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content/Essays/ai-infringement.md
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---
title: Generative AI is Copyright Infringement In a Trench Coat
title: "Generative AI: Copyright Infringement's New Trench Coat"
tags:
- essay
- seedling
- ai
- legal
- copyright
date: 2023-11-04
draft: true
lastmod: 2024-01-28
---
One ticket to the original, authorized, or in the alternative, properly licensed audiovisual work, please!
@ -16,41 +16,70 @@ One ticket to the original, authorized, or in the alternative, properly licensed
> [!info] I’m looking for discourse!
> Critique my points and make your own arguments. That’s what the comments section is for.
Quick reiteration: **This site contains my own opinion in a personal capacity, and is not legal advice, nor is it representative of anyone else's opinion.**
- Also a reminder that I won’t permit inputting my work in whole or part into an LLM.
> [!warning]
> CW: US law and politics; memes
>
> **This site contains my own opinion in a personal capacity, and is not legal advice, nor is it representative of anyone else's opinion.**
> - Also a reminder that I won’t permit inputting my work in whole or part into an LLM.
I've seen a few news articles and opinion pieces recently that support training generative AI and LLMs on the broader internet as well as more traditional copyrighted works, without respect to the copyright holders for all of the above. For now, this will be less of a response to any one article and more of a collection of points of consideration that tie together common threads in public perception. I intend for this to become comprehensive.
I've seen a few news articles and opinion pieces recently that support training generative AI and LLMs (such as ChatGPT/GPT-4, LLaMa, and Midjourney) on the broader internet as well as more traditional copyrighted works, without respect to the copyright holders for all of the above. For now, this will be less of a response to any one article and more of a collection of points of consideration that tie together common threads in public perception. I intend for this to become comprehensive over time.
My opinion here boils down to three main points:
- Training a generative AI model on copyrightable subject matter without authorization is copyright infringement (and the proprietors of the model should be responsible);
- Using a generative AI to generate something where the weights used to determine what the AI outputs were based on copyrightable subject matter trained on without authorization is copyright infringement (and the proprietors and users of the model should be jointly responsible); and
- Using a generative AI to generate something where the weights used to determine what the AI outputs are based on copyrightable subject matter which was trained on without authorization is copyright infringement (and the proprietors and users of the model should be jointly responsible); and
- Fair use is not a defense to either of the above infringements.
I also discuss policy later in the essay. Certain policy points are instead made in my [[Essays/plagiarism|🅿️ essay on plagiarism]], and links to that entry will be labeled with 🅿️.
## Prologue: why these arguments are popping up
WIP
<img src="/Attachments/but-he-can.jpg" alt="'I know, but he can' meme, with the RIAA defeating AI art for independent illustrators" style="height: 30em;margin: 0% 25%" loading="lazy">
In short, there's a growing sentiment against copyright in general. Copyright can enable centralization of rights when paired with a capitalist economy, which is what we've been historically experiencing with the advent of record labels/publishing companies. It's even statutorily enshrined as the "work-for-hire" doctrine. AI has the potential to be an end-run around these massive copyright repositories' rights, which many people see as beneficial.
However, this argument forgets that intangible rights are not *yet* so centralized that independent rights-holders have ceased to exist. While AI will indeed harm central rights-holders, it will also affect individual creators and the bargaining power of creators that choose to work with the central institutions. For those against copyright as a whole, this is a neutral factor to the disestablishment of copyright. Due to my roots in the indie and open-source communities, I'd much rather keep their/our/**your** rights intact.
Reconciling the two views, I'm sympathetic to arguments against specific parts of the US's copyright regime as enforced by the courts, such as the way fair use is statutorily worded. We as a voting population have the power to compel our representatives to enact reforms that take the threat of ultimate centralization into account, and can even work to break down what's already here. But I don't think that AI should be the impetus for arguments against the system as a whole.
## The Legal Argument
Fair warning, this section is going to be the most law-heavy, and probably pretty tech-heavy too. Feel free to skip [[#The First Amendment and the "Right to Read"|-> straight to the policy debates.]] The field is notoriously paywalled, but I'll try to link to publicly available versions of my sources whenever possible.
Please don't criticize my sources in this section unless a case has been overruled or a statute has been repealed (ie, I **can't** rely on it). This is my interpretation of what's here (also again not legal advice or a professional opinion). Whether a case is binding on you personally doesn't weigh in on whether its holding is the nationally accepted view.
Please don't criticize my sources in this section unless a case has been overruled or a statute has been repealed/amended (ie, I **can't** rely on it). This is my interpretation of what's here (also again not legal advice or a professional opinion). Whether a case is binding on you personally doesn't weigh in on whether its holding is the nationally accepted view.
For all of the below analysis, assume that the hypothetical model in question has been trained on some work which has a US copyright registered with the original author.
### Training
Everything AI starts with a dataset.
The core tenet of copyright is that the doctrine protects original expression, meaning you can't copyright facts. One common legal argument against training as infringement is that the AI extracts facts, not the author's creativity, from a work. But that position assumes that the AI is capable of first differentiating facts and art, and further separating them in a way analogous to the human mind's. First, let's talk about The Chinese Room.
The core tenet of copyright is that the doctrine protects original expression (of which regulation is authorized by the Constitution as "works of authorship"), meaning **you can't copyright facts**. There are two ends to the spectrum of arguments made by authors (seeking protection) and defendants (arguing that enforcement is unnecessary in their case). For example, you can't be sued for using the formula you read in a math textbook, but if you scan that math textbook into a PDF, you might be found liable for infringement.
One common legal argument against training as infringement is that the AI extracts facts, not the author's creativity, from a work. But that position assumes that the AI is capable of first differentiating facts and art, and further separating them in a way analogous to the human mind's.
### Training
<img src="/Attachments/common_crap.svg" alt="Common Crawl logo edited to say 'common crap' instead" style="padding:0% 5%">
Everything AI starts with a dataset. And most AI models will start with the easiest, most freely available resource: the internet. Hundreds of different scrapers exist with the goal of collecting as much of the internet as possible to train modern AI (or previously, machine learners, neural networks, or even just classifiers/cluster models).
Acquiring data for training is an unethical mess. **In human terms**, scrapers like Common Crawl will take what they want, without asking (unless you know the magic word to make it go away, or just [[Projects/Obsidian/digital-garden#Block the bot traffic!|block it from the get-go]]), and without providing immediately useful service in return like a search engine. For more information on the ethics of AI datasets, read my tidbit on [[Essays/plagiarism#AI shouldn't disregard the need for attribution|🅿️ the need for AI attribution]], and have a look at the work of [Dr. Damien Williams](https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=riv547sAAAAJ&hl=en) ([Mastodon](https://ourislandgeorgia.net/@Wolven)).
- Sidebar: and acquiring this data is copyright infringement too, as unlicensed copying. The case is tremendously stupid: [*MAI Systems v. Peak Computer*](https://casetext.com/case/mai-systems-corp-v-peak-computer-inc) holds that RAM copying (ie, moving a file from somewhere to a computer's memory) is an unlicensed copy. As of today, it's still good law, for some reason. Note that every single file you open in Word, a PDF reader, or your browser is moved to your memory before it gets displayed on the screen. Bring it up at trivia night, just using your computer is copyright infringement!
But then a company actually has to train an AI on that data. What copyright issues does that entail? First, let's talk about The Chinese Room.
[The Chinese Room](https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/chinese-room/) is a philosophical exercise authored by John Searle where the (in context, American) subject is locked in a room and receives symbols in Chinese slipped under the door. A computer program tells the subject what Chinese outputs to send back out under the door based on patterns and combinations of the input. The subject does not understand Chinese. Yet, it **appears** as if whoever is inside it has a firm understanding of the language to an observer of Searle's room.
Searle's exercise was at the time an extension of the Turing test designed to refute the theory of "Strong AI." At the time that theory was well-named, but today the AI it was talking about is not even considered AI by most. Strong AI was the theory that a computer could be programmed to However, it can be easily applied to many other programming fields—notably compiler design—with the most pertinent here being natural language processing. To distinguish
Searle's exercise was at the time an extension of the Turing test designed to refute the theory of "Strong AI." At the time that theory was well-named, but today the AI it was talking about is not even considered AI by most. Strong AI was the theory that a computer could be programmed to However, it can be easily applied to many other programming fields—notably compiler design—with the most pertinent here being natural language processing. The hypothetical Strong AI was a computer program capable of understanding its inputs and outputs, and importantly *why* it took each action. A Weak AI, on the other hand, was just the Chinese Room. Searle reasoned that the "understanding" of a Strong AI was inherently biological, thus one could not presently exist.
- Note that some computer science sources like [IBM](https://www.ibm.com/topics/strong-ai) have taken to using Strong AI to denote AGI, which was only a sufficient, not necessary, quality of a philosophical "intelligent" intelligence.
- The idea and expression being the same may give rise to some claims of merger doctrine; that is, the idea merges with the expression, so it is not copyrightable. That would not be a correct reading of merger doctrine. [Ets-Hokin v. Skyy Spirits, Inc.](https://casetext.com/case/ets-hokin-v-skyy-spirits-inc) makes it clear that the doctrine is more about disregarding the types of works that are low-expressivity by default, and that this "merge" is just a nice name to remember the actual test by. Confusing name, easy doctrine.
- The idea and expression being the same may give rise to some claims of merger doctrine; that is, the idea merges with the expression, so it is not copyrightable. That would not be a correct reading of merger doctrine. [*Ets-Hokin v. Skyy Spirits, Inc.*](https://casetext.com/case/ets-hokin-v-skyy-spirits-inc) makes it clear that the doctrine is more about disregarding the types of works that are low-expressivity by default, and that this "merge" is just a nice name to remember the actual test by. Confusing name, easy doctrine.
### Generation
### Fair Use
#### Detour: actual harm caused by specific uses of AI models
My bet for a strong factor when courts start applying fair use tests to AI output is that the use in the instant case causes or does not cause harm. Here's a quick list of uses that probably do cause harm.
- Election fraud, including even **more** corporate influence on US elections ([not hypothetical](https://www.washingtonpost.com/elections/2024/01/18/ai-tech-biden/) [in the slightest](https://openai.com/careers/elections-program-manager), [and knowingly unethical](https://www.npr.org/2024/01/19/1225573883/politicians-lobbyists-are-banned-from-using-chatgpt-for-official-campaign-busine))
- Other fraud, like telemarketing/robocalls, phishing, etc
- Competition with actual artists and authors (I am VERY excited to see where trademark law evolves around trademarking one's art or literary style).
- Obsoletes human online workforces in tech support, translation, etc
- [[plagiarism##1 Revealing what's behind the curtain|🅿️ Reinforces systemic bias]]
### Where do we go from here?
Well, getting to evaluation of the above by courts would be a start. Right now, courts are ducking AI issues left and right on standing and pleading grounds. ==say more right now==
# Policy
## The First Amendment and the "Right to Read"
WIP
## Putting your work "out there" on the internet
@ -61,9 +90,12 @@ There's also the problem of correctly sourcing information used in forming an op
One proposed "solution" to AI use of copyrighted works is interestingly to attribute that those works were used in the first place.
## The enforcement problem
WIP
## Why is piracy ethical, but not AI training?
## Mini-arguments
A list of little statements that would cast doubt on the general legitimacy of the AI boom that I found compelling. Most are spread across the fediverse; others are blog posts/articles.
- [Cartoonist Dorothy’s emotional story re: midjourney and exploitation against author intent](https://socel.net/@catandgirl/111766715711043428)
- [Misinformation worries](https://mas.to/@gminks/111768883732550499)
- [Misinformation worries](https://mas.to/@gminks/111768883732550499)
==TODO analyze and applaud https://www.techdirt.com/2023/11/29/lets-not-flip-sides-on-ip-maximalism-because-of-ai/ ==

