James Grimmelmann
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jtlg.bsky.social
James Grimmelmann
@jtlg.bsky.social

I’m a professor at Cornell Tech and Cornell Law School.

One of "a number of very informative people." -WSJ

Computer science 34%
Political science 21%

Of course I’d disclose that!

(Even if they only flagged typos and didn’t write anything, they put effort into the article and it would be wrong to efface their labor.)

The author takes credit and responsibility for the article’s words, not just its ideas and information. Any exceptions need to be disclosed.

You wouldn’t, I hope, pass off a manuscript to an RA to “improve the writing” without disclosing it.

Westlaw, spellcheck, my spouse, and my friends do not write text that is included in my articles. If they did, I would disclose it, because the article would contain text that is not my work. Anything less would be academically dishonest.

You really would think that Noam Chomsky, of all people, would be more context-sensitive.

[This is a shitpost. It is more obscure, and dumber, than it looks.]
Today in dumb decisions: Noam Chomsky was apparently forwarding his prolix family email chains about the financial drama around his estate planning to well-known sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein, and they have therefore now made their way into the public record.

It's a good and troubling question. In some of the AI cases, you can see companies starting to think that it would help them out to politicize the arguments. But there are also a lot of lawyers and clients who prefer to lie low and like the system the way it is now.

Only in cases that are perceived as political. This mostly isn’t happening over in copyright.
Today in dumb decisions: Noam Chomsky was apparently forwarding his prolix family email chains about the financial drama around his estate planning to well-known sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein, and they have therefore now made their way into the public record.

Among other things, I can’t count.

Never mind the jobs you had, tell me five courses you took in college.

Programming Languages
Compilers
Operating Systems
Efficient Algorithms
Computational Learning Theory
Laboratory Electronics

Wait, am I doing this wrong?
Never mind the jobs you had, tell me five classes you took in college

Ethnomusicology
The Speaking Voice
Conservation Biology
Philosophy of Law
African-American Political Thought

(Pretty sure that list covers all of Carleton’s distribution requirements!)
Never mind the jobs you had, tell me five classes you took in college

Sage, the Way, and Zen
Shakespeare
Religion and Modern Secularism
Creative Fiction Writing
International Political Economy

Pleasantly surprised how many of these classes proved useful later in life.

I like this a lot. “He’s borrowed the word’s moral weight while emptying it of moral content.” is a great sentence.

Reposted by James Grimmelmann

Never mind the jobs you had, tell me five classes you took in college

Ethnomusicology
The Speaking Voice
Conservation Biology
Philosophy of Law
African-American Political Thought

(Pretty sure that list covers all of Carleton’s distribution requirements!)
Never mind the jobs you had, tell me five classes you took in college

Sage, the Way, and Zen
Shakespeare
Religion and Modern Secularism
Creative Fiction Writing
International Political Economy

Pleasantly surprised how many of these classes proved useful later in life.
Never mind the jobs you had, tell me five classes you took in college

Urban politics
Urban sociology
Mid 20th century U.S. History
Gender and Politics
World History (I'm sorry for sleeping through this at 8am, but the prof was so nice in office hours, I will always pay that forward)

No, there’s a better reference.

I HAVE SOMETHING TO COMMUNICATE
I was so completely flabbergasted by this article that I wrote a lengthy email to NCMEC about it, telling them to fix their CyberTipline reporting form whose UX enabled a huge overstatement of the scale of the AI-CSAM problem to go uncorrected for 6 months.

cyberlaw.stanford.edu/letter-to-nc...

Reposted by Rebecca Tushnet

This would be blatant corruption on a level that no legitimate system of government can tolerate. Even if he succeeds in giving himself $10 billion this way, any future federal government would be fully justified in taking it back. If your theory of law says otherwise, your theory is wrong.
Breaking Bloomberg:

Trump just sued the IRS and Treasury Department for $10 billion over the unauthorized disclosure of his tax returns to the press during his first term in office — potentially putting American taxpayers on the hook for a massive payout. www.bloomberg.com/news/article...
Trump Sues IRS, Treasury for $10 Billion Over Tax-Return Leaks
President Donald Trump sued the US Treasury and Internal Revenue Service for at least $10 billion over an unauthorized disclosure of his tax returns to the press during his first term in office, poten...
www.bloomberg.com
Breaking Bloomberg:

Trump just sued the IRS and Treasury Department for $10 billion over the unauthorized disclosure of his tax returns to the press during his first term in office — potentially putting American taxpayers on the hook for a massive payout. www.bloomberg.com/news/article...
Trump Sues IRS, Treasury for $10 Billion Over Tax-Return Leaks
President Donald Trump sued the US Treasury and Internal Revenue Service for at least $10 billion over an unauthorized disclosure of his tax returns to the press during his first term in office, poten...
www.bloomberg.com

Dartmouth's communications office coached a student on what to say in an op-ed in the Dartmouth praising the college's new wellness AI, and the AI project office paid him for his time writing it.

This is wildly unethical; the responsible staff need to be fired.

www.thedartmouth.com/article/2026...
College approached and paid student to write op-ed in The Dartmouth
The Dartmouth ran the article on Nov. 17 without knowledge that the College had been involved. 
www.thedartmouth.com

Reposted by James Grimmelmann

oh, now there's video:

youtu.be/L2VRvpPTf9o?...

Reposted by James Grimmelmann

HELLO I'm so delighted to finally officially share A TRUE GENTLEMAN, the graphic novel I’ve been working on for the last few years & is very close to my heart.

Inspired by a lot of real queer & trans history and my own disability, with big marsh, big ships & BIG YEARNING #books

2D, 1D, 0D

It's a 58-page paper on why the FCC should be abolished that spends 2 pages on the actual details of which functions should be abolished and which should be spun out to other agencies. That isn't the balance I'd have chosen if I were making a serious policy proposal.

papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....
Disbanding the Federal Communications Commission
This paper argues that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has outlived the economic and technological conditions that justified its creation. The monop
papers.ssrn.com

You're telling me we could have had olive oil thermometers?

Despelote (2025)
Looking forward to hosting the World Cup in a couple months!
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Federal immigration officers tried to enter Ecuadorian consulate in Minneapolis but were stopped, foreign minister says www.axios.com/2026/01/28/i...
Looking forward to hosting the World Cup in a couple months!
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Federal immigration officers tried to enter Ecuadorian consulate in Minneapolis but were stopped, foreign minister says www.axios.com/2026/01/28/i...

Reposted by Rebecca Tushnet

I have a page of advice for junior scholars that has a lot more on how to decide what to write about.

james.grimmelmann.net/files/advice...
James Grimmelmann
james.grimmelmann.net

I keep a long list of ideas. When I'm considering picking up a project, I force myself to compare it with everything else on the list, to justify why *this* is the thing worth devoting my time to.

If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him.

This is a significant case and it squarely addresses a lot of issues that other courts have ducked. I’m putting it in my digital property course materials and may add it to my Internet Law book as well.

Reposted by James Grimmelmann

Can you steal game gold pieces? The Court of Appeal says yes

It's been a while since we had a proper digital property and virtual gold story here at Llama Towers, I have to admit that it's been mostly AI for the last few years. But a recent decision in the Court of Appeal (Criminal division) in…
Can you steal game gold pieces? The Court of Appeal says yes
It's been a while since we had a proper digital property and virtual gold story here at Llama Towers, I have to admit that it's been mostly AI for the last few years. But a recent decision in the Court of Appeal (Criminal division) in England and Wales has prompted me to write a few words about the always fascinating world of property rights in digital assets (thanks to Andrew Ducker for the heads-up).
www.technollama.co.uk