Drew Stephenson's Favorite Techdirt Posts Of The Week
About a week ago I put a comment under an article about the DOJ abusing its powers mentioning that I was thinking of stopping reading Techdirt as it was getting too depressing. However I kept reading and I’m glad I’ve done so as this week has seen some much more positive stories, and in a week of worsening recession, continuing corruption and ever escalating global violence, I’m going to focus on the good news.
We’ve got a new policy for Washington Police about how to handle photographers. It would be nice to see something similar spreading across a few more forces, both in the States and in the UK.
Over 1500 organizations and 50,000 people have signed the Declaration of Internet Freedom. I’m very interested to see how this pans out in the long term. It feels a bit like this could be a test of “The People vs The Vested Interests”, the key question being, will this document make a difference?
It’s possibly not the done thing to say that one of my favorite posts is an aggregated one, but the collection of links about the future of assisted vision was fantastic and I get the chance to link to my favorite Sheldon comic. In all these little ways, we are becoming closer and closer to cyborgs, and I for one welcome our new robot overlords…
Of course it wouldn’t be a good week on Techdirt without a story of someone trying something new and clever on Kickstarter. In another new turn-up I think this is the first time we’ve seen something like this without the usual trolls and their “it’ll never scale / work for everyone / last / work for people without a major label background” arguments. Perhaps the message is getting through?
Staying on innovation in music, the news that an app is being developed to aggregate smart-phone concert footage shows that not everyone in the industry is trying to shut down bootleg content. Similarly the release of The Humble Music Bundle is another example of a company trying new things.
Moving back onto legal matters, and stepping away from copyright to other aspects of IP, we have two more good-news stories. The first is that Judge Posner has decided to give the patent system a kick, and the second is a simple lesson in how to send a cease and desist letter without being an asshole
I used to share a house with a bunch of Norwegians, they were all really good people as were (as far as I can tell) all their friends. So in many ways it’s no surprise that Norway continues to show us the right way to deal with terrorism.
I’m going to finish with a story that may not be an obvious candidate for a good news story, especially given some of the comments from our regular critics. However the news that Michael Rossato-Bennett is running a Kickstarter campaign to fund his film Alive Inside just serves to remind me that, despite the problems highlighted in the article, and despite this being an area of life that people still shy away from, there are people doing great work out there transforming lives.
Watch that trailer video again, go on, you know you want to.
I wonder what a search of the bill's supporters' hard drives would turn up?
Typo in the numbers
12,000 vs 1,200 above the text above the mass graves image
Well that's a totally rational response to a post literally condemning the actions in question.
And you think 2 things cannot both be a problem? Amazing.
I do find it interesting how the right wing self-censors. They never talk about media companies hiding right-wing content, it's always 'conservative viewpoints' or 'traditional opinions'. Almost like they're embarrassed of their own opinions. Plainly they're not because they're clearly incapable of shame, but I still think it's a bit weird.
The a.i. doesn't need a self to express for it to be used for a tool for self-expression. the a.i. video Trump shared of him in a plane dumping shit on protesters was self-expression. As are the myriad of memes mocking him in return. All I'm saying is that knee-jerk legislation, in any direction, is rarely good. And we should be extra careful when pushing into areas of the first amendment. FWIW I have no time for generative a.i. but hyperbole and over-reaction are not effective means of governance.
Come on now. You may hate the output, and the environmental costs, and the plagiarism, but it's definitely self-expression. And whenever you're talking about something that limits that then we have to be working on more than vibes.
Sadly not the first straightforward decision this court has completely botched.
Environmental impacts
Mike, do you have any way of measuring the energy or water use of your AI use? We're regularly pressured to use it at work and I keep asking this question but nobody appears to be able to answer it.
Just popped in to say that, given the police history of surveillance abuse, calling it a Stalker is a bit on the nose.
All four factors, case by case
I'm a songwriter, previously signed to an indie, now a hobbyist but with an aim of shifting to recording and production through semi retirement. I've also long been an advocate of copyright reform and a supporter of fair use. So I've got skin in the game from both angles. And after a while I've come to the conclusion that articles like this aren't really adding much to the discussion anymore; they're too general. If you're going to talk fair use then you have to talk all four factors and that means you have to talk about the specifics. Could AI training on copyrighted works be fair use? Almost certainly? Especially if you heavily weight the first factor. Could it be infringing if the purpose of the training is to produce competing works in the same market? I would argue yes if you weight the fourth factor and consider the speed at which it can work. The only real conclusion you can draw from generic arguments is, "maybe." Case law will firm up some guidelines in due course, but until then we have to look at all four factors on a case by case basis.
Nobody broke in anywhere. Nobody ransacked anything.
UpScroller is apparently the thing the kids are talking about now...
A pedant writes...
Ahem. "Uninterested" not "disinterested". Disinterested means an unbiased interest, like a football referee. Which is clearly the last thing that springs to mind when talking about Carr.
The combination of presidential pardons and the supreme court granting immunity for all acts in office has created and uncontrollable regime.
Like everything else in life...
Coding is just a primitive, degenerate form of bending.
So much shit in such few sentences. He wasn't a cop. He had no authority to detain her. Neither training, procedures or case law says that it is legal to shoot a suspect attempting to flee.
I know sites like this and Meidas are, but I'm talking about the press in the room and on the national broadcasts. Tapper gave a half-arsed challenge back to Noem the other day but it's not enough.
Getting bored of asking this...
... But where are the journalists, interviewers and reporters calling this bullshit out? Who is actually challenging back on this?
"When an online game publisher sunsets an unsuccessful client-server game, they must publish protocol docs and open source the client and server code?" Yes, why not? The bargain of copyright is that the creator gets a government-backed monopoly for a fixed term and then the work enters the public domain. That second part is just as important as the first.