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Hello and welcome to the Georgia Today Podcast. Here we bring you the latest reports from the GPB newsroom. On today's episode, Atlanta based UPS faces a lawsuit over alleged payroll discrepancies. A former Georgia high school student was among those injured in a mass shooting at Rhode Island's Brown University. And Atlanta based Cox Communications is at the center of a Supreme Court case over a copyright infringement.
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There's a way in which just your average individual could get caught up in this. There's a, you know, a misplaced allegation of copyright infringement and then that user ends up being blocked without good reason.
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Today is Tuesday, December 16th. I'm Orlando Montoya, and this is Georgia Today. New York Attorney General Letitia James has filed a lawsuit accusing Atlanta based UPS of stealing tens of millions of dollars in pay from seasonal workers who help deliver packages during the busy holiday season. GPB's Amanda Andrews has more.
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The lawsuit filed Monday alleges the shipping giant forced some workers to clock in well after their shifts began and deducted pay for lunch breaks they never took. The suit also alleges UPS repeatedly failed to properly compensate driver helpers who assist with deliveries as well as seasonal support drivers who use their own vehicles to make deliveries. James estimates the deprived wages at $45 million. In a statement, the company says it's aware of the lawsuit and calls its allegations unfounded. For GPB News, I'm Amanda Andrews.
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A former Georgia high school student was among those injured at a mass shooting at Brown University. The weekend attack at the Rhode Island Ivy league School killed two students and wounded nine others. 18 year old Jacob Spears, a freshman computer science major from Evans, west of Augusta, was shot in the stomach. A GoFundMe site organized to support his recovery says through sheer adrenaline and courage, he managed to run outside, where he was aided by others. There's no indication yet that investigators have zeroed in on a specific suspect in the Saturday shooting. Georgia's Board of Pardons and Paroles has put an execution scheduled for Wednesday night on hold. The order suspending the execution of Stacy Humphries did not provide any reason for the decision. The clemency hearing for Humphries, scheduled for this morning, also has been postponed. A warrant for his lethal injection is valid through noon on Christmas Eve. Humphries was convicted of malice, murder and other crimes in the 2003 killings of Cindy Williams and Laurie Brown. And in metro Atlanta's Cobb County, a cross border project involving Georgia and Alabama has secured about 15 square miles of land and 45 miles of waterways for permanent protection. The Conservation Fund yesterday announced the acquisition of property in an ecologically sensitive and fast growing region about an hour west of Atlanta. The fund, Stacey Funderberk, says the Stateline Forest Project aims to protect rare plant and animal species in the dug down mountain corridor.
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There are some aquatic species that exist in these waterways and in no others. It is also a flyway for bats, which are endangered and threatened. There is also a big wildlife corridor here for black bears.
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The Alabama Forestry Commission and the Georgia Department of Natural Resources will own and manage the land and waterways. The Supreme Court seems poised to side with Atlanta based Cox Communications in a lawsuit against Sony Entertainment and others. The entertainment industry alleges Cox didn't do enough to prevent users from pirating copyrighted material. And the lower court already ruled that Cox owes them more than a billion dollars. I'm joined now by University of Georgia law professor Thomas Co. Professor Kadri, welcome to gpb.
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Thank you for having me.
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So first of all, how did the justices seem to react to these oral arguments?
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Well, it's always a little tough to read too much into just the questioning an oral argument. But it does seem like there's some concern with a rule here that would impose broad liability on Internet service providers ISPs in cases like this. So I would say there's kind of some caution from the court, it seems at the very least.
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And is there concern that it could stifle legal activity on the Internet?
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That's right. I think one of the main concerns that comes from this case are the sort of ripple effects of imposing liability. There's no doubt that there are people using the Internet to engage in copyright infringement, including really using copyright Cox's service or many other services that are out there. But the potential ripple effects for the average user of the Internet and how imposing liability on the ISPs could lead the ISPs to block people's access to the Internet. I think that's really driving a lot of the interest in this case.
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Is there a precedent in phones or cable or any other type of thing that we've seen before? The phone companies aren't liable if people conduct illegal activity on the phone.
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That's right. Whether it's phones or even maybe before that thinking about the liability of bookstores for having books on their shelves that maybe violate other laws, either obscenity laws or who knows, maybe similar to this case involving copyright, there are all sorts of times where a company is maybe enabling in some sense illegal activity by providing a, a forum or a way for people to access information that is illegal. And there are often restraints put around how much those entities that are enabling other people's illegal activities, how much they can then be held liable themselves.
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What's Sony's argument? Why do they say Cox isn't doing enough?
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Well, look, they say that they provided notice that there was this illegal activity going on by users that were using Cox's services. So they say that they were provided notice that there was this illegal copyright infringement going on and that once they had that notice from Sony, they needed to do more to block access by the folks who were allegedly infringing on Sony's copyrights.
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Now, Sony is suggesting that Cox could restrict speeds at places like universities in order to stifle illegal activity.
