Pokémon Anime Community Up In Arms As ShoPro Issues Copyright Strikes On YouTubers

Copyright

from the collect-all-the-dmca-abuses dept

Searching out stories we have done on intellectual property conflicts surrounding the Pokémon franchise will give you no shortage of results. Part of that is that there is simply a ton of content out there: books, cards, video games, animated TV shows, movies, and mobile games. It is also the case that there are a ton of rightsholders to all of these different content categories and many of them are quite aggressive when it comes to intellectual property. I mean, Nintendo’s involved, so how could it be otherwise?

But like I said, Nintendo isn’t alone on this. ShoPro is the publishing house for the Pokémon animated series. ShoPro is also at the center of a copyright strike blitz that has caught up a whole bunch of YouTubers engaging in very clear fair use of stills from the anime in order to discuss episodes.

As explained in a Twitter post by Pokeferlax, YouTubers using still images from the Pokémon anime have found themselves hit with a sudden barrage of copyright strikes. This has resulted in the removal of their content from the platform.

While YouTube responded to that tweet stating that it would look into the issue, Pokeferlax’s YouTube channel has basically had all of its content removed as of the time of this writing. Other YouTubers have also chimed in stating that they’re dealing with similar copyright strike issues.

Now, what is important to keep in mind when it comes to the Pokémon community and the franchise’s popularity is that it thrives on the exact kind of commentary content these YouTubers are engaged in. Be it for the games or the shows, the Pokémon fanbase is a rabid one and part of the reason for that is all of the engagement the community has with one another.

In other words, ShoPro’s actions are harmful to its own product. Or, certainly more harmful than the use of some still images of the show in a YouTube video.

Fans in the comments are outraged, encouraging those affected to attempt contacting ShoPro for an explanation. The accounts experiencing strikes repeatedly state that they are not in violation of YouTube’s Fair Use requirements, but three strikes result in the complete removal of the offending account. Because of this, many content creators are at risk of losing years worth of work.

Additionally, Twitter and YouTuber user, CoreySpikeChase, has made a video in response to the copyright strikes against Pokemon Anime accounts, stating, “ShoPro, YOU Are Hurting Your Fans & Community! STOP THIS NOW!”

Perhaps ShoPro will get the hint and stop cutting off their nose to spite their face. After all, I have heard that actually being human and treating your biggest fans well is, ahem, super effective.

Filed Under: copyright abuse, dmca, fair use, pokemon
Companies: shopro, youtube

Vermont’s Supreme Court: Obtaining Real Time Cell Site Location Data Requires A Warrant

Privacy

from the start-breaking-out-the-boilerplate,-boys dept

In 2018, the Supreme Court of the United States overrode the Third Party Doctrine to declare cell site location info (CSLI) off-limits without a warrant. Recognizing the fact that ubiquitous cell phone use was generating reams of data daily that would allow law enforcement to engage in long-term tracking of people’s movements, the Supreme Court said the Third Party Doctrine didn’t cover this third-party data, at least not as presented in this case.

But the findings were limited. SCOTUS had nothing to say about real-time tracking with CSLI. It offered no opinion about wardriving with Stingray devices to find suspects. And it didn’t address shoulder-surfing law enforcement liaisons at cell service providers to use cell tower pings to locate and track suspects.

But the baseline the US Supreme Court established has had a butterfly effect. CSLI is no longer considered nothing more than a third-party record — something voluntarily shared with cell providers that has no expectation of privacy.

State courts have referenced the Carpenter decision while coming to their own, more restrictive conclusions. The US Constitution — like the Carpenter ruling — is only a baseline. States (and state courts) are free to establish higher privacy protections for their residents via their own constitutions and court decisions.

In early 2019, the top court in Massachusetts instituted a warrant requirement for real-time CSLI data. Three years later, the top court in Kentucky did the same thing.

Now it’s Vermont’s turn. A recent ruling [PDF] from the state’s Supreme Court says cops need warrants if they want access to real-time CSLI. (h/t FourthAmendment.com)

In December 2018, Vermont investigators approached AT&T in hopes of locating a shooting suspect. The first attempt to track them down using CSLI failed.

