On Monday, the Internet Association, which represents most of the major online platforms, sent a letter to the president-elect asking that his administration show support for the the status quo of the CDA and the DMCA in order to sustain “innovation and free expression” online.  But for the date and the name Trump, the letter is a boilerplate industry position ...

On October 25, four days after the unprecedented removal of the Register of Copyrights from her office, the Electronic Frontier Foundation released a post on its Deeplinks Blog asserting rather stridently that the Copyright Office never would have reviewed the FCC “set-top-box” proposal if not for the urging of the MPAA.  I think we can now say that there is ...

Creators, copyright advocates, and many policymakers were taken aback by last Friday’s announcement that the new Librarian of Congress Dr. Carla Hayden removed Maria Pallante from the position of Register of Copyrights. The decision was officially described as a reassignment for Pallante to the role of senior advisor for digital strategy, which Pallante has declined.  Associate register Karyn Temple Claggett ...

As artificial intelligence (AI) moves from the realm of science fiction to everyday science, leading  technologists and scientists are asking themselves questions about how to write an ethical code. The most widely reported ethical dilemma involves the self-driving automobile and what’s known as the Trolley Problem.  This hypothetical challenge asks whether or not you would make the decision to divert ...

On October 6, the CEO of Backpage.com Carl Ferrer, along with former executives Michael Lacy and James Larkin, were arrested in California on charges alleging involvement in prostitution, including conspiracy to commit pimping of a minor.  The classified ad site had been under investigation by the California DOJ for three years and on the radar of anti-human-trafficking advocates for at ...

Enjoy this blog? Please spread the word :)