the needs of wider sectors such as education and the visually impaired community”
- TinyBuild and Guts & Glory dev HakJak open new studio in Idaho
- TinyBuild opening new Boise studio with Guts and Glory developer: Former solo dev Jed “HakJak” Steen will build a team to make “a world-class emergent gameplay IP”
- Tilting Point acquires Star Trek Timelines from Disruptor Beam
- Tilting Point buys Star Trek Timelines from Disruptor Beam; Key team members will join Tilting Point to operate Timelines as Wicked Realms Games
- Phoenix Games acquires Romanian live-ops company Studio Firefly
- Zordix acquires mobile dev Invictus Games
- Zordix acquires Invictus Games: Swedish publisher doubles in size with addition of Hungarian mobile developer
- Blastlands: Team Combat dev Strange Quest is closing down
- Next-gen will be “tectonic plates” shifting underneath marketers: Behaviour’s new chief marketer officer David Reid talks about how much the strategy of selling games has changed and the future of streaming
- Designing the end of all Longing: Studio Seufz’s Anselm Pyta talks about his 400-day exploration/idle game, and the importance of time, empathy, and endings
- Spellbreak beta stands out from the copycat battle royale crowd
- GDC 2020 postponed: Organizers now intend to host a show in the summer after health concerns prompt numerous participants to drop out
- GDC postponed to later in 2020 amid coronavirus cancellations [Updated]
- Unity pulls out of GDC as coronavirus “presents too much risk”: Engine provider will no longer exhibit, plans to showcase its GDC content online
- Amazon, Blizzard withdraw from GDC: Novel coronavirus concerns keeps more big names away from next month’s conference
- The ESA is ‘actively assessing’ new COVID-19 info, but says E3 is still on
- ESA moves ahead with E3 2020 despite coronavirus concerns – Update: Los Angeles declares state of emergency, E3 team “actively assessing” the situation
- CCP calls off EVE Fanfest event over coronavirus concerns
- Baldur’s Gate 3 gameplay reveal: A huge leap past THAC0, early access in 2020
- Nvidia switches GTC 2020 to online conference amid coronavirus concerns: Chip maker scraps in-person event due to take place in San Jose this month
- Epic cancels Unreal Fest Europe 2020 due to coronavirus concerns
- Epic cancels Unreal Fest Europe: Following its withdrawal from GDC 2020, engine provider scraps its own event due to “uncertainty around health concerns and travel”
- GamesFirst London 2020 and Google I/O cancelled: Organizers pull plug on events citing novel coronavirus concerns
- Industry rallies to offer relief after GDC cancellation: Publishers, developers and trade bodies collaborate to raise funds for financially-stricken attendees
- Final Fantasy VII Remake demo finally gets official, free release [Updated]
- PlatinumGames: The Wonderful 101 Kickstarter wasn’t about the money – “We thought it would be a good opportunity to bring the fans together — to unite them — and gauge interest,” says executive director Atsushi Inaba
- Autistica Play launches inclusive game jam: Charity hopes to show how games can be used to raise awareness and funds for research into the challenges autistic people face
- The Great Divide: A look at Africa’s very different dev scenes – Creators discuss what separates the continent’s South and North from its East and West, and what unifies them
- Iran video games timeline: from 1970 to 2019
- War Stories: How Crash Bandicoot hacked the original PlayStation
- Blog: Programming visual effects for Lightmatter
- Blog: Designing the perfect video game tutorial
- Blog: The secret AI testers inside The Division 22
- Don’t Miss: How Game Freak designs the iconic monsters of Pokemon
- Don’t Miss: Using the language of film & theater to entice new players in FMV game Erica
- Don’t Miss: Reflections on the afterimage of Final Fantasy VII
- Don’t Miss: Why multiplayer almost didn’t make it into Halo: Combat Evolved
- Don’t Miss: Defining direction, writing, art and music on Yakuza 4
- Video: Procedural level design in XCOM 2
- Video: Understanding the illusion of choice in game design
- Metal Gear creator Hideo Kojima to receive BAFTA Fellowship award
- Control and Death Stranding lead BAFTA Games Awards 2020 nominations
- Control and Death Stranding nominated for 11 BAFTAs each: Hideo Kojima to receive Fellowship as Death Stranding ties for most nominations in BAFTA Game Award history
- Hideo Kojima to receive BAFTA Fellowship: BAFTA’s highest honour will be given to Metal Gear Solid’s creator at the Games Awards on April 2, 2020
- Konami Code creator Kazuhisa Hashimoto has died: Publisher pays tribute to former programmer and producer
- Erica dev Flavourworks nets $650,000 to further develop tactile FMV tech
- Valve: Half-Life: Alyx is “not the end” of the franchise
- Ten minutes of Half-Life: Alyx: The biggest VR goosebumps we’ve ever had
- Half-Life’s mechanics are a ‘surprisingly natural fit for VR’ says Valve
- VR 2020 — can Sony’s PlayStation catch PC in the virtual reality game?
Jon
News of the Week; February 26, 2020
DIGITAL
- First Amendment doesn’t apply on YouTube; judges reject PragerU lawsuit: YouTube can restrict PragerU videos because it is a private forum, court rules.
- Father Of Alison Parker Files FTC Complaint Against YouTube, Alleging It Refuses To Remove Videos Of Her Death
- T-Series’ YouTube Channel Becomes First To Collect 100 Billion Views
- YouTube Confirms Demonetization Of Controversial Vlogger JayStation, As He Announces Indefinite Hiatus
- YouTube Reinstates Popular Music Streaming Channel ChilledCow After Fan Outcry
- Section 230 Protects Zillow for Bogus Submissions of House Details–924 Bel Air v. Zillow (Eric Goldman)
- Why Section 230 Matters And How Not To Break The Internet; DOJ 230 Workshop Review, Part I
- Section 230 and Criminal Law; DOJ 230 Workshop Review, Part II
- Barr’s Motives, Encryption and Protecting Children; DOJ 230 Workshop Review, Part III
- Rep. Cicilline Wants To Remove Section 230 Protections For Platforms That Host ‘Demonstrably False’ Political Ads
- Apple Pay under Competition Law scrutiny
- Apple is considering letting users change default email, browser, music apps in iOS
- Apple Maps expands its Street View competitor to Boston, DC, Philadelphia
- Apple tells moviemakers that villains can’t use iPhones, Rian Johnson says
- New Sony Xperia 1 II smartphone looks handsome, costs a ridiculous $1,300
- UK Government Releases Details of New ‘Online Harms’ Regime for Online Platforms
- UK Government’s Action Tackles Online Harms
- EU’s new digital strategy targets data-hoarding tech firms
- Digitalization, a high priority for Europe’s future – the European Commission showcases its new digital and AI strategy
- European Commission Announces Strategy for Data, Artificial Intelligence and Competition in the Digital Age
- CMA publishes interim report on online platforms and digital advertising
- How the Coronavirus Revealed Authoritarianism’s Fatal Flaw: China’s use of surveillance and censorship makes it harder for Xi Jinping to know what’s going on in his own country. (Zeynep Tufekci)
- China Expels Three Wall Street Journal Reporters: China’s Foreign Ministry says move was punishment for a recent opinion piece published by the Journal
- US government agencies are banning TikTok, the social media app teens are obsessed with, over cybersecurity fears — here’s the full list
- Amid Security Concerns, TSA Bans Employee Usage Of TikTok For Social Posts
- Prada Taps TikTok Megastar Charli D’Amelio For Milan Fashion Week Appearance
- Significant online defamation damages in Canada – are online platforms immune?
- Attorney General William Barr Raises Concerns over ISP Immunity
- The system is rigged against users: Another reason why getting compensated for data is not a good idea (Beatriz Botero Arcila)
- Clickwrap Agreement: Consent or Not Consent, That Is A Question
- Swinging the Vote?: Google’s black box algorithm controls which political emails land in your main inbox. For 2020 presidential candidates, the differences are stark.
- Federal Circuit Finds Presence Of Google’s Cache Servers In The Eastern District Of Texas Does Not Justify Venue
- 300 Oracle employees walk out over Ellison’s Trump fundraiser: The Trump administration just sided with Oracle in its legal battle with Google.
- Report: 300 Oracle employees walk out over Ellison’s Trump fundraiser
- Inside the Seething Boardroom Drama That Poisoned HQ Trivia: The app was America’s favorite gameshow until a toxic culture and co-founder feuding drove it off the air. Now, the CEO wants to bring it back.
- Companies are stealing influencers’ faces
- Federal Circuit Rules Presence of Google Servers in District Insufficient to Establish Venue
- FTC Toughens Enforcement against Comparison Websites and Influence Marketers
- FTC Seeking Public Comment on Revisions to Endorsement Guides
- Get ready for price hikes up to 10% annually after sale of .org registry
- The Drive-Thru Creator Problem: How Low-Quality Content Is Hurting Brands (And Creators)
- Instagram influencer Natalia Taylor fakes Bali vacation with Ikea pics: Taylor wanted to remind people not everything they see on Instagram is the real deal.
- Children’s Content Studio Pocket.Watch Unveils Kid-Centric Ad Agency ‘Clock.Work’
- Tana Mongeau Debuts Second Season Of MTV Reality Series, Adding Trevor Moran To Primary Cast
- Nickelodeon Nabs Social Star Annie LeBlanc For 13-Episode Linear Sitcom ‘Side Hustle’
- Facebook Aims To Get 3.5 Billion People Online So That It Can Profit From Their Data
- Facebook offers to pay users for their voice recordings
- Facebook will now pay you for your voice recordings: But it won’t pay much
- New Decade, New Facebook? Facebook Reaches $550 Million Settlement in Facial Recognition Class Action, Agrees to Upgrade Privacy Safeguards
- Facebook Unveils Creator-Centric ‘Studio’ App For Upload Management, Video Analytics, More
- Are Your Facebook Posts Discoverable? Application of the Forman Test in New York
- WCB Seeks to Refresh Record in Restoring Internet Freedom Proceeding in Wake of D.C. Circuit’s Mozilla Decision
- YouTube TV Adding HBO, HBO Max, Cinemax To Channel Lineup Come Spring
- WarnerMedia, YouTube TV Expand Distribution Deal to HBO, Cinemax, HBO Max
- YouTuber Partnerships Are Playing Big At This Year’s Toy Fair New York
- The Dolan Twins’ ‘Love From Sean’ Cancer-Fighting Venture Raises Roughly $200,000 In 24 Hours
- Tubular Labs Introduces New ‘Video Categories’ Tool, Co-Developed By Former Netflix Exec
- Netflix’s Top 10: What Is It, And Why Has It Shown Up Now?
- Fox Looking To Acquire Tubi For Reported $500 Million, As NBCUniversal Sets Sights On Vudu
- TikTok Rolls Out Tools Enabling Parents To Police Screen Time, Direct Messaging
- Petnet goes offline for a week, can’t answer customers at all
- Twitter now makes it easier to add new tweets to old threads: Now you can keep tweetstorms going forever
- This is Amazon’s newest grocery store concept
- Amazon made a bigger camera-spying store—so we tried to steal its fruit
- Spotify revamps the brand of its New Music Friday playlist
- Amid A Sudden Gold Rush, Is Podcasting’s Market “Anyone With Ears?”
- Sweep” of European websites
- Overview of internet intermediary and media law cases for Northern Ireland in 2019: Part 1
- Overview of internet intermediary and media law cases for Northern Ireland in 2019: Part 2
- The Mandalorian was shot on a holodeck-esque set with Unreal Engine, video shows
- A peanut butter brand has put its spoon into the GIF pronunciation debate
A.I.
- How Should AI be Regulated in Canada? Speak now, or forever hold your peace!
- 2020 Update: Data-Driven Online Targeting
- The Regulator: European Commission sets out approach on the future regulation of AI
- AI Update: European Commission Presents Strategies for Data and AI (Part 1 of 4)
- Contextual Analysis of Social Media: The Promise and Challenge of Eliciting Context in Social Media Posts with Natural Language Processing
- Who’s protecting the machines? Will IP law offer incentives to AI developers in the battle to beat bacteria?
- A neural network picks promising antibiotics out of a library of chemicals
- Dark, Beyond Deep: A Paradigm Shift to Cognitive AI with Humanlike Common Sense
- 2019 Artificial Intelligence Year in Review
- NTSB blasts Tesla, CalTrans, and NHTSA for Autopilot death
COMMUNICATIONS
- Complaint filed against Bell Canada and Rogers for anti-competitive conduct: Bell and Rogers sometimes inflated rates by more than 900 per cent, CRTC found
- Deja Vu All Over Again: Looking Back at Two Decades of Bell, Telus and Rogers Battles Over the Canadian Wireless Market (Michael Geist)
- Who Runs Canadian Telecom Policy Anyway?: Why the Telus Threats at the CRTC Will Backfire (Michael Geist)
- Broadcast Panel Chair Says Canada Already Licenses News Organizations So Why Not Internet Companies? (Michael Geist)
- The Broadcast Panel Report and Canadian Stories: Take the Cancon Quiz (Michael Geist)
- NY AG Gives Up, Won’t Appeal T-Mobile Merger Ruling
- AT&T loses key ruling in class action over unlimited-data throttling
- AT&T Loses California Case After Lying To Consumers About ‘Unlimited’ Data Throttling
- Time Warner Cable Enters Into $18.8M Settlement With California DAs Over Internet Speeds
- Clarence Thomas regrets ruling that Ajit Pai used to kill net neutrality
- Trump report bizarrely claims net neutrality repeal raised incomes $50B a year
- The FCC To Field More Comments On Net Neutrality. Maybe They’ll Stop Identity Theft And Fraud This Time?
- FCC Does Bupkis As US Telco Networks Fall Apart, Putting Lives At Risk
- FCC Adopts Strict Processing Policies on Requests for Modification of TV Markets for Cable and Satellite Carriage
- FCC Announces Data Collection on Huawei and ZTE Equipment Replacement Effort
- U.S. Alleges Huawei Involved in Long-Running Scheme to Steal Trade Secrets
- FCC Seeks Anti-Robocall Information from Seven “International Gateways” Believed to be Originating Illegal Robocalls
- FCC Proposed Nearly $13 Million Fine for Illegal Spoofing
- As satellite TV tanks, Dish says merger with DirectTV is “inevitable”
- Dish Floats DirecTV Merger, Because What’s A Little Mindless Monopolization Among Friends?
- Thanks, Qualcomm: Mandatory 5G means phones now ship with disabled 5G modems
- Federal Trade Commission Reminds 19 VoIP Providers of the Telemarketing Sales Rule
INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY
- Musicians Algorithmically Generate Every Possible Melody, Release Them to Public Domain: Damien Riehl & Noah Rubin generated and saved every possible melody to a drive, then turned it around to the commons.
- Attempt To Put Every Musical Melody Into The Public Domain Demonstrates Craziness Of Modern Copyright
- Can a Machine Be Considered an ‘Inventor’ for Patent Purposes?
- Drake’s Sampling is a Fair Use
- Judge upholds decision awarding $6.75 million (£5.2 million) damages to 5 Pointz graffiti artists
- Second Circuit Affirms Visual Artists Rights Act Protects Famed Graffiti-ed Building
- An introduction to copyright for creatives
- Merchandising Monsters – European Commission imposes €14.3 million fine on NBCUniversal
- The NCAA Blocks the Use of “March Madness” in Trademark Dispute
- Brakes put on Bentley Motors’ use of trademark
- Infringement by ReTweet?
- Copyright term under Disney’s spell?
- Can You License A Video You Don’t Hold The Copyright Over?
- Copyright Can’t Bend Far Enough to Be Used Like a Patent
- Protecting the Design of Consumer Goods
- Compete, monetise, abandon: the strategic path to IP value
- Intellectual Property Alert: Where and How You Store Your Servers May Subject You to Patent Litigation in a Distant Jurisdiction
- Canadian patent law: 2019 year in review
- Obtaining patent protection for software in Europe
- 2019 U.S. Patents Hit All Time High
- Is Chinese IP Theft Coming to an End?
- The US Spent Years Telling China To Take Patents Seriously; Now It’s Freaking Out That China Is Doing So
- Design Patent Guidance Found in Recent Court Decisions
- Intellectual Property and Brexit
- IP after Brexit: consequences and checklists
- Revolution in enforcement of intellectual property rights in Poland – Introduction of specialised IP courts
- Hiding Actualities: Whether Art Should Exist Independent of the Artist (Derek Diemer)
- Open source licenses: What, which, and why
- The Next Risk In Buying An IOT Product Is Having It Bricked By A Patent Dispute
- Smithsonian Releases 2.8 Million Images And 3D Models Into The Public Domain
PRIVACY
- Ontario Recognizes False Light Tort of Invasion of Privacy
- Coronavirus brings China’s surveillance state out of the shadows
- Google cracks down on location-tracking Android apps
- NSA Blew $100 Million On Phone Records Over Five Years, Generated Exactly One Usable Lead
- Kentucky Appeals Court Says Cops Need Warrants To Obtain Real-Time Cell Site Location Info
- Yelp Defeats Businesses’ “Right to Be Forgotten” Claims—Spiegelman v. Yelp (Eric Goldman)
- Comments on the DOJ’s Proposed Modifications to the CCPA Regulations (Eric Goldman)
- Stalkerware Developer Found Leaking Sensitive Data From Thousands Of The Software’s Victims
- Stalkerware Developer Demands TechCrunch Remove Article Detailing Its Leaking Of Sensitive Data
- California man arrested on charges his DDoSes took down candidate’s website
- Senators Pitch Temporary Facial Recognition Ban, Leave Door Wide Open For Abuse By Federal Agencies
- Google faces state lawsuit alleging misuse of schoolkids’ private data
- Removing a GPS tracking device from your car isn’t theft, court rules
- Secretive face-matching startup has customer list stolen
- Flaw in billions of Wi-Fi devices left communications open to eavesdropping
- Firefox turns encrypted DNS on by default to thwart snooping ISPs
- The House wants to know what Ring is doing with footage from your house
- Ring Says It Helps Cops Fight Crime But The Data Shows It’s No Better At This Than Any Other Security Camera
- Ring Continues To Pitch Facial Recognition To Law Enforcement While Claiming It Won’t Be Adding Facial Recognition To Its Cameras
- An Airbnb For Farmland Hits A Snag, As Farmers Raise Data Privacy Concerns
- Data Breaches and complaints up over 70% – key findings of DPC Annual Report
- The Overlooked IoT Data Security Law in California
- UK Government to Introduce New Law to Strengthen Security of Consumer IoT Devices
- February 21, 2020 Commissioners launch joint investigation into Clearview AI amid growing concerns over use of facial recognition technology
- Russia’s War On Encryption Stumbles Forth With Ban Of Tutanota
CREATIVITY
- Trump campaign says it is suing New York Times over Russia opinion piece
- As Court Finally Dumps One Of Devin Nunes’ Ridiculous Lawsuits (With A Warning About Sanctions), Nunes Promises To File Another
- Public Citizen Weighs In On Why Court Should Protect @DevinCow’s Information Under The 1st Amendment
- Group Promoting ‘Religious Freedom’ Around Vaccines Appears To Want To Stifle Free Expression Of Critics
- NPR Pulls Out The Big Guns: Asks For Sanctions Against Lawyer Steven Biss For Lying
- Corona Beer Takes a Hit From Coronavirus as Brand Image Suffers
- Judge Sullivan Dismisses Former Knick Charles Oakley’s Defamation Suit Against James Dolan and MSG
- Discovering Ed Sheeran’s Concert Income
GAMES
- Crytek’s lawsuit against Star Citizen devs ends in settlement
- TIGA principles for protecting players are quietly radical | Opinion: UK trade group’s endorsement of common sense best practices shows good faith effort, puts peers to shame
- NHS’ gaming addiction clinic only needed by ‘a very small percentage’: Founder Dr Bowden-Jones hopes the numbers will remain lower than problem gambling
- Copyright In The Modern Era: Fortnite Lets Players Mute Emote To Avoid Auto-Copyright Claims Against YouTubers
- UK High Court Confirms That Grand Theft Auto Cheat Software Infringes Copyright
- EA bans pro FIFA player from all EA games for threatening messages and behavior
- The nuclear option: EA bans “abusive” FIFA player from all of its games
- Activision subpoenas Reddit in hopes of tracking down Call of Duty leaker
- Activision goes after Reddit to expose Call of Duty leaker: DMCA subpoena issued to identify user who posted new screenshot
- Well Then: Activision Issues DMCA Subpoena To Have Reddit Unmask Whoever Posted That CoD Image Leak
- Kitfox’s Victoria Tran aims to kill toxic game communities with kindness
- Panic Art Studios CEO posts racist remarks on Twitter: Elias Viglione describes outburst as “moment of temporary insanity”
- Kobe Bryant: Washington Post reporter reinstated after tweet row
- New legal counsel takes over class action lawsuit against Riot Games
- New legal counsel seeking ‘institutional reform’ in Riot Games’ discrimination lawsuit
- Two of Riot Games’ next few projects are being developed with Unity
- The next Xbox will quadruple XB1’s CPU, octuple its GPU performance
- Microsoft confirms Xbox Series X will pack 12 teraflop GPU, shares more tech specs
- Xbox boss Phil Spencer: Game streaming won’t hinder home consoles
- GeForce Now passes 1 million signups during free trial period
- Weeks after launch, Nvidia’s GeForce Now attracts a million streaming gamers
- Bethesda Softworks pulls all games but Wolfenstein: Youngblood from GeForce Now
- Bethesda pulls games from GeForce Now, more publishers may follow: But Nvidia promises new games will be added every week as trial period comes to an end
- Google wants to bring HTML5 titles to low-end devices with GameSnacks
- Google Stadia will come pre-installed in certain smartphones: Starting with the Asus ROG Phone 3
- The strange, unexplained journey of ToTok in Google Play fuels user suspicions
- Google Pulls 600 Apps From the Google Play Store for Disruptive Advertising
- Kunai becomes the latest title review bombed on Metacritic by a single person: TurtleBlaze’s Metroidvania was targeted at random, dropping from an 8.1 user score to a 1.7 in a single day
- Game crunch lessons: How to avoid game development crunch – “Teams who are having fun make better games and making games should be fun — otherwise, what’s the point?”
- Around 20 employees laid off at mobile studio Kixeye
- Kixeye lays off around 20: Parent company Stillfront says cuts were “a natural step” after acquisition, won’t affect portfolio or business in general
- UK studio Ultimatum Games has shut down after four years
- Adventure game trailblazer Roberta Williams to receive Pioneer Award at GDC 2020
- Roberta Williams to receive GDCA Pioneer Award: King’s Quest designer will be recognized for her work in graphic adventures and for co-founding Sierra On-Line
- Is the US market ready to embrace a $500 game console?
