A group of ex-OpenAI employees on Friday filed a proposed amicus brief in support of Elon Musk in his lawsuit against OpenAI, opposing OpenAI's planned conversion from a nonprofit to a for-profit corporation. From a report: The brief, filed by Harvard law professor and Creative Commons founder Lawrence Lessig, names 12 former OpenAI employees: Steven Adler, Rosemary Campbell, Neil Chowdhury, Jacob Hilton, Daniel Kokotajlo, Gretchen Krueger, Todor Markov, Richard Ngo, Girish Sastry, William Saunders, Carrol Wainwright, and Jeffrey Wu. It makes the case that, if OpenAI's non-profit ceded control of the organization's business operations, it would "fundamentally violate its mission."

Several of the ex-staffers have spoken out against OpenAI's practices publicly before. Krueger has called on the company to improve its accountability and transparency, while Kokotajlo and Saunders previously warned that OpenAI is in a "reckless" race for AI dominance. Wainwright has said that OpenAI "should not [be trusted] when it promises to do the right thing later."

NaNoWriMo, the nonprofit behind the annual novel-writing challenge, is shutting down after 20 years but will keep its websites online temporarily so users can retrieve their content. The Guardian reports: A 27-minute YouTube video posted the same day by the organization's interim executive director Kilby Blades explained that it had to close due to ongoing financial problems, which were compounded by reputational damage. In November 2023, several community members complained to the nonprofit's board, Blades said. They believed that staff had mishandled accusations made in May 2023 that a NaNoWriMo forum moderator was grooming children on a different website. The moderator was eventually removed, though this was for unrelated code of conduct violations and occurred "many weeks" after the initial complaints. In the wake of this, community members came forward with other complaints related to child safety on the NaNoWriMo sites.

The organization was also widely criticized last year over a statement on the use of artificial intelligence in creative writing. After stating that it did not support or explicitly condemn any approach to writing, including the use of AI, it said that the "categorical condemnation of artificial intelligence has classist and ableist undertones." It went on to say that "not all writers have the financial ability to hire humans to help at certain phases of their writing," and that "not all brains have same abilities ... There is a wealth of reasons why individuals can't 'see' the issues in their writing without help." "We hold no belief that people will stop writing 50,000 words in November," read Monday's email. "Many alternatives to NaNoWriMo popped up this year, and people did find each other. In so many ways, it's easier than it was when NaNoWriMo began in 1999 to find your writing tribe online."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: What does it take to get OpenAI and Anthropic -- two competitors in the AI assistant market -- to get along? Despite a fundamental difference in direction that led Anthropic's founders to quit OpenAI in 2020 and later create the Claude AI assistant, a shared technical hurdle has now brought them together: How to easily connect their AI models to external data sources. The solution comes from Anthropic, which developed and released an open specification called Model Context Protocol (MCP) in November 2024. MCP establishes a royalty-free protocol that allows AI models to connect with outside data sources and services without requiring unique integrations for each service.

"Think of MCP as a USB-C port for AI applications," wrote Anthropic in MCP's documentation. The analogy is imperfect, but it represents the idea that, similar to how USB-C unified various cables and ports (with admittedly a debatable level of success), MCP aims to standardize how AI models connect to the infoscape around them. So far, MCP has also garnered interest from multiple tech companies in a rare show of cross-platform collaboration. For example, Microsoft has integrated MCP into its Azure OpenAI service, and as we mentioned above, Anthropic competitor OpenAI is on board. Last week, OpenAI acknowledged MCP in its Agents API documentation, with vocal support from the boss upstairs. "People love MCP and we are excited to add support across our products," wrote OpenAI CEO Sam Altman on X last Wednesday.

MCP has also rapidly begun to gain community support in recent months. For example, just browsing this list of over 300 open source servers shared on GitHub reveals growing interest in standardizing AI-to-tool connections. The collection spans diverse domains, including database connectors like PostgreSQL, MySQL, and vector databases; development tools that integrate with Git repositories and code editors; file system access for various storage platforms; knowledge retrieval systems for documents and websites; and specialized tools for finance, health care, and creative applications. Other notable examples include servers that connect AI models to home automation systems, real-time weather data, e-commerce platforms, and music streaming services. Some implementations allow AI assistants to interact with gaming engines, 3D modeling software, and IoT devices.

