Author: Megan Geuss

Musician David Lowery, frontman for alt-rock bands Camper Van Beethoven and Cracker, sued Spotify in California District Court (PDF) this week for alleged copyright infringement. Lowery’s complaint accuses Spotify of failing to license musicians’ works before putting them up for streaming.

"Spotify reproduces and/or distributes the Works despite its failure to identify and/or locate the owners of those compositions for payment or to provide them with notice of Spotify’s intent to reproduce and/or distribute the Works," Lowery's complaint alleges.

According to Billboard, the music-streaming service is in settlement negotiations with the National Music Publishers Association over its alleged practice of pre-emptively placing artists’ work on Spotify before obtaining licenses for it, then using a fund to pay for the music when the company makes contact with the licensee. "Spotify has created a $17 million to $25 million reserve fund to pay royalties for pending and unmatched song use,” Billboard’s sources say.

Rideshare and delivery company Sidecar announced on Tuesday that it would be shuttering its services at 2pm Pacific Time, December 31, 2015.

Sidecar was one of the pioneering rideshare services, along with Lyft and Uber, but the two latter companies have succeeded in securing extraordinary amounts of funding, whereas Sidecar hasn't had quite so many dazzling headlines. Sidecar helped drivers connect with individual passengers, organized carpools, and made deliveries. In May, Re/code reported, Sidecar began delivering medical marijuana to San Francisco residents if they had a doctor’s note.

Sidecar CEO Sunil Paul wrote on Medium today that the company is not dissolving completely but instead ending its primary services in order to "work on strategic alternatives and lay the groundwork for the next big thing.” A spokesperson for Sidecar told Ars the company would not elaborate on what the next big thing is, exactly.

Southern California Gas Company had been trying to plug a massive natural gas leak for more than two months, and now we have some new perspective on the scale of the leak. The non-profit organization Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) has released an infrared aerial video showing the plume created by the normally-invisible methane seeping out of the former oil well in the hills north of Los Angeles. The video puts in sharp relief the gravity of the situation caused by the rupture, which was discovered on October 23 and has been estimated to be releasing tens of thousands of kilograms of methane into the air every hour.

The leak at SoCal Gas’ Aliso Canyon site is northwest of Los Angeles and just adjacent to the Porter Ranch community. Although the Los Angeles County Department of Health and SoCal Gas have assured residents that the leak poses no harm to human health, the highly-flammable, odorless gas has been treated with chemicals to give it a “rotten-eggs” smell, which can cause headaches, nausea, and nosebleeds. Because of this, SoCal Gas has relocated families in Porter Ranch to motels and offered to reimburse them for household air purifiers, per an agreement with Los Angeles officials.

The most concerning result of the leak, however, is that methane is a potent greenhouse gas, according to the California Air Resources Board (CARB). It is many time more harmful than CO₂  with respect to climate change in the near-term. CARB estimated in November that the Aliso Canyon leak has released methane approximately equivalent to one-quarter of California’s normal methane emissions.

Cassette tapes, like vinyl albums, are making a comeback. While CDs and digital media still reign supreme, according to a 2015 mid-year Nielsen report, the largest operational cassette factory in the US reports an impressive increase in demand.

National Audio Company (NAC) President Steve Stepp told Ars that his Springfield, Missouri, company had been seeing a (very) healthy 20 percent year-over-year growth in demand for audiocassette tapes for several years. But 2015 was even better. As of the beginning of October, NAC reported a 31 percent increase in order volume over the previous year.

NAC is in a curious position, because in addition to being the largest audiocassette factory in the US, it's also one of the last remaining.

A drone crashed to Earth during a World Cup slalom ski race in Italy today, nearly hitting skier Marcel Hirscher. The drone belonged to a TV broadcast crew and carried a heavy camera on it.

Hirscher, a four-time defending overall World Cup champion, appeared not to notice the drone crash that happened just over his right shoulder as he came down the slope. He came in second on this particular downhill race, edged out by Henrik Kristoffersen of Norway. Hirscher maintains the lead in the competition overall.

WATCH: Skier almost crushed by falling drone during run. https://t.co/hyGYUJKTOc pic.twitter.com/dOlViauMLz

— NBC Sports (@NBCSports) December 22, 2015

Still, the 26-year-old Austrian skier sounded outraged by the time he spoke to the Associated Press. “This is horrible,” Hirscher said. "This can never happen again. This can be a serious injury.''

Today the Federal Trade Commission announced that identity protection company LifeLock will pay $100 million for playing fast and loose with its customers’ sensitive information, including names, social security numbers, credit card numbers, and bank information.

The settlement is the largest payout the FTC has ever won through an enforcement action. Customers who were part of a class-action suit against the company will get $68 million of that. The remainder of the sum "will be provided to the FTC for use in further consumer redress,” the FTC's press release states.

