During Trump’s tenure, his FCC took at absolute hatchet to what was left of 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 Trump FCC stripped away a lot of the rules […]
Let’s roll into the new year by saying what needs to be said: if you’re arguing against government transparency, you’re on the wrong side of history. But being on the wrong side of history is just something cops love to do. They figure the short term wins — if there are any — might somehow […]
As you well know, the Steamboat Willie version of Mickey Mouse is now in the public domain in the US, meaning you can use a version of that Mickey (or any other newly public domain work) in our Gaming Like It’s 1928 Public Domain Game Jam. Also, we’re already seeing some of the expected effort […]
Thanks to politicians (including a former president) being overly willing to scratch the bigoted itch of a voting bloc that appears to prefer the brutal caress of fascism to the freedoms of a democratic republic, far too many state and local legislators are crafting and enacting laws designed to relegate a whole lot of the […]
A few months ago we noted that Fidelity, which had contributed over $300 million to help Elon purchase Twitter a little over a year ago, had already marked down its investment by 65%. This news came out at basically the same time that Elon himself admitted the company’s value was down 56% (from $44 billion […]
You probably already know the benefits of learning a language, so let’s focus on the app. Right off the bat, let’s be clear about one thing: When we say “app” we don’t mean that you’re limited to using Babbel on your phone. You can use Babbel on desktop, too, and your progress is synchronized across […]
Israeli malware developer NSO Group found itself the subject of international headlines a couple of years ago. Not the good kind either. A leaked document apparently showed who was being targeted by the company’s cell phone exploits — a long, disturbing list that contained journalists, lawyers, activists, dissidents, religious leaders, and plenty of politicians. The […]
Last month we noted how a program aimed at helping low income Americans afford broadband was at risk of being dismantled thanks to congressional incompetence and corruption. The FCC program, dubbed the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP), was part of the 2021 infrastructure bill. It provides low-income Americans $30 off their monthly broadband bill. 22 million […]
Readers here shouldn’t need to be reminded that the Tolkien Estate, through its company Middle-Earth Enterprises, is known to be extremely aggressive with its enforcement of intellectual property over anything remotely to do with The Lord of the Rings. The estate appears to operate under the notion that it has control over words via trademark […]
Last year we were dismayed (and somewhat annoyed) to see the FTC step way beyond its bounds and expertise by issuing a ridiculous comment to the US Copyright Office regarding questions around AI and copyright. In it, the FTC (which has no authority — or expertise — regarding copyright law) argued that fair use was […]
2023 is over. Taylor Swift was Time’s Person of the Year, beating out candidates like Jerome Powell, who may have stuck the economic soft-landing, but can’t hit the high notes. Only a fool would challenge the decision, but I would like to nominate 2023’s Unperson of the year – ChatGPT; the neural-network based, Large Language […]
Facial recognition tech works best on white, male faces. White males have historically been the immediate beneficiaries of public policy, as well as those put in place by private companies. I say “historically,” but this advantageous situation has mostly proven incapable of being disrupted by tech advances. Facial recognition tech has taken an existing problem […]
Back in September we praised Elon Musk for deciding to challenge California’s new social media transparency law, AB 587. As we had discussed while the bill was being debated, while it’s framed as a transparency bill, it has all sorts of problems. It would (1) enable the California government officials (including local officials) to effectively […]
For years, the cable industry has dreamed of a future where they could use your cable box to actively track your every behavior using cameras and microphones and then monetize the data. At one point way back in 2009, Comcast made it clear they were even interested in using embedded microphones and cameras to monitor […]
Join our public domain game jam, Gaming Like It’s 1928! » Happy new year, everyone — and happy public domain day! That’s right: today’s the day that works from 1928 exit copyright protection and become public domain in the US, and that means it’s time for the latest edition of our annual public domain game […]
Happy (almost) new year, Techdirt readers! As always, it’s time to take take a break from the regular weekly post and take a look at the comments that got the most votes from our community this year in the insightful and funny categories, plus a special look at the comments that got the most combined […]
Five Years Ago This week in 2018, a dangerous court ruling said colleges may be required to block access to certain websites, while we wrote about how ridiculous it is to make domain registrars liable for content on domains. Rep. Louie Gohmert was pushing to strip Section 230 immunity from social media platforms that aren’t […]
Every year since 2008, my final post of the year for Techdirt is about optimism. This makes this year’s post (which will be the only post for today — go out and enjoy the holiday times, people) my 15th such post. As I said, this process began back in 2008 when I had a few […]
A year ago, I noted that many of Walled Culture’s illustrations were being produced using generative AI. During that time, AI has developed rapidly. For example, in the field of images, OpenAI has introduced DALL-E 3 in ChatGPT: When prompted with an idea, ChatGPT will automatically generate tailored, detailed prompts for DALL·E 3 that bring your idea to life. […]
The Fourth Amendment is rarely a match for the Third Party Doctrine. In recent years, things have gotten a wee bit better thanks to a couple of Supreme Court rulings. But the operative principle still overrides: whatever we share (voluntarily or not) with private companies can often be obtained without a warrant. That’s why bills […]
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