Colorado tech law professor Blake Reid has a good Bluesky thread (note: requires login) on the complicated gamesmanship behind AI content deals and copyright law. His conclusion:
At the end of the day, copyright just doesn’t give a lot of people positively and negatively impacted by copyright a seat at the table. And these deals are a powerful reminder of that.
Kate Lindsay interviews Soren Iverson, creator of satirical UI concepts like “Google Chrome pay per tab”:
People are always like, “Don’t give them ideas.” I’m like, if I’ve thought about it, a company with infinite resources has probably thought about it as well...
[embedded.substack.com]
Chris Klimas funds his Twine game engine through a per-release model on Patreon, getting paid only when he’s actively developing Twine. Unlike a flat monthly subscription, it’s a “simple and guilt-free” way to work part-time. But Patreon’s phasing out that model so Apple won’t kick it off the App Store — and Klimas is mulling whether it’s still worth staying.
After years of phaseout, Meta is shutting down the once-powerful social media research tool for good today. Academics and journalists aren’t all that happy with its replacement — a tool called MCL, which is available to far fewer people.
The Wall Street Journal delves into a loose network of TikTok accounts churning out videos with AI-generated voiceovers making ridiculous claims — both positive and negative — about Donald Trump. A political motive is possible, but it sounds likely they’re less a coordinated operation than a bunch of people ripping each other’s content off for views, and Trump is simply the best engagement-bait around.
WordStar is a beloved MS-DOS-era word processing tool known as a favorite of writers like George R.R. Martin. And thanks to author Robert J. Sawyer, there’s a new archive designed to help you run its final 1992 release on modern computers.
[sfwriter.com]