The lead detective contacted AT&T’s law enforcement compliance center and served a subpoena request. In support of the exigent request, the officer indicated that there had been a bar fight, an active shooter, a victim who was unfamiliar with the suspect, and that the shooter might be unreasonable or “in some sort of mental state” and in possession of a firearm. AT&T complied with the request but initially informed police that defendant’s phone was turned off and, as a result, it had no information about the phone’s location.

After this failure, the investigators sought a warrant for the phone’s historical CSLI. This was obtained shortly before 5 p.m. on December 29, 2018. But before it could be served to AT&T, this happened:

Approximately ninety minutes after the warrant issued but before it was served on AT&T, AT&T notified police that defendant’s phone had been turned back on and that a subsequent ping had located defendant’s phone in West Springfield, Massachusetts. Vermont police obtained a warrant for defendant’s arrest. They alerted Springfield police that a homicide suspect’s cellphone had been pinged as being located within several feet from a motel at a particular address. A second ping placed the suspect near a particular restaurant on a specific street. A police officer spotted a person fitting the suspect’s description and then received information that a third ping placed the suspect in the area where he was observed. Defendant was arrested shortly thereafter near a motel where he was staying and charged with first-degree murder.

The lower court said this was not a constitutional violation. And even if it was, exigent circumstances (the search for a suspected murderer) justified any rights violations.

The state Supreme Court says otherwise. Analyzing the case, it notes the US Supreme Court’s Carpenter decision does not specifically address real-time CSLI. Given that fact, the Vermont court says the suppression motion must be analyzed under the state’s constitution. And under that set of rights, real-time CSLI cannot be obtained without a warrant.

Quoting a handful of state court decisions (including the Massachusetts and Kentucky rulings noted earlier in this post) that have reached this same conclusion, the Vermont Supreme Court recognizes an expectation of privacy in real-time cell site location info. The key here is the word “reasonable.”

We agree that individuals do not reasonably expect that by using their phone, they will be sharing their real-time location information with police. They do not expect their cellphone to act as “a hidden tracking device that can be activated by law enforcement at any moment, subject only to the constraints of whether law enforcement knows the phone number and whether the cellphone is turned on.” The fact that police can now, through real-time CSLI, obtain “near perfect surveillance of its user” and “access to a category of information otherwise unknowable,” Almonor, 120 N.E.3d at 1194-95 (quotations omitted), does not mean they should be allowed to do so without judicial oversight. We must guard against allowing technological advances to result in fewer privacy rights.

The court says allowing the government to obtain real-time location data without a warrant would give law enforcement permission to “invade individuals’ most private and closely-held constitutionally protected activities.”

Put more simply:

A ping is a search that requires a warrant…

That’s the new baseline in Vermont. In this case, it doesn’t do much for the defendant. The state’s top court says exigent circumstances existed and justified the bypassing of constitutional protections to find a suspected shooter, still in possession of a weapon and possibly suffering some sort of mental health breakdown.

But none of that changes the baseline. Warrant exceptions will always exist. And a warrant requirement forces the government to justify its decision to bypass the requirement, rather than simply show up and claim no precedent put officers on notice a warrant might be needed. Vermont’s a bit more insulated from law enforcement overreach following this ruling and, even if it doesn’t help the defendant, it’s a win for the rest of the state’s residents.

Filed Under: 4th amendment, cell site location data, csli, real time tracking, stingray, vermont, warrant

Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves Signs Dumb New Restrictions On Electric Vehicles

Policy

from the not-so-free-market dept

If you’re an automaker or oil giant keen on slowing the rise of electric vehicles, there’s no shortage of captured lawmakers ready and willing to implement your terrible ideas, however harmful or impractical.

In North Carolina, Republican leaders have pushed a bill demanding locals destroy any free electric vehicle stations on public land, if local authorities don’t build free gas and diesel pumps alongside them. In Wyoming, state Republican leaders tried to implement a ban on electric vehicles, though the ban itself is little more than performative, oil industry ass kissing.

