News of the Week: November 18, 2015

GAMES

1. How the Baseless ‘Terrorists Communicating Over Playstation 4’ Rumor Got Started
2. How Paris ISIS Terrorists May Have Used PlayStation 4 To Discuss And Plan Attacks  (Forbes)
3. Nintendo wins major victory in Italian court against PC Box
4. Nintendo wins court ruling against modchips and homebrew software: Security measures ruled proportionate, despite preventing legitimate use.
5. Nintendo Victory Against Piracy Mod Doesn’t Set Precedent, Says Lawyer: European Court rules in favour of platform holder, but that doesn’t make all modchips illegal.
6. Blizzard sues ‘World of Warcraft,’ ‘Diablo 3’ and ‘Heroes of the Storm’ bot maker
7. Yet Again, Blizzard Looks To Twist Copyright Law To Use It To Go After Bot Makers It Considers Cheaters
8. Rockstar Whips Out The Ban-Hammer On GTAV Players Over Mod
9. That Didn’t Take Long: MLB Plans Action Against Fallout 4 David Ortiz Mod
10. Nintendo wins another patent case against Wii U, 3DS
11. Plaintiff loses in-app gambling suit
12. Players are value creators – Paradox CEO
13. Understanding this year’s biggest video game copyright ruling
14. ESAC report shows healthy growth of Canadian video games industry
15. Video games contributed $3bn to Canada’s GDP in 2015
16. Canadian video game industry catching up to TV & film production: Video game industry spent $2.36 billion in Canada in 2014, up 50% from 2013
17. Fallout 4 ships 12 million
18. Unpacking the $5.9BN King acquisition price
19. Kim Kardashian game points to underserved audience
20. Mobile study reveals F2P gender preferences: FPS titles 90% male, hidden object 90% female, says DeltaDNA
21. Lessons from the PC video game industry: The future of media is here — it’s just not evenly distributed
22. From Cartridge To Club: A Look At The Labels That Recontextualise Video Game Music
23. Research: professional game critics more respected by older consumers
24. “Gap between console and mobile is not as big as it seems” – Newzoo
25. Why these comedians can’t stop playing the worst game in history: Members of the sketch comedy group Loading Ready Run tell CNET about their strange journey for charity, driving from Phoenix to Las Vegas and back again (and again and again) in the game Desert Bus. 