"I am having conversations every day with people whose careers are sort of over," a 53-year-old film and TV director told the New York Times: If you entered media or image-making in the '90s — magazine publishing, newspaper journalism, photography, graphic design, advertising, music, film, TV — there's a good chance that you are now doing something else for work. That's because those industries have shrunk or transformed themselves radically, shutting out those whose skills were once in high demand... When digital technology began seeping into their lives, with its AOL email accounts, Myspace pages and Napster downloads, it didn't seem like a threat. But by the time they entered the primes of their careers, much of their expertise had become all but obsolete.

More than a dozen members of Generation X interviewed for this article said they now find themselves shut out, economically and culturally, from their chosen fields. "My peers, friends and I continue to navigate the unforeseen obsolescence of the career paths we chose in our early 20s," Mr. Wilcha said. "The skills you cultivated, the craft you honed — it's just gone. It's startling." Every generation has its burdens. The particular plight of Gen X is to have grown up in one world only to hit middle age in a strange new land. It's as if they were making candlesticks when electricity came in. The market value of their skills plummeted...

Typically, workers in their 40s and 50s are entering their peak earning years. But for many Gen-X creatives, compensation has remained flat or decreased, factoring in the rising cost of living. The usual rate for freelance journalists is 50 cents to $1 per word — the same as it was 25 years ago... As opportunities and incomes dwindle, Gen X-ers in creative fields are weighing their options. Move to a lower-cost place and remain committed to the work you love? Look for a bland corporate job that might provide health insurance and a steady paycheck until retirement?
The article includes several examples of the trend:

• One magazine's photo studio director says professional photographers have been replaced by "a 20-year-old kid who will do the job for $500."

• The article adds that "When photography went digital, photo lab technicians and manual retouchers were suddenly as inessential as medieval scribes." (And "In advertising, brands ditched print and TV campaigns that required large crews for marketing plans that relied on social media posts."")

• An editor at Spin magazine remembers the day its print edition folded...

And besides competition from influencers, there's also AI, "which seems likely to replace many of the remaining Gen X copywriters, photographers and designers. By 2030, ad agencies in the United States will lose 32,000 jobs, or 7.5 percent of the industry's work force, to the technology, according to the research firm Forrester."

Meanwhile the cost of living has skyrocketed, the article points out — even while Gen X-ers "are less secure financially than baby boomers and lack sufficient retirement savings, according to recent surveys..."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the BBC: Fashion retailer H&M is to use artificial intelligence (AI) to create digital "twins" of 30 models. It says it will use the AI doppelgangers in some social media posts and marketing in the place of humans, if given permission by models. "We are curious to explore how to showcase our fashion in new creative ways -- and embrace the benefits of new technology -- while staying true to our commitment to personal style," said its chief creative officer Jorgen Andersson in a statement.

The initiative was first reported by industry publication Business of Fashion. H&M told the outlet that models would retain rights over their digital replicas and their use by the company and other brands for purposes such as marketing. Its images are likely to be initially used in social media posts, with watermarks that make their AI use clear, it added. H&M also said models would be compensated for use of their digital twins in a similar way to current arrangements -- which sees them paid for use of their images based on rates agreed by their agent.

Today long-time open source advocate/journalist Doc Searls revealed that years of work by consumer privacy groups has culminated in a proposed standard "that can vastly expand our agency in the digital world" — especially in a future world where agents surf the web on our behalf: Meet IEEE P7012 , which "identifies/addresses the manner in which personal privacy terms are proffered and how they can be read and agreed to by machines." It has been in the works since 2017, and should be ready later this year. (I say this as chair of the standard's working group.) The nickname for P7012 is MyTerms (much as the nickname for the IEEE's 802.11 standard is Wi-Fi).

The idea behind MyTerms is that the sites and services of the world should agree to your terms, rather than the other way around.
Basically your web browser proffers whatever agreement you've chosen (from a canonical list hosted at Customer Commons) to the web sites and other online services that you're visiting.

"Browser makers can build something into their product, or any developer can make a browser add-on or extension..." Searls writes. "On the site's side — the second-party side — CMS makers can build something in, or any developer can make a plug-in (WordPress) or a module (Drupal). Mobile app toolmakers can also come up with something (or many things)..." MyTerms creates a new regime for privacy: one based on contract. With each MyTerm you are the first party. Not the website, the service, or the app maker. They are the second party. And terms can be friendly. For example, a prototype term called NoStalking says "Just show me ads not based on tracking me." This is good for you, because you don't get tracked, and good for the site because it leaves open the advertising option. NoStalking lives at Customer Commons, much as personal copyrights live at Creative Commons. (Yes, the former is modeled on the latter.)
"[L]et's make this happen and show the world what agency really means," Searls concludes.

