Techdirt

You may have seen some headlines recently about some authors filing lawsuits against OpenAI. The lawsuits (plural, though I'm confused why it's separate attempts at filing a class action lawsuit, rather than a single one) began last week, when authors Paul Tremblay and Mona Awad sued OpenAI and various subsidiaries, claiming copyright infringement in how [...]

When it comes to Fox News' democracy-soiling propaganda, there's not a whole lot the federal government has been able to do. The First Amendment generally protects the network's ability to spew race-baiting conspiratorial bile, and the nation's top media regulator, the FCC, generally either lacks the authority or backbone to stop the news" channel from [...]

Although overall theEU Copyright Directiveis bad news for the digital world because of things like its need for the use of automatedupload filters, it does contain a few glimmers of good sense. For example, it rectifies a failing of the previous EU legislation in this area, the2001 Infosec Directive. The 2001 law allowed Member States [...]

A few months ago, when the EU designated 17 companies as VLOPs" - Very Large Online Providers - subject to the most stringent regulations, one name that I heard lots of folks in the US be confused about was Zalando, which is a large EU-focused online retailer. It was also one of only two companies [...]

Here we go again. It was only a month ago that Karl Bode wrote about Disney's absolutely and totally cool process of removing a bunch of content from its Disney Plus streaming platform not because the content sucks and nobody liked it, but because it gets to play accounting tricks as to its assets in [...]

As you'll recall, Reddit CEO Steve Huffman whined about what he called the landed gentry" among moderators of subreddits that were protesting his ridiculous extractive API changes. He insisted that perhaps things should be more democratic. In response, many subreddits took a vote on how subscribers to those subreddits wanted the mods to handle things, [...]

People are finding cool new (probably illegal) ways to unmask people they want to sue. In this case, it's a guy who didn't like some things said about him. But in order to get a libel lawsuit going, the plaintiff needs to have a defendant to sue. Here's where all the bad faith begins, as [...]

End the frustration of carrying tangled cables and the bulkiness of multiple accessories forever with this WonderCube Pro. This is the smallest all-in-one mobile solution that carries 8 smartphone essentials right at your fingertips. This device features a 1'' foldout flexible USB cord that measures 3'' when extended. It has a built-in gold-plated connector that [...]

Back in January there was some hope that the panel of judges hearing the latest version of the challenge to FOSTA's constitutionality had recognized the problems with the law. That's because during oral arguments they seemed to express skepticism about its constitutionality, noting that it appeared to criminalize any efforts to legalize prostitution. But as [...]

During peak pandemic, the FCC launched the Emergency Broadband Benefit (EBB program), giving lower income Americans a $50 ($75 for those in tribal lands) discount off of their broadband bill. Under the program, the government gave money to ISPs, which then doled out discounts to users if they qualified. But (and I'm sure this will [...]

This week, our first place winner on the insightful side is Cdevon2 with a response to the notion that it's somehow ironic for people who wanted to leave Twitter to be complaining about not being able to read tweets: You assume that the same people who are actively leaving the site are the ones complaining [...]

Five Years Ago This week in 2018, the latest text of the EU Copyright Directive showed it to be even more disastrous than expected. Thus, its defenders and apologists were busy responding variously with substance-free denial, vague defenses lacking any understanding of the issues, accidental revelations of the true scope of their internet-destroying goals, and [...]

The ongoing saga that is Microsoft's attempt to purchase Activision Blizzard continues! As a brief review of the scoreboard will show: the EU has approved the purchase, the UK's CMA has blocked it and Microsoft has appealed that decision, and the lawsuit brought by the FTC in the States is currently in the pretrial phase. [...]

NetChoice has been quite busy the last few years suing to stop a wide variety of terrible state laws designed to mess up parts of the internet. It took on Florida's social media content moderation law and won (twice). It took on Texas' social media content moderation law and won at the district court, and [...]

The Internet is amazing, but it's not perfect. There are many aspects that are unsatisfactory - its protocols are inefficient, and it is far from resilient. The InterPlanetary File System,created in 2014, aims to address some of these deficiencies.On its main siteit is described as: A peer-to-peer hypermedia protocol designed to preserve and grow humanity's [...]

It appears the race is on to see whether it will be the EU or the US in promulgating worse regulations around generative AI tools. The EU (as has been its MO over the last few years) is taking the lead. A few weeks back the EU Parliament passed a draft regulation for AI. There's [...]

Late last year, Senator Josh Hawley - the fist-pumping supporter of Trump-approved insurrection - generated the last bit of his Missouri state government legacy. Having been successfully sued for violating state public records laws while acting as the state attorney general, Hawley was ordered to pay $12,000 by Judge Jon Beetem. The total bill included [...]

