Umm... no, no it wasn't. Valve hired the guys behind Narbacular Drop, who then worked at Valve to create Portal using many of the same concepts, but Portal was developed entirely by people who earned their paychecks working for Valve at the time they were working on the game.

In other words, Valve didn't buy the game, they bought the team.

It's only "unenforceable" from a legal standpoint, but before it ever even sees a courtroom, it's already intimidated enough people to raise the company's BBB rating from an F to a B, and ruined other people's credit; the couple from TFA have been turned down for loans due to the credit hit they've taken because these guys sent that $3500 "penalty" to collections.

Why pay court costs for a judge to enforce your schemes when you can get the credit bureaus to do it for free?

Actually, the law HAS changed. Originally, copyright was for a much shorter time (14 years, renewable for another 14 years if the creator was still alive), but in modern times the length has been pushed so far that the "for limited times" part of the constitutional clause that gives the U.S. government the authority to CREATE a copyright law is, for all intents and purposes, irrelevant. Anything you see created today will still be copyrighted long after you die.

Unfortunately, this makes the public domain a nearly worthless concept; copyright is limited so that things will eventually become public domain, but with copyrights so long, nothing relevant to modern society belongs in it. Hell, we have entire forms of media that will never have a single item enter public domain until you are dead, buried, and dust.

Microsoft does not want to show google ads, because google gets the money. Microsoft wants to show their own ads, so they change the program to disregard google ads and show their own instead.

It is my understanding that the original version of the app didn't show any ads at all, and this updated version shows only the ads that Google themselves serves up.

Assuming my understanding is correct, then this isn't about ad revenue; this is about user experience. Microsoft wants a good Youtube app on their phones because they know their users want one; not having it makes them look bad.

Which is also a very good reason for Google to want them to NOT have such an app. I don't have any idea if that is the actual reason they pulled MS's API key, but I find it infinitely more likely than an ad dispute.

Turn off... UEFI...

The fuck? UEFI is a replacement for BIOS; "disabling" it would entail disabling your system's ability to boot at all. Likely what you mean is Secure Boot, which is an optional feature for newer UEFI systems that caused a bunch of stink with Windows 8.

Actually, 100% of MMORPG character names are at risk, already. Someone can petition to force you to change your character's name at any time, for no reason. Whether or not they're listened to is a different matter.

Heck, I once knew someone who played WoW, with a tauren named USDAApproved; someone complained, and he had to change it.