In an unprecedented decision, Fulton County Judge Scott McAfee announced on Thursday that he will allow not only a press pool, cameras and laptops to be present in the courtroom during the election interference trial of former President Donald Trump, but that the entire proceedings will be livestreamed on YouTube as well. That stream will be operated by the court.

Trump and 18 co-defendants are slated their trial on October 23rd. Tsplhey're facing multiple racketeering charges surrounding their efforts in the state of Georgia to subvert and overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, what Fulton County DA Fanni Harris describes as "a criminal enterprise" to unconstitutionally keep the disgraced politician in power. Trump has pled not guilty to all charges. 

While recording court proceedings can be an uncommon occurrence in some jurisdictions, the state of Georgia takes a far more lax approach in allowing the practice. 

“Georgia courts traditionally have allowed the media and the public in so that everyone can scrutinize how our process actually works,” Atlanta-based attorney Josh Schiffer, told Atlanta First News. “Unlike a lot of states with very strict rules, courts in Georgia are going to basically leave it up to the judges.”

For example, when Trump was arraigned in New York on alleged financial crimes, only still photography was allowed. For his Miami charges, photography wasn't allowed at all. This means that the public will not be privy to the in-court proceedings of Trump's federal election interference case, only the Georgia state prosecution.

Three major American sports leagues want to speed up Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) takedowns. In a letter posted and reported by TorrentFreak (viaThe Verge), the UFC, NBA and NFL urged the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) to make the removal process for illegal livestreams nearly instantaneous. The organizations say the global sports industry is losing up to $28 billion from fans watching pirated live feeds instead of paid ones.

“The rampant piracy of live sports events causes tremendous harm to our companies,” legal representatives for the UFC, NBA and NFL allegedly wrote in the letter. The leagues say online service providers often take “hours or even days” to take down infringing content — leaving illegal sports streams plenty of time to complete the event without removal. “This is particularly damaging to our companies given the unique time-sensitivity of live sports content.”

The Digital Millennium Copyright Act’s language in Section 512 is at the heart of the complaint, which states that content must be removed “expeditiously.” The UFC, NBA and NFL want the wording changed to “instantaneously or near-instantaneously” to help with their revenue problems. “This would be a relatively modest and non-controversial update to the DMCA that could be included in the broader reforms being considered by Congress or could be addressed separately,” the posted letter reads.

The letter didn’t address sports fans’ distaste for regional blackouts, which many viewers likely use the pirated feeds to bypass.

The leagues also ask the USPTO to consider more stringent requirements for online service providers to verify users posting livestreams. They ask for “particular verification measures,” including blocking the ability to stream from newly created accounts or those with few subscribers. “Certain [online service providers] already impose measures like these, demonstrating that the measures are feasible, practical and important tools to reduce livestream piracy,” the letter reads.

Sending a letter is the first step in communicating intent, but the UFC, NBA and NFL will likely have a long road ahead if they want to change the DMCA. The law, signed into law by Bill Clinton in 1998, has faced numerous calls for change in the following decades — both from media companies wanting stricter measures and users who believe it gives copyright holders too much power. Changing it would require Congress to pass a law revising it, which is never a quick or easy process.

Last year, the Republican National Committee (RNC) filed a lawsuit against Google accusing it of political bias over its Gmail spam filters. Now, a federal judge has dismissed that lawsuit, noting that Google was effectively protected by Section 230 of US law, and that the RNC had not "sufficiently pled that Google acted in bad faith" by filtering out campaign emails, The Washington Post has reported. 

According to the lawsuit, Google intentionally marked "millions" of RNC emails as spam, so the group sought reimbursement for "donations it allegedly lost as a result" of that. As evidence, it cited a study finding that Gmail was more likely than Yahoo and other mail systems to mark Republican emails as spam. (One of the study's authors told the Post last year that its findings were cherry-picked.)

Calling the lawsuit a "close case," US District Court judge Daniel Calabretta said the RNC had "failed to plausibly allege its claims" that Google's spam filtering was done in bad faith. Google said that the emails in questions were likely flagged as spam because of user complaints, and cited RNC domain authentication issues and frequent mailouts as other potential issues. 