- Roblox raises $150 million for game-making, game-playing platform
- COVID-19 looms over planning for next-gen launches | Opinion: The epidemic threatens to shut down supply chains the entire games industry relies on — and even push new console launches into next year
- PlayStation cites coronavirus, backs out of multiple major gaming expos [Updated]
- PlayStation and Facebook cancel GDC appearances citing coronavirus concerns: Kojima Productions also pulls out, cancelling founder’s talk
- Australian retailers limit Ring Fit Adventure sales as resellers and coronavirus cause stock shortage: Staff reportedly warned new stock will not be available until end of March or early April
- PUBG, Black Desert add new PS4 and Xbox One cross-play features
- CD Projekt Red and PUBG Corp cancel event plans due to coronavirus: But Cyberpunk 2077 developer currently still plans to attend GDC 2020
- The Wonderful 101 dev PlatinumGames to open 100-person studio in Tokyo
- Platinum Games opening new Tokyo studio: Bayonetta developer plans to build new team to 100 people to work on Viewtiful Joe and Wonderful 101 follow-up
- Employees say “sheer desperation” drives GameStop’s aggressive sales tactics: Chain focuses on pre-orders and buying used phones, with the potential threat of termination for staff who miss targets
- Nintendo severely limits save file options for Animal Crossing on Switch
- UK Monthly Report: GTA V and Nintendo Switch Lite shine in quiet January
- Pokemon Home first week downloads reached 1.3m: Sensor Tower -Estimated first week revenue from subscription plans is around $1.8 million
- Pokemon-inspired MMO Temtem passes 500,000 copies sold
- Steam’s latest search features are straight from Steam Labs experiments
- Metro Exodus off to strong start on Steam, despite Epic exclusivity: Embracer Group CEO says shooter has already sold 200,000 copies, also discusses Shenmue III’s performance
- UK Charts: Bayonetta and Vanquish return to Top Ten: Half-Term sales boosts Team Sonic Racing, Call of Duty Black Ops 4 and Forza Horizon 4
- Games’ European mobile market share expected to shrink to 55% by 2022: But category will still be biggest source of user spending, expected to hit $12.9 billion
- GOG expands refund policy to 30 days: New policy allows for customers to get their money back even if the game was played
- GOG asks you to please not abuse its expansive new 30-day refund policy
- Netmarble’s full year sales are up, but profit is down: Korean mobile developer to continue focus on global expansion
- Giants opening Chicago office: Farming Simulator developer’s first outpost outside of Europe to focus on support for North and South American players
- Starbreeze looks toward Payday 3 with $5m share sale: New series A shares are equivalent to 30% of voting rights in the embattled Swedish publisher
- Animal Crossing New Horizons lost save files can only be recovered once: Cloud saves will be limited to Switch Online members, and can only be accessed in case of loss or damage
- Take-Two forms new internal studio to finish Kerbal Space Program 2
- Private Division moves Kerbal Space Program 2 development to new, internal studio: Jeremy Ables, other KSP2 leads join Private Division, but former developer Star Theory’s status is unknown
- Deathtrap Dungeon adaptation aims to demonstrate the true potential of interactive fiction: Branching Narrative’s Matt Spall also discusses how the scariest graphics are your imagination
- Black Desert Online and the diverging MMO ecosystem; Pearl Abyss America CEO Jeonghee Jin discusses the changing face of MMO monetisation
- On Kirby 64 and Impressionism: Sketch House Games’ Nate Buck considers how N64 developers discarded details while preserving an aesthetic
- Games sales up 51% at THQ Nordic at end of 2019
- The Witcher 3 earns $50 million on Steam in 18 months to hop revenue tiers
- Make-A-Wish launches GameStars charity intiative: UK branch of the charity will make it simpler for the games community to raise money
- YouTube Millionaires: MMG Balances College And A “Cuul” Gig As One Of YouTube’s Top ‘Madden’ Creators
- Twitch is making it easier to understand League of Legends matches: Helping you keep track of your favorite League of Legends streamers
- Twitch Star Dr DisRespect To Pen “Memoir” About His Gaming Persona For Simon & Schuster
- Twitch to top 40 million US viewers next year, forecast says
- Newzoo: Global esports market will reach $1.1b in 2020 – Nearly three-fourths of all revenue will come from sponsorships and media rights
- Esports firm Tempo Storm raises $3.3 million to launch a game
- Esports company Tempo Storm nets $3.3 million to start making games
- Tempo Storm raises $3.3 million: Esports team will use latest funding to expand into blockchain game development and livestreamed entertainment
- Adapting to the evolution of esports: Major League Gaming co-founder Mike Sepso explains why the original MLG wouldn’t work today, and how his new start-up Vindex is positioned for the future
- Wales. Golf. Madrid. Esports. In that order? Gareth Bale sets up a new esports team
- Ride on…in accordance with the rules
- Space Channel 5 VR review: The worst value proposition for a PSVR game yet
- Facebook acquires Asgard’s Wrath dev Sanzaru Games
- Facebook acquires Sanzaru Games: Studio behind Asgard’s Wrath to join Oculus Studios and continue VR development
- More Than 100 VR Games Have Exceeded $1 Million in Revenue
- HTC takes its own magic leap, announces Vive Proton prototype headset
- Index Will Return to Stock Ahead of ‘Half-Life: Alyx’, but “far fewer units” Due to Coronavirus
- How a new wave of developers are using voxels to create jaw-dropping worlds
- Push-button warfare: How artists use games to capture drone strike horror
- DeltaDNA and Earplay partner to bring analytics to voice-based games and apps
- PewDiePie Returns To Daily YouTube Uploads After “Really Healthy And Good” Break
- An extended interview with Atrus himself, Myst creator Rand Miller
- Video: Inside the AI systems of Final Fantasy XV
- Blog: Crafting nightmares to define Othercide’s art direction
- Blog: Dear game developers everywhere – go teach!
- Blog: A decade-spanning retrospective of the Indonesian games industry
- Blog: A critical analysis of The Outer Wilds
- Blog: My full-time indie developer life – Year 3
- Don’t Miss: A Game Design Deep Dive into SteamWorld Dig’s digging mechanic
- Don’t Miss: A water interaction model for great video game boat physics
- Don’t Miss: The Resident Evil 4 postmortem
- Don’t Miss: A look back at the history of Konami’s Gradius
- Red Candle Games’ delisted game Devotion added to Harvard Library collection
- Eli Roth to direct Borderlands movie: Long-in-the-works adaptation will be helmed by filmmaker behind Hostel, Cabin Fever, and Death Wish remake
- The Outer Worlds, Outer Wilds, and more named Nebula Award finalists
- Obituary: Konami Code creator Kazuhisa Hashimoto has passed away
Jon
News of the Week; February 19, 2020
DIGITAL
- Amazon wins court injunction on controversial JEDI contract: Amazon’s suit argues it lost the deal because Trump personally hates Jeff Bezos.
- Who’s responsible for what you buy on Amazon? A court is about to decide
- Jeff Bezos pledges $10 billion to stop climate change
- The Billion-Dollar Disinformation Campaign to Reelect the President: How new technologies and techniques pioneered by dictators will shape the 2020 election
- Assange lawyer claims congressman offered Trump’s pardon in exchange for absolving Russia in WikiLeaks case
- Trump offered Assange a pardon if he denied Russia gave him emails, lawyer says
- Trump Offered Assange Pardon if He Covered Up Russian Hack, WikiLeaks Founder’s Lawyer Claims
- College Student Gets Thrown On The Ground And A Gun Pointed At His Head For Committing The Crime Of ‘Taking A Selfie While Black’
- Answering Impossible Questions: Content Governance in an Age of Disinformation (John Bowers, Jonathan Zittrain)
- Divided, we fall: How ant behavior mimics political polarization – Division of labor, polarization arise from social influence plus interaction bias.
- Snapchat Temporarily Defeats Another Case Over Its Speed Filter–Lemmon v. Snap (Eric Goldman)
- Ninth Circuit Decision Has Significant Implications for Terms and Conditions in Smartphone Apps
- Google plans to move UK users’ accounts outside EU jurisdiction
- “Why is Facebook drawing the line where it’s drawing the line?”: Discussing Facebook’s Oversight Board
- A picture of a same-sex kiss on Facebook wreaks havoc: Beizaras and Levickas v. Lithuania
- Mark Zuckerberg Suggests Getting Rid Of Section 230; Maybe People Should Stop Pretending It’s A Gift To Facebook
- Ron Wyden: Modifying Section 230 Will Give More Censorship Power To Trump; And Lock In Facebook’s Dominance
- The “EARN IT” Act Is Another Terrible Proposal to “Reform” Section 230 (Eric Goldman)
- Hey Tom Wheeler: Stick To Net Neutrality, Because Your Understanding Of Section 230 Is… Not Right
- What A Shame: Legacy Newspapers Want To Take Away Free Speech On The Internet
- Facebook quietly releases a Pinterest clone: Hobbi is an app from Facebook’s new product experimentation team
- Strategic Framing and Social Media Engagement: Analyzing Memes Posted by the German Identitarian Movement on Facebook
- Facebook backs Indian education startup Unacademy
- UK Government announces proposed legislation aimed at reducing online harm
- Creating a safe space online: Government provides initial response to consultation on its Online Harms White Paper
- UK is set to introduce a new duty of care to protect children online backed by increased fines and personal liability for senior management
- Pay-for-Play Website Pays FTC Over Fake Reviews, Deceptive Rankings
- The FTC Wants To Hold Brands, Platforms Like YouTube Financially Liable For Improper #SponCon Disclosures
- FTC Announces Endorsement Guide Review — Are There New Rules on the Horizon for Influencers?
- FTC Aims to Shake Up Endorsements, Seeks Public Comment on Its Endorsement Guides
- With an Eye on Social Media Platforms and Influencer Marketing, the FTC Seeks Public Comment on Endorsement Guides
- FTC Seeks Comments on Revamping its Endorsement Guides
- After Four Decades, FTC Announces Regulatory Review of The Endorsement Guides: What Does This Portend for Digital Advertisers and Social Media Platforms?
- Can Public Infrastructure Fix Social Media? Ethan Zuckerman at Cornell
- Competition Bureau to focus on digital economy: 4-year strategic plan shows intention to increase use of interim measures, say competition lawyers
- Competition Bureau’s Marketing and Advertising Priorities: Dishonest Information about Data Privacy
- Drip pricing: StubHub enters into $1.3M consent agreement with Competition Bureau
- Kickstarter workers make history with unionization vote
- Kickstarter becomes one of the first major US tech companies to unionize: Employees vote in favor of joining the Office and Professional Employees International Union
- William Barr’s Move To Rid The DOJ Of Independence Shows One Of Many Reasons Josh Hawley’s FTC Plan Is Dangerous
- “We Are Going To Be The Best”: How Newly Launched TalentX Plans To Become Every Digital Star’s Dream Management Company
- Mobile quizzing company HQ Trivia has shut down
- HQ Trivia shuts down: 25 full-time employees reportedly let go as troubled mobile start-up loses investors
- After Investors Pull Plug, HQ Trivia Ceases Operations And Moves To Dissolution
- Juul bought ads on CartoonNetwork.com, NickJr.com, other kid sites, suit says
- Court Allows Chooseco’s Lawsuit Against Netflix Over ‘Bandersnatch’ To Move Forward
- Mills v. Netflix, Inc.: District court dismisses plaintiff’s DMCA claim of removal and altering of copyright management information
- PremFlix: the Premier League’s plans to introduce a ‘Netflix-style’ OTT service
- Doctor Suing A Patient Over A Negative Review Has His Case Dismissed Under Tennessee’s New Anti-SLAPP Law
- SLAPP Suits And The Enemies Of Writing And Ideas
- Devin Nunes’ Lawyer Continues To Use Unrelated Case To Try To Unearth Satirical Internet Cow Account
- Feds launch a probe into Big Tech’s smallest acquisitions
- Twitter acquires Stories template maker Chroma Labs
- Susan Wojcicki Reveals YouTube Paid Out $3 Billion To Music Industry Last Year
- YouTube TV To Cancel All Subscriptions Purchased Via Apple App Store In March
- Apple’s new iPad Pro could be delayed due to the coronavirus, report claims
- Spotify mimics Apple’s design with new podcast show page updates
- Anatomy of a Spotify scam (Andres Guadamuz)
- Hughes v. Benjamin: Court dismisses copyright and DMCA claims, finding use of plaintiff’s YouTube video was for criticism and commentary, and therefore transformative fair use
- Bell v. Chicago Cubs Baseball Club, LLC: District court grants motion to dismiss contributory infringement claim against Chicago Cubs based on retweet that allegedly copied key passage from plaintiff’s book.
- Jake Paul Launches ‘The Financial Freedom Movement,’ A $19.99/Month Program For Kids To Become Influencers
- After Mike Bloomberg Meme Sweep, Instagram Introduces Guidelines For Influencers Posting Political Sponcon
- Instagram Prototyping ‘Latest Posts’ Feature, Which Would Let Users See Certain Posts In Reverse Chronology
- House Of Highlights Is NBA’s Slam Dunk For All-Star Video Content
- Bosses tell social media celebrities: TikTok on your own time
- TikTok ‘family safety mode’ gives parents some app control
- Semaphore Launches Licensing Business, Signs 3 Popular YouTube Channels For Toy Deals
- YouTube Phenom Collins Key Inks Global Deal For Toy Collection
- Preschool-Aimed YouTube Goliath ‘Morphle’ Inks Global Toy Licensing Deal
- MrBeast Reveals He Has Already Spent $100,000 On Scrapped Videos This Year
- Condé Nast Forms New Entertainment Studios Around Key Titles Amid Push Into Film, TV, Podcasts
- A new spin on 3D printing can produce an object in seconds
- Electronic signatures are valid: so what’s the catch on finance transactions?
- Samsung Galaxy S20 vs. iPhone 11 Pro: A deeper division lurks beneath the spec sheets
- Samsung’s “Ultra Thin Glass” doesn’t seem much stronger than plastic
- Samsung’s 2020 TV lineup forces high-end buyers to go 8K whether they want it or not
- Snap Taps Third Class Of Startups For Its Media And Tech Accelerator ‘Yellow’, Offering $150K In Equity Funding
- A new era: what’s in store for tech regulation in 2020?
- English High Court declines jurisdiction for “Satoshi Nakamoto” libel claim
- Driver Stranded After ‘Smart’ Rental Car Can’t Phone Home
- The future of work looks like staying out of the office
A.I.
- Researchers have already tested YouTube’s algorithms for political bias
- The FTC, AI and Algorithms
- Can computers invent? EPO says no to AI inventors
- EPO rejects AI inventor patent applications
- Can AI Be an Inventor? Not at the European Patent Office.
- California Introduces Bill to Regulate Automated Decision Systems
- Liability for Artificial Intelligence — Why Canadian Businesses Should Pay Attention to Recent Developments in Europe
- What fairness can learn from AI
- Why AI is crucial for patent searching and mining
- A case study comparison of the AI chips patent landscape
- Ars Technicast special edition, part 1: Machine learning assimilates athletics
- Machine Learning Patentability in 2019: 5 Cases Analyzed and Lessons Learned Part 2
- Intelligent (patent) agents: should the patent profession be afraid of AI?
- Enforcing Cybertech Patents is Increasingly Possible, Even for Small Companies
- Numerical Ranges: More Than Just Endpoints in Patent Process
- Data shows Tesla owner experienced repeated glitch days before deadly 2018 crash
- The AI-development Connection – A View from the South
COMMUNICATIONS
- Broadcast Panel Commissioned Report Found Canada Ranks First Among Peer Countries in Spending on TV Production, Domestic TV Production, and Employment Per Capita (Michael Geist)
- The BTLR and USMCA, Part Two: Why the Broadcast Panel Recommendations Could Cost Canadians Millions in Retaliatory Tariffs (Michael Geist)
- CBC Leads Call for New Government Regulations to Support “Trusted” News Sources (Michael Geist)
- Appeals court seems poised to reverse landmark Qualcomm antitrust ruling
- T-Mobile’s Marathon to Acquire Sprint: Five Takeaways from the T-Mobile/Sprint Antitrust Litigation
- T-Mobile claims it didn’t lie about 4G coverage, says FCC measured wrong
- Not All Automatic Dialed Messages are Restricted, Says a US Appeals Court
- Circuit split on automatic telephone dialing systems under the TCPA reinforces importance of obtaining prior express written consent
- Seventh Circuit Joins The Party: Another Circuit Rejects Marks And Holds A Random or Sequential Number Generator Is Required For A System to be An ATDS
- Narrow Definition of ATDS Prevails in the Seventh Circuit
- Breaking: Seventh Circuit rejects marks- holds random or sequential number generation required for ATDS usage
- Uh, I Dunno – Maybe the FCC Just Isn’t Into You?
- UK green-lights Ofcom as the first internet regulator….but the devil is in the detail
- Google Fiber Ditches Cable TV While Broadband Effort Remains Stuck In Neutral
- What’s New in 5G – February 2020
- Wi-Fi 6E isn’t here yet—but Broadcom is clearly banking on it
INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY
- The Copyright Board’s Access Copyright Post Secondary Decision: The Incorrect Correction (Howard Knopf)
- Oops, the Board did it again, and again, and again (Ariel Katz)
- Moschino Counterpunches on Cardi B Paparazzi Pic
- District Court Grants Judgment on the Pleadings, in Part, in Kanye West Copyright Suit
- Let Go of My LEGOs: Copyright Protection for Plastic People
- “Into the Garbage, Fly Boy”: A Review of the Star Wars Legal World; One Court at a Time
- Expansion of UK copyright law for the fashion industry
- Otto v. Hearst Communications Inc: District court denies attorneys’ fees to photographer who prevailed in copyright suit against Hearst Communications based on its unauthorized use of photograph of President Trump
- Artist Sues Cannabis Company and Agencies Over Mural Used in Ads
- No, Disney Probably Didn’t Infringe A Unicorn Van Artist’s Copyright, But It Would Have Sued If The Roles Were Reversed
- Making waves: Copyright in ‘Wave Fabric’ can be protected as a ‘work of artistic craftsmanship’
- I Scream, You Scream: Museum of Ice Cream Vindicated in Copyright Infringement Lawsuit
- Failure to Register Copyrights in the U.S. Can Bar Statutory Damages for Infringements
- A guide to intellectual property in the creative industries – protecting pitches, brands and concepts
- IP Enterprise Court expands copyright protection for designs
- Open access journals get a boost from librarians—much to Elsevier’s dismay
- IPCom GMBH & CO KG v Vodafone Group PLC and others
- Open Source Voice Assistant Promises To ‘Nuke From Orbit’ Patent Troll
- Judge Shuts Down Copyright Troll’s Cut-And-Run Effort; Hits It With $40K In Legal Fees
- Lost in the Amazon: how to combat trademark infringement in the e-commerce marketplace
- Xiaomi Sues Sisvel in Beijing: The First Lawsuit Seeking a Determination of Chinese SEP Royalty
- Presidents’ Day 2020: Presidential Patents Beyond Lincoln
- Patentability 101: A Review of the 2019 Guidance and Update on Subject Matter Eligibility
- Motivation to Combine Prior Art Can Come from Knowledge of those Skilled in the art, the Art Itself, or the Nature of the Problem
- Top five cosmetic trends shaping IP in 2020
- Top Issues in 2020: Trademark
- Happy Valentines Day (Patents) 2020
- Patentability in Canada: Federal Court of Appeal questions the fixed dosage amount vs dosage range distinction
- The Best of the Decade – Canadian Patent Law in the 2010s
- 2020 Outlook – Patents
- Top Issues in 2020: Patents
- The New Cybersquatters: The Evolution of Trademark Enforcement in the Domain Name Space (Michael Karanicolas)
PRIVACY
- Competition Bureau Flexes Muscles in The Privacy Sphere
- ISPs sue Maine, claim Web-privacy law violates their free-speech rights
- Comcast, AT&T Sue Maine Over Privacy Law, Claim It Violates Free Speech
- Anatomy of a dumb spear-phish: Hitting librarians up for Zelle, CashApp cash
- CBP, ICE Hoovering Up Cell Location Data From Third Party Vendors To Track Down Immigrants
- Hackers exploit critical vulnerability found in ~100,000 WordPress sites
- US natural gas operator shuts down for 2 days after being infected by ransomware
- Surprise! MIT Study Claims Voatz E-Voting Technology Is A Security Dumpster Fire
- Illinois Residents File Class Action against Biometrics Company for Collecting Information without Consent
- Ring cameras are more secure now, but your neighbors still snoop with them
- Ransomware Attacks Predicted to Occur Every 11 Seconds in 2021 with a Cost of $20 Billion
- Facebook Dating misses European launch for Valentine’s Day over regulatory dispute: Ireland’s data protection regulator stepped in
- NYPD Lied About National Security During An Attempt To Obtain A Journalist’s Records From Twitter
- Nasty Android malware reinfects its targets, and no one knows how
- 500 Chrome extensions secretly uploaded private data from millions of users
- US Takes Baby Steps Toward Providing Actual Public Evidence Of Huawei Spying
- Racketeering and Trade Secret Theft Added to List of Charges Against China’s Huawei
- Judge rules a 2019 law singling out Huawei is constitutional
- US government goes all in to expose new malware used by North Korean hackers
- Pwns for sale: Scythe prepares a marketplace for sharing simulated hacks
- Signal is finally bringing its secure messaging to the masses
- Why fixing security vulnerabilities in medical devices, IoT is so hard
- Federal Agencies Are Still Abusing Their Favorite, Super-Vague FOIA Exemption Thousands Of Times A Year
- The NFL Twitter Hack Shows We Need to Move Past Password Protection
- Manipulate to empower: Hyper-relevance and the contradictions of marketing in the age of surveillance capitalism
CREATIVITY
- Harassment and The Handmaid’s Tale
- Trouble At The Law Firm Filing Patently Ridiculous Lawsuits On Behalf Of Tulsi Gabbard
- PGA Tour Calls Big Miss, Requests Dismissal of Hank Haney Lawsuit
- Texas Appeals Court Rules Private Communications with Customers Not Protected Free Speech
- Antitrust: EU Commission fines NBC universal Euro 14.3 for restricting sales of merchandise products
- ‘Star Wars’ May Never Recover From The Damage Done By ‘Rise Of Skywalker’
GAMES
- UK Court Finds GTA V Cheat Makers Guilty of Copyright Infringement
- Rockstar Joins Other Publishers In Misusing Copyright Law To Go After Cheat Developers For GTA5
- GTA IV to return to Steam after cutting Games for Windows Live support
- GTA IV returns to Steam with Complete Edition next month: But transition from Games For Windows Live means loss of multiplayer mode
- Capital C Infringement of Capitol Records: EMI April Music Inc. v. 4MM Games, LLC, 2014 WL 1383468
- Fortnite boss says game loot boxes ’cause harm’
- After Confusion, IRS Clarifies Tax Treatment Of Fortnite & Gaming Currencies
- Italy Introduces Content Rating System for Videogames and Launches Permanent Observatory
- Game Developer Decides Best Way To Get Back At Pirates Is To Pirate Them Back
- Ex-Starbreeze exec convicted of insider trading
- Former Starbreeze CFO convicted of insider trading
- Can cheaters ever prosper? Videogames, esports and the gamers breaking the rules to get ahead
- How to Make Billions in E-Sports: There’s a gaming gold rush on, with companies cashing in on competitions, sponsorships and merch. But it all comes down to signing the best players.
- Fortnite and FIFA honoured at the Game Shaker Awards 2020: Esports Bar Cannes event also gave awards to Riot Games and Astralis Group
- ESL, DreamHack sign revenue-sharing deal with 13 esports teams: Agreement ensures Team Liquid, Evil Geniuses, Fnatic compete in MTG-owned circuits, grants partner teams a portion of ESL Pro Tour proceeds
- Here to stay – Faker becomes part-owner of T1 in 3-year deal
- Creators Going Pro: Meet KOT4Q, The ‘NBA 2K’ Enthusiast Who Hosted House Of Highlights’ All-Star Game Coverage
- Ninja criticized for calling out gamers who aren’t angry after losing
- Google Reportedly Paying Activision Blizzard $160 Million For YouTube’s Exclusive Livestreaming Rights
- Cyberpunk 2077 confirmed for GeForce Now, will have ray tracing via the cloud
- Activision Blizzard Pulls Its Games From Nvidia’s Streaming Service
- Activision Blizzard pulls all games from GeForce Now a week after launch: Nvidia clarifies that initial inclusion of publisher’s titles was due to a “misunderstanding”
- Nvidia’s GeForce Now loses Bethesda Softworks games: Second major publisher to pull its catalog following streaming service’s launch
- Activision Tries To Bury Cover Art For New CoD Game Via Copyright Threat…So Let’s All Look At It Together, Shall We?
- Nifty Games signs licensing deal with NBA for its first game
- What the CEO of Epic Games gets wrong about video games and politics
- Detroit: Become Human dev Quantic Dream will self-publish from here on out
- Lydia developer’s quest to make a ‘feel bad’ game about substance abuse: “If we can make a difference for even one child’s life, what could be better?”
- Report: Nintendo facing global Switch shortage because of coronavirus
- CryEngine finally hits Switch with low-resolution Warface port
- “The Switcher” improves: Witcher 3 reduces blur, now works with Steam, GOG
- NPD: January sales down 26% year-over-year – Dragon Ball Z Kakarot tops charts as hardware spending declines 35% year-over-year
- UK Charts: PS4 exclusives Yakuza and Dreams crack Top Ten – But it’s the classic FIFA and Call of Duty duo that come out top
- Anthem gets a rare second chance | Opinion: Most games that fail at launch are quickly passed over — but Bioware’s Anthem is getting a rare and expensive second chance at success
- The risky business of sexuality in games: Games with sexual themes have always been difficult to distribute and sell — is the games industry ever going to catch up to the rest of entertainment?
- Disney Invites Game Developers to Tell Original Stories With Popular Franchises
- Disney wants developers to “reimagine” its IP for video games: Exec invites DICE Summit attendees to “come and play” with its catalogue
- Sony drops out of PAX East due to novel coronavirus concerns: The Last of Us Part II and other demos will not be available at the show next week
- PlayStation backs out of PAX East due to coronavirus concerns
- Report: Sony can’t build a PS5 for less than $450
- Report: Sony facing PS5 pricing quandary as manufacturing cost rises
- Sony Is Struggling With PlayStation 5 Price Due to Costly Parts
- Expensive components drive PS5 production costs to $450 per unit: Retail price of Xbox Series X will be deciding factor in PlayStation 5 price tag
- Microsoft and Samsung team up for “cloud-based game streaming”
- Panzer Dragoon Remake flies to Stadia as Google reveals new games
- Stadia expands to support some non-Google mobile devices: Subscribers will soon be able to stream games on some models from Samsung, Razer, and ASUS
- Stadia support arrives on 19 non-Google Pixel phone models this week
- “The people in the suits, in the expensive boardrooms, are nerds now”: At the Yorkshire Games Festival, Mike Bithell discussed John Wick Hex as part of a positive shift in the way movie licenses are handled
- Blind Squirrel Games’ decade-long drift from work-for-hire to original IP: CEO Brad Hendricks on what it took for the company to grow beyond its engineering focus and make its own IP
- Remedy holds steady, posting solid growth across the board: Finnish developer moves forward on live-service multiplayer game plans
- Nexon’s Korean business holds full-year revenues steady despite declines in China: Both Maple Story and Maple Story M in Korea achieve highest-ever Q4 and full-year revenues
- GDC gives COVID19 update: Organizers say US travel restrictions on China impact about 2% of exhibitors and attendees
- China is approving more foreign games, but not so many American ones
- THQ Nordic parent Embracer Group acquires World War Z dev Saber Interactive
- Embracer Group acquires Saber Interactive in $525m deal: World War Z developer retains autonomy as Embracer’s fifth subsidiary, takes total headcount to over 2,500
- THQ Nordic parent Embracer Group now has 26 studios, more to be announced: Koch Media acquires Let’s Sing developer Voxler, two new studios have been opened but yet to be unveiled
- Embracer-owned Koch Media acquires Let’s Sing developer Voxler
- THQ Nordic approves Gothic remake and confirms plans to open Barcelona studio
- Ultimatum Games shuts down: Four years after founding studio, Shahid Ahmad confirms closure of Virtue Reality idle clicker game developer
- Half-Life: Alyx finally has a concrete release date
- ‘Half-Life: Alyx’ Release Date Set for March 23rd, New Screenshots Revealed
- Half-Life: Alyx is one step closer to existing with new, firm release date
- Sonic the Hedgehog beats Detective Pikachu in US opening weekend: Blue blur pulls $57 million in North America to become highest-grossing video game adaption
- Review: At the very least, ‘Sonic The Hedgehog’ revitalizes the Jim Carrey experience – This is the rare case where a video game film is decent, and the true MVP here is the seasoned comedy vet, Carrey.
