OpenAI’s attorneys dropped a bombshell brief yesterday informing the court that the allegedly neutral scientific study of market effects submitted by the plaintiffs in their class action suit had actually been funded by the plaintiffs’ law firm, Sussman Godfrey. (Link below)
AI companies scraping websites at scale is a real problem. But a proposed NY law could make it harder for libraries, journalists & researchers to preserve the web and investigate the powerful. That's why we've joined @eff.org & others in a letter to Gov. Hochul. blog.archive.org/2026/08/04/i...
Internet Archive to New York: Don’t Kill the Good Bots in the Fight Against Bad Bots | Internet Archive Blogs
blog.archive.org
I testified to the Senate about Section 230 yesterday. It was an unusually substantive and thoughtful hearing. www.youtube.com/live/F8T5vCm...
“Liability or Deniability? Platform Power as Section 230 Turns 30
YouTube video by CommerceRepublicans
youtube.com
the upsides of the Paramount/Warner stuff: 1. Nobody at Paramount seems remotely competent 2. The U.S. isn't Hungary 3. The huge debt makes collapse very likely 4. Humans still have agency 5. Every time anybody has tried to use Warner to dominate media (see: AT&T) it has failed spectacularly
With Netflix Retreat, Trump Ally Larry Ellison Will Soon Own Warner Brothers, HBO, CNN, CBS, Paramount, Discovery, And Part Of TikTok
Netflix has retreated from its protracted bidding war with Larry Ellison for control of Warner Brothers, giving the Trump ally likely control of Warner, CNN, and HBO. In a statement, Netflix co-CEO…
techdirt.com
🧵TL;DR the biggest AI companies and the New York Times are destroying history and accountability at the same time. www.techdirt.com/2026/02/17/p...
Preserving The Web Is Not The Problem. Losing It Is.
Recent reporting by Nieman Lab describes how some major news organizations—including The Guardian, The New York Times, and Reddit—are limiting or blocking access to their content in the Internet Ar…
techdirt.com
Our director @evangreer.bsky.social penned an op-ed for @erininthemorning.bsky.social on how @warren.senate.gov is blatantly ignoring Boston LGTBQ+ orgs who are speaking out against KOSA. Please read it + tag her below telling her to drop support for KOSA! www.erininthemorning.com/p/op-ed-with...
In Q4, CC continued our work in international fora that shape cultural rights and copyright, as well as our advocacy for AI policies that serve the public interest. Read the full policy review: buff.ly/hBal5Z2 "Library of Congress Thomas Jefferson Building," Carol M Highsmith, 2007, CC0, Flickr.
Like @mmasnick.bsky.social, I also said Breton's letter to Elon was extraordinarily stupid, and had very different views on how to handle antivax propaganda than CCDH. But that was CCDH's speech. The censorship is the state action happening now. This is the right take: www.ms.now/opinion/marc...
Opinion | Marco Rubio is using real censorship to fight fake censorship
Mike Masnick: In the name of protecting free speech, the U.S. government just banned five Europeans from entering the country because it doesn’t like their speech.
ms.now
Google Built Its Empire Scraping The Web. Now It’s Suing To Stop Others From Scraping Google Last week, Google filed suit against SerpApi, a scraping company that helps businesses pull data from Google search results. The lawsuit claims SerpApi violated DMCA Section 1201 by circumventing Google's…
Google Built Its Empire Scraping The Web. Now It’s Suing To Stop Others From Scraping Google
Last week, Google filed suit against SerpApi, a scraping company that helps businesses pull data from Google search results. The lawsuit claims SerpApi violated DMCA Section 1201 by circumventing Google's "technological protection measures" to access search results—and the copyrighted content within them—without permission. There's just one problem with this theory: Google built its entire business on scraping the web without asking permission first.
techdirt.com
As the former Google Associate General Counsel for web search -- a product built on scraping third party content without permission -- I'm having a lot of trouble processing Google's new lawsuit against someone else for scraping search results. storage.googleapis.com/gweb-uniblog...
storage.googleapis.com
Holy shit. Reuters reporting that new admin instructions on visas are if you worked at a platform in trust & safety or content moderation or on fact checking or online safety at an platform you *and your loved ones* are ineligible for H-1B visa. www.reuters.com/world/us/tru...
Was doing some research around AI agents, and ensuring users' rights - and @anildash.com was really cooking here. In 2013! www.anildash.com/2013/03/19/t...
The Case for User Agent Extremism - Anil Dash
A blog about making culture. Since 1999.
anildash.com
Building evidence and driving toward scientific consensus around AI’s impact on youth mental health is not going to be straightforward, but industry can and should engage with and support better research, says Betsy Masiello, cofounder of Proteus Strategies. buff.ly/79VTteV
Cornell is seeking postdocs for the Empire AI Fellows program. The focus is on technical research, but if this looks interesting to you and your technical AI work has connections to law, please reach out! academicjobsonline.org/ajo/jobs/30971
Cornell University, Empire AI Fellows Program
Job #AJO30971, Postdoctoral Fellow, Empire AI Fellows Program, Cornell University, New York, New York, US
academicjobsonline.org
worth reading this alongside www.techdirt.com/2025/10/24/r... - while my article is about (c) and reddit's claims is a weird mutant, important to consider the competitive implications of these claims against AI services
Lawfare@lawfaremedia.org · 11mo ago@mcarrier.bsky.social and @derekslater.bsky.social explain how copyright's competition-promoting tools can be used to combat Big Tech's monopoly power and foster a robust AI marketplace. www.lawfaremedia.org/article/worr...
