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Nearly two years ago, we wrote about a trademark opposition conflict in the UK between macro-distillery Campari and a tiny, one-man beer brewery operation called Dark Sky Brewery. Steve White, the owner/operator for Dark Sky Brewery, filed to trademark the name of his business. On the very last possible day of the objection window, Campari [...]

There's a lot of book banning going on right now in the Land of the Free. It's mostly localized to certain areas of the country - states and cities overseen by bigots who finally feel they're allowed to let their freak flag fly (instead of, or on top of the American flag which may or [...]

There's a broad legislative push for rules that would (supposedly) protect kids online. But as we've written about at length, while the concern for teen mental health might be genuine, the legislative response is highly problematic and based on a misdiagnosis of the underlying problems. This week, we're joined by UNC's Alice Marwick, one of [...]

So on Monday you probably saw that Apple announced it was more tightly integrating AI" into its mobile operating system, both via a suite of AI-powered tools dubbed Apple Intelligence, and tighter AI integration with its Siri voice assistant. It's not that big of a deal and (hopefully) reflects Apple's more cautious approach to AI [...]

We've written a few times about New York's preposterously bonkers SAFE for Kids Act" (SAFE standing for Stop Addictive Feeds Exploitation"). It's an obviously unconstitutional bill that insists, without any real evidence, that basically all social media algorithmic feeds are somehow addictive and problematic. Last week we posted a letter by a NY-based parent to [...]

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Retailers have increased their reliance on cameras over the years to cut down on retail theft. In more recent years, they've been adding more tech to their surveillance arsenal, including automatic plate readers in their parking lots and facial recognition capabilities to their existing CCTV networks. And yet, the nation is inundated with (mostly anomalous [...]

In 2023, Mozilla released a report noting that modern cars had theworst security and privacy standards of any major technology industry the organization tracks. That was followed by a great NYT report by Kashmir Hill earlier this year showing howautomakers routinely hoover up oodles of consumer driving and phone info, then sell access to that [...]

The idea/expression dichotomy strikes again! There is a misconception among some as to how copyright works, specifically in terms of what is protected under copyright and what is not. This has been distilled down to the afore-mentioned dichotomy, where general ideas do not enjoy the protection of copyright, whereas specific expressions do. So, an anthropomorphic [...]

Odor of marijuana" still remains - even in an era of widespread legalization - a favorite method of justifying warrantless searches. It's an odor, so it can't be caught on camera, which are becoming far more prevalent, whether they're mounted to cop cars, pinned to officers' chests, or carried by passersby. Any claim an odor [...]

There's a type of marginally frustrating reporting where a reporter searches social media for [insert bad thing], finds some examples of said [bad thing], and writes a story about This Platform Allows [Bad Thing]" followed by lots of public commentary about how the platforms don't care/don't do enough, etc. etc. Let me let you in [...]

Very few governments and government agencies value the transparency and accountability that robust open records laws create. It took an act of Congress to even establish a presumptive right of access to government records. And all across the United States, state governments are always trying to find some way to limit access without getting hit [...]

The Raspberry Pi and Arduino Bootcamp Bundle has 5 courses to help you dive into the world of hands-on programming. Courses cover Arduino, Raspberry Pi, and ROS2. It's on sale for $30. Note: The Techdirt Deals Store is powered and curated by StackCommerce. A portion of all sales from Techdirt Deals helps support Techdirt. The [...]

Would you freak out if you found out a judge was asking ChatGPT a question to help decide a case? Would you think that it was absurd and a problem? Well, one appeals court judge felt the same way... until he started exploring the issue in one of the most thoughtful explorations of LLMs I've [...]

I've noted more than a few times that the primary problem with U.S. journalism is the fact that most major media outlets are owned by out of touch billionaire brunchlords who genuinely don't understand the modern media environment, can't see their own gender, race, or class biases, and often have absolutely no earthly fucking idea [...]

This week, our first place winner on the insightful side is Stephen T. Stone with a comment about Trump threatening ProPublica, and our point that he remains exhibit A" for why anti-SLAPP laws are needed: The funny thing is, this statement could apply to a lot of situations: SLAPPs, campaign finance fraud, attempting to overthrow [...]

Five Years Ago This week in 2019, the FCC was remaining in denial about the lack of broadband competition, while we asked why all the antitrust attention was focused on Big Tech but not Big Telecom. Officials in Germany were pushing for encryption backdoors while Facebook was considering going ahead and undermining its own encryption [...]

