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Judge Orders Anna's Archive To Delete Scraped Data

Anna's Archive has been hit with a U.S. federal court default judgment and permanent injunction over its scraping and distribution of OCLC's WorldCat data, which occurred more than two years ago. According to the ruling, the shadow library must delete all copies of its WorldCat data and stop scraping, using, storing, or distributing the data. "It is expected that OCLC will use the injunction to motivate third-party intermediaries to take action against Anna's Archive," reports TorrentFreak. From the report: Yesterday, a federal court in Ohio issued a default judgment and permanent injunction against the site's unidentified operator(s). This order was requested by OCLC, which owns the proprietary WorldCat database that was scraped and published by Anna's Archive more than two years ago. OCLC initially demanded millions of dollars in damages but eventually dropped this request, focusing on taking the site down through an injunction that would also apply to intermediaries. "Anna's Archive's flagrantly illegal actions have damaged and continue to irreparably damage OCLC. As such, issuance of a permanent injunction is necessary to stop any further harm to OCLC," the request read.

This pivot makes sense since Anna's Archive did not respond to the lawsuit and would likely ignore all payment demands too. However, with the right type of court order, third-party services such as hosting companies and domain registrars might come along. The permanent injunction, issued by U.S. District Court Judge Michael Watson yesterday, does not mention any third-party services by name. However, it is directed at all parties that are "in active concert and participation with" Anna's Archive. Specifically, the site's operator and these third parties are prohibited from scraping WorldCat data, storing or distributing the data on Anna's Archive websites, and encouraging others to store, use or share this data. Additionally, the site has to delete all WorldCat data, which also includes all torrents.

Judge Watson denied the default judgment for 'unjust enrichment' and 'tortious interference.' However, he granted the order based on the 'trespass to chattels' and 'breach of contract' claims. The latter is particularly noteworthy, as the judge ruled that because Anna's Archive is a 'sophisticated party' that scraped the site daily, it had constructive notice of the terms and entered into a 'browsewrap' agreement simply by using the service. While these nuances are important for legal experts, the result for Anna's Archive is that it lost. And while there are no monetary damages, the permanent injunction can certainly have an impact. Further reading: Spotify Says 'Anti-Copyright Extremists' Scraped Its Library

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Trump Wants Tech Companies To Foot the Bill For New Power Plants

The Trump administration urged the largest electricity grid in the U.S. to make big tech companies pay for new power plants to support the surging electricity demand from AI and data centers. CNBC reports: Electricity prices have exploded in recent years on PJM Interconnection due in part to the data centers that tech companies are building to train and power artificial intelligence. The PJM grid serves more than 65 million people across 13 states and Washington, D.C. Its service area includes northern Virginia, the largest data center market in the world.

The Trump administration and several states signed a pact that calls for tech companies to pay for new power plants built in PJM. Leading tech companies have agreed to fund $15 billion of new generation for the grid, according to an administration statement. The Trump administration and the states urged PJM to hold an emergency capacity auction to procure this power, according to the Department of Energy. PJM should also cap the amount that existing power plants can charge in the grid's capacity market to protect ratepayers, according to the administration. "We have to get out from underneath this bureaucratic system that we have in the regional grid operators and we've got to allow markets to work," said Interior Secretary Doug Burgum at the White House. "One of the ways markets can work is to have the hyperscalers actually rapidly building power."

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Cloudflare Acquires Team Behind Open Source Framework Astro

Cloudflare has acquired the core team behind the open source JavaScript framework Astro, bringing its creators in-house while pledging to keep Astro fully open source. The New Stack reports: Astro is used by major brands like IKEA, Unilever, Visa and OpenAI to build fast, content-driven websites. Search engines prioritize fast-loading and clean pages, the Cloudflare statement noted. Websites that rely heavily on JavaScript for initial rendering often struggle to deliver the required speed, which hinders search rankings and customer conversions.

Pages on Astro serve up only the code needed to display a page in a browser. That's in part because of its Island architecture, which it introduced in 2021. Astro's Islands allow developers to create "islands" of interactive client-side components, while most of the page is generated statically in HTML. Server Islands extend the same architecture to the server.

