Archives for December 2024
Florida Court Urges School District To Settle In Book Banning Case
A federal judge in Florida has urged the Escambia County School Board to settle a book-banning case brought by PEN, PRH, and others, mindful that it has cost local taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars. As of last September, the school board had already spent more than $440,000 on attorneys’ fees. District Judge T. Kent Wetherell II wrote in the footnote of a court order that a settlement, “should be particularly important to (the school board) because it is spending taxpayer money to defend this suit and it could end up having to pay all or part of Plaintiffs’ attorney’s […]
UK Seeks Views on Controversial AI Opt-Out Change to Copyright Law
The UK government has begun a consultation period for a proposal that would make exceptions to copyright law, allowing tech companies to use copyrighted material to train AI unless rights holders specifically opt out. In a statement, the government said, “At present, the application of UK copyright law to the training of AI models is disputed. Rights holders are finding it difficult to control the use of their works in training AI models and seek to be remunerated for its use. AI developers are similarly finding it difficult to navigate copyright law in the UK, and this legal uncertainty is […]
2024: The Year In Stories
As noted briefly in our anniversary post last month, it’s been another busy year for the small but mighty crew at PL + PM, with multiple site enhancements as well as daily reporting that goes deeper than ever. Below is an informal recap, not necessarily of the year’s “biggest” stories, but of pieces and coverage areas where Lunch has brought an extra dimension to community knowledge: All Things AI We have endeavored to provide serious consideration of the issues, opportunities, and egregious theft throughout the year. Among some of our more notable firsts and/or onlies: We revealed the actual AI […]
2024: The Year In Legal News
This year legal themes were almost all holdovers from the battles being fought in 2023. In one significant final chapter, the Association of American Publishers prevailed over the Internet Archive—again. In September, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the finding that held IA guilty of “wholesale and unauthorized copying” and the illegal files started coming down. That decision became final in December, as the deadline for IA to file a cert petition with the Supreme Court passed. The IA will now make an unspecified monetary judgment payment to the organization. Book bans were once again—and will likely continue to […]