Cinema as a community experience opens the door for low-cost films funded by fans
Walled Culture the book (digital versions available free) is about the incompatibility of the traditional copyright system with the digital world, and its failure to reward creators fairly.…
Welcome to the future, where AI agents hunt down alleged online copyright infringement
As readers of this blog have doubtless noticed, the latest hot tech – and investment – area involves “agentic AI”, where AI systems are allowed to operative autonomously…
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…
Copyright madness: YouTube seems to doubt whether Shakespeare is in the public domain
One of the darker threads of Walled Culture the book (free digital versions available) is how complex copyright enforcement systems can be abused, for example by sending Digital…
Italy is losing its mind because of copyright: it just made its awful Piracy Shield even worse
Walled Culture has been writing about Italy’s Piracy Shield system for a year now. It was clear from early on that its approach of blocking Internet addresses (IP…
Top EU court says there is no right to online anonymity, because copyright is more important
A year ago, Walled Culture wrote about an extremely important case that was being considered by the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), the EU’s top…
Now with added generative AI: a new way to abuse the broken copyright system
As Walled Culture the book (free digital versions available) recounts, one of the many problems with copyright is that it can be used – and abused – for purposes…
Two important reasons for keeping AI-generated works in the public domain
Generative AI continues to be the hot topic in the digital world – and beyond. A previous blog post noted that this has led to people finally asking…
Famous writers sue OpenAI for alleged copyright infringement, missing the point again
Last week, a group of prominent writers sued OpenAI, in what is just the latest in a growing number of lawsuits claiming that AI systems are infringing on…
The copyright industry’s obsession with pursuing alleged infringements borders on the pathological
As Walled Culture the book (free digital versions) details, for decades the copyright industry has lobbied consistently (and successfully) for more and harsher laws targeting alleged infringement. Against…
The copyright world’s obsession with ownership will throttle AI innovation and boost today’s tech giants
Generative AI is still one of the hot topics in technology, even if the initial, rather breathless excitement has cooled down somewhat. It clearly represents an interesting new…
A new US law makes it easier for copyright trolls to terrorise people with claims of alleged infringement
The legal landscape is already strongly tilted in favour of copyright holders. But that doesn’t stop the copyright maximalists from demanding more ways to enforce their intellectual monopolies.…
Copyright is more important than privacy, says top EU court advisor
We recently wrote about the preliminary decision of Advocate General Szpunar, an advisor to the EU’s Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), concerning geoblocks. The same…
Ed Sheeran must face yet another music copyright trial, even more outrageous than the others
Back in April, Walled Culture wrote about Ed Sheeran’s victory in a case alleging copyright infringement. Unfortunately, the copyright world’s obsession with ownership means that Sheeran can’t simply…
A million-pound musical coda to Ed Sheeran’s recent copyright case victory
Walled Culture has written a couple of times about lawsuits alleging copyright infringement by Ed Sheeran. Most recently, it noted the good news that a UK judge ruled…
Another example of how the playing field is tilted in favour of copyright owners
It’s widely known that artists of all kinds often get a raw deal from the contracts they sign. But this kind of legal unfairness is not the only…