- ‘Crossfire’ Movie Adaptation Lands at Sony
- Smilegate, Sony, and Tencent partner to give Crossfire the movie treatment
- Sony Pictures and Tencent partner on Crossfire movie: Film based on Smilegate’s hugely successful shooter will be handled by producer behind Sonic The Hedgehog and Fast and the Furious
- Sony Patents Valve Index-Like VR Controller With Finger Tracking
- Untitled Goose Game comes out on top at DICE Awards
- Untitled Goose Game wins Game of the Year at DICE Awards 2020: House House received three awards, while Remedy Entertainment won four for Control
- Angry Birds franchise can’t prevent profits slipping at Rovio
- Tekken 7 closed out 2019 with 5 million copies sold
- Operating profits up at Paradox as monthly active players hits record high
- Jordanian mobile publisher Tamatem nets $3.5 million to expand globally
- Facebook Gaming Rings In Ronda Rousey As New Livestreaming Partner
- Insurance is necessary to navigate the uncertain waters of the games industry
- Following Project Nova’s ‘end’, CCP won’t be as public with its early projects
- Eve Online shooter Project Nova is not cancelled, it’s just changing: CCP dedicates London studio to FPS concept, will no longer announce internal project codenames
- Rebuilding a classic in Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition
- Don’t Miss: How Neopets has influenced a generation of game developers
- Don’t Miss: Turning love into a cooperative game mechanic in Haven
- Don’t Miss: What went right (and wrong) during the development of Persona 4
- Meet the community still obsessing over Mass Effect 2 10 years later
- A peek at the risks and reworks that gave Rainbow Six Siege a chance to thrive
- Releasing an update archive benefits both devs and players, says Dead Cells dev
- How Supergiant weaves narrative rewards into Hades’ cycle of perpetual death
- Video: The raw numbers behind indie game success, from $0 to $1 million
- The ten commandments of indie survival
- The state of Steam discoverability: February 2020
- The latest Steam Labs experiment will tell you what game to play next
- Razor Edge Games nets $1.3 million to bring debut title to Steam Early Access
- Video: Valve’s Portal postmortem
- Blog: My experience as a game creator in an artist residency
- Blog: How AlphaStar became a StarCraft grandmaster
- Blog: When history gets interactive
- Blog: A firsthand account of coronavirus’ impact on China’s game industry
- Blog: What is reward fatigue?
- U.S. Patent no. 10,279,266: Monitoring game activity to detect a surrogate computer program
Jon
News of the Week; February 12, 2020
DIGITAL
- TikTok reportedly waited nearly 3 hours to call police in Brazil after a teen’s death was livestreamed on the platform, but the company notified its own PR team almost immediately
- When You Set Out To Block Misinformation, You Can Wind Up Blocking A Hero Like Li Wenliang
- Chinese Hacking Is Alarming. So Are Data Brokers.
- The Speaker, the President, and the Case of (the) Ripped Up Speech (Jonathan Zittrain)
- The Billion-Dollar Disinformation Campaign to Reelect the President
- Audit Indicates Intuit Made $1 Billion By Hiding Free File Program From The Public
- Can Public Infrastructure Fix Social Media?
- Defamation, social media and the right to insult
- Ninth Circuit Rules that LinkedIn Cannot Block Data Scraping
- Registrars raise alarm over proposal for big .com fee hikes: Proposed contract allows Verisign to raise registration fees 7 percent per year.
- Understanding Internet Culture
- Competition Bureau’s Marketing and Advertising Priorities: False Online Consumer Reviews
- Logitech debuts $169 StreamCam: A streamer-focused, USB-C webcam
- Canadian Government Officially Warns 100 Brands And Ad Agencies To Comply With Influencer Marketing Laws
- Bad Influence: FTC Settles Two Complaints Alleging Fake Social Media Influence
- US says Chinese military stole masses of Americans’ data
- Equifax breach was the work of Chinese state hackers, DOJ says
- China’s To Blame For The Equifax Hack. But It Shouldn’t Let Equifax, Or US Regulators, Off The Hook.
- DOJ Charges China With Hacking Equifax. That’s No Reason to Forgive Equifax: We’ve identified the culprits. But corporate accountability and meaningful victim compensation remains nowhere in sight.
- Justice Department Ramps Up Google Probe, With Heavy Focus on Ad Tools: Antitrust enforcers have contacted more than a dozen publishers, ad tech rivals and ad agencies
- Why Google Might Prefer Dropping a $22 Billion Business: Divesting its third-party ad operation could stave off even worse regulatory action.
- Google Tells Websites–Including YouTube–To Remove “Particularly Disruptive” Ads On Short Videos
- YouTube Wants To Hook Its Users Up With Third-Party Video Subscriptions (Report)
- The Young Turks Launches Google-Funded Video Course For Aspiring Local Journalists
- We Need to Talk About ‘Cloud Neutrality’: A multibillion-dollar, privately-owned infrastructure is now essential to the modern internet economy. That should freak you out.
- Video Sharing Site Protected by CDA Immunity for Removal of Poster’s “Objectionable Material”
- Sun To Rise on .GAY
- The Iowa caucuses were a comedy of tech errors and poor planning
- Snapchat introduces new interventions for mental health
- Snapchat is testing a big new redesign: A new home for the Snap Map and its original shows – plus a new test of news briefs
- Justin Bieber Docuseries Becomes YouTube’s Most-Viewed Original In One Week
- YouTube continues to mirror Twitch, tests new clap feature that lets fans donate to creators: Clapping costs $2 on YouTube now
- YouTube could compete with Apple and Amazon by offering third-party video subscription services: The report comes after Google boasted good subscriber numbers on YouTube
- Patreon Adds European Currencies, Will Open Berlin Offices As It Eyes Global Expansion
- Brazil judge rejects hacking accusation against Greenwald
- Brazilian Court Refuses To Move Forward With Bogus Charges Against Glenn Greenwald ‘For Now’
- European Commission continues crack down on cross-border online trade restrictions
- Can a Retweet Constitute Copyright Infringement? Uh….–Bell v. Chicago Cubs (Eric Goldman)
- Two New Mass Copyright Lawsuits – Rambo: Last Blood & Angel Has Fallen
- What Happens When a High-Tech Apparel Brand Shares the Same Name as the Company that Backed the Controversial Iowa Caucus App?
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- Mother Meets Recreation of Her Deceased Child in VR
- Ubisoft’s next Prince of Persia game is a VR escape room
- Oxford VR Picks up $12.5M in Funding for Its VR-based Therapy Platform
- Steam: Virtual reality’s biggest-ever jump in users happened last month
- Acer Has Cancelled its ConceptD OJO Headset
- Nreal Temporarily Halts Production of ‘Light’ AR Headset due to Coronavirus
- Mobile World Congress canceled due to coronavirus [Updated]
- Facebook Watch Sets Limited John Legend Series For Valentine’s Day
- What it takes to get a hate page off Facebook: A letter from the state AG
- Senators Threaten Twitter For Allowing Iranian Official Who Helped De-Escalate Tensions Via Twitter To Tweet
- Twitter beats revenue, user growth estimates in fourth quarter
- Arizona Legislator Wants To Strip Platforms Of Section 230 Immunity If They’re ‘Politically Biased’
- Pigs Fly As Charles Harder And Donald Trump Support Anti-SLAPP Laws (When They Protect Trump, Of Course)
- Good News: Virginia Legislature Passes Anti-SLAPP Law
- Federal Court Ignores Journalist Privilege For Reporting On Court Documents; Allows Bullshit Defamation Suit To Proceed
- Downloading public court documents costs a dime a page—is that legal?
- Google Maps gets new icon, tweaked UI for 15th birthday
- Instagram Launches New Tool To Help Users Tidy Up Their Follows
- Instagram Confirms It’s Prototyping An Ad-Share Monetization Program For IGTV
- Instagram Claims Should Be Discontinued, NAD Recommends
- Amazon might offer Twitch’s streaming technology to businesses: Twitch would still exist, but Amazon would have a new way to monetize its technology.
- Regulator Ofcom to have more powers over UK social media
- Logan Paul Drops Antonio Brown Diss Track, Compounding Reports Of Boxing Bout
- Apple will introduce universal app purchases for iOS and macOS
- Here Are All The Titles Netflix Has Removed Because Of Government Censorship
- Netflix Finally Lets Users Turn Off Contentious Autoplay-While-Browsing Feature
- Hell freezes over as Netflix finally lets users turn off autoplaying previews
- Quibi’s Oscar Ad Blitz A Decent Start Amid Disney Networks’ Promotional Blizzard
- Brands Owning Super Bowl Social Video Conversation Before And After Game
- ViacomCBS plan would unify all of Star Trek (and more) in one new streaming service
- WarnerMedia Forms New Film Division To Produce “Mid-Budget” Originals For Streamer HBO Max
- Hilton Hotels Named Title Sponsor Of BuzzFeed’s ‘BringMe’ Travel Vertical In Sweeping Pact
- Spotify’s Purchase Of The Ringer Won’t Be Cheap, But The Payoff Could Be Huge
- Spotify is giving songwriters their own pages and playlists
- Spotify launches ‘walled garden’ app Spotify Kids to millions more users
- Tentpole Events Boost Celebs’ Engagement On Social
- Just one day after launch, Moto Razr durability problems begin to pile up
- Bitcoin, CRA, and telemarketing scams in Metro Vancouver, Whistler and Squamish, and Vancouver Island
- The End Of Ownership: Tesla Software Updates Giveth… And Tesla Software Updates Taketh Away…
- Electronic signatures – legally binding or not worth the paper they’re written on?
- New Paper Explains How FOSTA Devastated Male Sex Workers (Eric Goldman)
- AOC Supports Full Repeal Of FOSTA
- The Future of International Crime: AI, 5G, Encryption, Cryptocurrencies and 3D technologies?
- Who’s Prone to Drone? A Global Time-Series Analysis of Armed Uninhabited Aerial Vehicle Proliferation (Michael Horowitz,Joshua Schwartz. Matthew Fuhrmann)
- ’90s nostalgia: Dancing Baby does the cha-cha once more in new HD rendering
- Techdirt Podcast Episode 238: Larry Lessig Defends His ‘Clickbait Defamation’ Lawsuit
A.I.
- Review of Artificial Intelligence May Result in Significant Changes to PIPEDA
- Facebook, YouTube order Clearview to stop scraping them for faces to match
- Google Says Clearview’s Site Scraping Is Wrong; Clearview Reminds Google It Scrapes Sites All The Time
- Clearview AI and the Legal Challenges Facing Facial Recognition Databases
- Clearview Looking To Expand Its Market To Problematic Countries Known For Human Rights Abuses
- Ajunwa to Congress: Help stop employers’ AI-fueled bias
- AI isn’t just coming to the world of dating—it’s already here
- Artificial Intelligence at the Patent Trial and Appeal Board
- LAW’s Danielle Citron: How Campaigns Can Counter Deepfakes – Cybersecurity expert and MacArthur Fellow has devised an eight-point plan for political campaigns to protect against fabricated video and audio
- Machines have learned how to be creative. What does that mean for art?: A.I. is imbuing computers with the most human of traits, creativity. Not everyone is happy about it
- AI-Mediated Communication: Definition, Research Agenda, and Ethical Considerations (Jeffrey Hancock, Mor Naaman, Karen Levy)
- Can Fiction Introduce Empathy Into AI? Do We Want It To?: Flynn Coleman on the Potential for Ethical Technology
- Radiant app taps Spotify for ‘digital radio hosted by AI’
- EPO Publishes Grounds for Refusing AI-Invented Patent Applications
- The EPO explains why the inventor has to be a human being, not a machine
- The untapped potential of AI for conglomerates
- Canadian Privacy Regulator Launches Consultation on its Proposals for Ensuring AI Regulation
- Personal choices and situated data: Privacy negotiations and the acceptance of household Intelligent Personal Assistants (Jason Pridmore, Anouk Mols)
COMMUNICATIONS
- The Broadcast Panel Report and Discoverability of Canadian Content: Searching for Evidence of a Problem (Michael Geist)
- The BTLR and USMCA, Part One: Why the Broadcast Panel Recommendations Conflict With Canada’s Emerging Trade Obligations (Michael Geist)
- Higher Costs and Less Choice: Why Consumers Will Pay the Price for the Broadcast Panel’s Plans to Increase Costs of Internet Services and Sites (Michael Geist)
- Canadian Broadcasting and Telecommunications Legislative Review Panel releases Final Report
- Update on Allarco Litigation – Allarco’s Potential Exit Costs in the Federal Court (Howard Knopf)
- Judicial Review: Impact of the Vavilov Judgment
- Goodbye, Sprint: US judge approves T-Mobile’s purchase of competitor
- US Antitrust Enforcement Clearly Broken As Court Rubber Stamps T-Mobile Merger
- US Broadband Gaps Are Twice As Bad As The Government Claims
- FCC data fails to count 21 million people without broadband, study finds
- Ajit Pai defeats another attempt to restore FCC’s net neutrality rules
- Comcast “not welcome” here: Customers protest sale of tiny cable company
- AT&T Keeps Pretending It Wants Real Net Neutrality And Privacy Laws. It Doesn’t.
- 5G choices: a pivotal moment in world affairs
- 5G Could Actually Make The ‘Digital Divide’ Worse
- iPhones Will Get Bigger And More Expensive This Year Thanks To 5G
- Microsoft’s first-ever Android Phone, the Surface Duo, spotted in the wild
- Samsung’s Galaxy Z Flip is the first foldable with a flexible glass cover
- Samsung’s Galaxy S20 is official, with bigger screens, higher prices
- Andy Rubin’s smartphone startup, Essential, is dead
- IoT Update: FCC Raises the Benchmark for Rural Broadband Deployments
- Frontier, nearing bankruptcy, faces scrutiny over weeks-long phone outages
INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY
- Downtown Music Publishing LLC v. Peloton Interactive, Inc.
- “Pound Cake” Sampling Is Fair Use According to the Second Circuit
- 2nd Circuit Appeals Court Upholds Drake Sampling Fair Use Victory, But Doesn’t Think It’s Useful For Anyone Else
- Estate of James Oscar Smith v. Drake (USCA 2nd Circuit, 2.3.20)
- Transformative Editing as Fair Use Under Copyright
- Google v. Oracle: Will Software Be Free?
- Supreme Court Set to Hear Copywrite Arguments in “Google v. Oracle”
- China and United States see eye to IP
- Copyright Troll Lawsuit Over Duct Taped Banana Picture
- Photo Of $120K Banana Art Leads To Copyright Fight
- Seattle Kraken or Sockeyes: How Legal Implications May Influence Seattle’s Decision
- Get Up, Stand Up, For Your Copyrights
- Fashion designers to have more protection against copying
- Can copyright protect your fabric design from copycats and competitors?
- Making Waves: IPEC finds fabric design a work of artistic craftmanship
- CJEU rules that the provision of e-books is an act of communication to the public
- Caltech Ten-Figure Patent Verdict Showcases Impact of University Intellectual Property
- Patenting Coronavirus Treatments
- EU’s top court clarifies when a patent settlement agreement can infringe EU antitrust rules
- You Mess With Me, You Mess With My Whole (Patent) Family
- Express License of Patent Includes Implied License of Continuations
- The six big ways the US and Europe differ on software patents
- What will France’s PACTE law mean for patents?
- Standard-essential patents in United Kingdom
- The future of 5G patent licensing
- Top Issues in 2020: 3D Printing and Additive Manufacturing
- Government Looking in the Mirror: How to Do Better in IP Protection and Commercialization
- Tech tools to draft patent applications could revolutionise IP proceedings
- BREXIT’s Projected Impact on Intellectual Property Rights
- Copyright Troll Richard Liebowitz Drops Case After Suing On Behalf Of The Wrong Party And Trying To Swap Plaintiffs
PRIVACY
- Man who refused to decrypt hard drives is free after four years in jail
- Appeals Court Rules That People Can’t Be Locked Up Indefinitely For Refusing To Decrypt Devices
- Harvard Students Again Show ‘Anonymized’ Data Isn’t Really Anonymous
- As The World Frets Over Social Media Tracking For Advertising, Young People Are Turning Fooling Sites Into Sport
- US says it can prove Huawei has backdoor access to mobile-phone networks
- Huawei fires back, points to US’ history of spying on phone networks
- Privacy Commissioner says Facebook violated PIPEDA: OPC made an application to Federal Court Thursday, seeking declaration Facebook broke the law
- IP Addresses No Longer Protected in Alberta: From a privacy perspective, the decision is “exceedingly troubling” argues Lisa Lifshitz
- One of the most destructive botnets can now spread to nearby Wi-Fi networks
- Personal Data of All 6.5 Million Israeli Voters Is Exposed
- Transparency Report Shows Ancestry.com Rejected A Warrant Demanding Access To Its DNA Database
- Inside the closed-door campaigns to rewrite California privacy law, again: How Google, Facebook, the EFF and others lobbied Alastair Mactaggart — and what they managed to get.
- For decades, US and Germany owned Swiss crypto company used by 120 countries
- New “red team as a service” platform aims to automate hacking tests for company networks
- Do Sports Clubs’ WhatsApp Groups Breach the GDPR?
- Windows trust in abandoned code lets ransomware burrow deep into targeted machines
- Google Play apps with 470k installs can log in to your Facebook and Google accounts
- How Attorney General Barr’s War On Encryption Will Harm Our Military
- Why is the healthcare industry still so bad at cybersecurity?
- Why you can’t bank on backups to fight ransomware anymore
- The CJEU’s cookie judgment: why the cookie consent debate continues
CREATIVITY
- Advertising Watchdog Says Gwyneth Paltrow’s Goop Is Making False Health Marketing Claims
- Philadelphia Police Clear Gritty of Alleged Assault
- Former “Bachelor” Contestant Stripped of $1 million Fantasy Football Win
- MLB Drops Joint Promotion with Roger Waters Over Anti-Semitism Charges
- Was it all a fantasy? New York Appeals Court says fantasy sports are illegal
- New York Appellate Court Rules Fantasy Sports is Illegal Gambling
- Ohio minister may face uphill fight in Super Bowl halftime
- Could employers ban office football chat?
- ABC Rejects Frida Mom Commercial for Oscars Broadcast
- The Beguiling: Glamour in/as Platformed Cultural Production (Alison Hearn, Sarah Banet-Weiser)
GAMES
- Sweeney criticizes “customer adversarial” industry tactics: Epic CEO condemns privacy invasion, pay-to-win, and loot boxes, calls for companies to “divorce ourselves from politics”
- Epic’s Sweeney: Game companies should be platform agnostic, ‘divorce’ from politics
- Proposed Washington Gambling Law Changes Aimed at Keeping State Video Gaming Industry Around
- Mario Kart Just Added Vancouver As A Race Track Location
- Games industry faces major disruption across all sectors as coronavirus spreads: PUBG Corporation postpones Berlin esports event in response to coronavirus
- Mobile World Congress Barcelona show cancelled over virus fears: Organizing body GSMA says travel concerns and other factors “made it impossible” to hold 2020 edition of annual conference
- Coronavirus concerns lead to delay of The Outer Worlds Switch port
- Switch production delayed in China due to coronavirus outbreak
- Coronavirus concerns lead to delay of The Outer Worlds Switch port
- Coronavirus concerns lead to delay of The Outer Worlds Switch port
- Nintendo: Switch “just entering the middle of its lifecycle”: President Shuntaro Furukawa says Switch Lite purchasers who already owned a Switch down to 30% from 43%
- The world’s only known Nintendo PlayStation could be yours—for over $15,000
- With 2 million sold, Take-Two is unsure how Game Pass affected The Outer Worlds
- Take-Two stock slumps following Dan Houser’s departure from Rockstar: Publisher’s share price has increased eight-fold since the day that Grand Theft Auto V launched
- Grand Theft Auto Online just had its best holiday quarter ever: Six and a half years after launch and 120m units sold, Rockstar’s behemoth leads Take-Two Interactive’s Q3 alongside Red Dead Online
- GTA, Red Dead can’t stop Take-Two’s revenue from sliding in Q3 2020
- Take-Two still isn’t sure about subscription services
- Recurrent consumer spending made up 37% of Take-Two’s $930 million Q3 revenue
- Team Ninja’s Nioh surpasses 3 million sold
- With no profit motive, new kids’ mobile IP from BBC focuses on a “safe gaming experience”: A luxury not afforded to most developers yields interesting results
- Accessible design and focusing on the gaps: HyperDot dev Charles McGregor explains how he stumbled into accessibility after an experiment with eye-tracking
- King’s Sabrina Carmona wants more women in game dev leadership
- Black game pros assess industry’s diversity efforts: Panelists at Ubisoft Toronto event say they see progress but there’s still a lot left to do
- The road to removing crunch is a long one | Opinion: RCP Scotland head Mark Lloyd says a revolution is coming as developers new and old discover a better way of working
- Nexon Korea agrees to 6.8% pay rise after talks with union
- Nexon Korea and union agree on pay raises: Publisher tentatively agrees with Starting Point labor union on an average 6.8% salary increase for this year
- Survey: Game devs, what are you doing about your studio’s carbon emissions?