Another way to say it is they've created "a draft standard for machine-readable personal privacy terms." But Searl's article used a grander metaphor to explain its significance: When Archimedes said 'Give me a place to stand and I can move the world,' he was talking about agency. You have no agency on the Web if you are always the second party, agreeing to terms and policies set by websites.

You are Archimedes if you are the first party, setting your own terms and policies. The scale you get with those is One 2 World. The place you stand is on the Web itself — and the Internet below it.

Both were designed to make each of us an Archimedes.

Despite spending hundreds of millions on blockbuster films, Netflix continues to churn out critically panned big-budget fare with its latest $300 million flop, "The Electric State," starring Chris Pratt and Millie Bobby Brown. While the streaming giant has produced acclaimed films by giving talented directors creative freedom -- resulting in successes like "The Irishman," "Marriage Story" and "The Power of the Dog" -- it has repeatedly failed to create genuinely compelling blockbusters despite attracting major talent and pouring massive resources into productions like "Red Notice," "The Gray Man" and now "The Electric State."

These expensive Netflix "mockbusters" lack the overwhelming sensations that theatrical blockbusters deliver, instead feeling like glorified content designed primarily for home viewing. The Russo brothers' "Electric State," with its drab visuals and lifeless performances, exemplifies how Netflix's biggest productions feel infused with the knowledge they're merely "content first."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Variety: More than 400 Hollywood creative leaders signed an open letter to the Trump White House's Office of Science and Technology Policy, urging the administration to not roll back copyright protections at the behest of AI companies. The filmmakers, writers, actors, musicians and others -- which included Ben Stiller, Mark Ruffalo, Cynthia Erivo, Cate Blanchett, Cord Jefferson, Paul McCartney, Ron Howard and Taika Waititi -- were submitting comments for the Trump administration's U.S. AI Action Plan. The letter specifically was penned in response to recent submissions to the Office of Science and Technology Policy from OpenAI and Google, which asserted that U.S. copyright law allows (or should allow) allow AI companies to train their system on copyrighted works without obtaining permission from (or compensating) rights holders.

"We firmly believe that America's global AI leadership must not come at the expense of our essential creative industries," the letter says in part. The letter claims that "AI companies are asking to undermine this economic and cultural strength by weakening copyright protections for the films, television series, artworks, writing, music and voices used to train AI models at the core of multibillion-dollar corporate valuations." [...] The letter says Google and OpenAI "are arguing for a special government exemption so they can freely exploit America's creative and knowledge industries, despite their substantial revenues and available funds. There is no reason to weaken or eliminate the copyright protections that have helped America flourish." You can read the full statement and list of signatories here.

The letter was issued in response to recent submissions from OpenAI (PDF) and Google (PDF) claiming that U.S. law allows, or should allow, AI companies to train their programs on copyrighted works under the fair use legal doctrine.

Technicolor Group has filed for a court recovery procedure in France after failing to secure new investors, putting its VFX brands, including MPC, The Mill, Mikros Animation, and Technicolor Games, at risk of closure. Variety reports: A total shutdown of MPC and Technicolor's operations would affect thousands of visual effects workers in countries include the U.S., UK, Canada and India. The turn in business has raised the alarm and sparked sadness within the VFX community. Parot's memo explains, "In each country, the appropriate framework for orderly protection and way forward is currently being put in place to allow, when possible, to remain in business continuity."

Technicolor has already started to shut down U.S. operations. On Friday, it began alerting customers and employees, sending U.S. employees a WARN notice as required by law for large companies that anticipate closings and mass layoffs. At least one recovery effort already started for roughly 100 U.S. employees of The Mill. The creative leadership and most of the creative staff that was Technicolor's The Mill U.S. is joining forces with Dream Machine FX to launch a new venture, Arc Creative, Variety reported exclusively on Monday. A statement from the artists explains they they are working to launch the new entity amid "the complexities of Technicolor's Chapter 7 proceedings."

Questions remain about how studios will finish upcoming projects that are currently housed at MPC, which include Disney's live-action remake of "Lilo and Stitch" and Paramount's "Mission: Impossible -- The Final Reckoning," as well as Mikros' work, such as Paramount and Nickelodeon's upcoming "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" sequel.