LifeLock was given a slap on the wrist and a $12 million fine in 2010 for falsely advertising its identity theft protection services. The company had advertised that for $10 a month, it would guarantee protection against identity theft, but the FTC charged that LifeLock merely put fraud alerts on its customers' credit files, which did not protect against identity theft from existing accounts, nor did it prevent fraudsters from using a person’s ID to get medical care or to apply for jobs. LifeLock’s CEO, Todd Davis, famously advertised his company’s services by displaying his social security number in ads. That act of hubris reportedly resulted in Davis’ identity being stolen 13 times.

Today, Volkswagen Group said that German regulators approved its proposed fixes to vehicles with EA 189 engines, the infamous engines that include defeat devices and released illegal amounts of nitrogen oxide (NOx) while VW vehicles were being driven under normal conditions.

The fixes will apply to 1.2 liter, 1.6 liter, and 2.0 liter diesel engines. The 1.2 and 2.0 liter engines will only require a software update that Volkswagen group says should take “under half an hour.” The 1.6 liter engine vehicles require a software update as well as a “flow rectifier” that mechanics will fit in front of the air mass sensor. Volkswagen estimates that labor for that job will take “under an hour.”

Volkswagen says it will send out letters to customers in the European Union as soon as the German Federal Motor Transport Authority gets the company the appropriate addresses. Volkswagen Group says it estimates repairs will start in January 2016.

Android Pay, Alphabet’s successor to Google Wallet and its answer to Apple Pay, is allowing in-app purchases starting today. This is a feature that Apple Pay has had since day one, and it’s a feature that Google Wallet had until late 2014, when Google (now Alphabet) shuttered that feature.

The advantage of including in-app payments through a platform like Android Pay is that developers can add an Android Pay logo to their check-out sections, and users, who ideally have their card information stored with Android Pay already, can check out with a single tap (and then a second tap just to confirm the user’s information). No need for a customer to fumble for their credit card every time they need to buy something in a new app. The hope for app developers is that an easier checkout leads to more sales—there's less second-guessing if you shorten the time it takes to make the purchase.

Android Pay launched in early September, almost a year after Apple Pay launched. Android’s payment platform was essentially a rebranded version of Google Wallet’s original form, allowing users to make payments in select brick-and-mortar stores by tapping their phones to check-out terminals using near field communications (NFC). Today, with the addition of in-app payments, Android Pay becomes a real competitor for market share with Apple Pay.

In recent days, Yahoo investors have been calling for a new plan and new leadership to restore the value of the company. Some argue for Yahoo to sell its core businesses as quickly as possible. Others are trying to build support to oust CEO Marissa Mayer and trim the company’s costs to absolute bare bones. All the while, Yahoo seemed ready to spin off the company's Alibaba holdings into a separate company.

But last week, Yahoo announced that it would reverse course. Instead of spinning off Alibaba, the board of directors said Yahoo would now work to spin off Yahoo’s core businesses, keeping the original company as a holding entity for the Alibaba shares. The company explained the tax climate for spinning off Alibaba holdings was simply unfavorable for investors. Mayer also noted the move would give more “transparency” to the operations of Yahoo’s core businesses, and analysts believed that implied Yahoo would be selling itself off bit by bit.

All this, however, has failed to make investors happy. The Wall Street Journal reported this weekend that Canyon Capital Advisors, an investment firm which owns 10 million shares (about 1.1 percent of Yahoo), is calling for Yahoo to begin selling all or parts of its core businesses immediately. Canyon Capital's strongly worded letter to fellow investors proclaimed that waiting another year to break Yahoo up from its Alibaba holdings is unacceptable. The investor wrote that Yahoo needs to start selling parts of its business off now or risk a further decline in the worth of the company.

Update (12a, Saturday 12/12): An appeals court in New York has issued an emergency stay of a lower-court's ruling that daily fantasy sports sites FanDuel and DraftKings must shut down their New York operations. “The day has ended well and now New Yorkers who love daily fantasy sports can continue to play,” Randy Mastro, DraftKings’ attorney, told the Washington Post. “The takeaway from today is these are legal questions that deserve a full airing. We believe that when we have our full day in court, we will prevail.”

Original story: On Friday, New York Supreme Court Judge Manuel Mendez ruled that FanDuel and DraftKings—two daily fantasy sports websites—must cease operations in New York, at least as long as the two companies are embroiled in a legal dispute with the state attorney general over whether their businesses constitute an illegal lottery.

State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman has maintained that the two sites promote daily betting on fantasy sports and advertise their services as a path to easy money. Although both New York-based FanDuel and Boston-based DraftKings have been operating for a number of years, the two sites have garnered attention this fall for their aggressive marketing campaigns, especially during National Football League games.