Saturday, October 4, 2025

Colleges weigh whether to sign onto Trump plan or forgo federal benefits; The Washington Post, October 3, 2025

 

, The Washington Post; Colleges weigh whether to sign onto Trump plan or forgo federal benefits

"The Trump administration this week offered a select group of universities the opportunity to score priority access for federal funding, prompting an enthusiastic and swift response from a university leader in Texas, who called it “an honor.”

But the other schools that received the 10-page proposal Wednesday night were largely silent Thursday, as they considered the wide-ranging conservative terms that some experts warned would trample on free-speech rights and threaten finances and academic freedom at top universities.

The Washington Post first reported this week that the White House intended to launch a campaign to bring colleges into compliance with Trump’s ideological priorities by offering a competitive advantage to those that sign on...

California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) threatened Thursday to yank billions of dollars’ worth of funding from any school in the state that signed onto the agreement, writing on social media that the state would not “BANKROLL SCHOOLS THAT SELL OUT THEIR STUDENTS, PROFESSORS, RESEARCHERS, AND SURRENDER ACADEMIC FREEDOM.”...

White House officials signaled last week that they intended to launch a campaign to bring colleges into compliance with Trump’s ideological priorities."

Weber State cracks down on censorship conference; KSL.com, October 2, 2025

 

Par Kermani, KSL.com ; Weber State cracks down on censorship conference

  • Weber State University canceled its Unity Conference due to diversity initiative shifts.
  • The 2024 Utah law requires eliminating diversity programs at public institutions.
  • The Wildcat Collective, which operates outside of official university programming, organized an uncensored version of the conference for Friday."

Friday, October 3, 2025

YouTube Bends the Knee; The Atlantic, October 1, 2025

 Charlie Warzel , The Atlantic; YouTube Bends the Knee

"This is just the latest example of major tech companies bowing to Trump."

Dogs and drones: how scientists are saving Washington’s endangered orcas; The Guardian, October 2, 2025

The Guardian; Dogs and drones: how scientists are saving Washington’s endangered orcas

"Dressed in a bright orange lifejacket – and sometimes goggles – Eba perches atop Giles’s research boat, scanning the wind. When she catches a whiff of orca faeces, she raises her nose, sometimes whimpering or wagging her tail to point Giles in the right direction. Orca-detecting dogs have become an unlikely ally in the fight to save the whales.

“We wanted to use Eba because it allows us to stay really far away from the whales and not stress them out,” says Giles, a member of the marine conservation organisation SeaDoc Society.

Through the study of whale faeces, researchers can uncover a wealth of biological insights from a single sample, including diet, hormone levels, exposure to toxins, pregnancy, gut microbiome composition and the amount of microplastics in their system, as well as the presence of parasites, bacteria and fungi...

Out on the boat with Giles are James Sheppard, a scientist at the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance, and Charlie Welch, an SDZWA volunteer and head of Proper Voltage, a company focused on sustainable battery technology. Together, they have spent a decade developing conservation drones that can capture samples of the cloud-like plumes of breath from orcas’ blowholes with mounts holding petri dishes.

Sheppard says: “We need to get data that is robust and as close to real-time as possible, so that we can find out if there’s a real problem. Then the animal-care staff can go in and stage an intervention if it’s needed.”"

Director of Eisenhower Library in Kansas ousted after refusing to give Trump administration a sword; KCUR, October 2, 2025

  Zane Irwin, KCUR ; Director of Eisenhower Library in Kansas ousted after refusing to give Trump administration a sword


[Kip Currier: Do we want Presidents making gifts of the archival, museum, and library artifacts that belong collectively to the American people?

Do the benefits of the gifting of a sword from the Eisenhower Presidential Library to the King of England outweigh the downsides of giving away an artifact from an historic collection and site?]


[Excerpt]

"The former director of the Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library in Abilene, Kansas, said on Thursday that he was told to “resign or be fired” from his post after refusing to give the Trump administration a historic sword.

Todd Arrington’s resignation came shortly after Arrington refused to relinquish one of President Eisenhower’s swords from the museum’s collection. President Trump’s administration wanted to give one of the artifacts as a gift to King Charles III on Trump’s most recent state visit to the United Kingdom.