Netflix calls it "a live-action reimagining of the acclaimed Nickelodeon animated series, Avatar: The Last Airbender. And this weekend Netflix shared a blooper reel from their live-action show's first season, reports Engadget, "giving fans a look at some cute behind the scenes antics while they wait for the next season." The first season was released a year ago, and Netflix announced shortly after that the show had been renewed for two more [with the third season being its last]. There's no release date yet for the new episodes, but the streaming service said on Saturday that production for the second season is underway.
"Just as the animated series matured and progressed, the live-action will also take these characters and worlds and grow them," executive producers Christine Boylan and Jabbar Raisani said in Netflix's announcement.

And speaking of Nickeloden's 2005 animated series, "The mythology and adventure of Avatar: The Last Airbender will continue," writes Deadline, "with Avatar: Seven Havens, a new 26-episode, 2D-animated series ordered by Nickelodeon, from original series creators Michael DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko and Avatar Studios....

"The duo also was originally involved in Netflix's live-action series adaptation but left in 2020 due to creative differences." Avatar: Seven Havens is set in a world shattered by a devastating cataclysm. A young Earthbender discovers she's the new Avatar after Korra — but in this dangerous era, that title marks her as humanity's destroyer, not its savior. Hunted by both human and spirit enemies, she and her long-lost twin must uncover their mysterious origins and save the Seven Havens before civilization's last strongholds collapse...

"When we created the original series, we never imagined we'd still be expanding the world decades later," said DiMartino and Konietzko....

Previously announced, Paramount Pictures and Nickelodeon Movies' Untitled Animated Aang Avatar film debuts only in theaters on January 30, 2026, featuring a voice cast that includes Dave Bautista, Dionne Quan, Jessica Matten, Román Zaragoza and introducing Eric Nam.

Deadline reports: It's taking around $1 billion to have 007 stewards Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson cede creative oversight of their family's storied James Bond franchise to Amazon MGM Studios, sources tell us. Amazon originally overpaid on its purchase of MGM in a deal orchestrated by then-MGM board chair Kevin Ulrich. Though valued between $3.5 billion-$4 billion, the legendary motion picture studio was absorbed by the streamer for $8.5 billion, the hefty sum propped up by the potential access of the 007 franchise. However, Amazon couldn't fully freely develop Bond with Broccoli and Wilson in the mix. Hence, it took another $1 billion to ensure that they could fully steer and exploit the Ian Fleming IP.
The article suggests Broccoli's long hold-out came from "Amazon's desire to expand the James Bond franchise into its own universe akin to Marvel or Star Wars." In the past, filmmakers including Quentin Tarantino and Christopher Nolan have expressed an interest in putting their stamp on Bond; both however, required complete creative control, which wasn't possible under the reign of Broccoli and Wilson. Now, with the producers on the side, Amazon can move forward to attract a top-tier director.

Also available to come to life in the new deal finally are a slew of Bond villains and women in their own series or features. The last time an attempt was made to spin off the Bond franchise was in 2003 with a stand-alone movie about the spy's girlfriend Jinx, played by Halle Berry in Die Another Day. Bond scribes Neal Purvis and Rob Wade were attached to pen that, with Stephen Frears circling, but Broccoli and Wilson put the kibosh to the idea due to creative differences.
In a related note, the article adds that Amazon "is looking to have an international theatrical distribution arm fully operational by some time in 2026."

Jeff Bezos asked his followers on X.com who should play James Bond in the next movie, reports IGN, "and the answer was loud and clear." On X.com the "clear fan favorite" was DC Extended Universe actor Henry Cavill. (Besides playing Superman, Cavill also appeared in the 2024 film spy action-comedy Argyle, and fought Tom Cruise's character in 2018's Mission Impossible: Fallout — and played Geralt of Rivia in the Netflix series The Witcher.)

Microsoft's newly announced Muse AI model for game development has triggered immediate backlash from industry professionals. "Fuck this shit," responded David Goldfarb, founder of The Outsiders, arguing that such AI tools primarily serve to "reduce capital expenditure" while devaluing developers' collective artistic contributions.

Multiple developers told Wired that the tool is aimed at shareholders rather than actual developers. "Nobody will want this. They don't CARE that nobody will want this," one AAA developer said, noting that internal criticism remains muted due to job security concerns amid industry-wide layoffs.