- Blizzard president on Warcraft 3 Reforged: “We stand behind our games”: J Allen Brack commits to continued updates and support after poor reception
- GeForce Now loses all Activision Blizzard titles weeks after launch
- Activision Blizzard pulls support for Nvidia’s GeForce Now streaming platform
- Activision Blizzard pulls all games from GeForce Now a week after launch: Nvidia hopes to work with publisher on bringing its titles back to streaming service’s catalogue
- Mobile is now Activision Blizzard’s leading platform for revenue
- Call of Duty rises as rest of Activision Blizzard stumbles: Handful of bright spots in year-end financial results came courtesy of flagship shooter series
- Activision Blizzard saw $6.49 billion in revenue during 2019
- EA handing Need for Speed franchise back to Criterion
- EA will move Need for Speed development back to Criterion: Ghost Games to become an EA engineering hub with 30 staff at risk
- Atari acquires Wonder assets to expand capabilities of VCS console
- Atari acquires assets from tech start-up Wonder: Technology nods to possible cross-platform functionality with mobile and Atari VCS
- Steam brought in 95 million monthly active users in 2019
- Metro Exodus comes to Steam after a year of Epic Games Store exclusivity
- Zynga posts record revenue of $1.32B in 2019; Q4 revenue and bookings were highest in its history
- Ubisoft’s net bookings beat expectations, though still down from last year
- Ubisoft quarterly revenues down 26%: Rough Q3 results still beat forecast as publisher points to full slate for next fiscal year
- How will Brexit affect investment opportunities for the UK games industry?: With Britain leaving the EU, VC investment is up and game dev tax breaks could be strengthened, but uncertainty looms over every outcome
- Profits flat at Bandai Namco as video game sales dip slightly
- UK Charts: FIFA 20 reclaims No.1 and Ring Fit Adventure re-enters Top Five – Zombie Army 4 Dead War is the only new game to enter the charts this week
- 30% of Switch Lite owners already owned a Nintendo Switch
- Nintendo will no longer work with outlet that leaked Pokemon Sword and Shield details: Company publicly denounces Portuguese website that broke review embargo with early photos
- Sony files patent which encourages stuck players to spend money on DLC: Machine learning system also uses contextual data to help players overcome challenges using in-game resources
- Sony’s 2019 acquisition of Insomniac Games priced at $229 million
- Sony paid $229 million for Insomniac: SEC filing reveals acquisition cost of Ratchet & Clank and Marvel’s Spider-Man developer in a majority-cash deal
- ‘Games need to find players’: Phil Spencer talks Game Pass, Series X as next gen looms
- Phil Spencer: “There’s no slide deck that says we want to turn everyone into a subscriber” – Xbox head wants to “put the player at the center” in the next gen through services, hardware, and models that fit different needs
- Xbox Chief Says Its Main Competitors Are Now Google, Amazon Rather Than Sony, Nintendo
- Who are Microsoft’s “real” competitors?: Google and Amazon being the “real” competition for Xbox reveals the tricky balancing act that Microsoft’s games team now faces
- Xbox extends Project xCloud preview to iOS devices
- Stadia’s free tier to launch at some point in ‘the next few months’
- Have we got Google Stadia all wrong?: Google Stadia’s focus should be on accessibility, not on subscription models or exclusives
- BioWare hits pause on seasonal content to work on full Anthem overhaul
- BioWare promises “substantial reinvention” for year-old Anthem
- Anthem team ditches major seasonal updates in favor of “longer-term redesign”: BioWare intends to “reinvent the core gameplay loop” after a challenging first year
- Glu Mobile returns to profitability with $8.9 million net income for 2019
- Glu Mobile avoids second year of loss thanks to Q4 surge: Mobile dev posts $8.9 million profit as revenue rises across portfolio
- Mobile drives Innogames’ FY19 sales to $208 million
- THQ Nordic opens Slovakian studio Nine Rocks Games
- THQ Nordic opens new studio Nine Rock Games: Slovakia-based developer staff by team who has worked on DayZ, Conan and Soldier of Fortune 3
- IronSource opens mobile studio Supersonic Games to create ad-based games
- IronSource launches new mobile studio Supersonic Games: Debut game Sort It 3D already a chart topper in Europe, America, Korea, and Japan
- Fledgling mobile studio Double Loop secures $2.5 million in seed funding
- Double Loop Games raises over $2.5m for mobile games: LVP leads investment in push to make relaxing, connective titles for everyone
- PUBG Mobile was the top-grossing mobile game for the fifth month in a row – Sensor Tower: Tencent’s title brought in $176.3 million in January, over half of which came from Chinese users
- Yager receives strategic investment from Tencent
- Spec Ops: The Line developer Yager nets minority investment from Tencent
- 2K Silicon Valley studio becomes 31st Union and expands to Spain: “We want to identify opportunities where they haven’t traditionally existed for underrepresented voices”
- Payday ‘front and center’ as Starbreeze closes out its reconstruction-filled 2019
- Starbreeze relies on Payday as full-year losses increase to $12m: Co-op heist game accounted for 99.4% of the developer’s Q4 net sales
- Clash of Clans maker Supercell to ‘significantly’ cut back on hiring
- Supercell to “slow growth significantly” in coming year: As mobile studio enters its second decade, CEO Ilkka Paananen reaffirms goal to be “as small as possible”
- Report: System Shock 3 developers are “no longer employed”
- System Shock 3 development staff reportedly “no longer with the studio”: Highly-anticipated sequel supposedly halted after studio falls “critically behind” in development
- Lineage 2 M surpasses $152m in three months: NCSoft’s Mobile MMORPG is currently only available in South Korea
- The New Zealand games industry has doubled its annual revenue in two years
- New Zealand’s games industry has doubled revenue in two years: National industry earned more than $200m in revenue in the last fiscal year, but investment and skills remain impediments to growth
- UK spend on Video Games Tax Relief rose to record £582.6m in 2019: But number of projects receiving interim certification reduces as console cycle nears its end
- Bigben Interactive is now Nacon as publishing and accessories businesses merge
- Ultimate Rivals dev Bit Fry Game Studios lands $3.5 million investment
- Putting together an All-Star team of sports licenses: Bit Fry’s Ben Freidlin talks about how & why the developer got the NHL, NBA, MLB, WNBA, NFL Players Association and more on board for Ultimate Rivals
- Twitch, Gillette Further Three-Year-Old Brand Deal With Fleet Of Five Top Gaming Creators
- Riot Games Rioting Over Esports Team’s Trademark Infringement
- Major esport organisations launch new team-owned CS GO league: Flashpoint aims to address “lack of stability and long-term investment” issues of current pro scene
- Hitmarker: Number of full-time esports jobs doubled last year – The number of senior-level jobs in esports grew an impressive 190% in 2019
- $1.4bn divestment offsets modest annual loss for MTG: Esport and gaming revenue continues to climb for Swedish entertainment group
- Teamwork makes the dream work – the crossover between sports and esports
- Bit Fry backers invest additional $3.5 million: Bitkraft Esports Ventures and 1Up Ventures increase their stake in creator of many-licensed sports franchise Ultimate Rivals
- Facebook Expects Coronavirus Will Have “additional impact” on Oculus Quest Availability: Quest “unavailable” in most regions
- Facebook expects coronavirus outbreak to impact Oculus Quest production
- How to get the best game publishing deal: Don’t be afraid to negotiate and realise your value to avoid a publishing deal gone wrong
- How Star Trek Online managed to live long and prosper: In a decade when many licensed MMOs struggled and died, lead designer Al Rivera discusses why Cryptic Studios’ voyage to the final frontier has survived
- Light Brick wants to rebuild how we play with digital Lego: Studio head Karsten Lund explains why Lego’s new internal studio is getting back to basic building bricks with Lego: Builder’s Journey
- After another major E3 data leak, a gaming luminary says bye to the expo: Comes as reaction to E3 organizers’ plans for the event.
- ESA names 10 companies still attending E3: Xbox, Nintendo, Ubisoft, and Take-Two among the bigger outfits participating in 2020 show, which will have an industry-only day
- Ultra-tough dungeon-crawler Below adds easier “Explore” mode
- Cloudspire: a $130 MOBA for your tabletop?
- 15 co-op games to play with your partner this Valentine’s Day
- 5 important realizations about game balance
- Don’t Miss: The world design of Diablo III
- Don’t Miss: Sonic the Hedgehog co-creator’s philosophy of game design
- Sonic the Hedgehog film review: You can slow your roll, Sega fans
- Don’t Miss: Devs look back at the influential BioShock 2
- Don’t Miss: Translating the humor & tone of Yakuza games for the West
- An inside look at how Bungie found and fixed Destiny 2’s currency-deleting bug
- Video: How Guerrilla crafted the lush vegetation of Horizon Zero Dawn
- Video: Indexing and iterating design space permutations in game dev
- Video: How the Nyamakop team broke into game dev from Africa
- Video: Monetization design and overcoming the dark side of gacha
- Video: Monitoring and validating world design data in Assassin’s Creed Origins
- Blog: How my sci-fi adventure Aquamarine found Kickstarter success
- Blog: Finding the right publisher for your game and other dev tips
- Blog: Video game composers and the importance of research
- And Yet it Hurt: How I made a game played in Notepad
- Humble Bundle rolls out regional pricing for a handful of currencies
- Humble Bundle joins efforts to raise money for Australian bushfire relief: Humble Bundle sells 60,000 bundles to raise over $2.4 million for bushfire relief effort
Jon
News of the Week; February 5, 2020
DIGITAL
- Canadian Heritage Minister Steven Guilbeault on Regulating Foreign News Sites: “What’s the Big Deal?” (Michael Geist)
- Weak Walk-Back: Why Steven Guilbeault’s Reversal on Government Licensing News Sites Still Leaves a Huge Regulatory Structure in Place (Michael Geist)
- Video Excerpts Qualify as Fair Use (and Another 512(f) Claim Fails)–Hughes v. Benjamin (Eric Goldman)
- Twitter Suspends Reporter For ‘Posting Private Info’ That Is Merely Internal Deutsche Bank Email That Could Implicate Trump
- Twitter Moves To Quash Fishing Expedition Subpoena For Info On Devin Nunes Cow By Devin Nunes’ Lawyer In Unrelated Case
- YouTube Sends Cease-And-Desist To Facial Recognition Company That Scrapes Social Media Images For Law Enforcement
- YouTube Emphasizes Its Ban On Birtherism, Deepfakes As 2020 Election Gets Underway
- YouTube Says It Will Ban Misleading Election-Related Content: On the day of the Iowa caucuses, the video platform rolled out a complete policy of how it planned to handle false election content.
- Email release reveals chaos sowed by President Trump’s hurricane tweets
- ‘Fake news’ – the perfect storm: historical perspectives
- An Artist Used 99 Phones to Fake a Google Maps Traffic Jam: With his “Google Maps Hack,” artist Simon Weckert draws attention to the systems we take for granted—and how we let them shape us.
- Google Fiber kills TV service, focuses on broadband and YouTube TV
- Nightmare Google Photos bug sent private videos to the wrong people
- Nextdoor Post Isn’t Protected by Anti-SLAPP Law–Jeppson v. Ley (Eric Goldman)
- Can a “Fire” Emoji Support a Manslaughter Conviction?–Johnson v. State (Eric Goldman)
- Amazon Tells Ukraine Publication To Alter Its Article After It Links The Company To Ring’s Problematic Ukraine Branch
- Amazon Value Tops $1 Trillion After Results Beat Expectations
- Amazon reports big earnings, crosses $1 trillion in value
- What can Amazon do for you?
- Record labels want to ask potential jurors: Do you read Ars Technica?
- Microsoft’s failures to renew: Teams, Hotmail, and Hotmail.co.uk
- Microsoft now sees Amazon and Google as its main gaming threats
- Lindsey Graham’s Sneak Attack On Section 230 And Encryption: A Backdoor To A Backdoor?
- The Plot Against Section 230 Is Being Run By Big Legacy Companies Who Failed To Adapt To The Internet
- Google Search Qualifies For Section 230, Whether or Not It’s a “Platform”–Chukwurah v. Google (Eric Goldman)
- The Digital Millennium Copyright Act: Protections for Copyright Owners and Online Service Providers
- RIAA, Stream-Ripping Sites Engaged In Dumb Game Of Whac-A-Mole With Search Engines
- Dune’s New Logo Started Disappearing From Twitter Due To Copyright Claims, But No One Is Quite Sure Why
- What is a porn website’s duty to accommodate?
- New FTC Settlement Targets Fake Ratings and Reviews
- Cheap rooms? Probably not? Trivago’s top deals are hotels which pay the most
- How lawyers brought down internet trolls – without ever uncovering their identities
- How to virtually block a road: Take a walk with 99 phones
- YouTuber JayStation Concedes He Faked Girlfriend’s Death To Drive Subscriptions
- YouTube Takes Down Live Stream Over Copyright Claim…Before Stream Even Starts
- YouTube Shares Insights Into How It Will Deploy $100 Million Kids Content Fund
- YouTube Millionaires: Meet Steph Pappas, YouTube’s Up-And-Coming Queen Of Mukbang
- YouTube Finally Reveals Exactly How Much It Makes From Ads: $34.4 Billion In Last 3 Years
- Alphabet finally reveals YouTube revenue—$15 billion in 2019
- Alphabet discloses YouTube ad revenues of $15.15 billion, cloud revenues of $8.92 billion for 2019
- YouTube Finally Reveals Exactly How Much It Makes From Ads: $34.4 Billion In Last 3 Years
- CBS makes Star Trek: Picard pilot free on YouTube for a limited time
- Linux Star Trek fans, rejoice: CBS All Access now works in your OS [Updated]
- ViacomCBS-Owned Pluto TV To Enter Latin American Market Next Month
- Amid Push To Build Platform, Editor ‘VSCO’ Will Now Let Members Publish Videos
- Disney’s Licensing Dogs Charge Underserved School District A Third Of Fundraiser Money For Playing ‘Lion King’ DVD
- Verizon Says Disney+ Deal Helped It Bring In 790K New Wireless Customers Last Quarter
- Disney expected to announce up to 30 million subs for Disney+
- Hulu CEO Randy Freer Exits Amid Streamer’s Ongoing Integration Into Disney
- Netflix Signs 4-Film Deal With Adam Sandler, After Banking 6 Features To Date
- Sony, Wattpad Unveil First Original Shows In Development After First-Look Deal
- Insights: Frumpy Hulu Sharpens Its Edge With Reorg, Big Sundance Deals
- Spotify needed a huge podcast, and it just bought one of the biggest: Why it matters that Spotify bought The Ringer and Bill Simmons’ podcast
- China’s New Digital Stars Are Construction Vehicles–And They Have 40 Million Viewers
- Competition Bureau’s Marketing and Advertising Priorities: Influencer Marketing
- The FDA Is Studying Influencers Who Endorse Healthcare Products
- Competition Bureau’s Marketing and Advertising Priorities: Influencer Marketing
- Casey Neistat Invests In $4.5 Million Seed Round For Aperitif Startup ‘Haus’
- Chipotle Taps David Dobrik, Zach King, Avani Gregg For TikTok Super Bowl Campaign
- TikTok Testing New Profile Layouts That Look Strikingly Similar To Instagram
- James Charles To Attend VidCon 2020 For The First Time As A Featured Creator
- Jake Paul Defeats AnEsonGib In First Round, Setting Stage For KSI Showdown
- Messenger Kids adds expanded parental controls, details how much kids’ data Facebook collects
- Instagram Brings In More Than a Quarter of Facebook Sales
- Instagram Reportedly Clocked $20 Billion In Ad Revs Last Year, Toppling YouTube’s Tally
- Teens have figured out how to mess with Instagram’s tracking algorithm: Teenagers are using group accounts to flood Instagram with random user data that can’t be tied to a single person.
- Snapchat launches Bitmoji TV: zany 4-min cartoons of your avatar: Facebook’t can’t copy this one
- Snapchat hits 218M users but big Q4 losses sink share price
- Snapchat Triples Video Ad Earnings And Snags 8 Million New Users, But Misses Q4 Revenue Target
- Here are the 62 brand-new emoji for 2020
- OneWeb joins the satellite Internet gold rush this week
- Tracking the future of remote workplaces: Apps, communication, and liability
- Social AR/VR Workspace ‘Spatial’ Secures $14M Series A Financing
- Maryland State Senate’s Budget and Taxation Committee Hears Testimony on Proposed Digital Advertising Tax
- “Of Ransoms, Bitcoin, and Injunctions”: English High Court grants subrogee insurer proprietary injunction over ransomed Bitcoin
- SaaS, cashless and convergence drive tech to the top
- “OK, Boomer”: From Social Media to the Supreme Court
- Internet Law and Regulation
A.I.
- Patent law’s approach to AI: finding the way forward
- Could Star Trek’s DATA Be a Patent Inventor?
- UK Intellectual Property Office finds that patent law does not cater for inventions created by AI machines and calls for debate
- Patenting Considerations for Artificial Intelligence in Biotech and Synthetic Biology – Part 2: Key Issues in Patent Subject Matter Eligibility
- Someone used neural networks to upscale a famous 1896 video to 4k quality (Updated)
- Modl.ai closes $1.7m seed funding round: Startup uses AI-driven player archetypes to drastically reduce playtest times
- Machine behaviour
- Oyez! Robot
- Closing the AI accountability gap: defining an end-to-end framework for internal algorithmic auditing
- Transhumanism, Moral Perfection, and Those 76 Trombones (Tom Koch)
COMMUNICATIONS
- The CRTC Knows Best: Panel Report Recommends Costly Overhaul of Canadian Communications Law to Regulate Internet Sites and Services Worldwide (Michael Geist)
- Not Neutral: Why the Broadcast Panel Report Weakens Net Neutrality in Canada (Michael Geist)
- Broadcasting report constitutes a stunning overreach
- Jonathan Kay: The federal government’s unsettling communications power grab – No one should trust any agency of government to regulate speech. I’m no fan of the Rebel. But free countries don’t ban book sales. Ever.
- No Netflix Tax? (Sort Of…): The Broadcasting and Telecommunications Legislative Review Panel Releases Its Final Report
- Broadcasting and Telecommunications Legislative Review Panel Releases its Final Report to the Federal Government
- Broadcaster to Pay $50,000 for Failing to Announce That “Live” Program Was Prerecorded
- 1 Year Later, FCC Finally Admits Wireless Carriers Broke The Law On Location Data
- FCC accuses carriers of being “gateways” for foreign robocallers
- Sinclair Pays Tribune $60 Million To Settle Lawsuit Over Dodgy Merger
- Did You Know that There is a Rule that Broadcasters Have to Tell Their Audience that a Program Is Recorded When It Seems to Be Live? – FCC Sends a $50,000 Reminder
- AT&T is doing exactly what it told Congress it wouldn’t do with Time Warner
- AT&T’s Attempt To Dominate The Pay TV Sector Continues To Go…Poorly
- AT&T Keeps On Firing Employees Despite Claims The Trump Tax Cut Would Boost Job Growth
- AT&T slashed billions from network spending, cut tens of thousands of jobs
- AT&T, Comcast Dramatically Cut Network Spending Despite Net Neutrality Repeal
- FCC proposes to fine racist troll $13 million for robocalling spree
- Quick Thoughts on a Few Political Broadcasting Legal Issues to Survive the Primary Season
- The United States vs. Robocalls
- Federal robocall watchdogs flex enforcement muscles
- Eleventh Cir. Rejects Broad Reading of “Autodialer”
- FCC Makes Permanent At-Home Call Handling by Sign Language Interpreters for VRS
- Ajit Pai’s “surprise” change makes it harder to get FCC broadband funding
- Ajit Pai: Carrier sales of phone-location data is illegal, FCC plans punishment
- Smaller Cable Companies Are Giving Up On Cable TV Altogether
- DoD’s Squeeze of Chinese Telecom Equipment Continues
- The electronic communications code: a new year, a new approach?
- The end of BlackBerry phones: TCL will cease sales in August 2020
- Telecom pioneer and convicted fraudster Bernard Ebbers has died
INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY
- Conservative MP Dan Albas on Copyright Term Extension in USMCA: Government Needs to Mitigate Damage to Copyright Law (Michael Geist)
- Woman Threatens Rep. Steve King With A Lawsuit For Using A 12-Year-Old Meme On His Facebook Page
- Success kid’s mom won’t stand for Steve King’s “meme” ad: Laney Griner, mother behind the meme, sent cease-and-desist to the Iowa congressman.
- The EPO’s fourth law of robotics: a robot must not be the inventor of a patent
- EPO publishes reasons for rejecting AI as inventor on patent application
- Can your AI machine be an inventor? The EPO says no….
- Caltech wins $1.1 billion patent award against Apple and Broadcom
- Patent Re-examination in Canada: Court Takes Truck Argument Off the Road
- Seedlings Clarifies Key Patent Litigation Issues
- Federal Circuit Alters Landscape for Design Patent Litigation
- Kendall and Kylie Jenner “Klauber-ed” for Allegedly Infringing Lace Designs
- Blockchain and intellectual property – the de-centralised alliance
- Creative Interpretations of a Creative Commons License
- Do you want to build a snowman? No, but I’d like to protect one! IP for animated characters.
- BMI Settlement of Royalty Battle with RMLC to Include Music in Podcasts? – Not So Fast….
- Schrödinger’s Shades of Grey: the CJEU’s landmark paroxetine ruling – antitrust market definition and patent settlement agreements
- The United Kingdom will not implement the European Union Copyright Directive
- Will rejecting the EU’s new copyright directive #savetheinternet?
- It’s That Time Of Year: No, The NFL Can’t Stop Every Business From Using ‘Super Bowl’ In Every Instance
- Update to Trademark Practice in Canada
- How the New U.S.-Mexico-Canada Trade Deal (Mostly) Expands Intellectual Property Protections
- Brexit: Implications for IP
- Brexit & IP – status quo for the transition period; changes to come post-transition
- Brexit is a Done Deal: What Are the Implications for Your IP?
- Cofemel’s first UK outing – The wooly world of copyright and designs
- Risk of Electronic Device Search For Patent Attorneys and Inventors Crossing the US-Canada Border with Confidential Information
- File When Ready! Criteria for Determining if an Invention Should Be Patented
- Fifth Circuit Holds that Mitigation is Not an Absolute Defense to Statutory Damages for Copyright Infringement and DMCA Violations
- Ninth Circuit Affirms $3.9 Million Attorney’s Fees Award in Ultraman Copyright Dispute
- Competition between generics and originators – what’s the relevance of a patent? (Part II)
- Intellectual Property Outlook: Cases and Trends to Follow in 2020 – Part 2
PRIVACY
- Facebook Agrees to Landmark 550 Million Dollar Settlement in BIPA Class Action
- Ring LLC Faces a Proposed Class Action Alleging Camera Doorbells Should Incorporate Enhanced Cybersecurity Features
- Amazon Ring now lets users opt out of receiving police video requests
- Ring Updates Privacy Dashboard Again, Allows Users To Preemptively Block All Law Enforcement Requests For Footage
- Facial Recognition Developer Told Cops To Test Out The Software By Running Searches On Friends And Family
- Avast shutters data-selling subsidiary amid user outrage
- YouTube demands Clearview AI stop scraping its videos for facial recognition database
- Lawsuit Says Clearview’s Facial Recognition App Violates Illinois Privacy Laws
- NJ AG Bans Clearview AI – Preventing a Chain of Privacy Violations or Interfering with Clearview’s Intellectual Property?
- Facebook Pays $550 Million Settlement In Illinois Facial Recognition Lawsuit, Which Could Pose Problems For Clearview
- New ransomware doesn’t just encrypt data. It also meddles with critical infrastructure
- Flaws in WhatsApp’s desktop app allowed remote access to files
- Court Order Shows DEA Demanding Tons Of Data From WhatsApp And Bunch Of Other Service Providers
- ‘Wake-up call’: Iowa caucus disinformation serves as warning about 2020 election – On Monday night, it didn’t take foreign interference to highlight the persistent vulnerabilities that Russia exploited in 2016.
- Who Needs the Russians?: Don’t blame shadowy foreign hackers for the chaos in Iowa. Blame Shadow’s caucus app. (Zeynep Tufekci)
- “Untagging” From Photo Privacy Lawsuit: Facebook Settles Its Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Litigation For $550 Million
- Big News in Biometrics – Supreme Court Declines to Weigh in on What Plaintiffs Must Show to Bring Biometric Privacy Suit
- Cyber Criminals Using Coronavirus Concern to Assist with Intrusions
- If You Give a User a Cookie (Notice)
- A Comprehensive Review of the new Washington Privacy Act
- Cambridge, Massachusetts Passes Ban On Facial Recognition Tech Use By Government Agencies
- London Police Move Forward With Full-Time Deployment Of Facial Recognition Tech That Can’t Accurately Recognize Faces
- Criminal Charges Finally Dropped Against Security Researchers Who Broke Into An Iowa Courthouse
- Why we don’t know as much as we should about police surveillance technology: Despite a growing number of high-tech tools, law enforcement agencies don’t seem to want to disclose what they’re using.
- Should Your Antivirus Software Be Spying On You?
- Dear Ashley Madison user, I know everything about you. Pay up or else
- Britain Cracks Down on Child Data Privacy
- Blurred Lines: Navigating The Modern Day Data Privacy And Security Labyrinth
- The fractured future of browser privacy
- More than 200 browser extensions ejected from Firefox and Chrome stores
CREATIVITY
- Prince Harry loses IPSO complaint against Mail on Sunday over criticism of his Instagram wildlife photography
- Bachelor Contestants Embroiled in Fantasy Sports Law Controversy
- The Guardian to Ban Advertising for Fossil Fuels
- What we learned from studying makerspaces – implications for policy
GAMES
- Nintendo switches it up with website blocking injunction
- FBI catches hacker that stole Nintendo’s secrets for years
- Appeals Court Tells Serial Litigant Runescape Didn’t Violate His Constitutional Rights By Muting His Account
- Federal court: Getting muted in RuneScape doesn’t violate your civil rights: Serial litigator in Pennsylvania loses latest appeal
- First ever UK Games Industry Census highlights need for more diversity
- GDC State of the Industry: Nearly half of game makers still work over 40 hours/week
- Bleszinski regrets being too political with LawBreakers: In reflecting on Boss Key’s demise, studio co-founder says it was a mistake to push his personal beliefs in a divided world
- Fable Fortune is being shut down two years after launch
- Creators Going Pro: ImSuda And Friends Put The “Fun” In ‘Fortnite’ With Their Content Goldmine Group Gaming Sessions
- Kentucky officials trying to ban Fortnite from varsity esports: “There is no place for shooter games in our schools,” says Kentucky High School Athletic Association commissioner
- For the love of the (video) game: Canadian law firms are rising to the challenge as the esports industry spreads like wildfire
- FaZe Clan Seeking To Sign Newest Member In Upcoming Quibi Competition Series
- The UK games industry is still overwhelmingly young, white, and male: But on the heels of its first UK Games Industry Census, UKIE launches initiative to improve diversity
- How to identify and avoid unconscious bias: The GamesIndustry.biz Academy explores the effect of unconscious biases on the workplace, and how you can steer away from them and towards diversity
- ESA launches Game Generation campaign to highlight positive impact of gaming: “Game Generation is about celebrating the more than 164 million Americans who love video games and the positive impact,” says ESA
- Taipei Game Show postponed in response to coronavirus outbreak: With 320,000 people set to attend, organisers take action to avoid “unthinkable risks” of cluster infection
- STJV issues call for testimonials from those in video game education: French game workers union concerned about reports of dysfunction in academic settings, hopes to implement action plan
- Cheat software: Can publishers level the playing field? – Legal expert Dr Andreas Lober offers practical advice to publishers battling the rise of cheat software in online games
- Only 23% of EA’s $5.4 billion net bookings in the last year came from non-digital sources
- Digital net revenue was 70% of EA’s total revenue in Q3: And The Sims 4 has now passed 20m unique players worldwide
- EA beats expectations with $1.98 billion in Q3 revenue as live operations grow
- EA planning to publish 14 games next fiscal year: Publisher wants to rely on a “broad-based model,” avoid dependence on any one title
- Jedi: Fallen Order sells almost 8 million copies to beat EA expectations
- Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order has sold around 8m units: EA says single-player adventure hit the “high-end” of its expectations, projects 10m units by end of fiscal year
- EA wants to stop including daily and monthly active user data in earnings reports
- EA still lukewarm on bringing its portfolio to Switch: Blake Jorgensen – “We’re conscious of the fact that the top selling titles are all Nintendo software”
- Nintendo Switch overtook the SNES’ lifetime sales over the holidays: The Switch Lite’s launch pushed the hybrid console’s sales over 52 million, while Pokemon Sword and Shield sold more than 16 million copies.