Scrivener is the go-to app for writers of all kinds, used every day by best-selling novelists, screenwriters, non-fiction writers, students, academics, lawyers, journalists, translators, and more. Scrivener won't tell you how to write-it simply provides everything you need to start writing and keep writing. Scrivener makes it easy to structure ideas, write a first draft, [...]

There have been a bunch of attempts over the last few years to try to get around Section 230, and to sue various websites under a negligence" theory under the law, arguing that the online service was somehow negligent in failing to protect a user, and therefore Section 230 shouldn't apply. Some cases have been [...]

While recent evolutions in AI" have netted some profoundly interesting advancements in creativity and productivity, its early implementation in journalism has been a sloppy mess thanks to some decidedly human-based problems: namely greed and laziness. If you remember, the cheapskates over at Red Ventures implemented AI over at CNET without telling anybody. The result: articles [...]

The depressing tale of how the European Union passed copyright's worst new law, the EU Copyright Directive, occupies some 36 pages in Walled Culture the book (digital versionsavailable free). The main legislation was finalized over four years ago, but countries are still grappling with the problem of implementing its sometimes contradictory requirements in national laws. [...]

Just fucking fight it out already. The whole stupid cage match" brawl thing was started when Meta execs made some (accurate) cracks about Elon's management of Twitter, and Elon couldn't handle it. But, now with the launch of Meta's Threads, Elon feels the need to send a ridiculously laughable legal threat to Meta. Elon's legal [...]

Never mind fitting the description, even though that, too, has its own problems. In Texas, it apparently only matters how your name is spelled. If you share a name with a criminal suspect, the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals has said you have no recourse if you're wrongly arrested and detained for multiple days. That [...]

As you may have heard, yesterday Meta finally launched Threads, its Twitter-like microblogging service, built on ActivityPub, but using Instagram account credentials for login. The reaction from across the internet has been fascinating. I've seen everything from people insisting that this will clearly finally be the one single Twitter killer" everyone's been waiting for, to [...]

Last week's 6-3 decision in the 303 Creative v. Elenis case, with all the conservative justices vindicating a website designer's ability to refuse to build a website celebrating gay marriage, may seem at first glance to be a blow to gay rights. And maybe that's what some or all of the six justices in the [...]

Learn Spanish, French, Italian, German, and many more languages with Babbel. Developed by over 100 expert linguists, Babbel is helping millions of people speak and understand a new language quickly, and with confidence. After just one month, you will be able to speak about practical topics, such as transportation, dining, shopping, directions, making friends, and [...]

One has to think that Donald Trump judicial appointee Judge Terry Doughty deliberately waited until July 4th (when the courts are closed) to release his ruling on the requested preliminary injunction preventing the federal government from communicating with social media companies. The results of the ruling are not a huge surprise, given Doughty's now recognized [...]

We've documented extensively how the AT&T->Time Warner->Warner Brothers Discovery mergers have been a gargantuan pointless mess, resulting in tens of thousands of layoffs, widespread animosity across Hollywood, the death or decay of numerous popular brands (from Mad Magazine to HBO), weird holes in streaming catalogs, and just a shittier, dumber product overall. While the first [...]

Does this look like someone carrying a gun? That's from a recent federal court decision [PDF], granting defendant Luis Cerda's motion to suppress. NYPD sergeant Christopher Colon saw something else. He saw a gun. He needed to see a gun. He was so desperate to bust someone else entirely (Alberto Santiago, a.k.a. Dot Com") that [...]

One of the most pernicious ideas that copyright maximalism has spread is that preventing people from freely accessing creative material is not just a good thing to do, but should be the natural state of affairs. This has made questioning whether copyright is really the best way to support artists and promote creativity hard. Against [...]

We, as a nation, spend hundreds of billions every year to ensure law enforcement agencies are staffed well enough to provide, at best, semi-competent service. We spend billions every year on lawsuit settlements generated by officers who can't even manage to provide semi-competent service without violating constitutional rights. You get what you pay for, they [...]

Way back in 2005 I wrote about the launch of Amazon Prime, talking about the trade offs of joining this shipping club" as I called it then. If you look at that post now, it has nearly 600 comments. However, the first comment didn't even get added until over a year after I posted the [...]

Cyber security. It's complicated. Protecting against threats means determining what your threat level is. Demanding everyone utilize a 53-character password with uppercase letters, numbers, and special symbols" generally just makes people more irritated, rather than more secure. Obviously, things must be secured. And passwords shouldn't be so simple that anyone with an off-the-shelf HP desktop [...]