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---
title: Essays - Home
title: 🏠 Essays - Home
tags:
- toc
date: 9-08-23
date: 2023-08-23
---
Below is a collection of long-form content I've authored.
@ -11,4 +11,8 @@ Below is a collection of long-form content I've authored.
- [[Essays/why-i-garden|Why I cultivate a digital garden]]
- [[Projects/my-cloud|Why I'm so concerned with minimizing my digital footprint]]
- [[Essays/on-linux|My Linux experience]]
- [[Essays/law-school|Law school as an institution]]
- **Legal**
- [[Essays/law-school|Law school as an institution]]
- [[Essays/plagiarism|(well, more about morality really) Plagiarism]]
- [[Essays/no-ai-fraud-act|No AI Fraud Act analysis]]
- [[Essays/ai-infringement|(coming soon) Generative AI: Copyright Infringement's New Trench Coat]]

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---
title: The Media is Wrong about the No AI FRAUD Act
tags:
- essay
- legal
- ai
date: 2024-01-24
draft: false
lastmod: 2024-01-30
---
Here's an AI skeptic's legal take on the bill.
The [No AI FRAUD Act](https://files.constantcontact.com/1849eea4801/695cfd71-1d24-4146-a453-3dab7d49babd.pdf) is a bipartisan House bill introduced by Florida Rep. Salazar and Pennsylvania Rep. Dean that's making waves. Both the [EFF](https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/01/no-ai-fraud-act-creates-way-more-problems-it-solves) and [Techdirt](https://www.techdirt.com/2024/01/23/was-the-no-ai-fraud-act-written-by-a-fraudulent-ai-because-whoever-wrote-it-is-hallucinating/) have published pieces slamming the bill for stepping on the toes of the First Amendment and Section 230. Their pieces only properly address one problematic component of the bill, and completely ignore the positives of its current draft. Could its provisions be worded better? **Absolutely.** But that asks too much of our legislature, and most of the bill would be fine as-is.
> [!warning]
> CW: uspol, AI
## Summary of the Bill
Please read the [full text](https://files.constantcontact.com/1849eea4801/695cfd71-1d24-4146-a453-3dab7d49babd.pdf) yourself! This summary restructures the text and omits several legal concepts in favor of simplicity. The most important points are bolded. In effect, the bill:
- Establishes a transferable federal publicity right in one's voice and likeness that extends beyond death that **steps past a website's Section 230 immunity** from most suits concerning user content
- Creates a private cause of action against:
- Proprietors of "personalized cloning services": software with the primary purpose of producing digital voice replicas/depictions
- Anyone who releases an unauthorized digital voice replica/depiction
- For both of the above, a disclaimer saying that the person depicted/replicated is not affiliated is not a defense
- Establishes statutory damages for all of the above
- Outlines **a** First Amendment defense
- Specifies that this does not affect any judicial First Amendment applications
- Creates a defense of negligible harm and specifies how to determine if harm is negligible
- But if the replica/depiction is CSAM or sexually explicit, it's harmful in and of itself (and the defense is not available)
## What the Media Ignores
The context that this bill was passed in is helpfully provided as Section 2. The claims in the Findings section check out:
- AI songs and advertisements are rampant.
- [AI has been used to undress high schoolers without consent](https://www.cbsnews.com/newyork/news/westfield-high-school-ai-pornographic-images-students/).
- Nothing is being done about the tidal wave of AI porn of nonconsenting adult women, notably creators and influencers.
- Twitter's currently being made fun of for its stance against T-Swift deepfake porn, which is ridiculous.
Outside of the Act at hand:
- Current law is not extensive enough to properly regulate AI misuse.
- And overall, there's [mounting concern](https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2023/10/ai-and-us-election-rules.html) about how accessible the potential for abuse of AI is.
If we were to evaluate the bill for how well it addresses these problems, I think we'd reach a much different result (not advocating for blindly following this approach without heed to doctrinal side effects though). Instead, the articles choose to sensationalize the faults that *every* bill has regardless of subject matter. The reality is that senators are not perfect (far from it), and cannot anticipate every scenario with a bill. Thus:
#### "Rules are more like guidelines, really."
This analysis looks at the bill by first accepting the proposition that all enacted laws are put through a judicial sniff test, and stretched a little according to the mores of the judge being asked to apply it. This approach is common to all legal critiques on this site.
- Sidebar: there's also a somewhat pressing meta-problem I have with the articles that they outline that they are concerned about *something*, but don't follow the concern to its logical conclusion of spelling out "here's what effect that would have on the everyday citizen," or "here's the historical context that would justify our concern." People who are familiar with this body of law can keep up, but it could be indecipherable to others. I'm going to try to provide that context where necessary. Let me know if it feels like I stop short at any point here.
---
## Audio + Visual
First, let's talk about something the articles properly draw attention to.
The headline item in the bill is its federal right of publicity in one's voice and image. The primary adverse effect of the bill that pundits (and myself) are watching for is **if it enables new legal arguments/rights outside of AI**, which means that effect would not be in line with the Act's purpose. Making the right of publicity so broad definitely has this effect. However, there is an argument that senators included limiting language elsewhere, which was enough to cabin this right. I disagree with that view, and I think that the causes of action outlined later in the bill text are only one application of this new right. Here are some other possible arguments that could be made to fit under the right-of-publicity umbrella:
For one, this could be used as a statutory justification to federally try state right-of-publicity causes of action. These are typically kept out of federal court, as there are policy reasons for letting the states try the actions they recognize (federalism, juries' attitudes toward parties, perceived legitimacy of the resulting decision, etc). Perhaps more importantly, ***Erie* doctrine** all but abolishes federal common (unwritten/judge-made) law and relegates those causes of action to the states exclusively. If we're asking judges to incorporate what is often state common law into a federal statute, this could be in direct violation of that doctrine.
Another (more out-there) alternative: given that this is specifically labeled as an IP right, courts could read this to preempt state publicity law. Thankfully Congress anticipated this (definitely unfavorable) outcome and included a no-preemption clause; I'll be watching to make sure that makes its way through the amendments as the bill goes through the process.
Even without addressing the duration/transferability of the right, it's definitely too broad. The rest of the bill though, being one application under that right, is not.
## Breadth
**Bottom line up front:** To use a hypothetical, I don't think a judge would interpret this bill to haul Fox into court because Family Guy made fun of Tom Cruise, and Sean Kenin just so happened to record the lines in a modern studio.
Again, the concern implicit in the articles is that this bill might have adverse effects outside of AI. In a situation like the hypo above: on top of being a plainly unconstitutional application (I'll talk about that more in the First Amendment section), the statute would probably not textually apply at all.
The arguments made by EFF and the Techdirt article seem to only apply to the replication/depiction offenses and not the cloning service part(since the "primary purpose" language is very hard to satisfy outside of the statute's intent). For those replication offenses, the act defines the key terms as:
- "digital voice replica": audio created or altered in whole or part by computer software; that contains a replica, imitation, or approximation of an individual that was not actually performed by that person.
