Category: Global Domination

Android will let you find unknown Bluetooth trackers instead of just warning you about them

Posted on by Robin Edgar

The advent of Bluetooth trackers has made it a lot easier to find your bag or keys when they’re lost, but it has also put inconspicuous tracking tools in the hands of people who might misuse them. Apple and Google have both implemented tracker alerts to let you know if there’s an unknown Bluetooth tracker Read more about Android will let you find unknown Bluetooth trackers instead of just warning you about them[…]

300 Artists Back Internet Archive in $621 Million Copyright Attack from Record Labels – over music older than the 1950s

Posted on by Robin Edgar

[…]300-plus musicians who have signed an open letter supporting the Internet Archive as it faces a $621 million copyright infringement lawsuit over its efforts to preserve 78 rpm records. The letter, spearheaded by the digital advocacy group Fight for the Future, states that the signatories “wholeheartedly oppose” the lawsuit, which they suggest benefits “shareholder profits” Read more about 300 Artists Back Internet Archive in $621 Million Copyright Attack from Record Labels – over music older than the 1950s[…]

Why Italy’s Piracy Shield destroys huge internet companies and small businesses with no recourse (unless you are rich) and can lay out the entire internet in Italy to… protect against football streaming?!

Posted on by Robin Edgar

Walled Culture has been following the sorry saga of Italy’s automated blocking system Piracy Shield for a year now. Blocklists are drawn up by copyright companies, without any review, or the possibility of any objections, and those blocks must be enforced within 30 minutes. Needless to say, such a ham-fisted and biased approach to copyright Read more about Why Italy’s Piracy Shield destroys huge internet companies and small businesses with no recourse (unless you are rich) and can lay out the entire internet in Italy to… protect against football streaming?![…]

Police bust pirate streaming service making €250 million per month: doesn’t this show the TV market is hugely broken?

Posted on by Robin Edgar

An international law enforcement operation has dismantled a pirate streaming service that served over 22 million users worldwide and made €250 million ($263M) per month. Italy’s Postal and Cybersecurity Police Service announced the action, codenamed “Taken Down,” stating they worked with Eurojust, Europol, and many other European countries, making this the largest takedown of its kind in Read more about Police bust pirate streaming service making €250 million per month: doesn’t this show the TV market is hugely broken?[…]

BBC Sound Effects website top

BBC Gives Away huge Sound Effects Library, with readable and sensible terms of use

Posted on by Robin Edgar

Terms for using our content A few rules to stop you (and us) getting in trouble. a) Don’t mess with our content What do we mean by that? This sort of thing: Removing or altering BBC logos, and copyright notices from the content (if there are any) Not removing content from your device or systems Read more about BBC Gives Away huge Sound Effects Library, with readable and sensible terms of use[…]

Epic Allows Internet Archive To Distribute For Free ‘Unreal’ & ‘Unreal Tournament’ Forever

Posted on by Robin Edgar

One of the most frustrating aspects in the ongoing conversation around the preservation of older video games, also known as cultural output, is the collision of IP rights and some publishers’ unwillingness to both continue to support and make available these older games and their refusal to release those same games into the public domain Read more about Epic Allows Internet Archive To Distribute For Free ‘Unreal’ & ‘Unreal Tournament’ Forever[…]

HarperCollins Confirms It Has a Deal to Bleed Authors to allow their Work to be used as training for AI Company

Posted on by Robin Edgar

HarperCollins, one of the biggest publishers in the world, made a deal with an “artificial intelligence technology company” and is giving authors the option to opt in to the agreement or pass, 404 Media can confirm. […] On Friday, author Daniel Kibblesmith, who wrote the children’s book Santa’s Husband and published it with HarperCollins, posted Read more about HarperCollins Confirms It Has a Deal to Bleed Authors to allow their Work to be used as training for AI Company[…]

Now the copyright industry wants to apply deep, automated blocking to the Internet’s core routers

Posted on by Robin Edgar

A central theme of Walled Culture the book (free digital versions available) and this blog is that the copyright industry is never satisfied. Now matter how long the term of copyright, publishers and recording companies want more. No matter how harsh the punishments for infringement, the copyright intermediaries want them to be even more severe. Read more about Now the copyright industry wants to apply deep, automated blocking to the Internet’s core routers[…]

Judge: Just Because AI Trains On Your Publication, Doesn’t Mean It Infringes On Your Copyright. Another case thrown out.

