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.
Full list of things preventing the AELJ exercising their open-access free speech and starting their own newspaper: [list ends]
Oh great, another reason for the fucknuggets currently leading the UK to try and get out of the ECHR. [insert roll-eye gif of your choice]
UK copyright on written works is death + 70 years (because authors generally create a lot more content in the 70 years or so after they've died...), Fleming died in '64, so another 10 years.
Cops have missed an easy win here. All they needed to do was sneak some fentanyl into the evidence locker and it'd be a slam dunk.
I was going to ask what poutine is but now I wish I didn't know.
"It really feels like this bill was written by people who got completely sucked into a moral panic about AI-generated deep fakes, but with absolutely no understanding or knowledge of free speech or publicity rights issues." So pretty much like every other law that gets drafted at the moment then?
The Threads thread that I first saw this on was full of people making this comparison. There are a lot of short memories out there.
Full list of people surprised by this development: [list ends]
Faster pussycat!
I think the cycle is not just continuing but accelerating with each iteration having a shorter lifespan. Pretty soon you won't just change channels at the touch of a button, you'll change distribution mechanism.
Great! Now do re-patenting for new uses next.
Is there a scandal big enough?
I'm not convinced any scandal will force this change. If successive governments can see multiple school shootings in a year and still decide to do nothing then I don't fancy the chances of scaring congress into action with data insecurity.
There are many questions...
As a very minor streamer I stand to lose out from this. Not a lot of course because the numbers are small, but at the moment my streaming payments just about cover my aggregator costs. Take Spotify out of that (I don't hit 1000 plays per track per year generally) and that takes out the bulk of that. So that they can redistribute it to bigger artists. Hmm. Gee thanks.
Speaking from the other side of the pond, all I can say is, "what in the sam hell is pickleball?"
Couldn't
Couldn't care less. Could not. It literally makes no sense if you say "could care less" in this context. Couldn't. Couldn't. Couldn't.
Yeah, but what about the downsides Karl?
You keep using that word; I do not think it means what you think it means
With regard to the inclusion of the self-help book, you appear to be confusing 'prose' with 'fiction'. Very little non-fiction is not written in prose... Additionally, just because a piece is non-fiction doesn't mean the author hasn't considered a story arc and hasn't worked just as hard on writing emotionally engaging content. At least, not if they're any good at it.
Working on Bing in the UK now.
I find it weird that people are using a law designed to promote progress to try and stifle progress. It doesn't seem like a particularly promising approach.
When I read the title I had to wonder if this was going to be covering journalism by AI or journalism about AI...
We see this in UK politics a lot. Horrific / inhumane policy is proposed but couched in polite language, wrapped in a flag and pitched as 'decency' or 'tradition'. Group who will be affected by said policy react angrily at (further) attack on their rights (or existence). Original proposer (and supporting press) latch onto the angry reaction and claim victimhood. Story shifts to angry reaction not discriminatory policy. Rinse and repeat.