In Mississippi, Republican Governor Tate Reeves signed a bill recently restricting electric car manufacturers from selling vehicles in person unless they open traditional, franchised dealerships. Reeves is pretending the move, clearly a futile bid to protect oil interests and automotive companies that have lagged on EVs, is all about protecting small businesses:

“Almost 200 small businesses in communities across our state are seeking assurances that big manufacturers can’t just destroy their businesses. That’s fair!” Reeves, a Republican, said in a statement posted to social media. “I also recognize that innovation in this industry is inevitable. And with innovation comes new companies with new business models. I am committed to find long-term solutions—in an ever changing market.”

That justification, of course, makes absolutely no fucking sense in context of what the bill actually does.

Republicans have spent decades pretending to be dedicated to free market innovation. Though their actual track record of coddling giants (see: telecom, banking, energy, airlines, insurance, health care) widely disproves the claim. More recently, they’ve pretended to be a party super interested in “antitrust reform,” though those efforts are also as hollow as a cheap Easter chocolate bunny.

In this case, Mississippi’s more “traditional” restrictions don’t ban the sale of electric cars, but if you’re oblivious or indifferent to Musk’s reputational implosion and in the market for a Tesla, they’ll force you to visit the state’s only sanctioned (via carve out) Tesla dealer in Brandon. EV makers in general are restricted from opening any new stores unless they adhere to the traditional, dated and convoluted franchise model people have been complaining about for decades.

Granted there are still some Republicans that realize this kind of mindless oil and traditional auto industry ass kissing is both harmful and idiotic:

Republican Sen. Brice Wiggins, a Republican from Pascagoula, had hoped Reeves would veto the legislation. Lawmakers were aiming to attract Tesla to Mississippi’s Gulf Coast, an area Wiggins called the state’s economic driver.

“In today’s world, if you don’t innovate, you lose out. We as a state cannot afford to lose out,” Wiggins told The Associated Press on Tuesday. “My vote against the bill was a vote for capitalism, competition and innovation rather than for a policy of protectionism.”

Yet the new restrictions still passed the state legislature 39-13, driving would be EV buyers to a neighboring state. You know, out of an undying love of small business innovation.

Filed Under: big oil, climate change, corruption, electric vehicles, ev, franchise dealership, mississippi, regulatory capture, republican, restrictions, tate reeves

Antisemitic Conspiracy Theorist Who Sued YouTube For 1st Amendment Violations Now Owes YouTube Nearly $40,000

Legal Issues

from the oh-THOSE-conservative-views dept

The people who claim to be confused about social media services and the First Amendment are never truly confused. It’s always the people you expect to claim they’re “confused.”

Most social media users understand they’re playing on someone else’s playground. They know that if they act like inveterate assholes, the social media company will repeatedly tap the “no assholes allowed” sign before deactivating their accounts.

It’s always the most inveterate of assholes that pretend to be confused about how social media services work and where the intersection of their right to free speech collides violently with their misconceptions about a supposed “right to be heard.” The latter right does not exist. And a social media company can’t violate your constitutional rights no matter how hard it tries.

So, when people start suing social media platforms for violating their rights, it’s ALWAYS these kinds of people, as discussed in this Section 230 post by Techdirt reader/contributor Joe Mullin a couple of years ago:

Marshall Daniels hosts a YouTube channel in which he has stated that Judaism is “a complete lie“ which was “made up for political gain.” Daniels, who broadcasts as “Young Pharaoh,” has also called Black Lives Matter “an undercover LGBTQ Marxism psyop that is funded by George Soros.”

