Walled Culture the book, three years on

Walled Culture the book (free digital versions available) was launched just over three years ago. A few weeks afterwards, I talked with journalist and editor Maria Bustillos about the book and its background, as part of the Internet Archive’s Book Talk series. That interview has just been added to the Future Knowledge Podcast series in a shortened form, so this seems like a good moment to […]

#agcom #analogue #browsers #canada #cdn #collectiveLicensing #copyrightTerm #diamondOpenAccess #digital #digitalViolence #dns #ebooks #enforcement #eu #euCopyrightDirective #films #france #genai #generativeAi #germany #google #hostageWorks #humanRights #InternetArchive #interview #italy #levy #licensing #linkTax #MarrakeshTreaty #newspapers #openAccess #openai #piracyShield #podcast #portugal #publicDomain #publishers #routers #spain #streaming #tax #transparency #trueFans #tv #uk #uploadFilters #videoGames #vpn

https://walledculture.org/walled-culture-the-book-three-years-on/

German court deepens the AI‑copyright split, ruling that striking lyric similarity isn’t a coincidence. The decision highlights tensions around data mining, generative models and the EU’s new copyright directive. What does this mean for open‑source LLMs and songwriters? Read on to see the implications. #AICopyright #GenerativeModels #LargeLanguageModels #EUCopyrightDirective

🔗 https://aidailypost.com/news/german-court-deepens-aicopyright-split-says-lyric-similarity-not

Pluralistic: The mad king's digital killswitch (20 Oct 2025)

https://fed.brid.gy/r/https://pluralistic.net/2025/10/20/post-american-internet/

Pluralistic: Microsoft, Tear Down That Wall! (15 Oct 2025)

https://fed.brid.gy/r/https://pluralistic.net/2025/10/15/freedom-of-movement/

EU prepares to give new rights to live streaming sites, to the detriment of the Internet and its users

At the heart of Walled Culture the book (free digital versions available) lies the dispiriting saga of how the EU Copyright Directive came into being. It began in early 2013 with the usual “stakeholder dialogue”, in which the European Commission sought the views of the various constituencies affected. It generated an unprecedentedly large response that was surprising given the dry and […]

#blocking #cloudflare #consultation #dns #eu #euCopyrightDirective #euipo #europeanCommission #germany #italy #laliga #liveStreaming #piracyShield #spain #sportsStreaming #transparency #US #vpns #wipo

https://walledculture.org/eu-prepares-to-give-new-rights-to-live-streaming-sites-to-the-detriment-of-the-internet-and-its-users/

Yes, let’s “Make it Fair” – by recognising that copyright has failed to reward creators properly

A few weeks ago, the UK’s regional and national daily news titles ran similar front covers, exhorting the government there to “Make it Fair”. The campaign Web site explained:

Tech companies use creative content, such as news articles, books, music, film, photography, visual art, and all kinds of creative work, to train their generative AI models.

Publishers and creators say that doing […]

#creators #dailies #euCopyrightDirective #generativeAi #journalists #linkTax #newspapers #optOut #publishers #ratchet #snippetTax #sustainability #tax #theft #training #uk

https://walledculture.org/yes-lets-make-it-fair-by-recognising-that-copyright-has-failed-to-reward-creators-properly/

Penguin Random House hopes copyright bluster will scare off generative AI

As Walled Culture has reported, a number of major publishers have brought legal actions against generative AI companies, alleging copyright infringement. These cases are still grinding through the courts, but one publisher, Penguin Random House – one of the so-called “Big Five” publishing houses that dominate the industry worldwide – is not simply sitting back and waiting for the […]

#bluesky #brexit #creativity #dsm #euCopyrightDirective #freedomOfExpression #genai #generativeAi #intellectualMonopoly #penguin #publishing #statuteOfAnne #training #uk

https://walledculture.org/penguin-random-house-hopes-copyright-bluster-will-scare-off-generative-ai/

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

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 of a ruling that is important for the German judges’ […]

#aiAct #andresGuadamuz #copyrightException #datasets #euCopyrightDirective #generativeAi #germany #Hamburg #laion #nonCommercial #research #tdm #textAndDataMining #training

https://walledculture.org/german-court-laions-generative-ai-training-dataset-is-legal-thanks-to-eu-copyright-exceptions/

The link tax’s failure to deliver meaningful benefits is a lesson for the copyright industry

It seems so long ago that people were trying to stop the worst aspects of the EU Copyright Directive. It was quite a battle, as Chapter 6 of Walled Culture the book (free digital versions available) recounts in detail. The final legislation was passed in March 2019, but it is important not simply to accept what happened and move on. The copyright industry used many […]

#article15 #copybuzz #euCopyrightDirective #genai #generativeAi #germany #googleTax #journalists #linkTax #lobbyists #newspapers #publishers

https://walledculture.org/the-link-taxs-failure-to-deliver-meaningful-benefits-is-a-lesson-for-the-copyright-industry/