The court also decided that RNC emails could be deemed "objectionable" based on the CAN-SPAM Act, and the fact that Google flagged them as such was covered by Section 230, which provides immunity to online platforms from civil liability based on third-party content. All that said, the judge said Republicans could still amend the lawsuit to better establish a lack of good faith by Google. 

Interestingly, during last year's mid-term US elections, Google created a loophole allowing political campaigns to dodge Gmail spam filters. However, the RNC reportedly didn't take advantage of the program. Google has since ended the experiment, following largely negative feedback from the public. 

In movies, a hacker typically sits at a large desk with a slew of cutting-edge technology in front of them. In real life, it turns out all you need is an Amazon Fire TV stick, smartphone, keyboard and mouse to steal and leak clips from a game like the hotly anticipated yet to be released Grand Theft Auto IV. That's exactly what Arion Kurtaj, a member of hacking group Lapsus$, did while already on bail for allegedly hacking NVIDIA, the BBC reports. The 18-year-old infiltrated Rockstar Games, which created GTA VI, going so far as to announce himself as an "attacker" in the company's slack channel. The scene of the crime? A UK Travelodge hotel officials had placed him in.

Kurtaj was moved to the hotel after hackers "doxxed" him, releasing detailed information about him and his family online, and compromising his safety. While there he was allowed no internet access — something he used the Fire TV Stick to get around. 

Further details of Kurtaj's illegal stunt became public following a seven-week trial and his being found guilty of hacking Rockstar, neobank Revolut and Uber. A 17-year-old was also convicted but, unlike Kurtaj, is still out on bail. The two individuals are autistic, and psychiatrists deemed them ineligible to stand trial. This meant that the jury only weighed in on if they believed the crimes were committed, not if they were done with criminal intent.

Lapsus$, referred to in court as a group of "digital bandits," is believed to be comprised mostly of teenagers from Brazil and the UK — Kurtaj and the unnamed 17-year-old are two of seven members arrested in the UK. Between 2021 and 2022, Lapsus$ also allegedly hacked Samsung, T-Mobile and Microsoft. Though the group requested ransoms, it's unclear how much it made from these exploits, if much at all.

The US Department of Justice just sued SpaceX, alleging that the company engaged in discriminatory hiring practices against refugees and asylum seekers. The suit says that these practices occurred between 2018 and 2022 and that SpaceX “wrongly claimed” that export control laws limited it to hiring US citizens and lawful permanent residents.

The DOJ began its investigation in 2020 when the department’s Immigrant and Employee Rights Section received complaints of employee discrimination. Kristen Clarke, Assistant Attorney General of the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division, said in a statement that the “investigation found that SpaceX failed to fairly consider or hire asylees and refugees because of their citizenship status” going on to say that this amounted to a “ban” regardless of their qualifications. This is a violation of federal law.

The investigation also found that “SpaceX recruiters and high-level officials took actions that actively discouraged” these people from seeking employment with the company.

The DOJ lawsuit seeks damages and back pay for “asylees and refugees who were deterred or denied employment at SpaceX.” It also seeks civil penalties and hiring policy changes from the company. The Immigrant and Employee Rights Section (IER) even alleges that SpaceX ignored a subpoena related to the suit in 2021, forcing the DOJ to request a judge order the company to comply with document requests.

The IER opened this probe in 2020 after claimant Fabian Hutter alleged discrimination after losing a spot at SpaceX when asked about his citizenship status during a job interview. It's requesting other alleged victims to come forward and contact the department, particularly if they were discouraged from applying to SpaceX due to citizenship concerns.

Is this the only Elon Musk-led company facing legal troubles regarding hiring practices and employee treatment? Of course not! The self-proclaimed “Technoking of Tesla” faced penalties when a federal court found that Musk made unlawful threats surrounding employee compensation and unions. There’s also a suit making its way through the New York courts that alleges Musk and Tesla fired workers “in retaliation for union activity.” 

Another big suit alleged a racist work environment at Tesla, which was recently settled for just over $3 million. Employees recently sued Twitter/X after Musk-led mass layoffs. The list goes on and on for the man who used to repeatedly state that he simply wants to save the world. Nowadays, he spends most of his time issuing controversial posts on X and being investigated for building literal glass houses using Tesla company funds.