In April 2020, Daniels live-streamed a video claiming that vaccines contain “rat brains,” that HIV is a “biologically engineered, terroristic weapon,” and that Anthony Fauci “has been murdering motherfuckers and causing medical illnesses since the 1980s.“

In May 2020, Daniels live-streamed a video called “George Floyd, Riots & Anonymous Exposed as Deep State Psyop for NOW.” In that video, he claimed that nationwide protests over George Floyd’s murder were “the result of an operation to cause civil unrest, unleash chaos, and turn the public against [President Trump].” According to YouTube, he also stated the COVID-19 pandemic and Floyd’s murder “were covert operations orchestrated by the Freemasons,” and accused Hillary Clinton and her aide John Podesta of torturing children. Near the video’s end, Daniels stated: “If I catch you talking shit about Trump, I might whoop your ass fast.“

Yeah. That’s the stuff. Just mainlining 8chan and hoping at some point to have your personal shit together enough to be considered a respectable sociopath. These are people who somehow consistently fail to understand terms of service policies and their implicit promise to behave themselves when hanging out in other people’s spaces.

Daniels sued YouTube in 2021, claiming (despite all evidence to the contrary) that the company was a “state actor” because some politicians said something out loud about content moderation (namely Nancy Pelosi and Adam Schiff). He was represented by a couple of opportunistic lawyers who like suing YouTube for contradictory reasons when not representing the sort of people who shouldn’t be allowed within 100 feet of an open internet portal. Here’s Eric Goldman discussing Young Pharoah’s legal reps:

Personnel note: the plaintiff’s lawyers are Maria Cristina Armenta and Credence Elizabeth Sol, and this isn’t their first appearance on the blog. They will always hold special status in Internet Law for their ultimately-unsuccessful censorial efforts to force YouTube to remove the Innocence of Muslims video. Now, they are working–again unsuccessfully–to impose censorial must-carry obligations on Internet services.

In the most likely turn of events, Pharoah/Daniels has lost his lawsuit against YouTube. Not only has he lost, but if he has any money to spare, he’s out that as well. Here’s Eric Goldman again:

Google requested attorneys’ fees for its [Section] 1983 victory. 1983 allows for fee-shifting in “exceptional” cases, including frivolous cases like this one. The court says it was “frivolous from the outset….Mr. Daniels purported to assert a First Amendment claim against private entities based on legal theories that were either expressly foreclosed by existing precedent or entirely meritless on their own terms.” The court awards YouTube a fee-shift of $38,576. Boom.

Yep, that’s Section 1983, the one that allows lawsuits against government employees for rights violations. YouTube/Alphabet is not a government employee, so bringing this action under this legal code means YouTube can now take Mr. Daniels’ money, rather than the other way around.

As Goldman notes, it’s one thing for a court to call a lawsuit brought by a pro se complainant frivolous. They’re not expected to be intimately familiar with applicable laws. It’s quite another (and much more insulting) for a court to use the words “frivolous from the outset” to describe something authored by practicing attorneys.

It’s a loss. And no one should have ever expected this to end any differently. But this is what happens when a performative plaintiff pairs with performative lawyers: courts get annoyed and the people who thought they’d band together to take down… um… the… social media… uh… Deep State… I guess… are now on the hook for nearly forty grand.

Anyway, if you want to read something stupid, here’s the original complaint [PDF]. And if you want to see all of its stupidity pointed out pointedly, here’s the federal court opinion [PDF].

Private companies are not the government, no matter how often government employees might bitch about private companies. That YouTube doesn’t want your bigoted, dumbass content is wholly on you, Young Pharaoh. There’s no legal action here. Just an opportunity for you to understand where you’ve gone wrong. But it’s apparently going to be a very expensive learning experience.

Filed Under: attorney's fees, content moderation, credence elizabeth sol, maria cristina armenta, marshall daniels, section 1983, section 230, state actor, young pharoah
Companies: google, youtube

Reminder: Section 230 Protects You When You Forward An Email

Defamation

from the section-230-protects-you dept

Sometimes it feels like we need to keep pointing this out, but it’s (1) often forgotten and (2) really, really important. Section 230 doesn’t just protect “big tech.” It also doesn’t just protect “small tech.” It literally protects you and me. Remember, the key part of the law so that no provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be held liable for someone else’s speech:

No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.

