Policy

judge-calls-out-openai’s-“straw-man”-argument-in-new-york-times-copyright-suit

Judge calls out OpenAI’s “straw man” argument in New York Times copyright suit

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“Taken as true, these facts give rise to a plausible inference that defendants at a minimum had reason to investigate and uncover end-user infringement,” Stein wrote.

To Stein, the fact that OpenAI maintains an “ongoing relationship” with users by providing outputs that respond to users’ prompts also supports contributory infringement claims, despite OpenAI’s argument that ChatGPT’s “substantial noninfringing uses” are exonerative.

OpenAI defeated some claims

For OpenAI, Stein’s ruling likely disappoints, although Stein did drop some of NYT’s claims.

Likely upsetting to news publishers, that included a “free-riding” claim that ChatGPT unfairly profits off time-sensitive “hot news” items, including the NYT’s Wirecutter posts. Stein explained that news publishers failed to plausibly allege non-attribution (which is key to a free-riding claim) because, for example, ChatGPT cites the NYT when sharing information from Wirecutter posts. Those claims are pre-empted by the Copyright Act anyway, Stein wrote, granting OpenAI’s motion to dismiss.

Stein also dismissed a claim from the NYT regarding alleged removal of copyright management information (CMI), which Stein said cannot be proven simply because ChatGPT reproduces excerpts of NYT articles without CMI.

The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) requires news publishers to show that ChatGPT’s outputs are “close to identical” to the original work, Stein said, and allowing publishers’ claims based on excerpts “would risk boundless DMCA liability”—including for any use of block quotes without CMI.

Asked for comment on the ruling, an OpenAI spokesperson declined to go into any specifics, instead repeating OpenAI’s long-held argument that AI training on copyrighted works is fair use. (Last month, OpenAI warned Donald Trump that the US would lose the AI race to China if courts ruled against that argument.)

“ChatGPT helps enhance human creativity, advance scientific discovery and medical research, and enable hundreds of millions of people to improve their daily lives,” OpenAI’s spokesperson said. “Our models empower innovation, and are trained on publicly available data and grounded in fair use.”

Judge calls out OpenAI’s “straw man” argument in New York Times copyright suit Read More »

eu-may-“make-an-example-of-x”-by-issuing-$1-billion-fine-to-musk’s-social-network

EU may “make an example of X” by issuing $1 billion fine to Musk’s social network

Digital Services Act, elon musk x, Policy / /

European Union regulators are preparing major penalties against X, including a fine that could exceed $1 billion, according to a New York Times report yesterday.

The European Commission determined last year that Elon Musk’s social network violated the Digital Services Act. Regulators are now in the process of determining what punishment to impose.

“The penalties are set to include a fine and demands for product changes,” the NYT report said, attributing the information to “four people with knowledge of the plans.” The penalty is expected to be issued this summer and would be the first one under the new EU law.

“European authorities have been weighing how large a fine to issue X as they consider the risks of further antagonizing [President] Trump amid wider trans-Atlantic disputes over trade, tariffs and the war in Ukraine,” the NYT report said. “The fine could surpass $1 billion, one person said, as regulators seek to make an example of X to deter other companies from violating the law, the Digital Services Act.”

X’s global government affairs account criticized European regulators in a post last night. “If the reports that the European Commission is considering enforcement actions against X are accurate, it represents an unprecedented act of political censorship and an attack on free speech,” X said. “X has gone above and beyond to comply with the EU’s Digital Services Act, and we will use every option at our disposal to defend our business, keep our users safe, and protect freedom of speech in Europe.”

Penalty math could include Musk’s other firms

The Digital Services Act allows fines of up to 6 percent of a company’s total worldwide annual turnover. EU regulators suggested last year that they could calculate fines by including revenue from Musk’s other companies, including SpaceX. Yesterday’s NYT report says this method is still under consideration:

EU may “make an example of X” by issuing $1 billion fine to Musk’s social network Read More »

vast-pedophile-network-shut-down-in-europol’s-largest-csam-operation

Vast pedophile network shut down in Europol’s largest CSAM operation

child porn, child sexual abuse materials, csam, dark web, europol, kidflix, Policy / /

Europol has shut down one of the largest dark web pedophile networks in the world, prompting dozens of arrests worldwide and threatening that more are to follow.

Launched in 2021, KidFlix allowed users to join for free to preview low-quality videos depicting child sex abuse materials (CSAM). To see higher-resolution videos, users had to earn credits by sending cryptocurrency payments, uploading CSAM, or “verifying video titles and descriptions and assigning categories to videos.”

