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Internet & Social Media Law Blog

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Black Boxes, Bad Data and Being Wary of AI in the Boardroom

In his recent commentary, AI: Black boxes and the boardroom, colleague Tim Wright examines how well-founded concerns over the inscrutability of artificial intelligence processes and the bad outcomes that can be triggered by bad data can be alleviated by certain common sense approaches in the boardroom. RELATED POSTS https://www.internetandtechnologylaw.com/2016/08/algorithms-perception-bias.html https://www.internetandtechnologylaw.com/2018/01/artificial-intelligence-patent.html…

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Can a Reporter’s Twitter Account Be a Newspaper’s Trade Secret?

Does one person’s Twitter account a trade secret make? A newspaper in Virginia apparently thinks so. This past week, the owner of The Roanoke Times sued former Virgina Tech sports reporter Andy Bitter under the federal Defend Trade Secrets Act, among other things, because he refused to give up the…

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The Tesla Tweet that Triggered a Billion-Dollar Gain (and, Possibly, an SEC Investigation)

Last Tuesday afternoon, Elon Musk tweeted from his personal handle, “Am considering taking Tesla private at $420. Funding secured.” These words drove Tesla’s share prices up by 10% on Tuesday before Nasdaq halted trading, increasing Musk’s estimated net worth by $1.4 billion dollars. Since then, there has been a lot…

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Homeland Insecurity: Citing Insufficient Safeguards, the EU Moves to Suspend the Privacy Shield Protocol

The European Parliament adopted a resolution earlier this month to suspend the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield agreement. The Privacy Shield is a protocol that provides for the exchange of personal data between the EU and the United States for commercial purposes. Adopted in 2016 after the European Court of Justice invalidated…

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Livestream Bait and Twitch: Are You Part of Someone Else’s Reality Show?

Every day, millions of people are being unwittingly recorded by others. Every person you see walking down the street likely has a means to record your image and transmit it to billions of people at a whim. But, would you have ever expected that your Lyft or Uber ride was…

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Yabba Dabba Doo We Know Who Owns This? – New Frontiers in Derivative Work Creation

From the frontiers of content creation, we bring news in the longstanding war between man and machine. Or, in this particular case, animators versus software. Researchers from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence, and the University of Washington are developing artificial intelligence software, dubbed “Composition, Retrieval…

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Crafting Blockchain Patent Claims to Avoid Enforcement Pitfalls and Maximize Potential Damages

As we approach 2020, distributed ledger technologies (DLT) appear likely to have a far-reaching, comprehensive impact on our global economy. But core components of that economy—intellectual property rights in particular—sit in tension with DLT. Copyright owners learned this lesson with the advent of BitTorrent. Patent owners will face similar threats…

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If Videogames and Apps Are Addictive, Should Designers Worry about Potential Legal Liability?

What do videogames, cigarettes and slot machines have in common? They’re all addicting, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Since addiction and legal liability can sometimes go hand in hand, game designers (and app developers) would do well to pay attention whenever a new habit or hobby looks like…

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California Governor Signs into Law the California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018

Our colleagues Cathie Meyer and Amy Pierce have published a Client Alert titled California Enacts Mini-GDPR Effective January 1, 2020. Under the new law, covered businesses will need to update policies and procedures for responding to customer inquiries about collection, use, sale and disclosure of customers’ personal information or face stiff…

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When Do the Perils of Programmatic Advertising Undermine Its Value?

#FakeNews is hurting more than political campaigns. Companies’ hard-earned reputations may be on the line when their ads pop up next to fake news stories and offensive YouTube videos. Last year, major brands found their ads appearing in videos promoting extremist views and hate speech. JPMorgan Chase learned that it…