new video loaded: Four Workers Killed in Madrid Building Collapse
By Jorge Mitssunaga
October 8, 2025
Iconoclast has teamed up with AI licensing and protection platform Vermillio to monitor and control uses of Tony Bennett’s name, image, voice and likeness across generative AI systems.
The partnership comes as estates and rightsholders face challenges in protecting artists from unauthorized AI reproductions.
Vermillio’s TraceID platform can monitor the internet and public generative AI models, including OpenAI’s Sora, for misuse of name, image, and likeness (NIL) data. The company says that it scans both at the point of creation across major video models and at distribution wherever those AI-generated outputs appear online.
The partnership between Iconoclast, Vermillio and Tony Bennett’s estate seeks to address these issues. The collaboration will use Vermillio’s TraceID technology to scan the internet and AI models for unlicensed uses of Bennett’s likeness while exploring authorized licensing opportunities.
Olivier Chastan, Founder of Iconoclast, said: “Partnering with Vermillio allows us to navigate the evolving technological landscape, preserving Tony’s artistic identity while embracing new, responsible and creative ways to extend his reach.”
“This collaboration sets a precedent for how we can protect and cultivate historically important artists in the digital age.”
Olivier Chastan, Iconoclast
Added Chastan: “This collaboration sets a precedent for how we can protect and cultivate historically important artists in the digital age.”
Bennett, who died in 2023, had an eight-decade career and won 20 Grammy Awards, a Lifetime Achievement Award and two Primetime Emmy Awards. In 2024, Iconoclast struck a deal for a catalog of music assets of the legendary singer and artist. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed, but sources told MBW that the transaction was worth below $50 million.
Dan Neely, Co-Founder & CEO of Vermillio, said: “Tony Bennett’s artistry touched so many lives, and now Iconoclast is ensuring that his legacy lives on with integrity and care.
“With TraceID, Iconoclast is leading the way in how estates can manage their intellectual property in the AI era, protecting their legacies while paving the way for new, exciting creative expressions.”
“With TraceID, Iconoclast is leading the way in how estates can manage their intellectual property in the AI era, protecting their legacies while paving the way for new, exciting creative expressions.”
Dan Neely, Vermillio
The companies said that without proper safeguards, Bennett’s name, image and likeness remains vulnerable to misuse.
Vermillio’s TraceID platform monitors generative AI systems for unauthorized uses of protected intellectual property.
The technology tracks where an artist’s data appears and uses blockchain-based smart contracts to manage licensing agreements. Rightsholders can block unauthorized uses while potentially earning revenue from approved AI applications.
The partnership follows Vermillio’s push to work with music industry players. Earlier this year, Vermillio raised $16 million in a Series A funding round led by Sony Music Entertainment and DNS Capital.
Sony Music previously worked with Vermillio on a project with The Orb and David Gilmour of Pink Floyd in collaboration with Legacy Recordings, where fans could “remix” their album and create original artwork.
Vermillio also has a partnership with talent agency WME to protect clients from unauthorized AI uses and help them monetize their likenesses through controlled licensing. Television personality Steve Harvey recently signed on to protect his image from misuse.
The company was named to the annual TIME100 Most Influential Companies. The company made its TraceID platform available for free to users worldwide.
Meanwhile, Iconoclast, founded in 2021 by music executive Olivier Chastan, manages the estates and intellectual property of several artists, including Robbie Robertson of The Band, American actor and musician David Cassidy, and Italian composer Giorgio Moroder.
Music Business Worldwide
By Braden Keith on SwimSwam
The majority of the rules and proposals voted on last week by the USA Swimming House of Delegates in Denver were adopted, with most of the defeated proposals revolving around Local Swimming Committees, or LSCs.
LSCs are the 59 more-local governing bodies of USA Swimming, and are the primary battleground in American club swimming circles right now in matters of both physical jurisdiction and administrative jurisdiction.
Four proposals relating to LSC boundaries were defeated:
With expectations of a lot of shifting of LSC borders going forward, the results are being viewed as an indicator that USA Swimming’s House of Delegates prefers boundaries to be settled by the teams and LSCs rather than using the House of Delegates as the determining body.
Floyd and Clark Counties in the southeastern part of the state are the only counties in Indiana that are not part of the LSC. They have a combined population of about 200,000 and are generally considered suburbs of Louisville, Kentucky. Jeffersonville is the biggest city in the two counties with about 50,000 residents.
The counties appear to be home to about four USA Swimming clubs: the multi-site Riverside Aquatic Club, Pacesetter Aquatics, River City Splash Swim Club, and Pacesetter Aquatics.
In Texas, Milam County has only 24,000 residents, but Bell County, Texas is a fairly large population area centered around urban areas in Killeen and Temple.
Being in the South Texas LSC groups them with teams from Austin and San Antonio, while being grouped in the Gulf Swimming LSC would move them into a group with swimmers from Houston. Milam County sits between the two LSCs, while Bell County is between the border of South Texas and North Texas Swimming LSCs.
That proposal specifically included Platinum Aquatics and Tiger Sharks of Texas.
