News of the Week; August 23, 2017

MEDIA, COMMUNICATIONS & NET NEUTRALITY

  1. Pick-and-pay TV system a hit with Canadians, nearly one third bought solo channels: report – Although the vast majority of subscribers continue to buy larger packages, MTM’s research suggests a massive jump in interest in the smaller packages
  2. Judge Kills AT&T’s Attempt To Thwart Google Fiber Competition In Louisville
  3. AT&T’s attempt to stall Google Fiber construction thrown out by judge: AT&T sued Louisville over pole attachment rule, but judge says rule is valid.
  4. Trump’s DOJ not trying to stop AT&T/Time Warner merger: AT&T and DOJ “discussing merger conditions” that would let deal go forward.
  5. Former FCC Commissioner Tries To Claim Net Neutrality Has Aided The Rise Of White Supremacy
  6. Stop hiding 47,000 net neutrality complaints, advocates tell FCC chair: FCC now says it will release net neutrality complaints “as soon as we can.”
  7. Crowdfunded Billboards Shame Politicians For Selling You Out On Net Neutrality
  8. FCC’s claim that it was hit by DDoS should be investigated, lawmakers say: FCC hasn’t shown proof that it was attacked, Democrats say in call for probe.
  9. Lawmakers Want The GAO To Investigate The FCC’s Flimsy DDoS Claim
  10. Cox starts charging $50 extra per month for unlimited data: Or you can get another 500GB for an extra $30 every month.
  11. Verizon Begins Throttling Wireless Users, Effectively Bans 4K Streaming
  12. Verizon to start throttling all smartphone videos to 480p or 720p: No 4K video allowed—new bandwidth limits apply to mobile hotspots, too.
  13. Patent-licensing company loses its $30M verdict against Sprint:Prism Technologies saw through three  jury trials against big cell carriers.
  14. This is Sinclair, ‘the most dangerous US company you’ve never heard of’: Sinclair is the largest broadcast company in America. But its partisan politics – and connections to the White House – are raising concerns
  15. James Murdoch donates $1 million to the Anti-Defamation League following events in Charlottesville
  16. James Murdoch Rips Trump: “Standing Up to Nazis Is Essential” – In a memo, he also pledged a donation of $1 million to the Anti-Defamation League.
  17. Looking at Music Royalty Issues for Radio and TV Broadcasters
  18. Tech Journalists Keep Completely Missing The Point Of Cord Cutting