Arrington said his direct superior informed him on Monday evening that he would be asked to resign. The supervisor, who Arrington declined to name, said he was passing down orders from unknown higher-ups."

California vows to ‘instantly’ cut funding to universities that cave to Trump ‘compact’; The Guardian, October 2, 2025

 , The Guardian ; California vows to ‘instantly’ cut funding to universities that cave to Trump ‘compact’

"Any California universities that sign the Trump administration’s proposed “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education” will “instantly” lose their state funding, California governor Gavin Newsom said in a statement.

The Trump administration on Wednesday offered nine prominent universities, including the University of Southern California, the chance to sign a “compact” that asks the universities to close academic departments that “purposefully punish, belittle, and even spark violence against conservative ideas”, limit the proportion of international undergraduate students to 15% , accept the administration’s definition of gender and ban the consideration of race or sex in hiring and admissions, in exchange for “substantial and meaningful federal grants”.

Newsom’s office described the offer as “nothing short of a hostile takeover of America’s universities”.

“It would impose strict government-mandated definitions of academic terms, erase diversity, and rip control away from campus leaders to install government-mandated conservative ideology in its place,” the governor’s office said in a statement. “It even dictates how schools must spend their own endowments. Any institution that resists could be hit with crushing fines or stripped of federal research funding.”

“If any California University signs this radical agreement, they’ll lose billions in state funding – including Cal Grants – instantly. California will not bankroll schools that sell out their students, professors, researchers, and surrender academic freedom,” Newsom said in the statement. Cal Grants is the state’s $2.8bn student financial aid program."

First Woman Appointed Archbishop of Canterbury; The New York Times, October 3, 2025

  , The New York Times; First Woman Appointed Archbishop of Canterbury

"The Church of England announced on Friday that Sarah Mullally, the bishop of London, will become the 106th archbishop of Canterbury, making her the spiritual leader of 85 million Anglicans worldwide and the first woman to lead a church whose roots date back more than 1,400 years.

Bishop Mullally will succeed Justin Welby, who resigned from the post last November after the publication of a report that said he had failed to pursue a proper investigation into claims of widespread abuse of boys and young men decades ago at Christian summer camps.

A former cancer nurse who served as the chief nursing officer for England, Bishop Mullally, 63, is a vocal exponent of the rights of women in the Church of England. She has served as the first female bishop of London since 2018."

Thursday, October 2, 2025

Trump Administration Asks Colleges to Sign ‘Compact’ to Get Funding Preference; The New York Times, October 2, 2025

  , The New York Times; Trump Administration Asks Colleges to Sign ‘Compact’ to Get Funding Preference


[Kip Currier: Be clear-eyed that this "compact" is an unprecedented assault on the independence and academic freedom of American colleges and universities.  It is transparent transactionalism, instantiating a mob-style "protection money" framework in order for universities to secure and retain federal research monies. 

It is also another step in the authoritarian playbook.

The notion that higher education institutions -- whose missions are to advance knowledge, the arts, science, and the common good -- would be incentivized to pledge contractual support to a political administration is antithetical to the bedrock principles of our Founding Fathers and the 1st Amendment of our U.S. Constitution.]


[Excerpt]

"The White House on Wednesday sent letters to nine of the nation’s top public and private universities, urging campus leaders to pledge support for President Trump’s political agenda to help ensure access to federal research funds.

The letters came attached to a 10-page “compact” that serves as a sort of priority statement for the administration’s educational goals — the most comprehensive accounting to date of what Mr. Trump aims to achieve from an unparalleled, monthslong pressure campaign on academia.

The compact would require colleges to freeze tuition for five years, cap the enrollment of international students and commit to strict definitions of gender. Among other steps, universities would also be required to change their governance structures to prohibit anything that would “punish, belittle and even spark violence against conservative ideas.”"

