Latest news with #RobertBork
Yahoo
07-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Editorial: When lawyers apply a law aimed at VHS rentals to the streaming world of today
In the 1980s, when the late Judge Robert Bork faced Senate scrutiny over his ill-fated nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court, a small independent newspaper published a list of his rentals at a local video store. The movies he and his family rented were perfectly innocuous, but Congress lost its collective mind over the idea that its members' rental histories could undergo public scrutiny and swiftly passed the bipartisan Video Privacy Protection Act. Fast forward to 2025, and the same law is being invoked to attack Weigel Broadcasting, a Chicago media company said to have shared data from its free MeTV platform with the parent of Facebook to make online advertising more effective. Like other well-intended laws aimed at protecting consumer privacy, the 'Bork Act' has become a tool for class-action lawyers playing 'gotcha' with the routine marketing efforts of legitimate businesses. For decades, lawmakers have struggled to protect privacy rights in the face of technology that advances at light speed. MeTV, for instance, is being targeted under a law written to protect Americans against disclosures from 'video tape service providers' — the 'Be Kind, Rewind' people who long ago went extinct. Springfield lawmakers opened a new front in 2008 when they approved a law restricting the use of biometric data such as fingerprints, retina scans and facial recognition. While this page supported the effort to rein in businesses abusing such incredibly personal information, the result has been a feast for plaintiffs' lawyers, curbing innovation and potentially depriving Illinois residents of cutting-edge products and services in the future. By now, Americans should be aware that practically every keystroke on every website could potentially be tracked by those with an economic interest in their online activities. Typically, they get no more disclosure than the fine print found in 'terms and conditions' that hardly anyone reads when creating an account or logging in. Yet most Americans are still surprised to learn how much of their personal information is being collected. And once it's given away, there's no getting it back. The public obviously has an interest in this fraught topic. Individuals need protection from unwanted surveillance and identify theft. At the same time, businesses should be able to use data to improve service and reduce costs, as well as make money. No comprehensive federal standard exists, and to get a glimpse of how existing rules can backfire, consider the lawsuit targeting MeTV, which the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals just reinstated after a federal judge in Chicago dismissed it. Weigel's MeTV provides access to classic shows from the 1930s through the 1990s at no charge to its viewers via its website and app, making money by selling ads. The class-action lawyers allege that if someone who was signed into Facebook were to use the same browser to access MeTV, the accounts could be linked without the explicit consent supposedly required under the Bork Act. Similar cases have cropped up across the country, stretching the 1988 law to target not just streaming companies, but practically any companies that post videos on their websites. America evidently leads the world in producing entrepreneurial lawyers eager to expand liability in ways never anticipated under the statutes they invoke. Can we all agree that routine business practices should not suddenly get turned into federal cases? Especially not cases based on rules written for a different era? And hastily written rules, at that? The same overreach has happened with laws originally aimed at protecting consumers in credit reporting, debt collection and just about anything involving their telephones. The resulting litigation sometimes seems more like a stickup than a worthy defense of injured parties. Predictably, the case against MeTV has turned on parsing the antiquated language of the Bork Act. The mighty judges of the 7th Circuit come off as rather lame when they define MeTV as 'a video tape service provider' and the plaintiffs who watch a free service as 'consumers,' then pompously defend these outdated definitions by saying, 'Linguistic imprecision is part of the human condition.' Other appellate courts have wrestled with the same vague language in the Bork Act and come up with incompatible conclusions. In 2013, after Netflix got stung by exploitative litigation, Congress amended the law. Obviously, it didn't do enough to make the rules clear and relevant in today's digital landscape. America needs strong principles to protect online identity and privacy. It also needs to ensure that its businesses can adopt new technology without getting dragged into expensive and counterproductive court battles like this one. Submit a letter, of no more than 400 words, to the editor here or email letters@
