Why the spread of powerful local AI models makes copyright enforcement even harder
The central theme of Walled Culture the book (free digital versions available) is the growing incompatibility between traditional copyright law and the digital, online world. The culmination of…
Why “public AI”, built on open source software, is the way forward for the EU
A quarter of a century ago, I wrote a book called “Rebel Code”. It was the first – and is still the only – detailed history of the…
Leaders in the generative AI world are daring to say the unsayable: that copyright is not sacrosanct
For the last hundred years or so, the prevailing dogma has been that copyright is an unalloyed good, and that more of it is better. Whether that was…
True fans, super fans, core fans: an alternative way to fund creators gains wide industry support
Walled Culture the book (free digital versions available) concluded with a look at “true fans”, an alternative way of funding creators that avoids the main problems of the…
From DeepSeek to Stargate: How dramatic AI developments will re-shape the copyright landscape
Walled Culture started covering generative AI relatively early, back in October 2022. That’s just two years ago, and yet the technological progress since then has been extraordinary, whatever…
From paywalled academic publishing towards free, fast and frictionless sharing of knowledge
As a post back in November explained, copyright is key to the business model of academic publishing. By pushing researchers to assign their copyright to publishers, the latter…
What has copyright got to do with the Tiananmen Square massacre?
Hong Kong was supposed to enjoy a special “one country, two systems” approach for 50 years after it was handed back to China by the UK in 1997.…