Wednesday, October 1, 2025

Jane Goodall, primatologist and friend to chimpanzees, dies at 91; The Washington Post, October 1, 2025

 , The Washington Post ; Jane Goodall, primatologist and friend to chimpanzees, dies at 91She used her global fame to draw attention to the plight of dwindling chimpanzee populations and, more broadly, to the perils of environmental destruction.

"Dr. Goodall, whose research prompted a transformation in the ways scientists study social behavior across species, has died at 91."

Lawmakers Across the Country This Year Blocked Ethics Reforms Meant to Increase Public Trust; ProPublica, October 1, 2025

 Gabriel Sandoval, ProPublica, with additional reporting by Nick Reynolds and Anna WilderThe Post and CourierYasmeen KhanThe Maine MonitorLauren DakeOregon Public BroadcastingMarjorie ChildressNew Mexico In DepthLouis HansenVirginia Center for Investigative Journalism at WHROMary Steurer and Jacob OrledgeNorth Dakota MonitorKate McGeeThe Texas TribuneAlyse PfeilThe Advocate | The Times-Picayune; and Shauna SowersbyThe Seattle Times , ProPublica; Lawmakers Across the Country This Year Blocked Ethics Reforms Meant to Increase Public Trust

"At a time when the bounds of government ethics are being stretched in Washington, D.C., hundreds of ethics-related bills were introduced this year in state legislatures, according to the bipartisan National Conference of State Legislatures’ ethics legislation database. While legislation strengthening ethics oversight did pass in some places, a ProPublica analysis found lawmakers across multiple states targeted or thwarted reforms designed to keep the public and elected officials accountable to the people they serve.

Democratic and Republican lawmakers tried to push through bills to tighten gift limits, toughen conflict-of-interest provisions or expand financial disclosure reporting requirements. Time and again, the bills were derailed.


With the help of local newsrooms, many of which have been part of ProPublica’s Local Reporting Network, we reviewed a range of legislation that sought to weaken or stymie ethics regulations in 2025. We also spoke to experts for an overview of trends nationwide. Their take: The threats to ethics standards and their enforcement have been growing.


“Donald Trump has been ushering a new cultural standard, in which ethics is no longer significant,” said Craig Holman, a veteran government ethics specialist with the progressive watchdog nonprofit Public Citizen. He pointed to Trump’s private dinner with top buyers of his cryptocurrency and the administration’s tariff deal with Vietnam after it greenlit the Trump Organization’s $1.5 billion golf resort complex; and he said in an email it was “most revealing” that the White House “for the first time in over 16 years has no ethics policy. Trump 2.0 simply repealed Biden’s ethics Executive Order and replaced it with nothing.”

Government website blames shutdown on "radical left." Ethics group calls it a "blatant violation."; CBS News, October 1, 2025

 Faris Tanyos, CBS News ; Government website blames shutdown on "radical left." Ethics group calls it a "blatant violation."

"Ahead of Wednesday's government shutdown, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development on Tuesday posted a banner in large type on its homepage blaming the shutdown on the "Radical Left," an allegation that an ethics group said was a "blatant violation" of the Hatch Act. 

"The Radical Left are going to shut down the government and inflict massive pain on the American people unless they get their $1.5 trillion wish list of demands," the message read. "The Trump administration wants to keep the government open for the American people."

A complaint filed Tuesday with the U.S. Office of Special Counsel by the nonprofit consumer advocacy group Public Citizen alleged that the banner on HUD's website was a "blatant violation" of the Hatch Act, describing it as "highly partisan" and seeking to "idolize the Trump administration … without attributing any blame for the lack of compromise causing the shutdown."   

The Hatch Act is a federal law passed in 1939 that "limits certain political activities of federal employees as well as some state, D.C., and local government employees who work in connection with federally funded programs," according to the Office of Special Counsel.  

Its purpose, among other things, is to "ensure that federal programs are administered in a nonpartisan fashion," the office explains."

The Rainmaker: What 20 Years In Supreme Court Practice Have Taught Me; Above The Law, September 30, 2025

Neal Katyal  , Above The Law; The Rainmaker: What 20 Years In Supreme Court Practice Have Taught Me

"The Improv Principle

Ed. note: The Rainmaker is a new Above the Law series highlighting attorneys who have built distinguished practices by excelling not only in the courtroom and at the negotiating table, but also in business development, mentorship, and leadership. Each installment will feature candid reflections on what it takes to succeed as a rainmaker in today’s legal industry. Our first featured rainmaker is Neal Katyal...