Posted on by Robin Edgar

I get that a lot of people don’t like the big AI companies and how they scrape the web. But these copyright lawsuits being filed against them are absolute garbage. And you want that to be the case, because if it goes the other way, it will do real damage to the open web by Read more about Judge: Just Because AI Trains On Your Publication, Doesn’t Mean It Infringes On Your Copyright. Another case thrown out.[…]

The Open Source Project DeFlock Is Mapping License Plate Surveillance Cameras All Over the World

Posted on by Robin Edgar

[…] Flock is one of the largest vendors of automated license plate readers (ALPRs) in the country. The company markets itself as having the goal to fully “eliminate crime” with the use of ALPRs and other connected surveillance cameras, a target experts say is impossible. In Huntsville, Freeman noticed that license plate reader cameras were Read more about The Open Source Project DeFlock Is Mapping License Plate Surveillance Cameras All Over the World[…]

Singapore to increase road capacity by GPS tracking all vehicles. Because location data is not sensitive and will never be hacked *cough*

Posted on by Robin Edgar

Singapore’s Land Transport Authority (LTA) estimated last week that by tracking all vehicles with GPS it will be able to increase road capacity by 20,000 over the next few years. The densely populated island state is moving from what it calls Electric Road Pricing (ERP) 1.0 to ERP 2.0. The first version used gantries – Read more about Singapore to increase road capacity by GPS tracking all vehicles. Because location data is not sensitive and will never be hacked *cough*[…]

Washington Post and NYTimes suppressed by fascist Trump Through Billionaire Cowardice

Posted on by Robin Edgar

Newspaper presidential endorsements may not actually matter that much, but billionaire media owners blocking editorial teams from publishing their endorsements out of concern over potential retaliation from a future Donald Trump presidency should matter a lot. If people were legitimately worried about the “weaponization of government” and the idea that companies might silence speech over Read more about Washington Post and NYTimes suppressed by fascist Trump Through Billionaire Cowardice[…]

Feds Say You Don’t Have a Right to Check Out Retro Video Games Like Library Books. Want you to pirate them apparently.

Posted on by Robin Edgar

Most of the world’s video games from close to 50 years of history are effectively, legally dead. A Video Games History Foundation study found you can’t buy nearly 90% of games from before 2010. Preservationists have been looking for ways to allow people to legally access gaming history, but the U.S. Copyright Office dealt them a heavy blow Read more about Feds Say You Don’t Have a Right to Check Out Retro Video Games Like Library Books. Want you to pirate them apparently.[…]

Juicy Licensing Deals With AI Companies Show That Publishers Don’t Actually Care About Creators

Posted on by Robin Edgar

One of the many interesting aspects of the current enthusiasm for generative AI is the way that it has electrified the formerly rather sleepy world of copyright. Where before publishers thought they had successfully locked down more or less everything digital with copyright, they now find themselves confronted with deep-pocketed companies – both established ones like Google Read more about Juicy Licensing Deals With AI Companies Show That Publishers Don’t Actually Care About Creators[…]

Google changes Terms Of Service, now spies on your AI prompts

Posted on by Robin Edgar

The new terms come in on November 15th. 4.3 Generative AI Safety and Abuse. Google uses automated safety tools to detect abuse of Generative AI Services. Notwithstanding the “Handling of Prompts and Generated Output” section in the Service Specific Terms, if these tools detect potential abuse or violations of Google’s AUP or Prohibited Use Policy, Read more about Google changes Terms Of Service, now spies on your AI prompts[…]

Both uBlock Origin and Lite face browser problems

Posted on by Robin Edgar

Both uBlock Origin and its smaller sibling, uBlock Origin Lite, are experiencing problems thanks to browser vendors that really ought to know better. Developer Raymond Hill, or gorhill on GitHub, is one of the biggest unsung heroes of the modern web. He’s the man behind two of the leading browser extensions to block unwanted advertising, Read more about Both uBlock Origin and Lite face browser problems[…]

German court: LAION’s generative AI training dataset is legal thanks to EU copyright exceptions

