News of the Week; May 18, 2016

GAMES

1. ‘NBA 2K’ Videogame Maker Fights Lawsuit Over Copyrighted Tattoos
2. ESL forms World Esports Association to professionalize and regulate eSports
3. WESA grilled about potentially flawed eSports regulatory practices: “If we’re seen as legitimate as the NFL, we’re happy. We probably don’t have the same standards as you have.”
4. Blizzard and Twitch pledge to fight racism with pilot program: An incident at a recent live-streamed Hearthstone tournament has highlighted the need for change in eSports
5. Blizzard vows to make changes following racist abuse of Hearthstone pro: Blizzard CEO Mike Morhaime will take steps to prevent the kind of appalling racism faced by TerrenceM at Dreamhack.
6. eSports supremacy beckons as Overwatch beta pulls 9.7m players
7. Investment in esports smart play for ESPN
8. Move Over, Twitch: Activision Blizzard Takes eSports To Facebook Live
9. Facebook To Broadcast Major League Gaming In Another Victory For eSports
10. Activision expands MLG.tv eSports broadcast network, builds Facebook partnership
11. Riot owner Tencent to launchLeague of Legends-ready console in China
12. Top German soccer club buys pro League of Legends team, Elements
13. FaZe Clan leaving WESA over reports of exclusivity demands
14. eSports “more a promotional tool than anything else” – Zelnick
15. 65% of Twitch viewing time split between four games
16. Blizzard vows to crack down on bad Twitch chat behaviour: CEO respond to Twitch chat’s racist comments
17. Blizzard takes zero-tolerance stance on Overwatch cheating: Publisher will issue permanent bans for first cheating offense, “full stop.”
18. Blizzard promises to permanently ban Overwatch cheats
19. Microsoft vetoed a black woman on cover for Fable II: Ex-Lionhead art director recalls marketing department “just didn’t get it,” insisted on a white male for Xbox 360 RPG
20. Lionhead tells all: Molyneux’s overpromises, Fable Legends’ $75M budget, more – Eurogamer feature also uncovers Milo and Kate’s failings, battles with Xbox marketing.
21. Apple classifies Palestinian-developed game as not a game, due to war theme
22. China doesn’t want your games
23. Money for nothing? Gamers and the buying of ‘virtual assets’
24. Games have left the shadow of the movie business: Disney’s cancellation of Infinity and move to a licensing model is just the latest step in a long, slow and inevitable divorce between games and movies.
25. Nintendo lays out movie aspirations
26. Nintendo preps expansion into medical device business
27. Microsoft discontinues game-creation tool Project Spark
28. One million dormant Xbox Live gamertags can be yours starting Wednesday
29. Virtual Reality Simulation Is Pushing The Design And Technological Boundaries Of Future Motorsport Cars
30. Gear VRs for everyone! Google turns Android into a VR-ready OS: Daydream
31. Kids getting smartphones at 10, as portable console popularity shrinks
32. Crytek adds 6 new unis to VR First: Includes University College London and Manchester Metropolitan University
33. AwesomenessTV announces The Kids’ Game Awards
34. How They Made Warcraft Into A Movie
35. Tetris movie still in the works, now planned as a trilogy
36. Could ‘Video Game Rap’ Be YouTube’s Latest Breakout Content Category?
37. Long-lost NES game hits emulators 25 years after it was made
38. “We are providing self-actualization for a great many of our players”: Electronic Arts CEO Andrew Wilson slots gaming just behind air, food, shelter, and water in the hierarchy of needs, says hardware refresh cadence has gone from six years to six months