DIGITAL

1. Anonymous Vs. The Islamic State: For nearly a year, a war has been unfolding in strange corners of the Internet. But can a bunch of hackers really take on the world’s deadliest jihadi group?
2. Post arguing for separation of church and state gets pulled by Facebook: Moderators for the site seem to either intervene too much or not enough.
3. FCC chairman suggests expanded wiretap laws in response to the Paris attacks
4. Metadata Surveillance Didn’t Stop the Paris Attacks: And yet intelligence officials and politicians are now saying it could have. They’re wrong.
5. After Endless Demonization Of Encryption, Police Find Paris Attackers Coordinated Via Unencrypted SMS
6. Mass Surveillance Isn’t the Answer to Fighting Terrorism (NY Times Editorial Board)
7. NY Times Gets It Right: Officials Calling For More Surveillance Are Proven Liars; Don’t Listen To Them
8. Edward Snowden Explains How To Reclaim Your Privacy
9. No one has beat the government in court on spying
10. Did the FBI Pay a University to Attack Tor Users?
11. Tor Project Claims FBI Paid Carnegie Mellon $1 Million To Deanonymize Tor Users
12. Tor Says Feds Paid Carnegie Mellon $1M to Help Unmask Users
13. Academics ‘Livid,’ ‘Concerned’ Over Allegations that CMU Helped FBI Attack Tor
14. FBI: “The allegation that we paid CMU $1M to hack into Tor is inaccurate” – Revelation raises more questions than it answers, Carnegie Mellon still silent.
15. Why the attack on Tor matters – Op-ed: Comp sci researchers have a blind spot to ethical issues in their field.
16. Why the G20’s new “anti-hacking” agreement is pointless: Members claim to protect against “unlawful and arbitrary interference of privacy.”
17. Not the way the datr cookie crumbles. Belgian courts on soggy jurisdictional grounds in Facebook privacy ruling.
18. Microsoft building data centers in Germany that US government can’t touch: Microsoft will then hand the keys over to a local “data trustee.”
19. Why Microsoft’s ‘Data Trustee’ Model is a Potential Game-changer in the Privacy War
20. Beware of ads that use inaudible sound to link your phone, TV, tablet, and PC: Privacy advocates warn feds about surreptitious cross-device tracking.
21. Despite Aereo Supreme Court Ruling, TV Cloud Service CloudAntenna Insists It’s On Solid Legal Ground
22. Here’s a Spy Firm’s Price List for Secret Hacker Techniques
23. Password-pilfering app exposes weakness in iOS and Android vetting process: Vetting process for both App Store and Google Play failed to spot suspicious app.
24. This startup makes it easy for anyone to launch their own streaming TV service: Will the future see a million tiny Netflixes bloom?
25. FCC Refuses To Force Websites To Adhere To ‘Do Not Track,’ And That’s A Good Thing
26. Time Warner Promises To Adapt To Cord Cutting With Fewer TV Ads, Gets Punished By Wall Street For It
27. Comcast sent collection agencies after customer who paid all his bills: And it took 18 months to fix Comcast’s mistake.
28. Quebec Bets on Internet Blocking: New Bill Mandates ISP Blocking of Gambling Websites (Michael Geist)
29. No Liability for Linking to Defamatory Content–Life Designs Ranch v. Sommer (Eric Goldman)
30. Ontario Passes Law Targeting Bogus Defamation Lawsuits
31. The Ethics of Virtual Reality Storytelling
32. The Cost of Canadian Copyright Term Extension Capitulation in the TPP – Estimates Based Upon New Zealand Study (Howard Knopf)
33. Head Of House Judiciary Committee Dines With MPAA, Joins Their Fundraiser, Following LA Copyright Hearing
34. TPP treaty: changes to Canadian copyright and trade secret laws
35. FilmOn Loses A Second Case, Meaning That Supreme Court May Get A Second Shot At Aereo Decision
36. Judge: Internet broadcaster FilmOn isn’t a cable system – Win in LA, lose in DC: High court may have to reconsider half-baked Aereo opinion.
37. Leval On Fair Use And Google Books: A Sketch Of A Story
38. Artificial intelligence: ‘Homo sapiens will be split into a handful of gods and the rest of us’: A new report suggests that the marriage of AI and robotics could replace so many jobs that the era of mass employment could come to an end
39. New Yahoo survey shows blacks, Hispanics see tech as a more positive force in politics than whites do
40. Hackathons Have a Gender Problem: And they might explain why it’s so difficult to attract women to work in cybersecurity.
41. On Gawker’s Problem With Women: A former staff writer describes how a media company founded on whistleblowing and radical transparency failed its female employees.
42. Tensorflow And Monetizing Intellectual Property
43. Comprehensive crowdfunding rules published in final form
44. The new kings of YouTube botting
45. AS Roma, Maker team up for online
46. Failed Windows 3.1 system blamed for shutting down Paris airport: And the people who understand the old operating system are all retiring.
47. Microsoft Invented Google Earth in the 90s Then Totally Blew It
48. Inside Mark Zuckerberg’s Bold Plan For The Future Of Facebook: Facebook is firing on all cylinders. Now Mark Zuckerberg is looking to the decade ahead, from AI to VR to drones.
49. I Don’t Want My MTV
50. Top 100 Most Viewed YouTube Channels Worldwide • October 2015
51. The Doomsday Invention: Will artificial intelligence bring us utopia or destruction?

CREATIVITY

1. The Paris Court of Appeals Gives Freedom of Expression the Ax in Favor of Droit Moral
2. Judge throws out $42 million copyright case against Taylor Swift, quotes Swift hits in lawsuit dismissal
3. Charity claims it now owns lucrative “Happy Birthday” copyright: The most valuable “orphan work” has attracted a new claimant.
4. Anne Frank foundation moves to keep famous diary copyrighted for 35 more years: Group says Otto Frank was a “co-author,” throwing a wrench into online projects.
5. Anne Frank And The Lasting Legacy Of The Public Domain
6. How Disney Is Making Sure You’ll Never Be Able to Escape Star Wars
7. Did The Jian Ghomeshi Allegations Teach Us Anything?: It’s been a year since the allegations against the former Q host were made public. Plenty of us thought it was a watershed moment, but when it comes to assault and violence against women, can anything be?

jon