DIGITAL

  1. Judge sides with YouTubers Ethan and Hila Klein in copyright lawsuit
  2. YouTubers Ethan And Hila Klein Win Copyright Case, Court Says h3h3Productions’ Use Of Video Is Fair Use
  3. Appeals Court Grapples With Digital Files, and the Business of Selling “Used” Songs
  4. Uber’s Contract Upheld in Second Circuit–Meyer v. Uber
  5. Legal ruling in: Facebook ‘friends’ aren’t necessarily real friends
  6. Browsewrap/Clickwrap Distinction Vexes Another Court–Nevarez v. Ticketmaster
  7. Aspiring Actor Forges Court Order To Delist Content, Gets Busted By Judge, Forges Court Order To Delist Article About Contempt Charges
  8. Supreme Court asked to nullify the Google trademark: The case comes two months after court’s “offensive” trademarks ruling.
  9. Failed Cybersquatter Asks Supreme Court To Declare ‘Google’ A Generic Term
  10. Federal Judge Upholds Magistrate’s Ruling, Says Google Must Hand Over Data From Overseas Servers
  11. How the tech sector can legally justify breaking ties to extremists: Generally speaking, private enterprise may refuse service on ideological grounds.
  12. Code for tolerance: How tech companies can respond to hate but respect human rights
  13. The Tor Project Defends the Human Rights Racists Oppose
  14. Tor “can’t build free and open source tools” and stop racists from using them: “We are everything they claim to despise,” but Tor won’t prevent vile usage of its tools.
  15. Neo-Nazi Daily Stormer loses its Russian domain, too: Russian official cites “strict regime” for combatting extremism online.
  16. After bouncing around the Web, Daily Stormer lands a new CDN provider – BitMitigate founder: “I thought it would really get my service out there.”
  17. Spurned by Major Companies, The Daily Stormer Returns to the Web With Help From a Startup: The 20-year-old founder of BitMitigate said he had taken on the neo-Nazi website because he believes in free speech and because, “I thought it would really get my service out there.”
  18. Unable to get a domain, racist Daily Stormer retreats to the Dark Web: “We can’t keep trying random registrars,” site’s admin writes.
  19. After years of investigation, feds bust one of AlphaBay’s largest drug rings
  20. So, just how guaranteed is your freedom of speech online?
  21. Google explains why it banned the app for Gab, a right-wing Twitter rival: Gab’s free-speech stance makes it popular with right-wing trolls and racists
  22. Here’s a way to silence Trump on Twitter: Buy the microblogging service – White House says it’s a “ridiculous attempt” to silence Trump’s 1st Amendment rights.
  23. YouTube Briefly Nukes Video Of Nazi Symbol Destruction For Violating Hate Speech Rules
  24. Defining ‘Hate Speech’ Online Is An Imperfect Art
  25. OkCupid bans white supremacist “for life,” asks daters to report others: A white supremacist featured in a Charlottesville documentary can’t use OKC any
  26. One-Time Allies Sour On Joining Trump’s Tech Team
  27. Mnuchin’s Wife Mocks Oregon Woman Over Lifestyle and Wealth
  28. Mnuchin’s Wife Goes Full Marie Antoinette In Instagram Meltdown: The millionaire wife of the millionaire Treasury secretary bragged about how much they pay in taxes and accused a critic of being “adorably out of touch.”
  29. Before she was poor-shaming on Instagram, Louise Linton wrote a “white savior” Africa memoir
  30. Killer robots are coming, and Elon Musk is worried: Technology leaders warn autonomous drones could become “weapons of terror.”
  31. Sorry Elon Musk, the machines will not win – Weblog: Cyber expert Ryan Calo writes paper to demolish belief in looming AI apocalypse
  32. Killer robots: Experts warn of ‘third revolution in warfare’
  33. We can’t ban killer robots – it’s already too late
  34. Sorry, Banning ‘Killer Robots’ Just Isn’t Practical
  35. Taryn Southern Shares First YouTube Music Video For Album Composed Entirely By AI
  36. Dunce’s App: How Silicon Valley’s brand of behaviorism has entered the classroom
  37. Reddit Launches An In-House Video Player In Beta
  38. Now you can post videos directly to Reddit, no third-party service required: Upload .mp4 and .mov files directly from your phone or computer.
  39. Whatever Your Side, Doxing Is A Perilous Form Of Justice
  40. Fighting Neo-Nazis and the Future of Free Expression (EFF)
  41. The Great Free Speech Online Debate (Andres Guadamuz)
  42. Moving On From Obviously Fake News To Plausibly Fake News Sites
  43. Mapping The Most And Least Troll-Ridden Places In The U.S.