People often ignore or forget about that part, but it’s important. It’s come up in cases before, such as in Barrett v. Rosenthal. And, now we’ve got another such case, highlighted first by Prof. Eric Goldman.

Professor Janet Monge from the University Pennsylvania, and curator of part of the Penn Museum did not like what this HyperAllergic article said about her, and insisted that it was defamatory. She then sued a whole bunch of people, including the publisher, HyperAllergic, and the two authors of the article, Kinjal Dave and Jake Nussbaum. However, there were many others listed as well, including a fellow UPenn faculty member, Dr. Deborah Thomas, who did nothing more than share the article on an email listserv.

Back in February, the court easily dismissed the defamation claims against HyperAllergic and the two authors mainly because the allegations are… true:

The allegations in Dr. Monge’s amended complaint demonstrate that this statement is, in all material respects, substantially true, and thus Hyperallergic, Ms. Dave, and Mr. Nussbaum cannot be held liable.

Other statements are non-defamatory because they’re “pure opinions that convey the subjective belief of the speaker and are based on disclosed facts.”

However, now in dealing with the claims against Dr. Thomas, the court was able to use Section 230 to dismiss them even more easily without having to even analyze the content again:

Dr. Monge, by asserting defamation claims against Dr. Thomas, seeks to treat Dr. Thomas as the publisher of the allegedly defamatory articles which Dr. Thomas shared via email. This is precisely the kind of factual scenario where CDA immunity applies. Therefore, Dr. Thomas’s conduct of sharing allegedly defamatory articles via email is immune from liability under the CDA.

Monge tried to get around this by arguing that Thomas “materially contributed” to the defamation by including commentary in the email forward, but the court notes that since she did not contribute any defamatory content, that’s not how this works. You have to imbue the content with its violative nature, and simply summarizing or expressing an opinion about the article in question is not that:

The CDA provides immunity to Dr. Thomas for sharing the allegedly defamatory articles via email and for allegedly suggesting that Dr. Monge mishandled the remains because Dr. Thomas did not materially contribute to the allegedly defamatory articles she forwarded.

As Prof. Goldman notes in his writeup of this case (which he describes as “an easy case” regarding 230), this highlights two key aspects of Section 230:

This is a good example of how Section 230 benefits online users, not just “Big Tech.” Dr. Thomas gets the same legal protection as Google and Facebook, even though she’s didn’t operate any system at all.

It’s also a reminder of how Section 230 currently protects the promotion of content, in addition to the hosting of it. That aspect remains pending with the US Supreme Court.

These are both important points. In the leadup to the Gonzalez case at the Supreme Court, lots of people kept trying to argue that merely recommending content somehow should not be covered by Section 230, but as this case shows were that to be the case, it would wipe out 230 in cases like this where its protections are so important.

Filed Under: deborah thomas, defamation, janet monge, opinion, recommendations, section 230, truth, users
Companies: hyperallergic

Daily Deal: Xbox Game Pass Ultimate 2 Months Subscription

Deals

from the good-deals-on-cool-stuff dept

Get more out of your gaming experience with Xbox Game Pass Ultimate. With over 100 high-quality games and new titles added all the time, you’ll always have something new to play with friends on console, PC, mobile devices or tablets. Plus, you get instant access to EA Play and other cool member benefits to create a truly immersive gaming experience. Codes are not stackable and this is for new customers only. The 2 months subscription is on sale for $5.

Note: The Techdirt Deals Store is powered and curated by StackCommerce. A portion of all sales from Techdirt Deals helps support Techdirt. The products featured do not reflect endorsements by our editorial team.

Filed Under: daily deal

Congressional Rep Who Discovered His Info Was Illegally Searched By The FBI Likely Has No Legal Remedy

Legal Issues

from the but-this-is-the-system-Congress-wants.... dept

The FBI has long enjoyed its close relationship with the NSA… or at least the NSA’s collections. Data and communications collected under the NSA’s Section 702 program contain plenty of “incidental” snooping on Americans. That’s because even though it’s a foreign-facing collection, Americans who communicate with people outside of the United States are swept up in the dragnet.