The resistance comes as developers increasingly view AI initiatives as threats to job security rather than helpful tools. One anonymous developer called it "gross" that they needed to remain unnamed while criticizing Muse, as their studio still depends on potential Game Pass deals with Microsoft. Even in prototyping, where Microsoft sees AI potential, Creative Assembly's Marc Burrage warns that automated shortcuts could undermine crucial learning experiences in game development.

Hackaday reports: Good news for everyone who cannot get enough from improbably shaped boats that get referred to as a bench: the current owner (NTI Group) of the copyright has announced that 3DBenchy has been released into the public domain. This comes not too long after Prusa's Printables website had begun to purge all derived models to adhere to the 'no derivatives' license. According to NTI, the removal of these derived models was not requested by NTI, but by a third-party report, unbeknownst to NTI or the original creator of the model. Recognizing its importance to the community, 3DBenchy can now be downloaded & modified freely.

NTI worked together with the original creator [Daniel Norée] and former Creative Tools CEO [Paulo Kiefe] to transition 3DBenchy and the associated website to the public domain More details at Tom's Hardware and Fabbaloo.

An anonymous reader shared this report from the Guardian: Thousands of artists are urging the auction house Christie's to cancel a sale of art created with artificial intelligence, claiming the technology behind the works is committing "mass theft". The Augmented Intelligence auction has been described by Christie's as the first AI-dedicated sale by a major auctioneer and features 20 lots with prices ranging from $10,000 to $250,000...

The British composer Ed Newton-Rex, a key figure in the campaign by creative professionals for protection of their work and a signatory to the letter, said at least nine of the works appearing in the auction appeared to have used models trained on artists' work. However, other pieces in the auction do not appear to have used such models.

A spokesperson for Christie's said that "in most cases" the AI used to create art in the auction had been trained on the artists' "own inputs".
More than 6,000 people have now signed the letter, which states point-blank that "Many of the artworks you plan to auction were created using AI models that are known to be trained on copyrighted work without a license." These models, and the companies behind them, exploit human artists, using their work without permission or payment to build commercial AI products that compete with them. Your support of these models, and the people who use them, rewards and further incentivizes AI companies' mass theft of human artists' work. We ask that, if you have any respect for human artists, you cancel the auction.
Last week ARTnews spoke to Nicole Sales Giles, Christie's vice-president and director of digital art sales (before the open letter was published). And Giles insisted one of the major themes of the auction is "that AI is not a replacement for human creativity." "You can see a lot of human agency in all of these works," Giles said. "In every single work, you're seeing a collaboration between an AI model, a robot, or however the artist has chosen to incorporate AI. It is showing how AI is enhancing creativity and not becoming a substitute for it."

One of the auction's headline lots is a 12-foot-tall robot made by Matr Labs that is guided by artist Alexander Reben's AI model. It will paint a new section of a canvas live during the sale every time the work receives a bid. Reben told ARTnews that he understands the frustrations of artists regarding the AI debate, but he sees "AI as an incredible tool... AI models which are trained on public data are done so under the idea of 'fair use,' just as search engines once faced scrutiny for organizing book data (which was ultimately found to fall under fair use)," he said.... "AI expands creative potential, offering new ways to explore, remix, and evolve artistic expression rather than replace it. The future of art isn't about AI versus artists — it's about how artists wield AI to push boundaries in ways we've never imagined before...."

Digital artist Jack Butcher has used the open letter to create a minted digital artwork called Undersigned Artists. On X he wrote that the work "takes a collective act of dissent — an appeal to halt an AI art auction — and turns it into the very thing it resists: a minted piece of digital art. The letter, originally a condemnation of AI-generated works trained on unlicensed human labor, now becomes part of the system it critiques."

Christie's will accept cryptocurrency payments for the majority of lots in the sale.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: On Wednesday, OpenAI published the latest version of its "Model Spec," a set of guidelines detailing how ChatGPT should behave and respond to user requests. The document reveals a notable shift in OpenAI's content policies, particularly around "sensitive" content like erotica and gore -- allowing this type of content to be generated without warnings in "appropriate contexts." The change in policy has been in the works since May 2024, when the original Model Spec document first mentioned that OpenAI was exploring "whether we can responsibly provide the ability to generate NSFW content in age-appropriate contexts through the API and ChatGPT."

