News of the Week; January 20, 2016

GAMES

1. Activision sued for portraying Angolan rebel as murderous “halfwit”: Family of Jonas Savimbi object to his depiction in Call of Duty: Black Ops II
2. Call of Duty publisher sued by family of Angolan rebel: Jonas Savimbi is portrayed as a ‘barbarian’ in Call of Duty: Black Ops II say three of his children who seek €1m damages
3. Supreme Court will hear Microsoft’s appeal in Xbox 360 case: Microsoft wants the disc scratching class-action lawsuits thrown out
4. Big Fish’s Virtual Casino Doesn’t Violate Washington’s Gambling Statute
5. What legal experts think of Sony’s ‘Let’s Play’ trademark claim
6. Can Sony Trade Mark ‘Let’s Play’?
7. Law Firm Challenges Sony’s ‘Let’s Play’ Trademark Before It’s Too Late
8. American game developer freed from Iranian custody after four years: Amir Mizra Hekmati convicted of espionage over “documentary” war games.
9. Life Is Strange sparks Square Enix anti-bullying campaign
10. Twitch’s #GeekGirlDinner
11. Feminist Frequency announces format change for remaining Tropes vs Women videos
12. Vivendi sells its stake in Activision Blizzard: Former parent company unloads remaining 5.7% interest in publisher for $1.1 billion
13. Analysts cool on VR, eSports: Deloitte Global restrained about growth markets’ 2016 performance, expects mobile to get tougher for devs
14. A final nail in the coffin of cloud streaming: Streaming gameplay from data centres was never a good idea, and now it’s a dead one – but the tech that drove it is helping to reshape our industry
15. The Oculus Rift is Now 4 Months Backordered
16. New Hitman game switches to episodic model: “We fully acknowledge that the decision may frustrate some players”
17. PewDiePie Gets To Be The Boss Of His Own YouTube Network Thanks To Disney
18. ESPN ramps up eSports coverage
19. ESA: People “deserve better” than NPD numbers: Trade group upset that released data doesn’t take digital or mobile revenues into account
20. Kickstarter: $46 million pledged to video games in 2015
21. Real Sports Money Moves Into Video Game Sports?: Investors, some with big-league sports backgrounds, are transforming the most prominent competitive video game league.
22. Duke Nukem actor refused gig as voice of Republican presidential ad campaign
23. Dan Pinchbeck wins Writer’s Guild award: Chinese Room co-founder picks up prize for Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture
24. Microsoft, Crytek launch educational gaming initiatives
25. Much more than Mario Kart: The history of kart racers

DIGITAL

1. Netflix cracks down on customers using VPNs, proxies, and unblockers: It may affect all VPN users, not just those trying to evade license restrictions.
2. How Twitter quietly banned hate speech last year: Company now emphasizes safety and free expression rather than lack of censorship.
3. Apple axes free iTunes Radio service, directs listeners to Beats 1 instead
4. Access Copyright Demands Higher Royalties Due to Education Investment in Technology (Michael Geist)
5. Big Data Can Be Used To Violate Civil Rights Laws, and the FTC Agrees
6. FTC Issues Report (and Warning Shot) on Big Data Use 
7. After five years of conflict with Apple, some Samsung phone features are banned: The injunction on old phones still irks Samsung.
8. The Trouble with the TPP, Day 10: Criminalization of Trade Secret Law (Michael Geist)
9. The Perkins v. LinkedIn Class Action Settlement Notification Was Badly Bungled (Eric Goldman)
10. PC shipments showed record decline in Q4 2015
11. The Complicated Relationship between DMCA Takedown Notices and the Word “Expeditious”
12. The Dangers of a Blockchain Monoculture
13. Ad Blocking: A Primer
14. YouTube star Colleen Evans gets her own Netflix show based on Miranda Sings
15. NBC Exec: Netflix Poses No Threat To Us, God Wants You To Watch Expensive, Legacy TV
16. Mom and Dad swiped right: Meet the Tinder babies! 