Here we are again, with yet another in our series of posts describing how in these here modern times you simply don't actually own the things you've bought. This sort of thing takes many forms, of course. Sometimes the digital media you bought" gets disappeared by a platform after a licensing deal runs out. Sometimes [...]

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. In this week's round-up of the latest news in online [...]

ShotSpotter hasn't been doing all that well lately. While it's the market leader in acoustic detection tech for law enforcement, it has seen several large contracts slip through its re-branded fingers in recent months. While ShotSpotter executives and press releases tout the accuracy of its sensors, real-life experience hasn't been quite as stellar. Even if [...]

A year ago, Walled Culture wrote aboutan extremely important casethat was being considered by the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), the EU's top court. The central question was whether the judges considered that copyright was more important than privacy. Thebad newsis that the CJEU has just decided that it is: The Court, [...]

As the country most famous for enshrining civil rights, it sure seems like we spend a lot of time and money reminding the government of this fact. And it shouldn't need to be reminded! These rights were defined by the government and considered inherent to American life. They weren't granted. They were recognized as natural [...]

You probably already know the benefits of learning a language, so let's focus on the app. Right off the bat, let's be clear about one thing: When we say app" we don't mean that you're limited to using Babbel on your phone. You can use Babbel on desktop, too, and your progress is synchronized across [...]

What if banning social media from schools actually put kids at even greater risk? One of the more annoying things in talking about tech policy is how many people refuse to think one step ahead about how the world reacts to their policy proposals. We've talked about this in many contexts, but one that keeps [...]

Now that streaming subscriber growth has slowed, we've noted repeatedly how the streaming TV sector is falling into all of the bad habits that ultimately doomed traditional cable TV. That has involved chasing pointless growth of growth's sake" megamergers and imposing bottomless price hikes and new annoying restrictions - all while simultaneously cutting corners on [...]

You know what kind of person kills animals on the regular? Psychopaths, at least according to a casual survey of pop culture references. You know who else? Cops. But I repeat myself. Laurel Matthews, a supervisory program specialist with the Department of Justice's Community Oriented Policing Services (DOJ COPS) office, says it's an awful lot. [...]

All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others." I'm sure you'll recall specifically which type of animal on George Orwell's Animal Farm made that proclamation. In other words, we're back to Orwellian lawmaking in this country. And not the usual kind. The 9/11 attacks in 2001 led to one sort of Orwellian [...]

Correction & Retraction: The original BBC article implied that the NY Times was threatening Worldle and demanding it change its name. That now appears to be incorrect, and it simply opposed letting Worldle register its own trademark, noting that it was too close to its own Wordle. Which... is not a crazy interpretation. While the [...]

Editor's note: We've written a few times about NY's SAFE for Kids Act" and it's many problems. There's a decent chance that bill gets voted into law this week. Samuel Johnson posted a wonderfully detailed letter about why he, as a parent, opposes the law, and sent it to his elected officials. He also posted [...]

The Complete ChatGPT Artificial Intelligence OpenAI Training Bundle has 4 beginner-friendly courses to help you become more comfortable with the capabilities of OpenAI and ChatGPT. You'll learn how to write effective prompts to get the best results, how to create blog posts and sales copy, and how to create your own chatbots. It's on sale [...]

EU internet regulations and courts never fail to stupefy. The entire concept of shadowbanning" has gotten distorted and changed over time. Originally, shadowbanning was a tool for dealing with trolls in certain forums. The shadowbanned trolls would see their own posts in the forums, but no one else could see them. The trolls would think [...]

Back in April the Biden FCC finally got around to restoring both net neutrality rules, and the agency's Title II authority over telecom providers. The modest rules, as we've covered extensively, prevent big telecom giants from abusing their monopoly and gatekeeper power to harm competitors or consumers. They also require that ISPs be transparent about [...]

We recently discussed Spotify's decision to completely brick the Car Thing products it sold to customers up until very recently. While this was a very niche product without a ton of adoption, Spotify's decision caught my attention for two reasons. First, the company could have updated the devices it didn't want to support any longer [...]

Minnesota is the latest state to eliminate a pointless state ban on community owned and operated broadband networks ghost written by the telecom lobby. New legislation, just signed into law by Gov. Tim Walz, eliminates two statutes that sought to protect large monopoly telecommunications providers from community-based competition. Minnesota is one of 17 (now 16) [...]

