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Never mind the lit-bros: Infinite Jest is a true classic at 30

Forget its reputation as a performative read for a certain breed of intense young man, thirty years after its publication, David Foster Wallace’s epic novel still delivers, says the Crying in H Mart author

I’m not what you might consider Infinite Jest’s target demographic. The novel’s reputation precedes it as a book infamously few ever finish, and those who do tend to belong to a particular breed of college-age guys who talk over you, a sect of pedantic, misunderstood young men for whom, over the course of 30 years, Infinite Jest has become a rite of passage, much as Little Women or Pride and Prejudice might function for aspiring literary young women.

Most readers come to the novel in their formative years, but I was a late bloomer. It wasn’t until the winter of 2023 that, at the age of 34, smoking outside a party in Brooklyn, I found myself suddenly motivated to embark on the two-pound tome. A boy I knew from high school brought it up, and as I happened at the time to have developed a casual interest in those works one might attribute to the “lit-bro” canon (Bret Easton Ellis, Hemingway, etc), it seemed the appropriate time to take it on.

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Premier League news, Manchester United v Spurs buildup, and more – matchday live

So what else happened on Friday night? A quick spin through some of the games in Europe.

Serie A

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Guardiola can be both right to speak out and a performative hypocrite | Barney Ronay

Coach should not ‘stick to football’ when football strays into politics and death but his role as fluffer for his club’s autocratic owners cannot be ignored

You may find yourself living in a glass and steel yak-fur-lined penthouse. You may find yourself with six Premier League titles and a sport refashioned in your image. You may find yourself in front of a large advert board covered in words such as Experience Abu Dhabi, haunted by images of suffering, a scythe clanking gently at your shoulder. And you may say, well, how did I get here?

There are only ever two types of Pep Guardiola article. First, articles announcing that Guardiola’s influence has reached some new level of annihilating dominance, that what we have here is our own cashmere-draped, cranium-whirring Ideal Tactics Man, that Pep-ism is bigger than smartphones, bigger than internet porn, bigger than a mother’s love, that playing out from the back is now visible from space.

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Winter Olympics briefing: opening ceremony delivers a love letter to Italy

Drawing on opera, music, art, fashion, dance and more, the events at San Siro and beyond were spectacular

The curtain rose on a moment of myth and magic: Cupid’s kiss awakening Psyche, a tender beginning that blossomed into a dazzling tribute to Italy itself. From opera and art to fashion, music and dance, the Milano Cortina opening ceremony unfolded as a vibrant celebration of culture. An explosion of colour, romance and theatrical flair that felt unmistakably Italian.

The spectacle then drifted into a dreamlike Fantasia chapter. The Italian actor Matilda De Angelis, wielding an enormous conductor’s baton, guided swirling dancers across San Siro, flanked by the larger-than-life figures of Italy’s operatic greats – Giuseppe Verdi, Giacomo Puccini and Gioachino Rossini – brought to life with towering papier-mache bobble heads. Performers in radiant hues paraded in a joyous passeggiata, evoking the everyday elegance of an Italian stroll.

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Wel.nl

Minder lezen, Meer weten.

Voice-slachtoffer wil Vandaag Inside van de buis: 'John, stop met die rommel'

Epstein is andere koek, maar vieze mannetjes hebben we hier ook. Vier jaar na de BOOS-uitzending die het Nederlandse medialandschap op zijn kop zette, is het The Voice-dossier nog altijd niet gesloten. In de nieuwste Voice-terugblikspecial van BOOS richt Tim Hofman zijn pijlen nu op Vandaag Inside — en een anoniem slachtoffer van The Voice doet een opmerkelijke oproep aan Talpa-baas John de Mol: haal dat programma van de buis.​ ​

Belofte maakt schuld

In 2022 beloofde John de Mol in het programma van Hofman beterschap. Een veilige werkomgeving bij Talpa, óók voor vrouwen. Maar hoe geloofwaardig is die belofte als Talpa tegelijkertijd een programma uitzendt dat structureel seksistische opmerkingen normaliseert? Willy van Berlo, expert seksueel geweld bij kenniscentrum Rutgers, trekt in de special een heldere lijn. Ze wijst op de zogeheten 'geweldspiramide': aan de top staan verkrachting en femicide, maar in de onderste lagen liggen de aanleidingen — seksistische grappen, victim blaming en het bagatelliseren van ongewenst gedrag.​ ​

