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As more and more content that has traditionally only been offered over-the-air, through cable, or on satellite becomes increasingly available via the internet, television content providers must take care in scrutinizing their existing broadcasting agreements to avoid potential conflicts with their current distribution affiliates. Although the internet offers content creators the ability to distribute media directly to their audiences, television networks will face a host of issues if they are not careful in structuring their approach to this new media paradigm.

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holding-dear-ivanka-300x300Much has been written about how the Trump family uses their name to market their own businesses, but the Trumps are equally gifted at trading on others’ notoriety to promote themselves and their businesses. Consider the tweets or public disclosures that follow after the President-elect appears with or receives correspondence from celebrities (à la Floyd Mayweather, Kanye West, Bill Belichick, etc.). But what happens when a celebrity or, as the case may be, an artist, has not consented to be a part of a social media post promoting a Trump brand? As Ivanka Trump is learning (again), use of an artist’s work without their permission can ignite social media firestorms and raise intellectual property issues.

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Virtual reality takes to the air and rests beneath your feet, a smart toy and a weaponized GIF inspire lawsuits (separately), Slack invests in bots, and more!

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ashley-madison-300x200On December 14, 2016, operators of online extramarital dating and social networking website AshleyMadison.com came to an agreement with the Federal Trade Commission, and several States, to settle FTC and related state charges that the website deceived consumers and failed to protect 36 million users’ account and profile information. As we discussed immediately following the July 2015 breach (and in several later posts) the data of some 36 million AshleyMadison.com accounts was posted online. It was reported by KrebsOnSecurity that the breach included the theft of user databases, financial records (including salary information), and other records from AshleyMadison, Cougar Life, and Established Men, three social networking web sites operated by the Toronto, Canada-based firm Avid Life Media, now known as Ruby Corp.

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The U.S. Copyright Office issued a final rule effective December 1, 2016, addressing one of the requirements for social media operators and other companies that allow users to post content online to qualify for the DMCA safe harbor. In “DMCA Safe Harbor: Registration Time,” colleagues Michael Heuga and Cydney Tune discuss what companies with a DMCA designated agent need to do to satisfy the new registration requirement under the updated rule.

 

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FriendFinder Networks is a company in the adult entertainment, social networking, and online dating space. Several databases from FriendFinder Networks web sites with more than 412 million accounts, including usernames, e-mails, and passwords, have been breached and leaked.

Friend-finderNovember reports of this data breach on The Verge, LeakedSource and TechCrunch, to name a few, describe it as of one of the largest security breaches of 2016, and possibly the largest breach to date, surpassing the breach of approximately 360 million Myspace usernames, passwords and e-mail addresses reported earlier this year.

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firehose data streamFollowing up on our earlier post regarding the Era of Hashtag Surveillance, the FBI has published documents indicating that it intends to enter into a deal with a Twitter data miner, appropriately named Dataminr (and partially owned by Twitter), for access to its monitoring technology. Techcrunch reports that the FBI disclosed its intent to enter into a licensing agreement with Dataminr for access to Twitter’s “firehose” data stream. As opposed to the normal data streams that Twitter makes available to the public which only provide access to a fraction of the posts made to the site, the “firehose” stream contains all public posts made on Twitter and would essentially allow a user to search, in almost real-time, every post made to the service.

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It seems like managing data breaches has become a part of doing business these days. From the October denial of service attack on Dyn (a company that provides core internet services to companies like Twitter, Spotify and Netflix) to the recent hacks of the Clinton campaign’s emails, data breaches are increasing in frequency, scope and cost. The average cost of a data breach increased to $4 million in 2015, and the 2016 Cost of Data Breach Study: Global Analysis published by IBM and the Ponemon Institute places the likelihood of a company having a material data breach involving 10,000 lost or stolen records in the next 24 months at 26 percent.

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Earlier this month, the ACLU published a report alleging that it had obtained public records showing that social media user data such as location tracking, photos and hashtag usage may have been used by law enforcement to monitor activists and protests. ACLU claims that records show that Twitter, Facebook and Instagram provided user data access to Geofeedia, a developer of a social media monitoring program that is marketed to law enforcement agencies as a tool for such tracking. According to the report, law enforcement used the monitoring program to track protests in Baltimore and Ferguson, Missouri.

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Well before Pokémon Go burst onto the mobile gaming scene in July, we had written about some of the pitfalls associated with AR gaming. When the game netted some 45 million daily users in just a few weeks, we talked about Pokémon Go some more (potential liabilities and clickwrap enforcement challenges). But while the game’s popularity has begun to wane, the enthusiasm for augmented reality has likely just begun.

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