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Hunter Moore, the “Most Hated Man on the Internet,” Arrested for Revenge Porn Hacking

By Emily Poole

Hunter Moore, the founder of revenge porn website IsAnyoneUp.com, was arrested in California this week on federal charges of conspiracy, computer hacking and identity theft. Moore is alleged to have paid a man, Charles “Gary” Evens, to break into the email accounts of hundreds of victims to steal sexually explicit photos of the victims.

  According to a 15-page indictment, Evens used various means, including hacking, to gain access to victims’ email accounts. Evens would obtain nude photos of the victims and send the photos to Moore in exchange for payment. The indictment claims that Moore offered Evens additional money to obtain more nude photos of victims and that Moore posted these photos to his site without the victims’ authorization.

  A revenge porn website is a site where users can anonymously post or upload sexually explicit photos or videos of their exes without the consent of the pictured individual.  IsAnyoneUp.com, one of the first mainstream revenge porn sites, spawned various copycat sites. Creators of these similar sites soon learned how to turn revenge porn into a business—charging victims for the removal of the nude photos that their exes had uploaded.

  Until now, Moore has defended himself from legal responsibility for the explicit photos posted on his site with Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. Section 230 shields online service providers, such as websites, from legal liability for the content posted by third parties. This means that, as the mere operator of the site, Moore was immunized by the actions of third parties—users that actually uploaded nude photos to IsAnyoneUp.com. It also means that the FBI must find another path to get at Moore. If the court finds Moore paid Evens to hack into victims’ accounts, or that Moore was actually one of users who uploaded photos to the site, the FBI might just have found the path it has been seeking.

Link to indictment: http://www.scribd.com/doc/201777072/Hunter-Moore-Charles-Evens-Revenge-Porn-Indictment

  Link to text of CDA: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/47/230

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Auto Makers at CES Introduce Driverless Cars, but Regulation may be Distant

By Guy Noyes

     Automobile manufacturers Audi and BMW unveiled new driverless cars at this year’s CES, but safety and privacy concerns at the regulatory level may put some roadblocks in their path. Regulators at the Department of Transportation in Washington D.C. have recently been working on new distracted driving rules to deal with the influx of computers into cars. The creation of the Open Automotive Alliance, a collaboration between companies including Google, chip manufacturer Nvidia, and carmakers Audi and GM, takes these issues to a whole new level. One goal of the Alliance is to have the Android operating system used to power internal car computers.

     Computer driven cars have the potential to offer tremendous benefits to the elderly and sight impaired. Issues surrounding the technology include questions of liability in the event of a car crash. David Strickland, of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration spoke at the show, and mentioned that safety has to be “the number 1 priority.”

     As important as safety issues are, most ominous were the potential privacy concerns raised by the technology. Jim Farley, Executive Vice President of Global Marketing, Sales and Service and Lincoln, Ford Motor Company,  spoke about the data collected by the GPS in cars to the CES crowd, “We know everyone who breaks the law, we know when you're doing it. We have GPS in your car, so we know what you're doing.” He assured listeners that Ford does not share this information with anyone. Khaliah Barnes of the Electronic Privacy Information Center expressed worries that a lack of oversight of this data collection could lead to abuses.

     Senator Al Franken (D-MI) reiterated the need for legislation on this issue, referring to his location privacy bill, the Location Privacy Protection Act of 2012 (available here). The bill would prohibit companies from collecting geolocation data without the express authorization of the user.      On the other end of the spectrum, Hilary Cain, national manager for technology and innovation policy at Toyota Motor North America,expressed discontent with legislative regulation of industry. She argued that too much regulation and uncertainty would stifle innovation.

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Supreme Court Accepts Aereo Case Setting Up Landmark Copyright Decision

By Noah Johnson          

          On January 10, 2014, the Supreme Court granted certiorari in the case ABC, Inc. v. Aereo from the Second Circuit Court of Appeals. The case pits media heavyweights such as ABC Networks, the NFL and Fox Television against the New York City-based startup Aereo. Aereo was founded only two years ago in December 2011 and has already been involved in numerous high stakes legal battles.

           Aereo utilizes what some would argue is an ingenious business model. The company developed a tiny television antenna that picks up widely accessible TV signals from the major networks such as CBS, ABC, FOX and PBS. These signals would also be available to home consumers for free with an old fashioned TV antenna. Aereo replicates this concept by constructing hardware that houses thousands of individual TV antennas each assigned to an individual subscriber. Each antenna is then linked to an individual digital video recording (DVR) device. The user can use a program to login from anywhere to watch the prerecorded or streaming shows from their personal DVR device. In a nutshell, it is like TiVo but only for the major networks that are publicly accessible, and you can stream the content from anywhere in the world as long as you have Wifi.

An Aereo TV antenna compared to a dime:

           The major networks argue that if Aereo’s business model is allowed to stand, the entire broadcasting industry will be destroyed. Some networks have even threatened to completely shutdown if Aereo is not stopped by the Supreme Court. The networks contend that Aereo has “developed a business model around the massive, for-profit exploitation of the copyrighted works of others” in their petition to the Supreme Court. Currently, the networks make billions of dollars per year from cable and satellite companies who pay to retransmit the major channels and their lucrative programming.

           However, Aereo has thus far won all the major court cases it has faced. The Second Circuit Court of Appeals sided with Aereo based upon the technology they utilize and the statutory language of the Copyright Act. The Copyright Act defines a “public performance” of a copyrighted work as “transmitting . . . a performance . . . of the work . . . to the public, by means of any device or process . . ..” Aereo argues that they are not broadcasting a single “performance” to multiple users, instead they stream thousands of separate performances each to an individual subscriber and therefore not to the public. Broadcasters argue that Aereo is doing exactly what cable systems do when they re-broadcast programming to subscribers and have to pay licensing fees. Thus, Aereo should pay as well. Aereo instead argues that they are exactly like antennas that people can legally put on their own rooftops because each Aereo user is assigned a unique antenna and DVR.

           So far, the Second Circuit and U.S. District Courts in Utah and Massachusetts have all sided with Aereo. The issue is hotly contested and a large list of amicus curiae briefs have been filed with the Supreme Court from parties such as Major League Baseball and a consortium of law professors. It will be fascinating to see if the Supreme Court engages in a strict reading of the Copyright Act like the Second Circuit or if they take a more liberal approach by widely interpreting the phrase “public performance.” An opinion is likely in June or July 2014 and regardless of the outcome, it will have major implications for U.S. copyright law.