ChatGPT's guidelines now state that that "erotica or gore" may now be generated, but only under specific circumstances. "The assistant should not generate erotica, depictions of illegal or non-consensual sexual activities, or extreme gore, except in scientific, historical, news, creative or other contexts where sensitive content is appropriate," OpenAI writes. "This includes depictions in text, audio (e.g., erotic or violent visceral noises), or visual content." So far, experimentation from Reddit users has shown that ChatGPT's content filters have indeed been relaxed, with some managing to generate explicit sexual or violent scenarios without accompanying content warnings. OpenAI notes that its Usage Policies still apply, which prohibit building AI tools for minors that include sexual content.

"The Internet's Own Boy" was inscribed below the bust, according to the San Francisco Standard, adding that the 312-pound marble statue "was crafted using a mix of AI-driven robotic milling and traditional hand carving."

It was unveiled Friday at the Internet Archive auditorium for a crowd of around 300 people. "Aaron's legacy is bringing people together to make change, said Cindy Cohn, the executive director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. "There's a renaissance happening now in Aaron Swartz-land," said Lisa Rein, the co-founder of Creative Commons, a nonprofit devoted to expanding public access to information. She founded Aaron Swartz Day in 2013, an annual hackathon and tribute held on his birthday. There's now an Aaron Swartz Institute in Brazil, a documentary, multiple books and podcasts — even an Aaron Swartz memecoin ("Do not buy," she warned).

"It's great that people idolize him as long as they get the story right: He was not a martyr," Rein said, her eyes welling with tears. "He stood for freedom of access to information, especially for scientific research — things the public had already paid for."

The evening included a number of video tributes, which Rein played on a large screen behind the stage. They included commentary from science fiction author Cory Doctorow, members of the Aaron Swartz Institute in Brazil, and Cindy Cohn, the executive director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation... Emmett Shear, the former CEO of Twitch and a partner at Y Combinator, was one of the few people who knew Swartz personally. "I'm glad he's become a symbol, he would approve of that," he shared, his voice slightly breaking. "I really miss him."

Starting next week, the bust will be moved to the [Internet Archive] lobby, where it will remain until Peniche secures a permit to place it in a local park [said Evan Sirchuk, the Internet Archive's community and events coordinator]... "Aaron really means something to the San Francisco community," [Rein said]. "He can keep inspiring generations — even the ones who weren't alive when he was."
Tech blogger John Gruber thinks Swartz would appreciate that the bust came from people "aligned with Aaron's own righteous obsessions." But at the same time "I think he'd be a little weirded out. He wasn't a 'I hope they erect a larger-than-life statue of me' sort of guy.

"And if he had been, we wouldn't have loved him like we did. It's just a terrible thing that we lost him so young."

To celebrate 2025's newest arrivals in the public domain, the Internet Archive held a special in-person event at their San Francisco headquarters, as well as a virtual celebration online. (It opens with an absolutely gorgeous rendition of "Happy Days are Hear Again" played on a musical saw.)

And somewhere in the festivities they announced the winners of this year's annual "Public Domain Day Film Remix Contest." These remarkable films not only reimagined and transformed public domain works but also demonstrated the boundless potential of remixing creative works to create something new... Explore all 140+ submissions at the 2025 Public Domain Day Film Remix Contest collection at the Internet Archive...

"The jury was deeply impressed by Queline Meadows's inspired mix of movies, images, music and text woven into a subtle and emotionally affecting video expressing a strong sense of nostalgia and the irretrievable passage of time," said film archivist Rick Prelinger... Filmmaker Samantha Close expresses both the breadth of 1929's production and the eternal bounty of the public domain, using images from 1929's films and public domain images from elsewhere and elsewhen.
One honorable mention entry was described as "an audacious and yes, dopey exploration of the essential greatness of Internet Archive and the dread near-infinity of copyright."

The Register highlights concerns raised at a recent UK parliamentary committee regarding AI companies' exploitation of copyrighted content without permission or payment. From the report: The Culture, Media and Sport Committee and Science, Innovation and Technology Committee asked composer Max Richter how he would know if "bad-faith actors" were using his material to train AI models. "There's really nothing I can do," he told MPs. "There are a couple of music AI models, and it's perfectly easy to make them generate a piece of music that sounds uncannily like me. That wouldn't be possible unless it had hoovered up my stuff without asking me and without paying for it. That's happening on a huge scale. It's obviously happened to basically every artist whose work is on the internet."

