Facebook announced an initiative with news organizations to help develop news products and provide training and tools for journalists and the public that include ways to fight news hoaxes. The Facebook Journalism Project, wrote Director-Product Fidji Simo in a Wednesday blog post, will involve deeper collaboration between news organizations and the company's product and engineering teams on developing current storytelling formats such as Live, 360 and Instant Articles. She said it will also mean creating new formats like presenting packages of stories to their most engaged readers on the social media platform. She said Facebook is interested in better supporting local news, promoting independent media and helping organizations boost revenue. In one example, Facebook said it's working with German tabloid Bild to provide free trials to engaged readers from within Instant Articles. The company also is providing e-learning courses on Facebook products, tools and services for journalists and free tools like CrowdTangle that measure the performance and influence of stories. It's also working with news and technology coalition First Draft to verify the authenticity of image and video content (see 1701040025). The Poynter Institute said in a release it's working with Facebook to develop a training certificate program for journalists that will use courses on Facebook and Instagram. Simo said her company will work with third-party organizations, including Arizona State University's journalism school, to promote news literacy and help people "make decisions about which sources to trust." The company, which has been the focus of accusations that it's helped spread fake stories, also reiterated efforts to curb such hoaxes (see 1612130030).

There’s “nothing formal” in the works “at this time” within the Blu-ray Disc Association to upgrade the Ultra HD Blu-ray format for 8K resolution, Ron Martin, vice president and director of the Panasonic Hollywood Lab, emailed us Monday. But “several member companies have been monitoring it,” Martin said of 8K TVs, which saw an unusually large showcasing of prototypes at CES amid forecasts that products soon will reach the commercial market (see 1701090053). Specifications for the Ultra HD Blu-ray format were completed in May 2015 and stipulated resolutions up to 3840x2160 (see 1505120025). Martin is one of BDA’s top technical experts and was the vice chairman of its U.S. promotions committee (see 1510130055).

Monroe Electronics plans to introduce a new feature in its emergency alert system equipment that could allow more stations to broadcast more informative alerts and possibly solve a problem (see 1612280045) that prevented some stations from issuing Spanish-language alerts during the September nationwide EAS test, it said. The plan was revealed in comments by Monroe in FCC docket 15-94. To address that problem and allow more stations access to the increased information available via Integrated Public Alert Warning System (IPAWS) alerts, Monroe wants to implement a mechanism that would trigger EAS devices that receive an alert from a broadcast source “to immediately seek whether there was a matching CAP (common alerting protocol) message” available through IPAWS, the filing said. If no electronic message is available, the equipment would proceed with the broadcast alert. During the nationwide test, the EAS alert was transmitted both electronically through IPAWS and in the traditional way through other broadcast stations. Stations had to retransmit whichever of the two forms of alert they received first, and since under current EAS procedures stations check for new CAP alerts every 30 seconds, many stations' alert systems were activated by other broadcasters before they could receive the IPAWS alert, which contains more detailed information. Only stations that first received the IPAWS alert had the option to broadcast the Spanish-language alert, and some stations with many Spanish-speaking viewers couldn’t do so during the test because they received the broadcast alert first. Monroe’s proposal “gives preference to the more informative CAP message but allows the broadcast EAS system to maintain its critical role if there is no corresponding CAP message, or if the Internet is temporarily unavailable,” the filing said. The company said it plans to introduce these features in its equipment in an upcoming release. The feature won’t be applied to nationwide alerts such as the emergency action notification, since rules require such messages to be retransmitted without delay, even the scant one proposed by Monroe, the filing said. “FCC clarification will be required in order to determine whether this same automatic polling methodology can and should be” applied to the nationwide codes, the firm said.