While those two moves would provide structural changes to the LSCs, the proposal relating to the Potomac Valley Swimming LSC was perhaps the most significant, as it would have given teams in that LSC, one of the most professionalized in the country, the ability to run meets in “any pool within the boundaries of Loudoun County, Prince William County, and the city of Manassas” in Virginia.
All of those counties are within the borders of the Virginia Swimming LSC, which means that sanctioning fees from meets hosted there wind up in the Virginia Swimming LSC coffers.
LSCs have hosted meets in other LSCs in the past, but that usually is by arrangement if an LSC doesn’t have a long course pool suitable to host a long course championship meet.
Several other LSC changes were presented as informational only because the matters were settled by votes within the LSC. That includes the merger of the Lake Erie and Ohio Swimming LSCs and the shift of seven towns in Maine (including Colby College, the only Olympic-sized pool in the state)
Most current LSC boundaries were carried forward from regional divisions used by the AAU, which formerly governed most swimming in the United States, and which used similar boundaries for all sports that it oversaw.
Other significant proposals that passed:
The major proposal voted down besides the LSC proposals includes a proposal to offer more flexibility in whether USA Swimming or YMCA certified officials needed to be present in order for times to be entered into the SWIMS database.
The proposal would have allowed times to be loaded into SWIMS if there was “one referee, one started, and two stroke and turn judge association officials, but with insufficient USA Swimming and/or YMCA observers…”
This proposal revolved around the new Block Party program, along with increasing challenges nationwide across many sports to recruit officials.
Read the full story on SwimSwam: USA Swimming House of Delegates Votes Down LSC Boundary Changes, Officiating Changes
Lessons from Colin Nelson’s Knowledge Session on building an environment where innovation thrives.
What if your organization didn’t just “support” innovation — what if leadership actively created the conditions for it to succeed? In a focused knowledge session, Colin Nelson (Chief Innovation Consultant, HYPE) explored how leaders can move beyond rhetoric and put practical structures in place to make innovation repeatable, visible and valued across the company. Use the summary for a fast read; watch the recording above for the full discussion, Q&A and real-world case examples.
Below we distill Colin’s core arguments and provide an actionable checklist you can use to start improving your innovation climate today.
Employees are less engaged than ever; Gallup’s 2024 data shows global engagement levels are down to 21%, and many companies feel the effects in participation and discretionary effort. Colin notes that when people don’t believe the organization is investing in the right things, or when they feel unheard, their willingness to contribute creative effort drops dramatically. But the good news: climate is changeable. When organizations get the environment right, participation and outcomes improve — sometimes dramatically.
Colin focuses on six practical leadership activities, based on the ISO 56000 family standards for innovation management— things leaders can realistically adopt to shift climate and unlock collective intelligence:
Adopt a portfolio approach
Balance short-term wins, growth plays and long-term bets so employees see that all horizons matter. This reduces short-termism and demonstrates a credible route to future growth.
Protect funding across innovation segments
Ring-fence funding for incremental, adjacent and radical initiatives so short-term pressures don’t continuously cannibalize future investments. Make budget allocation a governance conversation rather than a last-minute scramble.
Measure the right things (and consistently)
Use a minimal set of “minimum viable innovation measures” — e.g., capacity invested, forecasted impact, time-to-value and a judged likelihood of success — applied consistently across the portfolio to enable fair comparisons and merit-based decisions.
Bring independent assessment to likelihood judgments
Don’t rely solely on the concept owner’s optimistic estimate. Use independent reviews, head-to-head comparisons, or even prediction markets to get unbiased assessments of a concept’s likelihood of success. These methods reduce bias and improve portfolio decisions.
Make gate reviews collaborative and supportive
Reframe gate reviews from adversarial “go/no-go” interrogations to “How can we help make this better?” sessions — provide access to expertise, partners, or funding to accelerate promising concepts rather than simply shutting them down.
Recognize and reward good process (not just outcomes)
Celebrate rigorous process, learning, and effort as well as final successes. Recognize milestones, “learning deposits,” and the behaviors you want to see—curiosity, courage and humility—otherwise people will chase only the rare visible wins. For example, Tata’s Innovista program includes a “Dare to Try” category that publicly rewards bold experiments (even those that don’t immediately succeed), shifting incentives toward disciplined experimentation and faster organizational learning.
Colin shared examples and research from practice: some organizations see engagement rates as high as 80% when they run mature enterprise innovation programs supported by advocacy, communications and recognition; other organizations that lack structure struggle to get consistent results. He also referenced historical uses of prediction markets (e.g., Xerox) to illustrate how crowd-based forecasting can dramatically improve likelihood estimates.
Police say 29-year-old Jonathan Rinderknecht was behind fire that destroyed much of the Pacific Palisades neighbourhood.
Published On 8 Oct 2025
Authorities in California charged a man with starting a fire that days later erupted into the most destructive blaze in Los Angeles history and destroyed much of the Pacific Palisades neighbourhood, federal law enforcement officials have said.