@mcarrier.bsky.social and @derekslater.bsky.social explain how copyright's competition-promoting tools can be used to combat Big Tech's monopoly power and foster a robust AI marketplace. www.lawfaremedia.org/article/worr...
Worried About AI Monopoly? Embrace Copyright’s Limits
Copyright’s limits play essential antimonopoly functions. Undermining them in the context of AI is likely to strengthen Big Tech.
lawfaremedia.org
#Reddit’s ‘#AI #Scraping’ Lawsuit Is An Attack On The #OpenInternet - www.techdirt.com/2025/10/24/r... important detailed analysis by @mmasnick.bsky.social of very bad, very reckless behaviour
Reddit’s ‘AI Scraping’ Lawsuit Is An Attack On The Open Internet
When Reddit sued “data scraper” companies and AI firm Perplexity earlier this week, I assumed it was another predictable skirmish over AI training data—the kind of case we’ve been…
techdirt.com
also: as a policy matter, this seems incongruent with what antimonopoly advocates have sought and in part achieved in the Search antitrust case. Perplexity is using Google's SERP to create a competing product; Reddit says they shouldn't be able to.
James Grimmelmann@jtlg.bsky.social · 11mo agoI'm unimpressed by Reddit's lawsuit against Perplexity et al. In the process of pleading notably weak DMCA claims, I think Reddit pleads itself out of court on its state-law claims. 1/ cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/u...
I'm unimpressed by Reddit's lawsuit against Perplexity et al. In the process of pleading notably weak DMCA claims, I think Reddit pleads itself out of court on its state-law claims. 1/ cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/u...
cdn.arstechnica.net
Some of us are old enough to remember when Reddit cared about the open web and recognized the DMCA shouldn’t be used as a hack around fair use. x.com/lehogg/statu...
Luke Hogg on X: "Hey @Reddit, this you arguing for reforms to the DMCA so that companies can't abuse it to prevent people from "using their electronic devices in lawful, non-infringing ways?" What changed? https://t.co/9Gbshj6DOK" / X
Hey @Reddit, this you arguing for reforms to the DMCA so that companies can't abuse it to prevent people from "using their electronic devices in lawful, non-infringing ways?" What changed? https://t.co/9Gbshj6DOK
x.com
This is an interesting tactic by Cloudflare, but I don't believe the legal hook that Prince suggests will influence Google exists under U.S. law. arstechnica.com/ai/2025/10/i...
Inside the web infrastructure revolt over Google’s AI Overviews
Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince is making sweeping changes to force Google’s hand.
arstechnica.com
We're so relieved to see Germany reaffirm its opposition to the dangerous Chat Control proposal--the one that would mandate mass scanning of communications. Germany's long been a solid champion of privacy, and the news that it was considering backing mass surveillance was alarming. 1/
Really smart analysis by music industry veteran and @au-mtd.bsky.social doctoral candidate Neil Perry: The Manufactured Panic Over Tilly Norwood #ai #cinema #labor #IP
The Manufactured Panic Over Tilly Norwood
The recent uproar over Tilly Norwood, the AI-generated “actress” introduced at the Zurich Film Festival, has revealed more about…
medium.com
for those who don't follow it, "chat control" is the idea that, since encrypted messaging can't be spied on / monitored, that your actual phone should scan everything you write or send before you send it www.eff.org/deeplinks/20...
Chat Control Is Back on the Menu in the EU. It Still Must Be Stopped
The European Union Council is once again debating its controversial message scanning proposal, aka “Chat Control,” that would lead to the scanning of private conversations of billions of people. Chat ...
eff.org
I have never in my life covered an FCC official that gives less of a fuck about the public interest even first term FCC boss Ajit Pai, who was a complete revolving door hack, believed this sort of censorship crossed a line
Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · last yr.FABER: I wonder whether you're just targeting comedians who are offending the president BRENDAN CARR: Broadcast TV is different. If you have broadcast TV license, it comes with an obligation to serve the public interest.
Losing my ever-loving-mind watching the same people who were just clutching their pearls claiming censorship over mean emails from WH staffers to Twitter about COVID misinfo are now HAVING THE FCC CHAIR openly threaten broadcast licenses over a joke about the president AND THE BROADCASTERS CENSOR IT
And the Ellisons are also first in line to buy TikTok if it gets sold, which would fuse CBS, CNN, Time Warner, Paramount, and TikTok all into one company whose entire function would be to blow smoke up the right wing's ass
Jeff (Hot Type) Jarvis@jeffjarvis.bsky.social · last yr.In the crush of days' news, this -- and red-flashing-light alarm over it -- has been lost. Listen up: The Ellisons, the miniMurdochs, want to turn CNN into FoxNews Jr. alongside their terminally tained (C)BS (the B stands for Bari). Let's hear some shocked shouting, people!
