Favorite Technologists play a huge role in building alternative tools and resources when our right to privacy and security are undermined by governments and major corporations. This direct resistance ensures that even in the face of powerful adversaries, communities can find some safety and autonomy through community-built tools. One of the most renowned names in…
All posts tagged Creativity & Innovation
Site-Blocking Legislation Is Back. It’s Still a Terrible Idea.
Favorite More than a decade ago, Congress tried to pass SOPA and PIPA—two sweeping bills that would have allowed the government and copyright holders to quickly shut down entire websites based on allegations of piracy. The backlash was immediate and massive. Internet users, free speech advocates, and tech companies flooded lawmakers with protests, culminating in…
New USPTO Memo Makes Fighting Patent Trolls Even Harder
Favorite The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) just made a move that will protect bad patents at the expense of everyone else. In a memo released February 28, the USPTO further restricted access to inter partes review, or IPR—the process Congress created to let the public challenge invalid patents without having to wage million-dollar…
California’s A.B. 412: A Bill That Could Crush Startups and Cement A Big Tech AI Monopoly
Favorite California legislators have begun debating a bill (A.B. 412) that would require AI developers to track and disclose every registered copyrighted work used in AI training. At first glance, this might sound like a reasonable step toward transparency. But it’s an impossible standard that could crush small AI startups and developers while giving big…
EFF to NSF: AI Action Plan Must Put People First
Favorite This past January the new administration issued an executive order on Artificial Intelligence (AI), taking the place of the now rescinded Biden-era order, calling for a new AI Action Plan tasked with “unburdening” the current AI industry to stoke innovation and remove “engineered social agendas” from the industry. This new action plan for the…
Anti-Surveillance Mapmaker Refuses Flock Safety's Cease and Desist Demand
Favorite Flock Safety loves to crow about the thousands of local law enforcement agencies around the United States that have adopted its avian–themed automated license plate readers (ALPRs). But when a privacy activist launched a website to map out the exact locations of these pole-mounted devices, the company tried to clip his wings. The company…
Open Licensing Promotes Culture and Learning. That's Why EFF Is Upgrading its Creative Commons Licenses.
Favorite At EFF, we’re big fans of the Creative Commons project, which makes copyright work in empowering ways for people who want to share their work widely. EFF uses Creative Commons licenses on nearly all of our public communications. To highlight the importance of open licensing as a tool for building a shared culture, we…
Copyright is a Civil Liberties Nightmare
Favorite If you’ve got lawyers and a copyright, the law gives you tremendous power to silence speech you don’t like. Copyright’s statutory damages can be as high as $150,000 per work infringed, even if no actual harm is done. This makes it far too dangerous to rely on the limitations and exceptions to fair use,…
What Proponents of Digital Replica Laws Can Learn from the Digital Millennium Copyright Act
Favorite We’re taking part in Copyright Week, a series of actions and discussions supporting key principles that should guide copyright policy. Every day this week, various groups are taking on different elements of copyright law and policy, and addressing what’s at stake, and what we need to do to make sure that copyright promotes creativity…
It's Copyright Week 2025: Join Us in the Fight for Better Copyright Law and Policy
Favorite We’re taking part in Copyright Week, a series of actions and discussions supporting key principles that should guide copyright policy. Every day this week, various groups are taking on different elements of copyright law and policy, and addressing what’s at stake, and what we need to do to make sure that copyright promotes creativity…