Favorite Artificial intelligence technologies (AI) are all the rage in Washington D.C. these days. Policymakers are hearing stories of utopian opportunities and certain doom from technologists, CEOs, and public interest groups and trying to figure out when and how Congress should intervene. Congress should be paying attention to AI technologies. Many are tools with extraordinary…
All posts tagged Creativity & Innovation
To Save the News, We Must Shatter Ad-Tech
Favorite The news is in trouble. It’s not just the mass closures of newsrooms – it’s also the physical and ideological attacks on journalists.News websites are plastered with ads, but more than half of the money those ads generate is siphoned off by ad-tech companies, with the lion’s share going to just two companies, Google…
What the Supreme Court’s Decision in Warhol Means for Fair Use
Favorite The Supreme Court has issued its long-awaited decision in Andy Warhol Foundation v. Goldsmith, a fair use case that raised fundamental questions about rights and obligations of commercial artists. The Court’s opinion did not answer many of those questions, but happily it affirmed both important fair use precedents and the role of fair use…
The DMCA Cannot Protect You From Your Own Words
Favorite There is a loud debate raging over what companies should and shouldn’t be doing about the things people say on their platforms. What people often seem to forget is that we already know the dangers of providing a quick way for people to remove criticism of themselves from the internet. Thanks to copyright law’s…
In SAS v. WPL, the Federal Circuit Finally Gets Something Right on Computer Copyright
Favorite Figuring out the correct boundaries of software copyright protection is a difficult task. As several judges have put it, “applying copyright law to computer programs is like assembling a jigsaw puzzle whose pieces do not quite fit.” Last week, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit solved one piece of that puzzle,…
AI Art Generators and the Online Image Market
Favorite Now that computer-generated imaging is accessible to anyone with a weird idea and an internet connection, the creation of “AI art” is raising questions—and lawsuits. The key questions seem to be 1) how does it actually work, 2) what work can it replace, and 3) how can the labor of artists be respected through…
How We Think About Copyright and AI Art
Favorite Artists are understandably concerned about the possibility that automatic image generators like Stable Diffusion will undercut the market for their work. We live in a society that does not support people who are automated out of a job, and being a visual artist is an already precarious career. In this context, it’s natural to…
Without Verification, What Is the Point of Elon Musk’s Twitter?
Favorite Elon Musk’s Twitter fundamentally misunderstands what made Twitter useful in the first place. In an attempt to wring blood from a stone, Twitter’s announced that all the original “blue checks”—initially created as a way to verify that someone was who they said they were—will disappear on April 1st. Instead, blue checks will once again…
EFF Tells Supreme Court: Trademark Law Doesn’t Trump the First Amendment
Favorite A trademark dispute between a liquor company and a maker of novelty dog toys may not sound like an important First Amendment battleground, but the latest trademark case to come before the U.S. Supreme Court could have serious consequences for online speech and political activism. Trademarks are part of our modern lexicon, and we…
Podcast Episode: When Tech Comes to Town
Favorite When a tech company moves to your city, the effects ripple far beyond just the people it employs. It can impact thousands of ancillary jobs – from teachers to nurses to construction workers – as well as the community’s housing, transportation, health care, and other businesses. And too often, these impacts can be negative. …