Authorities accused 29-year-old Jonathan Rinderknecht of lighting a fire on New Year’s Day that was put out initially, but continued to smolder underground before reigniting during high winds, acting US Attorney Bill Essayli said during a news conference on Wednesday.
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Rinderknecht fled the scene of the original fire, but returned to the same trail where he’d been earlier to watch it burn, Essayli said. During an interview with investigators, he lied about his location, claiming he was near the bottom of the hiking trail, Essayli said.
He was arrested Tuesday in Florida and was due to appear in court Wednesday. Essayli declined to say how investigators believe Rinderknecht started the January 1 fire.
The blaze, which erupted on January 7, killed 12 people and destroyed more than 6,000 homes and buildings in the Pacific Palisades, a wealthy coastal neighbourhood of LA. The fire ripped through hillside neighbourhoods, destroying mansions with spectacular views of the ocean and downtown Los Angeles.
Investigators determined the fire was intentionally lit, likely by a lighter taken to vegetation or paper, according to a criminal complaint.
Authorities first interviewed Rinderknecht on January 24, according to the criminal complaint. He told them he had been in the area on January 1 and did not see anyone else there at that time.
Investigators excluded other possibilities, including fireworks, lightning and power lines. Authorities also looked into whether a cigarette could have caused the fire, but concluded that was not the cause, the complaint says.
Investigators still haven’t determined the cause of a second blaze called the Eaton Fire, which broke out the same day in the community of Altadena and killed 18 people.
Both fires burned for days, reducing block after block of entire neighbourhoods to grey and black debris.
An outside review released in September found that a lack of resources and outdated policies for sending emergency alerts led to delayed evacuation warnings.
The report commissioned by Los Angeles County supervisors said a series of weaknesses, including “outdated policies, inconsistent practices and communications vulnerabilities”, hampered the county’s response.
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Restrictions have been placed on content on some social media platforms in Afghanistan, Taliban government sources told BBC Afghan.
Filters have been applied to restrict certain types of content on sites including Facebook, Instagram and X, the sources at the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology said.
It is not clear exactly what sort of posts are subject to filtering. Some social media users in Kabul told the BBC that videos on their Facebook accounts are no longer viewable, while access to Instagram has also been restricted.
These restrictions on social media content come a week after internet and telecommunications services were cut off across the country for two days.
The move caused widespread problems for citizens and its end was greeted with celebration.
The 48-hour blackout disrupted businesses and flights, limited access to emergency services and raised fears about further isolating women and girls whose rights have been severely eroded since the hardline Islamist group swept back to power in 2021.
Social media users in Afghanistan have been complaining about limited access to different platforms in various provinces since Tuesday.
A Taliban government source said: “Some sort of controls have been applied to restrict certain types of content on platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and X.
“We hope this time there wouldn’t be any full ban on internet.
“The filtering is almost applied for the whole county and most provinces are covered now.”
There is no formal explanation from Taliban government officials for the restrictions.
Cybersecurity organisation NetBlocks said “restrictions are now confirmed on multiple providers, the pattern shows an intentional restriction”. Social sites have been intermittently accessible on smartphones, according to news agency AFP.
A man who works in a government office in eastern Nangarhar province told the BBC he could open Facebook but could not see pictures or play videos.
He said the “internet is very slow as a whole”.
Another user in southern Kandahar province, who runs a private business, said his fibre optic internet had been cut off since Tuesday but mobile phone data was working, with Facebook and Instagram being “severely slow”.
The Taliban government has not given an explanation for the total shutdown last week. However, last month, a spokesperson for the Taliban governor in the northern province of Balkh said internet access was being blocked “for the prevention of vices”.
Since returning to power, the Taliban have imposed numerous restrictions in accordance with their interpretation of Islamic Sharia law.
Afghan women have told the BBC that the internet was a lifeline to the outside world since the Taliban banned girls over the age of 12 from receiving an education.
Women’s job options have also been severely restricted and in September, books written by women were removed from universities.
Hub Group's SWOT analysis: transportation firm navigates soft demand
new video loaded: Israel Intercepts More Gaza-Bound Activist Boats
By Monika Cvorak
October 8, 2025
Lawmakers in the European Parliament on Wednesday voted to ban the labelling of vegetarian protein with terms such as “steak” or “meat.”
The lawmakers voted 532 to 78 to define meat as “edible parts of animals” and to curtail the use of words like steak, escalope, sausage or burger for animal and not plant-based products. The proposal will go to a parliamentary committee to be clarified, before going back to the EU executive arm and then to the bloc’s 27 member states for further negotiations.
Céline Imart, a conservative German lawmaker and former farmer, said using meat-related terms for vegetarian products was misleading.
“Now, we’re not talking about banning vegetable or plant-based alternatives, of course not. But I think that terms should speak for themselves and should mean what they mean,” she said in a parliamentary debate on Tuesday.
Her colleague, Austrian MEP Anna Stürgkh from the liberal NEOS party, said consumers are not easily fooled by food labels on non-meat products.
“A beef tomato doesn’t contain any beef … Ladies’ fingers are not made of actual ladies’ fingers,” she said. “Let’s trust consumers and stop this hot dog populism.”
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