Remember the outrage over the supposed “pink slime” in our meat a few years ago? While the outrage seemingly died down quickly, a South Dakota-based meat producer is suing ABC, senior national correspondent Jim Avila, and news anchor Diane Sawyer for those reports, claiming that they were defamatory.

The company, Beef Products, Inc. (BPI), was the focus of a series of reports Avila did in 2012. In the reports, Avila described a practice BPI uses, where it supplements its ground beef with meat from trimmings of the cow, including muscle and connective tissue. According to BPI, this is a common procedure, and it’s totally fine to eat. Additionally it lessens the fat content of ground beef. BPI called this addition “finely textured beef product” but ABC and Avila called it “pink slime.” The name “pink slime” was first dubbed by a former USDA microbiologist in an email around the agency. Here’s an example of Avila talking about the “pink slime.”

BPI is now suing for defamation, claiming that the news reports seriously damaged its business. It claims that ABC either knew it was providing false information, or acted with a reckless disregard for the truth. In terms of proving harm, the company says that its business seriously suffered because of these highly-publicized reports. It argues that it had to lay off approximately 700 workers and close three plants as a result. BPI says that its weekly sales were cut in more than half–from five million pounds a week to less than two million pounds a week.

ABC is arguing that it disseminated the information responsibly. After all, it never claimed that “pink slime” was unsafe to eat, just that consumers had the right to know what was in the food they were purchasing.

The trial is currently underway–jury selection just finished up today. Given the sheer amount that BPI is asking for–the company is claiming damages as high as $1.9 billion, but Eriq Gardner of the Hollywood Reporter explains that the potential verdict could get as high as $5.7 billion–the case is one to watch.

Anneliese Mahoney

Anneliese Mahoney is Managing Editor at Law Street and a Connecticut transplant to Washington D.C. She has a Bachelor’s degree in International Affairs from the George Washington University, and a passion for law, politics, and social issues. Contact Anneliese at amahoney@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Beef Company Sues ABC for Calling its Meat “Pink Slime” appeared first on Law Street.

Good morning everyone, here’s the first RantCrush of 2017! Hope you had a good New Year’s Eve and are prepared to tackle the new year. Welcome to RantCrush Top 5, where we take you through today’s top five controversial stories in the world of law and policy. Who’s ranting and raving right now? Check it out below:

Arrests Have Been Made in Turkey Nightclub Attack

On the night of New Year’s Eve, a gunman dressed as Santa entered an internationally popular nightclub in Istanbul and started a shooting spree. Thirty-nine people died, and many more were injured. Yesterday, ISIS claimed responsibility for the attack. Twelve people have been arrested, but it’s still unclear whether the actual perpetrator is among them. The suspect has been identified as a man from Uzbekistan or Kyrgyzstan. Police are also investigating whether the unnamed suspect is connected to the same ISIS-affiliated group that carried out the attack on Istanbul’s Ataturk airport in June.

Turkey nightclub attack: Manhunt for gunman intensifies https://t.co/3SYL7yKMKm

— BBC News (World) (@BBCWorld) January 2, 2017

The attack is believed to be retaliation against Turkey for its involvement in the conflict in Syria, where Turkish forces have been fighting against ISIS. Approximately 25 of the victims were foreign. One American man was among the injured and survived by playing dead. This was a tragic way to end 2016 and ring in the new year, but Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is determined to fight terrorism. “As a nation, we will fight to the end against not just the armed attacks of terror groups and the forces behind them, but also against their economic, political, and social attacks,” he said in a statement.

Emma Von Zeipel

Emma Von Zeipel is a staff writer at Law Street Media. She is originally from one of the islands of Stockholm, Sweden. After working for Democratic Voice of Burma in Thailand, she ended up in New York City. She has a BA in journalism from Stockholm University and is passionate about human rights, good books, horses, and European chocolate. Contact Emma at EVonZeipel@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post RantCrush Top 5: January 3, 2017 appeared first on Law Street.

Bindi Irwin, the daughter of the late Crocodile Hunter Steve Irwin, has been lighting up the dance floor on “Dancing With the Stars.” But, she’s also run into some problems with her contract on the show–a judge won’t let her legally receive the money she’s earned from the show unless she can prove her father is dead.

