US government argues that fair use applies to OpenAI’s training of LLMs in key copyright case
Historically, legislation and court decisions have always lagged behind technological change. But the gap between the two is even starker in the world of generative AI. The large…
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…
Copyright litigation over Anne Frank’s writings likely to impact the fate of VPNs in the EU
“The Diary of a Young Girl” is a Dutch language diary written by the young Jewish writer Anne Frank while she was in hiding for two years with…
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 long road to Marrakesh: 40 years of copyright obstruction to human rights and social justice
One of the little-known but extremely telling episodes in the history of modern copyright, discussed in Walled Culture the book (free digital versions available), concerns the Marrakesh Treaty.…
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…
Good news: laws to tackle AI deepfakes are coming. Bad news: they are based on copyright
A key theme of Walled Culture the book (free digital versions available) is that copyright, born in an analogue age of scarcity, works poorly in today’s digital world…
Academic research finds economic, technical and operational harms from Italy’s Piracy Shield
Walled Culture first wrote about Piracy Shield, Italy’s automated system for tackling alleged copyright infringement in the streaming sector, two years ago. Since then, we have written about…
Top German court says maybe the Web should be more like television in order to protect copyright
Back in 2022, Walled Culture wrote about a legal case involving ad blockers. These are hugely popular programs: according to recent statistics, around one billion people use ad…
European Publishers Council stays true to the tired old trope about “copyright theft”
A few weeks ago Walled Culture explored how the leaders in the generative AI world are trying to influence the future legal norms for this field. In the…
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…
Massive expansion of Italy’s Piracy Shield underway despite growing criticism of its flaws
Walled Culture has been following closely Italy’s poorly-designed Piracy Shield system. Back in December we reported how copyright companies used their access to the Piracy Shield system to…
As AI agents become ubiquitous, expect the copyright industry to try to turn them against you
One of the many interesting aspects of the new wave of artificial intelligence systems is that with them, copyright has moved from the fringe to centre stage. There…
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…
A rare copyright win for the public – but a small one, only in Canada, and possibly temporary
It is extraordinary that within the copyright world it is accepted dogma that legal protections for this intellectual monopoly should always get stronger – creating a kind 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…