New Year's Message: The Opportunity To Build A Better Internet Is Here. Right Now.

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Long term readers of Techdirt know that, since 2008, I’ve written a final post of the year on reasons to remain optimistic. It started when some people kept telling me that when they read what I wrote I sounded angry and frustrated, but when they’d meet me in person, I always seemed optimistic about the […]

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After Dumb Lobbying Delays And Ample Watering Down, NY Passes Landmark 'Right To Repair' Bill

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New York State has finally passed a landmark “right to repair” bill proving American consumers some additional protection from repair monopolies. After some annoying delays created by lobbyists, New York State Governor Kathy Hochul signed the legislation on December 29. The legislation gives New York consumers the right to fix their electronic devices themselves or […]

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University Of Oklahoma The Latest To Issue A Performative Ban Of TikTok

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Pretending that you’re actually fixing the world’s privacy and national security issues by banning TikTok is just so very hot right now. Numerous states have passed new rules banning TikTok on government employee devices. And Marco Rubio has proposed a federal law that would ban TikTok unless ByteDance is willing to sell the popular app […]

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New York's Rikers Island Has A Drug Problem That's Being Aided And Abetted By Jail Staff

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Rikers Island doesn’t just house the convicted. It also houses those merely accused of crimes who are awaiting trial. The difference between the two doesn’t matter much to those staffing Rikers. If you’re there, you’re no longer a human being. For years, the jail has been mismanaged, which is a really kind word for a […]

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Ring Doorbell Cams Hijacked By Assholes To Provide Live Streams Of SWATtings

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Amazon’s home security tech acquisition, Ring, has become a dominant player in this industry sector. Some of that is due to Amazon’s backing. A lot of this is due to extremely inappropriate relationships with law enforcement, which convert cops to Ring proselytizers whose public statements are subject to review by the company’s PR wing. Ubiquity […]

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Texas Cop Sentenced To More Than 11 Years In Jail For Killing A Woman During A Welfare Check

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It’s not often a cop gets criminally charged for killing someone. In most cases, cops are cleared of wrongdoing. Even when they aren’t, their employers and overseers aren’t interested in establishing deterrents to bad police behavior or holding bad cops accountable for their wrongdoing. There are notable exceptions, of course. The most recent notable case […]

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ITC Blocks Import Of Apple Watches Based On Claimed Infringement But The Patents Have Already Been Declared Invalid

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It’s been many, many years since we were regularly covering what we referred to as the ITC loophole in patent enforcement. The issue was that patent holders could get two totally separate at bats to try to force a company that was actually innovating to pay up over dubious patents. They could go to court, […]

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TikTok Admits It Used App Data To Spy On Journalists To Try To Find Source Of Leak

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Back in June we wrote about a blockbuster article in Buzzfeed by Emily Baker-White detailing how ByteDance engineers in China were still accessing data on US TikTok users. That was notable, given that ByteDance had signed this big deal with Oracle, while former President Trump held a proverbial gun to its head, to try to […]

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Tom Lehrer Puts Whatever He Hadn't Already Donated To The Public Domain Into The Public Domain

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Hopefully, you already know who Tom Lehrer is, and are already familiar with his music, but if you’re somehow in the dark, I suggest you read this excellent profile, or visit his unofficial official YouTube channel. Or, visit his website where you can download everything for free (he even begs you not to send him […]

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Gaming Like It's 1927: Get Ready For Our Next Public Domain Game Jam

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Sign up for the Public Domain Game Jam on itch.io  It’s that time of year! Ever since works in the US finally started entering the public domain again, we’ve been hosting an annual game jam for designers to create games based on the year’s newly copyright-free works. This year, it’s Gaming Like It’s 1927! There […]

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California City Residents Pay $300,000 To Veteran Brutalized By Officer Who Didn't Want To Be Filmed

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The deliberate “failure” of a Vallejo, California police officer to respect the rights of a Marine veteran filming him from his own porch will cost city residents $300,000. And that’s on top of the money the city spent defending Officer David McLaughlin from the lawsuit filed by the victim of his brutality, Adrian Burrell. Here’s […]

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Iceland Foods Loses Again On Appeal Of 'Iceland' EU Trademark

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You will hopefully recall our ongoing discussions about one of the strangest trademark disputes I’ve ever encountered between Iceland Foods, a grocer in the EU, and Iceland, the country. Way back in 2016, Iceland petitioned to remove a trademark Iceland Foods had for its company name, arguing that the trademark had allowed the company to […]