- Profits and sales up at Nintendo as Switch continues momentum
- The Nintendo Switch has surpassed 52 million lifetime sales
- Nintendo raises Switch forecast as console shipments pass 52 million: Switch software sales now expected to hit 140 million for the year
- Nintendo: No new Switch model planned for 2020
- Nintendo’s 2020 plans don’t include a new Switch model
- The Outer Worlds will be digital-only on Switch: Launches March 6, retail version will contain a download code
- Free-to-play Fire Emblem Heroes is adding a $9.49 monthly subscription pass
- Nintendo’s latest subscription model is attached to Fire Emblem Heroes: $10/month Feh Pass offers free heroes and gameplay augments
- UK Charts: Nintendo Switch games dominate as stock shortages end – Call of Duty Modern Warfare is at No.1
- PlatinumGames turns to Kickstarter to self-publish The Wonderful 101 on Switch
- PlayStation game sales pass one billion units: More than 1.18 billion first- and third-party PlayStation games had been sold as of January 31, 2020
- PlayStation Vue Officially Shuts Down
- PS4 hardware and software sales down as next-gen looms large
- Sony gaming revenue and profit on the decline as new console generation looms: Network service revenue rises, while software and hardware take considerable hit
- Take Two stock dips as Rockstar scribe Dan Houser announces departure
- Capcom credits jump in profit to increasing interest in digital sales
- Monster Hunter World Iceborne boosts profits at Capcom: Strong digital sales lead to best ever nine-month “profit levels” at the Japanese publisher
- Koei Tecmo games profits slide in slow Q3: A single retail release kept revenue at a standstill, but a busier quarter lies ahead
- Dena shuts down two of its Japanese mobile titles: Fantasy Earth Genesis and Torikago Scrap March servers to shutter in March
- DeNA’s existing titles out-performed new games during the last nine months
- DeNA reassessing games strategy as older titles fail to deliver: Mobile games firm posts hefty operating losses in Q3, thanks to games business impairment loss
- Mobile Yu-Gi-Oh! and PES titles are Konami’s top revenue earning games this year
- Code Vein passes 1 million sales in under five months
- Zynga posts record full-year revenues: Q4 revenues up 63% year-over-year but Words With Friends publisher still posts modest net loss
- The mobile games market is getting bigger — and not just for the top ten: Battle passes made money for the major publishers in 2019, but there was growth outside of the top ten
- Microsoft’s gaming revenue down 21% in Q2, but subscriptions are still up: Holiday hardware sales were predictably low as current console generation comes to a close
- Phil Spencer claims Amazon and Google are ‘main competitors’ to Xbox
- Phil Spencer: “We see Amazon and Google as the main competitors”: Sony and Nintendo are out of position to keep up with “tens of billions” Microsoft has invested in cloud tech, says Spencer
- GeForce Now: Nvidia implements aggressive pricing to consolidate cloud gaming position
- Nvidia launches GeForce Now cloud gaming service at $4.99/month: Paid subscription gives priority server access and six-hour sessions, but there’s a free version too
- Now out of beta, GeForce Now offers cloud-based streaming of owned Steam and EGS games
- RIP Stadia? Nvidia’s newly launched cloud-gaming service is (mostly) a stunner
- Google Stadia’s latest free game only has a few thousand total players
- Google responds to Stadia complaints over lack of announcements
- Google responds to complaints of slow Stadia announcements: Internet giant tells GamesIndustry.biz there will be more news on streaming service exclusives “soon”
- Stadia Isn’t Starting Off Well, Even Judging By Player Counts On Free Games
- Android app developers have earned over $80 billion through Google Play
- In Europe, Google Play users spent more on mobile gaming in 2019 than App Store users: Sensor Tower High Google Play spending of $1 billion in Germany helped buck the global trend
- Fate/Grand Order just passed $4 billion in revenue: It was the most talked-about game on Twitter and the No.8 free-to-play game by revenue in 2019
- Discord no longer doubles as a game launcher as two non-core features get the axe
- Improbable has purchased online game hosting company Zeuz
- Improbable acquires game hosting service company Zeuz: Deal marks Improbable’s third acquisition in six months
- What I learned about community management from my immigrant parents
- Rockstar Games co-founder Dan Houser is leaving the studio
- Dan Houser departs Rockstar Games: Co-founder to leave company in March after year-long hiatus
- UK trade bodies respond to points-based immigration proposal: UKIE suggests “little impact” on games industry, while TIGA welcomes attention given to creative and STEM sectors
- Facebook Seeks To Arm Gaming Creators With Preset Tools To Encourage Inclusion
- Digital games driving growth at Sega as packaged titles underperform
- Sega Europe announces fully recyclable packaging for all PC titles: Building on work from Sports Interactive last year, Sega Europe introduces blanket policy for PC titles
- Sega lowers full-year forecast on soft Q3 packaged sales: Mario & Sonic, Persona 5 Royal, and New Sakura Wars all launched in the quarter, but packaged sales did not meet expectations
- Creative Chronicles: Designing for colour blindness in games
- Barclays introduces video games tax relief loans: Developers able to claim 90% of their tax credit before it is fully processed
- Bigben Group forms new entity ahead of planned IPO: Nacon will unite accessories and games publishing assets in a proposed listing on the Euronext exchange
- Nacon buys Rig headset brand from Plantronics: Bigben gaming business preparing for IPO picks up communications company’s gaming line
- Amplifier Game Invest opens new Seattle studio CC7 Entertainment
- Supercell sinks $1.1 million into fledgling Swedish studio Wild Games
- Supercell backs new mobile studio formed by EA DICE veterans: Stockholm-based Wild Games breaks cover to announce $1.1m investment
- In Elsinore, more matter is more art: Golden Glitch’s Katie Chironis and Connor Fallon on the nearly decade-long challenge of making Shakespeare’s Hamlet into a time loop video game
- Scopely scores partnership with Mattel and Hasbro for new Scrabble mobile game
- Ubisoft acquires mobile studio Kolibri Games to expand into ‘idle’ genre
- Ubisoft acquires free-to-play mobile dev Kolibri Games: Idle Miner Tycoon to strengthen Ubisoft’s idle game portfolio
- GameRefinery acquires Reflection.io: UK market data firm adds to new parent’s services for mobile developers
- WarCraft III Reforged: Not the flavor of chaos we were hoping for
- Can a solo indie developer use ray tracing in their game?: Zeng Xiancheng on why the realistic lighting technique is not solely the realm of AAA developers
- Who saved Rare?: “We were so worried about challenging ourselves technically, that we paused a little bit with worrying about people”
- PlayStation to close Manchester VR studio: VR outfit to close its doors after five years
- Sony Interactive Entertainment’s VR-focused Manchester Studio to close down
- Can Alyx pull VR out of its niche? | Opinion: Half-Life Alyx is driving headset sales before it’s even released — but it’s going to take a lot more to make VR into a viable market for AAA games
- The Oculus Store made almost $5 million on Christmas Day2
- Mark Zuckerberg: ‘people bought nearly $5M in Oculus Store content on Christmas Day’
- More than $5m worth of Oculus content was sold on Christmas Day: Mark Zuckerberg points to holiday surge as sign of progress for the VR ecosystem
- Exploring new frontiers of color with The Outer Worlds: Art director Daniel Alpert discusses the visually striking approach to Obsidian’s latest RPG
- 38,000 Flash games will live on after Flash support dies this year thanks to Flashpoint
- Video: A game artist’s guide to escaping your comfort zone
- Video: Cursed problems in game design
- Video: Using chance to enhance fun
- Video: Why forums can be great for indie discoverability and community
- Don’t Miss: A Classic Postmortem on how Maxis avoided sequel-itis on The Sims 2
- Blog: Organizing engaging and dynamic forces
- Blog: Utilizing 3D cameras in 2D games
- Blog: How Tencent’s global mobile games biz took the crown in 2019
- Blog: Lessons and statistics after four years as an indie developer
- Blog: Pack-ratting in games – Do players need to have it all?
- Are gamers scarier than biker gangs?: 10 Years Ago This Month: South Australian attorney general compares the threats he receives while Activision Blizzard starts a new layoff tradition
- What ‘Dragons Love Tacos’ taught me about game discoverability
- The Coalition’s Rod Fergusson leaves Gears of War for Diablo: Former Xbox studios leader departs for Blizzard
- Where now for Gears of War?: As franchise lead Rod Fergusson departs, Xbox commits to the IP and its studio
- Call of Duty raises $1.6 million for Australian fire relief through in-game campaign
- The games industry continues to rally behind Australian bushfire relief: Activision led widespread efforts with $1.6m raised through the sale of a special COD pack
- U.S. Patent no. 10,279,260: Cut-scene gameplay
Jon
News of the Week; January 29, 2020
DIGITAL
- YouTube, Facebook, Twitter Try To Crack Down On Coronavirus Conspiracies
- Here’s how Facebook plans to make final decisions about controversial content it’s taken down: The company announced details Tuesday about how what’s been called its “Supreme Court” for content moderation will work.
- Feds, states consider tag-teaming massive Google investigation
- Congressional Committee Pens Letter Urging YouTube To Stop “Incentivizing Climate Misinformation”
- YouTube Streamer Hit With Demonetization Over Copyright Claims To Numbers ’36’ And ’50’
- This Is Why Researchers Studying Radicalization On YouTube Need To Be Logged In
- Oscar De La Hoya Slams YouTuber Boxing Matches: “Just Stick In Your Own Lane”
- YouTube Moderators Reportedly Ordered To Sign Document Acknowledging Their Job Could Cause Long-Term Mental Health Issues
- As Tulsi Gabbard’s Silly Attention Seeking Lawsuit Against Google Falters, She Files Equally Silly Lawsuit Against Hillary Clinton
- Google’s tenth messaging service will “unify” Gmail, Drive, Hangouts Chat
- Prince Harry And Meghan Markle Video Views Balloon After Royal Exit
- Influencer Post Lacked Necessary Disclosure, Says British Ad Authority
- Germany Wants To Limit Memes And Mashups Derived From Press Publishers’ Material To 128-by-128 Pixels In Resolution, And Three Seconds In Length
- Dolly Parton’s Meme Exposes Social Media’s Masquerade: The country star’s “LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, Tinder” post speaks to people’s desire to be what any platform needs them to be.
- My Instagram: We all die immediately of a Brazilian butt lift
- Welcome News: DC Circuit Revives The Constitutional Challenge Of FOSTA
- FOSTA Constitutional Challenge Revived–Woodhull Freedom Foundation v. US (Eric Goldman)
- BuzzFeed Wins Libel Suit Regarding “King of Bullsh*t News” Article
- BuzzFeed Editor Ben Smith To Depart, Named ‘New York Times’ Media Columnist
- Massachusetts Fire Marshal Warns Against TikTok ‘Outlet Challenge’, Says Student Participants Will Face Charges
- Linus Torvalds pulled WireGuard VPN into the 5.6 kernel source tree
- Former Microsoft IP counsel joins social video firm TikTok as GC
- StreamElements Opens New Creator Vending Platform SE.Merch To All Twitch Streamers
- As We Get Closer And Closer To The EU Requiring ContentID Everywhere, More Abuses Of ContentID Exposed
- Copyright As Censorship: Gun Rights Advocate Gets Video Taken Down With Bogus Copyright Claim
- The Grim Conclusions of the Largest-Ever Study of Fake News: Falsehoods almost always beat out the truth on Twitter, penetrating further, faster, and deeper into the social network than accurate information.
- ‘Fake news’ as infrastructural uncanny (Jonathan Gray, Liliana Bounegru, Tommaso Venturini)
- Do Not Gamble with Browsewrap Terms of Use
- Employers Get their Email Systems Back: NLRB Overrules Purple Communications
- Academic Consensus Growing: Phones And Social Media Aren’t Damaging Your Kids
- Will 2020 be the year of reckoning for social media regulation?
- Canada ready to ‘impose costs’ on malicious cyberactors, advisers tell Trudeau: Canada will work with allies to strike back at foreign cyberattackers
- 11th Circ. Insurance Ruling Views Cybercrime Realistically
- SmileDirectClub Is Trying To Silence Criticism By Tying Refunds To Non-Disparagement Agreements
- Aspirant Host David Dobrik Makes Late-Night Debut On Fallon, Nabbing 9 Million Views
- CBS Gets Angry Joe’s YouTube Review Of ‘Picard’ Taken Down For Using 26 Seconds Of The Show’s Trailer
- Attorney General Barr’s Anti-Encryption Efforts Aren’t Supported By Many FBI Officials
- Is William Barr’s Latest Attack On Section 230 Simply An Effort To Harm Tech Companies For Blocking His Desire To Kill Encryption?
- Time Magazine Explains Why Section 230 Is So Vital To Protecting Free Speech
- Twitter Asks Judge To Dismiss Devin Nunes’ Frivolous Lawsuit Via Section 230
- Is Devin Nunes’ Lawyer Using Questionable Subpoenas In An Unrelated Case To Seek Info On Satirical @DevinCow Account?
- Emoji reactions are sliding into Twitter’s DMs
- Netflix Inks Overall Deal With ‘Big Mouth’ Animation Studio Titmouse
- Netflix And ‘Big Mouth’ Studio Titmouse Hook Up For Multiyear Adult Animation Deal
- Netflix to Lay Off Roughly 15 in Marketing Department Shift
- Netflix to Lay Off Employees as It Shifts Marketing Strategy: Sources say at least 15 people are expected to exit this week as the company moves to better advertise the service rather than its individual shows.
- WarnerMedia takes $1.2 billion revenue hit in hopes that HBO Max pays off in the long run: Most of that $1.2 billion hit is because of HBO Max investment
- Vox Media aims for $20m-plus podcast business in 2020
- Samsung Galaxy Fold review: The future is an ugly disappointment
- After a decade of drama, Apple is ready to kill Flash in Safari once and for all
- Microsoft’s sneaky plan to switch Chrome searches from Google to Bing
- Amazon faces employee revolt over slow climate action
- Amazon Music passes 55M customers, still lags behind Spotify and Apple
- Get ready to see Spotify’s looping videos on Instagram
- Instagram Allows Businesses to See and Share Stories that Mention Them
- Sonos sunsets several smart speakers’ software support, spurring storm [Updated]
- You Don’t Own What You’ve Bought: Under Armour Smart Hardware Gets Lobotomized
- Apple reports a blowout Q1 2020, but names coronavirus as a worry for the next quarter
- Apple TV+ Has Reportedly Amassed A Formidable 33.6 Million Subscribers In The U.S.
- Insights: Will Peacock’s Throwback Approach Take Flight For Comcast?
- Snapchat And NBC Expand Olympics Content Pact Around 2020 Tokyo Games
- NBC partners with Snapchat on four daily shows for 2020 Tokyo Olympics
- Vine Successor ‘Byte’ Now Live On iOS And Android — With Monetization Soon To Follow
- Byte Ascends U.S. App Store Charts In Debut, Vows To Fix Comment Spam Issue
- The tools and tricks that let Ars Technica function without a physical office
- Home Owners Association Threatens Residents With Lawsuit For Online Criticism
- FTC and State AGs Continue Focus on Deceptive Social Media Marketing
- Competition Bureau’s Marketing and Advertising Priorities
- The dangers of electronic signatures – can you prove who signed?
- (We)Work is a Scam: What the fall of WeWork tells us about the unicorn economy and worker exploitation.
- 2019 Emoji Law Year-in-Review (Eric Goldman)
- Top Issues in 2020: Digital Technology
- Tax Wars: How to End the Conflict over Taxing Global Digital Commerce
- Proliferating Predation: Reverse Redlining, the Digital Proliferation of Inferior Social Welfare Products, and How to Stop it (Sam Gilman)
A.I.
- EPO refuses to name machine as legal inventor
- Google and Microsoft shouldn’t decide how technology is regulated: A researcher who studies AI principles warns that giving too much credence to Big Tech is like “asking the fox for guidance on henhouse security procedures.”
- Stop Blaming Algorithms For Misinformation And Threats To Democracy; The Real Problem Is Societal
- Privacy Tip #223 – Navigating Individual Data Privacy in a World with AI
- AI and drug discovery
- How a $300 projector can fool Tesla’s Autopilot
- Facial Recognition Is Only The Beginning
- The EU is funding dystopian Artificial Intelligence projects
- Black-Boxed Politics: Opacity is a Choice in AI Systems
- Algorithmic Experts: Selling Algorithmic Lore on YouTube (Sophie Bishop)
- Automation in Moderation (Hannah Bloch-Wehba)
- Explainable AI under contract and tort law: legal incentives and technical challenges (Philipp Hacker, Ralf Krestel, Stefan Grundmann, Felix Naumann)
- Algorithmic Realism: Expanding the Boundaries of Algorithmic Thought (Ben Green, Salomé Viljoen)
COMMUNICATIONS
- Canada’s Communication Future: Time to Act (Broadcasting and Telecommunications Legislative Review Panel)
- Independent panel report calls for more Canadian streaming content and an ad-free CBC
- A Demonstrably False Premise: Why “Inevitable” Canadian Internet and Cancon Regulations Won’t Level the Playing Field, Support Canadian Stories or Save a Thriving Industry (Michael Geist)
- Conservative critic says broadcast review report doesn’t address inequalities in media market
- Telecommunications review includes ‘extreme’ recommendations, warns expert
- Telecommunications Industry and Regulators Work Together to Thwart Fraudsters and Scam Artists
- Update on Allarco’s “Unusual” Litigation (Howard Knopf)
- DOJ sues US telecom providers for connecting Indian robocall scammers
- AT&T loses another 1.2 million TV subscribers as DirecTV keeps tanking
- DirecTV races to decommission broken Boeing satellite before it explodes
- CenturyLink, Frontier took FCC cash, failed to deploy all required broadband
- Oh Look, More Giant ISPs Taking Taxpayer Money For Unfinished Networks
- FCC Commissioner Asks Record Labels for Information About Payola Practices – What are the FCC Rules? How Do These Practices Compare to Online Music Providers?
- FCC Fines Broadcaster $1.13 Million for Improper Monitoring of Tower Lighting
- FCC Taps Four “Spectrum Administrators” for 3.5 GHz, Including Sony and Google
- Ajit Pai promised faster broadband expansion—Comcast cut spending instead
- Comcast Says It Will Respond To Cord Cutting In 2020 With…More Price Hikes
- Traditional TV Enters Its Final Death Spiral
- Verizon’s 5G Superbowl Ads Will Hype Nonexistent Firefighter Tech And A Barely Available Network
- Verizon brings 5G to the Super Bowl—for part of the stadium, anyway
- The ‘Race To 5G’ Is A Giant Pile Of Lobbyist Nonsense
- Telus’ CLO discusses growth plans
PRIVACY
- Stopping the Press: New York Times Journalist Targeted by Saudi-linked Pegasus Spyware Operator
- “Totally Clueless”: Dating apps Grindr and OkCupid reported for breach of privacy rules
- Italian Spyware Company Execs Arrested After Company Employees Spied On Innocent Citizens
- China fears lead Interior Department to limit use of foreign drones
- UK Ignores US, Won’t Fully Ban Huawei Gear From Its Networks
- FISA Court Orders FBI To Start Cleaning Up Its Carter Page Surveillance Mess
- Amazon’s Ring app shares loads of your personal info, report finds
- Letter To Judge Details Vault 7 Leaker’s Post-Incarceration Leaking
- Dozens of companies have data dumped online by ransomware ring seeking leverage
- Keepin’ It “Real”: OPC Finds that PIPEDA Applies to Foreign-Incorporated Business
- Canada’s Piece Of The Regulatory Pie: Application Of Canadian Data Privacy Laws To A Local Data Processor With A Global Reach
- New “Off-Facebook Activity” portal lets you know where you’re being followed
- Puerto Rico’s Justice Department Demanded Info From Facebook About Journalists Who Livestreamed Protests
- Skimming heist that hit convenience chain may have compromised 30 million cards
- ICO Code: Think of the Children
- Do retailers drop more cookies on Americans or Europeans?
- What percentage of United States retailers configure their cookie notice to respond differently to visitors with European IP addresses?
- Why it’s time to stop force-feeding cookies to users
- Protecting the ‘Smart World’ Around Us: California’s ‘Internet of Things’ Law
- Maryland bill would outlaw ransomware, keep researchers from reporting bugs
- London to deploy live facial recognition to find wanted faces in a crowd
- Law Enforcement’s New Facial Recognition Toy Scrapes Photos From Websites, Serves Up ‘Matches’ In Seconds
- Facial Recognition Company Clearview Lied About Its Crime-Solving Power In Pitches To Law Enforcement Agencies
- Leaked Document Suggests Possible Facial Recognition Ban In Europe
- Cy Vance Is So Sure Encryption Is Pure Evil He Thinks Over-The-Air Software Updates Are Just Encryption Backdoors Apple Won’t Tell Him About
- Two-Factor Authentication—Not Broken Yet, But the Bad Guys Are Doing Their Worst
- New document-tracking technology created for legal departments to protect data privacy: Usage controls will be applied to confidential legal documents to enable in-house counsel to track files
- Lawmakers Propose COPPA Expansion
- Google researchers find serious privacy risks in Safari’s anti-tracking protections
- Yelp Disclosures Cost Mortgage Broker $120K in FTC Deal
- Advertising technology: A short introduction to the relationship between adtech, privacy and data protection
- Ransomware Attacks Reached Unprecedented Numbers in 2019
- Identity Theft and Imposter Scams Were the Most Common Complaints That the FTC Received in 2019
- FTC Fines Five Companies for Falsely Claiming Privacy Shield Certification
- Emerging Cyber-Security Threats for 2020: The Rise of Disruptionware and High-Impact Ransomware Attacks
- International Data Privacy Day: Privacy, Technology, and Cybersecurity Trends to Watch in 2020
- The Limitations of European Data Protection As A Model for Global Privacy Regulation (Shannon Mercer)
- The Wiretapping of Things (Eldar Haber)
INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY
- How the Supreme Court’s New Standard of Review Will Impact IP
- USMCA amendments: implications for Canadian IP law
- Article 13: UK will not implement EU copyright law
- Tom Kabinet: CJEU rules resale of e-books requires permission of copyright holder
- CJEU judgement in Sky v Skykick (case C-371/18)
- UK Government “has no plans” to implement the Copyright Directive
- UK Says It Won’t Implement The EU Copyright Directive, Which Wouldn’t Have Passed Without Its Support During A Crucial Vote
- Here’s why the UK is (finally) dumping Article 13 for good: The UK had plenty of opportunities to veto the controversial EU copyright legislation, so why did it wait so long to torpedo Article 13?
- An IP Roadmap for Phase-One Sino-US Economic and Trade Agreement
- Phase 1 U.S. China Trade Deal: Patent Provisions
- PMPRB Publishes Draft Guidelines to Operationalize Amendments to the Patented Medicines Regulations
- Court of Appeal clarifies rules for joint authorship of copyright
- Fair Use and Fanatic Fans
- Lego A/S v. Zuru, Inc.
- Structured Asset Sales, LLC v. Sheeran
- Two Cases Raise New Copyright Infringement Concerns for Internet Linking
- #CopyrightInfringement: The Sequel
- IP Insight: Is Linking to Radio Streams Online Copyright Infringement?
- In ‘N Out Burger Continues Its BS Pop-Up Technique To Keep Trademarks It Isn’t Actually Using
- SDNY: Collateral Estoppel Halts Social Media Patent Case
- Conversant Wireless v Huawei: patents valid & essential
- Competition between generics and originators – what’s the relevance of a patent?
- Cannabis patent litigation update: construing cannabis claims
- Recent Suit By US Olympic Committee Is Excellent Reminder Of Special Protection Afforded To The Words “Olympic” and “Paralympic”
- Life sciences intellectual property: 2019 highlights
- 2020 Intellectual Property Primer: Cases to Watch this Year
- Tricks of the trade: Can you just do a quick search on …?
CREATIVITY
- Goop’s Netflix series: It’s so much worse than I expected and I can’t unsee it
- JLo Character Hustles Into Court Over Publicity Rights
- Deaf man demands closed captioning for porn videos in federal lawsuit
- Patreon can’t solve its porn pirate problem
- In the ’60s, America’s wearable art movement reflected true counterculture
- Guardian to ban advertising from fossil fuel firms: Move follows efforts to reduce carbon footprint and increase reporting on climate crisis
- Class Action Alleges MLB Cheating Scandal Tainted Fantasy League
- Tied Up in Knots? Tied House Laws and the First Amendment
- Planning a Super Bowl-themed Marketing Campaign? 5 Tips for Staying In Bounds
GAMES
- Japanese court ups punishment for unlicensed Mario Kart-themed go-karts: Maricar must change its name, pay out $458k instead of $92k to Nintendo
- Blizzard automatically owns any and all Warcraft 3: Reforged custom games
- Blizzard now claims full copyright for player-made “custom game” mods
- Warcraft 3 Reforged EULA gives Blizzard total ownership of all custom games: With the remake, Blizzard appears to be trying to avoid another Dota situation
- How Warcraft III birthed a genre, changed a franchise, and earned a Reforge-ing
- Riot Games denies collusion in gender discrimination lawsuit: 2 US government agencies attempt to discredit Riot Games and plaintiffs’ legal counsel in bid for $400 million compensation for current and former employees
- Game companies fall short on Bloomberg Gender Equality Index: Just five publicly-owned gaming or gaming-related companies appear on 2020 index measuring gender equality in the workplace
- Over one-fourth of developers say their studio has no diversity or inclusion initiatives – State of the Industry: Over half of developers are in favor of unionization; meanwhile, needle hasn’t moved on accessibility
- The industry is becoming more diverse, and more developers support inclusion efforts: IGDA developer survey: 85% of developers said that diversity in the games industry was important
- Crunch and ‘extended hours’ both down in latest IGDA dev satisfaction survey
- Bethesda restores characters who lost their clothes in Fallout 76 hack
- Industry faces “significant” regulatory risk following 2019 government inquiry: Concerns around bullying and gaming disorder could lead to “badly-informed regulation that damages the functioning of the industry”
- FTC Public Workshop on Loot Boxes – So What Now?