- Awkwardly worded for sure.
- "digital depiction": a replica, imitation, or approximation of someone's likeness created or altered using computer software.
> There’s not much that wouldn’t fall into that category—from pictures of your kid, to recordings of political events, to docudramas, parodies, political cartoons, and more. If it involved recording or portraying a human, it’s probably covered.
>
> \- EFF
I disagree. I don't think anything would lead a judge to read "recorded" into "created," especially given the context of the bill.
First, this would clearly be against Congressional intent. The bill was introduced to combat AI abuse. The sort of "creation" that those offenses entail is when you input/select a prompt/person and the AI creates a voice/likeness in response to the input. Likewise, an alteration by an AI would be the input of a base video and a likeness you wish to "alter" the base video by.
On the other hand, when you sing into a microphone to make a song in Ableton, the computer software isn't what's creating the audio; **you** are creating the sound. I do think that the alteration with computer software argument is easier to make because of things like picture filters and voice post-processing, but judges are typically hesitant to dictate an "even a scintilla of \<insert quantifiable statutory element\>" approach for any statute. That kind of logic lends itself too easily to frivolous or Congressionally-unsanctioned (!!) lawsuits that could toe the line of SLAPP. The EFF's position argues that the only interpretation of this statute is one that would probably be considered **unworkable** by most judges.
- Speaking of credit to judges, I actually think the often-lacking tech literacy of judges makes the no-creation argument easier to make, and easier to push the human-AI divide in who's actually creating. Obviously if a human creates the sound, then it's not created with digital software. And the human element means that you can tell a story and answer an important question: "why?"
## Perfectly Balanced\[?\]
This was a weird one to analyze for me, because the EFF kind of just...Didn't read the balancing test properly? They conflate it with a lot of the broader First Amendment commentary around the bill, which feels distinct from the balance-of-the-harms section (despite its inclusion as a balancing factor). I do agree that **the balance is effectively mini-copyright fair use**. However, it's not precisely fair use for an important reason. Let's go through the exclusive (as opposed to illustrative like in copyright fair use) factors one by one.
#### Relevance to primary expressive purpose
If this section feels less grounded than the rest, that's because it is. Factors are inherently squishy to analyze, absent lots of time for the doctrine to dig a trench. I think that's what the drafters were trying to leapfrog by lifting from established doctrine, but I question their choice of principle.
This is one of the two fair use factors in this statute's balance. And of the two, relevance feels more at-home when talking about AI use. If you're just throwing an unauthorized AI-generated picture of Prince into your work because it looked good (was that a Warhol reference?), is it really a choice worth protecting? This factor will ensure that if you're risking the harms of making someone say/appear on something they didn't approve, you've at least got a good reason for it. If taken to the extreme, it could require the use of AI to be strictly necessary to the message of your replica. I doubt that extreme would happen, but if it did, then the EFF's treatment of this section as a First Amendment issue would make more sense, since that would absolutely guarantee the AI use in that specific case's status as protected expression. However, factors like this are almost never interpreted to their limits, as courts would rather balance everything than cabin one factor and label it dispositive. Again, factors are squishy.
If I had been asked to adapt fair use to publicity rights, I would have probably also brought in unfair-competition law by including the market effect factor. There are a lot of cases in competition that cover parties whose content doesn't fit traditional utility-or-authorship models (like the news as news), and the mature principles there would be some less shaky ground for interpretation compared to the rest of this bill. If that were the case, this balance might be considered the primary part of this bill as opposed to the offenses (like how fair use is the headline issue in copyright actions).
I definitely wouldn't have included the second fair use factor, though.
#### Transformative nature
What place does an analysis of transformation have in generative AI? In my opinion, none. The fact that these works are not a perfect reflection of their subject is the whole danger: that dissonance can cause a . Given this premise, I think the *lack* of transformative nature and instead identically tracking the subject, *i.e.*, closely comporting with something the subject has actually said/done/would endorse/has previously endorsed, would be a better factor.
#### Constitutionally protected expression
This is a First Amendment concern, and it's probably mandatory to interpret it as dispositive as a result. First Amendment defenses are implicit in EVERY statute, so saying it out loud isn't really required. More on this in the [[#The First Amendment Defense|First Amendment]] section.
#### Final Thoughts
I will say, this setup where the two ends of the spectrum are protected but not the middle of the road is very foreign to me. The Act exempts negligible harm on one end, and First Amendment protection for criticism/comment, despite its potential for great harm, is Constitutionally mandated on the other. I'm not aware of other areas of law that have a similarly shaped spectrum. The interesting thing is that with speech, you can make both of these arguments at the same time depending on the content.
## 00230: Incentive to Kill
The background of the Communications Decency Act is important to remember when discussing its applicability to AI.
The story of Section 230 is damn near close to "and then the Fire Nation attacked." In the internet's early history, websites were frequently sued for the content posted on them by their users. These lawsuits would quite often yield massive returns for plaintiffs despite the websites' best efforts to moderate their content, as courts happily applied our then-antiquated law to find them liable anyway. Section 230 created what's nicknamed the "good Samaritan" provision, where websites that try to moderate objectionable content on their sites cannot be held liable for that content under most federal causes of action (notably with **exceptions for IP law**, criminal law, and specific sexual abuse statutes).
As an IP right, the Act in its current form is Congressionally excepted from Section 230. Unlike enforcement of many traditional causes of action against websites, and despite what the current journalism around the Act suggests, this creates several incentives for websites that would advance the purposes of the Act, and does not present the same "problematic" scenarios that other proposed carve-outs to Section 230 have in the past.
Most of the arguments against the Act's Section 230 exception assume that the Act is indeed too broad. To proponents of that view, this means websites would now be subject to that broad liability. As explained above, the bill isn't as broad as made out to be. Let's analyze the incentives present in an application of the Act consistent with its purposes.
**Hypothetical:** Under the Act, Elon Musk has a cause of action against YouTube, because many hacked YouTube channels end up hosting 24-hour livestreams of his AI-generated voice and likeness pushing cryptocurrency scams and the like. YouTube tries to moderate harmful content wholesale, so would likely be immune from suit if Section 230 applied.
**Answer**: in such a scenario, the interests probably weigh in favor of a Section 230 exception which would allow Elon to file suit.
- YouTube has no strong financial incentive to remove content:
- Content allows ad placement.
- Content drives user engagement for collection of advertising data.
- Content may alienate users from the platform, but an individual video has made money for YouTube if that user has clicked on it.
