The Government of Antigua has plans to launch a website that can legally sell movies, music, and software without paying U.S. copyright holders, according to TorrentFreak. How can the small island country in the Caribbean get away with this? Well it all goes back to the United States issuing a trade blockade preventing the country from offering Internet gambling services to citizens in the United States.

Korean MMO publisher NCsoft will sell its shares in NC Interactive - the company's U.S.-based subsidiary at the end of this month, according to a Reuters report. NCsoft will sell its 809 million shares on Dec. 24 for 78,348,368,000 South Korean wons, or USD $72,926,269.

A new report from GameTrack shows that America is a gaming super power, with American gamers outnumbering the rest of the world when it comes to playing games online and across a wide variety of platforms. The data finds that 48 percent of the American gaming audience play online games, compared 42 percent who play packaged games. Around 27 percent of that online gaming in America is done through browsers. Around 31 percent of American gamers enjoy playing through apps on their phones and tablets.

Google is (finally) sounding the alarm bells that an upcoming United Nations-organized conference is a serious threat to the "free and open internet" we currently enjoy (well, in most countries in the world). Government representatives around the world will get together to try and hash out an agreement on a new information and communications treaty in December.

Throwing out the specter of a new cyber threat from a country not usually associated with such activities, Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.), the chair of the U.S. House Intelligence Committee, is making a final push to get the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act through the lame duck session of Congress by saying that this threat from an unnamed source is on the horizon. In a speech this week before the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Rogers tried to play up the threat and claimed urgency for the adoption of CISPA or something like it.

Is your broadband service provider throttling your connection because you hit a data cap or are you just being paranoid and unreasonable when your connection's bandwidth seems to slow down dramatically? According to this GIGA OM report, more than 64 percent of broadband subscribers in the U.S. have a cap on data usage.

Of the estimated 314 million Americans, 119 million have no access to broadband connections. A new report by the Federal Communications Commission reveals that an estimated 19 million Americans have no option to buy or access to broadband Internet service. An estimated 100 million Americans that do live in areas that offer broadband are not subscribers.

According to this Computer World Australia report, Australian Greens Senator Scott Ludlam has some harsh words for the Australian federal government for its part in pushing the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), which is currently in negotiations in the U.S. The treaty is an agreement between Pacific Rim countries such as Australia, Brunei, Chile, Malaysia, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, Vietnam, and the U.S.

League of Legends maker Riot Games announced that, beginning in early 2013, it will kick off the League of Legends Championship Series. The new professional gaming league will feature teams from North America, Europe and Asia, taking part in multiple regular season matches each week, all streamed in HD broadcasts available globally for free.

More importantly, players will actually be paid like the professional gamers that many of them are.

While some hay is being made over the United Nations' International Telecommunication Union meeting in Dubai in December, most believe it is much ado about nothing. The way the Internet is regulated internationally will face a review in December, but the United States is already pointing out a number of changes that it will absolutely not allow under any circumstances. The regulations under review are from 1988.

As debate begins and amendments are offered on the Cybersecurity Act Of 2012, the bill may end up going through some fundamental changes that will make it more palatable for those who oppose many of its murkier provisions. So far over 70 amendments have been offered to the bill that aims to protect critical infrastructure in the United States through government oversight.

Samsung is having mixed results in its ongoing patent fight with Apple. In the United States it was handed a setback by a Federal Judge, but a United Kingdom court judge handed it a victory over Apple. According to Courthouse News, a Federal Judge who previously issued a temporary injunction that effectively banned the sale of Samsung's Galaxy Nexus smartphones in the U.S. (for violating Apple's patents) refused a request by the company to allow it to continue selling the device while it appeals the ruling. U.S.

In February the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) submitted a Freedom of Information Act Request to the State Department asking them to release documents related to the department's review of ACTA. The State Department is required to prepare a "Circular 175 Memorandum," whenever an international treaty is going to be negotiated. According to the EFF's Gwen Hinze, the Circular 175 is required "for all treaties and other international instruments that bind the United States as a matter of international law under 22 CFR Part 181.

According to a new survey from NetAmerica Alliance that polled 800 rural residents, three out of four respondents said that having access to high speed internet is important to maintaining their quality of life. The contents of the survey was revealed to Telecompetitor.