- When do deceptive playable ads help, and when do they hurt?: Dan Greenberg of ironSource says misleading interactive mobile ads were huge in 2019, but likely to be reined in this year
- Rockstar defends the $49m it received in UK tax relief last year
- Court rules Nintendo’s strict digital pre-order policies don’t violate EU laws
- The story of how Nintendo’s iconic logo escaped an “age-up” remake
- Analyst: Nintendo passes $1 billion revenue on mobile, largely thanks to Fire Emblem
- Plague Inc. maker: Don’t use our game for coronavirus modeling
- There are better ways to learn about coronavirus, says Plague Inc. developer
- Plague Inc dev: Game is “not a scientific model” for coronavirus outbreak – Ndemic Creations compelled to release statement as sales spike in China
- Blitzchung on Hong Kong protest: “Even if I had a chance to go back, I would still do it” – Hearthstone pro still “disappointed” in Blizzard but doesn’t hate the company
- Game revenue down 21% at Microsoft as Xbox hardware sales slow
- Microsoft’s Azure is still growing fast to take on AWS, but Xbox is still struggling: The tech giant reported impressive revenue in everything but gaming.
- Console tariff off the table as tensions ease between US and China: Tariff backtrack is well-timed as PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X prepare for launch
- U.S.-China trade deal clears way for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X
- Don’t Miss: How a ragtag band of modders restored Star Wars KOTOR II
- Don’t Miss: What went right (and wrong) during the development of BioShock
- Gabby DaRienzo wants to talk about burnout
- Rocket League ending MacOS and Linux support in March
- Rocket League left behind on macOS and Linux due to DirectX 11 shift
- Rocket League will drop support for Mac, Linux versions in March: Change comes eight months after Epic Games acquired the game’s creators.
- Rocket League is dropping Mac, Linux because of crazy-low player counts [Updated]
- Rocket League support ending on Mac and Linux, offers refunds: Psyonix woking with Valve to expand refunds beyond normal two-week policy but requires manual request
- Project xCloud is coming to Canada at the end of January
- Counterplay Games’ Duelyst is going offline for good in February
- Paradox has been quietly testing a DLC subscription service
- Paradox trialling subscription model to address DLC criticism: But strategy publisher assures long-running fans that no future expansions will be exclusive to subscribers
- EA ends support for mobile Tetris, Tetris Blitz
- You Don’t Own What You Buy: The Tetris Edition
- US game content revenues hit $35.4 billion in 2019, say NPD and ESA: Overall spending on gaming similar to last year when omitting hardware revenues from the equation
- GDC State of the Industry: Devs torn on whether subscription services devalue games
- Developers are divided on how subscription services will affect game values – GDC State of the Industry: One-fourth of devs are concerned such services will devalue games, another fourth aren’t worried at all
- Game consoles excluded from tariffs on Chinese imports ‘until further notice’
- GDC State of the Industry: Game devs shifting focus to next-gen consoles
- UK Charts: The Witcher 3 rises as Dragon Ball holds No.1 – Meanwhile, Rugby 20 makes the Top 20
- Minecraft was the UK’s best-selling new IP of the decade: Mojang’s hit sold more retail units than any other new games property, but Destiny led the way in revenue generated
- Grand Theft Auto V and Red Dead Redemption 2 have sold a combined 150m units: Red Dead Redemption 2 is the best-selling game of the last four years in the US, by dollar sales
- Red Dead Redemption 2 digital unit sales doubled in December, thanks to Steam launch
- GDC State of the Industry: Most devs feel Steam’s 30% cut isn’t justified; many prefer 10-15%
- The State Of Game Discoverability: January 2020
- Mobile publishing platform Coda secures $4 million to expand operations
- Stardew Valley has sold 10 million copies in 4 years
- Nintendo mobile games have brought in $1b in lifetime revenue: Sensor Tower Fire Emblem Heroes accounted for 61% of the total; Dr. Mario World brought in less than 1%
- Nintendo is halting Wii repairs in Japan due to parts shortage
- Digital Bros moves to acquire all Starbreeze assets from Smilegate
- Torchlight successor pivots away from free-to-play following alpha feedback
- THQ-owned Amplifier Game Invest opens new studio in Sweden
- Amplifier Game Invest opens new development studio in Sweden: River End Games is funded by recently rebranded investment arm of THQ Nordic parent Embracer Group
- The Witcher heralds an era of game IPs on TV | Opinion: As media giants prepare to do battle over streaming, well-known IPs are a potent weapon — and videogames remain the last great untapped source
- Netflix is also developing a standalone The Witcher anime film: “Nightmare of the Wolf” to be led by The Witcher showrunner Lauren Schmidt Hissrich, animated by Legend of Korra and Voltron studio
- What new console features are important to gamers?: ISFE and Ipsos Mori’s GameTrack consumer survey find shorter load times a close second to better graphics; VR and handheld modes less crucial
- Facebook Withdrew Oculus Go From Enterprise Platform, Now Offers Quest Only
- Pokemon Home keeps cross-platform cloud storage in the mix with free, paid tiers
- Pokémon Home cloud service detailed and priced: Launches on mobile and Switch next month, will cost up to £15.99 per year
- Chrono.gg secures $5.5m to build its answer to the discoverability problem: CEO Justin Sacks explains why tackling the issues with PC storefronts means letting content creators make a whole lot more of them
- Atari to Open Game-themed Hotels Across the US with “the latest in VR and AR”
- Atari wants to open gaming hotels in at least eight US cities: Planned locations to include VR and AR experiences, esports venues
- Hero bans work for some games but aren’t a fit for Overwatch, argues Jeff Kaplan
- Activision Blizzard And YouTube Execs Say Rewards Are Coming For Viewers Of Overwatch, Call Of Duty Leagues
- Esports events delayed, cancelled as coronavirus spreads: Competitions for League of Legends, Pokemon, CS GO already affected, Overwatch League currently in discussions
- Lifting the veil on antitrust questions arising in the distribution of esports: mandatory commissions
- Creators Going Pro: How 23-Year-Old Formula Went From Esports Team Manager To ‘Fortnite’ Maven
- YouTube’s Call Of Duty League Livestream Peaks At 102K Viewers, With Related Videos Bringing 4+ Million Views
- Ninja was reportedly paid between $20m and $30m for Mixer exclusivity deal: Other top streamers above certain viewership thresholds may have been offered as much as $10m
- Esports Organization 100 Thieves Unveils New Facility in Los Angeles
- Gaming Org ‘100 Thieves’ Opens Massive Compound For Player Training, Streaming, Retail, More
- Stadia owners on Reddit are blasting Google over radio silence and lack of support
- Google deal lands Activision Blizzard esports events exclusively on YouTube Gaming
- Activision Blizzard and Google sign esports, cloud deals: Overwatch League and others will air exclusively on YouTube and Google Cloud becomes preferred cloud service for game hosting
- Esports player contracts – knowing your worth and ‘equalising’ the contractual playing field
- Patrick Johnston: Esports’ gaming gladiators starring in digital – and real – arenas
- YouTube Scores Exclusive Streaming for Activision Blizzard’s E-Sports, Including Overwatch and Call of Duty Leagues
- YouTube Gaming To Exclusively Livestream Overwatch, Call Of Duty Leagues As Part Of Multiyear Activision Blizzard/Google Partnership
- Doom Eternal hands-on: It’s more, more, more—and maybe just a little bit less, too
- Doom Eternal dev team were ‘crunching pretty hard’ during 2019
- Id Software was “crunching pretty hard most of last year” on Doom Eternal: But studio confident that four-month delay has made upcoming shooter the “best game we’ve ever made”
- Disney to Sell Fox Video Game Division to Scopely
- Report: Disney is shutting down Storyscape developer Fogbank Entertainment
- Disney reportedly closing down Fogbank Entertainment: FoxNext’s San Francisco studio was not part of recent sale to Scopely
- Tencent wants to buy ‘full ownership’ of Conan Exiles developer Funcom
- Com2us and Skybound will partner on new The Walking Dead mobile game
- Com2uS leads new investment round in Skybound Entertainment: C Ventures and Third Wave Digital were also involved in the round, new The Walking Dead mobile game confirmed
- Housemarque puts all other projects on hold to focus on “most ambitious game to date”: Stormdivers, other upcoming titles paused for unannounced project now three years in development
- Riot takes its licensing game up a league: Hire of Disney and Nickelodeon vet Ron Johnson coincides with increased focus on external partners for consumer products
- Bare-bones Tetris mobile game arrives to replace EA’s departing ones: Tetris 2011 and Tetris Blitz will go offline in April
- No plans for a full Source 2 SDK, and other tidbits from Valve’s Half-Life: Alyx AMA
- Report: Valve Index sales more than doubled amid Half-Life Alyx reveal
- Valve Index sales more than doubled following Half-Life Alyx announcement – SuperData: The Index sold 149k units in 2019, 103k of which were sold in Q4
- “The devil is in the details” when creating a metaverse: Novaquark’s user-generated MMO Dual Universe is clear on its grand ambition, but has lots of specifics to nail down
- This amazing glitch puts Star Fox 64 ships in an unmodified Zelda cartridge
- Blog: Designing fun movement in games (with video)
- Blog: Analyzing the storytelling of Kingdom Hearts III
- Video: A game dev’s guide to the UX of engagement and immersion
- Video: How Myst’s designers stuffed an entire universe onto a single CD-ROM
- Video: What a decade with Thoreau can teach you about game design
- Video: How Bungie crafted the music of Destiny 2’s open world
- Designing the simulation of the wild and wonderful Planet Zoo
- A fleet of Arwings were just spawned in vanilla Ocarina of Time for the first time ever
- State of The Game Industry 2020
- Ustwo earns B Corp status, plans to further reduce environmental impact: Parent of Monument Valley developer joins movement of companies working to “balance purpose and profit”
- Untitled Goose Game dev will donate 1 percent of income to Indigenous Australians
- Untitled Goose Game dev promises at least 1% of future revenues to Australian Indigenous groups: “Our games are made on stolen land,” says House House as it joins Pay The Rent movement
- One single EVE Online ship sale raises over $30,000 for Australian fire relief
Jon
News of the Week; January 22, 2020
DIGITAL
- San Francisco Pride Members Have Voted To Ban YouTube From This Year’s Parade
- Anonymous Internet Posters Not Immune To Default Judgment
- Your online activity is now effectively a social ‘credit score’: Especially when the Morality Police get acquired.
- Facebook Still Isn’t Obligated to Publish Russian Troll Content–FAN v. Facebook (Eric Goldman)
- Who is right about political ads, Twitter or Facebook?
- Turkish Government Finally Lifts Wikipedia Ban
- Harry and Meghan, the royal family of surveillance capitalism: From tabloid nationalism to international Instagram influencers – Meghan and Harry aren’t leaving the monarchy, they are leading it.
- Brazil charges American journalist Glenn Greenwald with cybercrimes
- Brazil prosecutes Glenn Greenwald in “attack on press freedom”
- In A Blatant Attack On Press Freedom, Brazilian Government Charges Glenn Greenwald With ‘Cybercrimes’ For Reporting On Leaked Documents
- The Similarities Between The US’s Case Against Julian Assange And Brazil’s Against Glenn Greenwald Are Uncanny
- PayPal Giving Fund Enters Multi-State Settlement to Ensure Transparency to Donors
- 23 Attorneys General Band Together to Make PayPal’s Charitable Donations Platform More Transparent
- Vimeo Defeats Lawsuit for Terminating Account That Posted Conversion Therapy Videos–Domen v. Vimeo (Eric Goldman)
- Does the principle of exhaustion apply to digital media? The CJEU provides clarity
- A Sale or Not a Sale? The Digital Advertising Debate
- Are legislators too slow to respond to digital trends?
- Disney Accelerates Rollout Of ‘Plus’ Service In Key European Markets
- Bad Ideas: Raising The Arbitrary Age Of Internet Service ‘Consent’ To 16
- The Silicon Valley Economy Is Here. And It’s a Nightmare.: Low pay, soaring rents, and cities littered with e-scooters. Welcome to the future.
- The psychology of Silicon Valley: We have to understand the people behind big tech in order to fix it
- Biden wants Sec. 230 gone, calls tech “totally irresponsible,” “little creeps”: Biden had harsh words about tech, seemingly spurred by anger with Facebook.
- Critics fear Facebook fact-checkers losing misinformation fight
- Facebook Watch Axes 2 Tentpole Series Amid Reported Shift Toward Unscripted Content
- UFC Signs 3-Show Deal With Facebook Watch, Aiming To Promote Its PPV Matches
- DraftKings Comes Under Fire Following Collusion Scandal Involving “Bachelor” Stars
- Amazon retains world’s most valuable brand title by smashing through $200 billion barrier
- TikTok Moves To Five-Floor Office In Culver City, Reportedly Looking For New CEO
- TikTok Brought In 500% More Revenue, 738 Million Downloads In 2019
- TikTok Entices Brands With Self-Serve Ad Buying, But Struggles With Lack Of User Data, Few Performance Metrics (Report)
- Famous Birthdays Surpasses 25 Million Monthly Visitors, Driven By TikTok Surge
- Report: TikTok owner ByteDance planning big push into mobile games
- Spotify Reportedly In Talks To Acquire Media And Podcast Upstart ‘The Ringer’
- Spotify’s new test lets influencers post Stories to introduce their own playlists
- Instagram is testing direct messaging on desktop
- Instagram is dropping the annoying IGTV button: ‘Very few are clicking into the IGTV icon’
- Instagram’s Standalone IGTV App Has Clocked Just 7 Million Downloads To Date
- Opinion: The Dishonest and Wasteful Practice Of Influencer Marketing – Stop chasing vanity metrics and unproven tactics, and return to the fundamentals of marketing and advertising
- ASA continues to focus on Influencer Marketing in 2020
- Influencer Marketing: Top Business and Legal Considerations for 2020
- Learn From Sofia Vergara – Are Your Online Ads Legal?
- Liza Koshy’s ‘Liza On Demand’ Gets Third Season Order At YouTube Originals
- YouTube Rolls Out Profile Cards, Which Display Users’ Comment Histories (Sort Of)
- Clorox Establishes Influencer Advisory Board, Tapping Hundreds To Bolster YouTube Presence
- Bombay High Court in a Landmark Decision Restrains Review Video by Youtuber and Emphasizes on Responsible Use of the Power of Social Media
- Leading European MCN Divimove Acquires Digital Talent Firm ‘Tube One’
- Creators Going Pro: Walk Off The Earth’s Gotye Cover Went Viral On YouTube. Less Than A Month Later, They Had A Record Deal.
- Apple TV+: Can it be saved before everyone’s free trials run out?
- Netflix Now Counts 2 Minutes Of Watching As A “View” — A Change That Boosts Its Viewership Figures By 35%
- Netflix To Spend An Estimated $17.3 Billion On Content In 2020
- Studio Ghibli Signs First Streaming Deals, Bringing 21 Films To Netflix And HBO Max
- Turner Sports Pacts With Twitch On Linear And Digital Series, ‘ELeague Super Punch’
- Smart scale goes dumb as Under Armour pulls the plug on connected tech
- Microsoft pledges to wipe out its carbon footprint by 2050
- Microsoft announces plans to be “carbon negative” by 2030: Company also plans to remove all its historical carbon emissions by 2050
- The PinePhone starts shipping—a Linux-powered smartphone for $150
- The Horizons of Technology and Digitalization in Arbitration
- Canadian Securities Administrators Provide Guidance on Platforms that Facilitate Crypto Asset Trading
- Somewhere over the rainbow: Dealing with evidence stored on a cloud
- Political information in the age of the internet (Filip Matějka & Guido Tabellini)
- Nobody can see all of CES. But I tried
A.I.
- Alexa, Should We Trust You?: The voice revolution has only just begun. Today, Alexa is a humble servant. Very soon, she could be much more – a teacher, a therapist, a confidant, an informant.
- Chinese court rules that AI article has copyright (Andres Guadamuz)
- The Killer Algorithms Nobody’s Talking About: Activists fret about armies relying on killer robots, but some forms of artificial intelligence that don’t actually pull the trigger could still be a nightmare
- Update on Federal Register Notice on Artificial Intelligence (AI) Patent Issues
- The rise of AI and WIPO consultation on intellectual property issues
- Why do we get sad when robots die?: It’s not about seeming “human” – it’s about the work machines do for us.
- And an Algorithm to Entangle them All? Social Credit, Data Driven Governance, and Legal Entanglement in Post-Law Legal Orders (Larry Backer)
- Robot Rights? Let’s Talk about Human Welfare Instead (Abeba Birhane & Jelle van Dijk)
- Artificial Intelligence and Community Well-being: A Proposal for an Emerging Area of Research (Laura Musikanski, Bogdana Rakova, James Bradbury, Rhonda Phillips, Margaret Manson)
- Artificial Intelligence, 5G and the Future Balance of Power
- Intellectual Property and Artificial Intelligence
- A Tangled Web: How the Internet of Things and AI Expose Companies to Increased Tort, Privacy, and Cybersecurity Litigation
- The machines are whispering: We tested AI Dungeon 2 and cannot stop laughing
COMMUNICATIONS
- Comcast settles lying allegations, will issue refunds and cancel debts
- Four defendants settle, six remain in FTC illegal robocalling suit
- Verizon Launches New Private Search Engine In Hopes You’ve Forgotten Its Terrible Track Record On Privacy
- Verizon Kills Cable Contracts As TV Sector Finally Starts Listening To Cord Cutters. Kind Of.
- FCC shuts New York out of $20B broadband fund, and senators are angry
- Smart homes will turn dumb overnight as Charter kills security service
- Real or fake: New NBC Peacock shows
- Combating Improper Robocalls: The TRACED Act Signed into Law
- Lowest Unit Charge Windows Open in About 30 States and Territories – Reviewing A Broadcaster’s Political Advertising Obligations
- Frontier, an ISP in 29 states, plans to file for bankruptcy
- After Years Of Scandal And Incompetence, US Telco Frontier Files For Bankruptcy
- The good, the bad and the 5G – an unprecedented level of threat (and opportunity)
- Globalization, International Organizations, and Telecommunications (Kirsten Rodine-Hardy)
PRIVACY
- Report: Bezos’ phone uploaded GBs of personal data after getting Saudi prince’s WhatsApp message – The gigabytes-big data grab allegedly came over WhatsApp text from Mohammed bin Salman.
- Report Says Saudi Prince MBS’s Whatsapp Account Personally Sent Jeff Bezos Malware Used To Access His Phone
- The Secretive Company That Might End Privacy as We Know It: A little-known start-up helps law enforcement match photos of unknown people to their online images – and “might lead to a dystopian future or something”
- Reuters: Apple cut backup end-to-end encryption plans after FBI complained
- New Report Says Apple Dropped Plans To Fully Encrypt Backups After FBI Complained
- The FBI Can Get Into The Latest IPhones, So Why Is It Asking Apple To Break Encryption On Older Models?
- The EU might ban facial recognition in public for five years
- We’re Banning Facial Recognition. We’re Missing the Point. (Bruce Schneier)
- California’s Ban Of Facial Recognition Tech Killed Off San Diego’s Mostly Useless Biometric Program
- GirlsDoPorn website goes offline after $13M judgment, criminal charges
- Privacy issues with e-discovery in Canada
- WeLeakInfo gets pwned by FBI; Dutch, N. Irish police arrest alleged breach brokers
- A Georgia election server was vulnerable to Shellshock and may have been hacked
- Bipartisan Legislation Aims to Expand Federal Protections for Children’s Online Privacy
- The AdTech and the data protection debate
- Study Shows The Internet Is Hugely Vulnerable To SIM Hijacking Attacks
- Dear Reuters: This Is NOT How You Report On Dishonest, Disingenuous Talking Points From US Officials Regarding Encryption
- Another reason to hurry with Windows server patches: A new RDP vulnerability
- Researchers find serious flaws in WordPress plugins used on 400k sites
- Top Issues in 2020: Privacy & Cybersecurity
- What percentage of United States retailers have decided to block European visitors from reaching their websites?
INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY
- IP Insight – Harry and Meghan Prioritise Trade Marks
- Harry and Meghan seek global trademark for ‘Sussex Royal’ brand: Filings suggest plans for items and activities from clothing to ‘emotional support groups’
- The “M” Word in Canadian Copyright Law – The “Mandatory” Matter (Howard Knopf)
- Exceptional Circumstances Now Required for Extensions In Trademark Examination
- Peppa Pig Owner Wins Copyright Infringement Case
- Zazzle’s Insufficient Copyright Oversight Procedures Support Willful Infringement Finding
- Fifth Circuit Holds Failure to Mitigate is No Bar to Statutory Damages Under Copyright Act
- Federal Court dismisses patent infringement action for delay
- Facebook Surges in U.S. Patent Rankings Due to Mounting AR Strategy
- Trademark Opposition Stupidly Prevents Indians Pitcher Shane Bieber From Telling Everyone He’s ‘Not Justin’
- Fair use or fair dealing? Where are we now?
- A Blog’s RSS Feed May Not Grant an Implied Copyright License–MidlevelU v. Newstex (Eric Goldman)
- CRISPR Patent – “Appeal Dismissed, Patent Revoked”
- Breaking: EPO Board of Appeal upholds invalidation of Broad’s CRISPR-Cas9 patent
- Patent battle over CRISPR
- A Mixed Bag on New Rules – Juggling Copyright Preclusion and Patent Infringement
- How Sonos’s case against Google could help shift the US patent narrative
- Trade secret or patent protection – how do we decide?
- Can newly discovered cannabis compounds be protected by patents?
- Beat the Weeds: File Your Cannabis Trademarks in Canada
- Intellectual Property Outlook: Cases and Trends to Follow in 2020 – PART 1
- China update: IP section in the China-US trade deal (phase one)
- EU Advocate General suggests pay-for-delay settlement agreements may be an abuse of dominant position
- A new route to patent protection in Italy from July 2020
- The EU Copyright Directive: Potential Copyright Liability and a “Best Efforts” Standard for Platforms
CREATIVITY
- No cameras in the courtroom in Meng Wanzhou case, B.C. judge rules: 13 Canadian and international media outlets had applied for right to broadcast extradition hearing
- Why Is The NYC MTA Going After A Random Artist Who Created A Different Subway Map For Infringement?
