Email updates on news, actions,and events in your area.DEEPLINKS BLOGShare ItIt seems like every week there’s another Big Tech hearing accompanied by a flurry of mostly bad ideas for reform. Two events set last week’s hubbub apart, both involving Facebook. First, Mark Zuckerberg took a new step in his blatant effort to use . Second, new reports are demonstrating, if further demonstration were needed, how badly Facebook is failing at policing the content on its platform with any consistency whatsoever. The overall message is clear: if content moderation doesn’t work even with the kind of...…Email updates on news, actions,and events in your area.DEEPLINKS BLOGShare ItIt seems like every week there’s another Big Tech hearing accompanied by a flurry of mostly bad ideas for reform. Two events set last week’s hubbub apart, both involving Facebook. First, Mark Zuckerberg took a new step in his blatant effort to use . Second, new reports are demonstrating, if further demonstration were needed, how badly Facebook is failing at policing the content on its platform with any consistency whatsoever. The overall message is clear: if content moderation doesn’t work even with the kind of...WW…

Email updates on news, actions,and events in your area.DEEPLINKS BLOGShare ItThe threats to online expression and innovation keep coming. One that’s flown under the radar is a misguided effort to convince the Third Circuit Court of Appeals to allow claims based on the “right of publicity,” (i.e., the right to control the commercial exploitation of your persona) because some people think of this right as a form of “intellectual property.” State law claims are normally barred under Section 230, a and online expression. But Section 230 doesn’t apply to “intellectual property” claims, so if...…Email updates on news, actions,and events in your area.DEEPLINKS BLOGShare ItThe threats to online expression and innovation keep coming. One that’s flown under the radar is a misguided effort to convince the Third Circuit Court of Appeals to allow claims based on the “right of publicity,” (i.e., the right to control the commercial exploitation of your persona) because some people think of this right as a form of “intellectual property.” State law claims are normally barred under Section 230, a and online expression. But Section 230 doesn’t apply to “intellectual property” claims, so if...WW…

Email updates on news, actions,and events in your area.DEEPLINKS BLOGShare ItRewriting the legal pillars of the Internet is a popular sport these days. Frustration at Big Tech, among other things, has led to a flurry of proposals to change long-standing laws, like Section 230, Section 512 of the DMCA, and the E-Commerce Directive, that help shield online intermediaries from potential liability for what their users say or do, or for their content moderation decisions.If anyone tells you revising these laws will be easy, they are gravely mistaken at best. For decades, Internet users –...…Email updates on news, actions,and events in your area.DEEPLINKS BLOGShare ItRewriting the legal pillars of the Internet is a popular sport these days. Frustration at Big Tech, among other things, has led to a flurry of proposals to change long-standing laws, like Section 230, Section 512 of the DMCA, and the E-Commerce Directive, that help shield online intermediaries from potential liability for what their users say or do, or for their content moderation decisions.If anyone tells you revising these laws will be easy, they are gravely mistaken at best. For decades, Internet users –...WW…

Email updates on news, actions,and events in your area.DEEPLINKS BLOGShare ItShare ItWith the upcoming U.S. elections, major U.S.-based platforms have stepped up their content moderation practices, likely hoping to avoid the blame after the 2016 election, where many held them responsible for siloing users into ideological bubbles—and, in Facebook’s case, the Cambridge Analytica imbroglio. It’s...San Francisco—The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) announced today a call for feedback and recommendations from organizations and individuals around the world to update the landmark 2018 Santa...…Email updates on news, actions,and events in your area.DEEPLINKS BLOGShare ItShare ItWith the upcoming U.S. elections, major U.S.-based platforms have stepped up their content moderation practices, likely hoping to avoid the blame after the 2016 election, where many held them responsible for siloing users into ideological bubbles—and, in Facebook’s case, the Cambridge Analytica imbroglio. It’s...San Francisco—The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) announced today a call for feedback and recommendations from organizations and individuals around the world to update the landmark 2018 Santa...WW…

Email updates on news, actions,and events in your area.DEEPLINKS BLOGShare ItAnd universities must stand up for the rights of their faculty and students.During the past eight months of the pandemic, we have collectively spent more time online than ever before. Many of us are working and/or learning from home, and staying in touch with friends and family through social media and other proprietary services.Universities are no exception.  Given the risks of in-person meetings, universities are relying on online services to fulfill traditional educational functions—and not just “remote”...…Email updates on news, actions,and events in your area.DEEPLINKS BLOGShare ItAnd universities must stand up for the rights of their faculty and students.During the past eight months of the pandemic, we have collectively spent more time online than ever before. Many of us are working and/or learning from home, and staying in touch with friends and family through social media and other proprietary services.Universities are no exception.  Given the risks of in-person meetings, universities are relying on online services to fulfill traditional educational functions—and not just “remote”...WW…

