January, 2014

1. Court overturns $11 million judgment for original Madden creator

2. Copyright Suit Over Second Life Terraforming Survives Summary Judgment, Then Settles — FireSabre v. Linden

3. Stoic: The Banner Saga Sequel Held Up By King Trademark Challenge

4. Candy Crush is everything that is wrong with trademark law

5. ‘Candy Crush Saga’ Creator Accused Of Cloning Indie Game

6. Nintendo vs Modchips

7. Report: Spy Agencies Collect Troves of Data From ‘Leaky Apps’ Like ‘Angry Birds’

8. “DayZ” Makes You Feel Every Murder You Commit. Can You Handle This?

9. Former Global VR CTO Sentenced to Two Years in Prison

10. Report: Funcom Under Investigation for Insider Trading

11. EA beats guidance as sales shrink, losses deepen

12. Report: Iranian Man Arrested by Government for ‘Kill Dictators’ Game on Kongregate

13. Japanese Vita Game ‘ Monster Monpiece’ Gets Toned Down for Europe and North America

14. A Holodeck Videogame Designed to Train Soldiers

15. Biggest battle in EVE Online’s history leads to an estimated $500,000 in damages

16. What Games Are: Generation Gygax

17. FTC: Microsoft and EA Are Not Breaking Any Laws With YouTube Paid Endorsement Schemes

18. Net Neutrality and Gaming: Things Can Get A Lot Worse

19. How online gamers are solving science’s biggest problems

20. Is emoji death threat a criminal offense? Possibly, law prof says

21. Apple Patent Explores Mood-Based Ad Targeting

22. What If Your Autonomous Car Keeps Routing You Past Krispy Kreme?

23. Chinese Internet Traffic Redirected to Small Wyoming House

24. Watchdog report offers harshest critique of NSA metadata program to date

25. Told Ya So: NSA’s Collection Of Metadata Is Screamingly Illegal

26. Snowden Docs Reveal British Spies Snooped on YouTube and Facebook

27. Spanish Court Orders an ISP to Disconnect a Copyright Infringer

28. Apple Wins Temporary Stay on Court Monitor

29. Europe’s Highest Court Says DRM Circumvention May Be Lawful In Certain Circumstances + Decision

30. Study of French “three strikes” piracy law finds no deterrent effect

31. Corporations Abusing Copyright Laws Are Ruining the Web for Everyone

32. A Brief History of Sampling: From the Beatles to the Beastie Boys

33. Here We Go Again: Canadian Recording Industry Calls on Government To Regulate the Internet

34. The Internet Is the Greatest Legal Facilitator of Inequality in Human History

jon

1. Why did a SimCity offline option take so long?

2. Plastic surgery game removed from sale

3. Gaming Addiction Documentary ‘Love Child’ Debuts at the Sundance Film Festival

4. The Healing Power of Video Games

5. Dreamcasters: how video games alter our subconscious

6. Valve says virtual reality hardware could transform entertainment in two years

7. Stealth marketing: Microsoft paying YouTubers for Xbox One mentions

8. Could The (U.S.) Court’s Net Neutrality Ruling Affect Your Gaming?

9. Joint Namco-DeNA mobile venture to finish in March

10. Candy Crush maker King is a step closer to trademarking the word ‘Candy’

11. Some thoughts on game trademarks, King and Candy Crush

12. Google Remarketing Ads Found To Violate Canadian Privacy Law; To Revamp Ad Review System By June

13. The Problem with Facebook: “It’s Keeping Things From You”

14. NSA collects millions of text messages daily in ‘untargeted’ global sweep

15. Obama To End Mass Collection of U.S. Phone Data

16. Full Text of Obama’s Speech on NSA Surveillance

17. Obama’s Surveillance Reform Speech Draws Tepid Tech Response

18. Obama’s Path From Critic to Overseer of Spying

19. Guess Who Owns The Patent to RSA’s Backdoor Algorithm? Blackberry

20. America’s Spies Want Edward Snowden Dead

21. AMC movie theater calls “federal agents” to arrest a Google Glass user

22. What is the big brother problem? by Jonathan Zittrain

23. Why Alyssa Milano created a comic book tribute to Anonymous

24. Closing Time for the Open Internet

25. Copyright’s Not Getting its Job Done

26. Copyright Week: If We Want To Get Copyright Right, It’s Time To Go Back To Basics

27. Report: Japan to Tax Digital Goods from Foreign Sources in 2015

28. .CA Domain Names Held To Be Personal Property

29. Canada Says Bitcoin Isn’t Legal Tender

30. Why Bitcoin Matters

jon

1. Court upholds findings in $9.2M Epic Games, Silicon Knights lawsuit

2. Why The Violent Game Debate Actually Isn’t Over

3. Nintendo Secures IA Labs Patents in Sherriff’s Sale

4. Schilling Attorney Claims New Documents Prove Rhode Island’s Lawsuit is ‘Baseless’

5. SimCity reversal: EA finally adding offline mode

6. China drafting new rules for consoles, disallows products ‘hostile to China’

7. Candy Crush Is Turning Children Into Obsessive Gamblers

8. Xbox 360 app made $1m in 4 months for Pizza Hut

9. Can an iPad Game Detect Alzheimer’s?

10. Federal Court of Justice bans ads for virtual items in online game – reasons for judgment available, but not final (Germany)