Europol seized the servers and found a total of 91,000 unique videos depicting child abuse, “many of which were previously unknown to law enforcement,” the agency said in a press release.

KidFlix going dark was the result of the biggest child sexual exploitation operation in Europol’s history, the agency said. Operation Stream, as it was dubbed, was supported by law enforcement in more than 35 countries, including the United States.

Nearly 1,400 suspected consumers of CSAM have been identified among 1.8 million global KidFlix users, and 79 have been arrested so far. According to Europol, 39 child victims were protected as a result of the sting, and more than 3,000 devices were seized.

Police identified suspects through payment data after seizing the server. Despite cryptocurrencies offering a veneer of anonymity, cops were apparently able to use sophisticated methods to trace transactions to bank details. And in some cases cops defeated user attempts to hide their identities—such as a man who made payments using his mother’s name in Spain, a local news outlet, Todo Alicante, reported. It likely helped that most suspects were already known offenders, Europol noted.

Vast pedophile network shut down in Europol’s largest CSAM operation Read More »

“chaos”-at-state-health-agencies-after-us-illegally-axed-grants,-lawsuit-says

“Chaos” at state health agencies after US illegally axed grants, lawsuit says

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Nearly half of US states sued the federal government and Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. today in a bid to halt the termination of $11 billion in public health grants. The lawsuit was filed by 23 states and the District of Columbia.

“The grant terminations, which came with no warning or legally valid explanation, have quickly caused chaos for state health agencies that continue to rely on these critical funds for a wide range of urgent public health needs such as infectious disease management, fortifying emergency preparedness, providing mental health and substance abuse services, and modernizing public health infrastructure,” said a press release issued by Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser.

The litigation is led by Colorado, California, Minnesota, Rhode Island, and Washington. The other plaintiffs are Arizona, Connecticut, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Hawaii, Illinois, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.

Nearly all of the plaintiffs are represented by a Democratic attorney general. Kentucky and Pennsylvania have Republican attorneys general and are instead represented by their governors, both Democrats.

The complaint, filed in US District Court for the District of Rhode Island, is in response to the recent cut of grants that were originally created in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. “The sole stated basis for Defendants’ decision is that the funding for these grants or cooperative agreements was appropriated through one or more COVID-19 related laws,” the states’ lawsuit said.

The lawsuit says the US sent notices to states that grants were terminated “for cause” because “the grants and cooperative agreements were issued for a limited purpose: to ameliorate the effects of the pandemic. Now that the pandemic is over, the grants and cooperative agreements are no longer necessary as their limited purpose has run out.”

“Chaos” at state health agencies after US illegally axed grants, lawsuit says Read More »

doge-accesses-federal-payroll-system-and-punishes-employees-who-objected

DOGE accesses federal payroll system and punishes employees who objected

elon musk doge, Policy / /

Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has gained access “to a payroll system that processes salaries for about 276,000 federal employees across dozens of agencies,” despite “objections from senior IT staff who feared it could compromise highly sensitive government personnel information” and lead to cyberattacks, The New York Times reported today.

The system at the Interior Department gives DOGE “visibility into sensitive employee information, such as Social Security numbers, and the ability to more easily hire and fire workers,” the NYT wrote, citing people familiar with the matter. DOGE workers had been trying to get access to the Federal Personnel and Payroll System for about two weeks and succeeded over the weekend, the report said.

“The dispute came to a head on Saturday, as the DOGE workers obtained the access and then placed two of the IT officials who had resisted them on administrative leave and under investigation, the people said,” according to the NYT report. The agency’s CIO and CISO are reportedly under investigation for their “workplace behavior.”

When contacted by Ars today, the Interior Department said, “We are working to execute the President’s directive to cut costs and make the government more efficient for the American people and have taken actions to implement President Trump’s Executive Orders.”

DOGE’s access to federal systems continues to grow despite court rulings that ordered the government to cut DOGE off from specific records, such as those held by the Social Security Administration, Treasury Department, Department of Education, and Office of Personnel Management.

DOGE accesses federal payroll system and punishes employees who objected Read More »

even-trump-may-not-be-able-to-save-elon-musk-from-his-old-tweets

Even Trump may not be able to save Elon Musk from his old tweets

Donald Trump, elon musk, fraud, Policy, SEC, Securities and Exchange Commission, Twitter, X / /

A loss in the investors’ and SEC’s suits could force Musk to disgorge any ill-gotten gains from the alleged scheme, estimated at $150 million, as well as potential civil penalties.

