Copyright industry intensifies efforts to undermine core Internet plumbing: VPNs
Last month Walled Culture wrote about an important case at the Court of Justice of the European Union, (CJEU), the EU’s top court, that could determine how VPNs…
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…
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…
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…
Italy’s new Piracy Shield has just gone into operation and is already harming human rights there
Back in October, Walled Culture wrote about the grandly-named “Piracy Shield”. This is Italy’s new Internet blocking system, which assumes people are guilty until innocent, and gives the…
How copyright exceptionalism in France risks undermining the EU legal system
Back in May, Walled Culture wrote about an important case before the EU’s top court, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU). It involved the “High…
Internet Archive: new copyright laws for generative AI would “further entrench” market leaders
The current excitement over artificial intelligence (AI), particularly generative AI, has now reached the stage where governments feel they need to do something about it in terms of…
Top EU court to issue definitive ruling on whether copyright is more important than privacy
Back in November last year, Walled Culture reported on the shocking opinion by a top EU court advisor that copyright was more important than privacy. The case in…
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…
Enjoy digital ownership and public libraries while you can: they may disappear soon…
Michael E. Karpeles, Program Lead on OpenLibrary.org at the Internet Archive, spotted an interesting blog post by Michael Kozlowski, the editor-in-chief of Good e-Reader. It concerns Amazon and…
Copyright means you can’t tweak how a Web page appears on your screen, according to media giant
Advertising is one of the commonest ways of financing Web sites and services. There’s nothing wrong with that, at least in principle. But the fact that, according to…