Lumen Researcher Interview Series: Professor Eugene Volokh, UCLA Law School
the Lumen team interviews Professor Eugene Volokh about his research within Lumen on US Court orders, some of which Professor Volokh has founf to be falsified, altered or created under spurious premises. Part of Lumen's Researcher Interview Series
OnlyFans' ban and subsequent reversal exacerbates debate over Section 230 reform
On August 19th, paid subscription website OnlyFans triggered a firestorm when it announced plans to ban all pornography from its platform – only to backtrack days later.
Apple’s proposed new child safety features and the problems with privacy tradeoffs
On September 3, 2021, Apple paused the implementation of two highly controversial new child safety features that would both algorithmically and manually surveil the devices of Apple users for Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM). Resultantly, Apple received backlash centred around the privacy and security concerns that would arise because of its backdoor decryption policy and the fear that it would set a dangerous precedent for different kinds of materials that governments could illegally scan user’s devices for.
"Holly+" unsettles narratives of voice ownership and offers a vision of communal music making
In July 2021, Berlin-based electronic musician Holly Herndon launched a new project called Holly+. Holly+ is an artificial intelligence voice model that, when fed any song or recording, outputs a version “sung” in Herndon’s voice–like an audio deepfake. The model has been trained on Herndon’s vocal recordings, creating a “vocal puppetry” effect that bears resemblance to Herndon’s real voice but retains a unique “machine learning, scratchy kind of neural net sound.” In essence, Holly+ turns Herndon’s voice into an instrument from which to build new pieces of music.
Germany’s Apex Federal Court voids parts of Facebook’s Term of Services
On July 29, 2021, the Bundesgerichtshof, Germany’s Federal Supreme Court, invalidated parts of Facebook’s Terms of Service (ToS) relating to community guidelines and ruled that Online Service Providers (OSPs) would be required to inform their users about the removal of posts ex-post at the least and about blocking of user accounts ex-ante. In both cases, the Court noted that the user must be given an opportunity to be heard before a new decision is made on that individual case.
The Olympics, the IOC, Streaming and Copyright
How does the IOC allocate broadcast rights for the Olympic Games? How has the IOC addressed the rise in digital streaming platforms and potential for copyright infringement?
Right to be Forgotten in India
The contentious “right to be forgotten” has once again found itself at the forefront of jurisprudence in India. In July 2021, Ashutosh Kaushik, an Indian reality TV celebrity, petitioned the Delhi High Court, seeking that his drunk driving videos that date back to 2009 be de-indexed and removed from online platforms.
The United States Revisits a Data Protection Act
On June 17, 2021, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand announced the Data Protection Act of 2021, which is a revival of the Data Protection Act of 2020 bill that Gillibrand introduced in February 2020. This updated bill, which is co-sponsored by Sherrod Brown, would establish a new U.S. federal agency, the Data Protection Agency (“DPA”), that would address privacy concerns and data protection matters.
The Weaponization of Copyright by Police Officers and the Need to Automate Fair Use
In July 2021, an on-duty police officer in Alameda County being videoed by activists took out his phone and played ‘Blank Space’ by Taylor Swift, in hopes of hindering social media circulation of the video by attracting the attention of automated copyright enforcement algorithms. This was merely one of the more recent examples of a larger unsettling trend in law enforcement where police officers are weaponizing copyrighted music to thwart bystander recordings of police from going viral.