For years, I’ve been studying improv comedy, and it’s transformed how I think about legal practice. The cardinal rule of improv is “yes, and”—you accept what your scene partners offer and build on it. You don’t say “no” or shut down their contribution. You make your partners look good, and in turn they make you look good.

This sounds soft. It’s not. It’s the hardest discipline I know.

In a meeting, when an associate offers an idea that seems off-base, the instinct is to correct them, to show why you’re the experienced lead counsel. The improv instinct is different: find what’s valuable in their contribution and build on it. “Yes, and we could take that framework and apply it to the jurisdictional question.” Suddenly, the associate isn’t embarrassed—they’re energized. They’ve contributed something real. They’ll work twice as hard for you, and next time, their idea might be the one that wins the case. 

This isn’t artificial, it’s definitely not about giving false praise.  A smart associate, after all, will see through that in a second.  It’s rather about trying to find the diamond in the rough, the insight that the associate has and that can be built upon. I kind of stumbled upon that idea when I did my first case, challenging Guantanamo. At my side were a dozen law students – and they would all have various writing assignments and my duty was to sort through all their insights and build a coherent product out of it. Many were off-the-wall, to be sure, but many were brilliant, too. It just took work to find those flashes of brilliance and to build upon them. That kind of “bottom-up” strategy is one I have taken to heart – so much so that today I routinely take advice on crafting arguments from my Researcher at Milbank. My Researcher is someone who has graduated from college and yet has not attended law school.

This isn’t just about associates or your internal team, it’s just as much about clients. When a client pushes back on your strategy, you could dig in and explain why you’re right. Or you could listen—really listen—to what’s driving their concern. Usually, they’re telling you something important about their business reality, their risk tolerance, or their board dynamics. “Yes, and given that constraint, what if we structured the argument this way?” Now you’re not just their lawyer; you’re their partner.

Why Clients Return

Twenty-three years ago when I wrote that piece, I thought clients hired you for your legal brilliance. They don’t. They hire you because you make their problems smaller, not bigger.

I’ve represented the same clients through multiple Supreme Court cases, not because I won every time (I haven’t), but because they trust that I’ll listen to what they actually need. Sometimes what they need is an aggressive cert petition. Sometimes what they need is someone to tell them that the case isn’t worth the institutional risk of taking to the Court. The clients who keep coming back are the ones who know you’ll give them the second answer when it’s true, even though it costs you a major case and significant fees.

This requires a specific kind of humility: the humility to know that the client understands their business better than you do, and that your legal judgment is in service of their goals, not the other way around. Supreme Court lawyers can struggle with this because we’re trained to think about doctrinal purity and legal architecture. But clients don’t care about your elegant theory of administrative law. They care about whether they can build the project, launch the product, or avoid the devastating liability.

The best piece of advice I ever received came from Eric Holder, who mentored me at the Justice Department in my first stint there, right after my clerkships. He watched me fail to persuade senior officials of a position that I was absolutely certain was right. Afterward, he pulled me aside. “Your analysis was perfect,” he said. “But you didn’t listen to their concerns. You tried to convince them you were right instead of understanding why they were worried. Next time, start by understanding their perspective.”

That lesson echoes through every client relationship, every oral argument, every brief. Start by understanding their perspective."

Disney Sends Cease And Desist Letter To Character.ai For Copyright Infringement As Studios Move To Protect IP; Deadline, September 30, 2025

 Jill Goldsmith, Deadline; Disney Sends Cease And Desist Letter To Character.ai For Copyright Infringement As Studios Move To Protect IP

"Walt Disney sent a cease-and-desist letter to Character.AI, a “personalized superintelligence platform” that the media giant says is ripping off copyrighted characters without authorization.

The AI startup offers users the ability to create customizable, personalized AI companions that can be totally original but in some cases are inspired by existing characters, including, it seems, Disney icons from Spider-Man and Darth Vader to Moana and Elsa.