The SEC and Musk’s X (formerly Twitter) did not respond to Ars’ request to comment. Investors’ lawyers declined to comment on the ongoing litigation.

SEC purge may slow down probes

Under the Biden administration, the SEC alleged that “Musk’s violation resulted in substantial economic harm to investors selling Twitter common stock.” For the lead plaintiffs in the investors’ suit, the Oklahoma Firefighters Pension and Retirement System, the scheme allegedly robbed retirees of gains used to sustain their quality of life at a particularly vulnerable time.

Musk has continued to argue that his alleged $200 million in savings from the scheme was minimal compared to his $44 billion purchase price. But the alleged gains represent about two-thirds of the $290 million price the billionaire paid to support Trump’s election, which won Musk a senior advisor position in the Trump administration, CNBC reported. So it’s seemingly not an insignificant amount of money in the grand scheme.

Likely bending to Musk’s influence, one of Trump’s earliest moves after taking office, CNBC reported, was reversing a 15-year-old policy allowing the SEC director of enforcement to launch probes like the one Musk is currently battling. It allowed the Tesla probe, for example, to be launched just seven days after Musk’s allegedly problematic tweets, the SEC boasted in a 2020 press release.

Now, after Trump’s rule change, investigations must be approved by a vote of SEC commissioners. That will likely slow down probes that the SEC had previously promised years ago would only speed up over time in order to more swiftly protect investors.

SEC expected to reduce corporate fines

For Musk, the SEC has long been a thorn in his side. At least two top officials (1, 2) cited the Tesla settlement as a career highlight, with the agency seeming especially proud of thinking “creatively about appropriate remedies,” the 2020 press release said. Monitoring Musk’s tweets, the SEC said, blocked “potential harm to investors” and put control over Musk’s tweets into the SEC’s hands.

Even Trump may not be able to save Elon Musk from his old tweets Read More »

france-fines-apple-e150m-for-“excessive”-pop-ups-that-let-users-reject-tracking

France fines Apple €150M for “excessive” pop-ups that let users reject tracking

Apple, Apple App Tracking Transparency, Policy / /

A typical ATT  pop-up asks a user whether to allow an app “to track your activity across other companies’ apps and websites,” and says that “your data will be used to deliver personalized ads to you.”

Agency: “Double consent” too cumbersome

The agency said there is an “asymmetry” in which user consent for Apple’s own data collection is obtained with a single pop-up, but other publishers are “required to obtain double consent from users for tracking on third-party sites and applications.” The press release notes that “while advertising tracking only needs to be refused once, the user must always confirm their consent a second time.”

The system was said to be less harmful for big companies like Meta and Google and “particularly harmful for smaller publishers that do not enjoy alternative targeting possibilities, in particular in the absence of sufficient proprietary data.” Although France’s focus is on how ATT affects smaller companies, Apple’s privacy system has also been criticized by Facebook.

The €150 million fine won’t make much of a dent in Apple’s revenue, but Apple will apparently have to make some changes to comply with the French order. The agency’s press release said the problem “could be avoided by marginal modifications to the ATT framework.”

Benoit Coeure, the head of France’s competition authority, “told reporters the regulator had not spelled out how Apple should change its app, but that it was up to the company to make sure it now complied with the ruling,” according to Reuters. “The compliance process could take some time, he added, because Apple was waiting for rulings on regulators in Germany, Italy, Poland and Romania who are also investigating the ATT tool.”

Apple said in a statement that the ATT “prompt is consistent for all developers, including Apple, and we have received strong support for this feature from consumers, privacy advocates, and data protection authorities around the world. While we are disappointed with today’s decision, the French Competition Authority (FCA) has not required any specific changes to ATT.”

France fines Apple €150M for “excessive” pop-ups that let users reject tracking Read More »

big-brands-are-spending-small-sums-on-x-to-stay-out-of-musk’s-crosshairs

Big brands are spending small sums on X to stay out of Musk’s crosshairs

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According to data from Emarketer, X’s revenue will increase to $2.3 billion this year compared with $1.9 billion a year ago. However, global sales in 2022, when the group was known as Twitter and taken over by Musk, were $4.1 billion.

Total US ad spend on X was down by 2 percent in the first two months of 2025 compared with a year ago, according to data from market intelligence group Sensor Tower, despite the recent return of groups such as Hulu and Unilever.