  44. We Live in Fear of the Online Mobs: Internet shaming spreads everywhere and lives forever. We need a way to fight it.
  45. Woman: My Uber driver went wrong way, I said something, he pushed me out – According to Courthouse News Service, Uber has been sued at least 433 times in 2017.
  46. SEC Report Asserts Cryptocurrency Tokens Are Securities Under US Law
  47. A Very Dumb Mistake Costs Cryptocurrency Investors Big Time
  48. Not a Token Gesture: Compensating Service Providers with Virtual Property
  49. A Google Tax Isn’t Going To Give Publishers The Payout They Think It Will
  50. Sharp sues Hisense over a foreign “gag order”: Sharp files a lawsuit in order to talk about the TVs being made in its name.
  51. Lawsuit revived over Apple retail workers’ pay during security checks: Dispute has widespread ramifications about pay for time spent in security checks.
  52. Proposed California Law Targets Sexual Harassment In Venture Capital
  53. Machines Taught By Photos Learn A Sexist View Of Women
  54. Quebecker files class action against Netflix over fee hike
  55. Insights: Breaking Up is Easy To Do—Netflix Rolls On After Disney Announcement
  56. Netflix Is Using The Defenders To Understand Its Audience­­
  57. This is how Netflix’s top-secret recommendation system works: Netflix splits viewers up into more than two thousands taste groups. Which one you’re in dictates the recommendations you get
  58. Why You Can’t Download All The Streaming Media You Want
  59. Roku Increases market share ahead of Amazon, Google, Apple
  60. Amazon’s Turker Crowd Has Had Enough
  61. Wisconsin lawmakers vote to pay Foxconn $3 billion to get new factory: State taxpayers could end up paying Foxconn $500,000 per job, or more.
  62. YouTube Music Chief Lyor Cohen: Promoting And Breaking New Artists Is A Top Priority
  63. YouTube, Facebook and Moral Rights
  64. ‘They could destroy the album’: how Spotify’s playlists have changed music for ever – Custom playlists on the streaming site can bring unknown artists to millions. But are they altering how songs get written?
  65. CNN launches daily news show on Snapchat
  66. Facebook really is losing teen users to Instagram and Snapchat
  67. Snapchat to Move Into Scripted Content by Year’s End
  68. Facebook, NASA To Host 4K, 360-Degree Live Stream Of Total Solar Eclipse
  69. Solar Eclipse Brings 3.1 Million Views To NASA’s Facebook Live Stream, Takes 10% Of Netflix Audience
  70. Facebook Takes New Steps To Crack Down On Video Clickbait
  71. Facebook’s evolutionary search for crashing software bugs: Ars gets the first look at Facebook’s fancy new dynamic analysis tool.
  72. Twitter To Stream From Inside Race Cars During NASCAR Playoffs
  73. Disney Tops BuzzFeed In Monthly Social Video Views For First Time In A Year (Study)
  74. Turner To Launch OTT Sports Platform, Live Games On Bleacher Report
  75. YouTube TV Adds 14 New Markets To Reach 50% Of US Households
  76. Angela Merkel Discusses Gender, Emojis During Studio71-Produced YouTube Stream
  77. YouTube Rolls Out ‘Breaking News’ Feed On Desktop Site And Mobile Apps
  78. Studio71 Sues Bethany Mota And Her Dad/Manager Over Brand Deal Gone Awry
  79. Moviepass Wants To Save Moviegoing – If Theaters Will Let It
  80. Australia blocks another 59 popular pirate sites
  81. Cambridge University Press backs down over China censorship: Publisher will reinstate articles to which it blocked online access in China in the face of international protests by academics
  82. ‘Smart’ Lock Vendor Locks Hundreds Out Of Their Home With Bungled Firmware Update
  83. “Bing is bigger than you think,” Microsoft boasts, at 33% of US searches: It turns out that “But nobody uses Bing!” isn’t actually true.
  84. Microsoft’s Speech Recognition is Now as Good as a Human Transcriber
  85. Intel first 8th generation processors are just updated 7th generation chips: No Coffee Lake or Cannonlake here; these are doubled up Kaby Lake parts.
  86. NAFTA Negotiations: Authors Alliance Joins Public Interest Groups In Support Of Transparency And Balanced Copyright Policy
  87. Civil society urges trade decision-makers to consider the impacts of NAFTA on digital rights
  88. Who Falls for Fake News? The Roles of Analytic Thinking, Motivated Reasoning, Political Ideology, and Bullshit Receptivity (Gordon Pennycook & David  Rand)
  89. The NAFTA E-commerce Chapter: Ensuring the New Chapter Reflects Canadian Priorities (Michael Geist) 

