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The murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin was a flashpoint for police reform efforts around the nation. Cops had been killing unarmed minorities for years but this one was so spectacularly brutal and symbolic of institutional racism (a white cop pressing his knee to a black man’s neck), it couldn’t be […]

The Washington Post dropped what it pretended was a bit of a bombshell. In the story, Google software engineer Blake Lemoine implied that Google’s Language Model for Dialogue Applications (LaMDA) system, which pulls from Google’s vast data and word repositories to generate realistic, human-sounding chatbots, had become fully aware and sentient. He followed that up with […]

The Uvalde Police Department — which currently avails itself of 40% of the town’s budget — did nearly nothing to stop an extremely horrific school shooting that resulted in 19 dead children, two dead teachers, and 17 others being wounded. While Robb Elementary turned into a bloodbath, Uvalde officers retreated after a couple of flesh […]

The Supreme Court has been very reluctant to handle cases that might expand protections for American citizens. It has instead, in recent years, chosen to hand down decisions that curtail rights and make it far easier for government employees to escape lawsuits. This Supreme Court’s decision in a lawsuit filed by a US citizen versus […]

Are you a fan of solving puzzles? Do you like winning money? Then MSCHF has a treat for you. MSCHF, the makers of THE ONE MILLION DOLLAR PUZZLE, now brings you THE TWO MILLION DOLLAR PUZZLE. All you have to do is buy this 500-piece jigsaw puzzle, complete it, and get a chance to win […]

Here on Techdirt, we’ve written about a bunch of John Oliver’s Last Week Tonight shows that are quite frequently directly in agreement with what we write about on Techdirt. We’re often impressed at the level of detail and nuance he’s able to approach complex issues with, while (of course) keeping things quite funny. I know […]

Usually when people start whining about the propaganda dumpster fire that is Fox News, several things predictably happen. First, somebody with no idea how any of this works will yell out something about how the FCC should ban Fox from doing this (which is unconstitutional), or restore the mythologized Fairness Doctrine (which wouldn’t have applied […]

One of deep-seated problems with copyright is that its supporters believe everything created should be “owned” by someone and protected from being “stolen” by others. We’ve already written about how that’s a bad fit for writing music, and NBC News has a fascinating story about how the same issue is plaguing a very different world – […]

A new report on asset forfeiture arrives at the same conclusions every other report on the subject has: forfeiture makes money for cops, does almost nothing to stop illegal activity, and rarely, if ever, results in criminal convictions. (via CJ Ciaramella at Reason) The new report [PDF], put together by the Americans for Prosperity Foundation […]

Don’t think this headline is hyperbole; as this post will explain, it is not. But what follows here isn’t just about books, Amazon, or even Paxton himself. What the headline captures is but one example of the catastrophic upshot to the long-concerning INFORM Act bill, should it get passed, as may now happen, what with […]

Remember when Republicans pretended they were the party of fiscal responsibility, not wasting taxpayer money, and limited government? Sure, sure, you say, that was all just sloganeering, and never actually true in practice, but it’s really starkly on display in Florida, where governor (and wannabe 2024 Presidential candidate) Ron DeSantis has taken this all to […]

ID.me hasn’t always been a government contractor powerhouse. For more than a decade, it wasn’t really on anybody’s radar. The personal identification software began as a Craigslist for military personnel before morphing into an ID service designed to combat fraud and ensure military members could access the many government programs available to them. Not exactly […]

The Microsoft Office Professional 2021 for Windows And MBA/Finance Courses Bundle comes with a lifetime license for Microsoft Office 2021 Professional. It also includes three courses: one covers starting a business, another covers finance, accounting, modeling, and valuation, and the third covers financial analysis and investing. The bundle is on sale for $60. Note: The […]

A whole bunch of people over the last month have sent me Jonathan Haidt’s essay in The Atlantic, “Why the Past 10 Years of American Life Have Been Uniquely Stupid,” and asked for my thoughts. Haidt’s basic premise is that the problem is social media. It’s more complex and nuanced than that, and there are […]

We’ve noted a few times how there’s an absolutely historic amount of money being thrown at the “digital divide” this year. The broadband infrastructure bill alone designates $42 billion to expanding broadband access. Billions more in COVID relief money started flowing this week courtesy of the Treasury Department. According to an announcement by the agency, […]

This week, our first place winner on the insightful side is Toom1275 with a comment about the USPS seizing “defund the police” facemasks: Oh look, an actual rights violation by an actual common carrier. In second place, it’s a comment from Naughty Autie (that also won second place for Funny), responding to another commenter’s thoughts […]