Hamer noemt VI bij naam

Regeringscommissaris Mariëtte Hamer, aangesteld om seksueel grensoverschrijdend gedrag in Nederland tegen te gaan, draait er in de special niet omheen. "Er zijn programma's waarin expliciet heel negatief over vrouwen wordt gesproken. Vandaag Inside is daar het grootste voorbeeld van," zegt Hamer. Het verweer dat het 'voetbalkantinesfeer' betreft, veegt ze van tafel: ook dáár zou met meer respect over vrouwen gesproken moeten worden.​

'Idioot dat dit in 2026 nog kan'

Het anonieme Voice-slachtoffer spreekt zich het scherpst uit. Ze noemt het "gewoon zwak" dat Talpa na alle beloftes nog steeds vasthoudt aan een programma dat volgens haar indruist tegen alles waarvoor gelijkheid staat. Op de vraag van Hofman wat John de Mol voor haar zou kunnen betekenen, is haar antwoord helder: "VI van de buis. Dat zou al heel goed zijn."​ ​

De bredere context

De terugblikspecial staat niet op zichzelf. Begin 2026 keerde The Voice of Holland terug op televisie, met strengere regels en een nieuwe jury. Tegelijkertijd publiceerde BOOS de vierdelige podcastserie This Was The Voice, waarin Hofman met betrokkenen reconstrueert wat er journalistiek en maatschappelijk is gebeurd sinds 2022. De timing maakt de oproep om Vandaag Inside te schrappen extra beladen: terwijl Talpa zich publiekelijk committeert aan een veilige omgeving, blijft het dagelijkse praatprogramma een bron van kritiek. ​

De vraag is nu aan John de Mol. Vier jaar na zijn belofte klinkt de roep om daden steeds luider.

De seksueelgeweldspiramide in cijfers

Volgens het CBS werd in 2022 circa 13% van de Nederlandse bevolking (16+) slachtoffer van seksueel grensoverschrijdend gedrag, tegenover 11% in 2020. Experts verklaren de stijging deels door groeiend bewustzijn. De geweldspiramide laat zien dat seksistisch taalgebruik en 'onschuldige' grappen aan de basis staan van ernstigere vormen van geweld. Regeringscommissaris Mariëtte Hamer werd in april 2022 aangesteld om deze cultuur te doorbreken.


NAVO-centra in Nederland maken zich op voor vertrek Amerikanen

De Verenigde Staten trekken Amerikaanse medewerkers terug uit NAVO-kenniscentra in Nederland. De twee zogeheten Centres of Excellence in Utrecht en Den Haag maken zich op voor een "herijking" van de Amerikaanse aanwezigheid, meldt een van de centra. Hoeveel Amerikanen er precies vertrekken en welke weerslag dat heeft op de centra kunnen ze nog niet inschatten.

De regering van president Donald Trump zegt al langer dat Europa op den duur voor zijn eigen verdediging moet zorgen. De VS zaaien twijfel over hun loyaliteit aan NAVO-bondgenoten en trekken uit bijvoorbeeld Roemenië troepen terug. Ook uit NAVO-commandocentra vertrekken honderden Amerikanen, meldde The Washington Post vorige maand. Het zou gaan om ongeveer de helft van het Amerikaanse personeel op een dertigtal NAVO-posten.

De VS hebben de vermindering van hun bijdrage aan de Centres of Excellence ook aan Nederland gemeld. "Daarbij is door de VS benadrukt dat er volledige steun en commitment is aan de NAVO", zegt Defensie.


Slashdot

News for nerds, stuff that matters

Neocities Founder Stuck in Chatbot Hell After Bing Blocked 1.5 Million Sites

Neocities founder Kyle Drake has spent weeks trapped in Microsoft's automated support loop after discovering that Bing quietly blocked all 1.5 million websites hosted on his platform, a free web-hosting service that has kept the spirit of 1990s GeoCities alive since 2013.

Drake first noticed the issue last summer and thought it was resolved, but a second complete block went into effect in January, cratering Bing traffic from roughly half a million daily visitors to zero. He submitted nearly a dozen tickets through Bing's webmaster tools but could not get past the AI chatbot to reach a human. After Ars Technica contacted Microsoft, the company restored the Neocities front page within 24 hours but most subdomains remain blocked. Microsoft cited policy violations related to low-quality content yet declined to identify the offending sites or work directly with Drake to fix the problem.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

De Speld

Uw vaste prik voor betrouwbaar nieuws.