The FBI has a backdoor to search this collection for information relevant to its investigations. It’s supposed to strictly limit access to US persons’ communications when searching this database, but it has proven over the last decade that it’s simply unable to keep itself from abusing this access.

The FBI’s casual abuse of this access was again highlighted earlier this month, when Representative Darin LaHood chose to use his speaking time at a House Intelligence Committee meeting to discuss something very personal.

“Unfortunately I believe that the FBI does have a significant trust issue with the members of Congress,” said LaHood, citing a recently declassified government report, which found misuses of the Section 702 authority.

A footnote of the report describes an incident in which an intelligence analyst repeatedly searched 702 data“using only the name of a U.S. congressman.”

[…]

LaHood added that he had reviewed a classified summary of the incident “and it is my opinion that the member of Congress who was wrongly queried multiple times solely by his name was in fact me…”

The FBI — in the report — maintained the search was pretty much innocuous, despite the DOJ and DNI (Director of National Intelligence) calling the detailed searches “overly broad.” FBI Director Chris Wray then pointed out the FBI is doing fewer of these searches — 93% fewer searches in 2022 than in 2021. He failed to explain why LaHood’s name was searched repeatedly, much less why analysts were given access to unminimized data pertaining to the congressional rep.

That’s not great. But it’s the standard operating procedure for the FBI, which routinely is forced to answer questions about its misuse of its access to Section 702 collections. Rather than provide answers, the FBI (repeatedly) swears this is the year it will finally stop these things from happening. Rinse and repeat for the nine years and counting since the Snowden leaks made this stuff public knowledge.

The FISA court hasn’t done much to keep the government from abusing its surveillance tools. And neither has the regular court system, as the EFF notes. The FBI is clearly in the wrong. But being illegally surveilled by national security programs is a non-starter in the federal court system.

[N]either Rep. LaHood nor anyone else illegally spied upon will likely get a chance to seek a remedy in a court.  That’s not just because  702 is poorly drafted and has been even more poorly executed.  It’s because of how governmental secrecy has now metastasized to completely prevent anyone from stopping illegal NSA spying of them, much less get any other legal remedy.  

Quite simply, governmental secrecy now renders moot many of the accountability and oversight mechanisms for national security surveillance that exist on paper in FISA as well as in the U.S. constitution.

The EFF knows what it’s talking about. Fourteen years of litigation in the Jewel v. NSA lawsuit came to a unceremonious end with the Ninth Circuit declaring the common law state secrets privilege prevented the government from being sued. The EFF appealed and the Supreme Court refused to grant it certification.

The same thing happened in the lawsuit brought against the NSA by Wikimedia. State secrets, said the courts. And the Supreme Court’s recent rejection of this lawsuit’s certification request means the appeals court ruling in favor of the government — and its “state secrets” incantations — forecloses almost all lawsuits over illegal surveillance brought against the NSA and its beneficiaries.

But this can be changed. And it’s people like Rep. LaHood that can do it, as the EFF points out. It can clarify its intention to allow people to seek redress for illegal spying, an option it created with FISA Section 1806(f). Rather than simply trusting the government’s assertions about state secrets, the law allows the court to perform reviews of government submissions to determine whether or not the information at the center of the case is too sensitive to allow the lawsuit to continue. The invocation of the state secrets privilege shouldn’t always result in the dismissal of a lawsuit, but it almost always does, even if the law provides courts with other options.

Congress can also limit illegal spying by limiting or ending the FBI’s access to NSA collections. Even better, it could just let Section 702 expire, eliminating the source of the problem. As it stands now, lots of Republican congressional reps are upset with the FBI and its Intelligence Community buddies. Their motives may not be entirely pure, but even a vindictive expiration/overhaul is better than simply allowing Section 702 to continue operating in an unaltered state. That may not create a judicial remedy for citizens illegally spied on, but the end of 702 (or cutting the FBI’s access off) would make this lack pretty much moot.