11. New Research Explores Why Some Players Cheat and Troll in Online Games

12. IGDA Applauds South Australian Government’s Decision to Take Down Anti-Videogame Billboards

13. 2013 for games on Kickstarter

14. Ethical Free-to-Play Game Design (And Why it Matters)

15. Intellectual Property Fosters Corporate Concentration

16. Top Ten Internet Law Developments Of 2013

17. Can an Emoticon be Protected as a Trademark?

18. Clickable Consent at Risk in Internet Privacy Lawsuits

19. LinkedIn Sues to Fend Off Content-Scraping Bots

20. Apple and Samsung Agree to Mediation in Patent Dispute

21. Is Uber’s Surge-Pricing an Example of High-Tech Gouging?

22. The REAL Real Problem with Facebook

23. No copyright on yoga: HC (India)

24. Federal Court in Virginia Court Says Domain Names Are Not Property, But Contractual Rights

25. Social Data by Woodrow Hartzog

26. The NSA Even Spies on Congress

27. A New Hampshire Rebellion for Aaron Swartz

28. On the anniversary of the death of Aaron Swartz, Anonymous hacks MIT again

29. Members Of Congress Ask Eric Holder To Try Again In His Explanation Of The Prosecution Of Aaron Swartz

30. European Report Says Canadian Privacy Law Should Be Re-Examined Due to Surveillance Activities

31. Court of Appeals Nullifies Part of FCC’s Open Internet Order

32. What you need to know about the court decision that just struck down net neutrality + Link to decision

jon

1. Nintendo must pay percentage of 3DS sales to infringed patent holder

2. The violent game debate is over

3. Lanza’s Violent Video Game Play Overblown

4. Are the Xbox and unleaded gas helping keep you safe from violent crime?

5. Penny Arcade’s Gabe Apologises For Being A “Bully”

6. Online Gaming Is South Korea’s Most Popular Drug

7. Happy pirates, wider audience: Why making sure a pirated game works is good business

8. Zynga Links Up With BitPay For A Bitcoin Payment Test In FarmVille 2, CityVille And Other Web Games

9. Blizzard Makes Changes to Default Battle.net Parental Control Settings Related to ‘Buying Things’

10. 3DS Users Create Region Locking Work Around

11. PS4 to “win” console wars – Analyst

12. Chinese gaming market tops $13 billion

13. China Cracks Open the Door for Video Game Consoles, but Doubts Abound

14. U.S. Patent No. 7,697,015: storage medium and game device storing image generating program

15. U.S. Patent No. 7,695,368: Game program, game device, and game method

16. Idea vs. Expression – What is protected under copyright law?

17. Multiple gaming platforms hit with apparent DDoS attacks

18. The top four tech legal cases to watch in 2014

19. Technology and the Law in 2014: 14 Questions in Need of Answers

20. Studios win again in fight over user content: “safe harbors” not so safe, websites find

21. Apple Calls NSA a ‘Malicious Hacker’

22. ACLU Files Appeal in Case Against NSA

23. French Telco Orange Plans To Sue The NSA For Tapping Its Undersea Cables

24. How the NSA Almost Killed the Internet

25. Losing Aaron

26. How Netflix Reverse Engineered Hollywood

27. Listen to Pandora, and It Listens Back

28. Peering into the future: Google Glass and the law

29. Why movie studios happily violate journalists’ copyright

jon

1. Rockstar Tells Honest GTA Online Players Not to Worry About Money Hack Issues

2. The 10 worst games of 2013

3. Teen’s Late Night Gaming Saves Family from Fire

4. Crazy race tests whether virtual driving skills carry over to real life

5. Internet Archive releases hundreds of classic game console ROMs

6. U.S. Patent No. 7,713,116: Inventory management of virtual items in computer games

7. Applicant For UND Head Football Coach Cites Video Game Experience As His Qualifications

8. Judge Grants Motion to Dismiss in NSA Surveillance Case

9. Leaked documents detail 2008 NSA program to hack and remote control iPhones (video)

10. When Does Technology Change Enough That the Law Should Too?

11. Considering the Future of Internet Governance

12. The Year Government Lost Its Grip on Information

13. The NSA and the Corrosion of Silicon Valley

14. The inside story of Aaron Swartz’s campaign to liberate court filings

15. Google fights back against Rockstar patent group

16. How Iron Maiden turned piracy into paying customers

17. Experts Concerned about The Negative Impact of Tablets on Young Children

18. 2013 was a lost year for tech

19. How Netflix Reinvented HR

20. Hells Angels club sues often to protect its intellectual property

jon