News of the Week; April 13, 2016

GAMES

1. Leslie Benzies suing Rockstar over $150 million: Key GTA developer accuses publisher, Houser brothers of forcing him from company, withholding royalties
2. Take-Two sued by former Rockstar North president for $150 million in unpaid royalties
3. Rockstar: Benzies’ claims “downright bizarre”
4. Grand Theft Auto devs planned to leave Take-Two: Leslie Benzies lawsuit says he and the Houser brothers set up an independent company that would still work on publisher’s IP
5. 5 things to know about GTAproducer Leslie Benzies’ legal fight with Rockstar
6. Blizzard shutters popular private WoW server with threat of legal action
7. Blizzard shuts down popular fan-run “pirate” server for classic WoW: Nostralrius servers claimed 800K users are playing 2006-era World of Warcraft.
8. The Ultimate In CwF: How Lovers Of Stardew Valley Fought Piracy By Buying The Game For Pirates
9. Game Studio’s Plan To Deal With Critic Of Games: Sue Him To Hell
10. UK Government-backed eSports competition to debut alongside Rio Olympics
11. Wargaming wants an eSports players union
12. Twitch and Faceit partner for new eSports initiative with $3.5m prize pool
13. Activision Blizzard boasts new CS:GO eSports viewership record – A record-breaking 45 million hours of live broadcast were watched
14. Sports satellite radio channel expands to cover eSports
15. Bottom of Form: Rock Band 4 Fig campaign raises half its $1.5 million target
16. Twitch users can now live stream Android games from their PC
17. Codemasters pulls DriveClub developer Evolution back from the brink
18. Oculus shipping dates pushed back again as pre-order woes continue
19. Beamdog CEO stands up to bullies, says harassing tactics won’t work
20. Jack Thompson and how I started with GamePolitics
21. All Those Evil Violent Video Games Apparently Failed At Turning Kids Into Deviant Murder-Terrorists
22. Fewer dumb things are said about video games these days
23. Looking back: Brown v. EMA
24. Looking back: GamerGate
25. For Good Men To See Nothing
26. Can a video game company tame toxic behaviour?: Scientists are helping to stop antisocial behaviour in the world’s most popular online game. The next stop could be a kinder Internet.
27. Survey: Video ads are the #1 way players prefer to ‘pay’ for mobile games
28. This Assetto Corsa Mixed Reality Video Shows VR Racing’s Potential
29. Accessibility in VR game design: The Fantastic Contraption approach

DIGITAL

1. European Court of Justice – Posting a hyperlink to a website which published photos without authorisation does not in itself constitute a copyright infringement
2. Linking to pirated material doesn’t infringe copyright, says top EU court lawyer: Key question is whether the Court of Justice of the European Union agrees with him.
3. The Legality of Selling “Used” Digital Songs and Movies Headed to Appeals Court
4. Is Purchase of a Google AdWord use of a Trade Mark? Case Examined by Australian Federal Court
5. 3D-printed masterpiece? Computer mimics brushstrokes of Rembrandt: New portrait created using machine learning algorithms with help from Microsoft.
6. Scientists Create a New Rembrandt Painting, Using a 3D Printer & Data Analysis of Rembrandt’s Body of Work
7. The dark side of Guardian comments: As part of a series on the rising global phenomenon of online harassment, the Guardian commissioned research into the 70m comments left on its site since 2006 and discovered that of the 10 most abused writers eight are women, and the two men are black. Hear from three of those writers, explore the data and help us host better conversations online
8. Facial-Recognition Software Might Have a Racial Bias Problem: Depending on how algorithms are trained, they could be significantly more accurate when identifying white faces than African American ones.
9. From Siri to sexbots: Female AI reinforces a toxic desire for passive, agreeable and easily dominated women
10. Ethics and Artificial Intelligence: The Moral Compass of a Machine
11. In China, Alleged Assault Footage Helps Muffle Panama Talk
12. How an internet mapping glitch turned a random Kansas farm into a digital hell
13. NCAA Reverses Their Ban On Social Media And Texting Communication Between Coaches And Recruits
14. Is The Era of Live Sports Streaming Upon Us?
15. Vancouver-based BroadbandTV trails only Google, Facebook for online video views
16. Global PC shipments continue to fall in 2016
17. Online courses’ metadata helps NCAA catch cheating coaches red-handed: Head coach sent grad students all over the country to complete online coursework
18. YouTube Copyright Claim Strips Audio Out of Conference on Surveillance Overreach