UK-based publisher Rising Star Games has finally decided to set up shop in the United States. The company announced that it has opened a North American office. Rising Star has appointed Phil Robinson as vice president of operations for the US office, who will oversee all operations, be in charge of securing North American distribution and publishing agreements, and work with the company's European offices to extend the Rising Star brand in the U.S.

Congressman Darrel Issa (R-CA) issued a press release this morning waging a full frontal assault on the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), saying that he was opening up the treaty to the public because it was negotiated in secret. He describes ACTA as "worse than SOPA and PIPA," and shows great disdain for it because it was negotiated without the input of "the American people and Congress." 

In a recent interview with GameIndustry.biz, Quantic Dream co-founder Guillaume de Fondaumiere claims that his studio lost anywhere from €5 ($6.8 million *) €10 million ($13.6 million *) due to the used games market. He softened the blow by saying that many consumers bought Heavy Rain used because of the recession and because the AAA was just too expensive.

Bloomberg reports that the U.S. Justice Department has filed a lawsuit to block AT&T Inc.’s proposed $39 billion acquisition of rival T-Mobile USA Inc. In its filing today in Federal Court the government said that the deal would "substantially lessen competition" in the wireless market. The government is seeking a declaration that AT&T’s takeover of T-Mobile (owned by Deutsche Telekom AG, or DTE), would violate U.S. antitrust law.

California Congressman Joe Baca (D-Rialto, CA) has unsuccessfully sought controls on violent videogames in the past, so it should come as no surprise that he is "disappointed" and shocked at the Supreme Court Decision to uphold the Ninth Circuit Court ruling on Brown v. EMA.

"I am disappointed the multi-billion dollar video game industry will continue to go unchecked in its ability to profit from selling heinous depictions of violence and sex to minors," Baca wrote in a statement issued Monday.

"Unfortunately, the industry is still not doing enough to provide parents with accurate information regarding the content of many games," Baca said, ignoring the ESRB and the latest Federal Trade Commission report that said that the videogame industry had the best record when it came to keeping mature rated content out of the hands of children.

Rep. Doris Matsui (D-Calif.) introduced a bill yesterday called "The Broadband Affordability Act of 2011." The bill would deliver high speed Internet access to lower income households to close what she calls the "the digital divide." Matsui introduced an identical bill in 2009. She is a member of the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Communications and Technology.

Matsui said that low-income Americans need access to affordable high-speed internet as much as anyone else, to succeed in our modern and connected society:

"Income should not hinder the ability of hard-working American families to attain broadband services that have become a necessity, not a luxury in our technologically driven economy. If you don't have it, you are simply at a competitive disadvantage," Matsui said in a statement.

Video game rental-by-mail firm GameFly has won a legal battle against the United States Postal Service. Filed in April of last year with the Postal Regulatory Commission, GameFly alleged that the USPS had discriminated against the company while giving preferential treatment to similar businesses such as Netflix and Blockbuster.

After a year of legal wrangling, court proceedings and a flurry of motions, the Postal Regulatory Commission has ruled in favor of GameFly and has ordered the USPS to remedy the situation in short order. The Postal Regulatory Commission is an independent federal agency that provides regulatory oversight over the U.S. Postal Service. It has the power to force the Postal Service into compliance on various complaints.

Silicon Valley Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren (D-CA.) says that seizing web sites and web domains tramples on due process. Speaking at length with Ars Technica, Lofgren takes aim at the administration's efforts to take down web sites that allegedly engage in illegal activity like file-sharing, copyright infringement and counterfeit goods.

Lofgren starts by saying that ICE doesn't have the authority to do what they are doing, that they are trampling on due process because the seizures are almost instant, and that - in some cases - they have violated the first amendment rights of some domain owners. Here is more on that from Lofgren:

When taxpayers hear the term "pork barrel spending" they think of ridiculous projects getting an earmark from appropriations secured by their elected representative in the congress. Yes, if you read only the briefest descriptions of these earmarks you might think it's all a big waste of your tax dollars. After all, do we really need to be spending money on researching yoga and condoms when every state in the country is running deficits and the federal government's level debt is out of control?

If we go by the brief summary descriptions of many of these projects then the answer would probably be "yes." The problem is that many of these "silly-sounding" projects are actually important studies that lead to medical breakthroughs. This in turns leads to advanced medical techniques and technologies, or just a better understanding of how certain diseases and medical conditions can affect human beings.  