Margreet (53) leefde jarenlang terecht in de anonimiteit, tot nu. Dit is haar intens saaie verhaal

​De naam Margreet Gortmans zal de meeste mensen niets zeggen, en dat is niet zo gek. De 53-jarige medewerker Personeelszaken van Beukers Transport uit Dalfsen heeft haar leven lang de schijnwerpers gemeden, met een duidelijke reden: ze heeft er helemaal niks te zoeken. Toch zoekt ze nu de publiciteit. Dit is haar indrukwekkend saaie verhaal.

“Als meisje was ik altijd al redelijk normaal”, aldus Gortmans. “Ik weet nog heel goed dat ik in de eerste klas van de lagere school zat, groep drie heet dat tegenwoordig geloof ik, en dat ik schrijfles kreeg van meester Piet. Ik zat in de klas en ik dacht: ik leer nu gewoon echt de letter ‘a’ schrijven. Ja, en zo heb ik nog minstens vijfentwintig andere herinneringen uit mijn jeugd. Ook op de middelbare school, dat was ook zo’n tijd. Ik ging toen elke ochtend naar school. Sommige dagen had ik Engels, sommige dagen maatschappijleer, sommige dagen wiskunde, ook wel eens gym, nou ja, ga zo maar door. Zo ging dat in die tijd. Ik vertrok ’s ochtends altijd om ongeveer dezelfde tijd en kwam ook eigenlijk altijd wel op tijd aan. Ik weet wel nog één keer dat ik wel te laat kwam, bij meneer Coumans. Die zei dan tegen mij: je moet een briefje gaan halen. Dat heb ik toen gedaan en daarna mocht ik weer de klas in. In de pauze at ik mijn brood, dat mijn moeder voor me had gesmeerd. Meestal was het bruin brood, met beleg. Denk daarbij aan Gelderse worst, kaas of pindakaas. Ik heb een keer aan mijn moeder gevraagd om hagelslag, maar de hagel was tijdens de lunch al gesmolten. Daarom hoefde het daarna niet meer van mij. Ook dronk ik er water bij uit mijn fles die ik vanuit huis had meegenomen. Soms vulde ik die nog bij op school. Dat is zo een beetje mijn jeugd geweest. Eigenlijk best bijzonder, als ik er zo over nadenk.”

Maar was Margreet haar studietijd dan meer sex, drugs & rock ’n roll ? Nee, ook dat viel tegen. “Ik had al redelijk snel een relatie met John, met wie ik nu ook al 26 jaar getrouwd ben. John hield wel van een drankje in de kroeg, maar ik dronk niet zo veel en ging ook liever niet uit. Nog steeds niet eigenlijk. Geef mij maar een goede wandeling of de nieuwste editie van De Kampioen. Ik studeerde Bedrijfskunde, wat een hele goeie basis was voor mijn werk als medewerker Personeelszaken, aangezien bedrijfskunde gaat over organisaties. Niet alle onderdelen gaan hierover, maar de basis was goed. Verder ben ik ook niet op kamers gegaan, dat was niet echt nodig. Je hoort wel eens van die spannende studentenverhalen uit studentenhuizen, maar dat heb ik gewoon niet meegemaakt. En dat is op zichzelf ook wel spannend, dat ik dat niet heb. Denk daar maar eens over na.”

“Misschien wel leuk als ik ook even mijn dagelijkse bezigheden als medewerker Personeelszaken vertel?”, vraagt Margreet enthousiast. “Ik zorg ervoor dat gegevens van onze chauffeurs en ander personeel goed worden verwerkt en vastgelegd, volgens de vastgestelde procedures. Binnen deze vastgestelde procedure houd ik rekening met privacyregels, de cao-afspraken en interne regels, en ik zorg dat dit valt binnen de termijnen waarin deze ingevuld moeten worden. Verder verwerk ik de mutaties. Dat klinkt heel spannend, en dat is het ook. Het gaat namelijk om de veranderingen in dienstverbanden. Dus bijvoorbeeld wanneer iemand in dienst komt of uit dienst gaat. Onboarding en offboarding noemen sommigen dat, ik vind dat maar moeilijk. Ik leg het liever uit als welkom heten, introducties regelen, exitgesprekken en administratie bij vertrek. Maar niet alleen dat. Ook registreer ik wijzigingen in uren of contracten in het overkoepelende systeem.” Ze lacht. “Je zou kunnen zeggen dat Beukers Transport zonder mij een groot zooitje zou zijn. Maar nee, ik doe gewoon mijn werk.”

