Fake AI law firms are sending fake DMCA threats to generate fake SEO gains

How one journalist found himself targeted by generative AI over a keyfob photo.

Defending Access to the Decentralized Web

Decentralized web technologies have the potential to make the internet more robust and efficient, supporting a new wave of innovation. However, the fundamental technologies and services that make it work are already being hit with overreaching...

For Would-Be Censors and the Thin-Skinned, Copyright Law Offers Powerful Tools

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...

Fair Use Creep Is A Feature, Not a Bug

Lawyers, scholars, and activists, including EFF, often highlight Section 512 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and Section 230 (originally of the Communications Decency Act) as the legal foundations of the internet. But there’s another, much...

User Generated Content and the Fediverse: A Legal Primer

A growing number of people are experimenting with federated alternatives to social media like Mastodon, either by joining an “instance” hosted by someone else or creating their own instance by running the free, open-source software on a server...

Finally We Can Watch The Deere Cracking Def Con Talk

A few weeks ago, some tantalising social media posts emerged from a Def Con talk, in which [Sick Codes] broke into the screen control unit for a John Deere tractor live on stage, and proceeded to p…

Victory! Court Rules That DMCA Does Not Override First Amendment’s Anonymous Speech Protections

Copyright law cannot be used as a shortcut around the First Amendment’s strong protections for anonymous internet users, a federal trial court ruled on Tuesday.The decision by a judge in the United States District Court for the Northern District...

2022 IP Outlook Report: The Developments Shaping Copyright Law

2022 IP OUTLOOK KEY TAKEAWAYS AND OUTLOOK FOR 2022 Like so many things in 2021, a few long-awaited copyright developments have spilled into 2022, with anticipated amendments to key provisions in

We Stand On The Precipice Of World War III, But, Sure, Let's All Talk About The DMCA And 'Standard Technical Measures'

A whole bunch of people wasted Tuesday talking about technical measures. What technical measures, you might ask? The ones vaguely alluded to in the DMCA. Subsection 512(i) conditions the safe harbors on platforms (more formally called "Online...

Appeals Court Can Rule That DMCA's Anti-Circumvention Rules Are Unconstitutional

As you hopefully know, there are two main parts to the DMCA law that was passed in 1998. There's DMCA 512, which is what you hear about most of the time. That's the part that includes the rules for notice and takedown regimes for user...

Nintendo Hates You: More DMCA Takedowns Of YouTube Videos Of Game Music Despite No Legit Alternative

I guess this is nearly an annual thing now. In 2019, we talked about how one YouTuber, GilvaSunner, had over one hundred YouTube videos blocked by Nintendo over copyright claims. GilvaSunner's channel is dedicated to video game music, mostly from...

EFF Aims to Get Appeals Court to Reverse Decision in DMCA Case

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) requested that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia block enforcement of onerous copyright rules that violate the First Amendment and criminalize certain speech about technology,...