Whatever route is taken, something needs to be done. Otherwise, the government will continue doing what it’s been doing for pretty much the entirety of history: illegally spying on citizens and walking away from lawsuits by invoking an apparently bulletproof privilege.

Filed Under: backdoor searches, darin lahood, fbi, fisa, fisa court, fisc, nsa, section 702

FCC Staffers Routinely Held Stock In Telecom Giants They Regulated

Failures

from the normalized-corruption dept

Federal law specifically bans Federal Communications Commission (FCC) employees from owning “any stocks, bonds, or other securities of [any company] significantly regulated by the Commission.” That’s apparently news to FCC employees.

A new report (hat tip, Ars Technica) by nonprofit watchdog group Campaign Legal Center found that numerous employees hold stock in Comcast, AT&T, Verizon, and other telecom giants despite the restrictions. And despite these financial conflicts of interest being abundantly evident in publicly available financial disclosures, FCC ethics officials did absolutely nothing about it, for years.

The data reviewed came from 2018 and 2019, when then FCC boss Ajit Pai was busy doling out every last fevered dream of media and telecom giants, ranging from the repeal of net neutrality to the erosion of longstanding media consolidation limits:

Citing the most recent financial disclosure reports, which cover the Chairman Ajit Pai-era years of 2018 and 2019, the Campaign Legal Center report said FCC official Rosemary Harold owned Comcast stock with a value between $3,003 and $45,000. Harold was the FCC Enforcement Bureau chief during that time and is now a deputy chief with the FCC Media Bureau. The report also said former FCC official Lisa Hone, then a deputy bureau chief, owned Charter Communications stock worth between $4,004 and $60,000.

Hone and former FCC Chief Information Security Officer Andrea Simpson owned AT&T stock, with the two employees’ AT&T holdings adding up to somewhere between $2,203 and $31,001, the report said. Harold and former Chief Technology Officer Eric Burger reportedly owned Verizon stock with a combined value between $7,007 and $105,000. The wide stock value ranges are a result of how employee stock holdings are reported in financial disclosure forms.

This is, of course, small potatoes in the broader context of government financial conflicts of interest and insider trading, but ignoring it still normalizes corruption. And the more normalized it is, the less overall incentive the FCC has to hold telecom giants accountable for much of anything, be it their widespread abuse of sensitive location data, or their massive, well documented history of fraud.

The Campaign Legal Center not only sent its findings to the FCC, it also sent a letter to the US Office of Government Ethics urging it to, you know, do its job.

Filed Under: ajit pai, broadband, conflicts of interest, corruption, fcc, telecom
Companies: campaign legal center

Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt

Techdirt

from the on-the-wire dept

This week, our first place winner on the insightful side is CSMcDonald with a comment about the comparison between Ron DeSantis attacking Disney and Gavin Newsom attacking Walgreens:

One difference..

I don’t like Newsom’s posturing, but he’s just refusing do do business with a company. DeSantis is threatening to ruin a company by not allowing it to manage it’s parks and property if they don’t change their content to suit him instead of the market that consumes the product – with a hand picked board that includes a man who believes tap water makes people gay. So I’m going to give DeSantis a bit of an award for being slightly worse than Newsom.

In second place, it’s an anonymous comment from that same post, responding to another commenter:

Koby,

Did you ever learn why Facebook can’t use §230 to dismiss a lawsuit against Facebook’s own speech yet?

“The calls for a parallel economy grow by the day”

Red states would not survive on their own as they get tons of money from the feds, which comes from….. blue states.

Source: Democratic-leaning blue states tend to be wealthier and pay more to the federal government than they get. In contrast, Republican-leaning red states tend to have less wealth and receive more federal government funds than they pay.

It’s almost like red states are on welfare paid for by blue states. Hmmm, imagine that.

For editor’s choice on the insightful side, we’ve got a pair of comments from our post about how copyright can force you to get permission to post photos of your own home online. First, it’s an anonymous thought on the subject:

Incidentally, doesn’t this render any works by the photographer in question nearly useless. Since you now can’t use his works and expect that your done paying for them. He can (and will) always come back and say “Nuh uh! I did not license this use!”.

