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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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,…
Interview | Fred von Lohmann: Copyright Battles, the US DMCA and EU Copyright Directive, Filters, and Interfaces
In this final bonus Walled Culture podcast episode – recorded mid-2022 and kept under wraps as a special 1st anniversary episode, we welcome Fred von Lohmann, former Electronic…
Long overdue, but good to see: Germany’s new copyright exception for pastiche applied for first time
Although overall the EU Copyright Directive is bad news for the digital world because of things like its need for the use of automated upload filters, it does…
Talking to the wall: Portugal’s shameful approach to implementing the EU Copyright Directive
The depressing tale of how the European Union passed copyright’s worst new law, the EU Copyright Directive, occupies some 36 pages in Walled Culture the book (digital versions…
Yet again, the copyright industry demands to be shielded from technological progress – and the future
Back in October last year, Walled Culture was one of the first blogs to point out the huge impact that generative AI would have not only on copyright…
The EU has brought back opt-in copyright for text and data mining: let’s build on that foundation
The central theme of Walled Culture the book (free digital versions) is the clash between copyright, devised for an analogue world, and the Internet, which is inherently digital.…