Op de vraag waarom Gortmans juist nu de publiciteit opzoekt, antwoord ze langdradig. “Eigenlijk is het werk als medewerker Personeelszaken vergelijkbaar met het leven: er zijn veranderingen in dienstverbanden of mensen met wie je omgaat, je volgt procedures, je plant en je zorgt dat alles goed verloopt. En ik vind het ook belangrijk dat mensen dat verhaal horen. Ik heb er 53 jaar bewust voor gekozen om de media niet op te zoeken, maar ik dacht laatst: het wordt tijd dat mensen kennis maken met Margreet Gortmans. Niet alleen vanwege alles wat ik zoal heb meegemaakt, maar ook hoe ik over het leven denk. Eigenlijk is dit een heel inspirerend verhaal.”

​​

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Bill Gates geeft toe dat het Windows XP-achtergrondbeeld het Epstein-eiland was

Microsoft-medeoprichter Bill Gates heeft zich woensdag voor het eerst uitgesproken sinds vorige week nog eens drie miljoen extra pagina’s over Jeffrey Epstein openbaar werden gemaakt. Naast het uitspreken van spijt over de relatie die hij met de pedoseksueel onderhield, heeft Gates erkend dat het niet zijn meest gelukkige beslissing was om een landschap van Epstein Island als standaard bureaubladachtergrond van Windows XP te kiezen.

“Het is het meest bekeken beeld uit de geschiedenis en nu zal iedereen het met het misbruik associëren,” verzuchtte de ondernemer in een interview. Hij heeft mensen verzocht “de afbeelding niet te ver in te zoomen”, omdat achter sommige pixels “meer schuilgaat dan je zou willen”. Wel benadrukte hij dat “het ergste verborgen bleef achter het bureaubladpictogram van de prullenbak”.

Volgens Gates moet de keuze ook in de tijdgeest worden gezien. “In die tijd vonden we dingen mooi die er nu lelijk uitzien”, zegt hij, verwijzend naar 1996, toen het landschap van Epstein Island wereldberoemd werd dankzij de massale verspreiding via Microsofts paradepaardje onder de besturingssystemen.

Gates hoopt dat zijn bekentenis geen oude wonden open haalt. Volgens hem is de herkomst van een bureaubladachtergrond “een detail”.

Dit artikel verscheen eerder op El Mundo.

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Rijnmond - Nieuws

Het laatste nieuws van vandaag over Rotterdam, Feyenoord, het verkeer en het weer in de regio Rijnmond

Toeslagenschandaal duwt Mario (30) in studieschuld van 70.000 euro: 'Het is onrechtvaardig'

Hij groeit op in een familie met vijf kinderen bij een alleenstaande moeder, die door de Belastingdienst onterecht als fraudeur wordt bestempeld. Het gezin belandt in schulden en armoede. Als oudste zoon vraagt Mario* studiefinanciering aan om thuis ook geld bij te kunnen dragen.

Mario (30) vroeg studiefinanciering aan om thuis te overleven, nu heeft hij 70.000 euro schuld

Hij groeit op in een familie met vijf kinderen bij een alleenstaande moeder, die door de Belastingdienst onterecht als fraudeur wordt bestempeld. Het gezin belandt in schulden en armoede. Als oudste zoon vraagt Mario* studiefinanciering aan om thuis ook geld bij te kunnen dragen.

Behance Featured Projects

The latest projects featured on the Behance

TYPE WORKS 2026


A selection of recent illustrated type works by Charles Williams / Made Up Studio

Some Roads Are Only Seen at Night

Thomas Hawk posted a photo:

Some Roads Are Only Seen at Night

And I Hope You're Happy in Your New Town

Thomas Hawk posted a photo:

And I Hope You're Happy in Your New Town

Santa Fe

Thomas Hawk posted a photo:

Santa Fe

Gondolier Motel

Thomas Hawk posted a photo:

Gondolier Motel

Adidas

Thomas Hawk posted a photo:

Adidas

Chiswick Park station, London チジック・パーク駅、ロンドン

Mr Mikage (ミスター御影) posted a photo:

Chiswick Park station, London チジック・パーク駅、ロンドン

Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow

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Pluralistic: End of the line for video essays (07 Feb 2026)


Today's links



An image of a static-filled TV; centered in it is a distorted Youtube logo with the wordmark replaced by the word 'FairUse.'

