The 2021 infrastructure bill did some very good things for broadband. Not only did it include a massive, $42 billion investment in broadband deployment and require better mapping, it demanded that the FCC impose a new “nutrition label for broadband,” requiring that ISPs be transparent about all of the weird restrictions, caps, fees, and limitations […]
Let me do a bit of throat-clearing at the top of this post. As a reminder, the general purpose of trademark laws around the world is to serve as a source-identifier for the public in those markets. In other words, allowing someone to trademark a unique identifier as to a source of a good or […]
I don’t think this is a surprise to anyone, but the SEC and the CFTC combined to issue fines on a bunch of Wall Street firms for execs communicating across encrypted messaging in a manner that wasn’t recorded and preserved as required. Being in a regulated industry means having to deal with all sorts of […]
Late last month, a report was released showing Connecticut State troopers were routinely faking stop data to avoid further scrutiny over biased policing efforts. According to the state governor’s own statements, it appeared clear “hundreds” of troopers faked “tens of thousands” of traffic stops in order to make it look like they weren’t just targeting […]
Similar to the “Age Appropriate Design Code” (AADC) legislation that became law last year, California’s latest effort to regulate online speech comes in the form of SB 680, a bill by Sen. Nancy Skinner targeting the designs, algorithms, and features of online services that host user-created content, with a specific focus on preventing harm or addiction risks […]
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Welp, here we go again. Last month I wrote about how Techdirt had been deleted from both Bing and DuckDuckGo. Over on the discussion at HackerNews, DDG’s CEO and founder, Gabriel Weinberg, jumped in to the conversation to note that this wasn’t intentional (which we never suspected it was). The resulting conversation on HackerNews is […]
For a long while now, we’ve pointed out how the privacy hyperventilation over singular threats like TikTok are a huge distraction from the fact Congress is simply too corrupt to pass even a baseline privacy law for the internet era. Or regulate the massive number of dodgy data brokers that buy, sell, and trade in […]
More and more, as the video game industry matures, we find ourselves talking about game preservation and the disappearing culture of some older games as the original publishers abandon them. Often times leaving the public with no actual legit method for purchasing these old games, copyright law conspires with the situation to also prevent the […]
Elon Musk’s commitment to free speech and the free exchange of ideas has always been been a joke. Despite his repeated claims to being a “free speech absolutist,” and promising that his critics and rivals alike would be encouraged to remain on exTwitter, he has consistently shown that he has a ridiculously thin skin, and […]
If you didn’t know who Gigi Sohn was before her stalled-out FCC nomination and the ridiculous smear campaign that came with it, you surely do by now. And if you read Techdirt, you know she’s one of the most experienced and passionate experts around when it comes to broadband. This week, she returns to the […]
When will the legacy entertainment industry get it through their thick skulls that recording content is legal. We’ve done this. We’ve done it at the highest level. Tools that have substantial non-infringing uses are legal. Well, at least in the US. Which explains why the legacy companies often go overseas to do their dirty work. […]
At one point, we had a functioning Constitutional Republic. Sure, it wasn’t an actual democracy — the Electoral College still elected our president — but it seemed to function about as well as any major nation’s government does, if not better on most occasions. Then things changed. For reasons I still can’t understand, a failed […]
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This one will take a bit of background to explain where things stand. As you likely know, two years ago first Florida and then Texas each signed laws that would restrict social media companies and how they moderate content on their platforms. Both laws were quickly challenged by two trade associations for internet companies: NetChoice […]
Every few months a media outlet will get a staffer to write an inane story about how if you subscribe to every streaming service in existence, you’ll unsurprisingly wind up paying almost as much as you’d pay for cable TV. The underlying message is usually that we haven’t actually made real progress and that gosh, […]
The more things change, etc. We’ll never fully reject this country’s racist history if we insist on stocking our police departments with racists. The horrific events described here do not exist in a vacuum. The officers who felt comfortable doing these things felt comfortable for several reasons. First, there’s the long history of racist policing, […]
It’s important coming into this story to know and note that Rockstar, the publisher behind hit franchises like Grand Theft Auto and Red Dead Redemption, has waged a very public war on modding communities for its games for years now. Despite just how useful these modding communities tend to be in elongating the sales cycle […]
On Friday, the Internet Archive put up a blog post noting that its digital book lending program was likely to change as it continues to fight the book publishers’ efforts to kill the Internet Archive. As you’ll recall, all the big book publishers teamed up to sue the Internet Archive over its Open Library project, […]
The free press is supposed to be free. That’s what the First Amendment means. Journalists have a long-acknowledged, supported-by-decades-of-precedent right to publish information that may make the government uncomfortable. When cops start raiding press outlets, everyone takes notice. This isn’t how this works — not in the United States with its long list of guaranteed […]
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