American Express also rejoined the platform this year but its ad spend is down by about 80 percent compared with the first quarter of 2022, Sensor Tower said.

However, four large ad agencies—WPP, Omnicom, Interpublic Group, and Publicis—have recently agreed on deals, or are in talks, to set annual spending targets with X in so-called “upfront deals,” where advertisers commit to purchasing slots in advance.

X, WPP, Omnicom, and Publicis declined to comment. Interpublic Group did not respond to a request for comment.

Fears have risen within the advertising industry after X filed a federal antitrust lawsuit last summer against Global Alliance for Responsible Media, a coalition of brands, ad agencies, and some companies including Unilever, accusing them of coordinating an “illegal boycott” under the guise of a brand safety initiative. The Republican-led House of Representatives Committee on the Judiciary has also leveled similar accusations.

Unilever was dropped from X’s lawsuit after it restarted advertising on the social media platform in October.

Following discussions with their legal team, some staff at WPP’s GroupM now feel concerned about what they put in writing about X or communicate over video conferencing given the lawsuit, according to one person familiar with the matter.

Another advertising executive noted that the planned $13 billion merger between Omnicom and Interpublic had been delayed by a further request for information from a US watchdog this month, holding the threat of regulatory intervention over the deal.

Big brands are spending small sums on X to stay out of Musk’s crosshairs Read More »

fbi-raids-home-of-prominent-computer-scientist-who-has-gone-incommunicado

FBI raids home of prominent computer scientist who has gone incommunicado

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A prominent computer scientist who has spent 20 years publishing academic papers on cryptography, privacy, and cybersecurity has gone incommunicado, had his professor profile, email account, and phone number removed by his employer, Indiana University, and had his homes raided by the FBI. No one knows why.

Xiaofeng Wang has a long list of prestigious titles. He was the associate dean for research at Indiana University’s Luddy School of Informatics, Computing and Engineering, a fellow at the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers and the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and a tenured professor at Indiana University at Bloomington. According to his employer, he has served as principal investigator on research projects totaling nearly $23 million over his 21 years there.

He has also co-authored scores of academic papers on a diverse range of research fields, including cryptography, systems security, and data privacy, including the protection of human genomic data. I have personally spoken to him on three occasions for articles here, here, and here.

“None of this is in any way normal”

In recent weeks, Wang’s email account, phone number, and profile page at the Luddy School were quietly erased by his employer. Over the same time, Indiana University also removed a profile for his wife, Nianli Ma, who was listed as a Lead Systems Analyst and Programmer at the university’s Library Technologies division.

As reported by the Bloomingtonian and later the Herald-Times in Bloomington, a small fleet of unmarked cars driven by government agents descended on the Bloomington home of Wang and Ma on Friday. They spent most of the day going in and out of the house and occasionally transferred boxes from their vehicles. TV station WTHR, meanwhile, reported that a second home owned by Wang and Ma and located in Carmel, Indiana, was also searched. The station said that both a resident and an attorney for the resident were on scene during at least part of the search.

FBI raids home of prominent computer scientist who has gone incommunicado Read More »

what-could-possibly-go-wrong?-doge-to-rapidly-rebuild-social-security-codebase.

What could possibly go wrong? DOGE to rapidly rebuild Social Security codebase.

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Like many legacy government IT systems, SSA systems contain code written in COBOL, a programming language created in part in the 1950s by computing pioneer Grace Hopper. The Defense Department essentially pressured private industry to use COBOL soon after its creation, spurring widespread adoption and making it one of the most widely used languages for mainframes, or computer systems that process and store large amounts of data quickly, by the 1970s. (At least one DOD-related website praising Hopper’s accomplishments is no longer active, likely following the Trump administration’s DEI purge of military acknowledgements.)

As recently as 2016, SSA’s infrastructure contained more than 60 million lines of code written in COBOL, with millions more written in other legacy coding languages, the agency’s Office of the Inspector General found. In fact, SSA’s core programmatic systems and architecture haven’t been “substantially” updated since the 1980s when the agency developed its own database system called MADAM, or the Master Data Access Method, which was written in COBOL and Assembler, according to SSA’s 2017 modernization plan.

SSA’s core “logic” is also written largely in COBOL. This is the code that issues social security numbers, manages payments, and even calculates the total amount beneficiaries should receive for different services, a former senior SSA technologist who worked in the office of the chief information officer says. Even minor changes could result in cascading failures across programs.