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Finally! An Interesting Twitter Files That Appears To Reveal Sketchy Government Behavior

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We finally have an interesting edition of the Twitter files! When the Twitter Files began, I actually expected something interesting to come out of them. All of the big tech companies have been unfortunately unwilling to be as transparent as they could be about how their content moderation practices work. Much of the transparency we’ve […]

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City Of Phoenix Engages In Insane Protectionism On Behalf Of The NFL

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We’re a tad early for our annual season in which we point out that the NFL likes to play make believe as to its trademark rights for the Super Bowl. You can go read through the history of our posts on the topic, but essentially the NFL seems to think that its trademark rights allow […]

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Techdirt Podcast Episode 340: The New Abnormal On Twitter

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It seems the madness just never stops on Elon Musk’s Twitter, and it’s almost impossible to keep up. Recently, Mike joined the Daily Beast’s podcast, The New Abnormal, for a discussion with host Andy Levy about just what exactly is going on with Twitter under Musk’s erratic leadership. The conversation first appeared as part of […]

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Libraries Offer Music Streaming Services That Really Support Local Musicians

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Music streaming services are great - for listeners, who gain access to huge quantities of music, even if they don't end up owning any of it. But it's hardly a secret that streaming services produce very little income for the musicians involved - even the big names earn a pittance - with most of the money ending […]

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Can AI Text Writers Help People Impacted By Copyright Law To Better Weigh In On Copyright?

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One of the reasons that copyright is so unbalanced in favor of companies, especially Big Content, is that the process of bringing in new copyright laws is hard for ordinary members of the public to engage with. Typically, new laws come about after government consultations. Although these are public in the sense that they are […]

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Court Reminds St. Louis City Council That Blocking Taxpayers On Social Media Violates 1st Amendment

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No matter what you may have heard on certain social media outlets, this is how the First Amendment actually works. Free speech “heroes” can freely curb your speech. The government, however, may not. So, if you’re a government account operating on social media services, when you fuck around, you find out. This decision [PDF] — […]

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The Electric Car Could Finally Put AM Radio Out To Pasture

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There’s a long way to go before the electric car revolution even comes close to the version that currently exists in everybody’s heads. Getting enough rare-Earth minerals to ramp up EV production at the scale most have in mind will be a big challenge. Then there are other issues related to safety thanks to EVs’ […]

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Judge Torches Federal Prosecutors For Flipping A Defendant And Using Him To Spy On Defense Team

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It’s no surprise the government cheats when it prosecutes people. Judge Jed Rakoff pointed this out while resigning from the DOJ’s Forensic Science Committee when it became clear the DOJ was not interested in rooting out junk science. He called the government’s refusal to allow defendants to examine forensic means and methods “trial by ambush.” […]

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The power of incremental momentum

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A step-by-step approach that builds momentum incrementally is a good strategy for companies trying to implement firmwide transformation. Brad Borkan uses examples from the past (the US National Wildlife Refuge System) and the present (software giant SAP's move to the cloud) to prove his point.

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Thursday Night Purge: Elon Musk's Twitter Bans Tons Of High Profile Journalists

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Well. Just after finishing that last post about Twitter banning the official Mastodon account on Twitter for tweeting about the ElonJet tracking account existing on Mastodon, it seems that whatever brakes or controls were in place at the new “free speech absolutist” Twitter have really come off. In quick succession, a whole bunch of high […]

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Elon's Commitment To Free Speech Rapidly Replaced By His Commitment To Blatant Hypocrisy: Bans The JoinMastodon Account

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Oh, Elon. Following on yesterday’s nonsense in banning the ElonJet account that robotically posted the public information regarding Elon’s private plane flights, and then trying to justify it later (after initially promising to keep the account alive to demonstrate his “commitment to free speech”), it appears that Elon’s commitment to free speech continues to dwindle. […]

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Elon's Promise Not To Ban Account Tracking His Jet Didn't Last Very Long At All; Also Bans Guy's Personal Account

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Hilarious Update: A few minutes ago, the @ElonJet account returned to Twitter, but that came about 20 minutes after Elon himself justified the ban, saying it violated the company’s (new) doxxing policies (see the original update to this story at the bottom. Hilarious Update 2: And, a couple hours later, the account was suspended a […]