End of the line for video essays (permalink)

What if there was a way for a business to transform any conduct it disliked into a felony, harnessing the power of the state to threaten anyone who acted in a way that displeased the company with a long prison sentence and six-figure fines?

Surprise! That actually exists! It's called Section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, the "anticircumvention" clause, which establishes five-year sentences and $500k fines for anyone who bypasses an "effective access control" for a copyrighted work.

Let's unpack that: every digital product has a "copyrighted work" at its core, because software is copyrighted. Digital systems are intrinsically very flexible: just overwrite, augment, or delete part of the software that powers the device or product, and you change how the product works. You can alter your browser to block ads; or alter your Android phone to run a privacy-respecting OS like Graphene; or alter your printer to accept generic ink, rather than checking each cartridge to confirm that it's the original manufacturer's product.

However, if the device is designed to prevent this – if it has an "access control" that restricts your ability to change the software – then DMCA 1201 makes those modifications into crimes. The act of providing someone with a tool to change how their own property works ("trafficking in circumvention devices") is a felony.

But there's a tiny saving grace here: for DMCA 1201 to kick in, the "access control" must be "effective." What's "effective?" There's the rub: no one knows.

The penalties for getting crosswise with DMCA 1201 are so grotendous that very few people have tried to litigate any of its contours. Whenever the issue comes up, defendants settle, or fold, or disappear. Despite the fact that DMCA 1201 has been with us for more than a quarter of a century, and despite the fact that the activities it restricts are so far-reaching, there's precious little case law clarifying Congress's vague statutory language.

When it comes to "effectiveness" in access controls, the jurisprudence is especially thin. As far as I know, there's just one case that addressed the issue, and boy was it a weird one. Back in 2000, a "colorful" guy named Johnny Deep founded a Napster-alike service that piggybacked on the AOL Instant Messenger network. He called his service "Aimster." When AOL threatened him with a trademark suit, he claimed that Aimster was his daughter Amiee's AOL handle, and that the service was named for her. Then he changed the service's name to Madster, claiming that it was also named after his daughter. At the time, a lot of people assumed he was BSing, but I just found his obituary and it turns out his daughter's name was, indeed, "Amiee (Madeline) Deep":

https://www.timesunion.com/news/article/Madster-creator-Cohoes-native-who-fought-record-11033636.php

Aimster was one of the many services that the record industry tried to shut down, both by filing suit against the company and by flooding it with takedown notices demanding that individual tracks be removed. Deep responded by "encoding" all of the track names on his network in pig-Latin. Then he claimed that by "decoding" the files (by moving the last letter of the track name to the first position), the record industry was "bypassing an effective access control for a copyrighted work" and thus violating DMCA 1201:

https://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/story?id=108454&page=1

The court didn't buy this. The judge ruled that pig Latin isn't an "effective access control." Since then, we've known that at least some access controls aren't "effective" but we haven't had any clarity on where "effectiveness" starts. After all, there's a certain circularity to the whole idea of "effective" access controls: if a rival engineer can figure out how to get around an access control, can we really call it "effective?" Surely, the fact that someone figured out how to circumvent your access control is proof that it's not effective (at least when it comes to that person).

All this may strike you as weird inside baseball, and that's not entirely wrong, but there's one unresolved "effectiveness" question that has some very high stakes indeed: is Youtube's javascript-based obfuscation an "effective access control?"

Youtube, of course, is the internet's monopoly video platform, with a commanding majority of video streams. It was acquired by Google in 2006 for $1.65b. At the time, the service was hemorrhaging money and mired in brutal litigation, but it had one virtue that made it worth nine figures: people liked it. Specifically, people liked it in a way they didn't like Google Video, which was one of the many, many, many failed internally developed Google products that tanked, and was replaced by a product developed by a company that Google bought, because Google sucks at developing products. They're not Willy Wonka's idea factory – they're Rich Uncle Pennybags, buying up other kids' toys:

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/02/google-ai-chatbots-microsoft-bing-chatgpt/673052/

Google operationalized Youtube and built it up to the world's most structurally important video platform. Along the way, Google added some javascript that was intended to block people from "downloading" its videos. I put "downloading" in scare-quotes because "streaming" is a consensus hallucination: there is no way for your computer to display a video that resides on a distant server without downloading it – the internet is not made up of a cunning series of paper-towel rolls and mirrors that convey photons to your screen without sending you the bits that make up the file. "Streaming" is just "downloading" with the "save file" button removed.

