Hacker News with Generative AI: Legal Issues

US accidentally sent Maryland father to Salvadorian prison, can't get him back (independent.co.uk)
The Trump administration accidentally sent a Salvadorian immigrant to a notorious Salvadorian prison and says it can’t do anything to get him back.
The Leader of the LeetCode Rebellion: An Interview with Roy Lee (thepennpost.com)
On March 3rd, Roy Lee got an email from Columbia University. Figuring it was just another college newsletter, Roy, the creator of Interview Coder, was shocked at what he saw when he opened the latest message in his inbox. It was a notification from Columbia University’s Center for Student Success and Intervention (CSSI) that his case would be reopened following an initial Dean’s Discipline Hearing on February 17th, where he avoided potential suspension or expulsion.
Copyright infringement is a 'strict liability' offence (dacs.org.uk)
Infringement is decided on a case by case basis. If you think your work has been infringed, you’ll need to provide some proof of the infringement. It’s always a good idea to keep records of your work, in case you need to rely on them at a later point to prove authorship or date of creation.
Court Imposes over $1.6B in Penalties on a Toyota Subsidiary for Emissions Fraud (justice.gov)
Today, U.S. District Court Judge Mark A. Goldsmith for the Eastern District of Michigan accepted Hino Motors, Ltd.’s guilty plea to a one-count criminal information charging it with having engaged in a multi-year criminal conspiracy to defraud both the U.S. government and American consumers and illicitly smuggle goods into the country.
Health Firm Sends Bogus Takedown Demand to Vanish Reporting on Its Data Breach (techdirt.com)
Shooting the messenger is still the preferred tactic for short-sighted entities that have been embarrassed on main by having their own carelessness publicly exposed.
Ask HN: How do I deal with a cease and desist notice for my open HW project? (ycombinator.com)
Hi HN,<p>I've been working on an open-source hardware project for years, but the hosting site where I posted the documentation received a cease and desist notice to remove it. Strangely, they didn’t contact me directly. I'm nearing the end of the project and planning to sell the device, but now I'm concerned about legal risks.
Brave wants court to endorse scraping of News Corp content (theregister.com)
Brave has gone to court to head off potential legal action from News Corp over the browser maker's auto-generated AI summaries of articles published by Rupert Murdoch's media empire.
OpenAI declares AI race "over" if training on copyrighted works isn't fair use (arstechnica.com)
OpenAI is hoping that Donald Trump's AI Action Plan, due out this July, will settle copyright debates by declaring AI training fair use—paving the way for AI companies' unfettered access to training data that OpenAI claims is critical to defeat China in the AI race.
My legal last name prevents me from completing my Twitch affiliate onboarding (reddit.com)
Hi, I recently completed all four prerequisites for Twitch Affiliate. Naturally, I began my onboarding, and I filled in my information the way it is supposed to be filled in. However, when I reach step 4, I am unable to continue on due to my last name. My last name is Null, a programming term that also means invalid. When I input my name, I get this prompt showing that it is a null value rather than my name.
Free Software Foundation Goes to Bat for AGPL in Amicus Brief Criticizing (socket.dev)
In a significant move for software freedom, the Free Software Foundation (FSF) has submitted a legal brief in an ongoing court case involving the misuse of their GNU Affero General Public License Version 3 (AGPLv3).
Ninth Circuit Rules That Dating App Isn't Liable for Matching Users (eff.org)
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit correctly held that Grindr, a popular dating app, can’t be held responsible for matching users and enabling them to exchange messages that led to real-world harm.
Google does not want rights to things you do using Chrome (2008) (mattcutts.com)
Alright, I’ve got another conspiracy theory misconception to dispel. 🙂 After reading through the Chrome Terms of Service, some people are worried that Google is trying to assert rights on everything that you do on Chrome.
Defense of FOSS licensing rests on the shoulders of a guy in Virginia (theregister.com)
Updated At some point in the months ahead, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit will consider an effort to reverse a California federal district court's decision in Neo4j v. PureThink.
U.S. soldier charged in AT&T hack searched "can hacking be treason" (krebsonsecurity.com)
A U.S. Army soldier who pleaded guilty last week to leaking phone records for high-ranking U.S. government officials searched online for non-extradition countries and for an answer to the question “can hacking be treason?” prosecutors in the case said Wednesday.
DigiCert: Threat of legal action to stifle Bugzilla discourse (mozilla.org)
DigiCert: Threat of legal action to stifle Bugzilla discourse
Meta claims torrenting pirated books isn't illegal without proof of seeding (arstechnica.com)
Meta claims torrenting pirated books isn’t illegal without proof of seeding
Ask HN: Opinion on efforts to find prior art on outrageous priced drugs (ycombinator.com)
The OBS Project is threatening Fedora Linux with legal action (gitlab.com)
The unofficial OBS Studio Flatpak on Fedora Flatpaks is, seemingly, poorly packaged and broken, leading to users complaining upstream thinking they are being served the official package.
Google scraps diversity hiring goals and cites Trump's DEI orders (theguardian.com)
Alphabet’s Google is scrapping its goal to hire more employees from historically underrepresented groups and is reviewing some of its diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives.
Early Meta employee sues for sexual harassment, gender discrimination (techcrunch.com)
One of Meta’s earliest employees is suing the company for sexual harassment, sex discrimination, and retaliation, according to a lawsuit filed this week in the state of Washington.
Tell HN: Hacker News will not delete my account – is that legal? (ycombinator.com)
Hi All,<p>I've been a member here for a good many years, but due to a couple of factors, I need to step away.
Limited Run Games violated GPL releasing Tomba game (github.com/notaz)
It's not a crime if we do it with an app (pluralistic.net)
The core regulatory proposition of the tech industry is "it's not a crime if we do it with an app." It's not an unlicensed taxi if we do it with an app. It's not an illegal hotel room if we do it with an app. It's not an unregistered security if we do it with an app. It's not wage theft if we do it with an app.
C Is Legal Again (twitter.com)
Hoarder (the name) is being stolen from me (reddit.com)
This post could have been about how hoarder reached 10k stars on Github, or about how we spent a day in the front page of hackernews. But unfortunately, it's about neither of those. Today, I received a cease and desist from someone holding the "Hordr" trademark claiming that "Hoarder" infringes their trademark.
App stores unconvinced by TikTok ban pause, which may be on shaky legal ground (theregister.com)
President Trump's executive order stalling the enforcement of the TikTok ban in the United States has created legal uncertainty for companies hosting or distributing the app. To further confuse the matter, it's not even clear that Trump's decree is within his power to issue or enforce.
Live London Underground / bus maps taken down by TfL trademark complaint (traintimes.org.uk)
German router maker is latest company to inadvertently clarify the LGPL license (arstechnica.com)
A German case clarified that LGPL source isn't enough—it needs to be usable.
Zuckerberg gave Meta's Llama team OK to train on copyrighted works,filing claims (techcrunch.com)
Counsel for plaintiffs in a copyright lawsuit filed against Meta allege that Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg gave the green light to the team behind the company’s Llama AI models to use a dataset of pirated e-books and articles for training.
Aligning Automattic's Sponsored Contributions to WordPress (automattic.com)
Automattic has always been deeply committed to the success of WordPress, dedicating significant resources and talent to its development for almost two decades. However, we’ve observed an imbalance in how contributions to WordPress are distributed across the ecosystem, and it’s time to address this. Additionally, we’re having to spend significant time and money to defend ourselves against the legal attacks started by WP Engine and funded by Silver Lake, a large private equity firm.