- Enforcement against platforms for misleading conduct (which is more likely to be considered harmful under the statute) is beneficial to users of the platform, because they will no longer be targets of that misleading conduct if the platform is forced to disallow it.
And the final nail in the coffin for immunity is precisely that lack of action in the absence of either a partial sword or partial shield. Again looking at YouTube, take a look at their [statement on AI](https://blog.youtube/inside-youtube/our-approach-to-responsible-ai-innovation/) from November. <img src="/Attachments/yt-label.png" alt="Screenshot of a YouTube Short's description with a badge reading: 'Altered or synthetic content.' Credit to YouTube." style="float:left;height: 25em; padding: 0em 2em">
They claim a label will be applied by creators to AI videos. Yet it's been two months, and no such label appears on very recent videos like [US Presidents SURVIVE An ALIEN ATTACK In GTA 5](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LgG7BnXzkAU). Their mentioned dispute tools are also absent, though we have no way of knowing whether those are truly implemented.
Now look at Apple, who [*still* has no AI policy for the App Store](https://developer.apple.com/app-store/review/guidelines/). Or Google, whose solution is [user labor](https://techcrunch.com/2023/10/25/google-plays-policy-update-cracks-down-on-offensive-ai-apps-disruptive-notifications/).
The simple truth is that a platform will not enforce any standard if not compelled to. Section 230 was ultimately a net positive because it was a nice carrot to goad platforms into enforcing some ground rules, with a tantalizing shield from liability if they did so. The (rightful) fear then was that if held liable regardless of moderation policy, then platforms would not spend a dime on moderation because if just one post slipped through the lawsuit would hit just as hard. The articles fail to mention this important historical fact when they raise the specter of Section 230, despite the credibility it would lend to their arguments. Yet it does not apply to AI.
- And in fact, having zero involvement actually enables websites to make an argument (albeit weakly) that they have *no* control over their users' content. Any moderation at all obviously defeats this argument. This underscored the historical need for an incentive, but now that argument is no longer applicable because of the previous sentence. We can guarantee that platforms will comply with the stick.
Here, we have platforms that publicly state that they can fight the AI onslaught, but with no motivation behind it. Couple that with investor pressure to stay trendy and it's an environment ripe for stagnation. But we're in no danger of platforms abandoning moderation altogether. So when a carrot is no longer enough, it's time for a stick.
### Detour: There is an alternative!
There's an old saying about the evolution of tech: over the years, you keep what works and chuck what doesn't. With the Act's status as an IP right, we can lift a page from another common IP enforcement mechanism that gets around Section 230: the DMCA. If protecting platforms is truly a concern, why not compel platforms to implement and exercise a takedown tool? This way, they'll have two "strikes" (terrible pun) before being subject to damages. Not expressing any opinion on the merit of the DMCA itself though, I'd need an entire essay to unpack the mess its scheme creates.
This would have the added benefit of resolving some disputes without a court's involvement, which federal district judges will certainly be very thankful for. However, the bill also recognizes that when a case does arise, judges want to do things their way.
## The First Amendment Defense
The final outcry about this section is that it supposedly outlines *one* First Amendment defense, and that:
> It’s actually designed to really limit the 1st Amendment defenses.
>
> \- Techdirt
Notwithstanding the impossibility of a Congressional act canning the First Amendment (thanks *Marbury v. Madison*!), Techdirt's article neglects to mention that subsection 3(i) makes special mention of other First Amendment defenses as a sort of Congressional CYA. That section states:
>Nothing in this Act shall alter the *application by a court* of First Amendment protections in the event such a defense is asserted to \[a claim of unauthorized performance of a digital depiction\].
(emphasis added). This clause is basically just stating the obvious to try and not get the Act struck down, yet the articles still fail to mention it.
- Sidebar: Severability clauses like the one in the Act at §§ 3(h) get followed by the Supreme Court when they concern ancillary clauses like this one. If they hate this defense, it doesn't affect anything else in the statute's merit. I'm just hesitant to use this as a legitimate argument because a bad statute will still have an effect in the background while a case percolates.
With respect to arguments (not seriously advanced by the articles in issue here) that the statute as a whole is an unconstitutional, note that this is not a legal justification essay. If I was going to evaluate the scrutiny arguments and precedent for whether this specific statute would be constitutional facially or as-applied to specific AI and non-AI examples, I'd submit it as a student note to law journals. I will point out, though, that many other categories of speech are given lesser or no protection just by nature of their effect or content (slander because it harms the subject, non-artistic obscenity, etc). My point is that such a hypothetical challenge would be a close case.
Finally, if the content of someone's AI-generated image/audio/whatever is truly for a 1st amendment protected purpose, nothing stops them from just...making their criticism/opinion without digital depictions. For example, I don't think there's some expressive meaning to making Biden say "I'm senile" that just stating your opinion yourself wouldn't convey (unlike images on a t-shirt, which were integral to the point that the student was trying to make in [*Guiles v. Marineau*](https://caselaw.findlaw.com/court/us-2nd-circuit/1101375.html) \[[shirt in question](https://www.thenation.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/Scott_Censorship_AP_crop_img-680x430.jpg)\]). Nonetheless, I think reasonable minds could differ on this point, so feel free to let me know your take.
### Detour: Chill, bro
Since the articles focus so intently on the Act's purported cabining of protected speech directly, they don't address the possibility of a chilling effect on speech. I actually think this point has more merit than the complaints about 1a defenses being limited, or an argument that the whole statute is impermissible because of its restrictions themselves rather than their broader effect. In fact, this point would be where the other arguments about the statute being vague/broad would have the most powerful effect.
## Conclusion
Hopefully I've convinced you that there's more to the No AI FRAUD Act than meets the eye. Unlike the Act, I did have to cabin this essay heavily, because the IP nerd in me wants to revive my old RA position and just dive right back into the literature on rights of publicity, privacy, and appropriation. If I did that, I'd end up with a second essay on [[Essays/ai-infringement|AI infringement of IP rights (coming soon)]] and nobody wants that, haha. I definitely have more to say on Section 230, but outright analyses of that statute are kind of stale. If I find something else that it dovetails with, I'll explore it and devote too much of that future essay to it as usual.
I'll be sure to update this page as the bill trudges through the [process](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SZ8psP4S6BQ). It'll be interesting to see what provisions that raised concerns for the media and I do get amended or stricken.
## Further Reading
Some excellent reporting on another Section 230 AI Bill™ by the same guy who wrote the discussed misguided article, haha. *This* one wants to strip immunity from ANY AI-related claim from it. That's stupid for the reasons outlined above: there needs to be at least some secondary analysis to fill the gap (which the No AI FRAUD Act does quite nicely—[[#00230: Incentive to Kill]]). [Techdirt - Even If You Hate Both AI And Section 230...](https://www.techdirt.com/2023/12/06/even-if-you-hate-both-ai-and-section-230-you-should-be-concerned-about-the-hawley-blumenthal-bill-to-remove-230-protections-from-ai/)