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Getty Images Watermark Shows Up In Latest Square 'Final Fantasy' Game

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Square Enix, the game studio behind famous video game franchises like the Final Fantasy series, is well known to be a big believer in intellectual property enforcement. Just on our pages alone, we’ve talked about the times they struck out against folks selling replica swords from its games, or fan-made productions featuring Square IP in […]

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Nintendo Copyright Strikes Video About Unreleased 'Heroes Of Hyrule' Game

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It’s no secret that Nintendo is one of my common targets to slap around for its draconian enforcement of intellectual property, much to the annoyance of some Nintendo fans. It’s just that it’s… hard not to? This is an enormous player in the video game industry that wields IP as a method for taking down […]

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FCC Approval Of New Starlink Satellites Should Help Growing Congestion Issues

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While Space X's Starlink is a promising broadband option if you're out of range of traditional options (and can afford the $710 first month price tag), many users who've pre-ordered aren't having a great time. Some say they've been waiting for service more than a year, during which time Starlink has often refused to answer basic […]

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Twitch Streamer Hasan Suspended From Twitch After Bullshit Copyright Strike From Rightwing Organization

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It’s beginning to get quite comical watching various rightwing folks and groups bang on constantly about how pro-free-speech they are, often talking about situations that have nothing to do with free speech, only to engage in anti-speech behavior themselves. The new owner of a mountain of debt that is called Twitter has become something of […]

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Los Angeles Elects Another Reformer Sheriff To Replace Its Previous Reformer Sheriff

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The Los Angeles Sheriffs Department (LASD) has been overseen by a succession of terrible elected officials. Sheriff Lee Baca presided over a department that filled its ranks with criminals, ignored the proliferation of deputy gangs, and ran a jailhouse informant program so unlawful it resulted in an FBI investigation and the conviction of Sheriff Baca […]

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This Week In Techdirt History: December 4th - 10th

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Five Years Ago This week in 2017, New York’s AG rolled out a tool to help people check if their name was used to support killing net neutrality, while we looked at why Ajit Pai had been spending his time attacking Hollywood and Silicon Valley. Pai also didn’t want people talking about a court ruling […]

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Denver PD Sued After SWAT Team Raid Of 77-Year-Old Woman's House Based On Nothing More Than Phone Pings

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Once again, law enforcement’s enthusiasm for violent warrant service has combined with its disinterest in responsible policing to result in a civil rights lawsuit. Here’s how that all played out, as reported by The Denver Post. (h/t Techdirt reader BentFranklin) Ruby Johnson, 77, is afraid to be alone in the house where she's lived for […]

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The EU-Canada Trade Agreement CETA Still Isn't Done, And May Be Partially Undone Because Of Its Corporate Sovereignty Provisions

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The EU-Canada Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) is one of several long-running trade deal sagas covered by Techdirt. It seemed to be almost over in 2017. After a constant on-off excitement about whether CETA would survive, it was ratified by the European Union. But it still needed to be approved by all the EU […]

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Appeals Court Reminds Cop That Calling Normal Human Behavior Suspicious Is No Way To Secure A Conviction

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Since cops are trained to view everything as suspicious, they tend to believe everything is suspicious. The list of things considered to be suspicious often contradicts other things on the list of things considered suspicious. That should be considered suspicious, but somehow cops never think it is. Even if they don’t believe everything is suspicious, […]

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Pro Tip: If Your Game Gets Trashed In Reviews For Sucking, Don't Blame It On 'Woke Reviewers'

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There are lots of shitty ways game developers and publishers can handle their games getting crappy reviews. The best bet would obviously be to read the reviews from customers, learn something from them, and make a better product. Far too often, however, developers and publishers instead try to disappear bad reviews, fake reviews, or otherwise […]

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Value-creating chief data officers: Cementing a seat at the top table

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In PwC's second Chief Data Officer Study, we found more chief data officers appointed by the world's leading companies--and evidence they're having a positive impact on performance.

