#'antithetical to the university's values'

[percocet]

i cannot believe what i'm reading what do you mean this was an email sent out to everybody

THESE are the posts "[celebrating] recent acts of terror and violence"??

[mariacallous]

The Internet Archive has lost a major legal battle—in a decision that could have a significant impact on the future of internet history. Today, the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ruled against the long-running digital archive, upholding an earlier ruling in Hachette v. Internet Archive that found that one of the Internet Archive’s book digitization projects violated copyright law.

Notably, the appeals court’s ruling rejects the Internet Archive’s argument that its lending practices were shielded by the fair use doctrine, which permits for copyright infringement in certain circumstances, calling it “unpersuasive.”

In March 2020, the Internet Archive, a San Francisco-based nonprofit, launched a program called the National Emergency Library, or NEL. Library closures caused by the pandemic had left students, researchers, and readers unable to access millions of books, and the Internet Archive has said it was responding to calls from regular people and other librarians to help those at home get access to the books they needed.

The NEL was an offshoot of an ongoing digital lending project called the Open Library, in which the Internet Archive scans physical copies of library books and lets people check out the digital copies as though they’re regular reading material instead of ebooks. The Open Library lent the books to one person at a time—but the NEL removed this ratio rule, instead letting large numbers of people borrow each scanned book at once.

The NEL was the subject of backlash soon after its launch, with some authors arguing that it was tantamount to piracy. In response, the Internet Archive within two months scuttled its emergency approach and reinstated the lending caps. But the damage was done. In June 2020, major publishing houses, including Hachette, HarperCollins, Penguin Random House, and Wiley, filed the lawsuit.

In March 2023, the district court ruled in favor of the publishers. Judge John G. Koeltl found that the Internet Archive had created “derivative works,” arguing that there was “nothing transformative” about its copying and lending. After the initial ruling in Hachette v. Internet Archive, the parties negotiated terms—the details of which have not been disclosed—though the archive still filed an appeal.

James Grimmelmann, a professor of digital and internet law at Cornell University, says the verdict is “not terribly surprising” in the context of how courts have recently interpreted fair use.

The Internet Archive did eke out a Pyrrhic victory in the appeal. Although the Second Circuit sided with the district court’s initial ruling, it clarified that it did not view the Internet Archive as a commercial entity, instead emphasizing that it was clearly a nonprofit operation. Grimmelmann sees this as the right call: “I’m glad to see that the Second Circuit fixed that mistake.” (He signed an amicus brief in the appeal arguing that it was wrong to classify the use as commercial.)

“Today’s appellate decision upholds the rights of authors and publishers to license and be compensated for their books and other creative works and reminds us in no uncertain terms that infringement is both costly and antithetical to the public interest,” Association of American Publishers president and CEO Maria A. Pallante said in a statement. “If there was any doubt, the Court makes clear that under fair use jurisprudence there is nothing transformative about converting entire works into new formats without permission or appropriating the value of derivative works that are a key part of the author’s copyright bundle.”

In a statement, Internet Archive director of library services Chris Freeland expressed disappointment “in today’s opinion about the Internet Archive’s digital lending of books that are available electronically elsewhere. We are reviewing the court’s opinion and will continue to defend the rights of libraries to own, lend, and preserve books.”

Dave Hansen, executive director of the Author’s Alliance, a nonprofit that often advocates for expanded digital access to books, also came out against the ruling. “Authors are researchers. Authors are readers,” he says. “IA’s digital library helps those authors create new works and supports their interests in seeing their works be read. This ruling may benefit the bottom line of the largest publishers and most prominent authors, but for most it will end up harming more than it will help.”

The Internet Archive’s legal woes are not over. In 2023, a group of music labels, including Universal Music Group and Sony, sued the archive in a copyright infringement case over a music digitization project. That case is still making its way through the courts. The damages could be up to $400 million, an amount that could pose an existential threat to the nonprofit.

The new verdict arrives at an especially tumultuous time for copyright law. In the past two years there have been dozens of copyright infringement cases filed against major AI companies that offer generative AI tools, and many of the defendants in these cases argue that the fair use doctrine shields their usage of copyrighted data in AI training. Any major lawsuit in which judges refute fair use claims are thus closely watched.

