Notices by Kendra Albert (kendraserra@dair-community.social)

Moving is going fine, why do you ask?

(With apologies to Tom Gauld.)

The Copyright Office released the 1201 exemption final rule today, which declines to let libraries, archives, and museums provide remote access to preserved video games, even if the org individually vets each request. https://public-inspection.federalregister.gov/2024-24563.pdf

Where could anyone have gotten the idea that wordpress.org belonged to the Wordpress community?

Well, the Wordpress Foundation's original application for 501(c)(3) status to the IRS, filed in 2008, did list wordpress.org as its website.

Matt Mullenweg is making an absolutely spurious legal claim to silence his critics. Because of the fair report privilege, "platforming the claims in the lawsuits" is on rock solid ground. If anyone knows the person behind bullenweg, there are plenty of lawyers who would delight in telling Matt to go piss up a rope. https://mastodon.social/@mvsde/113373682248521134

...gotta admit, I did not see that one coming. https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2024/10/25/faculty-members-suspended-harvard-library/

@kingrat @luis_in_brief it would be surprising to me if Quinn's ethical duties were specifically laid out in an engagement letter such that they could be enforced via contract.

Among many other things, they show that targeted privacy and security interventions that companies like Grindr, Whatsapp, and Signal rolled out got used by community members to protect themselves!

Some big personal news: my partner and I have decided to make it official.

...We now jointly own a Vitamix blender.

Massive, incredible new set of reports from Afsaneh Rigot of the De|center and Article 19 on queer folks in MENA and their resistance to surveillance technology. https://www.article19.org/queer-resistance-to-digital-oppression/#reports

Hello from Harvard yard.

@danhon literally every second time it starts it tells me I'm using the "new teams" and do I want to switch back to the old one?

Everyone who works in "AI ethics" and who has not said anything about Gaza needs to read this article and have a good long look at themselves in the mirror. https://www.972mag.com/lavender-ai-israeli-army-gaza/

CCDH won its motion to dismiss against Twitter in Twitter's ridiculous SLAPP suit. Judge Breyer pulled no punches with his opening.

Apparently according to an outlet I've never heard of, the UK police are getting period tracker data on people with pregnancy losses. https://www.tortoisemedia.com/2023/10/30/british-police-testing-women-for-abortion-drugs/

...I did really not need to do period tracker discourse again. The question remains: what is this data useful to prove? Unless how long the people were pregnant was otherwise unknown, I genuinely don't understand what period tracker data adds.

(The drug testing is actually legitimately a big deal.)

Okay, Fediverse academics. This spring, I'm teaching a class called "Gender and Technology, Gender as Technology" in Harvard's Women, Gender and Sexuality program.

If you teach a related class, I'd love your syllabus, and regardless, I'd love your recommendations for work that you love that would be good for undergrads.

Please boost for reach! Class description below.

It turns out it was SS, not PL, who prepared the filings. PL just filed them, and in his own declaration, pleads ignorance.

Editor's note: My dude, you did have reason to doubt the authenticity of the case law. These were weirdass print outs that don't look like real cases and if you had literally plugged any of them into Westlaw or Lexis, you wouldn't have found them. https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nysd.575368/gov.uscourts.nysd.575368.32.0.pdf

The federal judge...is not mollified. (Nor should he be.) On May 26 (yesterday), he still orders the two lawyers to show cause why they, and their law firm, should not be sanctioned. https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/63107798/33/mata-v-avianca-inc/

I suspect that a significant part of the ire is about the doubling down on the cases in the April 25 filing. If they had come clean then, I feel like the judge might be more lenient.

Oh, and remember how Steven Schwartz notarized the documents back at the end of April? Judge wants him to show cause as to why that wasn't fraudulent.

So first of all, PL basically lied in his affidavit, since SS was the one who produced the cases.

[Removed a comment here about the notary stamp, I stand corrected! Hooray for edits] https://social.coop/@adamgreenfield/110442030870549917.

Anyway, hearing is set for June 8th. Popcorn will be a must. Thanks for reading!

While you're here, check out the episode of Mystery AI Hype Theatre where I talk about why this is exactly the problem with generative AI hype in law. I think at about 30 minutes we talk about this problem. https://peertube.dair-institute.org/w/o6sb7f7RwapWBJd9VC61t4

On April 26, the day after the affidavit with he cases is filed, BB, the lawyer for the defendant, files a letter with questions. They literally can't find the cases anywhere else. The docket numbers don't line up. And the federal reporters (sort of like a DOI, for my non-lawyer readers) turn up a different case. https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nysd.575368/gov.uscourts.nysd.575368.30.0.pdf