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There is no shortage of examples of Major League Baseball attempting to wield overly broad trademarks its obtained to bully others, nor examples of MLB attempting to stretch its trademark rights much further than they go. MLB opposed a trademark for a Brooklyn burger joint on behalf of the Dodgers, a team that hadn't played [...]

This article is republished fromThe Conversationunder a Creative Commons license. Read theoriginal article. Youth sports have a significant impact on the development of all children. Sports provide children opportunities to build their social skills and confidence, as well as improve their sense of belonging and physical fitness. What happens to these spaces when adults are [...]

Over the last few months especially, there has been renewed attention to the sheer scale of Donald Trump's ability to profit off the presidency. The efforts to do so only become more brazen every week. Leaving aside the crypto business that he got a ton of people to fund, the free airplane from a foreign [...]

Record law enforcement officers whenever you can. Sure, they'll hate it, but it helps all the people they seek to do harm to. Last summer, recordings and other evidence undercut a lot of the administration's attempts to convert First Amendment activity into criminal charges. Prosecutors who dropped cases after watching recordings or talking directly to [...]

Equipped with a 1.2mm fine tip, the Digi Pen for iPads provides durability, sensitivity, and pixel precision. No lagging, no skips, no scratches. Perfect for drawing, sketching, painting, and writing. With palm rejection technology, you can use it directly without wearing gloves and write on the screen as if you're writing on paper. You can [...]

We - and plenty of others - have been warning that the global rush to mandate age verification wouldn't stop at let's make sure kids can't see porn" or even just keep kids off of social media." It would inevitably expand into treating anonymity and privacy tools themselves as the enemy. Australia is now proving [...]

Brendan Carr and the Trump FCC are finalizing plans to illegally eliminate what's left of the country's already barely functional media consolidation limits; a specific gift to Trump-friendly right wing broadcasters that are hoping to monopolize what's left of local U.S. broadcast news so they can more efficiently spread propaganda and kiss the president's ass. [...]

This week, our first place winner on the insightful side is Thad with a simple comment about the judicial smackdown of Trump's IRS settlement: Bar referrals. Finally. In second place, it's Stephen T. Stone with a comment about J. K. Rowling threatening to sue Amnesty International: Transphoba destroys an otherwise normal person from the inside [...]

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I don't think it's terribly controversial to say that this second Trump administration has never shown much concern for the Hatch Act. If you're not familiar with that particular law, it makes it illegal for most of the members of the executive branch of the federal government, and some state representatives, to engage in partisan [...]

This article first appeared on The Texas Tribune. Two weeks before this year's primary elections, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton announced the creation of a tip line for the public to report people or groups suspected of voter fraud. Free and fair elections are a cornerstone of a thriving republic, and with the authority granted [...]

Ctrl-Alt-Speech is a weekly podcast about the latest news in online speech, from Mike Masnick and Everything in Moderations Ben Whitelaw. Subscribe now on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify, Pocket Casts, YouTube, or your podcast app of choice - or go straight to the RSS feed. To get extended episodes with additional coverage, support us on [...]

JK Rowling has spoken about how she wrote the first Harry Potter book while she was employed at Amnesty International and how much that experience influenced her writing, and how she learned the power of human empathy" from working there. Rowling was also, you'll recall, one of the high profile signers of the infamous Harper's [...]

Simplify your daily charging experience and replace most of the chargers and cables on your desktop, with this one mini station that does it all. The 6-in-1 Magstand Mini Magnetic Charge Station is a mini charging station that gives you full control over how much your favorite gadgets get charged. It features 3 wireless charging [...]

You might have heard that Donald Trump gave a weird, rambling, nonsense speech last night full of misinformation and lies, trying to spread distrust in our electoral process ahead of the 2026 midterms - so that when Republicans likely lose some of the power they currently wield across the government, Trump and his allies can [...]

Here's a short crash course in U.S. telecom policy. Giant and very unpopular companies like Comcast, AT&T, Verizon, and Charter created regional monopolies that work tirelessly to erode all meaningful competition and oversight, resulting in high prices, spotty service, slower speeds, and abysmal customer service. They also pay a bunch of dodgy pseudo-academic free market" [...]

There's a lot of health news going on in the country right now, in no small part to the absolutely pitiful and pathetic job RFK Jr. is doing heading up HHS. It is a near certainty that by the end of this week, the CDC will have published an updated case count for measles that [...]