Astro is also UI-agnostic, meaning that while it has its own independent engine, it allows developers to bring in components from React, Svelte, Vue and other frameworks. This makes Astro a preferred choice for building high-performance, content-driven websites optimized for speed, according to Cloudflare. "Over the past few years, we've seen an incredibly diverse range of developers and companies use Astro to build for the web," said Astro's former CTO, Fred Schott, in a post with Cloudflare senior product manager Brendan Irvine-Broque. "At Cloudflare, we use Astro, too -- for our developer docs, website, landing pages and more." They said that the acquisition will allow them to "double down" on making Astro the best framework for content-driven websites.

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Supreme Court Hacker Posted Stolen Government Data On Instagram

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: Last week, Nicholas Moore, 24, a resident of Springfield, Tennessee, pleaded guilty to repeatedly hacking into the U.S. Supreme Court's electronic document filing system. At the time, there were no details about the specifics of the hacking crimes Moore was admitting to. On Friday, a newly filled document -- first spotted by Court Watch's Seamus Hughes -- revealed more details about Moore's hacks. Per the filing, Moore hacked not only into the Supreme Court systems, but also the network of AmeriCorps, a government agency that runs stipend volunteer programs, and the systems of the Department of Veterans Affairs, which provides healthcare and welfare to military veterans.

Moore accessed those systems using stolen credentials of users who were authorized to access them. Once he gained access to those victims' accounts, Moore accessed and stole their personal data and posted some online to his Instagram account: @ihackthegovernment. In the case of the Supreme Court victim, identified as GS, Moore posted their name and "current and past electronic filing records." [...] According to the court document, Moore faces a maximum sentence of one year in prison and a maximum fine of $100,000.

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Conversation With You Was Like a Drug

Thomas Hawk posted a photo:

Conversation With You Was Like a Drug

Old Dogs and New Tricks

Thomas Hawk posted a photo:

Old Dogs and New Tricks

ajpscs posted a photo:

TOKYO DAY WALK
NOIR
TOKYO SHADOWS
© ajpscs

Daikanyama, January 2024.

mikeleonardvisualarts posted a photo:

Daikanyama, January 2024.

Found Photograph

Thomas Hawk posted a photo:

Found Photograph

between winter an

photo-tez has added a photo to the pool:

between winter an

東福寺

9910・新幹線 - bullet train

Kazu_1 has added a photo to the pool:

9910・新幹線 - bullet train

9374・新幹線 - bullet train

Kazu_1 has added a photo to the pool:

9374・新幹線 - bullet train

Daikanyama, January 2024.

mikeleonardvisualarts has added a photo to the pool:

Daikanyama, January 2024.

'Ask to see a Lightburn' advertising leaflet (rare!)

Popplio728 has added a photo to the pool:

'Ask to see a Lightburn' advertising leaflet (rare!)

Thanks to Don Healy for those images. I saw one turn up on eBay in 2019 but never bought it.

'Ask to see a Lightburn' advertising leaflet (rare!)

Popplio728 has added a photo to the pool:

'Ask to see a Lightburn' advertising leaflet (rare!)

Thanks to Don Healy for those images. I saw one turn up on eBay in 2019 but never bought it.

'Ask to see a Lightburn' advertising leaflet (rare!)

Popplio728 has added a photo to the pool:

'Ask to see a Lightburn' advertising leaflet (rare!)

Thanks to Don Healy for those images. I saw one turn up on eBay in 2019 but never bought it.

Eastern yellow robin

bpanneman has added a photo to the pool:

Eastern yellow robin

Behance Featured Projects

The latest projects featured on the Behance

Packaging Design for skincare brand


Packaging Design for LIKATO This project presents a skincare packaging design focused on creating a unified, flexible, and scalable visual system across multiple product lines. The concept preserves the LIKATO brand DNA while refreshing the visual language to feel modern, clean, and relevant. A friendly and emotional tone is achieved through playful typography, bold accents, and generous negative space, ensuring clarity and strong shelf impact.

Fokke & Sukke

F & S

Strafrechtelijk onderzoek naar gouverneur Tim Walz en burgemeester Jacob Frey

De Democratische gouverneur Tim Walz van Minnesota en de Democratische burgemeester Jacob Frey van Minneapolis worden volgens Amerikaanse media verdacht van het tegenwerken van de vreemdelingenpolitie ICE.