The letter is the latest legal salvo by Hollywood as studios begin to step up against AI. Disney has also sued AI company Midjourney for allegedly improper use and distribution of AI-generated characters from Disney films. Disney, Warner Bros. and Universal Pictures this month sued Chinese AI firm MiniMax for copyright infringement."

Tuesday, September 30, 2025

Hegseth blasts ‘fat troops’ in rare gathering with military brass; Military Times, September 30, 2025

 Carla Babb, Military Times; Hegseth blasts ‘fat troops’ in rare gathering with military brass

"The nonprofit Service Women’s Action Network pushed back Tuesday on policies “implying that the focus on diversity and inclusion distracts from the core mission of lethality.”

“Our diversity is not a vulnerability — it is our single greatest strategic advantage, a force multiplier that makes our military stronger, more resilient, and ultimately, more lethal in execution,” the group said in a statement.

The group reiterated the Marines Corps’ findings that diverse teams of men and women from every background are “proven to identify risks and develop more innovative, complete strategies than homogenous teams.” A force that better reflects the global population and diversity of the United States “builds deeper trust and achieves greater operational effectiveness overseas,” SWAN added...

Hegseth also pledged to improve grooming standards in ways critics argue could target the religious freedoms of U.S. service members.

“No more beards, long hair, superficial, individual expression. We’re going to cut our hair, shave our beards and adhere to standards,” Hegseth said.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations called on the Pentagon on Tuesday to clarify Hegseth’s order and affirm that the department would maintain the religious rights of all service members.

“The First Amendment guarantees military personnel the right to practice their faith — including the right of Muslim, Sikh and Jewish personnel to grow beards or cover their hair — as does established Pentagon policy,” CAIR said in a statement.

Another directive Hegseth announced at Quantico on Tuesday is geared toward “overhauling” the Inspector General process, which the secretary said had been “weaponized, putting complainers, ideologues and poor performers in the driver’s seat.”

“No more frivolous complaints. No more anonymous complaints. No more repeat complaints. No more smearing reputations. No more endless waiting. No more legal limbo. No more side-tracking careers. No more walking on eggshells,” Hegseth said.

The IG is currently investigating Hegseth for his use of Signal to share classified or sensitive information about an attack in Yemen earlier this year. Hegseth’s office has called it a “sham” review. 

It was unclear Tuesday how this overhaul would affect the investigation."

Secretary of War Pete Hegseth Addresses General and Flag Officers at Quantico, Virginia; U.S. Department of War, September 30, 2025

[Transcript] U.S. Department of War, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth Addresses General and Flag Officers at Quantico, Virginia


[Kip Currier: Pete Hegseth repeatedly denigrated our brave military enlisted members and officers with shameful insults, and then invoked the language of God, Jesus, and the Biblical Gospels to try to legitimize his statements and actions by intentionally situating his derogatory rhetoric within the framework of the Golden Rule. It's a transparent attempt to use scripture as a shield for reprehensible conduct.

It's also wholly inappropriate, disrespectful, and unnecessary to talk to and about our military members in this way.

Moreover, the actions and teachings of the Jesus of the New Testament are in direct opposition to the kinds of derisive and divisive put-downs and slurs that Hegseth utters in this speech.

Thank you to all those serving and who have served in our military branches.]


[Excerpt]

"This administration has done a great deal from day one to remove the social justice, politically correct, and toxic ideological garbage that had infected our department, to rip out the politics. No more identity months, DEI offices, dudes in dresses. No more climate change worship. No more division, distraction or gender delusions. No more debris.

As I've said before and will say again, we are done with that shit. I've made it my mission to uproot the obvious distractions that made us less capable and less lethal. That said, the War Department requires the next step.

Underneath the woke garbage is a deeper problem and a more important problem that we are fixing and fixing fast. Common sense is back at the White House, so making the necessary changes is actually pretty straightforward. President Trump expects it. And the litmus test for these changes is pretty simple.