Richter, whose work has been used in a number of major film and television scores, said the consequences for creative musicians and composers would be dire. "You're going to get a vanilla-ization of music culture as automated material starts to edge out human creators, and you're also going to get an impoverishing of human creators," he said. "It's worth remembering that the music business in the UK is a real success story. It's 7.6 billion-pound income last year, with over 200,000 people employed. That is a big impact. If we allow the erosion of copyright, which is really how value is created in the music sector, then we're going to be in a position where there won't be artists in the future."

Speaking earlier, former Google staffer James Smith said much of the damage from text and data mining had likely already been done. "The original sin, if you like, has happened," said Smith, co-founder and chief executive of Human Native AI. "The question is, how do we move forward? I would like to see the government put more effort into supporting licensing as a viable alternative monetization model for the internet in the age of these new AI agents."

Matt Rogerson, director of global public policy and platform strategy at the Financial Times, said: "We can only deal with what we see in front of us and [that is] people taking our content, using it for the training, using it in substitutional ways. So from our perspective, we'll prosecute the same argument in every country where we operate, where we see our content being stolen." The risk, if the situation continued, was a hollowing out of creative and information industries, he said. [...] "The problem is we can't see who's stolen our content. We're just at this stage where these very large companies, which usually make margins of 90 percent, might have to take some smaller margin, and that's clearly going to be upsetting for their investors. But that doesn't mean they shouldn't. It's just a question of right and wrong and where we pitch this debate. Unfortunately, the government has pitched it in thinking that you can't reduce the margin of these big tech companies; otherwise, they won't build a datacenter."

Disney+ lost 700,000 subscribers in the last quarter of 2024, largely due to price hikes and expiring promotions. Despite the decline, Disney's overall streaming business remained profitable, boosted by strong box office results from Moana 2 and Hulu's 1.6 million added subscribers. IndieWire reports: Not counting Disney+ Hotstar, the cheap Disney+ service in India, Disney+ now has 124.6 million subs. ESPN+ also lost 700,000 subs in the period. Hulu was the streaming highlight, adding 1.6 million subscribers; it now has 53.6 million. All told, the company's streaming business was profitable for its third-straight quarter. So it wasn't all bad -- or unexpected. "Our results this quarter demonstrate Disney's creative and financial strength as we advanced the strategic initiatives set in motion over the past two years," said Disney CEO Bob Iger. "In fiscal Q1 we saw outstanding box office performance from our studios, which had the top three movies of 2024; we further improved the profitability of our Entertainment DTC streaming businesses; we took an important step to advance ESPN's digital strategy by adding an ESPN tile on Disney+; and our Experiences segment demonstrated its enduring appeal as we continue investing strategically across the globe. Overall, this quarter proved to be a strong start to the fiscal year, and we remain confident in our strategy for continued growth."

Bill Gates' blog has been updated with short videos about his upcoming book, including one about how his school ended up with an ASR-33 teletype that could connect their Seattle classroom to a computer in California. "The teachers faded away pretty quickly," Gates adds, "But about six of us stayed hardcore. One was Paul Allen..." — the future co-founder of Microsoft. And the experience clearly meant a lot to Gates. "Microsoft just never would've happened without Paul — and this teletype room."

In a longer post thanking his "brilliant" teachers, Gates calls his teletype experience "an encounter that would shape my entire future" and "opened up a whole new world for me." Gates also thanks World War II Navy pilot and Boeing engineer Bill Dougall, who "was instrumental in bringing computer access to our school, something he and other faculty members pushed for after taking a summer computer class... The fascinating thing about Mr. Dougall was that he didn't actually know much about programming; he exhausted his knowledge within a week. But he had the vision to know it was important and the trust to let us students figure it out."

Gates shared a similar memory about the computer-room's 20-something overseer Fred Wright, who "intuitively understood that the best way to get students to learn was to let us explore on our own terms. There was no sign-up sheet, no locked door, no formal instruction." Instead, Mr. Wright let us figure things out ourselves and trusted that, without his guidance, we'd have to get creative... Some of the other teachers argued for tighter regulations, worried about what we might be doing in there unsupervised. But even though Mr. Wright occasionally popped in to break up a squabble or listen as someone explained their latest program, for the most part he defended our autonomy...

Mr. Wright gave us something invaluable: the space to discover our own potential.
Any Slashdot readers have a similarly impactful experience? Share your own thoughts and memories in the comments.

Do you remember your high school's computer room?