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Tom Lehrer’s passing this weekend at age 97 has rightfully sparked tributes to his brilliant satirical songs. But amid all the well-deserved praise for “The Elements” and “Poisoning Pigeons in the Park,” there’s another aspect of Lehrer’s legacy that deserves equal celebration: his decision to dump his entire catalog into the public domain.
In an era when artists’ estates routinely extend...
I wasn’t wrong when I wrote that Apple, Google, Akamai, and others faced tremendous liability risk if they continued to provide any of their hosting services to TikTok. Of course, not because it should be illegal – the operative law is incredibly unconstitutional, despite the trite reasoning by the Supreme Court finding it otherwise. But because, as long as it remains an enforceable law, it...
Donald Trump is a notorious media bully. He uses lawsuits, executive power, and political pressure to punish critics and bend institutions to his will. Disney, Meta, and Paramount have since paid out multi-million-dollar settlements over content disputes. CBS News leaders resigned. Colbert’s show was canceled. The AP was barred from the White House. Even Rupert Murdoch is now being sued over...
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Sure, “Department of Justice” has always been a misnomer, what with its blessing of things like civil asset forfeiture, bogus CFAA prosecutions, cop junk science, the 1033 program, and the complete inability to successfully sue federal officers for blatant Constitutional violations. But it also used to have things like a civil rights division that investigated misbehaving law enforcement agencies...
Trump Threatens To Withold Billions From States That Try To Make Broadband Affordable To Poor People
Earlier this month we noted how California was attempting to pass a new law ensuring that broadband would be affordable to poor people. The original law proposed that the biggest ISPs would need to make sure they offered speeds of at least 100 Mbps down, 20 Mbps up for $15 a month to California residents who qualify for existing low-income assistance programs. It mirrored a similar law in NY...
This week, our first place winner on the insightful side is Stephen T. Stone with a comment about our call for the government to accept accountability for the power it wields:
Bold of you to assume that Republicans will ever place responsibility for their actions on their own shoulders instead of on the backs of other people.
In second place, it’s an anonymous comment about the Supreme Court...
Five Years Ago
This week in 2020, the DHS was going full gestapo in response to protests in Portland, then quickly expanding the tactics to other cities, starting with Chicago, and was also engaging in domestic surveillance to protect statues and monuments. We asked why the US was trying to punish hackers for accessing vaccine research, the FCC’s Ajit Pai was pretending to care about a prison...
It seems to be part of human nature to try to game systems. That’s also true for technological systems, including the most recent iteration of AI, as the numerous examples of prompt injection exploits demonstrate. In the latest twist, an investigation by Nikkei Asia has found hidden prompts in academic preprints hosted on the arXiv platform, which directed AI review tools to give them good scores...
This series of posts explores how we can rethink the intersection of AI, creativity, and policy. From examining outdated regulatory metaphors to questioning copyright norms and highlighting the risks of stifling innovation, each post addresses a different piece of the AI puzzle. Together, they advocate for a more balanced, forward-thinking approach that acknowledges the potential of technological...