- Radiohead.com unveils “The Radiohead Library,” an official band repository
- Radiohead Public Library: archive of band’s work goes live – Band collate music videos, newsletters and other ephemera on site, and upload rarities to streaming services
- Rep. Lieu Tells Rep. Nunes He Looks Forward To Discovery, As More Evidence Of Nunes Connections With Parnas Emerge
- Airbus Asks Court To Dismiss Chuck Yeager’s Lawsuit, Pointing Out It Doesn’t Allege Anything Actionable
- “Come See Us At The Superb Owl” – Don’t Try This At Home! 2020 Update on Super Bowl Advertising and Promotions
- Advertising – False Advertising Claims: Opting for Court
- Klimt art thieves confess to stealing then returning painting: Portrait of a Lady was hidden in same Italian gallery from which it went missing in 1997
- Additional Compliance for the Art World
- Digital Street Culture Decoded: Why Criminalizing Drill Music is Street Illiterate and Counterproductive (Jonathan Ilan)
GAMES
- California claims $10 million gender discrimination settlement lets Riot off lightly
- Nintendo Wins Battle with Pirates on UK Seas
- Court Sides With Nintendo Over RomUniverse In Atttempt To Dismiss The Former’s Lawsuit
- Court overturns $10.1 million verdict against Nintendo in Wii Remote lawsuit
- Court reverses $10.1 million judgement against Nintendo in Wii patent case
- Patent infringement ruling against Nintendo Wii Remotes overturned: Dallas federal court declares patent invalid, nullifies $10m payout to iLife Technologies
- Nintendo can continue preventing cancellation of pre-orders in Germany: Lawsuit instigated by Norwegian Consumer Council dismissed, but may be appealed
- Unsubtle Rainbow Six Siege DDoS dealers hit with Ubisoft lawsuit
- Ubisoft files lawsuit against site that enabled Rainbow Six Siege DDoS attacks: Publisher claims group behind ShortNameGame sold the software used to disrupt the game
- Crytek, Cloud Imperium battle over how to end Star Citizen lawsuit
- Cloud Imperium responds to Crytek’s attempt to dismiss its own lawsuit: Star Citizen developer maintains engine providers claim “is and always has been meritless”
- Researchers Scientifically Create Video Games To Benefit Cognitive Function
- UK’s top mental health nurse wants crack down on loot boxes
- NHS mental health director calls for loot box ban: UKIE responds, emphasising that industry already addresses spending caps and disclosed drop rates
- UK lays out standards for handling children’s data: Information Commissioner finalizes Age Appropriate Design Code with 15 standards for developers to meet
- Joe Biden Can’t Tell The Difference Between The 1st Amendment & Section 230; Still Thinks Video Games Cause Violence
- Women suing Riot Games may be entitled to $400m not $10m: Two state regulators attempt to intervene with gender discrimination class action lawsuit in plaintiffs’ favour
- The top 7 reasons women quit game development
- Game dev union leader: “Dream job” passion “can open us up to exploitation”
- Activision Blizzard, EA, Sony, Microsoft included in HRC’s 2020 Corporate Equality Index
- GTA developer Rockstar pushes back against UK tax abuse allegations
- Rockstar responds to claims it abuses tax relief: But Grand Theft Auto developer makes no comment on reports it has not paid corporate tax in four years
- The best-selling games of the decade show AAA was left behind by innovation | Opinion: The games industry has made great strides forward in the past ten years – but none of that is apparent in the retail charts
- Stillfront Group acquires Dragon Story dev Storm8 for as much as $400 million
- Stillfront Group acquires Storm8 for up to $400m: Game studio coalition also raises $220m in additional financing
- Current Prison Architect developer Double Eleven opens Malaysian office
- Digital Bros. to buy Starbreeze assets from Smilegate: The €19.2m deal will give Italian publisher 30% of Starbreeze stock and 40% of voting rights
- Tencent wants to fully acquire Conan Exiles developer Funcom
- Tencent bids to acquire 100% of Funcom: Proposed deal would value the Norwegian studio at around $148 million
- Tencent intends to further diversify investments outside of games
- Tencent ramping up investments – but may veer away from games: Having already poured money into eleven games firms, Chinese giant is concentrating on new industries such as ‘smart retail’
- Daybreak Games restructures internal studios around key franchises
- Following Cyberpunk delay, CD Projekt Red expects dev team crunch
- Cyberpunk 2077 release pushed back to September 17, 2020
- CD Projekt Red delays Cyberpunk 2077 from April to September
- Cyberpunk 2077 pushed to September: CD Projekt reveals that development staff have been required to crunch on upcoming RPG
- Dying Light 2 delayed, no new release window given: Techland drops spring release target for open-world zombie shooter, says it will have more details “in the coming months”
- Leaked images show Xbox Series X is missing Xbox One’s HDMI input
- Xbox continues to expand Project xCloud’s preview library as testing continues
- Microsoft goes all-in on the ‘evergreen platform’: Bowing out of launch exclusives for Xbox Series X means Microsoft is now fully committed to the bold vision it’s talked about for so many years
- Report: Major PlayStation-exclusive series will get a PC port this year
- Report: The Switch Lite topped 1 million sales in Japan in three months
- Switch sales up 29% in Japan for 2019 as PS4 sales drop 29%: Famitsu numbers have hardware unit sales flat for the year; Switch Lite moves more than 1 million in just over three months
- YouTube TV comes to PS4, replacing PlayStation’s own doomed TV service PS Vue
- YouTube TV comes to PS4 as PS Vue moves out: Sony hardware maintains a live TV option at about the same price
- Google expects 120 games to hit Stadia this year, including some exclusives
- Stadia embracing timed exclusive strategy: Google says it wants to have more than 10 games debuting only on its streaming service in the first half of this year
- BT becomes first European partner for Google Stadia: Google attempts to address Stadia lag problems with new high-speed broadband deal
- Report: Google wants to bring the Steam game store to… Chrome OS?
- NetEase launches own digital distribution platform in China
- OpenCritic reviews have been added to the Epic Games Store
- Epic Games Store avoids review bombing with OpenCritic integration: Review aggregation site will display how many critics recommend purchase on each title’s store page
- Scopely acquires Marvel Strike Force dev FoxNext Games from Disney
- Disney confirms sale of FoxNext, Cold Iron Studios to Scopely: Acquisition does not include Fox IP licensed games, which will stay with Disney
- Significant layoffs at Super Lucky’s Tale developer Playful Studios
- Playful Studios “significantly reduces” full-time staff: Super Lucky’s Tale devs undergoes layoffs amid transition to new production model
- Amazon’s Twitch Drops Sharp after YouTube, Microsoft Say ‘Game On’
- Only YouTube Gaming saw hours watched, streamed, and concurrent viewership up last quarter: Streamlabs – Twitch viewership began a decline in 2019, but other platforms have a long way to go to catch up
- Video: YouTuber Mark “Markiplier” Fischbach reflects on his video history
- Call of Duty Modern Warfare was the best-selling game of the year in the US: But Nintendo thrived in hardware and software sales at the end of its competitors’ console generations
- Grand Theft Auto V was the best-selling game of the decade in the US: Joining it in the top ten – Seven Call of Duties, Red Dead Redemption II, and Minecraft
- UK Charts: Star Wars Battlefront II returns to Top Five: Otherwise, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare is No.1 again
- Dragon Ball Z and 3DS conquer latest UK Charts
- The transcendent appeal of Mount & Blade Warband – Why I Love: The difficulty got John Nejady interested in TaleWorlds’ medieval battle game, but the community he found made it something more
- Why the traditional product lifecycle “maybe doesn’t apply” to League of Legends: After ten years, League of Legends is still one of the most popular games on earth and Riot Games is riding that wave into new spaces
- Report: PS4 exclusive Horizon Zero Dawn could come to PC
- Horizon Zero Dawn reportedly coming to PC: Current PS4 exclusive may be part of suggested Sony strategy to “lean into a wider installed base”
- Don’t Miss: Designing the stealth, economy, and encounters of Horizon Zero Dawn
- Don’t Miss: Making Horizon Zero Dawn’s Machines feel like living creatures
- 2020 African Games Industry Trends: Games Industry Africa’s Vic Bassey forecasts seven key storylines for the continent’s developing market in the year ahead
- Media firm behind Autosport plans to “change the landscape” of racing games: Ex-Codemasters creative director Stephen Hood on how the new Motorsport Games group can disrupt the market
- What is the best game engine for your game?: In-depth guides to finding the best game engine to develop your game, including Unreal, Unity, GameMaker, and more
- How to apply for Video Games Tax Relief and make a VGTR claim
- China Leading Esports Boom: More than a quarter of Internet users in China watch esports at least once per month, a new report finds, more than double the rate of audiences in the U.S. and Western Europe.
- Turner Sports Pacts With Twitch On Linear And Digital Series, ‘ELeague Super Punch’
- Oculus Go Now Permanently Priced at $150, All Supported Countries to See Similar Drop
- Every classic Half-Life game is now free on Steam
- Valve Makes All ‘Half-Life’ Games Free to Play Until ‘Half-Life: Alyx’ Launches in March
- Valve: ‘Half-Life: Alyx’ Dev Team is the ‘single largest we’ve ever had’
- Valve opens up about Half-Life: Alyx, Source 2 engine on Reddit
- No plans for a full Source 2 SDK, and other tidbits from Valve’s Half-Life: Alyx AMA
- Valve Confirms ‘Left 4 Dead’ VR Game Not in Active Development
- Designing the mind-bending perspective puzzles of Superliminal
- Don’t Miss: Deconstructing the success of The Witcher 3’s open world
- Q&A: Evolving the combat design of id Software’s Doom Eternal
- Blog: Resources for video game music composers – The big list 2020
- Blog: How to keep adding content without hitting a limit
- Blog: Is your 21st century games career what you thought it’d be?
- Blog: Video game marketing predictions for 2020
- Video: How to talk about games with those who don’t approve
- Video: A performance and memory postmortem of Middle-earth: Shadow of War
- Humble Bundle joins efforts to raise money for Australian bushfire relief: Meanwhile, Warframe dev Digital Extremes donates $30,000 to two chairties
- U.S. Patent no. 10,278,001: Multiple listener cloud render with enhanced instant replay
- U.S. Patent no. 10,279,252: Game execution environments
Jon
News of the Week: January 15, 2020
DIGITAL
- Indian Supreme Court finds 150-day Internet blackout in Kashmir illegal
- India’s Supreme Court Declares Country’s 5 Month Internet Blackout Illegal
- Instagram is taking down posts supporting slain Iranian general Soleimani
- Instagram Now Placing Warnings Over Posts Deemed To Contain “False Information”
- China: Privacy, Security and Content Regulation to Increase in 2020
- Brazil supreme court sides with Netflix over gay Jesus comedy
- On Russian Troll Journalism
- Fake News as a Tool of Populism in Turkey: The Pastor Andrew Brunson Case
- ‘On the Shoulders of Giants’, Analysis of a Social Network of Intellectual Influence
- Website Denied Section 230 for No Good Reason, Wins the Case Anyways–DF Pace v. Baker-White
- Academic Journals In Russia Retract Over 800 Papers Because Of Plagiarism, Self-Plagiarism And ‘Gift Authorship’
- Gambling on Browsewrap: Casino App Loses Huuuge Bet on Enforcing Terms of Use
- Facebook Says (Again) That It Won’t Limit Political Ads
- Facebook Not Fact-Checking Candidate Ads – Looking at the Contrast Between Online Political Ads and Those Running on Broadcast and Cable
- Malware Marketer NSO Group Looks Like It’s Blowing Off Facebook’s Lawsuit
- Misleading political ads are the user’s problem to avoid, Facebook says: Rather than ban lies or microtargeting, the company’s putting the onus on users.
- Instagram adds new tools to Boomerang feature to catch up with competitors: Users can now choose where the loop starts and ends
- On Novel Grounds, Philadelphia Judge Rejects Uber’s Bid to Arbitrate Passenger’s Personal Injury Claim
- William Gibson: ‘I was losing a sense of how weird the real world was’ – The writer who invented ‘cyberspace’ – and possibly the most influential living sci-fi author – on the challenges of a reality even stranger than fiction
- FBI arrests man suspected of orchestrating dozens of “swatting” calls
- New Feature Alert: Twitter to Allow Users to Limit or Block Replies Completely
- Deleting WhatsApp chats during dawn raids may cost you dearly
- Mozilla lays off 70 people as non-search revenue fails to materialize
- Google gives Chrome OS Apps a shutdown date
- Inside Google’s Quest for Millions of Medical Records: The company has struck deals that grant it access to troves of patient data; ‘We want to be helpful’
- Chrome’s Move To Stomp Out Third Party Cookies? Good For Privacy, Good For Google’s Ad Business… Or Both?
- When YouTubers Cry: Prince Concert Videos Deemed Not Fair Use
- Content Moderation At Scale Is Impossible: YouTube Says That Frank Capra’s US Government WWII Propaganda Violates Community Guidelines
- YouTube To Stream Coachella For 10th Year Running, Announces Doc About Festival
- YouTube Studio Adds New ‘Restrictions’ Column, Ability to Manually Insert Mid-Roll Ads, More
- ASA rules that Betway YouTube video breached the CAP Code
- YouTube App Introduces New Subscription Feed Filters For ‘Unwatched’, ‘Live’ Videos, More
- Top 50 Most Viewed YouTube Channels Worldwide • Week Of 1/12/2020
- Beauty Creator NikkieTutorials Thwarts Apparent Blackmail Attempt By Coming Out As Trans
- Justin Bieber Faces “Yummy” Backlash After Posting Guide Showing How To Game Billboard Charts
- ‘RackaRacka’ Prankster Appears In Court After Arrest For Underwater Car Prank
- Olay Spokesmodel Lilly Singh To Star In Brand’s Super Bowl Commercial
- Instagram Creator Behind ‘House Of Highlights’ Tapped By ESPN To Helm Social Content, Strategy
- Tell the Whole Story – New Rules for Influencer Marketing under the Competition Act
- Casper Flags Its Use of Influencers as a Risk
- The Israeli Chipmunk Emoji Mystery Resolved! (Eric Goldman)
- Golden Globes Piloted Facebook’s ‘Collaborative Stories’ Feature At 77th Awards (Exclusive)
- Snapchat was overtaken by Pinterest in US users last year. But the real threat is coming from China’s TikTok and no one knows how fast it’s growing.
- WME Signs TikTok Luminary Chase Hudson And His Creator Collective ‘The Hype House’
- Spotify Makes Push Into Sports Podcasting
- Spotify is now making playlists for your pets
- Spotify, Warner Music Sign Global Deal, Ending Dispute in India
- Amazon lifts ban on FedEx for third-party marketplace sellers
- Amazon Sets Cast For ‘Lord Of The Rings’ Series, Production To Start Next Month
- Amazon asks court to block US/Microsoft contract because of Trump interference
- New Bluetooth standard copies best features of Apple, Qualcomm’s proprietary tech
- Apple launches replacement program for iPhone battery cases
- ECJ toughens the requirements for the use of cookies: Active consent of users required
- How online sales of food pose a regulatory challenge in the EU
- Tax on digital advertising introduced in Maryland Senate
- Maryland Proposes (French) Tax on Advertising – Digital Platforms and Advertisers Beware!
- New Trend Developing? Another Digital Advertising Tax Proposal
- Anti-SLAPP Laws Work: Tennessee Doctor Suing Patient Over Negative Review Drops Lawsuit
- Dear Larry Lessig: Please Don’t File SLAPP Suits
- SEC Staff Issues Guidance on Technology, Data and Intellectual Property Risks in International Operations
- NIST Solicits Comments on Revised Draft IoT Cybersecurity Device Guidance
- Tesla is now worth more than Ford and GM—combined
- Linus Torvalds says “Don’t use ZFS”—but doesn’t seem to understand it
- The Way We Train Doctors Is Backward – And Cyberpatient Has The Treatment
- Notes on the networked psyche: Exploring online hyper-sensibilities
- Digital Transformation is a matter of survival
- An Oral History of Rickrolling: From the pages of 4chan to the White House, the story behind the meme that’s never going to give you up
- Shifting Capitalist Critiques: The Discourse about Unionisation in the Hi-Tech Sector (Eran Fisher & Ben Fisher)
- Turf wars: Using social media network analysis to examine the suspected astroturfing campaign for the Adani Carmichael Coal mine on Twitter (Hanna Della Bosca, David Schlosberg & Chao Sun)
- To-Do Is to Be: Foucault, Levinas, and Technologically Mediated Subjectivation (Jan Peter Bergen & Peter-Paul Verbeek)
- Digital Platform Policy and Regulation: Toward a Radical Democratic Turn (Bart Cammaerts & Robin Mansell)
A.I.
- Technology Can’t Fix Algorithmic Injustice: We need greater democratic oversight of AI not just from developers and designers, but from all members of society.
- Chinese court rules AI-written article is protected by copyright
- Chinese Court Says AI-Generated Content Is Subject To Copyright Protection
- Evolution of IP Protection for Artificial Intelligence in France
- “Alexa, Can You Receive a Patent?”: Chris Mammen Discusses AI as Inventors in MIT Technology Review Article
- Artificial Intelligence (AI) Machine can be an Inventor? EPO says NO!!!
- AI Update: WIPO Begins Public Consultation Process on Artificial Intelligence and Intellectual Property Policy
- Ad Delivery Algorithms: The Hidden Arbiters of Political Messaging
- Do androids dream of product liability?
- Creating the ever-improvising text adventures of AI Dungeon 2
- What is AI-Based Contract Management?
- Insights: Deepfake Videos Go Commercial! In Election Season! WCGW?
- The line between deepfake legislation and deeply fake legislation
- How Google researchers used neural networks to make weather forecasts
- Principled Artificial Intelligence: Mapping Consensus In Ethical And Rights-Based Approaches To Principles For AI (Jessica Fjeld, Nele Achten, Hannah Hilligoss, Adam Christopher Nagy, Madhulika Srikumar)
- From a ‘Race to AI’ to a ‘Race to AI Regulation’ – Regulatory Competition for Artificial Intelligence (Nathalie Smuha)
- Addressing the Growing Need for Algorithmic Transparency (Hugh J. Watson & Conner Nations)
- ‘Move Fast and Break Things’: Law, Technology, and the Problem of Speed (Simon Chesterman)
COMMUNICATIONS
- Don’t trust the US gov’t, states tell court in T-Mobile/Sprint merger case
- US may subsidize Huawei alternatives with proposed $1.25 billion fund
- PIRATE Act Passes Senate, and Now on to the President for Signature – Provides for Big Fines and Enforcement Sweeps in Big Markets
- Congress Adopts New Cable Operator Advertising and Billing Requirements Affecting Both Video and Broadband Internet Offerings
- FCC Fines Noncommercial Broadcaster $76,000 for Airing Commercial Advertisements
- Ajit Pai Hits CES… To Make Up Some Stuff About Net Neutrality
- FCC Kicks Off 2020 by Establishing the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund
- Some FCC Subsidized Low Income Phones Are A Chinese Malware Shitshow
- Verizon’s great FiOS offer to me: Pay $50 extra for slower Internet
- Verizon offers no-tracking search engine, promises to protect your privacy
- FCC will pay ISPs to deploy broadband with 250GB monthly data cap
- Washington And Oregon Fine CenturyLink For Completely Bogus Broadband Fees
- Scripps Broadcasting Agrees to Pay $1,130,000 to Settle Investigation of Tower Violations
- ISP settles with two more states over hidden fees and false advertising, agrees to pay $15 million
- AT&T TV Service Goes Dark On Roku As The Streaming Wars Get Stupid
- Bipartisan Senators Introduce 5G Bill Pushing Non-Chinese Vendors
- China Isn’t the Only Problem With 5G: The network has plenty of other security weaknesses, including ones the United States doesn’t want to fix since they help its own surveillance efforts.
- New Law Bans ISPs From Charging You A ‘Rental’ Fee For Hardware You Already Own
- President Signs Sweeping New Robocall Legislation
- Dissolving privacy, one merger at a time: Competition, data and third party tracking (Reuben Binns & Elettra Bietti)
PRIVACY
- Attorney General William Barr Says Apple Isn’t Doing Enough To Let The DOJ Check Out A Dead Man’s Phones
- Bill Barr: Apple Is Holding Up This Investigation. Apple: You Waited A Month To Tell Us You Needed More Help
- Unable to unlock gunman’s iPhones, the FBI (once again) asks for Apple’s help (updated)
- San Bernardino 2.0: FBI Asking Apple To Crack Encryption On Phones Owned By Pensacola Naval Station Gunman
- The broken record of breaking encryption skips again in Florida shooter case
- Exploit that gives remote access affects ~200 million cable modems
- Advocates ask colleges to avoid facial recognition as surveillance grows
- Google plans to drop Chrome support for tracking cookies by 2022
- Patch Windows 10 and Server now because certificate validation is broken
- Windows 7: “I’m not dead yet!” – Over half of businesses still haven’t finished move to Windows 10; zombie systems flourish.
- Failure to Apply Recent Microsoft Patch May Create Legal Liabilities
- Critical Windows 10 vulnerability used to Rickroll the NSA and Github
- Senator Wyden Wants Paid Ad Blocking Whitelists Investigated
- Grindr shares personal data with ad companies in violation of GDPR, complaint alleges: A Norwegian nonprofit has filed three complaints against the company
- Amazon’s Ring fired at least four employees for snooping on user videos
- Shocking Absolutely No One, Ring Admits Employees Improperly Accessed Customers’ Data
- Ring Throws A Moist Towelette On Its Dumpster Fire With A Couple Of Minimal Security Tweaks
- It’s 2020. American elections are still “frighteningly easy” targets
- Ninth Circuit Doubles Down on Bad Ruling That Undermines Cybersecurity–Enigma v. Malwarebytes (Eric Goldman)
- Iranian hackers have been “password spraying” the US grid
- US Government-funded Android phones come preinstalled with unremovable malware
- The Deadline for Registration of “Data Brokers” in California Is Near: Are You Ready?
- Data From Smartwatch Help Investigators Solve The Case Of The Stabbing That Never Happened
- Amazon takes a swipe at PayPal’s $4 billion acquisition: Holiday shoppers warned that Honey, a popular browser extension, was a “security risk.”
- Paul Krugman’s no good, very bad Internet day
- Company Sells Surveillance Cameras Hidden In Tombstones, Threatens Websites For Talking About Its Tombstone Cameras
- Unpatched Citrix vulnerability now exploited, patch weeks away
- January 2020 Survey of Fortune 500 Companies’ Privacy Representations
- Are you protected against phishing email? What the Court of Appeal said in insurance matters
- Federal Privacy Law – Is It About to Change?
- Federal Privacy Law – Is It About to Change: Part Deux?
- Towards a Transatlantic Concept of Data Privacy (Erdem Büyüksagis)
INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY
- Appeals Court Makes The Right Call Regarding Non-Commercial Creative Commons Licenses
- Notable Works Entering the Public Domain in 2020
- Life + 70 Years: Copyrighted Works That Have Entered into the Public Domain in 2020 – Economic Rights Gone with the Wind
- Harry and Meghan seek global trademark for ‘Sussex Royal’ brand: Filings suggest plans for items and activities from clothing to ‘emotional support groups’
- Can Booking.com Trademark Its Company Name? How Will the U.S. Supreme Court Resolve Whether a Generic Term Plus a Top-Level Domain Is Protectable?
- Carve It All Up: Compumark Report Shows Trademark Registrations, Claims Of Infringement Both Rising Fast
- Smartphone Apps for Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram declared patent infringing by German Court – The End of Social Networks?
- Who owns the ink? Reproduction of tattoos in film, photographs and video games
- Wells Fargo Twice Found Guilty of Willfully Infringing Patents on Remote Check Depositing Technology
- Non-Prior Art Evidence May Be Used to Prove Inherency
- When Merger Clauses Don’t Merge
- A Different Analysis for Manufacturing Method Patents under the 35 U.S.C. § 271 (e)(1) Safe Harbor Provision?
- Biosimilar Litigation Trends and Lessons Learned in 2019
- Athena Diagnostics v. Mayo Collaborative Services
- The EU should not contemplate abandoning the Unified Patent Court system
- 2019 Will Go Down in History as “The Year of Change” in Canadian Trademark Law
- 2019 Will Go Down in History as “The Year of Change” in Canadian Trademark Law Part II
- Key Patent Decisions of 2019
- Who Holds the Right to Exclude for Machine Work Products? (Garry Gabison)
CREATIVITY
- The Rorshach Test Of The Covington Catholic Boy’s DC Encounter Now Extends To Bogus Lawsuits And Confidential Settlements
- Professor Removed From Teaching For Sharing A Downfall Parody Video
- Former “Bachelor” Contestant’s $1 million Fantasy Football Win Under Investigation
- Defamation and Wrongful Termination Claims Against the Los Angeles Times Were Properly Dismissed
- Sober ad campaign leaves brewery with an unwanted hangover.
- Beer Institute Says Modelo Commercials with Athletes Don’t Violate its Advertising Guidelines
- Don’t Oversell It – False or Misleading Advertising
- Marvel Studios’ ‘Avengers: Endgame’ Receives Oscar Nomination: The film also took home two Critics’ Choice Awards!
- How Years Of Copyright Maximalism Is Now Killing Pop Music
- The Revolutionary Sixties: Poetry and Social Change (Viviane Carvalho da Annunciação)
- Video Screen Interfaces as New Sites of Media Circulation Power (David Hesmondhalgh, Amanda D. Lotz)
- Impact of Censorship on Translating and Publishing Virginia Woolf During the 1930s in Italy (Anna Maria Cipriani)
- Popular Music and the State: The British Honours System and its Treatment of Popular Musicians (Emma-Jayne Reekie)
GAMES
- Report: China to further regulate online games and streaming to curb addiction
- China reveals new mental health initiative that may further limit violence in games: “Healthy China 2030” includes crackdown on games considered violent, pornographic, or promoting gambling
- Japanese prefecture considers restrictions on gaming time for minors: Proposed ordinance in Kagawa Prefecture would limit those under 18 to one hour of gaming per day
- How Game Companies Use Credits To Reward, Or Punish, Developers
- How can Rio Ferdinand help protect kids from inappropriate video games?: UKIE CEO Dr Jo Twist on why spending time gaming with children is just as important as using parental controls
- Nintendo Escapes Vice Grip in ITC Challenge
- Inside TASBot’s semi-secret, probably legal effort to control the Nintendo Switch
- Nintendo Switch was best-selling console in France last year: Lifetime sales exceed expectations to reach 3.3 million, Switch Lite outsells Xbox One
- Super Nintendo World to focus on “interactive experiences”: New details about the Osaka theme park were revealed ahead of its summer opening
- Nintendo looking at ‘interesting’ ways it can use AR technology
- In a series first, Pokemon Sword and Shield will offer an expansion pass
- Game Dev Torrents Its Way To More Sales, Not Less
- Analyst: With $894 million in revenue, 2019 marked Pokemon Go’s best year so far
- 2019 was Pokemon Go’s best year ever: Niantic’s location-based game brought in $894 million last year, even more than its 2016 launch year
- Microsoft first-party titles to be cross-compatible between Xbox One, Xbox Series X
- Xbox Series X won’t have next-gen exclusives for a while
- Xbox won’t kick off the Series X generation with next-gen exclusives
- Xbox still plans to attend E3 2020
- Phil Spencer confirms Xbox will be at E3 2020: Platform holder responds to Sony’s decision to ditch major games showcase for a second consecutive year
- Sony’s skipping E3 again in 2020
- PlayStation will not participate in E3 2020: The company will instead attend ‘hundreds of consumer events across the globe’
- On eve of PS5, Sony confirms it will skip E3 for second year in a row
- Is PlayStation right to skip E3?: Sony does not need to go to LA to get people excited for PS5
- Sony’s PS5 marketing strategy does away with convention | Opinion: E3 absenteeism is just the latest example of a company paying little heed to conventional wisdom, but will that help or hurt it?