Chicago Tribune
07-04-2025
- Politics
- Chicago Tribune
Editorial: When lawyers apply a law aimed at VHS rentals to the streaming world of today
In the 1980s, when the late Judge Robert Bork faced Senate scrutiny over his ill-fated nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court, a small independent newspaper published a list of his rentals at a local video store. The movies he and his family rented were perfectly innocuous, but Congress lost its collective mind over the idea that its members' rental histories could undergo public scrutiny and swiftly passed the bipartisan Video Privacy Protection Act. Fast forward to 2025, and the same law is being invoked to attack Weigel Broadcasting, a Chicago media company said to have shared data from its free MeTV platform with the parent of Facebook to make online advertising more effective. Like other well-intended laws aimed at protecting consumer privacy, the 'Bork Act' has become a tool for class-action lawyers playing 'gotcha' with the routine marketing efforts of legitimate businesses. For decades, lawmakers have struggled to protect privacy rights in the face of technology that advances at light speed. MeTV, for instance, is being targeted under a law written to protect Americans against disclosures from 'video tape service providers' — the 'Be Kind, Rewind' people who long ago went extinct. Springfield lawmakers opened a new front in 2008 when they approved a law restricting the use of biometric data such as fingerprints, retina scans and facial recognition. While this page supported the effort to rein in businesses abusing such incredibly personal information, the result has been a feast for plaintiffs' lawyers, curbing innovation and potentially depriving Illinois residents of cutting-edge products and services in the future. By now, Americans should be aware that practically every keystroke on every website could potentially be tracked by those with an economic interest in their online activities. Typically, they get no more disclosure than the fine print found in 'terms and conditions' that hardly anyone reads when creating an account or logging in. Yet most Americans are still surprised to learn how much of their personal information is being collected. And once it's given away, there's no getting it back. The public obviously has an interest in this fraught topic. Individuals need protection from unwanted surveillance and identify theft. At the same time, businesses should be able to use data to improve service and reduce costs, as well as make money. No comprehensive federal standard exists, and to get a glimpse of how existing rules can backfire, consider the lawsuit targeting MeTV, which the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals just reinstated after a federal judge in Chicago dismissed it. Weigel's MeTV provides access to classic shows from the 1930s through the 1990s at no charge to its viewers via its website and app, making money by selling ads. The class-action lawyers allege that if someone who was signed into Facebook were to use the same browser to access MeTV, the accounts could be linked without the explicit consent supposedly required under the Bork Act. Similar cases have cropped up across the country, stretching the 1988 law to target not just streaming companies, but practically any companies that post videos on their websites. America evidently leads the world in producing entrepreneurial lawyers eager to expand liability in ways never anticipated under the statutes they invoke. Can we all agree that routine business practices should not suddenly get turned into federal cases? Especially not cases based on rules written for a different era? And hastily written rules, at that? The same overreach has happened with laws originally aimed at protecting consumers in credit reporting, debt collection and just about anything involving their telephones. The resulting litigation sometimes seems more like a stickup than a worthy defense of injured parties. Predictably, the case against MeTV has turned on parsing the antiquated language of the Bork Act. The mighty judges of the 7th Circuit come off as rather lame when they define MeTV as 'a video tape service provider' and the plaintiffs who watch a free service as 'consumers,' then pompously defend these outdated definitions by saying, 'Linguistic imprecision is part of the human condition.' Other appellate courts have wrestled with the same vague language in the Bork Act and come up with incompatible conclusions. In 2013, after Netflix got stung by exploitative litigation, Congress amended the law. Obviously, it didn't do enough to make the rules clear and relevant in today's digital landscape. America needs strong principles to protect online identity and privacy. It also needs to ensure that its businesses can adopt new technology without getting dragged into expensive and counterproductive court battles like this one.
