News of the Week; March 2, 2016

GAMES

1. PS4 to sell 100 million – DFC: Research firm predicts Sony to hold dominant lead in console space; Xbox One and PS4 revenues to be 50% digital by 2019
2. PlayStation TV over in North America and Europe too
3. Stream PS4 games to your PC or Mac with next system update: PS4 version 3.5 expands the useful feature past Vita, PlayStation TV.
4. Moon Studios CEO calls out console firms for hardware secrecy: Thomas Mahler says Nintendo NX will “just not have any software support” at launch due to lack of devkits
5. Cratering portable sales can’t prop up Nintendo’s business anymore: With 3DS sales declining rapidly, Nintendo needs NX to succeed fast.
6. Microsoft needs to stop forcing console-like restrictions on Windows Store PC games: With the upcoming Quantum Break a Windows Store exclusive, users are up in arms.
7. Rock group says Final Fantasy XIV song is “a straight up rip off”
8. EA abandons “ghost” trademark application: Ubisoft’s objected due to the existence of its Ghost Recon franchise
9. Capcom taking aim at Street Fighter V rage quitters
10. Naughty Dog apologizes for Ubisoft art in Uncharted 4 trailer
11. Ubisoft seeks Canadian investors to help stave off Vivendi takover
12. Gameloft board advises against selling stock to Vivendi
13. Harmonix launches Fig campaign for Rock Band 4 on PC
14. Halo World Championship sports $2.5 million prize pool
15. Valve raises Counter-Strike eSports prize to $1 million
16. Valve boss Gabe Newell fires host and production company after problems at the $3 million Dota 2 Shanghai Major
17. Lawyer’s perspective: A legal evaluation of Riot’s new competitive penalty policy
18. ESL and Intel launch eSports diversity initiative
19. YouTube dominating Twitch in gaming videos – Newzoo
20. Inside the Artificial Universe That Creates Itself: A team of programmers has built a self-generating cosmos, and even they don’t know what’s hiding in its vast reaches.
21. Decades later, players are still unlocking secrets in classic Mortal Kombat: Ed Boon’s arcade diagnostic menus have remained hidden since the early ’90s.
22. You wouldn’t be able to pause your video games today without Jerry Lawson: Lawson was a pioneering black engineer back when it was even harder in Silicon Valley.
23. McDonald’s is trialling Happy Meals that can turn into VR goggles
24. VR could make games a political scapegoat again – Capps
25. Second annual Chicago Video Game Law Summit set for April 16th

DIGITAL

1. Silk Road 2.0 Court Docs Show US Government Paid Carnegie Mellon Researchers To Unmask Tor Users
2. Judge confirms what many suspected: Feds hired CMU to break Tor
3. Tidal Sued For Unpaid Royalties And Cooking The Streaming Counts
4. Stupid Patent of the Month: 100+ companies sued over “personalized content” – Patent owner says EFF “calls inventors names” to help the “anti-patent movement.”
5. China Imposes New Restrictions on Online Publishing
6. Saudi Arabia Sentences Twitter User to 10 Years in Prison and 2,000 Lashes for Apostasy
7. US military launches cyber attacks on ISIS in Mosul, and announces it: Secretary of defense reveals cyber attacks in advance of ground battle for city.
8. White House Asked Google & Facebook To Change Their Algorithms To Fight ISIS; Both Said No
9. Patreon Moves To Give Users A Chance To Respond To DMCA Notices Before Taking Down Content
10. Can YouTube’s Video Claiming Policy Be Improved?
11. YouTube Addresses Concerns About Its Video Claiming Policy, Promises Changes
12. Top 100 Most Subscribed YouTube Channels Worldwide • January 2016
13. “Privacy Shield” proposed to replace US-EU Safe Harbor, faces scepticism: Unlikely to satisfy Europe’s data protection watchdogs—or the EU’s top court.
14. Bitcoin Is “Property,” Rules California Judge in Pivotal Bitcoin Case 
15. Machinima Pays NYAG $50,000 Over Undisclosed Endorsements
16. Clickwrap, Browsewrap and Mixed Media Contracts: A Few Words Can Go a Long Way 
17. Prize-Winning Novelist’s Facebook ‘Joke About White Guys’ Is Gone—and Back—in Less Than 24 hours
18. NLRB Rejects Employer’s Attempt to Restrict Content of Employees’ Emails Sent Over the Employer’s Email System
19. Appeals Court Dumps Apple’s Slide To Unlock Patent, Tosses Massive Jury Award Against Samsung In The Trash
20. Apple’s $120M jury verdict against Samsung destroyed on appeal: Autocorrect and “slide to unlock” patents are invalid in light of prior art.
21. The Trouble With the TPP, Day 37: Breaking Digital Locks For Personal Purposes (Michael Geist)
22. Tyler, TX Brags About Its “Friendliness” to Patent Trolls
23. Deadpool face-animation tech now embroiled in Hollywood legal battle: Company hopes to block distribution of films using Mova, a tech it claims to own.
24. Op-ed: The international politics of VPN regulation – Repressive nations are pursuing increasingly diverse strategies for curbing VPN use.
25. Wikimedia Foundation Executive Director Resigns Amid a Community Revolt
26. 50 Cent Breaks the Golden Rule of Social Media Posting
27. NY Times recommends ad blockers after CEO mulls ad-block ban: CEO says apps “ask for extortion to allow for ads;” paper says they conserve battery.
28. Can a Blind Person Read Your Website?
29. The nightmare of watching Netflix while battling PTSD
30. Google’s Artificial Brain Is Pumping Out Trippy—And Pricey—Art