In this case, the "save file" button is removed by some javascript on every Youtube page. This isn't hard to bypass: there are dozens of "stream-ripping" sites that let you save any video that's accessible on Youtube. I use these all the time – indeed, I used one last week to gank the video of my speech in Ottawa so I could upload it to my own Youtube channel:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZxbaCNIwg8

(As well as the Internet Archive, natch):

https://archive.org/details/disenshittification-nation

Now, all of this violates Youtube's terms of service, which means that someone who downloads a stream for an otherwise lawful purpose (like I did) is still hypothetically at risk of being punished by Google. We're relying on Google to be reasonable about all this, which, admittedly, isn't the best bet, historically. But at least the field of people who can attack us is limited to this one company.

That's good, because there's zillions of people who rely on stream-rippers, and many of them are Youtube's most popular creators. Youtube singlehandedly revived the form of the "video essay," popularizing it in many guises, from "reaction videos" to full-fledged, in-depth documentaries that make extensive use of clips to illuminate, dispute, and expand on the messages of other Youtube videos.

These kinds of videos are allowed under US copyright law. American copyright law has a broad set of limitation and exceptions, which include "fair use," an expansive set of affirmative rights to access and use copyrighted works, even against the wishes of the copyright's proprietor. As the Supreme Court stated in Eldred, the only way copyright (a government-backed restriction on who can say certain words) can be reconciled with the First Amendment (a ban on government restrictions on speech) is through fair use, the "escape valve" for free expression embedded in copyright:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eldred_v._Ashcroft

Which is to say that including clips from a video you're criticizing in your own video is canonical fair use. What else is fair use? Well, it's "fact intensive," which is a lawyer's way of saying, "it depends." One thing that is 100% true, though, is that fair use is not limited to the "four factors" enumerated in the statute and anyone who claims otherwise has no idea what they're talking about and can be safely ignored:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/06/27/nuke-first/#ask-questions-never

Now, fair use or not, there are plenty of people who get angry about their videos being clipped for critical treatment in other videos, because lots of people hate being criticized. This is precisely why fair use exists: if you had to secure someone's permission before you were allowed to criticize them, critical speech would be limited to takedowns of stoics and masochists.

This means that the subjects of video essays can't rely on copyright to silence their critics. They also can't use the fact that those critics violated Youtube's terms of service by clipping their videos, because only Youtube has standing to ask a court to uphold its terms of service, and Youtube has (wisely) steered clear of embroiling itself in fights between critics and the people they criticize.

But that hasn't stopped the subjects of criticism from seeking legal avenues to silence their critics. In a case called Cordova v. Huneault, the proprietor of "Denver Metro Audits" is suing the proprietor of "Frauditor Troll Channel" for clipping the former's videos for "reaction videos."

One of the plaintiff's claims here is that the defendant violated Section 1201 of the DMCA by saving videos from Youtube. They argue that Youtube's javascript obfuscator (a "rolling cipher") is an "effective access control" under the statute. Magistrate Judge Virginia K DeMarchi (Northern District of California) agreed with the plaintiff:

https://torrentfreak.com/images/Cordova-v.-Huneault-25-cv-04685-VKD-Order-on-Motion-to-Dismiss.pdf

As Torrentfreak reports, this ruling "gives creators who want to sue rivals an option to sue for more than just simple copyright infringement":

https://torrentfreak.com/ripping-clips-for-youtube-reaction-videos-can-violate-the-dmca-court-rules/

Remember, DMCA 1201 applies whether or not you infringe someone's copyright. It is a blanket prohibition on the circumvention of any "effective access control" for any copyrighted work, even when no one's rights are being violated. It's a way to transform otherwise lawful conduct into a felony. It's what Jay Freeman calls "Felony contempt of business model."

If the higher court upholds this magistrate judge's ruling, then all clipping becomes a crime, and the subjects of criticism will have a ready tool to silence any critic. This obliterates fair use, wipes it off the statute-book. It welds shut copyright's escape valve for free expression.