A judge rejected @BindiIrwin‘s #DWTS contract, demanding proof her dad is dead (no, really) https://t.co/mcnCm37Orm pic.twitter.com/eXAuJmNIR8

— TV Guide (@TVGuide) November 5, 2015

Irwin, 17, is a minor. Technically speaking that means that any money she earns as a result of her performance on the show goes to her parents. Her surviving mother, Terri Irwin, has already signed a release that entitles her daughter to the money in her own right. But an L.A. Superior Court judge is saying that she needs to provide the same release from her father–or proof that he died.

Irwin’s incredibly famous father, Steve, passed away as the result of an accident with a stingray in 2006. His death was widely covered and is under no circumstances a point of contention. While it won’t be hard for her to prove that he is, in fact, deceased, the entire bizarre case is making headlines due to the highly publicized nature of his death. As TMZ put it: “It’s unclear if the judge is unaware Steve died in 2006, or if she’s just a stickler for a death certificate.”

Public reaction to the news has been mixed–while some are highly sympathetic for the young woman who lost her father at a very young age, others are pointing out that it’s a basic legal requirement that she should have no problem fulfilling.

Either way, there’s a lot of cash on the line for Irwin. By just appearing on the show, she’s guaranteed $125,000, and then gets more money for each week she successfully avoids elimination. Making it through Weeks 3 and 4 gave her another $10,000 each week, Week 5 was $15,000, Weeks 6 and 7 were worth $20,000 each, and Weeks 8 and 9 are worth $30,000 apiece. Given that she’s made it through Week 8, so far she’s racked up $230,000. If she makes it through this week she’ll earn another $30,000, and Weeks 10 and 11 are worth $50,000 each.

Irwin’s close relationship with her late father has, at points, been an important reference on the show. During the Week 4, she choose the song “Every Breath You Take” for a contemporary dance dedicated to her father with show partner Derek Hough.

While this blip with her contract is certainly unfortunate and definitely odd, Irwin is clearly a young woman with a lot of talent–she’ll probably continue to go far on the show and keep racking up that cash.

Anneliese Mahoney

Anneliese Mahoney is Managing Editor at Law Street and a Connecticut transplant to Washington D.C. She has a Bachelor’s degree in International Affairs from the George Washington University, and a passion for law, politics, and social issues. Contact Anneliese at amahoney@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Bindi Irwin Needs to Prove Steve Irwin is Dead to Receive DWTS Money appeared first on Law Street.

Thursday night, President Obama announced an executive action that will protect millions of undocumented immigrants and restructure the United States’ priorities when it comes to immigration enforcement. And he used some fighting words. Obama stated:

The actions I’m taking are not only lawful, they’re the kinds of actions taken by every single Republican president and every Democratic president for the past half century. And to those members of Congress who question my authority to make our immigration system work better, or question the wisdom of me acting where Congress has failed, I have one answer: Pass a bill.

Obama’s speech–just weeks after the Democrats basically got trounced in the midterms–was powerful, and regardless of how both his political allies and opponents are acting on the Hill, will make a real difference in the lives of millions of people who call America home.

But if you were interested in watching this speech, you may have had a hard time finding it. The big TV networks–ABC, NBC, FOX, and CBS–chose not to air the speech. Instead, CBS presented an episode of The Big Bang Theory; Fox network viewers saw Bones; and viewers tuning to NBC were able to enjoy The Biggest Loser: Glory Days.

While cable stations like Fox News, CNN, and Univision carried it, the big four networks chose not to and opted for their regular programming instead. That was their choice. When the President is giving an important speech, the White House can put in an official request that the speech be carried. In this case, the White House did not, apparently after hearing from networks that they weren’t too enthusiastic to postpone their normal programming. At one point, a supposed network insider called the speech too “overtly political.”

Obviously, this choice on the networks’ part wasn’t just about politics–it was about money. In today’s epoch of pretty predictable political apathy, you get more viewers when you show beloved shows like Shonda Rhimes’ Grey’s Anatomy than when you show the same President Obama speech on immigration that every other network has access to. And when you get more viewers your advertisers are happy. And then you make more money. It’s a pretty simple equation.