CREATIVITY

  1. The Tragedy Of Charlottesville In Two Powerful Photos
  2. Op-Ed: Speech in America is fast, cheap and out of control
  3. NFL Tells ICE That Parody Shirts Are Counterfeits
  4. Freedom of panorama in Portugal: content and scope of the exception
  5. Why the CJEU cheese copyright case is anything but cheesy
  6. Is 2 seconds of television time too much to be a fair use? 
  7. Toblerone shape not distinctive enough for trademark, Poundland claims: Defending its right to launch Twin Peaks bar, budget chain cites Toblerone version with fewer chunks brought out last year
  8. Chateau Marmont, Hotel For Celebrity Humans, Sends Trademark C&D To Cateau Marmont, Hotel For Cats
  9. Comparative advertising using P’s logo is nominative fair use (Rebecca Tushnet)
  10. Forgetting Functionality (Christopher Buccafusco & Jeanne Fromer)
  11. Court Rules Ford Trucks’ Claim Is Puffery: A false advertising suit against Ford Motor Co. was limited after a federal court judge found the company’s “Built Ford Tough” claim is non-actionable puffery.
  12. Directing a Spotlight on the Feud over Ownership of Château Miraval’s Lights
  13. Because Of Course There Are Copyright Implications With Confederacy Monuments
  14. Louisiana’s Criminal Defamation Law Abused Again, But This Time The Gov’t Gets Away With It
  15. What Europe Can Teach America About Free Speech: In an unregulated marketplace of ideas, private citizens need to take up the burden of holding the line against racist extremism.
  16. The Right to Attention in an Age of Distraction
  17. Canada’s Diva of Doodlers has Definitively Distilled in this Divine Depiction the Diverging Directions of Debate on Canadian Copyright

SURVEILLANCE & PRIVACY

  1. Feds drop demand for 1.3 million IP addresses that visited anti-Trump site: Despite warrant’s language, feds say they didn’t want disruptj20.org visitor logs.
  2. Another staged body cam leads to 43 more dropped Baltimore prosecutions: Latest video “was self-reported as a re-enactment of the seizure of evidence.”
  3. Australian Gov’t Accessed Domestic Metadata Thousands Of Times, Shared Some Of It With China
  4. Federal Judge Upholds Magistrate’s Ruling, Says Google Must Hand Over Data From Overseas Servers
  5. Wanted: Weaponized exploits that hack phones. Will pay top dollar – Exploit broker Zerodium ups the ante with $500,000 to target Signal and WhatsApp.
  6. Border Device Searches Continue To Increase, Threatening More Than Just The 4th Amendment
  7. Indians have right to privacy, Supreme Court rules
  8. Spyware backdoor prompts Google to pull 500 apps with >100m downloads: Google killed secret plugin download capability after being alerted by researchers.
  9. Court Says Gov’t Needs More Than The Assumption Someone Owns A Cellphone To Justify A Search
  10. FOIA Lawsuit Filed Over DOJ Data Complainant Is Pretty Sure Doesn’t Even Exist
  11. Sonos Users Forced To Choose Between Privacy And Working Hardware
  12. As HBO Screams About GoT Episodes Leaking From A Hack, HBO Leaks Next GoT Episode Early
  13. Breaking Down HBO’s Brutal Month Of Hacks
  14. North Carolina Election Agencies First Learned They’d Been Hacked From Leaked Documents Published By The Intercept
  15. ICE: We don’t use stingrays to locate undocumented immigrants – Letter adds that, even when you’re targeted via stingray, you can still call 911.
  16. GCHQ Knew FBI Wanted To Arrest MalwareTech, Let Him Fly To The US To Be Arrested There
  17. Palantir’s Law Enforcement Data Stranglehold Isn’t Good For Police Or The Policed
  18. Contractor Exposes Personal Information Of 1.8 Million Chicago Voters On AWS
  19. Code chunk in Kronos malware used long before MalwareTech published it: Marcus Hutchins, the researcher who stopped WCry, complained his code was lifted.
  20. Secret chips in replacement parts can completely hijack your phone’s security: Booby-trapped touchscreens can log passwords, install malicious apps, and more.
  21. Welcome To The Technological Incarceration Project, Where Prison Walls Are Replaced By Sensors, Algorithms, And AI
  22. Driver’s license facial recognition tech leads to 4,000 New York arrests: “We will continue to do everything we can to hold fraudsters accountable.”
  23. When Government Rules By Software, Citizens Are Left In The Dark

Jon