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Depending on does that seem feasible, technologically feasible, perhaps. The ISPs could certainly choose particular locations or particular types of account and then restrict the sorts of speeds that the Internet would be offered at those locations. What effect that would have on the running of those places. Whether it's a university that would often rely on high speed Internet and sort of mass connectivity, or other places where there are multiple users relying on a single account. Places like airports or hospitals, churches, even a lot of businesses where there's kind of shared WI FI access, it's possible to throttle those speeds. But you would certainly be affecting the way in which more and more people would access the Internet by doing so.
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It seems like there must be many cases of piracy that don't rise to the level of the Supreme Court. How are most cases of piracy dealt with in. And do ISPs go after every little bit of illegal activity?
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Well, there are ways in which the ISPs are trying to detect copyright infringement and other types of piracy all the time, just through the technologies that they use in their systems to try and detect copyright infringement. The same is true, for example, on online platforms and social media that have quite sophisticated detection mechanisms that for copyright infringement. Now, there's often not a legal case that comes out of that because people's content is just blocked or removed. And sometimes they'll complain about it, Oftentimes they won't. So a lot of these allegations of copyright infringement get sorted out before there's ever a legal case. And there often is no legal case that comes out of it.
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Is that one way that normal users, or should we say everyday customers could be impacted by this case?
- [08:46]
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Absolutely, yeah. I think there's a way in which just your average individual could get caught up in this. There's a misplaced allegation of copyright infringement. And then that singular user ends up being blocked without good reason. And then there's the case of somebody who really has done absolutely nothing wrong, but they're just using, let's say, WI fi in a sort of a shared area. And then the entire access gets blocked as a result of someone else's activity. In both of those circumstances, I think we can imagine how the everyday customer no longer has access to a service. And it's not just any old service, right? This is access to the Internet, full stop. Not just access to particular sites, but the whole Internet. And in some parts of the country, there is really only one Internet service provider that's providing service to that entire area. So it's not even like you can just switch providers and restore your Internet access.
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And does that become a free speech argument then?
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I think it does. There have been some interesting briefs filed before the court, not by the parties, but by various amicus briefs, including by the ACLU and some other leading free speech organizations, arguing that at the very least, the First Amendment should be doing some work in the background. And maybe there is even a direct First Amendment challenge that could be raised to impositions of liability on the scale that we saw in the lower courts here, that the rules for when somebody can be held liable for contributing towards copyright liability should have to face up to some kind of First Amendment scrutiny if it's going to lead companies like Cox and others to act upon and deny access to a bunch of people's ability to get on the Internet.
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I've been talking with University of Georgia law professor Thomas Khadri about The Cox Communications vs. Sony Entertainment case at the Supreme Court. We'll watch for this decision. Thank you very much for talking with me today.
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Thank you for having me.
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The Atlanta Peach drop will not return this New Year's Eve, at least as revelers have known it since 1989. Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens yesterday said the celebration was being reimagined as a 12 minute fireworks and drone display. It has been known as a downtown party with headlining musicians and a countdown featuring a giant peach. The mayor's statement did not indicate what prompted the change, saying only it would decentralize crowds, increase visibility and strengthen public safety. Peachdrop has been canceled a few times in recent years because of COVID in 2021 and a funding reallocation in 2023. How does AI even work? Where does creativity come from? What's the secret to living longer?
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TED Radio Hour explores the biggest questions with some of the world's greatest thinkers.
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They will surprise, challenge and even change you.
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Listen to NPR's Ted Radio Hour wherever you get your podcasts.
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Georgia High school football championships continue through tomorrow. Last night, coach Maurice Dixon spoke after his Creekside Seminoles of Fulton county finished with a state record for points in a season to defeat Savannah's Benedictine Cadets in Creekside's first title since 2013.
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Man, this started a long time ago, man, at Duncan park, man, in the Mayfield Youth League. These kids chose to come and play at Creekside and commit to something bigger than themselves. It's about being selfless and it's about working toward a goal that you can't see. But if you keep climbing, if you keep scratching, you're going to get to where you got to get to.
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That was in the Class 4A championship. GPB is covering all the action at Atlanta's Mercedes Benz Stadium on GPB TV and streaming@GPB.org sports another Georgia sports shortstop, Ha Seong Kim, is returning to the Atlanta Braves. Yesterday he agreed to a $20 million one year contract, giving him a $4 million raise. The 30 year old South Korean had declined a $16 million player option from the $29 million, two year contract he agreed to in February with Tampa Bay. His return means Mauricio Dubon likely will be available in a utility role instead of being asked to play shortstop every day. The Braves acquired De Bon from Houston last month, and that's it for a Tuesday edition of Georgia Today as we barrel through the week of Hanukkah and rush toward Christmas. Thank you for tuning in, and if you'd like to learn more about the stories on this podcast, we encourage you to go to gpb.org news stay current with us in your feed by clicking that subscribe button. It very much does help us. Our email address for feedback, concerns and story ideas is georgia todaypb.org I'm Orlando Montoya, filling in for Peter Biello this week. I'll be back again tomorrow with another Georgia Today.