News of the Week; April 12, 2017

MEDIA, COMMUNICATIONS & NET NEUTRALITY

1. Paul, Weiss Investigating Bill O’Reilly
2. Yochai Benkler: The Right-Wing Media Ecosystem
3. FCC Kills Charter Merger Condition That Would Have Forced ISPs To Compete
4. President Trump Nullifies FCC Broadband Consumer Privacy Rules 
5. Yes, There Are Other Laws That Protect Privacy, But FCC’s Rules Were Still Helpful
6. FCC chair wants to replace net neutrality with “voluntary” commitments: “Voluntary” net neutrality commitments may not be so easy to enforce.
7. FCC Boss Wants ‘Voluntary’ ISP Net Neutrality Promises Instead Of Real Rules
8. “Unenforceable”: How voluntary net neutrality lets ISPs call the shots – Pai’s plan would “tilt everything in favor of the incumbents,” regulator says.
9. Ajit Pai can’t convince websites that killing net neutrality is a good idea: Reps for Amazon, Google, Facebook, Netflix lobby to keep net neutrality rules.
10. Comcast to sell “unlimited” mobile plans that get throttled after 20GB: The good news is throttled speeds aren’t horrible at 1.5Mbps.
11. 70% Support Letting Cities Build Their Own Broadband Networks, So Why Are We Still Passing State Laws Banning It?
12. Murdoch’s multi-billion pound Sky/Fox merger bid gets thumbs up from EU – Brussels: Murdoch’s grab for full control of Sky isn’t a competition concern in Europe.

DIGITAL

1. Appeals Court Rules Website Moderators Can Potentially Undercut Copyright Defense
2. DMCA “safe harbor” up in the air for online sites that use moderators: Etsy, Kickstarter, Pinterest, and Tumblr say site moderation hangs in the balance.
3. Dangerous Ruling On DMCA Safe Harbors May Backfire On Hollywood
4. DMCA, Moral Rights and Photography
5. Narcissism, Social Media and Power
6. Yahoo Is Sued Over $17 Million Fund for Chinese Dissidents
7. Qualcomm loses legal battle with Blackberry, must pay $815M: Huge, non-appealable award makes BlackBerry stock jump 15%.
8. Qualcomm accuses Apple of Intel chip foul play, egging on regulatory attacks: Chipmaker demands “fair value for our technological contributions to the industry.”
9. Amazon to refund $70m in IAP after year of legal appeals: Both Amazon and the FTC appealed aspects of a ruling made by the federal court in April 2016
10. If Facebook Becomes The Internet’s Authentication System, Can Citizen Scores Around The World Be Far Behind?
11. We Need More Alternatives to Facebook: Chastened by the negative effects of social media, Mark Zuckerberg says he will tweak his service and upgrade society in the process. Should any company be that powerful?
12. Google expands automatic “fact check” insertion into search results: You’ll want to phrase your searches very carefully to trigger it.
13. Uber said to use “sophisticated” software to defraud drivers, passengers: Class action says Uber’s “methodical scheme” manipulates rider fares, driver pay.
14. Burger King’s new ad forces Google Home to advertise the Whopper
15. Burger King ‘O.K. Google’ Ad Doesn’t Seem O.K. With Google
16. Google Brings Fake News Fact-Checking to Search Results: Search giant is letting partners and publishers decide what’s true, what’s false and what’s in between.
17. New York Attorney General Enters Digital Health App and Privacy Enforcement Fray: Announces Three Settlements with Health and Fitness App Providers’ Due to Efficacy Claims and Privacy Practices
18. MPA Gets Ireland To Crack Open The Site-Blocking Door It Plans To Bust Through
19. Ubuntu Unity is dead: Desktop will switch back to GNOME next year – Ubuntu phones and tablets also dead, but the desktop, server, and cloud live on.
20. YouTube nixes monetization until channels hit 10,000 views: Video giant says move is an effort to crack down on impersonating channels
21. Technology is a marvel – now let’s make it moral: If Britain is bold after Brexit, we can lead the way in demanding more control over our digital destiny
22. Utah to treat certain virtual currency as abandoned property 
23. What Do the SEC’s Recent Bitcoin Disapproval Orders Really Mean for Investors?
24. Portugal Pushes Law To Partially Ban DRM, Allow Circumvention
25. India Learns The Hard Way That Equating Patents And Innovation Comes At A Price
26. Italian Court Says Due Process Isn’t Necessary For Blocking Sites Over Copyright Infringement
27. Who Owns the Copyright in an Instagram Image?
28. Sketchy Copyright Takedown Kills Bad Lip Reading’s Force Awakens Remix
29. Revenge Pornster Craig Brittain Issues DMCA Notices Demanding Google Delist Entire Websites, Including Wikipedia
30. Why Jian Ghomeshi’s New Podcast Is Absolutely Guaranteed to Fail: A friend recently asked me if his firm should consider representing the former CBC Radio host’s media business. Here’s what I told him
31. You Are Almost Definitely Sharing Memes Made By Nazis
32. Is Instagram Killing The Graffiti Artist?
33. Study Claims To Know What Was Going On With That Stupid Dress
34. Emotional Chatting Machine Assesses Your Emotion and Copies It: Chatbots have never been able to empathize. That looks set to change, thanks to a Chinese team that has built a chatbot capable of conveying specific emotions.
35. How Trolls Are Stifling Innovators, Gamers and Netflix Junkies: Copyright policy in the public interest
36. Insurers Scramble to Put a Price on a Cyber Catastrophe: Trying to estimate the maximum cost of a devastating cyber event before one actually happens.
37. How a Browser Extension Could Shake Up Academic Publishing
38. Adidas wants to sell 100,000 3-D printed sneakers: A personalized shoe that can “adjust the strength, durability, and the shape.”
39. Disney files patent for “huggable and interactive” humanoid robots: Robots have already been tested, described as “robust to playful, physical interaction.”
40. The legal issues of robotics
41. Deciphering the U.S. NAFTA Digital Demands, Part Two: Digital Economy, Services and Transparency (Michael Geist)

