In a spectacular development in the AI wars, Disney and several studios have sued the AI image-generating company Midjourney for copyright infringement (complaint here). To say that this has generated quite a stir would be a monumental understatement akin to declaring that Thunderbolts* was a bit of a flop. Not Read more
Most people who have been paying attention to the copyright and AI debate in Europe have been expecting that at some point the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) would be tasked with interpreting some of the existing exceptions regarding text and data mining. Many assumed, myself included, Read more
Something curious has been occurring in the world of digital rights. Openness, once one of the cornerstones of Internet culture, has lost its shine. There used to be a time in which everything was open. We had open source, open access, open science, open content, open hardware, open source water, Read more
I was recently trying to buy a train ticket using a Web platform which shall remain nameless for obvious reasons. I have been using the site for years to buy train tickets in advance, and while it costs marginally more than buying it directly from the providers, it was still Read more
A common theme here at Llama Towers is to talk about our changing relationship with the Internet as a whole, and with social media specifically. I was both an early adopter of the Web and discussion forums, and even moderated a very busy site for a couple of years, which helped Read more
I’m currently on sabbatical finishing a couple of papers, and I wanted to find a figure for a footnote. How many daily users are there for generative AI apps? Simple question, but it turns out that it is quite difficult to find out! I searched through a few sources, but Read more
If you were online between March 25 and March 26, your timeline may have been flooded with a barrage of AI-generated images, a large number of which would have been existing photographs recreated using the style of Studio Ghibli’s anime. On March 25, Sam Altman announced on Twitter that they Read more
I’ve been thinking a lot about cyberpunk recently for various reasons. Not only have I been re-reading some old classics such as Neuromancer and Snow Crash, but I am starting to see many worrying trends depicted in dystopian novels in everyday life. But perhaps one of the biggest misses from Read more
One of the most challenging aspects of generative AI for legal education has been its potential use in assessment. There have been some polls conducted, and large numbers of students admit to using AI in their assessments. Anecdotally I’ve heard as much from my own students, and while few would Read more
Recently, I’ve been thinking a lot about one of my favourite science fiction novels: ‘Snow Crash‘ by Neal Stephenson. “Snow Crash” envisions a future world where nation states have unravelled into chaotic, hyper-commercialised landscapes where traditional governmental structures have largely disintegrated. In this world, power is decentralised and fractured among Read more