In the last year, the Canadian rap artist Drake has embroiled himself in several high profile controversies involving AI-generated music. The ongoing saga underscores how existing laws apply to artificial intelligence, dispelling the myth that AI, including AI music, is unregulated. In April 2023, TikTok user ghostwriter977 released Heart on My Sleeve," featuring AI-generated vocals [...]

This is an interesting case with some very serious implications. For the most part, anything discarded by a suspect fleeing from law enforcement officers can be searched or seized without a warrant. For years, this wasn't necessarily a problem. The stuff discarded ranged from bags containing substances" to wallets to the occasional backpack. The intrusion [...]

When I posted my defense of the Supreme Court's 303 Creative decision, a common criticism was that the principle the decision vindicated was likely to only be upheld in situations where discriminatory social values were being advanced and not situations where it was inclusive ones. While I don't think that's a reason to criticize the [...]

MagStack is the perfect on-the-go wireless charging station that also transforms into a phone stand for FaceTime or video playback while charging. This 3-in-1 foldable design featuring 3 wireless charging spots, enables charging for up to 3 devices simultaneously, including iPhone, Apple Watch, AirPods Pro, AirPods with Wireless Charging Case, other Qi-compatible Android phones, and [...]

It's a running joke here at Techdirt that many elected officials in charge of copyright policy seem wholly ignorant of the subject. But sometimes, it's still shocking when people who should definitely know better brazenly parade their cluelessness. Enter Jerry Nadler, the highest-ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, and a man who has been [...]

Fifth-generation wireless (5G) was supposed to change the world. According to wireless carriers and gear makers, not only was it supposed to bring about the fourth industrial revolution," it was supposed to usher forth amazing new smart cities and help withcancer treatment.Wireless giants routinely portrayed a world full of 5G powered robots giving tattoos or [...]

The Wild West we all imagine contains two forms of law: the brave people who've decided to be sheriffs. And the vigilantes who perform frontier justice when not cashing in bounties while ignoring the enshrined civil rights (the Constitution came out ahead of the Wild West, non-American folks) of the people they beat, tortured, threatened, [...]

Depending on just how often you use Google News, you may have noticed that Google News was down recently. Down hard. No, it wasn't just you;GoogleNews suffered a pretty sizable outage this morning, impacting the service on desktop and mobile. Impacted users took toDowndetectorand social media to note the issues and that no stories were [...]

At the latest committee hearing about its repeal bill, Congress finally deigned to bring in one witness who spoke in defense of Section 230. Engine Executive Director Kate Tummarello got a little bit of time to explain how Section 230 isn't about protecting big tech, it's about protecting the hosts and users of all kinds [...]

This was entirely predictable, but it's still worth calling out. Donald Trump, who started the whole we should ban TikTok" idea before changing his mind as soon as Joe Biden decided it was a good idea (and a billionaire Trump backer who also was heavily invested in TikTok gave Trump a call), is now joining [...]

Here's yet more unsurprising news about Israeli malware developer NSO Group and its preferred customers. More phones infected by NSO's flagship Pegasus malware have been discovered by Citizen Lab researchers. And yet again those targeted are journalists, critics, dissidents, and opposition leaders. The latest investigation identifies seven additional Russian and Belarusian-speaking members of civil society [...]

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ProPublica has quite a scoop of a story, highlighting how various witnesses and potential witnesses in the long list of lawsuits Donald Trump is facing, suddenly, coincidentally, seem to be getting large payouts from Trump, his companies, and his campaign. The benefits have flowed from Trump's businesses and campaign committees, according to a ProPublica analysis [...]

The FCC's Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP), part of the 2021 infrastructure bill, provided23+ millionlow-income households a $30 broadband discount every month. But the roughly 60 million Americans benefiting from the program are now facing much higher broadband bills because key Republicans - who routinely dole out billions of dollars onfardumberfare-refused to fund a $4-$7 billion [...]

In my basement at home, I have a handful of old gaming consoles that were left to our family after other family members either got too old to want them any longer or after they passed away. Coming along with them are a handful of games for those consoles. As a result of the physical [...]

Kind of an odd bit of Fourth Amendment jurisprudence here, given all the factors. (h/t FourthAmendment.com) Obviously, some conversations have an expectation of privacy, even when they're held in police interrogation rooms. Those would be ones between the suspect and their legal representation. But that's not really a Fourth Amendment issue as it is about [...]