Five Years Ago This week in 2017, the Sixth Circuit was the latest court to say real-time cellphone location tracking is not a Fourth Amendment issue, and the Supreme Court finally decided to take up the question. Tom Cotton introduced a bill to renew Section 702 surveillance forever, just as Congress was getting pretty mad […]

We have written several times about the “true fans” idea as an alternative approach to the traditional remuneration models employed by the copyright industry players, such as publishers, recording companies and film studios. It’s a simple approach: get the people who really love an artist’s work to support it directly, and in advance, rather than […]

In news that will surprise basically no one, Truth Social, Trump’s social network that was pitched as being about bringing free speech back and not doing any “viewpoint discrimination,” even as its terms of service promised it would be heavily moderated, is now banning users for trying to spread some “truths” about the January 6 […]

Last week, New York State became the first state to pass right to repair legislation. The bill was the culmination of years of consumer frustration with repair monopolies, obnoxious DRM, shrinking repair access, high repair costs, and impossible to find tools, parts, and documentation. While the bill only covered some consumer electronics, activists hope it […]

It’s no secret that China wants to erase from history the student protests at Tiananmen Square, and the resulting massacre by the government, but it keeps proving more and more difficult in the internet age. Even with China’s infamous Great Firewall. The latest example is really quite striking. Li Jiaqi is an astoundingly popular social […]

The Third Party doctrine has helped invert/pervert probable cause. Third parties (Google, AT&T, Facebook, etc.) gather tons of data that can be useful to law enforcement. When cops are looking for suspects but have no idea who to suspect, they turn to these third parties. In some cases, they can get plenty of data with […]

MiniTool Power Data Recovery Personal is the most cost-effective data recovery program for all common Windows system users. The 100% clean data recovery software for Windows enables you to recover unlimited data (deleted or lost) from Windows computers, memory/SD cards, USB flash drives, external hard drives, etc. It supports various data loss situations with fast […]

We spent a few years warning people about the terrible EU Terrorist content regulation law, but as of this week, it’s now in effect, and websites will have one hour to remove any terrorist content that is flagged to them by any government official. If they fail to remove the content, they could face fines […]

For years we’ve written about how unchecked telecom and media monopolization and consolidation results in all manner of problems, from sparse broadband connectivity to high prices. We’ve also discussed how the speed of that consolidation over the decades, combined with Wall Street’s insatiable thirst for quarterly returns at any cost, comes with a sacrifice of […]

While trademark disputes regularly annoy me for a variety of reasons which I cover on this site, the most annoying ones of all are usually over trademarks that the USPTO never should have granted in the first place. Remember the Square Donuts thing? That mark was descriptive. ESPN’s “Saturday Night Football” mark? Also descriptive. Or […]

Last chance to get your boxed copy of CIA: Collect It All! Two months ago, we posted what seemed like a last call on selling out the remaining stock of our version of the CIA’s card training game (that we originally Kickstarted a few years ago). A few people complained that they didn’t want to […]

We’ve been talking about the problems of the US government setting up a copyright trolling small claims court for over a decade now. But, Congress finally passed a law to create one (with no debate and no hearings) by sneaking it into a “must-pass” funding bill at the end of the year in 2020. It’s […]

The federal government has unlimited money to burn. That’s how we end up here with the federal government being told for a second time that it can’t walk away from a civil lawsuit just because it unilaterally decided to stop violating the plaintiff’s rights. US citizen Yonas Fikre’s lawsuit made its way to the Ninth […]

Could Paramount Pictures have actually lost the copyright to Top Gun, even as it was releasing a new Top Gun movie? That’s the claim in a new lawsuit that goes pretty deep into the copyright weeds, touching on two ridiculous topics that we like to write about on Techdirt: termination rights and movie rights. For […]

The Ultimate Project and Quality Management Certification Training Bundle has 10 courses to help you become a better project manager. Courses cover CompTIA Project+, Agile, PMI, and more. It’s on sale for $59. Note: The Techdirt Deals Store is powered and curated by StackCommerce. A portion of all sales from Techdirt Deals helps support Techdirt. […]

With the whole Congressional January 6th Committee effort moving into prime time this week, this is probably pretty far down on the list of issues around it, but apparently Twitter is quietly fighting demands from the Committee to reveal internal communications. The social media giant is asserting a First Amendment privilege to push back on […]

