On Thursday, Felix Walworth received the contract from the organizer of the music festival he would soon be playing, South by Southwest (SXSW). “If SXSW determines, in its sole discretion, that showcasing acts or their representatives have acted in ways that adversely affect the viability of their official SXSW showcase, the following actions are available to SXSW,” the contract said. It listed a number of consequences, including: “SXSW will notify the appropriate U.S. immigration authorities of the above actions.”

Walworth, whose band Told Slant was slated to perform at the festival in Austin, Texas next week, promptly tweeted his response:

After looking through this contract sent to me by sxsw I have decided to cancel Told Slant’s performance at the festival pic.twitter.com/rI2Xv0duJl

— Told Slant (@Felixixix666) March 2, 2017

Unlike other festivals that focus on a few major headliners and medium-level acts, SXSW, which had its inaugural festival in 1987, is one of the world’s premier showcases for emerging artists. According to Roland Swenson, the festival’s managing director, 62 international artists are slated to perform at this year’s festival. This year, SXSW will feature an event called “Contrabanned: #MusicUnites,” which will host acts from countries affected by President Donald Trump’s failed travel ban.

After Walworth, also a member of the bands Eskimeaux and Bellows, canceled his performance, Swenson issued a statement. “We were sorry to learn that one of our invited performers chose to cancel his performance at this year’s SXSW Music Festival due to a misunderstanding of our policies regarding international artists,” he said. Swenson continued:

We understand that given the current political climate surrounding immigration, the language that was published seems strong. Violating U.S. immigration law has always carried potentially severe consequences, and we would be remiss not to warn our participating acts of the likely repercussions.

Swenson said the clause in question is intended as “a safeguard to provide SXSW with a means to respond to an act that does something truly egregious, such as disobeying our rules about pyrotechnics on stage, starting a brawl in a club, or causing serious safety issues.”

Other artists, 35 as of Friday afternoon, joined Walworth in demanding SXSW to apologize, and to “immediately drop this clause from their contract.” In a letter directed at SXSW, the artists said: “SXSW is a well respected institution and has a responsibility to show leadership by refusing to collaborate with the government’s campaign of fear and hate toward non-citizens.”

Alec Siegel

Alec Siegel is a staff writer at Law Street Media. When he’s not working at Law Street he’s either cooking a mediocre tofu dish or enjoying a run in the woods. His passions include: gooey chocolate chips, black coffee, mountains, the Animal Kingdom in general, and John Lennon. Baklava is his achilles heel. Contact Alec at ASiegel@LawStreetMedia.com.

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In an attempt to get American cities thinking about the future of transportation, the federal government initiated a contest last December. The U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) launched the Smart City Challenge, which asked cities to come up with new and innovative transportation solutions, with particular emphasis on self-driving vehicles. The competition drew 78 different cities (or teams of cities) as applicants, and US Secretary of Transportation Anthony Foxx just announced seven finalists who will move on to the next stage of the competition.

The cities who made the finals are: Austin, Texas; Columbus, Ohio; Denver, Colorado; Kansas City, Missouri; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; Portland, Oregon; and San Francisco, California. Although there were originally only supposed to be five finalists, these seven were chosen because of the strengths of their proposals.

Each city that made it to this level in the competition will receive $100,000 to further develop their plans, as well as DOT help. The overall winner could get up $50 million to implement their innovative transportation solution. The other 71 cities that entered the contest will also most likely get some federal funding help with their transportation systems as well.

There were a wide range of different proposals offered; according to the Washington Post’s Michael Laris:

The plans are ambitious and varied, from Columbus’s push to build a network of on-demand driverless shuttles to Portland’s plan to connect electric vehicle charging stations to its streetlight system.

The contest was inspired by the fact that a 2015 DOT study found that many American cities are unprepared for imminent transportation trends, including increased urbanization, denser neighborhoods, and an older population. According to a statement Foxx gave to Gizmodo:

For a long time these cities have felt very powerless seeing congestion and travel times going up and haven’t had the resources to aggressively tackle those things. We’re saying, if you’ve got a creative idea to answer those challenges, let’s see how we can help.

It will be interesting to see what kind of plans the seven finalist cities are able to implement. They could be the first steps in widespread transportation innovation in the U.S.

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.

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Many sites that are intended for adults, such as dating sites, come with a disclaimer that states, “You must be at least 18 years or older to use this site.” New Jersey native William F. Saponaro, Jr. was under the impression that warning was true when he logged into his Grindr account to meet available men. Instead Saponaro met up with a 13-year-old boy, had sex with him, and then was arrested for the act. Saponaro ended up being prosecuted for engaging in a sexual act with a minor.

According to the Washington Post, the mix up led him to sue the gay “hook up” app Grindr for negligence on the grounds that it was the ones who set him up with a minor in the first place. Despite Saponaro being 52 years old and presumably capable of discerning someone’s age, he claims that he was operating under the assumption that Grindr’s Terms of Service, which require its users to be at least 18 and older to use it services, were being enforced.

Unfortunately for Mr. Saponaro, the lawsuit was thrown out by a federal judge who determined that Grindr functions as an interactive computer service. As a result, it’s covered by the federal Communications Decency Act and therefore could not be found negligent in this case.

New Jersey Chief U.S. District Court Judge Jerome Simandle stated:

Holding interactive service providers liable for third-party communications would have chilling implications for free speech on the internet.