“If you weren’t worried about a whole bunch of people not getting benefits or getting the wrong benefits, or getting the wrong entitlements, or having to wait ages, then sure go ahead,” says Dan Hon, principal of Very Little Gravitas, a technology strategy consultancy that helps government modernize services, about completing such a migration in a short timeframe.

It’s unclear when exactly the code migration would start. A recent document circulated amongst SSA staff laying out the agency’s priorities through May does not mention it, instead naming other priorities like terminating “non-essential contracts” and adopting artificial intelligence to “augment” administrative and technical writing.

What could possibly go wrong? DOGE to rapidly rebuild Social Security codebase. Read More »

elon-musk’s-x-has-a-new-owner—elon-musk’s-xai

Elon Musk’s X has a new owner—Elon Musk’s xAI

elon musk, elon musk x, Policy, xAI / /

Elon Musk today said he has merged X and xAI in a deal that values the social network formerly known as Twitter at $33 billion. Musk purchased Twitter for $44 billion in 2022.

xAI acquired X “in an all-stock transaction. The combination values xAI at $80 billion and X at $33 billion ($45B less $12B debt),” Musk wrote on X today.

X and xAI were already collaborating, as xAI’s Grok is trained on X posts. Grok is made available to X users, with paying subscribers getting higher usage limits and more features.

“xAI and X’s futures are intertwined,” Musk wrote. “Today, we officially take the step to combine the data, models, compute, distribution and talent. This combination will unlock immense potential by blending xAI’s advanced AI capability and expertise with X’s massive reach.”

Musk said the combined company will “build a platform that doesn’t just reflect the world but actively accelerates human progress.”

xAI and X are privately held. “Some of the deal’s specifics were not yet clear, such as whether investors approved the transaction or how investors may be compensated,” Reuters wrote.

The reported value of the company formerly called Twitter plunged under Musk’s ownership. Fidelity, an X investor, valued X at less than $10 billion in September 2024. But X’s value rebounded at the same time that Musk gained major influence in the US government with the inauguration of President Donald Trump.

On the AI front, Musk has also been trying to buy OpenAI and prevent the company from completing its planned conversion from a nonprofit to for-profit entity.

Elon Musk’s X has a new owner—Elon Musk’s xAI Read More »

ex-fcc-chairs-from-both-parties-say-cbs-news-distortion-investigation-is-bogus

Ex-FCC chairs from both parties say CBS news distortion investigation is bogus

fcc chairman brendan carr, Policy / /

The Federal Communications Commission’s news distortion investigation into CBS drew a public rebuke from a bipartisan group of five former FCC commissioners, including two former chairmen.

The group criticizing current Chairman Brendan Carr includes Republican Alfred Sikes, the FCC chair from 1989 to 1993, and Democrat Tom Wheeler, the FCC chair from 2013 to 2017. They were joined by Republican Rachelle Chong, Democrat Ervin Duggan, and Democrat Gloria Tristani, all former commissioners.

“These comments are submitted to emphasize the unprecedented nature of this news distortion proceeding, and to express our strong concern that the Federal Communications Commission may be seeking to censor the news media in a manner antithetical to the First Amendment,” the former chairs and commissioners told the FCC in a filing this week.

The Center for American Rights filed the news distortion complaint against flagship station WCBS over the editing of a CBS 60 Minutes interview with Kamala Harris. The complaint was dismissed in January by then-Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel. Carr, Trump’s pick to lead the FCC, revived the complaint shortly after taking over.

“Editorial judgment protected by First Amendment”

The Center for American Rights’ claim of news distortion is based on an allegation that CBS misled viewers by airing two different responses from Harris to the same question about Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, one on 60 Minutes and the other on Face the Nation. But CBS provided the FCC with a transcript showing that the programs aired two different sentences from the same response.

“The transcript confirms that the editing choices at issue lie well within the editorial judgment protected by the First Amendment and that the Commission’s January 16 dismissal of the complaint was legally correct,” the former chairs and commissioners wrote. “Yet the Commission has reopened the complaint and taken the highly unusual step of inviting public comment, even though the proceeding is adjudicatory in nature. These developments have unjustifiably prolonged this investigation and raise questions about the actual purpose of the proceeding.”

The FCC has historically punished licensees only after dramatic violations, like “elaborate hoaxes, internal conspiracies, and reports conjured from whole cloth,” they wrote. There is “no credible argument” that the allegations against CBS “belong in the same category.”

Ex-FCC chairs from both parties say CBS news distortion investigation is bogus Read More »