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draft: false
---
Expect this page to expand. I plan on fleshing it out it in tandem with a full argument on why AI training and output are both copyright infringement when the model was trained on copyrighted data, because copyright and plagiarism are inextricably linked.
Some arguments in this paper specifically surrounding AI are related more to legal concerns than ethical ones, and are instead housed in the [[Essays/ai-infringement|🤖 essay on copyright infringement by generative AI]]. Those links will be denoted with 🤖.
> [!warning]
> CW: discussions of systemic/societal implicit bias and inequity in the AI section. Emotional accounts of exploited work product elsewhere.
## My Position
I think all works published that hold themselves out as informative or authoritative should properly inform the reader what they used to draw their conclusions.
To comport with my own beliefs, on this website, I:
- Provide links to webpages for programs/projects I discuss, including documentation as needed.
- See all of the [[Programs I Like/home|Programs I Like]]
- Write blurbs about the sources I found the most helpful or persuasive (with links), and often hyperlink less argumentative statements of fact with a supporting reference.
- Write blurbs about the sources I found the most helpful or persuasive (with links), and often hyperlink less argumentative statements of fact with a supporting reference. This is more common if I think that a source speaks for itself, or if I can't add much to the discussion and have chosen to adopt someone else's view without comment.
- See [[Essays/law-school|Law School is Broken]]
And when using my work, I request:
@ -38,6 +43,17 @@ As mentioned above, there's definitely a gap in my knowlege/views that broadens
For digital gardening in particular, attribution is integral to the concept. [[Misc/what-is-a-garden|A digital garden]] is a network, and the culture of the digital garden is to provide paths out of the current webpage to others on the same site or even to other websites. These associations between webpages make up a comprehensive experience that differs from modern web use (Google search, click, close the tab) and looks more like Wikipedia spelunking.
Thus, the true value of attribution in a digital garden is mostly in the link itself rather than the substance of the current page or the linked page. This does not discount the importance of linking to those resources, though.
## AI shouldn't disregard the need for attribution
Attribution in the field of AI consists of two things: making public just what an AI was trained on, and then designing that AI to supplement its prompts with what parts of its training data it relied on for the facts of its answer.
### #1: Revealing what's behind the curtain
First, AI holds itself out as authoritative. Wrongfully so, due to incessant "hallucination" (when an AI model, due to their status as glorified autocorrect, makes up some fact or source and insists that it is accurate). This subjects it to the same kind of concerns as any authoritative work under my views.
Second and perhaps most importantly, because of the actual issue of AI bias, transparency in what an AI was trained on is paramount. As a society, the ability to question the source of some facts presented to us is already beneficial (as discussed elsewhere in this essay). But for AI, we need to ensure that the generated statements are not only correct, but not disregarding other positions categorically because they were made by sources that the AI incorrectly considers non-authoritative. An AI model could look at two positions, one with many more datapoints supporting it, and thus completely ignore the second position in its answer to a prompt. Now imagine that the former is a white man's perspective, and the second a black woman's. It's not inconceivable that an AI could enshrine systemic bias. Attribution allows people who've made careers in this field to critically examine a dataset and look for this sort of gap. In that way, it makes a **better** AI model (assuming the goal of AI is to be accurate) because of more community oversight, not just one that's more ethically trained.
- Sidebar: huh, turns out that this argument parallels the open-source philosophy.
### #2: \[citation needed\] for responses to prompts
Not to be confused with Molly White's [excellent newsletter](https://citationneeded.news/). This requirement is a more fine-grained mitigation for the transparency issues present in the dataset at large. It also provides evidence for potential copyright infringement lawsuits if the AI has also copied the expression of the paper it sourced. Note that this isn't the be-all, end-all solution to the problem of copyright infringement by AI. Read more of my take on that [[Essays/ai-infringement|🤖 here]].
## To-be-written
I want to address piece-by-piece [an argument by Brian Frye](https://www.techdirt.com/2024/01/09/plagiarism-is-fine/) supporting plagiarism in general. He's a prolific IP scholar, so I'll probably look through his academic works as well (*Against Creativity*, 11 N.Y.U. J.L. & Liberty 426 (2017), looks pretty interesting). To be clear, I don't want to get into the absolute witch hunt that inspired the linked article, but in the article he reiterates his greater conclusions about attribution to say that ALL plagiarism accusations are silly, which are what I want to respond to.
- Planned topics: granularity, necessity, nature of the work/merit, nature of the work/type of content.
@ -47,4 +63,6 @@ I also want to discuss disrespect of creators’ intent for their works and what
Anyone who identifies as a "proud plagiarist," this is your notice that I may respond to your opinions, and I will properly attribute you when doing so.
- Readers: **Don't harass anyone I cite, please**. We disagree on the topic, and since all it really bears on is respect and authoritative nature until it goes into copyright infringement territory, there aren't any high stakes.
I'm dying to dig into enterprise software engineering and attribution/licensing as well. "The StackOverflow problem" is something that the industry has been struggling with for years, and there are some pretty strong counter arguments to my position that come out of critique of softeng and originality. Given the existence of Copilot, this ties into AI as well.
I'm dying to dig into enterprise software engineering and attribution/licensing as well. "The StackOverflow problem" is something that the industry has been struggling with for years, and there are some pretty strong counter arguments to my position that come out of critique of softeng and originality. Given the existence of Copilot (and StackOverflow's ai stance), this ties into AI as well.
## Further Reading
This paper spells out what we should be thinking about relative to information authority, trust, and societal need when talking about generative AI. **Sections 4 and 5 are very good**; section 6 jumps the shark by immediately forgetting that it's about modern generative AI and ranting about historical Google bugs instead (which the paper would actually classify as a discriminative IA system, good under its arguments). [Bender & Shah (unpublished)](https://faculty.washington.edu/ebender/papers/Envisioning_IAS_preprint.pdf)