Would I want my eldest son, who is 15 years old, eventually joining the types of formations that we are currently wielding? If in any way the answer to that is no, or even yes but, then we're doing something wrong, because my son is no more important than any other American citizen who dons the cloth of our nation. He is no more important than your son, all precious souls made in the image and likeness of God.

Every parent deserves to know that their son or their daughter that joins our ranks is entering exactly the kind of unit that the secretary of war would want his son to join. Think of it as the Golden Rule test. Jesus said do unto others that which you would have done unto yourself. It's the ultimate simplifying test of truth.

The new War Department golden rule is this: do unto your unit as you would have done unto your own child's unit. Would you want him serving with fat or unfit or under trained troops or alongside people who can't meet basic standards, or in a unit where standards were lowered so certain types of troops could make it in, in a unit where leaders were promoted for reasons other than merit, performance and warfighting? The answer is not just no, it's hell no."

OpenAI's new Sora video generator to require copyright holders to opt out, WSJ reports; Reuters, September 29, 2025

 Reuters; OpenAI's new Sora video generator to require copyright holders to opt out, WSJ reports

"OpenAI is planning to release a new version of its Sora generator that creates videos featuring copyrighted material, unless rights holders opt out of having their work appear, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday, citing people familiar with the matter.

The artificial intelligence startup began notifying talent agencies and studios over the past week about the opt-out process and the product, which it plans to release in the coming days, the report said.

The new process would mean movie studios and other intellectual property owners would have to explicitly ask OpenAI not to include their copyrighted material in videos Sora creates, according to the report."

Hegseth declares war on ‘fat’ generals, troops; The Hill, September 30, 2025

 ELLEN MITCHELL , The Hill; Hegseth declares war on ‘fat’ generals, troops

"Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told the U.S. military’s senior-most officers Tuesday that he no longer wants to see “fat generals and admirals” or overweight troops."

Monday, September 29, 2025

Former Penn Carey Law adjunct professor John Squires named director of U.S. Patent and Trademark Office; The Daily Pennsylvanian, September 29, 2025

 Matthew Quitoriano , The Daily Pennsylvanian; Former Penn Carey Law adjunct professor John Squires named director of U.S. Patent and Trademark Office

"John Squires, a former adjunct professor at the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School, was named the next director of the United States Patent and Trademark Office.

Squires will serve as the Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and advise 1968 Wharton graduate and President Donald Trump and the Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick on intellectual property policy. In the Sept. 22 announcement, Squires wrote that the opportunity to lead a large and influential office was “both humbling and the honor of a lifetime.”...

Squires served as an adjunct professor for Penn Carey Law's L.L.M. program, where he helped lawyers trained outside the country learn about law in the United States.

The director of the USPTO is appointed by the president with the consent of the Senate...

Squires received a Bachelor of Science in chemistry from Bucknell University and received his J.D. from the University of Pittsburgh School of Law. 

Squires previously served as the chief intellectual property counsel at Honeywell and The Goldman Sachs Group, and has held intellectual property roles at Perkins Coie and Chadbourne and Parker. Prior to his secretarial appointment, Squires was the chair of Emerging Companies and Intellectual Property at Dilworth Paxson."

I Sued Anthropic, and the Unthinkable Happened; The New York Times, September 29, 2025

 , The New York Times; I Sued Anthropic, and the Unthinkable Happened

"In August 2024, I became one of three named plaintiffs leading a class-action lawsuit against the A.I. company Anthropic for pirating my books and hundreds of thousands of other books to train its A.I. The fight felt daunting, almost preposterous: me — a queer, female thriller writer — versus a company now worth $183 billion?

Thanks to the relentless work of everyone on my legal team, the unthinkable happened: Anthropic agreed to pay authors and publishers $1.5 billion in the largest copyright settlement in history. A federal judge preliminarily approved the agreement last week.

This settlement sends a clear message to the Big Tech companies splashing generative A.I. over every app and page and program: You are not above the law. And it should signal to consumers everywhere that A.I. isn’t an unstoppable tsunami about to overwhelm us. Now is the time for ordinary Americans to recognize our agency and act to put in place the guardrails we want.