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Debate Continues Over What To Do About The Fact That Starlink, Other Low-Earth-Orbit Satellite Systems Are Causing Irreversible, Research-Harming Light Pollution

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For years, scientific researchers have warned that Elon Musk's Starlink low Earth orbit (LEO) satellite broadband constellations are harming scientific research. Simply put, the light pollution Musk claimed would never happen in the first place is making it far more difficult to study the night sky, a problem researchers say can be mitigated somewhat but never fully eliminated. Musk […]

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Nintendo Shuts Down 'Smash World Tour' Over Licensing At The Last Possible Second

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It will come as no surprise to any regular reader here when I say that Nintendo is roughly the most annoyingly draconian protector of IP in the video game space. At this point, Techdirt posts discussing Nintendo’s copyright and trademark antics are legion. Notable among those posts for the purposes of this discussion are several […]

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Devin Nunes Gets Small, Most Likely Temporary, Victory Against MSNBC, While Also Suing CNN Again

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You might have seen some headlines recently suggesting that former congressional representative and current flailing social media CEO (and serial suer of the media) Devin Nunes had some sort of legal victory over Rachel Maddow and MSNBC. And he did get a very, very small victory while piling up more losses at the same time. […]

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'Nintendo Power' Scans Disappeared From The Internet Archive

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It was only some weeks back that we were discussing how a group of hobbyists were once again doing the culture preservation work that content creators should be doing in the form of a scan of every single Nintendo Power magazine and uploading it to the Internet Archive. At the time, you could go to […]

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Law Enforcement Is Extracting Tons Of Data From Vehicle Infotainment Systems

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For years, cars have collected massive amounts of data. And for years, this data has been extraordinarily leaky. Manufacturers don’t like to discuss how much data gets phoned home from vehicle systems. They also don’t like to discuss the attack vectors these systems create, either for malicious hackers or slightly less malicious law enforcement investigators. […]

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Media Organizations Ask US To Drop Charges Against Assange

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While it seems difficult for some to balance these things, it remains entirely possible to think that Julian Assange is, generally speaking, a horrible human being, who was likely easily played like a fiddle by foreign nation states looking to play influence games in other nations… and that the US’s charges against him remain absolute […]

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This Week In Techdirt History: November 27th - December 3rd

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Five Years Ago This week in 2017, we wrote about Ajit Pai’s big lie about net neutrality. His FCC had lots of little lies too, which was why the NY Attorney General was investigating how dead people submitted comments supporting the repeal. Comcast was also lying, of course, and promising that even though it spent […]

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Yes, Digital Books Do Wear Out; Stop Accepting Publishers Claims That They Don't

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There's a great post by Brewster Kahle on the Internet Archive blog with the title Digital Books wear out faster than Physical Books. He makes an important point about the work involved in providing and preserving digital books: The Internet Archive processes and reprocesses the books it has digitized as new optical character recognition technologies […]

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Des Moines Residents Will Shell Out $125,000 To Man Whose Phone Was Illegally Seized By Cops He Was Recording

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Denying qualified immunity to law enforcement officers who violate rights is a rarity. It doesn’t mean the sued cops lose. It just means they can’t dismiss the lawsuit. In theory, that means officers alleged to have violated rights will now make their case in front of a jury. But a cop facing a jury is […]

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Video Game Addiction Is Over, Says Chinese Video Game Addiction Regulator

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We should always be wary when a government entity charged with ending [insert issue here] declares said issue ended. We should be doubly wary when a Chinese government agency says anything about anything. So, it’s with a huge amount of skepticism that we greet this announcement by a Chinese regulator, which claims the thing it’s […]

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How to fill the looming skills gap

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Nadi Albino, from the public-private-youth partnership Generation Unlimited, and Chaitali Mukherjee, the people and organization lead partner with PwC India, talk about why upskilling youth is so important for the world and why businesses should play a part.

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Ubisoft Runs Away From Epic Store And Back To Steam

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It’s been a long while since we last discussed the platform war that started between Steam and Epic several years back. The crux of the situation was that Epic began offering a far better revenue split for game publishers compared with Steam, with something like a 10-20% delta in how much of the revenue Epic […]

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'Deus Ex Go' To Be Completely Disappeared With Studio Shutdown

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It’s a lesson that apparently keeps needing to be re-learned over and over again: for far too many types of digital purchases, you simply don’t own the thing you bought. The arena for this perma-lesson are varied: movies, books, music. And, of course, video games. The earliest lesson in that space may have been when […]

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EFF Asks Court To Rein In Orange County, CA's DNA Dragnet

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DNA collection at the time of arrest may make sense in certain cases. If it’s a violent crime — rape, murder, home invasion, etc. — it probably is smart to take some sort of a sample which may help place the suspect at the scene of the crime. Not that DNA evidence is infallible. It’s […]

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