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@ -16,6 +16,7 @@ There are a lot of beautiful rabbit holes on the internet if you know where to l
The kind of experience I want to be a part of has some basis in the early internet. There was a vocal minority pushing for this sort of unguided exploration, supplemented only by signposts of where one *could* travel from a given page, instead of where one *should* travel [[#1.|(1)]].
Practicality also plays a significant role: documenting my mental state means that I'm much more likely to have a fully formed opinion on the subject I'm writing about at any given point in that writing process. I like being able to talk about things, and as someone who struggles with articulating myself on-the-fly, it's helpful that I've cemented my talking points by writing them out. Not to mention it allows me to critically examine my own views like any others. The mental disconnect between words in the formatting you write them ([[Projects/Obsidian/editor|Obsidian]]) and their appearance in another medium ([[Projects/Obsidian/digital-garden|Quartz]]) is a boon to both editing and analysis, and a skill I picked up from my legal writing mentors.
---
## References

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---
title: Disclaimers
tags:
- misc
- meta
date: 2024-01-25
---
## Epistemological disclosure
Please accept that I reserve the right to be wrong on this website. I don’t claim to be an expert on any of the subject matter within. As this site reflects a learning process, I’m also liable to change my mind if I research an issue further. I’ll document if this happens.
If you don’t like how I’ve done something, feel free to write a piece in your own garden for it. I’d love to read it! It’s no secret that a lot of this garden comprises my gripes with various things.
## Disclaimer
It goes without saying that anything herein constitutes my own opinion and not the opinion of any affiliated person or entity. Nothing on this website is legal advice either.
## Attribution
Feel free to properly reference any of the content within in your own gardens or work. Don’t plagiarize. A link to the page you used is just fine.
**Do not input my work into an online or offline generative AI for any purpose, including to train or update the model, explore alternate positions to mine, or to converse with the work.** Keep the moles out of the garden.
## Privacy/Terms of Use
- I don't run analytics of any kind on this site.
- I don't share any of my content with third parties, nor do I consent to third party use of my content which I retain a copyright in.
- The sole exception to this policy is that third parties are permitted to link to pages on this website in their own content, or to cite this website as a source.
- Comments
- The time of posting, username, and comment content are all public facing and stored on the server for the sole purpose of providing a comment service. These are not shared with any third parties except to the extent that someone may access that public facing data through this site.
- Accounts created through email will retain the email provided for account login purposes only.
- Accounts created through GitHub login will retain an access token (revocable at any time through GitHub), your GitHub username, and your GitHub profile picture.

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---
title: Misc - Home
title: 🏠 Misc - Home
tags:
- toc
- misc
date: 9-08-23
date: 2023-08-23
---
Things which I didn't really have a category for.

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---
title: Judicial Action is State Action?
tags:
- misc
- essay
- legal
date: 2024-01-22
draft: true
---
> [!warning]
> CW: historical racism, a chaotic good doctrine
There's an interesting legal argument that sadly never got off the ground called state-action doctrine. If applied to current events, it would fascinatingly provide for more protection of individual rights.
## State Action as a gap-filler
At the time of the founding (as well as in England before that), common law (judge-made law) afforded the people remedies for infringement of *all* their private rights: to be let alone in their homes, to be free from physical attacks, to maintain possession of their physical property, and others. If the King's Courts could not enforce a legal/compensatory remedy (usually by some technicality), the courts of equity could still provide a remedy at equity.
Now, people have many more rights which have no founding in common law. They exist because they were written into existence through statutes or the Constitution, including our modern concept of civil rights. But who are these rights enforceable against? **The state-action doctrine says that Constitutional rights are only enforceable against the government, not private citizens**. It's why Facebook banning you isn't a violation of your free speech rights, among other things. i.e., the wrong for which you seek a remedy must be an action taken by the State, not a private entity. But what constitutes a "state action"?
## The M. Night Shyamalan of Property Law
Enter [*Shelley v. Kraemer*](https://casetext.com/case/shelley-v-kraemer). In 1948, this case went up to the Supreme Court to determine whether a
## Where to?
## Further Reading
- [Erwin Chemerinsky - Rethinking State Action](https://lawcat.berkeley.edu/record/1112481/files/fulltext.pdf)
- [Mark Rosen - Was *Shelley v. Kraemer* Incorrectly Decided? Some New Answers](https://scholarship.kentlaw.iit.edu/fac_schol/529/)

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---
title: Programs I Like - Home
title: 🏠 Programs I Like - Home
tags:
- toc
date: 9-08-23
date: 2023-08-23
---
This is a list of programs which I may or may not have experience with, and why I have a positive regard for them.

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- meta
- webdev
- difficulty-moderate
date: 9-08-23
date: 2023-08-23
lastmod: 2024-01-20
---
...It's this website.
@ -26,10 +27,25 @@ I could have self-hosted the site, but I opted to use Quartz's built-in function
This was a time and a half to set up RSS for. It used some bastardized form of Atom but with RSS syntax and so neither spec could parse it.
- On the bright side, [one PR later](https://github.com/jackyzha0/quartz/pull/407) and Quartz is the only project in the Obsidian ecosystem with an RSS feed.
**Important for any website:** Block the bot traffic! You don't want bad spiders/crawlers poking around on your site to try to find vulnerabilities or archiving your content for training AI without your consent. I like the Nginx project [Ultimate Bad Bot Blocker](https://github.com/mitchellkrogza/nginx-ultimate-bad-bot-blocker):
**And important for any website:**
## Block the bot traffic!
You don't want bad spiders/crawlers poking around on your site to try to find vulnerabilities or archiving your content for training AI without your consent. I like the Nginx project [Ultimate Bad Bot Blocker](https://github.com/mitchellkrogza/nginx-ultimate-bad-bot-blocker):
- Still lets sites like Google and Bing crawl your site for search results, but blocks infinitely many other agents, referrers, and the like.
- Customizable with allowlists and denylists that you can use to override the defaults.
- Did I mention it gets updated every hour?
- Search for `444` in your nginx access logs after it's installed for a few laughs. It's mind blowing how many spiders are trying to find files that contain hosting access tokens (AWS, etc) for random sites.
[[Projects/Obsidian/quartz-comments|Adding comments to the site]] was enough of a hassle that I consider it a separate project. Work in progress.
[[Projects/Obsidian/quartz-comments|Adding comments to the site]] was enough of a hassle that I consider it a separate project. Work in progress.
## Using this Site
- [Explorer](https://quartz.jzhao.xyz/features/explorer)
- \[Desktop\] on your left: jump to any page on the site.
- \[Mobile\] visit the [[sitemap|Sitemap]].
- [Graph View](https://help.obsidian.md/Plugins/Graph+view)
- An [[Programs I Like/obsidian|Obsidian]] feature which acts as a map of what pages link to each other. Click on it for a map of the entire site and how it interconnects. It doesn't use Obsidian's implementation directly, but since [[Projects/Obsidian/digital-garden|the site generator I use]] is heavily inspired by Obsidian and [Obsidian Publish]( https://obsidian.md/publish ), it remains.
- \[Desktop\]: right pane
- \[Mobile\]: below content and comments
- Backlinks
- A list of all pages on the site that link to the current one.
- \[Desktop\]: right pane
- \[Mobile\]: below content and comments

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---
title: Project Obsidian - Home
title: 🏠 Project Obsidian - Home
tags:
- project
- productivity
- cloud
- notes
date: 9-08-23
date: 2023-08-23
---
Hoo boy. This project needs its entire own folder structure because of the sheer amount of components I have going.

