Thursday schmursday. Jeremy Green Eche is officially the king of cybersquatting (and maybe something of a psychic). Four years ago, Eche purchased the domain name HarrisWalz.com for $10 and was able to sell it to the Harris/Walz campaign for $15,000. Why did he go out of his way to snag that domain years ago? He decided to combine Kamala Harris’ name with “every sort of folksy white man I could think of who was big at the time” in the chance that she ran for president. Genius.

In other news… true crime content gets hit with a record number of defamation suits, Drake drops an archive, and Disney needs to cough up more for Hulu than initially thought.

• YouTube – Rebel Ridge

• X (Twitter) – It Ends With Us

• Google – Colin Farrell

• Reddit – Taylor Swift

• TikTok – “On Dat Money” - Rob49 & Cardi B

• Spotify – “I Guess Time Just Makes Fools of Us All” - Father John Misty

.ENTERTAINMENT.

Streaming series wrestle with the “true” in true stories

The Future. Audiences love true crime series and documentaries, which has led to a rush of content over the years. But as output has increased, so, too, have defamation lawsuits from the real-life people portrayed. If one of the outstanding cases does lead to a major legal loss for streaming or cable platforms, expect there to be a pullback in the genre, as creators will need to go through extra vetting processes if they hope to get a green light.

True lies, fake facts
“Based on a true story” is never as cut and dry as people expect.

• Netflix, Max, and Hulu have all been hit with defamation lawsuits from subjects featured in projects who claim to be wrongly or unfairly portrayed.

• Netflix, in particular, has been hit with over 20 suits since 2019, including high-profile projects like Baby Reindeer, When They See Us, and The Queen’s Gambit.

• The ongoing Baby Reindeer case has become an addictive hit all on its own — the real-life Martha is suing for $170 million after the show purported that she was convicted of stalking creator/star Richard Gadd when, in fact, she wasn’t.

Is it possible that simply the accessibility of content, or the increase in shows, is the culprit for the rise in defamation cases? Maybe. But with Sheila Nevins, HBO’s former head of documentaries, saying, “As the field became more competitive, the rules automatically let go a little bit,” there may also be a little more creative negligence at play.

Still, streamers win many of these rulings or are able to settle quietly (defamation suits are notoriously difficult for plaintiffs to win), but the costs associated are making true crime projects more expensive — such as raising the price of insurance that covers “errors and omissions.”

We guess you need to stretch a dollar to stretch the truth.

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“If I want to gamble, I go to Vegas. They’re more honest about it.”

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Media, Music, & Entertainment

• Disney was happy to report that it turned a profit in streaming for the first time (and two quarters ahead of schedule)... but not so happy to share that revenue growth for its theme parks is starting to cool. [Read More]

• Speaking of Disney, it may have to pay up to $5 billion more to NBCUniversal to complete its transaction for Hulu. [Read More]

• Roku is launching a 24/7 FAST premium sports channel that will air MLB games, Formula E races, Top Rank Boxing matches, and Roku original content. [Read More]

Fashion & E-Commerce

• Lyft is introducing a “Price Lock” monthly subscription that lets users choose a consistent payment over having to deal with surge pricing. [Read More]

• Airbnb shares sank 17% after it reported that revenue growth from US demand will likely start to slow. [Read More]

• Pop-Tart is dropping “The Party Pastry” — which is 75x larger than the typical toaster pastry — as part of parent company Kellanova’s strategy of offering more stunt products. [Read More]

Tech, Web3, & AI

• OpenAI is leading a $60 million funding round in pro-webcam startup Opal as the company shifts to prototyping AI-powered devices. [Read More]

• Humane, the maker of the once-buzzy AI Pin, is dealing with a faster rate of returns than sales… putting the future of the company in question. [Read More]

• Ireland’s Data Protection Commission is suing X for employing EU user data to train its Grok chatbot without permission. [Read More]

Creator Economy

• Instagram will start to make “views” the primary metric across all of its formats, completing its transformation from a photo-centric platform to a video-centric one. [Read More]

• Facebook is giving users who run afoul of its Community Standards the ability to take a few courses to avoid “Facebook jail” — like taking a driver’s test to erase points on your license. [Read More]

• Popular creator iShowSpeed was temporarily banned from YouTube after filming himself jumping over a speeding Lamborghini and McLaren. [Read More]

.MUSIC.

Drake uploads his life’s work

The Future. Drake surprise-dropped files upon files of unreleased media from throughout his career. It’s possible that the Canadian rapper may be setting the stage for a project that empowers fans to take part in building a timeline or documentary of his career in an effort to create a new kind of engagement.

Media as memoir
After losing the rap battle against Kendrick Lamar earlier this summer, Drake has flooded the zone with more content than any fan could dream of.

• Via a mysterious Instagram account named plottttwistttttt, Drake dropped three new tracks featuring 21 Savage, Latto, and Young Thug.

• But the big shocker is a link to the site 100gigs.org… which, you bet, contains 100 gigs of material from Drake’s archives.

• The tranche includes unreleased songs, recording sessions, onstage footage, music video BTS, and downloadable photos, all tucked into labeled folders.

With so much content available for fans to rifle through, it seems like this is the start of a project that he hopes can start a new era of his career.

Or, at least change headlines.

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• Read: The LA Times profiles Alien: Romulus filmmaker Fede Alvarez, who’s become one of Hollywood’s go-to people for reinvigorating horror franchises.

• Listen: Hard Fork dives into how Zoom-organized fundraising events have dominated this election cycle.

• Play: The NY Times is rolling out a competition to see who can solve its Mini Crossword Puzzles the quickest in honor of the game’s 10th anniversary. Players who make it into the hall of fame will receive a personalized mini trophy.

Hugh Jackman is also the anchor being in real life.

LATEST PODCAST EPISODE

Today, on an extra special bonus episode of Future Forecast, our hosts Boye and Chris sit down with Andrew Kenward, the President and COO of Almost Friday Media. Andrew was an agent at WME in the digital media department at WME before being brought into the Almost Friday universe in 2021. We chat with him about his career, his goals for the brand moving forward, and what it's like working in media today.