CREATIVITY

1. Croatian cake pirates threatened with lawsuits: If you have Disney characters on your confections, you will be sued.
2. Bernie Sanders lawyers to Wikipedia: Take down our logo, you’re violating DMCA – In today’s political DMCA spat, $10 sticker sales are pitted against fair use.
3. Hollywood Helps Show Why DMCA Takedowns Are Dangerous, By Taking Down Links To MPAA’s Search Engine
4. Judge Swain Rejects Artist’s Copyright Claim Against Starbucks Over Ad Campaign 
5. Metallica Sends 41 Page Legal Threat To Canadian Cover Band 
6. God v. Copyright: Mike Huckabee Invokes Religion In Copyright Suit
7. The use of “iwatch” as an AdWords keyword by Apple does not infringe an earlier third party’s trademark, says the IP Court of Milan
8. Newspaper bosses ‘paralyzed’ by change, clueless about paid content, says Steve Brill
9. ‘Cartel’ Author Don Winslow Responds To Sean Penn: “Call It Anything You Want – Except Journalism”
10. Lego Says It Is Changing Its Policy After Ai Weiwei Controversy
11. Lego Reverses Policy On Block Orders For Political Projects After Public Shaming
12. Disney Stock Crashes Due to ESPN Concerns. Is This a Buying Opportunity?
13. What was the TV channel?: In the midst of cable’s existential meltdown, ABC Family rebrands to Freeform
14. Supreme Court takes up copyright case over resold textbooks—again
15. Copyright Question: Does David Bowie Get The Copyright On Computer Generated Lyrics?
16. A Lesson from the History of Italian Opera: Some Copyright Good/More Copyright Useless
17. Copyright and Creativity – Evidence from Italian Opera (Michela Giorcelli & Petra Moser)
18. in defense of fair dealing (Meera Nair)

COMMUNICATIONS

1. Big Three wireless carriers to raise prices as low loonie takes toll
2. Verizon Wireless selling data cap exemptions to content providers: Video, music, app downloads, and ads can be exempted from caps for a fee.
3. What Washington Has in Store for Broadcasters in 2016 – Looking at the Legal Issues that the FCC Will Be Considering in the New Year 
4. Regulator raises questions about future Internet services as ‘dark cloud’ looms 

SURVEILLANCE & PRIVACY

1. Ontario court rules police orders breached cellphone users’ Charter rights
2. Top European court to snooping governments: Mass surveillance needs judicial oversight – ECHR rules Hungarian anti-terror law infringes on basic human rights. Watch out, UK.
3. European Court Of Human Rights May Have Just Outlawed Mass Surveillance Without Most People Realizing It
4. UK Appeals Court Says UK Terrorism Act’s Detention Clause Violates Press Freedoms
5. EFF Wants Cisco Held Responsible For Helping China Track, Torture Falun Gong Members
6. Australia’s new metadata retention laws
7. BlackBerry — Which Said It Wouldn’t Protect Criminals — Assures Criminals Its Phones Are Still Secure
8. Rightscorp agrees to pay $450,000 for illegal robocalls: Class action ends after plaintiffs suffered an anti-SLAPP setback last year.
9. More Data Breach Lawsuits Fail In Court–Michaels Stores and SuperValu
10. Should We Allow Bulk Searching of Cloud Archives? (Bruce Schneier)
11. A Few Keystrokes Could Solve the Crime. Would You Press Enter? (Jonathan Zittrain)
12. Another US ag-gag law outlawing data collection is challenged in court: Bill bans secret filming or sound recording on an employer’s premises.
13. Feds Confirm Cardinals Accessed Astros System With Old Password, File Unauthorized Access Charges
14. The Trouble with the TPP, Day 11: Weak Privacy Standards (Michael Geist)
15. The Trouble with the TPP, Day 12: Restrictions on Data Localization Requirements (Michael Geist)
16. Sean Penn’s Opsec (Bruce Schneier)

jon