Pluralistic: Jennifer Jenkins' 'Music Copyright, Creativity, and Culture' (17 Aug 2026)

Today's links

Jennifer Jenkins' 'Music Copyright, Creativity, and Culture': The definitive textbook (with comics!).
Hey look at this: Delights to delectate.
Object permanence: Hair-gel bombers v bras; Hair-gel bombers v chemistry; AOL digs for spammer's platinum; Stross on infosec in 2061; In-game Ponzi; Snowden on Shadow Brokers hack; Life v understanding advanced math; "Greatest of Marlys!"; Housing and precarity; LLMs as slot-machines for coders; Hypercard's backstory; Pirate Party; Fanbois' mental health v critics; Krugman calls for alien invasion; Trump x Serbian genocidaires; The last Sandman Slim; Muphry’s Law; NSA created the Shadow Brokers; DOJ kills private prisons; Walmart externalizes crime; "Sgt Augmento"; Zuckermuskian solipsism.
Upcoming appearances: Sydney, Melbourne, Brighton, London, South Bend.
Recent appearances: Where I've been.
Latest books: You keep readin' em, I'll keep writin' 'em.
Upcoming books: Like I said, I'll keep writin' 'em.
Colophon: All the rest.

Capital formation: Going legit means going mainstream.
Hey look at this: Delights to delectate.
Object permanence: London Copyfighters x Speaker's Corner; TSA v lipstick; Long Beach v photographers; China x David Cameron's internet censorship; McMansion Hell; Copyrighting an MTG deck; "Privacy preserving age verification" delenda est.
Upcoming appearances: Edinburgh, Sydney, Melbourne, Brighton, London, South Bend.
Recent appearances: Where I've been.
Latest books: You keep readin' em, I'll keep writin' 'em.
Upcoming books: Like I said, I'll keep writin' 'em.
Colophon: All the rest.

Model collapse: Living in a world that's trained on itself.
Hey look at this: Delights to delectate.
Object permanence: Wired v Dutch hackers; NYT v DMCA; Hair gel terrorist threat does not exist; AT&T merger is a screwjob; Smart cities are stupid; RIP Reaganomics.
Upcoming appearances: Edinburgh, Sydney, Melbourne, Brighton, London, South Bend.
Recent appearances: Where I've been.
Latest books: You keep readin' em, I'll keep writin' 'em.
Upcoming books: Like I said, I'll keep writin' 'em.
Colophon: All the rest.

Surveillance vs guillotines: Someone's gonna fleece these rubes, why not me?
Hey look at this: Delights to delectate.
Object permanence: DeCSS; Warhol Worm; Camgirls x Amazon wishlists; 2021 State of Tech (in 2001); RIAA v grieving family; Stasi disguises.
Upcoming appearances: Edinburgh, Sydney, Melbourne, Brighton, London, South Bend.
Recent appearances: Where I've been.
Latest books: You keep readin' em, I'll keep writin' 'em.
Upcoming books: Like I said, I'll keep writin' 'em.
Colophon: All the rest.

The bureaucratic AI arms-race is mutually assured destruction: The only way to win is not to play.
Hey look at this: Delights to delectate.
Object permanence: Seymour Cray's tunnels; War on moisture; $5 wrench cryptanalysis; Nauru files; People's Ride; German transit upholstery fashion; Monopolies v small business; Linkedin will put you in ads; NZ Parliament kicks itself off the internet; Adblock Plus v Facebook adblock-block; Cracking 100m VWs for $40; Trump as defective machine learning; Canada sucks at internet law; Goodhart's Law of AI.
Upcoming appearances: Edinburgh, Sydney, Melbourne, Brighton, London, South Bend.
Recent appearances: Where I've been.
Latest books: You keep readin' em, I'll keep writin' 'em.
Upcoming books: Like I said, I'll keep writin' 'em.
Colophon: All the rest.

Digital sewer socialism: Mamdani's Public Interest Technologists are what DOGE should have been.
Hey look at this: Delights to delectate.
Object permanence: Robot garage takes hostages; Thermostat ransomware; Correlate audience exhalations; Judges x TOR; Expectations management.
Upcoming appearances: Edinburgh, Sydney, Melbourne, Brighton, London, South Bend.
Recent appearances: Where I've been.
Latest books: You keep readin' em, I'll keep writin' 'em.
Upcoming books: Like I said, I'll keep writin' 'em.
Colophon: All the rest.

Eternal Sloptember: Mark Zuckerberg and the fantasy of social media without socializing.
Hey look at this: Delights to delectate.
Object permanence: Delany x The Onion; Duran Duran x Second Life; Spammers x blog pings; Privacywashing v Doordash; Good ideas are popular.
Upcoming appearances: Edinburgh, Sydney, Melbourne, Brighton, London, South Bend.
Recent appearances: Where I've been.
Latest books: You keep readin' em, I'll keep writin' 'em.
Upcoming books: Like I said, I'll keep writin' 'em.
Colophon: All the rest.

Google is a scammer's paradise: The internet's absentee landlord.
Hey look at this: Delights to delectate.
Object permanence: DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS; EZ realistic corpse; $300m login button; Short Uber; Who goes AI?
Upcoming appearances: Edinburgh, Sydney, Melbourne, Brighton, London, South Bend.
Recent appearances: Where I've been.
Latest books: You keep readin' em, I'll keep writin' 'em.
Upcoming books: Like I said, I'll keep writin' 'em.
Colophon: All the rest.

Post-American compute for a post-American Internet: Building cooperative human rights computing infrastructure in Puerto Rico, the EU, Canada and Mexico.
Hey look at this: Delights to delectate.
Object permanence: Urine Luck; Germany v pornoscanners; Moorcock's 3-day novels; Women's voices can never be "right"; Drone delivery v reality; Abortion activists: TNG; AI coders are a marketing claim.
Upcoming appearances: Edinburgh, Sydney, Melbourne, Brighton, London, South Bend.
Recent appearances: Where I've been.
Latest books: You keep readin' em, I'll keep writin' 'em.
Upcoming books: Like I said, I'll keep writin' 'em.
Colophon: All the rest.

Dualism: Why not both?
Hey look at this: Delights to delectate.
Object permanence: UK's Great Firewall falls; Mint the coins; Virtual pets v DRM; Getty copyfrauds 47,000 photos; Net Mexico-US illegal migration is zero; Build a wall (around Trump Tower); Remote-hacking big rigs; Collectible AOL CDs; Indefinite Gitmo; Circuit City rips DVDs; Real Names policies are abusive failures; Escher in a water drop; Maximally code-like bugs.
Upcoming appearances: Edinburgh, Sydney, Melbourne, Brighton, London, South Bend.
Recent appearances: Where I've been.
Latest books: You keep readin' em, I'll keep writin' 'em.
Upcoming books: Like I said, I'll keep writin' 'em.
Colophon: All the rest.