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The publishers allege the shadow library is facilitating "staggering" levels of piracy. While the site's owners are not likely to put up a defense, the publishers' main goal appears to be to obtain an injunction that can apply further pressure on domain registrars and registries.

In order to help train its AI models, Meta (and others) have been using pirated versions of copyrighted books, without the consent of authors or publishers. The company behind Facebook and Instagram faces an ongoing class-action lawsuit brought by authors including Richard Kadrey, Sarah Silverman, and Christopher Golden, and one in which it has already scored a major (and surprising) victory: The Californian court concluded last year that using pirated books to train its Llama LLM did qualify as fair use.

You'd think this case would be as open-and-shut as it gets, but never underestimate an army of high-priced lawyers. Meta has now come up with the striking defense that uploading pirated books to strangers via BitTorrent qualifies as fair use. It further goes on to claim that this is double good, because it has helped establish the United States' leading position in the AI field.

Meta further argues that every author involved in the class-action has admitted they are unaware of any Llama LLM output that directly reproduces content from their books. It says if the authors cannot provide evidence of such infringing output or damage to sales, then this lawsuit is not about protecting their books but arguing against the training process itself (which the court has ruled is fair use).

Judge Vince Chhabria now has to decide whether to allow this defense, a decision that will have consequences for not only this but many other AI lawsuits involving things like shadow libraries. The BitTorrent uploading and distribution claims are the last element of this particular lawsuit, which has been rumbling on for three years now, to be settled.

After becoming the first country to ban under-16s from social media, Australia has now gone further by implementing one of the world’s most comprehensive age verification regimes for underage users, covering AI chatbots, app stores, online gaming, search engines, messaging services and pornography sites. The rules are already drawing criticism from some firms: Aylo, the owner of explicit sites including Pornhub, has responded by blocking Australian users from its platforms entirely.

On Monday, the country implemented the Age-Restricted Material Codes, requiring designated platforms to introduce age verification measures, such as facial age estimation, digital wallets and photo IDs, for materials such as high-impact violence, pornography, self-harm material and dangerous content such as suicide and disordered eating.

cross-posted from: https://ibbit.at/post/196812

By waging war in the Middle East, Trump is set to further strain one of his key voter bases.

From Foreign Policy via this RSS feed

The article in full: https://bret.dk/every-single-board-computer-i-tested-in-2025/

As a cracker, I then proceed to cook all the flavor out of them

He deleted his account but if you search AntipodeanPatr1 on Twitter it will show the threads he previously made and trans MLs like Leannenist called him out for transphobia.

TNO and High Tech Campus Eindhoven are starting construction of the world’s first industrial factory for producing indium phosphide photonic chips on a 6 inch wafer scale.

Context: Photonic chips have the benefit of being very fast and energy-saving. If the chips can be produced on a large scale, then they could improve the performance of data centers with, for example, AI applications.

In addition, they also provide possibilities regarding faster internet connections or smart devices, medical applications, and defense systems, TNO said.

Hi everyone

I'm trying to degoogle as much as possible. I've heard about this thing called calDAV and cardDAV but I have no idea how to use it.

With radicale, do I need to install some other somewhere in order to use it?

I'm just looking for basic useage for myself only at this stage. I'd like to be able to self host my own calendar and contacts. Is radicale appropriate for this?

Is it safe to self host a calendar?

Can a self hosted calendar still send and receive invites to other calendars?

Any help greatly appreciated, thank you

Stolen from r/FalloutMemes

This is a follow-up to banning puberty blockers for children under 16 in 2023, pausing or cancelling all trials recently, and the banning of trans people from gendered bathrooms this year.

It's a progressive attack on trans rights, where evidence of the safety and benefits of trans healthcare is ignored and decisions is taken out of the hands of trans people, trans children and their parents. They're treated as people unable to make decisions for themselves. A tactic often used against women, disabled people and black people historically.

In this particular case, it's still breaking news but I've heard the way they fit the data to their desired result was to make the filters on what was to be accepted as evidence extremely narrow. Things like "all subjects in the study must have never taken puberty blockers, but must be on hormones and born male". When they find that no study exactly matches their criteria, they throw up their hands and say "we just don't know if it's safe" and ban all healthcare.

It doesn't matter how many experts criticise these choices and peer-review the reports. We've been shown by the Cass Review (still referenced in these decisions, despite its provably terrible quality) that all evidence outside the transphobic agenda will be ignored and every possible side-effect of treatment will be used as justification to eradicate trans people.

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