News of the Week; February 4, 2015

GAMES

1. EFF Files Amicus Brief Supporting EA in ‘Davis v. EA’

2. Techland Responds To ‘Dying Light’ Modding Community Concerns

+ ESA apologizes for DMCA claim on Dying Light mod files: Developer Techland also commits to return blocked modding features.

3. Blizzard releases Warcraft III content for use by Starcraft II modders: Characters, sounds, interface, and more available for cross-franchise modding.

4. Left Behind Games revenue scheme hits $6 million in charges: Ronald Zaucha fined $2.6 million for his role in a plan to inflate the Christian developer’s revenue by 1300 per cent

5. Nintendo to share up to 70 percent of ad revenue with game YouTubers: Video partnership program comes with some important restrictions, though.

+ YouTubers Respond To ‘Nintendo Creator’s Program’

+ PewDiePie criticizes Nintendo’s Let’s Play plans

6. Introducing ‘Joystiq X Engadget’: A new beginning

7. Hearthstone’s Team Archon releases Hosty hours after cheating allegations

8. Inside the Tragic, Obsessive World of Video Game Addicts

9. Code Reseller Targeted By Ubisoft Denies Wrongdoing

10. Raptr warns users of security breach

11. League of Legends e-sports organizer limits lesbian and transgender participants: After uproar, gaming tournament organizers remove sexuality-based restrictions.

12. War Games: the link between gaming and military recruitment

13. PlayStation buoyant in mixed Sony quarter

14. SOE acquired, becomes Daybreak Game Company

15. Report: Alibaba pumps $10 million into Ouya microconsole to launch in China

16. Gree posts Q2 loss of ¥7.66bn on sales of ¥24.1bn

17. Sega Sammy Announces Restructuring Plans, Mass Layoffs

18. Law & Order SVU Tackles Video Games and Online Harassment in Upcoming Episode

19. Attorney For Former RI Secretary of State Faces Fine Over 38 Studios Court Action

20. Atari founder Nolan Bushnell on Steve Jobs and virtual reality

21. EFF’s ‘Stupid Patent of the Month’ Is Game-Related

22. Marshawn Lynch And Rob Gronkowski Have An Extreme ‘Mortal Kombat’ Showdown

23. What Super Bowl ads can (and can’t) tell us about the video game market: Mobile game makers, not AAA publishers, push their product to viewers.

DIGITAL

24. The Pirate Bay Is Back After Nearly Two Months Of Downtime

25. EFF Wins Battle Over Secret Legal Opinions on Government Spying: Department of Justice to Release Analysis of Law Enforcement and Intelligence Agency Access to Census Records

26. Gag order prevented Google from disclosing WikiLeaks probe for 3 years: Search giant says its policy always contests secrecy orders tacked to data requests.

+ Battle Over Google Subpoena Threatens Critical Online Free Speech Protections: Federal Law Blocks Extraordinary and Burdensome Subpoena

+ Feds Gagged Google Over Wikileaks Warrants Because They Were ‘Upset By The Backlash’ To Similar Twitter Warrants

27. Nobody Saw This Coming: Now China Too Wants Company Encryption Keys And Backdoors In Hardware And Software

28. The Guardian Details The NSA’s Spying Activities on Leaky Apps Like ‘Angry Birds’

29. Harper proposes new powers for spies, plays down civil liberties concerns

+ Canada’s privacy commissioner weighs in on anti-terror bill; takes aim at oversight.

30. Cyber surveillance worries most Canadians: privacy czar’s poll: Privacy erosion leaving growing number ‘extremely concerned’

31. The Canadian Privacy and Civil Liberties Punch in the Gut (or Why CSE/CSIS Oversight is Not Enough) (Michael Geist)

32. Government’s Cloud Computing Strategy Focused on Keeping Data in Canada

33. Toronto-made computer program exposes who’s tracking you: TrackerSSL, developed by a research fellow at the U of T’s Citizen Lab, shows web users when their information is insecure and vulnerable to snooping.

34. “No Fast Lanes and Slow Lanes”: CRTC Rules Bell’s Mobile TV Service Violates Telecommunications Act (Michael Geist)

35. CRTC says that the future of over-the-air television is here, and it looks a lot like the past

36. FCC Raises Minimum Broadband Standards Substantially

+ FCC’s new broadband internet target leaves Canada behind: U.S. says broadband internet downloads must hit 25 Mbps, while Canada still aims for 5 Mbps

37. FCC Prohibits American Businesses From Blocking Wi-Fi Signals

38. Verizon Finally Buckles, Will Allow A Total Opt Out From Sneaky Super Cookies

39. The sharing economy is a lie: Uber, Ayn Rand and the truth about tech and libertarians – Disruptive companies talk a good game about sharing. Uber’s really just an under-regulated company making riches

40. The NFL wants you to think these things are illegal: Yes, you can record Sunday’s game. And you can talk about it.

+ My Official Super Bowl Television Post (Bruce Boyden)

41. Copyright Law Is Eating Away At Our Cultural History: And It’s Time To Fix That

42. From vinyl to digital – the second hand digital music market and implications for copyright

43. In need of a tune up: Wisconsin’s Court of Appeals considers personal jurisdiction in the internet age 

44. New challenges for old laws: B.C. Court considers employee misuse of social media

45. Revenge Porn & Canadian Law

46. Formation 8 And Palantir Founder Joe Lonsdale Named In Sexual Assault Lawsuit

47. Why Does Facebook Censor Gay Images?

48. Tech’s High Barrier to Entry for the Underprivileged

49. Study: Facebook Can Cause Depression

50. From “Trust In News” to “News Profiling”

CREATIVITY

51. When Musicians Unintentionally Steal: Sam Smith’s hit single sounds an awful lot like a Tom Petty song, but that doesn’t make him some kind of artistic hack.

51.Bizarre Plagiarism Fight Erupts After Two People Take Exact Same Photo

52. My Gravity Lawsuit And How It Affects Every Writer Who Sells To Hollywood

53. How foreign governments can influence American media – and tried to block my documentary

54. How ‘Selma’ Got Smeared: On historical drama and its malcontents

55. The Digital Future of TV Networks & The Original Series Crunch

56. Creator Or Buyer: Who Really Owns The Art?

57. French Civil Supreme Court: A Corporation Cannot be the Author of a Work Protected by Copyright

jon