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California Right To Repair Bill Gets Scuttled By Lobbyists

3 years 1 month ago
On both the state and federal level, a flood of new bills are targeting companies’ efforts to monopolize repair by implementing obnoxious DRM, making repair tools and manuals hard to find, bullying independent repair shops (like Apple does), or forcing tractor owners to drive hundreds of miles just to get their tractor repaired (one of John […]
Karl Bode

Daily Deal: FlashBooks Business Book Summaries

3 years 1 month ago
FlashBooks publishes top self-help and business book summaries you can read or listen to in about 20 minutes or less. Formatted for every device: Kindle, iPhone, Android, iPad, iPods, and more. The audiobooks are formatted as downloadable MP3 files so that you can listen to them’ on the go via your favorite mobile device. Get more […]
Gretchen Heckmann

Federal Legislators Ask Google To Limit Collection Of Location Data Following Leak Of Supreme Court’s Abortion Ruling

3 years 1 month ago
Senator Ron Wyden has never been shy about demanding both the government and the private sector stop doing so much damn spying on their constituents/users. Eleven years ago — long before it became apparent federal agencies were accessing/buying location data from any private party willing to give them access — Wyden was looking to enact […]
Tim Cushing

Prosecutors Lose Drug Conviction After Appeals Court Reminds Them They Can’t Ignore The Presumption Of Innocence

3 years 1 month ago
There are several things prosecutors can’t do when handling criminal trials. They still do them, of course. They suborn perjury. They deny defendants access to exculpatory evidence. They present junk science as actual science. And, every so often, they ignore the presumption of evidence that’s supposed to be the foundation of the American justice system. […]
Tim Cushing

Lawsuit Alleges Massachusetts School Officials Violated First Amendment By Abusing State’s Wiretap Law

3 years 1 month ago
An interesting case involving the First Amendment right to record is working its way through the federal court system. It involves a man who recorded his interactions with public school officials, posted that video to Facebook (along with his commentary), and was subsequently threatened with prosecution under Massachusetts’ oft-abused wiretap law. The plaintiff, Inge Berge, […]
Tim Cushing

Being A Supreme Court Clerk Now Hazardous To Your Privacy

3 years 1 month ago
As you certainly remember, last month Politico published a draft opinion, written by Justice Alito, overturning Roe v. Wade. The final ruling has not yet come out, but is expected soon (as the Supreme Court session is nearing its conclusion). There has been tremendous speculation over who leaked the draft (and why). There has been […]
Mike Masnick

Daily Deal: The 2022 Dynamic Digital Graphic Designer Bundle

3 years 1 month ago
The 2022 Dynamic Digital Graphic Designer Bundle has 9 courses to help you improve your graphic design skills. Courses cover Canva, Photoshop, Illustrator, Crello, After Effects, and more. It’s on sale for $39. Note: The Techdirt Deals Store is powered and curated by StackCommerce. A portion of all sales from Techdirt Deals helps support Techdirt. […]
Gretchen Heckmann

6G Hype Begins Despite Fact 5G Hasn’t Finished Disappointing Us Yet

3 years 1 month ago
Fifth-generation wireless (5G) was supposed to change the world. According to carriers, not only was it supposed to bring about the “fourth industrial revolution,” it was supposed to revolutionize everything from smart cities to cancer treatment. Simultaneously, conspiracy theorists and internet imbeciles declared that 5G was responsible for everything from COVID-19 to your migraines. Unfortunately for both […]
Karl Bode

Are ‘Fast Movies’ Really A Substitute For The Real Thing? Or Just Good Marketing?

3 years 1 month ago
There’s an interesting post on the TorrentFreak blog about “fast movies“: These heavily edited copies of mainstream movies aim to summarize key plot lines via voice-over narration in about 10 minutes. While no replacement for the real thing, these edits accumulated millions of views and incurred the wrath of rightsholders, leading to the arrest of […]
Mike Masnick

John Deere Still Sucks On ‘Right To Repair,’ Despite Years Of Promises

3 years 1 month ago
Not only have corporate efforts to monopolize repair resulted in a flood of proposed state and federal laws, the Biden Administration’s recent executive order on monopoly power and competition urged the FTC to tighten up its rules on repair monopolization efforts, whether it’s ham-fisted DRM, or making repair manuals, parts, and diagnostics hard to come by. At the […]
Karl Bode

Clearview Is Now Selling Its AI To App Developers, School Security Contractors

3 years 1 month ago
Well, this doesn’t sound like a good idea. The company that recently swore in court filings it would cease and desist sales to all private companies in the United States is offering its product to a number of private companies elsewhere in the world. And it’s courting private contractors doing business with government entities in […]
Tim Cushing

Daily Deal: The 2022 Academic Success Master Class Bundle

3 years 1 month ago
The Academic Success Master Class Bundle covers 100+ strategies on time management, productivity, studying, and more. These methods are not taught to students in a traditional classroom. This Master Class Bundle will help your student achieve top grades, test scores, and academic performance in school. It is on sale for $49. Note: The Techdirt Deals […]
Gretchen Heckmann

Ninth Circuit Takes Another Look At NSLs, Says Indefinite Gag Orders Still Aren’t A Constitutional Problem

3 years 1 month ago
Back in 2017, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals decided there was nothing wrong with the indefinite gag orders the government slapped on its (extremely plentiful) National Security Letters (NSL). It told Cloudflare, Credo Mobile, and other parties challenging these gag orders that the Constitution remains untroubled by the government’s demands for silence, which could […]
Tim Cushing

Netflix’s Effort To Thwart Password Sharing Is Already A Bit Of A Mess

3 years 1 month ago
Back when Netflix was a pesky upstart trying to claw subscribers away from entrenched cable providers, the company had a pretty lax approach to users who shared streaming passwords. At one point CEO Reed Hastings went so far as to say he “loved” password sharing, seeing it as akin to free advertising. The idea was that as […]
Karl Bode