Even though Saponaro claims he was tricked, he’s hardly the first person to be duped when using an online dating site. MTV has captivated millions of viewers addressing that issue with its hit show “Catfish,” which profiles people all across the country who have had their hearts swindled by online impostors. Even more recently, popular matchmaking app Tinder was used by a team of creative marketers to catfish users at the music, film, and tech festival SXSW.

Robots have taken over @Tinder at #SXSW. http://t.co/bkrOk5w0brpic.twitter.com/VYyiBhEJrv

— Maxim (@MaximMag) March 16, 2015

According to Techcrunch.com, a company promoting the movie “Ex Machina” created the fake account, Ava, using a photo of the star of the movie. Ava’s profile was run by chatbots–computer programs designed to simulate intelligent conversations. These scripted robots sent her matches to an Instagram page (which has since been deleted) for the movie, revealing the whole thing was a sham.

Cases like these are only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to examples of online impersonation. They should come as no surprise when our current digital landscape makes lying about your age, name, or even what you look like far too easy. For that reason users should be more cautious when looking for love online, because as seen in the case of Mr. Saponaro, you are solely responsible for verifying someone is who they say they are .

Alexis Evans

Alexis Evans is an Assistant Editor at Law Street and a Buckeye State native. She has a Bachelor’s Degree in Journalism and a minor in Business from Ohio University. Contact Alexis at aevans@LawStreetMedia.com.

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Here at Law Street, we love startups (probably because we are one). So of course we furiously followed Interactive week at SXSW. Honestly, while interactive week needs no explanation, I’ll throw a bone for the individuals who’ve been living under a rock. Now Interactive week just ended but to honor its entrepreneurial spirit, I want to highlight startups that are exploding onto the scene and are innovative, cool, maybe a little outrageous, or some combination of the three. Here are the five startups I suggest you keep an eye on:

1. The Cocksman Club

This startup, founded by Ethan Basch, offers a male-only subscription-based condom service that encourages safe sex. Basch offers a variety of membership models, starting at ‘The Player’ (3 condoms for 5 bucks a month) to ‘The Legend’ (a whopping 24 condoms for 20 bucks a month). Frankly, this is a little bizarre and I am having a hard time not laughing, but I can’t knock his entrepreneurial spirit — clearly, someone is buying into this model. Also, I can’t be mad at a startup that uses a little humor to promote safe sex.

2.  Spritz Technology Inc.

Spritz, a personal favorite, is a Boston-based startup that is revolutionizing how one reads. They developed a speed reading technology in 2011 but garnered very little traction until now.  So what is this speed reading technology? Spritz streams one word at a time at various speeds to cut down the amount of time that the eye uses in moving from word to word in a sentence. Theoretically, this allows a person to consume the text at a quicker rate.

Spritz’s main focus is to patent the technology rather than diversifying into app development at the moment, though I doubt that they will stay away from mobile development indefinitely. Currently, Spritz is close to closing 3.5 million in seed money so I can only imagine how they will grow in the coming months.

3.  Ringblingz

Everyone knows that in order to make something go viral or become profitable you have to target teenage girls. In the U.S, teens alone spend $208 billion on themselves. And well, nobody knows this better than Ringblingz. The New York-based startup hopes to tap into this market by offering wearable technology and just debuted their first product: a smart ring. The smart ring can send alerts from your favorite contacts on different social media websites so you don’t have to constantly check your phone. Pretty cool, right? This is just one of many projects coming out. So why should you watch them? Here is the answer: you might have heard of Ringblingz’s founders, Rich and Sheri Schmelzer. Do ugly Croc charms ring a bell? Well, it’s not a secret that I find Croc charms and Crocs, for that matter, to be ugly, but the charms created by Jibbitz were a huge success. There is undeniable business pedigree backing this startup, which makes the company’s future very interesting.

4. Yik Yak

While everyone is freaking out about the new apps Secret and Whisper, you should add Yik Yak to the list. The app follows the new anonymity trend happening across web and mobile development. This startup, founded by two Furman University students, Tyrell Droll and Brooks Buffington, aims to connect through anonymous location-based posts but is definitely geared to college campuses. Yik Yak has already exploded onto the scene with more than 100,000 active monthly users. Also, three words: Juicy Campus Revival. I remember laughing at the crazy posts on Juicy Campus as a college freshman, but also the website had a serious dark, shady side.

So I am not surprised that they have already faced issues and criticism about possibly violating anti-bullying laws. Hopefully the app has continued success and we only see posts about the outrageous, weird, or gut-bustingly hilarious college incidents.

5. Opternative

This is probably the most interesting startup on the list. Opternative is a Chicago-based startup, founded by Dr. Steven Lee and Aaron Dallek, that offers a quick online eye exam for $35. Exams are reviewed by ophthalmologists and you can get digital prescriptions that can be filled anywhere. I don’t know about you but my mind is blown.

Before medical professionals unleash their pitchforks, Dallek wants Opternative to be “not just an online eye exam but the gold standard digital eye exam that doctors could administer in their offices,” according to TechCrunch. Opternative not only wants to revolutionize the standard for eye exams but also, the whole medical process.

You might find these startups weird, crazy, or bizarre but you shouldn’t be surprised that they are here. It is becoming easier to translate ideas into a viable business model. Definitely keep an eye on these five.

—

Ashley Powell (@danceAPdance)

Ashley Powell

Ashley Powell is a founding member of Law Street Media, and its original Lead Editor. She is a graduate of The George Washington University. Contact Ashley at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

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