The settlement isn’t perfect. It’s absurd that it took an army of lawyers to demonstrate what any 10-year-old knows is true: Thou shalt not steal. At around $3,000 per work, shared by the author and publisher, the damages are far from life-changing (and, some argue, a slap on the wrist for a company flush with cash). I also disagree with the judge’s ruling that, had Anthropic acquired the books legally, training its chatbot on them would have been “fair use.” I write my novels to engage human minds — not to empower an algorithm to mimic my voice and spit out commodity knockoffs to compete directly against my originals in the marketplace, nor to make that algorithm’s creators unfathomably wealthy and powerful.

But as my fellow plaintiff Kirk Wallace Johnson put it, this is “the beginning of a fight on behalf of humans that don’t believe we have to sacrifice everything on the altar of A.I.” Anthropic will destroy its trove of illegally downloaded books; its competitors should take heed to get out of the business of piracy as well. Dozens of A.I. copyright lawsuits have been filed against OpenAI, Microsoft and other companies, led in part by Sylvia Day, Jonathan Franzen, David Baldacci, John Grisham, Stacy Schiff and George R. R. Martin. (The New York Times has also brought a suit against OpenAI and Microsoft.)

Though a settlement isn’t legal precedent, Bartz v. Anthropic may serve as a test case for other A.I. lawsuits, the first domino to fall in an industry whose “move fast, break things” modus operandi led to large-scale theft. Among the plaintiffs of other cases are voice actors, visual artists, record labels, YouTubers, media companies and stock-photo libraries, diverse stakeholders who’ve watched Big Tech encroach on their territory with little regard for copyright law...

Now the book publishing industry has sent a message to all A.I. companies: Our intellectual property isn’t yours for the taking, and you cannot act with impunity. This settlement is an opening gambit in a critical battle that will be waged for years to come."

Sunday, September 28, 2025

Why I gave the world wide web away for free; The Guardian, September 28, 2025

 , The Guardian ; Why I gave the world wide web away for free

"Sharing your information in a smart way can also liberate it. Why is your smartwatch writing your biological data to one silo in one format? Why is your credit card writing your financial data to a second silo in a different format? Why are your YouTube comments, Reddit posts, Facebook updates and tweets all stored in different places? Why is the default expectation that you aren’t supposed to be able to look at any of this stuff? You generate all this data – your actions, your choices, your body, your preferences, your decisions. You should own it. You should be empowered by it.

Somewhere between my original vision for web 1.0 and the rise of social media as part of web 2.0, we took the wrong path. We’re now at a new crossroads, one where we must decide if AI will be used for the betterment or to the detriment of society. How can we learn from the mistakes of the past? First of all, we must ensure policymakers do not end up playing the same decade-long game of catchup they have done over social media. The time to decide the governance model for AI was yesterday, so we must act with urgency.

In 2017, I wrote a thought experiment about an AI that works for you. I called it Charlie. Charlie works for you like your doctor or your lawyer, bound by law, regulation and codes of conduct. Why can’t the same frameworks be adopted for AI? We have learned from social media that power rests with the monopolies who control and harvest personal data. We can’t let the same thing happen with AI.

So how do we move forward? Part of the frustration with democracy in the 21st century is that governments have been too slow to meet the demands of digital citizens. The AI industry landscape is fiercely competitive, and development and governance are dictated by companies. The lesson from social media is that this will not create value for the individual.

I coded the world wide web on a single computer in a small room. But that small room didn’t belong to me, it was at Cern. Cern was created in the aftermath of the second world war by the UN and European governments who identified a historic, scientific turning point that required international collaboration. It is hard to imagine a big tech company agreeing to share the world wide web for no commercial reward like Cern allowed me to. That’s why we need a Cern-like not-for-profit body driving forward international AI research.

I gave the world wide web away for free because I thought that it would only work if it worked for everyone. Today, I believe that to be truer than ever. Regulation and global governance are technically feasible, but reliant on political willpower. If we are able to muster it, we have the chance to restore the web as a tool for collaboration, creativity and compassion across cultural borders. We can re-empower individuals, and take the web back. It’s not too late."