Five Years Ago This week in 2017, Ajit Pai unveiled his plan to replace net neutrality rules with fluff, while Canada was trying to defend net neutrality. Congress was trying (and then succeeding) to strip oversight from the Copyright Office, while a Texas lawamaker was looking for the power to decide who counts as a […]
Now this one surprises me. We’ve been talking recently about a trademark infringement suit brought against Stone Brewing by Sycamore Brewing, a much smaller brewery. Fresh off a massive win against Molson Coors over its decision to alter the branding for Key Stone beer to feature the word “stone” in very big letters, Stone Brewing […]
There was recently an absolutely fascinating episode of the NPR podcast Planet Money, all about how Tai Verdes became a pop star. It actually appears to be a rerun of a different podcast, called Switched On Pop, which originally ran back in December of last year, but I first heard it on Planet Money. The […]
Citing a post-pandemic shutdown surge in violent crime and some other shaky reasoning, the city council of Houston, Texas has decided the time has come to violate the rights of business owners. Here’s Elizabeth Nolan Brown for Reason: Officials in Houston, Texas, have voted to require an array of businesses—including bars, convenience stores, and strip clubs—to install […]
The Biden Administration just announced the creation of a DHS subagency apparently intended to confront “disinformation.” The biggest problem with it is that it is impossible, right now, to even know whether it’s a good idea or not, because it is so unclear what this board is intended to do. Further, its name does not […]
Earlier this week, law professor Orin Kerr raised an alert. The 9th Circuit appeals court had come out with a ruling in a case regarding the question of whether or not preservation requests counted as a seizure under the 4th Amendment, and basically said “nope.” As Kerr notes, this ruling effectively could allow the government […]
The 2022 Ultimate DevOps And Agile Bundle has 6 courses to help you learn how to implement DevOps into your organization, and how to foster an Agile team culture. You’ll learn how to improve collaboration, increase efficiency, and reduce waste. It’s on sale for $30. Note: The Techdirt Deals Store is powered and curated by […]
When law enforcement officials get caught saying something extremely troublesome at press conferences, the first page of the police playbook is to accuse everyone reporting/retweeting the news of misinterpreting the statements made and/or spreading misinformation. It’s the “my account was hacked” of the Thin Blue Line — a claim no one believes but one that […]
The U.S. is about to spend an historic $42.5 billion on expanding affordable broadband access courtesy of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA). While this spending is largely being organized by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), much of it involves grants that will need to be managed by the states. The problem: […]
Over the past few years, we’ve seen a flurry of activity centering around video game emulation. Much of that has been focused on how a few companies, namely Nintendo, have reacted to emulation sites. Almost universally, these companies see emulation as a threat and try to get them shut down. Often times those same companies […]
Bogus lawsuits are a form of bullying. (Hence the need for a federal anti-SLAPP law.) Some lawsuits are merely frivolous, filed by people who have no idea how the law works. Others, like this one, are filed solely to silence critics and remind them who actually has the power in this relationship. That’s what has […]
The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) set aside $42.5 billion to be spent by the states on expanding access to affordable broadband. But state by state, telecom lobbyists are working hard to ensure that this money only goes toward “unserved” locations, and can’t be used to potentially create competition in markets they already serve. […]
Content ID isn’t really the villain here. But it’s an accomplice. YouTube content moderation — including the prevention of copyright infringement — is almost completely automated. It has to be. As of 2019, more than 500 hours of content were uploaded to YouTube every minute. Machines have to do the work because human moderation is […]
Last chance to get your boxed copy of CIA: Collect It All! If you’ve been around Techdirt for a while, you’ll probably recall that almost exactly four years ago, we launched our Kickstarter for CIA: Collect It All. This was our version of an internal CIA training card game, called “Collection Deck” that was partially […]
The 2022 School of Graphic Design Bundle has 8 courses to help you start on your path to becoming a digital artist. Courses cover Photoshop, Premiere Pro, Figma, and more. You’ll learn how to edit and enhance your photos and videos, how to create a portfolio, how to build a mobile app without coding, and […]
So there has been lots of talk about Elon Musk and his takeover of Twitter. I’ve written multiple things about how little he understands about free speech and how little he understands content moderation. I’ve also written (with giant caveats) about ways in which his takeover of Twitter might improve some things. Throughout this discussion, […]
For more than a decade, cable TV executives brushed aside the idea of cable TV “cord cutting” as either a nonexistent threat or a temporary phenomenon that wound end once Millennials started procreating. Of course, none of that wound up being true, and consumer defections from the bloated, pricey traditional cable TV bundle continue to set records during […]
Field drug tests are awful. They’re insanely unreliable. Sure, sometimes the tests are correct: the suspected drugs are actual drugs. Broken clocks and all that. But they’re so often wrong they should be considered as scientifically sound as hiring a full-time psychic and promoting them to detective. Here’s a short list of things drug field […]
I’ll admit I’ve written some posts of praise here for Sega, usually due to the company’s more lax attitude on fan-made creations alongside the company’s habit of making fun of Nintendo for going the opposite route. But taking a look at the wider number of posts we’ve done involving Sega, the company is by and […]
More case law on compelled passcode production and the Fifth Amendment has been generated by a New Jersey appeals court. Unfortunately, it doesn’t do anything to strengthen Fifth Amendment protections against compelled production. And that’s largely because this court can’t. The state’s Supreme Court handed down a ruling in August 2020 that limited the “foregone […]
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