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Blake E. Reid

Blake E. Reid

@chup.blakereid.org

5.3K followers 1K following 800 posts

Simple country tech law professor, multidisciplinary dilettante. Ska, Crocs, fizzy water, chup. Need just one more guitar pedal. Someone is wrong on the Internet and it might be me. No legal or good advice; opinions my own, bad .. more

Reid is a surname of Scottish origin. It means "red".

Source: Wikipedia

Engineering 28%

Political science 28%

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Posts Replies Media Videos

Blake E. Reid @chup.blakereid.org · 6h

That implies I’m hiding it and not proudly displaying

Blake E. Reid @chup.blakereid.org · 7h

Later, here’s @mrose.ink musing about potato farmers and McFlurry machines with @cfiesler.bsky.social and @aramsinn.bsky.social in the charred ruins of the courtroom

AI and the Future of Copyright Politics | Panel 2: Copyright Politics Beyond AI

YouTube video by Silicon Flatirons

Blake E. Reid @chup.blakereid.org · 7h

Here’s my writeup of a new bill that would break up the Library of Congress and the U.S. Copyright Office, reinforcing the Library in Congress and handing the USCO over to the executive branch

The Copyright Office Leadership Fracas and the Legislative Branch Agencies Clarification Act – Blake E. Reid

Reposted by Zen Faulkes

Blake E. Reid @chup.blakereid.org · 7h

Here’s @sarahjeong.bsky.social somehow going even harder than the T-shirt at the AI-copyright conference: “[AI companies] have ushered in a wholesale destruction of human knowledge and culture that is as significant as the burning of the Library of Alexandria.”

Blake E. Reid @chup.blakereid.org · Oct 19

I am returning from my Bluesky productivity-induction hiatus just to complain that this NYT headline falsely implies that Lego minifigs can be "beheaded" when in fact the heads *come* detached from the arms/torso in the box

Police Break Up Lego Theft Ring, Recovering Hundreds of Beheaded Figurines

www.nytimes.com

Blake E. Reid @chup.blakereid.org · Sep 17

This discussion really broke me

Episode 70: Weezer

"Summer Elaine and Drunk Dori"DOWNLOAD: iTUNES · MP3Weezer’s 10th album, the self-titled "White" album, came out April 1, 2016. In this episode, Rivers Cuomo breaks down t

songexploder.net

Blake E. Reid @chup.blakereid.org · Sep 17

What we are seeing thus far out of at-scale AI-generated music is less major hits and more (a) comedy, (b) background muzak, and (c) pastiche that invokes direct infringement concerns. I suspect that trend will only increase as the novelty wears thin

You might be listening to AI music

Podcast Episode · Panic World · 09/10/2025 · 58m

podcasts.apple.com

Blake E. Reid @chup.blakereid.org · Sep 16

Yes, fully agree: the rise of an AI market for any type of artistic work is very likely to spur countermarkets that further undercut the revenue of an AI market. (Cf. vinyl records.)

Blake E. Reid @chup.blakereid.org · Sep 16

Or to put another way, are we really going to end up with closed loop platforms that generate outputs at industrial scale with no human inputs or users, just subscribers?

Blake E. Reid @chup.blakereid.org · Sep 16

If the copyrightability problems *do* give rise to a lot of exact copying, taking that to the limit means devolving the music industry into a Muzak-producing chatbot/social network where the only revenue is access to the intermediary. Query whether that's enough of a market to cover the AI costs.

Blake E. Reid @chup.blakereid.org · Sep 16

Maybe, but there are major secondarily liability, cost, and availability issues that are a long way from resolution on the use of the technology on the front end, strong political pressure from industrial publishers on distributors, and (maybe) market problems on the backend.

Blake E. Reid @chup.blakereid.org · Sep 16

(For non-exact copies, the proliferation of partial AI authorship, and the uncertain line between AI tools and creation, is going to endlessly bedevil copyright infringement cases by layering patent claim-construction-style dynamics atop the already incoherent substantial similarity doctrine)

Blake E. Reid @chup.blakereid.org · Sep 16

IMO, the notion that "AI generated works are not eligible for copyright protection" is true only in a formalistic sense—there are likely to be many works for which AI was used, perhaps even to a great degree, but in which *some* thin copyright still persists that suffices to go after exact copies.

Blake E. Reid @chup.blakereid.org · Sep 16

Also: reminder that the underlying legal violation not being enforced is by app store and hosting companies, not TikTok itself. If the “deal” doesn’t satisfy the law, that violation continues.

Reposted by Reid

Stephen Nuñez @socio-steve.bsky.social · Sep 16

Also see disabilityecon.org which we'll be using to share research and news!

Blake E. Reid @chup.blakereid.org · Sep 12

Anyway, I would not be surprised to see an emergency appeal to SCOTUS and another shadow docket ruling.

Blake E. Reid @chup.blakereid.org · Sep 12

Moreover, the reporting on the firing suggests that it was premised on the Copyright Office's advisory report on AI to Congress, which is arguably a legislative (not executive) function.

Blake E. Reid @chup.blakereid.org · Sep 12

Unfortunately, SCOTUS's inscrutable shadow docket order in Wilcox refers in consecutive sentences to "exercise [executive] power" and "exercise *considerable* executive power," and now confronts an agency that exercises *some* executive power but also performs *legislative* (and judicial) functions.

Blake E. Reid @chup.blakereid.org · Sep 12

TLDR: the judges seemingly disagree over whether the preliminary injunction equities favor the government when a fired official only exercises *modest* executive power, or rather *any* at all.

Blake E. Reid @chup.blakereid.org · Sep 12

[correction:] ICYMI, the DC Circuit on Wednesday effectively reinstated the Register of Copyrights (Pan and *Childs* with a per curiam order and concurrence, *Walker* dissenting). The dispute centers the salience of the Library of Congress' quasi-legislative/executive/judicial status under Wilcox.

storage.courtlistener.com

Reposted by Reid

Reposted by Reid, Rebecca Tushnet

Mailyn Fidler @mailynfidler.bsky.social · Sep 12

New blog post with Internet Society: I argue Internet fragmentation is taking an "outward" turn, no longer just used for domestic or authoritarian purposes but for extending power across borders.

Short piece: pulse.internetsociety.org/blog/a-new-c...
Long piece: www.sciencespo.fr/public/chair...

A New Chapter in Internet Fragmentation

pulse.internetsociety.org

Reposted by Reid

Lora Kolodny @lorak.bsky.social · Sep 12

The US government sued Uber today alleging the ride-hailing giant discriminates against people with disabilities. Highlights from the complaint in our story at CNBC - www.cnbc.com/2025/09/11/u... Uber denies the alleged ADA violations.

Uber sued by DOJ for alleged discrimination against disabled riders

The suit seeks a jury trial and injunctive relief, monetary damages and to charge Uber a civil fine for violations of the Americans with Disabilities Act.