This story wasoriginally publishedby ProPublica.Republished under aCC BY-NC-ND 3.0license. The rich and famous who filed into the Kennedy Center's opera house in December were there to enjoy one of the nation's most exclusive celebrations of the performing arts: the center's annual honors gala. The black-tie event, hosted by President Donald Trump, prioritized tickets to people [...]

This is probably nothing more than another data point in a deluge, but it's worth pointing out because it's instructive. Cops are using a whole lot of surveillance tech these days. Flock Safety has been especially aggressive in pursuing the law enforcement market, offering cops access to a nationwide network of cameras, including many owned [...]

A few weeks ago, David Lat went on the Serious Trouble podcast and mentioned that things actually hadn't turned out that poorly for the craven big law firms that had caved to Donald Trump's ridiculous attacks on any law firm he didn't like. The law firms that fought back keep winning in court, as it's [...]

The 2026 Microsoft Azure Architect & Administrator Exam Prep Bundle has 9 courses covering a wide range of Azure skills designed to help you pass your certification exams. Courses also include hands-on sections to help you put into practice what the lessons have covered. It's on sale for $40. Note: The Techdirt Deals Store is [...]

Florida Republicans' bigoted little piece of speech policing - the former Stop WOKE Act" - has already been terminated multiple times by federal courts. Two lawsuits with two sets of plaintiffs have generated the same results: a ruling declaring the law unconstitutional and an injunction blocking the state from enforcing it. The law aims to [...]

Not long after twelve states sued Paramount claiming its $111 billion merger with Warner Brothers would harm market competition, the Writers Guild of America (WGA) filed their own lawsuit, warning that the massive debt load from the media industry's latest megamerger will result in an ocean of layoffs for an already reeling U.S. entertainment industry. [...]

In all of our discussions about how the digital revolution has created a system in which people don't actually own the things they think they're buying, I get particularly frustrated by the lack of change in it all. We've spilled much ink complaining that this clearly anti-consumer practice needs to be done away with, where [...]

This story wasoriginally publishedby ProPublica.Republished under aCC BY-NC-ND 3.0license. In its term that ended last October, the Supreme Court passed an important milestone that went unnoticed: For the first time, it decided more cases by secret ballot, and with few signed opinions, than it did for cases argued in open court. These decisions, which make [...]

Well, it was fun while it lasted. And even while it still (theoretically) lasts, it's really nothing more than the Fifth Circuit saying rights can violated, but only for 90 days at a time. Earlier this month, the Fifth Circuit managed to deliver a very un-Fifth Circuit decision, finding in favor of rights and against [...]

Last year, the Marco Rubio-run State Department announced that it would start denying visas to people who worked in misinformation/disinformation research, content moderation, fact-checking, or other compliance and trust & safety roles. So, yeah, if you were an EU-based person who worked on preventing child sexual abuse material from appearing online, the US government decided [...]

Opusonix is the workflow-first platform built for music producers and engineers who are tired of endless email chains and scattered files. By centralizing feedback, versions, and tasks in one structured workspace, it helps you cut email traffic by up to 90% so you can focus more on creating and less on chasing approvals. From time-coded [...]

Donald Trump believes that being elected president means he should never be challenged, never be asked to justify his actions, and never be given less than absolute loyalty and deference. He also clearly believes the office is there to serve him, rather than there for him to serve the public. He's going to make bank [...]

In late 2024 the Biden FTC under Lina Khan passed new click to cancel" rules that made it easier to cancel subscriptions and services, promising to punish the worst offenders. It was a direct response to decades of sleazy behavior from companies (from AOL to the Wall Street Journal) that made cancelling services an overly [...]

Are you currently pooping yourself uncontrollably and want to know why? Well, the CDC made that slightly more difficult last year, but you might just have cyclosporiasis, the unintentional weight loss craze that is gripping parts of the country. The disease - cyclosporiasis - is a foodborne illness caused by a microscopic parasite called cyclospora. [...]

Paramount is now threatening California regulators that they'll be taking their ball and going home (to Texas? Israel?) after California and 11 other states filed an antitrust lawsuit against the company's unpopular $111 billion merger with Warner Brothers. Paramount leaked word of the nonexistent move to Semafor, which dutifully parroted the empty threat: Ellison's confidantes [...]

The central theme of Walled Culture the book (free digital versionsavailable) is the growing incompatibility between traditional copyright law and the digital, online world. The culmination of that process was theEU Copyright Directive, passed in 2019. The Directive was supposed to be transposed into local laws by 2021, but a year after that deadline, many [...]