- Call of Duty, Beat Saber, and Apex Legends led PlayStation downloads in 2019
- SIE boss: The ‘biggest, more unique’ PS5 features have yet to be revealed
- Square Enix is shutting down Mobius Final Fantasy after four years
- Final Fantasy VII Remake delayed: Hotly-anticipated remake of beloved PlayStation classic pushed back by one month for polish
- Square Enix Delays Final Fantasy VII Remake And Avengers
- Call of Duty and GTA V dominated PlayStation Store downloads in 2019
- ‘Beat Saber’ Takes Top Spot as PSVR’s Most Downloaded Game of 2019
- HTC permanently trims $200 off Vive Pro price tag
- Report: Valve Index headset sold out globally as Half-Life: Alyx nears launch
- Valve Index out of stock around the globe ahead of Half-Life Alyx launch: Prospect of VR exclusive Half-Life drives sales of high-end hardware, despite $999 price tag
- Riot Games launches new tabletop division
- Riot Games sets up Riot Tabletop to take another stab at board games
- Subscriptions will “unlock the market to weirder things,” says Outer Wilds dev
- Look at how digital changes the UK charts: Call of Duty retains No.1, but Uno, The Sims 4 and Rainbow Six make the Top Ten
- Growth of mobile gamers slows while revenue continues rising – Research firm finds number of US and Canada mobile users playing games was up just 2% last year, but revenues jumped 24% to more than $11.82 billion
- FIFA 2020 enjoys sixth consecutive week at No. 1 in EMEAA charts: Both Mario Kart 8 Deluxe and Luigi’s Mansion 3 make appearance in top ten despite Nintendo not reporting digital sales figures
- GameStop says its unexpectedly low holiday sales follow an industry-wide trend
- GameStop holiday sales down 27.5% in 2019: CEO lowers full-year guidance again, maintains declining sales are reflective of market trends
- GameStop stock tumbles by 16 percent following poor holiday sales
- GAME threatens to close 40 UK stores unless rents are cut: Retailer says ‘landlords need to work with us’
- Subnautica has surpassed 5 million sales worldwide
- Subnautica has sold over 5m copies: Unknown Worlds founder Charlie Cleveland comments on milestone reached nearly two years after game’s full launch
- Monster Hunter World: Iceborne’s PC release pushes it past 4 million shipped
- Don’t Miss: How Monster Hunter: World’s director breathed new life into the series
- Call of Duty Mobile reached 180m downloads in launch quarter
- Video: How Call of Duty handles automated testing and profiling
- Comical career sim Job Simulator has crossed 1 million sales
- Terry Cavanagh has released the source code for VVVVVV on Github
- YouTuber Extortion? MxR Plays v. Jukin – Real Law Review // LegalEagle
- YouTube signs on exclusive streaming deals with 3 big gaming creators: LazarBeam, Muselk and Valkyrae
- YouTube Signs Creators LazarBeam And Muselk, Poaches 100 Thieves Member Valkyrae From Twitch
- Twitch Reportedly Fell Short Of Ad Revenue Projections Last Year
- Twitch is launching Hype Train this afternoon, which means you’ll get emotes for going off in chat
- Researchers find 17 Google Play apps that bombard users with battery-draining ads
- Google Stadia is like the early days of Steam, says Tequila Works CEO: Developer of Stadia-exclusive Gylt believes platform hasn’t reached its potential yet, but that game streaming services will only get better
- Analyst: Facebook Gaming saw sizable growth in viewers and stream time during 2019
- Facebook Gaming streaming market share sees end-of-year rise: In December 2019, Facebook held 8.5% of the market, compared to 3.1% a year prior
- Mobile gaming projected to surpass $100b in spend in 2020: Mobile games now bring in more spending than all other game types combined
- 32 notable mobile games released in December 2019 you may have missed
- Mobius Final Fantasy shutting down after five years: Japanese version of the game has already ended; global service to conclude in June 2020
- GTA IV unavailable on Steam because Rockstar can no longer generate keys
- Rockstar says defunct Games for Windows Live to blame for GTA IV delisting
- Analyzing the top Steam tags
- Steam’s year in graphs: An in-depth 2019 breakdown
- Exclusives helped the Epic Games Store earn $680 million during 2019
- Epic Games Store tops $680 million in player spending: Storefront touts 108 million PC customers a little over a year after launch, extends weekly free game promotion through 2020
- Ninja’s Getting His Own ‘Fortnite’ Skin, Epic Games Says More Creator Skins To Come
- In 2019, video game projects on Kickstarter held steady: Ico Partners – Though tabletop drove segment’s rise, video games saw only minute growth in funded projects, money raised
- Overwatch League addresses on-air talent departures: Activision Blizzard’s esports outfit will “evolve” its broadcast after losing five hosts and casters in the past month
- BT becomes first major UK brand to sponsor an esports team: Excel Esports signs multi-year partnership with British telecom giant
- Professional gaming… Are there investment opportunities in esports?
- UK retailer GAME likely to close 40 stores amid ‘challenging retail market’
- This simulator company reverse-engineered the Tesla Nürburgring lap
- The tiniest controller we’ve ever tested is a lot better than you might think
- The Witcher’s Netflix success: How three timelines somehow became cohesive
- RuneScape saw 1.1 million paid subscriptions in 2019, an all-time high
- The RuneScape franchise reached a record peak of 1.1m paid subscribers in 2019: Old School RuneScape on mobile also achieved a new milestone of 8m installs
- Kansas Game Invest rebrands as Amplifier after THQ Nordic acquisition
- Phoenix Games acquires Promotion Software and Emergency dev Sixteen Tons
- Hamburg creates $2.2 million fund to support local game developers
- Designing user interfaces for visually impaired players
- Blog: A condemnation of time
- Blog: A Kirby Super Star retrospective
- Blog: The importance of the new player’s experience
- Blog: A TILTit postmortem (or how to not publish a game in today’s market)
- Blog: What I learned making 12 games in one year
- Blog: A conversational Touring Karts postmortem
- Blog: Kickstarter and games in 2019
- Blog: How monster design influences player behavior and level design
- Control and Death Stranding lead nominations for 2020 DICE Awards
- Control, Death Stranding each receive eight DICE 2020 nominations, including Game of the Year: Disco Elysium and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare honored with six nominations
- Jägermeister’s indie game soundtrack competition returns for second year
- Super Crate Box: Elegant, frantic, and unapologetically small
- GDC YouTube Top 5: Mipumi Games’ Eline Muijres
- Ubisoft, Bungie join ranks of devs raising funds for those affected by Australian fires
- Infinity Ward, Bungie and Ubisoft join Australian bushfire relief efforts: Modern Warfare DLC, Destiny 2 T-shirt sales and AUS$30,000 donation all go towards charities and emergency services
- Awesome Games Done Quick 2020 raises a record $3.13 million for charity
- Australian developers organising global fundraising auction for fire services: Game Devs For Firies calls on industry to help encourage donations to bushfire relief by offering signed games, services and more
- Toward a Critical History of Touch Feedback in Video Games (David Parisi)
Jon
News of Week; January 8, 2020
DIGITAL
- Russia Disconnects Itself From The Internet, Asks UN To Let It Have More Control Of Internet Usage Around The World
- Academic Publishers Get Their Wish: DOJ Investigating Sci-Hub Founder For Alleged Ties To Russian Intelligence
- U.S. Army Bans TikTok On Government Phones, Calling App A “Cyber Threat”
- China strengthens regulation of online audiovisual services
- Amazon threatens to fire critics who are outspoken on its environmental policies: E-commerce giant warned workers who participated in protests that future comments regarding business practices could lead to termination
- Oracle copied Amazon’s API—was that copyright infringement?
- Turns Out Oracle Copied Amazon’s S3 APIs; When Confronted, Pretends That’s Different (Spoiler Alert: It’s Not)
- Amazon partners with India’s second largest retailer to sell its goods online
- EU top court rules out possibility to create second-hand marketplaces for digital content
- Judge awards women $13 million in massive lawsuit against GirlsDoPorn
- New Civil FOSTA Lawsuits Push Expansive Legal Theories Against Unexpected Defendants
- Minnesota Appeals Court Nukes State’s Broadly-Written Revenge Porn Law
- It’s the network, stupid: Study offers fresh insight into why we’re so divided: Social perception bias might simply be an emergent property of our social networks.
- The FTC’s 2020 COPPA rules have YouTube creators scared
- YouTube decides it’s easier to treat all watchers of kids’ content as kids
- SCOTUS Grants Google’s Cert Petition in Oracle API Dispute
- Java API Classes as Fictional Characters – A Proposal for Google v. Oracle
- Court (Barely) Allows Class Action Lawsuit Over Google’s Location Tracking To Move Forward
- Google’s Ad Network Prepares for the California Consumer Privacy Act
- Researchers unearth malicious Google Play apps linked to active exploit hackers
- Apple targets jailbreaking in lawsuit against iOS virtualization company
- Apple’s app sales hit record $1.4 billion in the final days of 2019: App Store spending on the first day of 2020 reached US$386 million, a single-day record and a 20 per cent increase from last year
- Apple and GPU-maker Imagination make nice in new licensing deal
- Text and data mining under the digital copyright directive
- Sonos’ Wasteful ‘Recycle Mode’ Bricks Perfectly Usable Tech
- Films are quietly disappearing from Disney Plus: Movies like Home Alone and Pirates of the Caribbean On Stranger Tides have vanished from the streaming service
- Disney Plus removes some films from service with no explanation: Users noticed a handful of titles went missing from the streaming library as soon as 2020 began
- Disney+ Titles Disappear Without Warning, Bringing Confusion To The Streaming Wars
- Here’s Why Some of Your Favorite Movies Are Disappearing from Disney Plus
- Twitter Blocks Animated PNGs After A Bunch Of Shitbirds Spend National Epilepsy Month Harassing Epileptics
- Twitter will put options to limit replies directly on the compose screen
- YouTube officially rolls out changes to children’s content following FTC settlement
- YouTube Disables More Product Features On Kid-Oriented Content After FTC Settlement
- New Tool Enables YouTubers To Snip Sections Of Videos That Have Been Copyright Claimed
- ‘Justin Bieber: Seasons’ Is Reportedly YouTube’s Most Expensive Original Ever
- In 2019, WWE Uploaded 500 YouTube Videos Per Month—Making A Reported $13 Million In AdSense
- Control and Influencers: ASA bans Love Island star Molly Mae Hague’s Instagram post
- UK Advertising Standards Authority Bans Unlicensed E-Cigarette Instagram Posts
- “Naked Philanthropist” Kaylen Ward Has Raised $700K For Bushfire Relief By Sending Nudes
- Tana Mongeau, Jake Paul “Taking A Break,” Potentially Leaving MTV Collab In The Lurch
- Jake Paul Sets Second Boxing Match With Gamer ‘AnEsonGib’, Streaming On DAZN From Miami
- Michelle Obama To Launch College Docuseries On IGTV, ‘A Year Of Firsts’
- Facing the Music: Protecting Photography in the Age of Instagram
- Snapchat To Introduce ‘Bitmoji TV’, Fully-Animated Cartoons Starring Users’ Bitmojis
- Spotify will use everything it knows about you to target podcast ads: One step closer to becoming a podcast ad network
- Insights: Two Months In, Apple TV+ And Disney+ Hit The Churn Zone
- Apple hires former HBO chief to produce TV, film, and documentaries exclusively for Apple TV Plus: Richard Plepler signs a five-year contract with Apple
- Apple Shares Top $300 Amid Optimism About Holiday Sales
- Disappointing: Apple The Latest To Abuse DMCA 1201 To Try To Stifle Competition, Security Research, Jailbreaking And More
- Apple reunites with iPhone graphics chip partner to license technology: The company split with Imagination Technologies back in 2017
- CES has never been great for women. Is 2020 the year that changes?: Keynotes or he-notes?
- IRS drops longstanding promise not to compete against TurboTax
- How modern tech has powered our favorite superheroes through the years
- This time, for sure! Ars Technica’s 2020 Deathwatch
- In This Time Of Techlash, It’s Important To Remember That Sometimes Social Media Is Actually Good
- Goop’s Netflix trailer: Paltrow sinks into a vagina, spews pseudoscience
- Can you resell an e-book online?
- Redistributing E-Books Online Constitutes Copyright Infringement, Says Top EU Court
- Troublesome Emojis in Criminal Cases
- Tired of hearing about Wi-Fi 6? Great, let’s talk about Wi-Fi 6E
- Top Internet Law Developments of 2019 (Eric Goldman)
A.I.
- New Study Suggests That YouTube’s Recommendation Algorithm Isn’t The Tool Of Radicalization Many People Believe (At Least Not Any More)
- The US just released 10 principles that it hopes will make AI safer: All future AI regulations will need to clear the checklist.
- EU Patent Office Rejects Two Patent Applications In Which An AI Was Designated As The Inventor
- Artificial Intelligence (AI) Patents – Will the Patent Office Change the Rules?
- The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office Takes on Artificial Intelligence
- WIPO Releases Draft Issues Paper on IP Policy for AI Inventions
- Ex Parte Linden Gives a Boost to the Subject Matter Eligibility of AI inventions
- USPTO Designates Ex Parte Linden as an Informative § 101 PTAB Decision
- NextMind Unveils $400 Brain-Computer Interface Developer Kit
- Video: Valve’s perspective on brain-computer interfaces in games
- European Law Enforcement Officials Upset Facebook Is Warning Users Their Devices May Have Been Hacked
- Facebook is banning (most) deepfakes: The policy doesn’t cover videos doctored using more conventional techniques.
- Facebook Says It Will Ban ‘Deepfakes’: The company said it would remove videos altered by artificial intelligence in ways meant to mislead viewers.
- Facebook bans deepfakes, but new policy may not cover controversial Pelosi video
- Welcome to the age of uncertainty: If everything can be faked, how can we know anything is real?
- European Union – Algorithmic Pricing under Article 101 TFEU
- Snap Acquires Ukraine Startup ‘AI Factory,’ Which Helped Build Its ‘Cameos’ Feature, For $166 Million
- Snap Confirms Acquisition of Deepfakes Startup AI Factory, Used to Power ‘Cameos’ Selfie Videos
COMMUNICATIONS
- Notice of Violation: Orcus Technologies: Investigation Into The Orcus Rat
- Canada’s Anti-Spam Legislation – 2019 Year in Review
- Merger Lawsuit Docs Reveal T-Mobile Eyed Merging With Comcast
- FCC Seeks Comment on Designations of Huawei and ZTE as National Security Threats
- AT&T et al. fight against higher upload speeds in $20-billion FCC program
- There’s A Recurring Theme With 5G, And It’s Disappointment
- US finally prohibits ISPs from charging for routers they don’t provide
- NYC broadband plan calls for fiber everywhere, with ISPs sharing network
- TV Ratings Sag As Cord Cutting Continues To Surge
PRIVACY
- Unable to unlock gunman’s iPhones, the FBI (once again) asks for Apple’s help
- No, cops aren’t using SiriusXM to find criminals. Here’s how they do it
- Department of Homeland Security Warns of Cyber-attacks by Iran
- Unpatched US government website gets pwned by pro-Iran script kiddie
- Iran courted US security expert for years, seeking industrial hacking training
- There Is No ‘Going Dark:’ Always-On Surveillance Posing Risks To US Covert Operations
- Florida Appeals Court Asks State’s Top Court To Decide Whether Compelled Password Production Violates The Fifth Amendment
- Ring Sued Because ‘Taking Customers’ Security Seriously’ Means Selling Easily-Hijacked Cameras
- “Cache issue” causes Xiaomi cameras to show other people’s camera feeds
- Wyze Breach Leaves Data Of 2.4 Million Users Exposed Online
- Unpatched VPN makes Travelex latest victim of “REvil” ransomware
- Firefox gets patch for critical 0-day that’s being actively exploited
- Firefox 72 blocks fingerprinting scripts by default, rethinks notification pop-ups
- Chrome to start blocking annoying notification requests
- UL Pushes Security Standards For The Internet Of Broken Things
- ENISA releases report detailing security guidelines for Internet of Things
- BitTorrent claims require more proof than an IP address to name a defendant
- Jones Day Global Privacy & Cybersecurity Update
INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY
- What the amendments to the USMCA mean for Canadian IP law
- 2019 Highlights in Canadian Life Sciences IP and Regulatory Law
- Appeals Court Smacks Down Patent Troll Blackbird, Orders It To Pay $363k In Attorneys Fees To Company It Sued
- In flashpoint for the rebellion against big tech, Sonos sues Google for patent infringement
- Securing Copyright and Trademark Rights for Broadcasts and Promotions Related to NFL Championship Games and Super Bowl LIV (54)
- George Gershwin’s Rhapsody In Blue Is In The Public Domain And Gerswhin’s Nephew Is Worried Someone Might Turn It Into Hip Hop
- The Murkiness of the Public Domain
- Tackling bad faith registration of domain names in a fast-changing landscape
- Fox Factory v. SRAM – According to CAFC, No Presumption of Nexus for Bicycle Chainring Patents; IPR Decision Reversed and Remanded
- The big IP stories you will be reading about in 2020
CREATIVITY
- Chinese Skiers Training In Norway Ask Local Library To Remove ‘Controversial’ Books
- Turkey Continues Its Attempt To Pass China In The ‘Most Journalists Jailed’ Category
- Ex-Fox News reporter Courtney Friel claims Donald Trump invited her to Trump Tower to ‘kiss’
- Susan J. Demas: Why are there so few stories about Trump’s health and sexual harassment scandals?
- Class action lawsuits may be available for copyright infringement cases in some instances
- Devin Nunes Libel Tourism Continues To Highlight The Problems Of Virginia’s Weak Anti-SLAPP Laws
- Connecticut Cop Sues Local Blogger To Get Him To Turn Over Personal Info On Commenters Who Said Thing The Cop Didn’t Like
- Hank Haney Sues PGA Tour, Claims They Forced SiriusXM to Cancel His Radio Show
- Navy SEAL Leader Accused Of War Crimes Threatens Defamation Suit Against NY Times Reporter For Revealing Videos & Text Of Men Who Reported Him
- Academic paper in comic form explores ethics of treating torturer with PTSD
GAMES
- Nintendo wins injunction against seller of Switch mod, pirated games: Defendent allegedly also sold modded NES Classic with over 800 games
- Nintendo Responds To RomUniverse’s Lame Argument That First Sale Doctrine Makes The Site Non-Infringing
- Crytek wants to dismiss its own lawsuit against Star Citizen developers
- Crytek seeks to dismiss its own Star Citizen lawsuit until Squadron 42 launches: Creator of CryEngine believes Star Citizen’s single-player game will be delayed past June, moves for October trial
- CD Projekt signs new agreement and ends dispute with The Witcher author: The game developer has the rights to the IP in video games, graphic novels, board games and merchandise
- Take 2 Sues Fan Over Project To Finally Bring ‘Red Dead 1’ To The PC
- Ragnarok acquires Rune II source code and assets following legal complaint
- Rune II source code returned to publisher: More than a month after launch, Ragnarok Game LLC may have what it needs to update game left in limbo by demise of Human Head
- Case Update: Iron Maiden Holdings Ltd. v. 3D Realms Entertainment ApS
- Labor union CWA takes steps to organize game workers
- Campaign to organise industry backed by major US communications union: Communication Workers of America allies with Game Workers Unite on new campaign to unite tech and gaming sector
- Rockstar Spouse and the slow change of culture – 10 Years Ago This Month: Red Dead Redemption and its sequel both had crunch controversies, but the studio’s reactions show some change in thinking
- Tackling online abuse in the games industry is “not optional” – 2019 in Review: “Whatever the platforms are doing, we’ve got to behave as if the cavalry is not coming,” says digital security expert
- Escape from Tarkov dev says no playable women because of lore, “huge amount of work” required: Statement made in an effort to walk back three-year-old comment that war was only for “hardened men”
- WWE 2K20 crashes because it’s 2020, and no, that’s not a joke: This Y2K bug can be called “Crash Jericho.”
- Record $120.1 billion earned by games and interactive media in 2019: Superdata report shows $4 out of every $5 spent on digital games goes on free-to-play titles
- Number of adults over age 50 playing games regularly is on the rise: More older adults prefer puzzle and logic games, and most are playing on phones and tablets
- If History Repeats, Video Game Stocks Could Soar 690%+
- UK video game sales drop for the first time since 2012: Physical sales plunge as digital growth slows
- Analyst: Free-to-play games pushed digital game spend over $109 billion in 2019
- The number of Steam releases remained relatively flat from 2018 to 2019
- These are the highest grossing Steam games of 2019
- Major slowdown of new releases on Steam last year
- Only two of the biggest Steam games in 2019 were new releases: “Sekiro Shadows Die Twice” and “Total War Three Kingdoms” manage to secure a place in platform’s highest grossers
- The Witcher 3 hits new peak player record on Steam in wake of Netflix show
- Amazon’s best-selling games of 2019 dominated by gift cards and Switch: Top three items were digital currency, 22 of top 50 products were for Nintendo’s console
- On Christmas, mobile game spending reached $210 million: Sensor Tower accounted for 76% of all mobile in-app spending that day
- UK Charts: Call of Duty retains No.1 as Brain Training Switch makes Top 20
- It’s FIFA 20’s ninth week at No.1 in EMEAA
- Twitter reveals which games dominated the online chatter in 2019
- Square Enix eyes potential of XR, blockchain, and cloud gaming in 2020
- Blizzard signs three-year deal with ESL, Dreamhack: StarCraft II World Championship Series is being retired as Blizzard commits to ESL Pro Tours for StarCraft II and Warcraft III: Reforged
- League of Legends professional Maria ‘Remilia’ Creveling dies at 24: In 2015, Creveling became the first woman to compete in the League of Legends Championship Series
- Destiny’s Sword presents a double-edged dilemma: 2Dogs’ Ken Hall talks about dealing with PTSD, anxiety, and addiction in a strategy MMO intended to be fun first and foremost
- 2K Games resolves New Year bug in WWE 2K20: Y2K-style error rendered game unplayable as 2019 ended
- Pokemon Go: Documents show Canadian military’s struggle with game
- Final Fantasy VII Remakedemo has leaked, is packed with teases, spoilers
- PlayStation VR sales have topped 5 million units worldwide
- 5 Million PlayStation VR Units Sold, Sony Announces: PSVR continues to sell but slows in light of Quest and newer headsets
- How Sony’s PlayStation 2 took the world by storm
- Sony reveals PlayStation 5 logo, touts PlayStation 4 sales milestones
- Feelreal VR Scent Mask Hits Roadblock Amidst Crackdown on Flavored Vaping Products
- Subscriptions: When are auto-renewals fair game? | Opinion – As the CMA investigates the use of subscriptions in video games, legal experts at Lewis Silkin offer advice on best practices`
- Nexon sells off mobile dev Gloops for a single yen
- From licensing to lunch: How to work with Chinese partners – Unit 2 Games’ Hannah Waddilove on some of the less-discussed aspects of targeting the world’s largest games market
- Simplified Chinese is now the dominant language among Steam users: Chinese users flock to Steam as platform provides more localised experience and uncensored games
- Uncharted movie loses sixth director: Travis Knight leaves project over crunch and scheduling conflicts with lead actor
- Don’t Miss: How classic games make smart use of random number generation
- Breaking linear character progression with Outer Worlds’ flaw system
- Superhot VR grossed over $2 million in the final weeks of 2019
- Untitled Goose Game has topped 1 million sales in three months
- Here are your finalists for the 2020 Independent Games Festival Awards!
- Death Stranding leads the pack of 2020 Game Developers Choice Awards nominees
- Team 17 acquires UK studio Yippee Entertainment for $1.85 million
- At 10 million players, Xbox calls Sea of Thieves its most successful new IP this gen
- Team17 acquires Yippee Entertainment for £1.4m: Developer behind Chimpact and Commandos 2 remaster will work on new IP, plus brands owned by Worms firm and its partners
- Razer applies for digital bank licence in Singapore, proposes ‘youth bank’: Gaming accessories firm will take 60% stake in company and is leading a consortium of partners to bolster its bid
- Clever design, lack of Bluetooth make Razer’s new phone gamepad a winner
- Dell’s new Concept UFO puts PC gaming on a Nintendo Switch-like device
- Alienware’s handheld Concept UFO PC takes cues from the Nintendo Switch
- Report: Rumors suggest a new Switch model is due out this year
- Fantasy Flight Interactive to close after company-wide layoffs
- Platinum Games will use Tencent investment to ‘explore self-publishing’
- Legal issues a new game studio should consider
- Dead Cells Steam owners can now play previous versions of the game: The studio introduces the ability to roll-back the game to previous iterations
- Report: Amazon’s Twitch Not Meeting Ad Revenue Expectations
- The Last of Us director Bruce Straley on ludonarrative dissonance
- Video blog: Historians discuss Assassin’s Creed II
- Blog: Luring players with gratification
- Blog: How Disco Elysium’s interjections turn information into gameplay
- Blog: Game accessibility quotes of 2019
- Blog: 3 disruptive game design trends to look out for in 2020
- Analysts dole out 2020 predictions: Panel of industry watchers call their shots for the upcoming year in games (and assess how their 2019 calls turned out)
- Gamasutra’s Best of 2019: Kris Graft’s top 10 games
- Gamasutra’s Best of 2019: The top 10 game developers of the year
- Gamasutra’s Best of 2019: The top 10 games of the year
- Games of the Year 2019: Our favourite games of the year ranged from epic adventures to innovative indie games – plus a couple of Switch hits
- The Universim developer Crytivo donating two months’ revenues to Australian bushfire relief
- U.S. Patent no. 10,275,947: Modifying a simulated character by direct manipulation
Jon