The Department of Justice (DOJ) has charged Toronto Cash's founders with counts of money laundering and sanction violations. The cryptocurrency mixer first faced US sanctions last year for allegedly laundering over $7 billion in stolen funds. The DOJ now alleges that Toronto Cash facilitated $1 billion in money laundering, including $455 million funneled through the mixer by a North Korean cybercrime organization, the Lazarus Group. The overall charges include "conspiracy to commit money laundering, conspiracy to commit sanctions violations, and conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money transmitting business." Co-founder Roman Storm was arrested in Washington State, while the other half of Toronto Cash, Roman Semenov, is still at large.

The US government is attempting to send a strong message about using cryptocurrency for illegal purposes. "These charges should serve as yet another warning to those who think they can turn to cryptocurrency to conceal their crimes and hide their identities, including cryptocurrency mixers: it does not matter how sophisticated your scheme is or how many attempts you have made to anonymize yourself, the Justice Department will find you and hold you accountable for your crimes," Attorney General Merrick B. Garland said in a statement.

If you're unfamiliar, a cryptocurrency mixer is a service that makes it harder to track funds from their origin to the new owner. Most blockchains, like Bitcoin and Ethereum, are visible, so a mixer helps individuals hide their money flow — whether it be for reasonable or illegal activities. Chainalysis, a cryptocurrency analysis firm, found that in 2022, crypto addresses known for unlawful activity used mixers in almost 10 percent of transactions.

Former OpenSea employee Nathanial Chastain has been sentenced to three months in prison over an NFT (non-fungible token) insider trading scheme. Chastain, who was found guilty of wire fraud and money laundering, used "confidential information about which NFTs were going to be featured on OpenSea’s homepage for his personal financial gain," according to the US Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York.

Back in 2021, an X (then known as Twitter) user claimed that Chastain was buying NFT drops before the public could get their hands on the digital items. Chastain, who selected which NFTs would appear on OpenSea's homepage, was accused of selling the tokens he bought in advance for a profit after they became broadly available and interest in them soared. OpenSea admitted that Chastain had carried out such a scheme and said it would ban employees from using confidential information to trade NFTs.

The incident caught the attention of federal prosecutors, who treated the case in a similar fashion to regular insider trading. The US Attorney's Office noted that Chastain sold the NFTs for between two and five times the original purchase price.

Along with his prison sentence, Chastain must serve three months of home confinement and three years of supervised release. He also needs to pay a $50,000 fine and forfeit the Ethereum he obtained from his illicit NFT trading.

"Nathanial Chastain faced justice today for violating the trust that his employer placed in him by using OpenSea’s confidential information for his own profit," US attorney Damian Williams said in a statement. "Today’s sentence should serve as a warning to other corporate insiders that insider trading — in any marketplace — will not be tolerated.”

YouTube is quickly becoming a home for AI-generated music, and the service is trying to strike a balance between the technology's fans and the labels eager to protect their copyrights. The company and partners like Universal Music Group (UMG) have unveiled a set of principles for AI music. In theory, the approach encourages adoption while keeping artists paid.

To start, YouTube maintains that "AI is here" and that it must have a "responsible" strategy. Accordingly, it's forming a Music AI Incubator that will influence the company's strategy. UMG and artists it represents (including Rosanne Cash, Yo Gotti and Frank Sinatra's estate) will help gather insights from YouTube's AI experiments.

YouTube also says AI music must include "appropriate protections" against copyright violations, and must also provide "opportunities" for partners who want to get involved. While the video giant hasn't detailed what this will entail, it suggests it will build on the Content ID system that helps rights holders flag their material. On top of this, YouTube claims it will scale its content policies and safety structure to adapt to AI. The firm already has systems in place to catch copyright abuse, misinformation and other violations, but intends to pour more resources into those methods.

The principles are currently vague and don't do much to change YouTube's stance. More details are due in the months ahead, however, including policies, particular technologies and monetization for creators.

Generative AI is increasingly popular for unauthorized collaborations and mashups (including for UMG artists like Drake and Frank Sinatra), but it's also finding legitimate uses. The surviving members of The Beatles are using AI to create a 'final' song from a John Lennon recording, while electronic artist Holly Herndon covered Dolly Parton using an AI voice. UMG itself is exploring AI-made soundscapes. YouTube's principles could help it profit from legal productions while dodging lawsuits from artists and labels worried about ripoffs.