The story gets more complicated than that though. You see, stations like FOX, NBC, ABC, and CBS are national, but each place has their local affiliate that actually controls what that locale sees. That’s why I, living in D.C., can watch NBC but see a different morning news team than my parents living in Connecticut. There is some flexibility, apparently, because a few local affiliates gave a big middle finger up to their national stations, and showed the speech anyway. POLITICO found that:

A quick look at some major media markets found that the NBC affiliates in New York, Washington, Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas and Phoenix; the ABC affiliates in Washington, Chicago, Boston and Kansas City; the Fox affiliates in Boston, Chicago, Dallas and Miami all aired the speech live. CBS affiliates were less likely to air the speech when it fell during the hit show “The Big Bang Theory,” though several of their affiliates outside the East Coast did air it live.

There seems to be fodder for an interesting internal struggle here–networks balked at the idea of showing Obama’s speech for presumably centrally financial reasons. But not everyone was willing to play ball, and the places where the speech ended up being shown are certainly illuminating. With a few exceptions, it seems like channels that showed the speech were in either more liberal areas, or areas like Dallas and Miami, known for larger immigrant populations. As strategic as the call was to not show the speech by big networks, the local stations took their own strategies into account.

Anneliese Mahoney

Anneliese Mahoney is Managing Editor at Law Street and a Connecticut transplant to Washington D.C. She has a Bachelor’s degree in International Affairs from the George Washington University, and a passion for law, politics, and social issues. Contact Anneliese at amahoney@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Where Could You Watch Obama’s Speech? Depends Where you Live appeared first on Law Street.

In 2012, a new company called Aereo launched. It offered a revolutionary new way to watch TV. Essentially, Aereo provides subscribers with a small antenna about the size of a dime that receives TV signals. The dime is kept in a remote local area and then streams TV to any device in the house with Internet access such as a computer, tablet or smartphone. In addition, it’s possible to send the content to an actual TV if you have the correct cables or a streaming device such as Apple TV. Aereo also includes a DVR feature. All of this is extremely cheap–it costs about $1 a day, plus some DVR storage charges. Aereo began in New York City, and now includes Atlanta, Dallas, Denver, Detroit, Houston, Miami, and Salt Lake City. They have plans to expand to most other major cities in coming years. Aereo mostly streams basic channels and public access–not cable. For some more background on the company from the Intellectual Property side, check this out. 

Aereo is a great solution at a time when more and more people, mainly young people, can access most of their TV needs online. Services like Netflix and Hulu+ are cheaper than a traditional cable plan. Itunes allows you buy a subscription to one show for a season, which is convenient when you only want one show on a given cable network. I don’t have a TV or cable package–people are always shocked when I tell them this, but a combination of Netflix, inviting myself to watch shows at friends’ houses, and other internet sources work just fine for me. Earlier this year, a tech reporter for HuffPost reviewed Aereo and was pretty happy with the convenience for a cheap price.

Almost as soon as Aereo started, it received ire from the largest broadcasting companies. ABC, NBC, CBS, and FOX are officially involved in lawsuits, while other networks, such as Univision, have voiced their support for their fellow networks. The case has gone through a few series of appeals, and as on Friday, the Supreme Court announced their decision to take the case. On every appeal, the courts have so far sided with Aero.

The legal argument made by the broadcasting companies boils down to the fact that they are not receiving compensation for Aereo’s services, the way they do from a company such as Verizon or a local provider. Aereo also doesn’t have a license to show any of this content. Paul Clement, a lawyer for the network stated the case raised issues in copyright law that, “profoundly affect, and potentially endanger, over-the-air-broadcast television.”

Aereo’s response is that they do not create public performances, which law prevents, but because they just send individual signals, that is not the case. They just access the signals that the TV channels have broadcasted, and that consumers have always had the right to use antennas to access TV. The court has sided with Aereo twice on that argument so far, but the start-up still encouraged the Supreme Court to take the case.

The case does have some interesting potentially implications. For example, if Aereo wins, some broadcasting companies may move towards subscription streaming (FOX has already threatened this), which would be costly and difficult.