Which means using his works is a nearly bottomless legal liability.

Next, it’s That One Guy looking at the broader consequences:

‘I have to get permission for WHAT?!’

Do you want to sour the public on the very concept of copyright and get more and more people on the side of ‘kill it, it does more harm than good’?

Because this is how you get people to go from thinking copyright is a worthwhile part of society and law to thinking that we’d be better off without it.

Over on the funny side, both our winning comments come in response to Da Vinci’s works being withheld from the public domain. In first place, it’s Pixelation with a little sarcasm:

Finally!!

A good reason for DaVinci to produce new works!!

In second place, it’s Anathema Device noting who might like the idea:

Disney, in an admiring tone: “Dayum!”

For editor’s choice on the funny side, we’ve got a pair of similar-but-different jokes about Fox News. First, it’s Strawb with a response to the notion that journalists can’t succeed if they “badmouth one side or the other”:

That’s literally Fox News’ business model.

Finally, it’s David riffing on the usually important notion that it’s impossible to separate bias from journalism:

Fox News is actually pretty good at separating bias from journalism since they keep journalism out and bias in.

That’s all for this week, folks!

Game Jam Winner Spotlight: To And Again

Culture

from the gaming-like-it's-1927 dept

So far in our series of posts on showcasing the winners in all six categories of the fifth annual public domain game jam, Gaming Like It’s 1927, we’ve featured Best Remix winner Lucia and Best Visuals winner Urbanity. Today, we’re taking a closer look at the winner of the Best Adaptation category: To And Again by Perrin Ellis.

Perrin is one of three returning winners in this year’s jam, having won the same category last year with The Wall Across The River. Much like that game, To And Again combines some basic board game and roleplaying game mechanics with a strong storytelling framework that empowers players to explore the themes of the work it’s based on while telling their own original tales. The two games share many of the same strengths, but To And Again feels notably more personal because of the designer’s relationship with the underlying work.

As you can see from the cover, that underlying work is a 1927 book of the same name by Walter R. Brooks. It’s a classic adventure tale for children in which a group of farm animals go on a journey, and would later expand into a series (and get new illustrations that are not yet in the public domain, as referenced in the clever cover design for the game). As Perrin explains in the game’s introduction, the series was a personal childhood favorite and one that, for most of their life, nobody else seemed to have heard of (it seems it was by no means the best of its genre, but perhaps deserves more attention than its ever gotten). So the game serves as a grand introduction of the story to a presumably new audience, and is clearly designed to do justice to both the book itself and the designer’s own memory of it.

As such, gameplay starts with some basic board game mechanics in which players traverse an overall “Journey Board” through a series of Episodes on their own smaller boards, immediately capturing that all-important structure of a simple and satisfying adventure story: a series of well-defined individual challenges that each represent a step towards the broader goal.

Next, the game layers on some basic RPG mechanics, giving each player a character with a strength, a weakness, a characteristic, and the ability to gain skills and improve stats as they progress. A game master guides players through the process of setting goals and generating episodes in which some or all of the characters take part. All of this is supported by rules and tools that are robust without ever becoming overly complicated, with dice tables that can generate goals, settings, obstacles, and other details coupled with concise examples of how every element of gameplay works. Everything is well-designed and well-explained, and all of it is fine-tuned to evoke the original book (there are also pre-made character sheets for all the animals in the original cast).

Put it all together and you’ve got a game that is obviously a labor of love, with design that is informed at every turn by the creator’s relationship with the original work. It’s made me curious about the books, while also making me feel like I have a strong sense of at least some aspects of what they’re like — just as any good adaptation should. For that, To And Again is a deserving winner of Best Adaptation.

Congratulations to Perrin Ellis for the win! You can get everything you need to play To And Again on Itch, plus don’t forget to check out the other winners as well as the many great entries that didn’t quite make the cut! We’ll be back next week with another winner spotlight.

Filed Under: copyright, game jam, games, gaming like it's 1927, public domain