Antitrust and telecom experts warned anybody who’d listen that the Sprint and T-Mobile merger (which reduced the number of major U.S. wireless players from four to three) would eventually result in layoffs and higher prices for everybody. The layoffs were quick to arrive (T-Mobile laid off more than 5,000 employees before the ink was dry), […]

Too often we assume that copyright is something that only concerns Western nations like the US and EU. But it’s important to remember that copyright has been exported all around the world. Moreover, when Western nations make copyright worse, they then try to convince other countries to adopt the same bad ideas, for example through the […]

We’ve noted for a few months how telecom and media giants are engaged in a full court press to scuttle the nomination of popular anti-monopolist and reformer Gigi Sohn to the FCC. Sohn’s broadly popular and highly qualified, so the telecom lobby has taken to running a broad smear campaign falsely accusing her of hating […]

Finding people near you with shared interests, and talking to them, has a very long history in human culture. We’re social animals. We need to find other people close to us to work together with, play games with, and build relationships and families with. Modern online social networks are built on top of those basic […]

We’ve pointed this out a few times over the past year. The main antitrust bills that are floating around both the House and the Senate only have Republican support because they have a trojan horse hidden in them that will make it much more difficult for the biggest websites to do any moderation on Republican […]

This kind of hubris can only be explained by massive self-delusion. It’s not pretty but at least the denouement is wholly justified. Last January, Kashmir Hill published an investigation that uncovered the source of serial, widespread online defamation. The perpetrator was Toronto resident Nadire Atas, who engaged in a one-woman war against everyone she felt […]

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Okay, so, it was just a few weeks ago that a teenager went into an elementary school and killed 21 people, including 19 children. You might think there are important things about that which should draw the attention of the state’s top lawyer. Attorney General Ken Paxton is a busy man. He’s running for a […]

During the crypto, NFT, and “web3” era there’s been no limit of hype regarding the (largely money making) potential of the ever-evolving internet. Less cared about during the metaverse hype era has been foundational but less sexy policy issues like anti-monopolization, or affordable and even broadband coverage. That’s once again evident by the news that […]

When someone mentions Las Vegas, a couple of things are likely to leap directly into your brain. Gambling and casinos, but of course. Perhaps magic shows, too. And, obviously, Elvis. Yes, the idea of Elvis-themed weddings in Las Vegas has reached trope status. But Authentic Brands Group (ABG) would like to put a stop to […]

The Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department has long contended it has no gang problem. We’re not talking about the many gangs roaming the streets of Los Angeles. We’re talking about the cliques formed by deputies that identify themselves with patches, tattoos, tactics, and a general disregard for the rights of the people they serve. The LASD […]

This week is Engine’s second annual Patent Quality Week, focused on the many ways that the patent system allows low-quality patents to get through, the problems this causes, and what can be done about it. On this week’s episode, we’re joined by Abby Rives and Charles Duan for a discussion all about why patent quality […]

It’s entirely possible that there’s a different backstory to the whole Elon/Twitter mess, but from everything that’s happened so far, the story sure looks like (1) Elon decided to buy Twitter on a whim without recognizing either the risks or the actual challenges in pulling together a deal, (2) almost immediately started regretting it, especially […]

UPDATE: Since this post’s composition over the weekend, there has been a notable development. Axon has, for the moment, pulled the ends of its toes from overhanging the precipice. It only took the resignation of most of the Ethics Board (nine of twelve members) to force the company to reconsider its move towards offering schools […]

The refurbished HP EliteBook pairs a fast processor with 8GB of RAM to help make multitasking easier, and its speedy 256 solid-state drive can house your essential media, games, and other data. It also features three USB ports so you can make the most of your system by expanding it with peripheral devices. This laptop […]

We’ve had to publish many, many articles highlighting just how badly the mainstream media has misrepresented Section 230, with two of the worst culprits being the NY Times and the Wall Street Journal. Professor Eric Goldman now points us to an incredible 200 page masters thesis by a journalism student at UNC named Kathryn Alexandria […]

New York State has become the first state in the country to pass “right to repair” legislation taking direct aim at repair monopolies. The bill itself mandates that hardware manufacturers make diagnostic and repair information available to consumers and independent repair shops at “fair and reasonable terms.” The bill notably doesn’t include vehicles, home appliances, […]

“Defund the police!” people shouted as cops continued to kill unarmed black people in ways that went far past “subjectively defensive” into “objectively racist.” Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin knelt on the neck of George Floyd for ten minutes, personifying 300 years of white oppression of black people. Floyd died, suspected of nothing more than […]