The ultimate question at issue here is, as it seems to be so often these days, the intersection between law and technology–technology has clearly outpaced the law. But is that a bad thing? The Supreme Court will shed some light on that topic in coming months.

[ABC News]

—

Anneliese Mahoney (@AMahoney8672) is Lead Editor at Law Street and a Connecticut transplant to Washington D.C. She has a Bachelor’s degree in International Affairs from the George Washington University, and a passion for law, politics, and social issues. Contact Anneliese at amahoney@LawStreetMedia.com.

Featured image courtesy of [Miguel Pires da Rosa via Wikipedia]

Anneliese Mahoney

Anneliese Mahoney is Managing Editor at Law Street and a Connecticut transplant to Washington D.C. She has a Bachelor’s degree in International Affairs from the George Washington University, and a passion for law, politics, and social issues. Contact Anneliese at amahoney@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post TV Streaming Makes it to Supreme Court appeared first on Law Street.

Last Thursday, Aereo requested that a federal court in Manhattan rule that its business offers legal services. The gist of Aereo, founded in New York, is to transmit local TV broadcasting to pai subscribers of the service over the internet. As a Comcast customer who’s consistently unsatisfied with my service features to monthly payment ratio, I can envision the untapped market that Aereo is attempting to reach. Consumers still want their daily intake of local news, and occasionally some Grey’s Anatomy and Scandal, but don’t want to be obligated to pay $80 a month for additional channels that their schedule doesn’t permit them to enjoy.

The service is $8 per month and enables customers who don’t want to pay ridiculous amounts for cable television to access local broadcasting.  Broadcasters have asked the U.S. Supreme Court to chime in and voice their perspective on Aereo’s services. This is long overdue as Aereo has already been subjected to suits in New York, Boston, and now Utah by major broadcasters such as ABC, NBC, and CBS. Broadcasters argue that their copyrights are being violated because Aereo is taking their signals without their permission and showcasing them to online viewers. Conversely, Aereo points out that it is already legal for viewers to use their own antennas and pick up local tv broadcasts. Additionally, viewers can legally record these broadcasts and replay them at a later time. The Aereo method is to rent out tiny antennas, capture free content in the public airwaves, and stream the content to your internet-enabled devices. So essentially, Aereo only utilizes tools that are legal, making broadcasters throughout the nation cause an uproar in our judicial system because the service has found a way to circumvent their licensing fees.

Federal courts in New York and Boston have allowed Aereo to continue to operate throughout the pending lawsuits, noting that broadcasters have not shown a high probability of winning their cases to warrant an injunction. The service launched a year ago, and there are already (approximately) 90,000-135,000 subscribers of the Aereo service in New York alone.

There is no copyright infringement here, ABC. That’s why injunctions have been denied, and the service has been upheld in different locales for over a year now. The real reason that the broadcasters are experiencing mood-changing-panty-bunching is because Aereo is threatening to interrupt the television system that brings them billions of dollars each year. Cable companies, such as Comcast  (I HATE YOU, COMCAST!), charge us a shit-ton to view local broadcasting, such as NBC and ABC, because they pay these broadcasters billions in retransmission fees to include their shows in subscriptions. And what does Aereo pay? Nothing.

Perhaps this is why Comcast was so eager to haggle with me when I threatened to cancel my service a few weeks ago. Makes sense.  If cable companies don’t begin offering better prices, sooner rather than later Netflix, Apple TV, and now Aereo will replace them faster than DVD players won over VCR owners. And I’ll be the first to go.

I either need to cancel my service, get a hanger and try to reel in some news stations for myself or practice what I preach and join Aereo when it arrives in D.C.

Gena.

—

Featured image courtesy of [Pablo Menezo via Flickr]

Gena Thomas

Gena Thomas, a recent graduate of Howard University School of Law, was born and raised in Lafayette, Louisiana. A graduate of The University of Texas at Austin, she enjoys watching scary movies and acquiring calories from chocolates of all sorts. Contact Gena at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Kicking Broadcast and Taking Names: The Aereo Method appeared first on Law Street.