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## Frontend
A [Transformer Plugin](https://quartz.jzhao.xyz/advanced/making-plugins#transformers) for Quartz was on their Discord server that adds the necessary scripts to the page, and I put the comment element on the footer of the page.
Now works with SPA mode! Unfortunately, I’m waiting on an update that fires an event I can listen for when the theme changes so that I can also tell it to reload on theme change. For now, refresh the page if it looks glitched.
Now works with SPA mode! Creator also updated the plugin to reload on theme change even without an event fired which is sick.
At present, you can choose to leave an anonymous comment or link it to your GitHub account. Alternatively, you can use email confirmation for notifications when someone replies to your comments!
## Todo

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![[Attachments/fbi-foia.png]]
**2024 update:** I hate being proven right.
> NSA does buy and use commercially available netflow (i.e., non-content) data related wholly to domestic internet communications and internet communications where one side of the communication is a U.S. Internet Protocol address and the other is located abroad.
>
> [NSA response to Sen. Wyden Letter](https://www.wyden.senate.gov/news/press-releases/wyden-releases-documents-confirming-the-nsa-buys-americans-internet-browsing-records-calls-on-intelligence-community-to-stop-buying-us-data-obtained-unlawfully-from-data-brokers-violating-recent-ftc-order)
**The average citizen has nothing to hide**: why would the US government be purchasing everyone's data? Surely, they have some non-commercial mechanism of determining who high-profile potential threat actors are that would warrant surveillance. It's not like they're trying to find such actors through these purchases, that would be a needle in a haystack. It's much easier and cheaper to find that kind of person through searches on social media sites and pay for everything about them later. That kind of surveillance, I agree with. This wholesale monitoring of the average citizen through commercially available channels? Unacceptable.
It's true that the very fact these commercial avenues for obtaining wholesale data exist is undesirable, and there's an argument that the government is just using every avenue legally available to them. But still: **to what end?**

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---
title: 01/24 - Summary of Changes
draft: true
draft: false
tags:
- "#update"
date: 2024-01-03
lastmod: 2024-01-31
---
This is being talked about nowhere, but I think it deserves publicity. A New Hampshire cafe that had its Instagram account deleted just won a breach-of-contract action against Facebook over their Section 230 defense! ![Seacoast Online coverage](https://www.seacoastonline.com/story/news/2024/01/26/teatotaller-cafe-owner-wins-instagram-case-nh-supreme-court/72345276007/)
Neat coincidence that Section 230 features quite heavily in one of my newest essays. Happy 2024, all.
## Housekeeping
I feel like I finally have a handle on the feel of this site. Front page looks very polished now, and I got around to drawing a great-looking and really symbolic logo:
![logo](Attachments/logo.png)
I went snowboarding with some law school buddies early this month! Had a great time through the whole trip, but I feel like as soon as I got back there was an onslaught of bad tech policy in the news, haha.
On the bright side, I feel like I finally have a handle on the feel of this site. Front page looks very polished now, and I got around to drawing a great-looking and really symbolic logo:
![[Attachments/logo.png|500]]
It's a moon due to my goals for the site and digital gardening as a whole, and progressively more detailed to reflect the incremental, learn-in-public philosophy of gardening. Hopefully that second meaning is apparent by the 1/2 in the middle of it.
## Pages
- Published [[Essays/law-school|Law School is Broken]]!
- Getting a little sick of seeing arguments across the internet advocating for plagiarism and not citing your sources. Here's [[Essays/plagiarism|my response to plagiarists]].
- **AI infringement essay about 40% done** with plans to edit in the future. It's a long one.
- Finally have a [[Essays/no-ai-fraud-act|response to poor journalism on the No AI FRAUD Act]] out, highly recommend giving it a read!
- Getting a little sick of seeing arguments across the internet advocating for plagiarism and not citing your sources. Here's [[Essays/plagiarism|my response to plagiarists]]. It's being updated in tandem with the AI essay I'm writing.
- Adding a misc page explaining an interesting legal concept, because I was bored of writing the AI infringement article. Approx 50% done writing it.
- Added my [[bookmarks|public bookmarks]] in the spirit of digital gardening.
- Cleaned up [[Essays/why-i-garden|Why I Garden]] a little bit.
## Status Updates
- Updated the theme a little bit to be easier on the eyes.
- Added a **beautiful** new index page
- Not to mention my slick little background cover image...
- Made the index page beautiful and minimal by moving content around.

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---
I’m an enthusiast for all things DIY. Hardware or software, if there’s a project to be had I will travel far down the rabbit hole to see it completed.
I can be reached in the comments here or on Mastodon <a rel=“me” href=“https://social.treehouse.systems/@be_far”>@be_far@treehouse.systems</a>.
I can be reached in the comments here or on Mastodon (<a rel="me" href="https://social.treehouse.systems/@be_far">@be_far@treehouse.systems</a>).
## By Day
I'm a law student aiming to practice in intellectual property litigation. At a high level, this sort of work primarily involves pointing a lot of fingers and trying to force money to change hands. I enjoy the lower levels the most, where attorneys can really sink their teeth into the kind of technical issues that fascinate me.
I'm a law student aiming to practice in intellectual property litigation. At a high level, this sort of work primarily involves pointing a lot of fingers and trying to force money to change hands. I enjoy the lower levels the most, where attorneys can really sink their teeth into the kind of technical issues that fascinate me.
## By Night
I obsess over minimizing my digital footprint with respect to services where the users are viewed as the product. The projects within this website are a testament to that fact.
I obsess over minimizing my digital footprint with respect to services where the users are viewed as the product. The projects within this website are a testament to that fact.
I enjoy rock climbing, building & flying FPV drones, reading, and baking. Hobby electronics repair was previously one of my interests, but modern devices are unfortunately no longer repairable to the extent that I’m able to do so.
I enjoy rock climbing, building & flying FPV drones, reading, and baking. Hobby electronics repair was previously one of my interests, but modern devices are unfortunately no longer repairable to the extent that I’m able to do so.
I can be found in your local cafe, sipping caffeine that's more dessert than coffee and typing furiously into a legal document or class outline. If I'm procrastinating, I'll probably be debugging some selfhost service or writing a toy program in Haskell.
I can be found in your local cafe, sipping caffeine that's more dessert than coffee, and typing furiously into a legal document or class outline. If I'm procrastinating, I'll probably be debugging some selfhost service or writing a toy program in Haskell.