Well, well, well. Last month we noted that Judge Kathleen Williams had agreed to reopen the incredibly sketchy case where Donald Trump (as President of the United States) sued his own IRS (which he controls) for $10 billion because a contractor (who was caught, tried, convicted, and is currently serving his sentence) had leaked tax [...]

The 2026 Data Engineering Bundle has 7 online courses designed to help learners build skills that align directly with industry expectations.The focus is on practical tools and languages used by data professionals: Python for programming, Pandas and NumPy for data manipulation, foundational certification prep and specialized work with Databricks, an industry-standard platform for data engineering [...]

This is pointless escalation, but pointless escalation is this administration's brand. We already know ICE officers have gone out of their way to aim their phones at protesters and others who try to derail their masked kidnapping squads. And we know - thanks to public records and leaked documents - ICE has access to facial [...]

A dozen states have filed an antitrust lawsuit to block Paramount/CBS' $111 billion merger with Warner Brothers. The states argue the deal will undermine market competition, cause untold layoffs, result in higher prices and lower quality for consumers, and significantly harm a Hollywood entertainment industry that still hasn't fully recovered from Covid, the streaming revolution, [...]

I'm not sure who out there is in RFK Jr.'s corner anymore, beyond some unfortunately powerful people in seats of federal power at the moment. That Kennedy's tenure at HHS has lasted even this long is as absurd as it is dangerous, given the mountains of chaos he's created in a mere year and change [...]

Recently, politicians in the UK pushed forward with plans to eviscerate privacy and free speech on the internet byannouncing a ban on social mediafor users under 16 that is set to take effect in Spring 2027. The UK government continues to falsely characterize this policy as a necessary response to growing concerns about online harms [...]

I think I've extensively explained at this point why the $111 billion merger between Paramount/CBS and Warner Brothers is a gargantuan pile of shit that will indisputably harm labor, consumers, markets, creatives, and potentially even national security. It doesn't matter the company names; every single major media merger of this type ends badly for everyone [...]

Less than a month ago, Trump secured himself a $400 million plane for free - something he certainly couldn't have accomplished if he weren't the president of the United States. It's no longer a mere appearance of corruption: it's a 250-foot long luxury plane with 2,500 square feet of tangible corruption. Here are some details [...]

We have all wanted to learn a language at some point but it's hard to get started. Some language learning tools can be complicated and very time-consuming. But with uTalk, you'll be speaking keywords and phrases in no time, and will start to see the results straight away. It helps you overcome the language barrier [...]

One thing that we've heard for many years in covering a variety of ridiculous civil and criminal court cases is the belief that when a crazy case is filed, the person accused of wrongdoing should just walk into court and tell the judge what really happened." While that might feel right, it's really not how [...]

For years I've noted that while Elon Musk's Starlink satellite broadband system can be very useful for people with no other options (warzones, RVs, boats, rural Americans), the network has struggled to maintain performance as it grows into more mainstream markets, resulting in not only widespread slowdowns, but also the company socking users with massive [...]

This week, our first place winner on the insightful side is Bloof with a comment about Wikipedia banning its co-founder: Guy was one of many people involved in the start of Wikipedia, left in a snit to start rival project after rival project more in line with his personal vision, each dying a death because [...]

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The long-rumored layoffs at Xbox have come and they are massive. We just recently discussed the mess that Microsoft's Xbox division has become. An internal email that was sent to staff by CEO Asha Sharma laid out just how bad things were, essentially preparing the staff for the forthcoming staffing cuts. Interestingly, this is the [...]

This story wasoriginally publishedby ProPublica.Republished under aCC BY-NC-ND 3.0license. Last month, my colleagues and I published aninvestigation into a Texas oil refinery startup, America First Refining, that had secretly gotten investment from Donald Trump Jr. We discovered a saga involving the Trump administration's tariff policy, sanctioned Russian oil and an Indian billionaire family's private zoo. [...]

Ctrl-Alt-Speech is a weekly podcast about the latest news in online speech, from Mike Masnick and Everything in Moderations Ben Whitelaw. Subscribe now on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify, Pocket Casts, YouTube, or your podcast app of choice - or go straight to the RSS feed. To get extended episodes with additional coverage, support us on [...]

Another senior Trump administration official is gleefully showing off his true colors: The current general counsel for the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) published an opinion column with the Heritage Foundation's news outlet The Daily Signal calling for stronger obscenity regulation. From the Founding through most of American history, courts allowed the legislature to control pornographic [...]