The U.S. House of Representatives on Thursday passed an amendment that essentially halts the use of any funding by the Federal Communications Commission to implement the Net Neutrality rules order it approved in December of 2010.

The amendment was approved by a 244-181 vote. The amendment was sponsored by Energy and Commerce Communications and Technology Subcommittee Chairman Greg Walden (R-Ore), and tacked on to legislation to fund government agencies for the rest of fiscal year 2011.

"If left unchallenged, this claim of authority would allow the FCC to regulate any matter it discussed in the national broadband plan," Walden said.

If this amendment fails, Republicans in the House and the Senate will push a "resolution of disapproval" under the Congressional Review Act. This gives lawmakers a limited amount of time to try to block the FCC's net-neutrality rules.

Representatives Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) and Kevin Brady (R-Texas) may be polar opposites in the political arena, but when it comes to video games both are on the same page. But what initially brought the two together to join the Congressional Caucus on Competitiveness in Entertainment Technology (E-Tech Caucus) was another activity: softball. Wasserman Schultz loves softball and organizes a Congressional Women’s Softball Game every June to raise money for breast cancer research, along with co-coach Brady and California Democratic Rep. Joe Baca.

The other reason this congressional odd couple got together for the E-Tech Caucus is because both have kids, and by extension, a familiarity with video games.

"I was looking for someone with young kids," she said, "because [my co-chairman] had to be someone who was 'living' video games."

Navid Khonsari, a former writer and director for Rockstar Games, is working on an interesting game that retells the real story of the 1979 U.S. Embassy takeover in Tehran, Iran. Khonsari is responsible for the "cinematic feel" introduced in Rockstar's breakout hit, Grand Theft Auto 3, and for his work on Remedy's Max Payne series and Alan Wake. After leaving Rockstar, Khonsari formed Ink Stories with his wife in New York City.

Speaking to Russia Today (interview on the left), Khonsari said that he wants to tell the story of the Iranian Revolution with a focus on the U.S. Embassy takeover that ultimately led to the Iran Hostage Crisis. Khonsari wants to tell a deep story based on different perspectives from a multitude of playable characters:

Members of Congress and representatives from the video game industry launched a new caucus this morning at an event on Capitol Hill, reports Gamasutra. The "Caucus for Competitiveness in Entertainment Technology" (E-Tech Caucus) wants to champion issues that help foster growth in the interactive entertainment sector.

This first caucus meeting is attended by Congressman Kevin Brady (R-TX), co-chair and Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL), Cooney Center executive director Michael H. Levine, Ph.D., Entertainment Software Association CEO Michael Gallagher, and other members of the caucus.

The Central Intelligence Agency has launched a special task force to deal with Wikileaks called "WTF," according to The Washington Post. The acronym doesn't equal the Internet standard - it stands for the "WikiLeaks Task Force," but apparently the CIA offices equate it to the popular catchphrase according to the Washington Post.

While we might get a giggle or two from that factoid, the truth is that the CIA is taking the numerous leaks of U.S. documents very seriously, and just what this task force will do in response to future leaks is unknown.

The CIA has remained relatively unscathed from the monumental amount of leaks at other U.S. agencies, mainly because the CIA's systems are separate from the rest of the government. That and the fact that the secretive agency is not in the habit of sharing information with outside sources.

Publisher SouthPeak issued a statement this week in response to a Cease and Desist letter it received last week from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. In that statement, the publisher admitted that it had not filed its financial reports properly - related to a loan made by Chairman Terry Philips - but claimed that it was an error it later tried to correct prior to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's action against the company.

"The SEC staff's inquiry was fully disclosed in our public filings and was based on the manner in which we recorded a loan during this quarter which was made by our chairman to help support our business but was not properly reported in our financial statements.

According to a report on Joystiq, approximately 500 Walmart stores in the United States have started stocking used games in-store and Walmart.com is now offering them online. Joystiq cites a recent report from Lazard Capital Markets' Colin Sebastian, who in turn points to "industry checks" that reveal the data.

Walmart announced that it planned to sell used games in-store this year, along with a trade-in program. In his report, Sebastian said that Walmart would focus on "deep value end of used games" (under $20), meaning less overlap with competition like GameStop. Sebastian added that if Walmart can maintain a focus on cheaper games, the retailer could "ultimately expand the market for used games."

Source: Joystiq