New research shows that the 2023 Canadian link tax has already failed – just like all the others

At the heart of Walled Culture the book (free digital versions available) lies the sorry tale of the EU Copyright Directive. Its stated aim appeared reasonable enough: to update EU copyright law for the digital age. But unprecedented lobbying by the copyright industry saw it become yet another failure to understand the online world, and yet another example of laws […]

#canada #eu #euCopyrightDirective #facebook #google #googleTax #instagram #linkTax #links #onlineNewsAct #screenshots

https://walledculture.org/new-research-shows-that-the-2023-canadian-link-tax-has-already-failed-just-like-all-the-others/

Money talks in the world of copyright legislation, and that’s a big problem for ordinary Internet users

Copyright has always been about money. That’s why the copyright industry fights so hard to strengthen legal protections, in order to boost its profits. However, getting detailed information about how much money is involved, and who receives it, is hard, because there are so many small pieces to the overall copyright ecosystem. That makes a long post exploring money …

#euCopyrightDirective #LawrenceLessig #lobbying #musicIndustry #musicStreaming #napster #P2P #ugc #uk #userGeneratedContent

https://walledculture.org/money-talks-in-the-world-of-copyright-legislation-and-thats-a-big-problem-for-ordinary-internet-users/

How copyright drives Internet fragmentation, and why it is hard to fix

The EU Copyright Directive is arguably the most important recent legislation in the area of intellectual monopolies. It is also a failure, judged purely on its own terms as an initiative to modernise and unify copyright across the European Union. Instead, it includes many backward-looking features that go against the grain of the digital world, which are explored in …

#euCopyrightDirective #exceptions #france #germany #ifla #JamesLove #kei #librarians #MarrakeshTreaty

https://walledculture.org/how-copyright-drives-internet-fragmentation-and-why-it-is-hard-to-fix/

European Parliament sabotages the AI Act by failing to recognise that the right to read is the right to train

Walled Culture recently wrote about an unrealistic French legislative proposal that would require the listing of all the authors of material used for training generative AI systems. Unfortunately, the European Parliament has inserted a similarly impossible idea in its text for the upcoming Artificial Intelligence (AI) Act. The DisCo blog explains that MEPs added new …

#ai #aiAct #disco #eu #euCopyrightDirective #europeanParliament #france #reading #tdm #textMining

https://walledculture.org/european-parliament-sabotages-the-ai-act-by-failing-to-recognise-that-the-right-to-read-is-the-right-to-train/

Anti-porn filters stop Dominic Cummings trending on Twitter - https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/may/27/anti-porn-filters-stop-dominic-cummings-trending-on-twitter this is just a foretaste of the large-scale erroneous blocking that #eucopyrightdirective will cause

It’s On: Details Emerge Of Polish Government’s Formal Request For Top EU Court To Throw Out #UploadFilters - https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20190819/08344542817/details-emerge-polish-governments-formal-request-top-eu-court-to-throw-out-upload-filters.shtml you thought the battle over #eucopyrightdirective was finished? nope; well done, #poland

It’s On: Details Emerge Of Polish Government’s Formal Request For Top EU Court To Throw Out #UploadFilters - https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20190819/08344542817/details-emerge-polish-governments-formal-request-top-eu-court-to-throw-out-upload-filters.shtml you thought the battle over #eucopyrightdirective was finished? well done, #poland

It's On: Details Emerge Of Polish Government's Formal Request For Top EU Court To Throw Out #UploadFilters - https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20190819/08344542817/details-emerge-polish-governments-formal-request-top-eu-court-to-throw-out-upload-filters.shtml you thought the battle over #eucopyrightdirective was finished? nope #poland

I'm so frustrated by the public debate about #SocialMedia since the mosque shootings. People who seem to have only just noticed that corporate dominance of the net causes problems are jumping on kneejerk solutions like mass #censorship and removal of services (eg FB turning off #LiveStreaming). They seem oblivious to the #UnintendedConsequences that, like those of #Article13 of the #EUCopyrightDirective, are blatantly obvious to those of us who have been studying the systemic problems for years.

Make no mistake, FB and the rest of the corporate tech giants will do their best to make any internet rules - national or international - work in their favour, and make life hard for smaller players. Just as they have with the #EUCopyrightDirective. But it's also an opportunity for tech activists and civil society groups to do the opposite, and get rules on things like #Dataportability in #OpenFormats, that empower users to transition from the#DataFarms to community-scale #EthicalTech platforms.

RT @LawTechGadget@twitter.com

Excellent article by ⁦@doctorow@twitter.com⁩ on ‘pre and post’ thoughts on #Article13 of #EUCopyrightDirective | ‘After months of insisting that #Article13 doesn't require filters, top EU Commissioner says "Article 13 requires filters"’ https://boingboing.net/2019/04/03/i-hate-being-right.html

🐦🔗: https://twitter.com/LawTechGadget/status/1113530948522582017