StackSkills is the premier online learning platform for mastering today's most in-demand skills. Now, with this exclusive limited-time offer, you'll gain access to 1000+ StackSkills courses for life! Whether you're looking to earn a promotion, make a career change, or pick up a side hustle to make some extra cash, StackSkills delivers engaging online courses [...]

Our most popular post last year was my post attempting to help Elon Musk speedrun" the content moderation learning curve. People still talk to me about that post to this day. What's been somewhat surprising to me, however, is that while nearly every other social media site eventually figures out the basics of the content [...]

One of the benefits of the shift to streaming music and video was supposed to be (and often is), convenience. As in, you'd have access to any show you'd like, at any time, without having to go hunting and pecking through old VHS archives. And while streaming delivered on many of its original promises, as [...]

This week, our first place winner on the insightful side is Stephen T. Stone passing on an update on the Reddit protests: Also worth noting: The official subreddit for Minecraft got a little less official earlier this week: As you have no doubt heard by now, Reddit management introduced changes recently that have led to [...]

Five Years Ago This week in 2018, a court shut down attempts by ISPs to use the net neutrality repeal to dodge lawsuits for bad service, while California was trying to keep its push for its own net neutrality law alive (at the same time as lobbyists were descending on the state to shape a [...]

The ignorance of cops is almost always their saving grace. If they can't reasonably" know the intricacies of the laws they uphold or the rights they're supposed to respect, they're too stupid to be punished for their wrongdoing. That's how qualified immunity works. And that's why it behooves police departments to keep officers in the [...]

I continue to be fascinated in watching how the various decentralized protocol-based social media systems are evolving - in particular how they're dealing with the challenges of content moderation. There was an interesting discussion a recently on nostr over whether or not moderation should be best handled by relays or clients*. ActivityPub has, of course, [...]

Mandatory age verification rules are entering force in Mississippi and Virginia. Mississippi has a population of barely 3 million people. Virginia has a population of over 8.6 million people. Like Utah (population over 3 million) back in May, one of the world's most popular adult tube websites chose to block IP addresses from both of [...]

Lots of states are pitching, passing, or enacting bills effectively banning drag shows. Piggybacking on existing regulations governing adult entertainment, hateful people are seeking to punish people who don't happily abide by the there are two genders" social construct. Fortunately, these people are losing. A federal court recently dumped Utah's attempt to punish drag performers [...]

This isn't a huge surprise, as they'd already suggested they would do this, but Google has announced officially that it will block news links in Canada to avoid having to pay to send traffic to Canadian news sources. We have now informed the Government that when the law takes effect, we unfortunately will have to [...]

An anonymous Louisiana cop who sued, in this order: still manages to have a viable lawsuit seven years later. It boggles the mind. Officer John Doe was policing an anti-police violence protest allegedly organized by activist Deray Mckesson. This demonstration resulted in the blocking of a freeway, resulting in a significant police presence. Someone in [...]

This Lamp Depot Minimalist LED Corner Floor Lamp is a beautifully designed, space-saving lamp that fits perfectly in the corners of your living room, dining room, bedroom, guest room, or office. This minimalist lamp features soft-white, integrated LEDs that will provide hours of customized illumination. The easy-to-use remote control makes it simple to shuffle through [...]

You don't need to be some fortune teller to predict some of this stuff. A year ago, after he had announced his plans to buy Twitter (but before he tried to back out, and then was eventually forced to complete the purchase), we were horrified to see Elon Musk meet with the top EU's Commissioner [...]

We just got done noting how the AT&T->Time Warner->Warner Bros Discovery mergers just keep on demonstrating the absolutely pointlessness of most media mergers. The combined companies spent hundreds of billions of dollars on elaborate, costly acquisitions that never got close to delivering the kind of synergies" dealmakers promised. Instead, the string of mergers resulted in [...]

We've spent a good deal of time talking about burger chain In-N-Out's habit for engaging in trademark tourism all over the globe. If you're not familiar with how this works, the company will apply for a trademark in various countries, all of which typically have use requirements in order to maintain the mark, and then [...]

There are some fairly strict rules about communicating with government agency employees regarding some matter that they're adjudicating, without making those communications public. We want whatever administrative state we have to have any attempts to influence outcomes to be public for all to see. That's why agencies have rules regarding what's known as ex parte" [...]

For years we've noted how cable companies routinely screw you over with all manner of bullshit fees. One Consumer Reports study found that roughly 25 percent of your cable bill is made up of completely nonsensical fees, designed to let companies advertise one rate, then sock you with a much higher bill. It's estimated this [...]