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Here We Go Again: German Courts Reopen The “Is Ad Blocking Copyright Infringement?” Nonsense We Thought We’d Put To Bed

1 hour 14 minutes ago
It’s no secret that most publishers (though not us!) hate ad blockers. The idea that ad blockers are illegal or “an attack on free speech” get trotted out every so often, and they’re always silly. You should have control over how your own browser on your own computer works. That’s an important freedom. And that […]
Mike Masnick

Daily Deal: Headway Premium

1 hour 19 minutes ago
Unlock a world of knowledge with a Headway Premium subscription. This exclusive deal gives you unlimited access to Headway’s massive library of 1500+ book summaries, with 30-50 new ones added monthly. Cover any topic you can imagine, from personal development and business strategies to health and wellness. It’s on sale for $60. Use the code READ20 at […]
Daily Deal

GOP-Friendly Local ‘News’ Broadcasters Plan More Harmful Mergers After Trump Destroys What’s Left Of Media Consolidation Limits

6 hours 42 minutes ago
During Trump 1.0, his FCC took at absolute hatchet to media ownership limits. Those limits, built on the back of decades of bipartisan collaboration, prohibited local broadcasters and media from growing too large, trampling smaller (and more diversely-owned) competitors underfoot. The result of their destruction has been a rise in local news deserts, a lot of right wing […]
Karl Bode

The Threat Of Extreme Statutory Damages For Copyright Almost Certainly Made Anthropic Settle With Authors

20 hours 27 minutes ago
In what may be the least surprising news in the world of copyright and the internet, Anthropic just agreed to settle the copyright lawsuit that everyone’s been watching, but not for the reasons most people think. This isn’t about AI training being found to infringe copyright—in fact, Anthropic won on that issue. Instead, it’s about […]
Mike Masnick

Were A Few Random DEI Programs Worth Killing Democracy?

23 hours 54 minutes ago
Eight months ago, those of us actually paying attention—not just scrolling outrage bait about Biden’s age or the latest campus controversy, but genuinely tracking the systematic preparation for authoritarian rule—warned that Trump represented an existential threat to democratic governance. We were diagnosed with “Trump Derangement Syndrome.” The reasonable people explained, with infinite patience, that we […]
Mike Brock

Daily Deal: The Learn to Code with React Bundle

1 day 1 hour ago
The Learn to Code with React Bundle has 9 courses to help you learn more about React, Redux, and JavaScript. Used by the likes of Instagram, Facebook, Netflix, and Imgur, React is an efficient and flexible JavaScript library for building user interfaces. Meanwhile, Redux is a predictable state container that helps you manage the data […]
Daily Deal

Louisiana Sues Roblox For Violating Privacy Law By Not Violating Privacy Law

1 day 2 hours ago
How do you comply with a law that prohibits collecting personal information from children under 13? If you said “by not collecting personal information from children under 13,” congratulations, you understand the law better than Louisiana’s Attorney General. The state of Louisiana has filed a lawsuit against Roblox that includes what might be one of […]
Mike Masnick

Senator Wyden Slams U.S. Judiciary For Incompetent, Nontransparent Cybersecurity Practices

1 day 6 hours ago
Late last year, eight major U.S. telecoms were the victim of a massive intrusion by Chinese hackers who managed to spy on public U.S. officials for more than a year. The “Salt Typhoon” hack was so severe, the intruders spent a year rooting around the ISP networks even after discovery. AT&T and Verizon, two of the compromised companies, apparently didn’t […]
Karl Bode

RFK Jr. Vowed To Find The Environmental Causes Of Autism. Then He Shut Down Research Trying To Do Just That.

1 day 16 hours ago
This story was originally published by ProPublica. Republished under a CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 license. Erin McCanlies was listening to the radio one morning in April when she heard Robert F. Kennedy Jr. promising to find the cause of autism by September. The secretary of Health and Human Services said he believed an environmental toxin was responsible for the dramatic increase […]
Sharon Lerner

Federal Prosecutors: Thrown Sandwiches Are A Felony But Openly Carrying Rifles Isn’t A Problem

1 day 21 hours ago
Is throwing a sandwich at someone a felony? Well, that all depends on a few factors. The most important considerations are these: What would normally be rhetorical questions were answered in Washington, D.C. recently. A (now-former) DOJ employee allegedly (well, the video makes it pretty clear there’s nothing “alleged” about it) threw a sandwich at […]
Tim Cushing

With Intel, Trump Continues His Race To Violate Every Clause In The Constitution By Now Arriving At The Takings Clause

1 day 23 hours ago
Trump’s quest to stress-test every line in the Constitution continues apace, with his declaration that the government now owns 10% of Intel looking like nothing but a great, big, gigantic taking. Of course, it is also terrible policy. While there are sometimes compelling arguments that companies should be in public hands, like for utilities, where […]
Cathy Gellis

John Bolton And Bitter Irony Of False Equivalence

2 days 1 hour ago
Last week, FBI agents raided the home of John Bolton—former National Security Advisor, lifelong Republican, and one of the most establishment figures in American foreign policy. His crime? Writing a book critical of Donald Trump and opposing the president’s surrender summit with Vladimir Putin. The justification? A “national security investigation in search of classified records”—the […]
Mike Brock

Daily Deal: The 2025 AI Super Skills Bundle

2 days 1 hour ago
The 2025 AI Super Skills Bundle has 8 courses to help you get familiar with how to use some of the latest and coolest artificial intelligence tools out there. Courses cover ChatGPT, DALL-E 3, Leonardo AI, Quillbot, and more. It’s on sale for $30. Note: The Techdirt Deals Store is powered and curated by StackCommerce. […]
Daily Deal

Trump Wants To Criminalize Free Speech In The Form Of Flag Burning

2 days 2 hours ago
You may recall that Donald Trump and his supporters have insisted that he’s the “free speech” President. His first day in office this term, he issued an executive order “restoring free speech” saying that “no Federal Government officer, employee, or agent engages in or facilitates any conduct that would unconstitutionally abridge the free speech of […]
Mike Masnick

Trump Whines, Again Threatens NBC, ABC Broadcast Licenses For Doing Journalism

2 days 6 hours ago
With Fox being Fox, and CBS having just paid Trump a $16 million bribe and now owned by Trump’s friends the Ellison family, there’s little worry that either network will be doing serious journalism anytime soon. So Trump, over the weekend, redirected his ire at the remaining two “big four” broadcasters, ABC and NBC, for […]
Karl Bode