DIGITAL

1. Everything today is a lie: We’re officially in the era of the epic troll.
2. The Information Age is over; welcome to the Experience Age
3. YouTube Launches Dedicated App for Virtual Reality Videos
4. Soon We Won’t Program Computers. We’ll Train Them Like Dogs
5. Machine Unlearning: A possible crack in the brain-computer analogy.
6. Google said to face “record $3 billion fine” in antitrust case: Search giant would have to change its business practices in Europe.
7. A Bold New Scheme to Regulate Facebook
8. Facebook And The First Amendment: Legal Challenges To Trending Controversy May Prove Difficult
9. Facebook, YouTube, Twitter face hate speech complaints in France: Three French anti-racism bodies to file lawsuits against tech trio on Tuesday.
10. Court Strikes Down Louisiana’s Attempt To Regulate Online Content ‘For The Children’
11. Google’s 1st Amendment defense to search censorship fails in court: “Plaintiff has adequately alleged that it did not violate any of Google’s policies.”
12. Judge Scolds Litigant For Making Facebook Account “Private” During Litigation–Thurmond v. Bowman
13. What does the First Amendment look like in the digital age? Knight and Columbia are spending $60 million to find out
14. What We Buy When We Buy Now (Aaron Perzanowski, Chris Jay Hoofnagle)
15. FTC Wins Deception Case Over Faux User-Generated Content–Fanning v. FTC
16. Amazon Liable For In-App Purchases by Kids
17. Bing bans tech support ads—because they’re mostly scams: The ban is intended to improve user safety.
18. $1B Bangladesh hackers implicated in attack on Vietnamese bank, Sony hack: The same code appears to have been used to attack Sony and banks in Vietnam, Bangladesh.
19. How Trump’s troll army is cashing in on his campaign
20. German Publishers Whine Because They Must Pay To Authors Misappropriated Copyright Levies
21. Copyright trolls Rightscorp are teetering on the verge of bankruptcy
22. Anti-piracy firm Rightscorp’s Q1 financials read like an obituary: Firm that bills online pirates $20 a pilfered song needs $1 million to stay afloat.
23. ‘Working Here is Psychological Torture’: Law Firm Sues Over Anonymous Comments
24. In Oracle v. Google, a Nerd Subculture Is on Trial
25. How Java’s Inherent Verboseness May Mess Up Fair Use For APIs
26. Google puts its expert on the stand to combat Oracle, wraps up its case
27. Google just combined Chrome, YouTube, and Search into a single messaging app called Spaces
28. Champions League and Europa League Finals Will Be Streamed Free On YouTube
29. YouTube will offer classic NFL games as part of a new deal: The site’s NFL videos have almost 900 million views to date.
30. NBA And BroadbandTV Launch Groundbreaking Multi-Platform Network: NBA Playmakers
31. It’s 2016 and TV Execs Have Decided They Need a Digital Strategy
32. The Music Industry Buried More Than 150 Startups. Now They Are Left To Dance With The Giants.
33. Disappointing: Elsevier Buys Open Access Academic Pre-Publisher SSRN
34. It’s the Data, Stupid: What Elsevier’s purchase of SSRN also means
35. Warren Buffett Interested In Yahoo Because Why Not At This Point
36. Man who claims to have invented e-mail sues Gawker for $35M in libel suit – Gizmodo: “Laying claim… for a universal technology gives you acres of weasel room.”
37. New UK copyright enforcement strategy: “Track down” infringers, brainwash kids – Computing dominates the creative industries, so why aren’t its needs considered
38. Germany plans to remove owner liability for piracy on open Wi-Fi hotspots—report
39. Focus: Data doesn’t have borders
40. Report: Apple is approving apps more quickly to increase Services revenue – Approval that took 8.8 days a year ago now takes around 1.95 days.
41. How Instagram Is Changing the Art World
42. Behind the Biggest Bitcoin Heist in History: Inside the Implosion of Mt. Gox
43. A few controversial numbers may be illegal to share: Certain numbers could, in principle, get you into trouble – why?
44. The History Of Social Networking

CREATIVITY

1. Copyright in Film Parody: Brandishing Fair Use As A Sword, Second Circuit Finds Improv Version Of Point Break Copyrightable
2. No copyright infringement in writing a book based on the facts in a film documentary
3. Court Finds No False Endorsement over Use of Individual’s Name in Wendy’s Kid’s Meal
4. Is Graffiti Ineligible for Copyright Protection Just Because the Act of Tagging is Illegal?
5. Why Katy Perry’s dress could set a new legal precedent in the US 
6. ASCAP Pays $1.75 Million to Settle Justice Department Probe
7. Moving Toward A “Moral Right” Of Attribution In U.S. Copyright Law
8. Name that tune: Musicians (and lawyers) are watching the copyright battle over Led Zeppelin’s ‘Stairway to Heaven,’ writes Josh O’Kane. A verdict against the group could have major consequences for the future of musical creativity
9. Gene Kelly’s Widow Claims Copyright In Interviews Done By Gene Kelly, Sues Over Academic Book
10. The End of Cadbury’s Purple Reign?
11. Fawlty Towers and Faulty Towers. Is there an infringement of intellectual property rights?
12. German Court Insults Free Speech, Bans Comedian From Mocking Turkish President
13. Macedonia’s Government Is Subsidizing Bad Patriotic Rock Music and People Aren’t Happy
14. Earnhardt Family Fighting Over Whether One Earnhardt Son Can Use His Own Last Name
15. User Content Platforms Take the Heat for Artists’ Struggles at WIPO (EFF)
16. Independent Publishing And Dmca Abuse, Or “How A Scammer Got My Book Blocked With Very Little Effort”
17. Fossilized culture, not lack of funding, put news media on deathwatch
18. Disney Defends Lawsuit Over Immigrants Replacing American Workers: A former Disney World worker aims to lead a class action claiming racketeering.
19. Were Authorities Really Tricked Into Hosting a Cultural Revolution Throwback Concert? Chinese Are Skeptical.
20. Why the ‘Black Panther’ movie shouldn’t give Marvel a free pass on diversity
21. Ghost in the Shell and anime’s troubled history with representation: A controversial casting is exposing the many complications and contradictions of Japanese animation
22. Men Are Sabotaging The Online Reviews Of TV Shows Aimed At Women
23. Stats show that Eurovision song tempos may reflect economic inequality: Faster tempo may be an expression of stress felt in troubled countries.