Reuters
04-04-2025
- Business
- Reuters
In fight over video privacy, 1980s law still has teeth
April 4 (Reuters) - As a person of a certain age, I remember when the height of home entertainment was going to the video store to rent a movie. The technology is obsolete, but a 1988 law protecting the privacy of videotape renters continues to spark legal fights as judges grapple with how broadly the statute applies to technology today. The latest showdown came Thursday, when a divided 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel nixed a proposed class action, opens new tab against Paramount Global under the Video Privacy Protection Act. The lead plaintiff, who subscribed to Paramount's 247Sports e-newsletter about college athletics, didn't count as a 'consumer' under the law, the Cincinnati, Ohio-based court ruled. In upholding the lower court's decision to dismiss the case, the majority found the newsletter was not audio-visual content covered by the law. The 2nd Circuit in New York and the Chicago-based 7th Circuit in near-identical cases recently reached the opposite conclusion. (Here, opens new tab and here, opens new tab.) Yet another case is pending before the D.C. Circuit, which heard oral arguments, opens new tab in February. All suggest the issue may be ripe for U.S. Supreme Court review, especially given its implications for targeted online advertising – but more on that later. Sometimes called 'the Bork bill,' the video privacy law might sound like a relic from the days of big hair and leg warmers. It was enacted after a video store clerk gave a newspaper reporter a list of 146 movies rented by then-U.S. Supreme Court nominee Judge Robert Bork and his family. (He liked Hitchcock films.) The law allows consumers to assert claims against any 'video tape service provider' for disclosing their personally identifiable information about specific 'audio visual materials' to third parties without express consent. Penalties are steep: up to $2,500 per violation, and successful plaintiffs can also recover legal fees. The question before the 6th Circuit was how broadly to apply the law in today's online environment, where free video content is ubiquitous on many company websites. Bailey Glasser partner Joshua Hammack, who represented plaintiff Michael Salazar, declined comment on the decision. Salazar filed the would-be class action against Paramount in Nashville federal court in 2022. He alleged Paramount surreptitiously installed Meta Platform subsidiary Facebook's tracking pixel – a code that allows Facebook to collect the data of website users who also have a Facebook account – on its website. Paramount then collected data about his identity and the videos he watched and disclosed that information to Facebook without his consent, he alleged. Meta was not a party to the case and did not respond to a request for comment. The majority decision by Judge John Nalbandian, who was joined by Senior Judge Alice Batchelder, turned on what 'goods or services' a person must rent, purchase or subscribe to in order to qualify as a 'consumer' under the law. Are such goods or services limited to audio-visual content—or do they 'extend to any and all products or services that a store could provide?' Here, Salazar argued that he became a subscriber (and thus covered under the video privacy law) when he signed up for its newsletter, which 'contained links to videos, directed subscribers to video content, and otherwise enticed or encouraged them to watch Paramount's videos.' That doesn't cut it, the majority found. 'Salazar did not plausibly allege that the newsletter itself was an 'audio visual material,' ' the 6th Circuit panel held. Subscribing to it 'was not enough to render him a 'consumer'' under the law. Paramount lead counsel David Yohai, a partner at Weil, Gotshal & Manges, said via email that the Sixth Circuit made "the correct conclusion on this statute.' A Paramount spokesperson declined comment. Judge Rachel Bloomekatz in her dissent argued that interpretation is too narrow. 'Salazar is a consumer based on the plain meaning of 'goods or services from a video tape service provider,' " she wrote – and Paramount, which is in the business of delivering video content, counts as such a provider. Her reasoning is in line with a decision last fall by the 2nd Circuit in a case in which Salazar was also the lead plaintiff. In a suit against the National Basketball Association, he made the now-familiar argument that when he signed up for a free newsletter and later watched videos on the NBA's website, the league improperly allowed Facebook to harvest his personal data. The 2nd Circuit let his proposed class action proceed, concluding he was indeed a consumer under the video privacy law. In a petition for review, opens new tab now pending before the U.S. Supreme Court, the NBA argues the appeals court got it wrong -- and that the decision, if it stands, jeopardizes widespread data-use practices by websites that offer audiovisual content. By extending the video privacy law to cover 'anyone who purchases anything from any business that puts out any video content, even free content on a public website,' NBA lawyers from Skadden Arps wrote, the decision 'endangers the web economy.'