CREATIVITY

1. Fairness Confirmed: Copyright Board Deals Another Blow to Access Copyright (Michael Geist)
2. Access Copyright and Absent Universities & Colleges – As the Mandatory Elephant in the Room Patiently Waits and Watches (Howard Knopf)
3. Quebec Court Dismisses Copibec Copyright Class Action Against Laval University (Michael Geist)
4. Why Kesha’s Case Is About More Than Kesha: Lena Dunham + Lenny stand with Kesha, because we will not “accept shame and fear as the status quo.”​
5. The Saddest Thing About the Kesha/Dr. Luke Lawsuit: It’s how familiar it all is.
6. Pop music desperately needs more female producers
7. This is everything Chris Rock said about race during his Oscars monologue
8. Disney CEO asks employees to chip in to pay copyright lobbyists: Letter boasts of beating Aereo, getting TPP—and wants workers’ help in 2016.
9. OMDC Response Confirms Minister Coteau’s Music Fund Claims Inaccurate (Michael Geist)
10. Same Fears, Different Century: Stage Adaptation Of Orwell’s ‘1984’ Still Ominously Relevant
11. China Won’t Broadcast the Hong Kong Film Awards Because of Dystopian Nominee ‘Ten Years’
12. Egyptian Writer Ahmed Naji Sentenced to Two Years in Prison for his “Sexually Explicit” Novel
13. Democracy warning as Canadian media outlets merge and papers close: Federal minister convenes talks as union calls for action over increasingly centralised ownership and publishers warn of threat to public interest journalism
14. Court Beats Down Another Competitive Keyword Advertising Lawsuit–Beast Sports v. BPI (Eric Goldman)
15. The Trouble With the TPP, Day 38: Limits on Canadian Digital Lock Safeguards (Michael Geist)
16. The Trouble With the TPP, Day 39: Quiet Expansion of Criminal Copyright Provisions (Michael Geist)
17. Canadian Libraries’ Response to Chapter 18 of the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement
18. Disney CEO asks employees to chip in to pay copyright lobbyists: Letter boasts of beating Aereo, getting TPP—and wants workers’ help in 2016.
19. Statutory rights to terminate copyright grants
20. As Netflix Soars, HBO Comes Under Increasing Pressure
21. 19 Reasons to be Thankful for “Fair Use”
22. MashUp: The Birth of Modern Culture (Vancouver Art Gallery)
23. Measuring Creativity: Learning from Innovation Measurement (WIPO)

