Comcast Corp is developing real time copyright alert

ANNAPOLIS, Md. (WJZ) — Added protections from harassment due to broken relationships are signed into law. Pat Warren reports revenge porn is now a punishable offense. Annmarie Chiarini’s bad breakup has helped change the way the state views intimate Internet postings. In a WJZ investigation, Chiarini goes public with her experience as a victim of revenge porn. She tells WJZ an ex-boyfriend posted explicit pictures of her on the Internet. He had taken the pictures with her permission, but posted them in revenge after she broke up with him. “There I was, and there was my first and last name, and there was the town where I live, and there was the college and the campus where I teach, and there was a solicitation for sex,” she said. Chiarini went to police for help. “I sought help from law enforcement, and it was the same shake your head. ‘There’s nothing…

SALT LAKE CITY — The U.S. Justice Department has called it “by far the most significantly growing threat to children.” And based on recent investigations, the issue of “sextortion” isn’t slowing down, including in Utah. Sextortion is a form of online blackmail, typically targeting teenagers or preteens. The average sextortion case starts with children who are 12 to 14 years old who are using social media and other apps to message others who they assume are also juveniles, said Steve Cagen, head of U.S. Homeland Security Investigations in Utah and three other states. Eventually, the other “juvenile” will gain the teen’s trust and request a nude photo. “But they’re talking to a 40-year-old or 50-year-old man, who once they have one photo will then extort them for more. It’s called sextortion. It’s happening a lot. And we are asking parents to talk to your kids, because it can happen in…

“Sextortion” is the fastest growing crime against children on the Internet, according to the FBI. But no official records are kept, and only five states have made sextortion, where a perpetrator threatens victims with releasing explicit images unless they perform pornography on demand, a standalone crime. Prosecutors say if we don’t start actively telling kids—with some victims as young as seven years old—that sextortion could happen to anyone (even those who have never shared a single intimate image), the problem is only going to get worse. Although the FBI does not yet officially track instances of sextortion, the currently available data indicates that the problem is expanding. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children founda 150 percent rise in reports of sextortion to its CyberTipline between 2014 and 2016. The stories are horrifying. A little girl who is threatened that her dog will be killed if she doesn’t send…

The Internet is a terrible place sometimes, but thankfully there are now organizations that can help people who become victims. When illicit photos of Anisha Vora began showing up online, she didn’t know what to do. She contacted Facebook, Twitter and other companies hoping they’d do the right thing and take the photos down. But soon, there were too many places for her to deal with on her own. What happened to Vora happens to all sorts of people. Students, college graduates and professionals. People have lost their jobs because photos were published online without their consent. Most of the victims are women, though not all. As the threat of revenge porn has grown, companies, organizations and even lawyers have sprung up to help victims. Figure out the size and scope of the problem The moment your photos begin circulating online, it’s easy to get overwhelmed. You’ve been violated, and…

Know your rights! Read about the DMCA Act DIGITAL MILLENNIUM COPYRIGHT ACT OF 1998. What is copyright? Copyright is a form of legal protection automatically provided to the authors of “original works of authorship,” including literary, dramatic, musical, and artistic works. U.S. copyright law generally gives the author/creator or owner of an original creative work an exclusive right to: Reproduce (copy) or distribute the original work to the public (e.g., create and sell copies of a film) Create new works based upon the original work (e.g., make a movie based on a book) Perform or display the work publicly (e.g., perform a play) Violation of one of these rights is called copyright infringement. However, the use may be authorized by copyright limitations (such as fair use) described below. What types of works are protected by copyright? Literary works Music and lyrics Dramatic works and music Pantomimes and choreographic works Photographs, graphics,…

Snippets from issue 1, 2013 volume of The Copyright & New Media Law Newsletter: Publishing and distributing content in today’s environment means working within a variety of models. An article or a series of articles published in a newsletter or website may become a mini e-book, the basis for a webinar or online course, or part of an online subscription-based database. These various models of monetizing content presume one thing—that ownership of the original content is clearly established when that original or first version of the content is written. - Editorial by Lesley Ellen Harris Orphan Works: Because museums operate as stewards of collections with a mission and responsibility—on the one hand to educate and communicate with their public and, on the other hand, to care for their collections—museums hold a unique perspective on rights issues. One of the most significant legal issues facing the contemporary museum is the orphaned works…

Fox News Channel sued TVEyes, a $500-per-month TV and radio broadcast search service, for copyright infringement on Tuesday. The suit, filed in U.S. District Court in New York, alleges that TV Eyes makes versions of the cable news network’s “award winning programming” available on its site for paid users without Fox News’ permission. The lawsuit accuses TVEyes of misappropriating “the entirety of the works that Fox News has developed at great expense and to reproduce, to distribute, to publicly perform and/or to publicly display verbatim copies of the works” without authorization. Also read: Fox News’ Shepard Smith Stumping For ‘True Blood’ Cameo According to the suit, Robert Bruder, director of client relations for TVEyes, admitted that the site was already using Fox News’ content when he approached the channel seeking a license to use that work. “Mr. Bruder notified Fox News that TVEyes had been using Fox News’s content without…

Sen. Al Franken is urging the FBI to more quickly and aggressively pursue and prosecute revenge porn, marking a rare burst of attention on a controversial topic about which Congress has typically been quiet. In a letter to FBI Director James Comey, the Minnesota Democrat asked for more information about the agency’s authority to police against revenge porn, or the act of posting explicit sexual content online without the subject’s consent, often for purposes of humiliation and extortion. Its popularity has ballooned in recent years, and victims are disproportionately women. “The digital age has brought many benefits for free speech, commercial activity, and the sharing of information, but new technologies can pose significant threats if bad actors are not held accountable to our nation’s laws,” Franken wrote in his letter. “As technologies rapidly advance, it is our responsibility to ensure that our nation’s laws keep pace with those technologies. But…