CREATIVITY

1. Universal wins copyright case over sample in Justin Timberlake hit
2. Andy Warhol Estate Sues over Image of Prince
3. U.S. Supreme Court Clarifies Separability Analysis in its Ruling on Star Athletica, LLC v. Varsity Brands, Inc.
4. Lombardo v. Dr. Seuss Enterprises, L.P.
5. No evidence of harm means no disgorgement in false advertising case (Rebecca Tushnet)
6. Copyright preemption and the right of publicity in the 9th Circuit (Rebecca Tushnet)
7. Statutory Damages Awarded in Copyright Infringement Case
8. First judicial consideration of information location tool under the Copyright Act- Trader Corporation v. CarGurus Inc.
9. Can a public domain artwork be registered as a trade mark or would that be contrary to public policy and morality?
10. Irish Burger Chain Accuses McDonald’s of Trademarking Every Word That Starts With ‘Mc’
11. Defamation Law Series: Melania Trump Settles Her Libel Lawsuit Against Daily Mail 
12. Author of Wall Street Charging Bull is raging over Fearless Girl, but does he have a valid moral right claim?
13. ‘Charging Bull’ sculptor says New York’s ‘Fearless Girl’ statue violates his rights: Arturo Di Modica says ‘advertising trick’ placed in Wall Street before international women’s day infringed artistic copyright
14. The Bull Statue Copyright Claim Is Ridiculous… But Here’s Why It Just Might Work
15. UK supreme court denies tobacco firms permission for plain packaging appeal: Final legal decision in UK means that all cigarettes sold after 20 May must come in standardised packaging
16. Marvel Comics Responds To X-Men Gold Art Controversy
17. How much dough are smells worth?: Hasbro files a scent mark in the US
18. Copyright as Medium: Art and law might seem like polar opposites. But in the wake of Conceptual Art’s challenge to the traditional operations of the art market, the law—and copyright in particular—has become an increasingly popular subject, and even a medium, for artists. 
19. Bigger Picture, Bigger Frame? Dr. Saptarishi Bandopadhyay’s Recast of Narrative in Copyright and Disaster Photography
20. Copyright Protection of Street Art and Graffiti under UK Law (Enrico Bonadio)
21. The Uncoordinated Public Domain (Robert Spoo)

SURVEILLANCE & PRIVACY

1. U.S. Gov Demanded Twitter Unmask Mean Anti-Trump Account: Twitter has filed a lawsuit to protect this user
2. Twitter Sues Government Over Attempts to Unmask Anti-Trump Account
3. Twitter Sues Homeland Security Over Attempt To Unmask ‘Alt’ Immigration Twitter Account: Twitter brings in Biglaw to sue government.
4. Well, That Was Quick: Twitter Dismisses Lawsuit After Feds Drop Attempt To Unmask Rogue Tweeter
5. Oh, Sure, Now Congress Is Serious About Asking NSA About Surveillance On Americans
6. WikiLeaks just dropped the CIA’s secret how-to for infecting Windows: Latest batch of documents details how CIA infects targets’ Windows-based computers.
7. New York Appeals Court Says Facebook Can’t Challenge The 381 Broad Warrants Handed To It By New York Prosecutors
8. State Appeals Court Says There’s An Expectation Of Privacy In Vehicle Data Recorders
9. Named Plaintiff Drops Claims Against Gannett as the Definition of “Personally Identifiable Information” Under the Video Privacy Protection Act Evolves
10. Researcher: 90% Of ‘Smart’ TVs Can Be Compromised Remotely
11. Booby-trapped Word documents in the wild exploit critical Microsoft 0-day: There’s currently no patch for the bug, which affects most or all versions of Word.
12. Hacking Attack Woke Up Dallas With Emergency Sirens, Officials Say
13. Canada’s National Police Force Officially Confirms Ownership, Use Of Stingray Devices
14. Lenovo and Superfish: Proposed Class Action Proceeds on Privacy Tort and Statutes 
15. Rash of in-the-wild attacks permanently destroys poorly secured IoT devices: Ongoing “BrickerBot” attacks might be trying to kill devices before they can join a botnet.
16. The U.S. Congress Is Not the Leader in Privacy or Data Security Law (Daniel Solove)
17. This Teen’s Story Is Your Worst ‘Predictive Policing’ Nightmare: Crime-prediction algorithms remain unproven and problematic — but that hasn’t stopped police departments across the country from using them
18. The Ghost in the Algorithm: The necessary struggle to reject “technology first” and develop an ethical framework for the automated era

Jon