Now, it's true that the US Copyright Office holds hearings every three years where it grants exemptions to DMCA 1201, and it has indeed granted an exemption for ripping video for critical and educational purposes. But this process is deceptive! The exemptions that the Copyright Office grants are "use exemptions" – they allow you to "make the use." However, they are not "tools exemptions" – they do not give you permission to acquire or share the tool needed to make the use:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/10/28/mcbroken/#my-milkshake-brings-all-the-lawyers-to-the-yard

Which means that you are allowed to rip a stream, but you're not allowed to use a stream-ripping service. If Youtube's rolling cipher is an "effective access control" then all of those stream-ripping services are wildly illegal, felonies carrying a five-year sentence and a $500k fine for a first offense under DMCA 1201.

Under the US Copyright Office's exemption process, if you want to make a reaction video, then you, personally must create your own stream-ripper. You are not allowed to discuss how to do this with anyone else, and you can't share your stream-ripper with anyone else, and if you do, you've committed a felony.

So this is a catastrophic ruling. If it stands, it will make the production of video essays, reaction videos, and other critical videos into a legal minefield, by giving everyone whose video is clipped and criticized a means to threaten their critics with long prison sentences, fair use be damned. The only people who will safely be able to make this kind of critical video are skilled programmers who can personally defeat Youtube's "rolling cipher." And unlike claims about stream-ripping violating Youtube's terms of service – which can only be brought by Youtube – DMCA 1201 claims can be brought by anyone whose videos get clipped and criticized.

Is Youtube's rolling cipher an "effective access control?" Well, I don't know how to bypass it, but there are dozens of services that have independently figured out how to get around it. That seems like good evidence that the access control is not "effective."

When the DMCA was enacted in 1998, this is exactly the kind of thing experts warned would happen:

https://pluralistic.net/2025/05/13/ctrl-ctrl-ctrl/#free-dmitry

And here we are, more than a quarter-century later, living in the prison of lawmakers' reckless disregard for evidence and expertise, a world where criticism can be converted into a felony. It's long past time we get rid of this stupid, stupid law:

https://pluralistic.net/2026/01/01/39c3/#the-new-coalition

(Image: Electronic Frontier Foundation, CC BY 4.0)


Hey look at this (permalink)



A shelf of leatherbound history books with a gilt-stamped series title, 'The World's Famous Events.'

Object permanence (permalink)

#25yrsago Bellsouth phases out pay-phones https://web.archive.org/web/20010211165636/http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/ap/20010202/bs/bellsouth_pay_phones_1.html

#20yrsago Man who shattered museum vases asked not to come back http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2006-02/07/content_517885.htm

#20yrsago Dozens of Web 2.0 companies’ logos https://flickr.com/photos/torrez/95124293/

#20yrsago Did Nvidia hire an army of message-board sock-puppets? https://web.archive.org/web/20060208045150/https://www.consumerist.com/consumer/evil/did-nvidia-hire-online-actors-to-promote-their-products-152874.php

#15yrsago Sarah Palin Circle-R wants a trademark on her name https://www.loweringthebar.net/2011/02/sarah-palin-tm-having-trouble-with-registration.html

#10yrsago Love Picking: Locksport meets love locks https://toool.us/love-locks/

#10yrsago Superb investigative report on the fake locksmith scam https://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/31/business/fake-online-locksmiths-may-be-out-to-pick-your-pocket-too.html?_r=1

#5yrsago Klobuchar wants to bust her some fuckin' trusts https://pluralistic.net/2021/02/06/calera/#fuck-bork


Upcoming appearances (permalink)

A photo of me onstage, giving a speech, pounding the podium.



A screenshot of me at my desk, doing a livecast.

Recent appearances (permalink)



A grid of my books with Will Stahle covers..

Latest books (permalink)



A cardboard book box with the Macmillan logo.

Upcoming books (permalink)

  • "Unauthorized Bread": a middle-grades graphic novel adapted from my novella about refugees, toasters and DRM, FirstSecond, 2026

  • "Enshittification, Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It" (the graphic novel), Firstsecond, 2026

  • "The Memex Method," Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 2026

  • "The Reverse-Centaur's Guide to AI," a short book about being a better AI critic, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, June 2026



Colophon (permalink)

Today's top sources:

Currently writing: "The Post-American Internet," a sequel to "Enshittification," about the better world the rest of us get to have now that Trump has torched America (1010 words today, 24701 total)

  • "The Reverse Centaur's Guide to AI," a short book for Farrar, Straus and Giroux about being an effective AI critic. LEGAL REVIEW AND COPYEDIT COMPLETE.

  • "The Post-American Internet," a short book about internet policy in the age of Trumpism. PLANNING.

  • A Little Brother short story about DIY insulin PLANNING


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