 COMMUNICATIONS

1. Bell tells staff to downplay new $25 basic TV package ordered by CRTC: Company is trying to make new, cheap TV package unattractive, Bell employee believes
2. CBS Broadcasting Inc. v. FilmOn.com, Inc.
3. ‘Wireless propaganda’ and the lame denials it inspires: Cellphone industry supporters and executives are trumpeting price studies that don’t mean anything. (Peter Nowak)
4. Canada Forcing Cheaper, More Flexible Pricing On TV Industry March 1. Will It Work?
5. Will ‘skinny packages’ tempt cable customers to stay connected?: Cheaper TV packages, ‘pick-and-pay’ channels available today
6. FCC ‘Probing’ Whether Cable Companies Have Sabotaged Internet Video
7. AT&T gave $62K to lawmakers months before vote to limit muni broadband: Missouri bill would make it difficult for cities to offer Internet service.
8. AT&T Sues To Keep Google Fiber Competition Out Of Louisville
9. AT&T sues Louisville to stop Google Fiber from using its utility poles: Lawsuit could delay Google construction, give AT&T head start in fiber race.
10. When Comcast’s Business As Usual Turns Out to Limit Minority Access: What happens when a plutocrat’s “rational” decisions wind up affecting minority areas? Take a look at Hartford.
11. One year later, net neutrality still faces attacks in court and Congress: FCC’s Title II and muni broadband rulings face uncertain future.
12. Like the Internet itself, this policy debate should be open
13. It took Verizon seven months to fix Internet outage in NYC building
14. The Trouble With the TPP, Day 40: Mobile Roaming Promises Unfulfilled (Michael Geist)

SURVEILLANCE & PRIVACY

1. Apple prevails in pre-San Bernardino forced iPhone unlock case in New York: All Writs Act can’t be used to achieve legislative goal that US Congress hasn’t granted.
2. Apple prevails in forced iPhone unlock case in New York court – Ruling: All Writs Act can’t be used to achieve goal that Congress hasn’t granted.
3. Judge In Different Apple Case Says That All Writs Act Doesn’t Mean Apple Needs To Help Feds Break Into Phone
4. Federal Judge Says Third Party Doctrine A Perfectly ‘Good Law;’ No Warrants Needed To Obtain Cell Location Records
5. Why the FBI’s Apple iPhone Demands Are Rotten to the Core (Michael Geist)
6. We cannot trust our government, so we must trust the technology: Apple’s battle with the FBI is not about privacy v security, but a conflict created by the US failure to legitimately oversee its security service post Snowden (Yochai Benkler)
7. Forcing Apple to Hack That iPhone Sets a Dangerous Precedent (Darrell Issa)
8. Bill Gates refutes reports that he sided with FBI in Apple privacy fight
9. Police chief: There’s a “reasonably good chance” not much is on seized iPhone – Top San Bernardino cop tells NPR there’s “low probability” unlocking it will reveal more.
10. John McAfee better prepare to eat a shoe because he doesn’t know how iPhones work
11. Apple tells court it would have to create “GovtOS” to comply with ruling: Claims in 65-page motion to vacate that it would have to build on-site FBI forensic lab.
12. What’s At Stake In Apple/FBI Fight: Who Gets To Set The Rules That Govern Your Privacy & Security
13. Apple CEO prepared to fight the FBI all the way to the Supreme Court
14. The technology at the heart of the Apple-FBI debate, explained (Christopher Soghoian)
15. FBI vs. Apple Establishes a New Phase of the Crypto Wars (Dan Froomkin & Jenna McLaughlin)
16. Preliminary thoughts on the Apple iPhone order in the San Bernardino case: Part 3, the policy question (Orin Kerr)
17. FBI is asking courts to legalize crypto backdoors because Congress won’t: The most lawmakers have done is float bill to create a “commission” to study issueApple’s encryption fight against the U.S. government could spill into Canada
18. Why Canada isn’t having a policy debate over encryption
19. Want To Report A Dangerous Drug Dealer? Just Enter Your Personal Info Into The DEA’s Unsecured Webform
20. Most software already has a “golden key” backdoor: the system update – Software updates are just another term for cryptographic single-points-of-failure.
21. Courts, DOJ: Using Tor Doesn’t Give You A Greater Expectation Of Privacy
22. WikiLeaks Publishes NSA Target List (Bruce Schneier)
23. Why Don’t Tech Reviews Discuss Gadget Security and Privacy? (Dan Gillmor)
24. Online Privacy and the Invisible Market for Our Data (Rebecca Lipman)
25. South Korea Embraces Ridiculous Right To Be Forgotten As Well
26. 8th Circuit finds copyright preemption of publicity claim (Rebecca Tushnet)
27. Eighth Circuit Tosses NFL Players’ Lawsuit

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