CREATIVITY

1. More People Recognizing Copyright’s ‘Free Speech Problem’
2. Led Zeppelin’s Stairway to Heaven may be partly stolen, judge says: ‘Substantial’ similarities are enough to warrant a trial over whether Robert Plant and Jimmy Page lifted opening chords from Taurus by the band Spirit
3. Led Zeppelin ‘Stairway To Heaven’ Copyright Case Will Go To A Jury… Meaning Band Will Almost Certainly Lose
4. Theft or inspiration: A musical guide to copyright lawsuits – The Song Remains… Similar?
5. Lawyers who won Happy Birthday copyright case sue over “We Shall Overcome”: Civil rights anthem never should have been copyrighted, plaintiffs say.
6. Lucasfilm Threatens And Threatens Non-Profit Over Lightsaber Battle Event
7. Richard Prince – an update
8. Right of Publicity Claim over Straight Outta Compton Gets Kicked Straight Outta Court
9. The Future of Digital Cinema May Be At Stake in Lawsuit Over Interoperability: GDC and Dolby go to war over whether the messages and commands that allow motion pictures to play on screen are a protected form of intellectual property.
10. When you can parody another’s work or mark
11. Authorship and the Boundaries of Copyright: Ideas, Expressions, and Functions in Yoga, Choreography, and Other Works (Christopher Buccafusco)

COMMUNICATIONS & BROADCASTING

1. Canadian Government Fails To Force Cheaper TV Options, Blames Consumers For Not Trying Harder
2. Cable cord-cutting numbers soar in Canada thanks to Netflix, high prices, says report: 80% more people cut the cord in 2015 compared with 2014, says report
3. Affordable Internet access is everyone’s business: Geist
4. Intervening at the CRTC: Nothing Encourages Participation Like Background Checks and Legally Mandated Undertakings (Michael Geist)
5. Three-O2 merger hits major snag as UK competition watchdog wades in
6. Silverpush Stops Using Sneaky, Inaudible TV Audio Tracking Beacons After FTC Warning
7. Verizon won’t fix copper lines when customers refuse switch to fiber
8. FCC: Carrier pocketed $10M in bogus cell phone subsidies – Record $51M fine proposed for carrier accused of enrolling ineligible customers.
9. How Big Telecom Gets Away With Rewriting America’s Laws

SURVEILLANCE & PRIVACY

1. Apple won’t demand to learn how FBI cracked terror suspect’s phone: Gadget maker said it did not know whether FBI employed a software or hardware hack.
2. US government still pursuing court order to unlock iPhone in New York case: “The government’s application is not moot,” Justice Department says.
3. Privacy watchdog to investigate RCMP over alleged ‘stingray’ cellphone surveillance: The commissioner has opened an investigation into the use of International Mobile Subscriber Identity (IMSI) catchers, otherwise known as stingrays, by law enforcement.
4. FBI paid “gray hats” for zero-day exploit that unlocked seized iPhone: Washington Post says feds likely bought hack from “ethically murky” researchers.
5. The Senate’s Draft Encryption Bill Is ‘Ludicrous, Dangerous, Technically Illiterate’
6. MIT Tech Review Tries To Blame Apple Encryption For Wrongful Arrest
7. Oculus brings real (and pervasive) data-mining to virtual reality
8. Senator Al Franken questions Oculus’ data collection, calls for transparency
9. EU-US Privacy Shield in big trouble, may not pass muster, suggests German leak: EU data authorities might push for top EU court case if Commission forges ahead anyway.
10. Microsoft Endorses the EU-US Privacy Shield. Will Others Follow?
11. Privacy Shield doesn’t do enough to curtail US surveillance, say EU data watchdogs: “Great step forward,” but still work to do, say privacy experts.

jon