Tech Dirt News Today

As the Supreme Court debates the patentability of human genes, the media argues about whether patents help or hinder genetic research. The Genetic Literacy Project asserts that when public access and private interests are balanced, intellectual property protection can play an important role in spurring innovation.

As you may have heard, last week Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and his anti-vax organization "Children's Health Defense" filed a supremely stupid lawsuit against Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, and fact checking organizations Poynter and Politifact among others. It was filed early last week and I've wanted to write it up since someone sent it to me…

Macro Perspective on the Capital Markets, Economy, Geopolitics, Technology, and Digital Media

Back in 2015, the nation's top telecom regulator attempted to create some very basic (by international standards) privacy guidelines for telecom providers, demanding they do things like (gasp) be transparent about the consumer data they were collecting and selling, while also requiring that consumers (gasp) opt in to the sale of any particularly sensitive data.This…

There have long been attacks on the global, open nature of the internet. Traditionally these came from authoritarian regimes looking to wall off portions of the internet and exert greater control of them, but lately we've also been seeing growing threats from democratic countries in the form of problematic laws and regulations. Recently, we wrote…

Once just the concern of pissed off farmers and nerdy tinkerers, the last two years have seen a groundswell of broader culture awareness about "right to repair," and the perils of letting companies like Apple, John Deere, Microsoft, or Sony monopolize repair options, making repairing things you own both more difficult and way more expensive.John Deere's draconian repair restrictions…

The Pitch newsletter is a monthly update of legal issues and news affecting or related to the music, film and television, fine arts, media, professional athletics, eSports, and gaming...

Back in March, we noted the irony of famed comedian Carol Burnett suing the producers of the TV show Family Guy after the show included a brief parody of one of Burnett's famous characters. After all, Burnett should know all about parody -- including the fact that it's protected free speech. Unfortunately, it looks like…

Macro Perspective on the Capital Markets, Economy, Geopolitics, Technology, and Digital Media