Despite Chairman Tom Wheeler's decision last summer not to revisit the FCC's totality of circumstances test (see 1607140047), retransmission consent reform is needed, the American TV Alliance said in a filing Monday in docket 15-216. ATVA said the proof lies in the stations that were blacked out in numerous markets on New Year's Day (see 1701030046), affecting 4 million pay-TV-subscribing households. ATVA said the surge in blackouts, involving numerous broadcasters and multiple multichannel video programming distributors, demonstrates the breadth of the problem, and in many cases, they happened despite the MVPD offering to continue negotiating, often with retroactive "true-ups" of rates. In a statement, NAB said ATVA's data -- which it called "often questionable" -- shows programming impasses declined by nearly 50 percent in 2016. "We hope that trend continues now that the FCC has decided not to favor pay TV in this free market negotiation process," NAB said, saying most of the remaining impasses "involve massive pay TV companies muscling very small broadcast stations/family owned TV stations." In a blog post Monday, TV Freedom pointed to Dish Network as being involved in a significant number of carriage disruptions and accused the pay-TV industry of "hardball strategy that goes like this: Forget the impact on viewers. Just force enough programming 'blackouts' to get Congress and/or the FCC involved." It also said broadcast signals are never fully blacked out since they're available over the air and on other pay-TV platforms -- though that industry makes switching providers difficult through early termination fees. Dish didn't comment.

President-elect Donald Trump met Monday with Univision Communications CEO Randy Falco and Isaac Lee, the company’s chief-news, entertainment and digital. Trump spokesman Sean Spicer mentioned the planned meeting during a journalists' call that morning, not elaborating on the details of its agenda. A Univision spokeswoman didn’t comment on the meeting.

The Supreme Court declined to hear claims of privacy violations brought by Internet-using minors who had data collected about them by Google and Viacom (see 1612290016), denying their petition Monday (see here). The 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in June also largely rejected the claims against the companies (see 1606270047).

A jury will have to decide whether a so-called Star Trek fan film is subjectively substantially similar to official Star Trek canon and willfully violates Star Trek copyright, U.S. District Judge Gary Klausner of Los Angeles ruled in an order (in Pacer) posted Wednesday denying summary judgment motions by both plaintiffs, CBS Studios and Paramount Pictures, and defendants, Axanar Productions and its president (see 1612060018). Klausner said both motions raise the same fundamental issues about the substantive similarity between the Axanar works and Star Trek copyrighted works, and whether Axanar/Peters have a valid fair use defense under the Copyright Act. The judge said the Axanar works have objective substantial similarity to Star Trek -- an objective extrinsic test and subjective intrinsic test for substantial similarity being 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals tests for copyright infringement -- and they do use copyright-protected elements. Klausner peppered his decision with multiple Star Trek quips and asides, such as saying the copyright infringement claim "can live long and prosper if the Axanar Works are substantially similar" and elsewhere referencing the title of a 1969 episode of the original TV series.

Roku promoted its position in the smart TV streaming market as Seiki, Westinghouse Electronics and Element Electronics will begin shipping this year 4K Ultra HD TVs with Amazon Fire TV. In a Tuesday news release, Roku said its TVs accounted for 13 percent of all U.S. smart TV sales. At CES in Las Vegas, Roku TVs will be demonstrated in Dish Sling TV and other booths. In Amazon's deal, its Prime customers get unlimited access to Prime Video and “thousands of movies and TV episodes” with membership. They can get HBO, Showtime, Starz, PBS Kids and other subscription video services, paying “for the channels they want -- no cable required, no additional apps to download, and easy online cancellation,” said the companies.

With its NBC affiliation agreement now expired, WHDH Boston dropped its appeal in its NBC affiliation fight with Comcast. In a motion (in Pacer) for voluntary dismissal filed Wednesday in the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, WHDH said since its June appeal "the parties' respective circumstances have changed," leading to WHDH's dropping its appeal. The station's appeal brief had been due Friday. Michael Gass of Choate Hall, representing the station, told us that with it not getting injunctive relief to prevent the expiration of WHDH's NBC affiliation agreement, which expired Sunday, "it's hard to put the toothpaste back in the tube." Station management instead decided to continue focusing on running the station as an independent with local news and syndicated programming like WHDH owner Sunbeam previously did with its WSVN Miami, Gass said: "There's no reason to think they can't do that here." WHDH sued Comcast last year over plans to move its NBC affiliation to a Comcast-owned station (see 1603110031).

The Copyright Royalty Board said Tuesday it opened a royalty rate-setting proceeding for digital transmissions of ephemeral copies of sound recordings to business establishments (Business Establishments III) to cover the period between Jan. 1, 2019, and Dec. 31, 2023. Parties wishing to participate in the proceeding must submit their petition and the $150 filing fee by Feb. 2, the CRB said in a notice in the Federal Register. The previous rate-setting proceeding, which covered royalties for 2014-2018, drew participation from Clear Channel, Pandora and SiriusXM, among others.