I was reading an editorial the other day written by Stephen Witt for NPR shortly after the passing of John Parry Barlow in 2018; and it occurred to me that internet activists seem to fit one of two profiles—Mourners and Evangelicals. And both are full of shit. Witt does an excellent job summarizing the early barefoot wanderings of the college-dropout, ...
Well, it’s Fair Use Week again. Seventh annual. I suppose one must say something. Though what I really want to say is Why? What exactly happened in 2013 to provoke the idea that we needed this celebration? The fair use doctrine had been part of the federal copyright law for forty years, and its common law precedents began percolating in ...
In 2015, Rep. Jackie Speier (D-CA) introduced a bill that would make it a federal crime to engage in what is generically called “revenge porn.” I say generically because “revenge” alludes to a specific motive, usually that of a disgruntled ex-boyfriend who decides to get back at a former girlfriend by distributing intimate or sexually explicit images of her online. ...
Immediately after the 2016 election, many Americans discovered just how much fake news they were sharing via social media. And for about ten minutes, the term fake news had a specific and literal meaning; it referred to fabricated stories made to look like news, and which serve either as clickbait to generate ad revenue or as mischief to fan the ...
So, it turns out it’s Copyright Week. I had no idea, and it’s already Copyright Hump Day. What with the government shutdown, the Barr confirmation hearings, the litany of breaking stories in the Russian-interference investigations, I just didn’t notice. But then I saw a post by the Electronic Frontier Foundation recognizing Copyright Week, including an obligatory “SOPA lead” as recommended ...