Email updates on news, actions,and events in your area.DEEPLINKS BLOGShare ItCopyright law is supposed to promote creativity, not stamp out criticism. Too often, copyright owners forget that – especially when they have a convenient takedown tool like the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).EFF is happy to remind them – as we did this month on behalf of Internet creator Lindsay Ellis. Ellis had posted a video about a copyright dispute between authors in a very particular fandom niche: the Omegaverse realm of wolf-kink erotica. The video tells the story of that dispute in gory and...…Email updates on news, actions,and events in your area.DEEPLINKS BLOGShare ItCopyright law is supposed to promote creativity, not stamp out criticism. Too often, copyright owners forget that – especially when they have a convenient takedown tool like the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).EFF is happy to remind them – as we did this month on behalf of Internet creator Lindsay Ellis. Ellis had posted a video about a copyright dispute between authors in a very particular fandom niche: the Omegaverse realm of wolf-kink erotica. The video tells the story of that dispute in gory and...WW…

Email updates on news, actions,and events in your area.DEEPLINKS BLOGShare ItWith the upcoming U.S. elections, major U.S.-based platforms have stepped up their content moderation practices, likely hoping to avoid the blame after the 2016 election, where many held them responsible for siloing users into ideological bubbles—and, in Facebook’s case, the Cambridge Analytica imbroglio. It’s not clear that social media played a more significant role than , including traditional media. But the is enough.So we can’t blame them for trying, nor can we blame users for asking them to. Online...…Email updates on news, actions,and events in your area.DEEPLINKS BLOGShare ItWith the upcoming U.S. elections, major U.S.-based platforms have stepped up their content moderation practices, likely hoping to avoid the blame after the 2016 election, where many held them responsible for siloing users into ideological bubbles—and, in Facebook’s case, the Cambridge Analytica imbroglio. It’s not clear that social media played a more significant role than , including traditional media. But the is enough.So we can’t blame them for trying, nor can we blame users for asking them to. Online...WW…

Email updates on news, actions,and events in your area.DEEPLINKS BLOGShare ItIt is a fundamental precept, at least in the United States, that the public should have access to the courts–including court records–and any departure from that rule must be narrow and well-justified. In a nation bound by the rule of law, the public must have the ability to know the law and how it is being applied. But for most of our nation’s history, that right didn’t mean much if you didn’t have the ability to get to the courthouse yourself.In theory, the PACER (Public Access to Court Electronic Records) system...…Email updates on news, actions,and events in your area.DEEPLINKS BLOGShare ItIt is a fundamental precept, at least in the United States, that the public should have access to the courts–including court records–and any departure from that rule must be narrow and well-justified. In a nation bound by the rule of law, the public must have the ability to know the law and how it is being applied. But for most of our nation’s history, that right didn’t mean much if you didn’t have the ability to get to the courthouse yourself.In theory, the PACER (Public Access to Court Electronic Records) system...WW…

Email updates on news, actions,and events in your area.DEEPLINKS BLOGShare ItOn Wednesday the U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in the long-running case of . We’ll be following closely, and looking for signs that the Court will reverse the Federal Circuit’s in this ground-breaking litigation. And then we’ll be waiting and hoping the Court will issue an opinion explaining that giving copyright protection to Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) is a bad idea or, if that protection exists, that reimplementing them is a lawful fair use.To summarize the last nine years: Oracle...…Email updates on news, actions,and events in your area.DEEPLINKS BLOGShare ItOn Wednesday the U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in the long-running case of . We’ll be following closely, and looking for signs that the Court will reverse the Federal Circuit’s in this ground-breaking litigation. And then we’ll be waiting and hoping the Court will issue an opinion explaining that giving copyright protection to Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) is a bad idea or, if that protection exists, that reimplementing them is a lawful fair use.To summarize the last nine years: Oracle...WW…

Email updates on news, actions,and events in your area.DEEPLINKS BLOGShare ItOn July 28, the Senate Committee on the Judiciary held another in its year-long series of hearings on the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). The topic of this hearing was “”We’re glad Congress is asking the question. Without fair use, much of our common culture would be inaccessible, cordoned off by copyright. Fair use creates breathing space for innovation and new creativity by allowing us to re-use and comment on existing works. As Sherwin Siy, lead public policy manager for the Wikimedia Foundation, said...…Email updates on news, actions,and events in your area.DEEPLINKS BLOGShare ItOn July 28, the Senate Committee on the Judiciary held another in its year-long series of hearings on the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). The topic of this hearing was “”We’re glad Congress is asking the question. Without fair use, much of our common culture would be inaccessible, cordoned off by copyright. Fair use creates breathing space for innovation and new creativity by allowing us to re-use and comment on existing works. As Sherwin Siy, lead public policy manager for the Wikimedia Foundation, said...WW…