Posted on by Robin Edgar

The copyright world is currently trying to assert its control over the new world of generative AI through a number of lawsuits, several of which have been discussed previously on Walled Culture. We now have our first decision in this area, from the regional court in Hamburg. Andres Guadamuz has provided an excellent detailed analysis Read more about German court: LAION’s generative AI training dataset is legal thanks to EU copyright exceptions[…]

Penguin Random House is adding an AI warning to its books’ copyright pages fwiw

Posted on by Robin Edgar

Penguin Random House, the trade publisher, is adding language to the copyright pages of its books to prohibit the use of those books to train AI. The Bookseller reports that new books and reprints of older titles from the publisher will now include the statement, “No part of this book may be used or reproduced Read more about Penguin Random House is adding an AI warning to its books’ copyright pages fwiw[…]

If You Ever Rented From Redbox, Your Private Info Is Up for Grabs

Posted on by Robin Edgar

If you’ve ever opted to rent a movie through a Redbox kiosk, your private info is out there waiting for any tinkerer to get their hands on it. One programmer who reverse-engineered a kiosk’s hard drive proved the Redbox machines can cough up transaction histories featuring customers’ names, emails, and rentals going back nearly a Read more about If You Ever Rented From Redbox, Your Private Info Is Up for Grabs[…]

OpenAI’s GPT Store Has Left Some Developers in the Lurch

Posted on by Robin Edgar

[…] when OpenAI CEO Sam Altman spoke at the dev day, he touched on potential earning opportunities for developers. “Revenue sharing is important to us,” Altman said.” We’re going to pay people who build the most useful and the most-used GPTs a portion of our revenue.” […] Books GPT, which churns out personalized book recommendations Read more about OpenAI’s GPT Store Has Left Some Developers in the Lurch[…]

Face matching now available on GSA’s login.gov, however it still doesn’t work in minimum 10% of the time

Posted on by Robin Edgar

The US government’s General Services Administration’s (GSA) facial matching login service is now generally available to the public and other federal agencies, despite its own recent report admitting the tech is far from perfect. The GSA announced general availability of remote identity verification (RiDV) technology through login.gov, and the service’s availability to other federal government Read more about Face matching now available on GSA’s login.gov, however it still doesn’t work in minimum 10% of the time[…]

Italy is losing its mind because of copyright: it just made its awful Piracy Shield even worse

Posted on by Robin Edgar

Walled Culture has been writing about Italy’s Piracy Shield system for a year now. It was clear from early on that its approach of blocking Internet addresses (IP addresses) to fight alleged copyright infringement – particularly the streaming of football matches – was flawed, and risked turning into another fiasco like France’s failed Hadopi law. Read more about Italy is losing its mind because of copyright: it just made its awful Piracy Shield even worse[…]

23andMe is on the brink. What happens to all that genetic DNA data?

Posted on by Robin Edgar

[…] The one-and-done nature of Wiles’ experience is indicative of a core business problem with the once high-flying biotech company that is now teetering on the brink of collapse. Wiles and many of 23andMe’s 15 million other customers never returned. They paid once for a saliva kit, then moved on. Shares of 23andMe are now Read more about 23andMe is on the brink. What happens to all that genetic DNA data?[…]

License Plate Readers Are Creating a US-Wide Database of Cars – and political affiliation, planned parenthood and more

Posted on by Robin Edgar

At 8:22 am on December 4 last year, a car traveling down a small residential road in Alabama used its license-plate-reading cameras to take photos of vehicles it passed. One image, which does not contain a vehicle or a license plate, shows a bright red “Trump” campaign sign placed in front of someone’s garage. In Read more about License Plate Readers Are Creating a US-Wide Database of Cars – and political affiliation, planned parenthood and more[…]

Insecure Robot Vacuums From Chinese Company Deebot Collect Photos and Audio to Train Their AI

Posted on by Robin Edgar

Ecovacs robot vacuums, which have been found to suffer from critical cybersecurity flaws, are collecting photos, videos and voice recordings — taken inside customers’ houses — to train the company’s AI models. The Chinese home robotics company, which sells a range of popular Deebot models in Australia, said its users are “willingly participating” in a Read more about Insecure Robot Vacuums From Chinese Company Deebot Collect Photos and Audio to Train Their AI[…]