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---
One of the core philosophies of digital gardening is that one should document their learning process when trying new things. As such, here's my very disorganized to-dos and to-reads in the form of a public bookmark list. This page will change very often.
- https://www.shuttle.rs/
- [lazy.nvim plugin spec](https://github.com/folke/lazy.nvim#-plugin-spec)
- [3D printer troubleshooting](https://www.simplify3d.com/resources/print-quality-troubleshooting/)
- [List of attorneys on Mastodon](https://www.lawstodon.org/)

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---
title: Reading List
tags:
- toc
date: 2024-01-30
---
Here are some of the more interesting/mature works on my site organized by topic.
## Intro
- [[Essays/why-i-garden|Why I Garden]]
- [[Projects/Obsidian/digital-garden#Using this Site|Using this site]]
## Legal
- [[Essays/no-ai-fraud-act|Play-by-play of the No AI FRAUD Act]]
- [[Essays/law-school|Law School is Broken]]
## Open Source
- [[Projects/zotero-lexis-plus|Zotero now usable by the legal profession]]
## Tech
- [[Projects/my-computer|My Computer]]
- [[Essays/on-linux|The Linux Experience]]

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- toc
date: 2023-08-23
---
![](moon-light.png)
<div class="head-card">
<img src="/moon-light.png">
> [!tip]
> You will own **nothing**, and you will be **happy**.
</div>
On my little corner of the internet, I document my adventures in tech and complain about the internet of shit. This is **Projects & Privacy**.
# Welcome!
You're on a site called a [[Misc/what-is-a-garden|Digital Garden]]. Here's some info on [[Essays/why-i-garden|Why I Garden]].
You're on a site called a [[Misc/what-is-a-garden|Digital Garden]]. I write about open-source software, my tech projects, legal issues, and more.
## Important Links
[[about-me|About Me]] | [[curated|Recommended Reading]] | [[Misc/disclaimers|Disclaimers/Terms of Use]] | [Monthly Changelog](/Updates) | <a rel="me" href="https://social.treehouse.systems/@be_far">Mastodon</a>
This site changes often. Feel free to subscribe to [the RSS feed](/index.xml) for a ping every time I make a new entry. You can also check [Updates](/Updates) for a monthly list of changes. I can also be found on <a rel="me" href="https://social.treehouse.systems/@be_far">Mastodon</a>.
> [!question] What can I see here?
> I [[about-me|(me, myself)]] write about:
> - Projects I've undertaken and programs that I've used
> - The intersection of social issues and technology, often with a privacy-first spin
> - Law, apparently
> - Anything else that you can find in the [Explorer](https://quartz.jzhao.xyz/features/explorer) on your left
> - If you're on mobile, visit the [[sitemap|Sitemap]].
> [!Question] -> What the hell is that spiderweb thing?
> That's the [Graph View](https://help.obsidian.md/Plugins/Graph+view). It's an [[Programs I Like/obsidian|Obsidian]] feature which acts as a map of what pages link to each other. Click on it for a map of the entire site and how it interconnects. It doesn't use Obsidian's implementation directly, but since [[Projects/Obsidian/digital-garden|the site generator I use]] is heavily inspired by Obsidian and [Obsidian Publish]( https://obsidian.md/publish ), it remains.
> [!question] -> What’s a Backlink?
> The Backlinks pane is a list of all pages on the site that link to the current one. Because you’re on the homepage, it’s empty. On content pages, it’ll be more substantial and serve as a convenient navigation tool.
## Epistemological disclosure
Please accept that I reserve the right to be wrong on this website. I don’t claim to be an expert on any of the subject matter within. As this site reflects a learning process, I’m also liable to change my mind if I research an issue further. I’ll document if this happens.
If you don’t like how I’ve done something, feel free to write a piece in your own garden for it. I’d love to read it! It’s no secret that a lot of this garden comprises my gripes with various things.
## Disclaimer
It goes without saying that anything herein constitutes my own opinion and not the opinion of any affiliated person or entity. Nothing on this website is legal advice either.
## Attribution
Feel free to properly reference any of the content within in your own gardens or work. Don’t plagiarize.
**Do not input my work into an online or offline generative AI for any purpose, including to train or update the model, explore alternate positions to mine, or to converse with the work.** Keep the moles out of the garden.
## Privacy/Terms of Use
- I don't run analytics of any kind on this site.
- I don't share any of my content with third parties, nor do I consent to third party use of my content which I retain a copyright in.
- The sole exception to this policy is that third parties are permitted to link to pages on this website in their own content, or to cite this website as a source.
- Comments
- The time of posting, username, and comment content are all public facing and stored on the server for the sole purpose of providing a comment service. These are not shared with any third parties except to the extent that someone may access that public facing data through this site.
- Accounts created through email will retain the email provided for account login purposes only.
- Accounts created through GitHub login will retain an access token (revocable at any time through GitHub), your GitHub username, and your GitHub profile picture.
<br/><br/>
not legal advice 🤟

4
quartz.layout.ts
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@ -30,8 +30,8 @@ export const defaultContentPageLayout: PageLayout = {
Component.DesktopOnly(Component.Explorer({
sortFn: (a, b) => {
// Sort order: folders first, then files. Sort folders and files alphabetically
if (a.name.match(/Home$/)) { console.log(a.displayName); return -1 }
if (b.name.match(/Home$/)) { console.log(b.displayName); return 1 }
if (a.name.match(/Home$/)) { return -1 }
if (b.name.match(/Home$/)) { return 1 }
if ((!a.file && !b.file) || (a.file && b.file)) {
// numeric: true: Whether numeric collation should be used, such that "1" < "2" < "10"
// sensitivity: "base": Only strings that differ in base letters compare as unequal. Examples: a ≠ b, a = á, a = A

8
quartz/components/renderPage.tsx
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@ -132,9 +132,11 @@ export function renderPage(
))}
</Header>
<div class="popover-hint">
{beforeBody.map((BodyComponent) => (
<BodyComponent {...componentData} />
))}
{ slug !== "index" &&
beforeBody.map((BodyComponent) =>
(<BodyComponent {...componentData} />)
)
}
</div>
</div>
<Content {...componentData} />

14
quartz/plugins/transformers/remark42.ts
View File

@ -1,5 +1,5 @@
// Remark42 comments for Quartz
// v1.1
// v1.2
import { QuartzTransformerPlugin } from "../types"
@ -62,6 +62,18 @@ export const Remark42: QuartzTransformerPlugin<Options> = (opts?: Options) => {
`
scripts.push({ script: spaRouting, loadTime: "afterDOMReady", contentType: "inline" })
// @plodibre: Listen for theme changes and sync r42 if it changes
const buttonListener: string = `
document.querySelector('#darkmode-toggle').addEventListener('click', (_e) => {
let currentTheme = document.documentElement.getAttribute('saved-theme')
currentTheme = currentTheme === 'dark' ? 'light' : 'dark'
if(window.REMARK42)
window.REMARK42.changeTheme(currentTheme)
})
`
scripts.push({ script: buttonListener, loadTime: "afterDOMReady", contentType: "inline" })
return {
name: "Remark42",
options: opts,

12
quartz/styles/custom.scss
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@ -18,19 +18,23 @@ body::before {
opacity: 0.04;
}
.head-card {
display: flex;
flex-flow: row wrap;
margin: 3em 0em;
justify-content: center;
align-items: center;
gap: 10px;
}
// Specifically the first part of the index page with the moon
[saved-theme="dark"] body[data-slug="index"] img[src="./moon-light.png"] {
filter: invert(100%);
}
body[data-slug="index"] img {
float: left;
margin: 1.5em 2em -4em 2em;
height: 15em;
filter: invert(0%);
}
body[data-slug="index"] blockquote[class="callout"][data-callout="tip"] {
margin: 5em 2em;
display: inline-block;
width: 50%;
}

2160
tags
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