Internet mogul Kim Dotcom said Thursday he was considering taking legal action against tech giants such as Twitter, Google and Facebook for infringing copyright on a security measure he invented. Dotcom, who is on bail in New Zealand as US authorities seek his extradition in the world’s biggest copyright case, said he invented “two-factor authentication”, which many major sites have adopted as a security feature. Twitter became the latest major player to introduce the measure on Wednesday following a series of cyber-attacks which saw hackers take over the accounts of high-profile targets such as media organizations and send out fake tweets. “Twitter introduces Two-Step-Authentication. Using my invention. But they won’t even verify my Twitter account?!,” Dotcom tweeted. “Google, Facebook, Twitter, Citibank, etc. offer Two-Step-Authentication. Massive IP (intellectual property) infringement by U.S. companies. My innovation. My patent,” he added. To back his claim, the 39-year-old posted a US patent describing the…

Zynga claim that the app’s name abuses the ‘With Friends’ moniker they use for their family-friendly games. Bloomberg reports that Zynga are accusing the app’s developers of selecting “the name Bang With Friends for its casual sex matchmaking app with Zynga’s game trademarks fully in mind.” Launched in January, Bang With Friends works by signing into Facebook. Users select the friends they’re “interested” in and if those lucky individuals have also installed the app and already selected them, then both parties are sent an email. Forbes writer Kashmir Hill has already pointed out that the app doesn’t live up to its own promises of anonymity, as users who go to add the app on Facebook will be told if any friends of theirs have. Until recently the founders of the app had chosen to be anonymous, though in June this year, CEO Colin Hodge was interviewed by Business Insider. Hodge…

A Kansas City man who admitted he threatened to post nude photos of a 16-year-old girl if she wouldn’t have sex with him was sentenced Tuesday in Platte County Circuit Court to 18 years in prison. Denis Aguilar, 23, pleaded guilty in February to attempted child enticement and attempted statutory sodomy for the threats he made in April 2014. According to court records, the victim and her mother alerted Kansas City police after Aguilar requested nude photos of the teen. After the girl sent him photos, Aguilar threatened to post them online, said Platte County Prosecutor Eric Zahnd. The girl told investigators that she was on a social network website that she thought barred users over 18. The teen and Aguilar met on the website and began communicating through other social media sites, Zahnd said. Aguilar told the girl he was 18 and repeatedly asked her to send him nude…

An article about the website Anon-IB recently garnered national attention when dozens of male Marines posted nude photographs of their female colleagues. Anon-IB—short for Anonymous Image Board—is one of many “revenge porn” websites that encourage users to post explicit photos of their exes, without the exes’ consent. Anon-IB receives 50,000 individual visitors each day and its page views can average 170,000, according to the New York Post. The site’s categories include “drunk/passed out,” “peeping toms” and “up-the-skirt” photos. Some material depicts molestation and rape, with many of the girls pictured below the age of 18. Users can post teenage girls’ pictures, as long as the tag does not contain their age, according to the New York Post. Revenge porn epitomizes the failure of legislators and policymaking to catch up with the rapid progression of technology. Georgia resident Brandon Lee Gary, for example, had been convicted for taking up-the-skirt photos of…

At a Fourth of July party in 2016, a stranger approached Hannah Jennaway, then 21, with an unsettling question: “Are you the girl in the Snapchats I just got?” Jennaway’s stomach sank. “No,” she lied. She knew what the girl was referring to and hated imagining anyone watching it — especially someone she didn’t know. As the night went on, more people texted her asking about the Snapchat videos they’d received of two people having sex, including a girl who looked just like her. Earlier that day, Jennaway went cliff jumping at Ennis Lake with a group of friends. Worn out after a day in the sun, she returned to Bozeman with two friends to clean up before going to a party to celebrate the Fourth of July. While Jennaway’s friend Dilan Koelzer, then 20, showered, Jennaway and her other friend went into Koelzer’s bedroom, pushed a couch against the…

  When Holly Jacobs sent nude photographs of herself to a long-distance boyfriend she loved and trusted, the 23-year-old woman never imagined the horror that would befall her. In August 2009, less than a year after the pair mutually ended their three-year relationship, Jacobs did a Google search of her name and discovered the naked photos on a so-called “revenge porn” website. “I just went completely into shock,” said Jacobs, who hired a lawyer and eventually changed her birth name from “Holli Thometz” to Holly Jacobs. “This is cyber-rape,” Jacobs, now 30, told FoxNews.com. “It’s all about the guy having control over the woman and exploiting her in a sexual way — the same way real-life rape does that. It violates you over and over again.” What came next was perhaps more shocking to Jacobs. Police in Miami, where she lived at the time, took no action. They told her…

by: Alex Thomas, Rare.us Updated: Sep 30, 2021 - 10:29 AM SAN ANTONIO - A San Antonio woman is in trouble after police say she broke into her ex’s phone and posted nude photos of his former lover online. In August, a woman reported the photos to police, claiming that 26-year-old Adriana Luna posted the images on the man’s Instagram account. Authorities said the man dated another woman before getting into a relationship with Luna. The woman before had, sent him the nude photos. According to an affidavit, Luna and the man had what a “bad breakup.” TRENDING NOW: The San Antonio Express-News reported Luna kept her ex’s phone and broke into it, then posted the images. When Luna’s ex-boyfriend confronted her about it, she allegedly admitted to the crime. KABB reported that, according to an interview with the ex-boyfriend, Luna posted the photos with her mother’s help. The ex-boyfriend said…