Despite the US ethos that you’ll be innocent until proven guilty in a court of law, law enforcement finding an excuse to search your digital devices only requires a presumption of wrongdoing. The tech to do this already exists, and murky legislation lets it happen, speakers from the Legal Aid Society said at DEF CON last Friday.

“Technically and legally there's not much really truly blocking the government from getting the information they want if they want it,” Allison Young, digital forensics analyst at The Legal Aid Society, told Engadget. It’s easy, too. Without picking up any new skills or tools, Young was able to find sensitive data that could be used to, for example, prosecute someone being targeted for getting an abortion as it becomes increasingly illegal across the country.

The problem isn’t just the state of local law either, but it’s embedded in the Constitution. As Diane Akerman, digital forensics attorney at the Legal Aid Society explained, the Fourth Amendment hasn’t been updated to account for modern problems like digital data. The Fourth Amendment intends to protect people from “unreasonable searches and seizures” by the US government. This is where we get legal protections like warrants, where law enforcement needs court approval to look for evidence in your home, car or elsewhere.

Today, that includes your digital belongings too, from your phone to the cloud and beyond, making way for legal loopholes as tech advancements outpace the law. For example, there’s no way to challenge a search warrant prior to it being executed, Akerman said. For physical evidence that makes some sense because we don’t want someone flushing evidence down a toilet.

That’s not how your social media accounts or data in the cloud work though, because those digital records are much harder to scrub. So, law enforcement can get a warrant to search your device, and there’s no process to litigate in advance whether the warrant is appropriate. Even if there’s reason for the warrant, Akerman and Young showed that officers can use intentionally vague language to search your entire cell phone when they know the evidence may only be in one account.

“You litigate the issues once they already have the data, which means cat is out of the bag a lot of the time and even if it's suppressed in court, there's still other ways it can be used in court,” Akerman said. “There's no oversight for the way the government is executing words on digital devices.”

The issue only exacerbates across the third-party apps you use. According to the Fourth Amendment, if you give your information to a third party you’ve lost any sense of privacy, Akerman said. The government can often very easily get information from the cloud because of that, even if it’s not entirely relevant to the case. “You would be furious if police busted down your door and copied five years of texts for you walking out on a parking ticket five years ago, it's just not proportional,” Young said.

There are no easy ways for an individual to better protect themselves from these searches. On a case by case basis, there are ways to lock down your device, but that changes with every update or new feature, Young said. Instead, both speakers pushed to put the onus back on the systems and structures that uphold this law, not the individuals affected by it.

“I live in a world where I have to opt out of modern society to not have other people housing my data in some way,” Akerman said. “The question really should be like, what responsibility do those people have to us, since they have made us into their profit, rather than forcing me to opt out in order to protect myself?”

The Internet Archive is facing another lawsuit over one of its conservation projects. Sony Music Entertainment, Universal Music Group and a handful of other music labels have filed a lawsuit against the nonprofit organization, accusing it of copyright infringement for digitizing, "willfully upload[ing], distribut[ing] and digitally transmitt[ing]" pre-1972 sound recordings. In particular, the labels are suing Internet Archive for the Great 78 Project, which seeks to preserve music recorded on 78rpm discs. 

The labels call Internet Archive's efforts "blatant infringement," involving music by artists that include Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday, Miles Davis and Louis Armstrong. They also listed a few examples of "iconic recordings" available through the Great 78 Project, such as White Christmas, Sing, Sing, Sing, and The Christmas Song. 

The companies said the the songs preserved on the project website are already available through streaming and other music services, so they "face no danger of being lost, forgotten, or destroyed." But the organization explained on the project portal that there's "still research value in the artifacts and usage evidence in the often rare 78rpm discs and recordings." 

The plaintiffs disagree, writing in their complaint that Internet Archive's activities "far exceed" the limited purposes of preservation and research. "Internet Archive unabashedly seeks to provide free and unlimited access to music for everyone, regardless of copyright," they added. The labels are asking statutory damages of up to $150,000 for each protected sound recording, and that could add up to $372 million for the listed recordings, according to Bloomberg.

Internet Archive is also embroiled in a legal battle with a group of US publishers led by Hachette Book Group over the National Emergency Library. The organization lent out digitally scanned copies of books through the program during the height of the pandemic, which the publishers described as "willful mass copyright infringement." A federal judge ruled against Internet Archive for that particular case, though the organization is planning to appeal that decision.