COMMUNICATIONS & BROADCASTING

1. How do we apply Canadian content rules to a world in which we’re all creating all the time?
2. BBC iPlayer viewers will need a TV licence to watch programmes online: “Access should be conditional upon verification of licence fee payment,” says UK gov’t.
3. “Mega Cable” arrives as Charter finalizes purchase of TWC
4. Charter blocked customer-owned modems for two years, must pay fine: Under settlement, Charter must notify FCC each time it blocks a 3rd-party modem.
5. Comcast Now Trying To Claim That Delivering Just TV To Third-Party Set Top Boxes ‘Not Feasible’
6. Cable Lobbying Group Claims More Competition Would Hurt Consumers
7. Cable Company CEO Calls TV Business A ‘Tragedy Of The Commons’ That Ends Badly
8. Bell/MTS presents complex options for regulators
9. From Broadcasting to Telecommunications and Everything in Between: Reflections on the Recent New Developments in Communications Law and Policy Conference 
10. Canada’s New Telecom Policy Begins to Take Shape With Rejection of Bell Appeal, Support for Net Neutrality (Michael Geist)
11. Add Philadelphia To The Long List Of Cities That Think Verizon Ripped Them Off On Fiber Promises

SURVEILLANCE & PRIVACY

1. Then there were 117 million. LinkedIn password breach much bigger than thought
2. CA Court Plays “Tag” – Judge Refuses to Drop Facebook Photo-Tagging Privacy Case 
3. Amazon CEO Jeffrey Bezos: Debate between privacy and security is ‘issue of our age’
4. Privacy, technology, and instant messaging – The British Columbia Court of Appeal sends a (instant) message
5. Russia Provides Glimpse Of A Future Where Powerful Facial Recognition Technology Has Abolished Public Anonymity
6. Mozilla Asks Court To Force FBI To Turn Over Information On Hacking Tool It Used In Child Porn Case
7. Indefinite prison for suspect who won’t decrypt hard drives, US gov’t says
8. Government Argues That Indefinite Solitary Confinement Perfectly Acceptable Punishment For Failing To Decrypt Devices
9. FBI Doesn’t Want Privacy Laws To Apply To Its Biometric Database
10. Here’s Why Lawyers Suggest You Stop Using Your Finger to Unlock Your Phone: You are protected against revealing passwords under the Fifth Amendment’s right against self-incrimination, but your biometrics are not.
11. Lack of Trust in Internet Privacy and Security May Deter Economic and Other Online Activities
12. Philly Cops Tried To Disguise An SUV With License Plate Readers As A Google Maps Vehicle
13. District Attorney Arguing Against Encryption Handed Out Insecure Keylogging ‘Monitoring’ Software To Parents
14. Philadelphia cops admit they put Google Maps sticker on surveillance vehicle: Who approved Google sticker on license plate reader-equipped car? Philly PD won’t say.
15. The Intercept releasing docs leaked by NSA whistleblower Snowden: “Primary objective” of document dump is to allow public to scour them for stories.
16. Who Will Own Your Data If the Tech Bubble Bursts?: Corporations, data brokers, and even criminals might buy failed companies just for their users’ personal information.
17. Spanish Constitutional Court allows companies to monitor their employees with video surveillance cameras without being required to give explanation of their specific purpose
18. WashU Expert: Spokeo decision has potential to expand privacy laws
19. Supreme Court Says Plaintiff Must Show Actual Harm From Bogus Profile Created By Spokeo
20. Supreme Court Issues Decision in Spokeo v. Robins; Must Allege Concrete Injury For Technical Statutory Violations 

jon