It also arrives at a moment when the Internet Archive’s outsize importance in digital preservation is keenly felt. The archive’s Wayback Machine, which catalogs copies of websites, has become a vital tool for journalists, researchers, lawyers, and anyone with an interest in internet history. While there are other digital preservation projects, including national efforts from the US Library of Congress, there’s nothing like it available to the public.

[webg1rl]

"i wanna join the 4b movement but i still wanna date men"

disclaimer: my opinions, minimal research

ever since trump became president elect of the united states, the 4B movement has gained unprecedented momentum in the west — an infectious cesspool of overconsumption, under-education, anti-intellectualism, and glorified toddlers with university degrees.

the 4B radical movement was founded in south korea and centres around 4 basic Bs, or tenets: bihon (no marriage with men), bichulsan (no giving birth), biyeonae (no dating men), bisekseu (no sex with men).1

tweets about the 4B movement have gained traffic on twitter and continue to spark controversy in bootlicking, status-quo-loving, intellectually impoverished communities — one of the biggest being social media feminists. advocators of the 4B movement are flooded with comments such as:

“i want to join the 4b movement but i still wanna date men. how can i do that?”

you can’t.

“i have a husband and kids, can i join the 4b movement?”

you can’t.

“what am i supposed to do?”

easy. don’t join the movement.

contrary to popular assumptions, the 4B movement is, in fact, not for all women. as a matter of fact, it is, perhaps, not for most women. and that’s a truth we all have to sit down with. if you are going to whine about the 4B movement preventing you from finding your true love in the male species, then the movement is not for you.

let’s proceed with reason. if you are a woman who has already made a commitment to a man, then you will find yourself in conflict with the 4B movement. to ask that all women break up with their boyfriends, or divorce their husbands and leave their children behind is completely and unequivocally absurd. it’s not feasible. any reasonable feminist can and should understand that.

the undeniable truth of the matter is that our society is built upon heteronormative foundations. finding a romantic partner is one of the most basic goals in life. anyone who has lived and died without dating or engaging in romantic and/or sexual relations we find to be utterly crazy. and for straight women, the quest to fulfil that basic goal will almost always manifest in centring, even for a period in time, a man, which, at it’s very core, is antithetical to the principles outlined in the 4B movement.

feminism and the 4B movement are not synonyms. 4B is a movement within the larger political movement of feminism. not everyone can join it. you need to be in possession of incredibly strong willpower and an unquenchable drive to rebel against the institutions that have led to everything you were socialized to be. most women in our day and age, of our cozy backgrounds, don’t possess that kind of will.

at least not yet. and that is okay.

you are not less of a woman for dating a man or for being married to one. you’re not less of a woman for prioritizing your children or wanting to give birth. you can do all these things and still be a feminist. but the truth of the matter is that you will have no place in the 4B movement. and that, too, needs to be okay. disregarding these very basic fact risks discrediting and damaging a pivotal, and frankly quite necessary, radical movement without which change might remain a mythic term.

but before i sit here and coddle you (and myself), i’ll make one thing clear. change and comfort will never be parallel. as claire schwartz put it, change is a condition of both loss and growth. and growth does not come unaccompanied by growing pains. it is not comfortable to wake up at 7am to go running, but you do it anyway because this is how you get the body you want. it is not comfortable to spend the night studying, but you do it anyway because you desire a good career. it is not comfortable to make sacrifices for your children or your partner, or your family or your friends, but you do it anyway, because it is necessary to build strong relationships. the end of all this is to say, if you value something, you will make yourself uncomfortable by pursuing it.

but you’re right. it’s not just about comfort. lives may very well be at risk. and that is true but it’s not a valid excuse. yes, it will take years. yes, there will be failures dismal enough to make you give up. yes, you might lose your life. but if there is a slim chance that even in the furthest of my bloodlines, women will breathe the air of the free world then I find it a chance worth taking.

and if you cannot put your comfort, your ease, your love for the men in your life aside in exchange for liberation of women everywhere, women you don’t know, women you will never meet, women you don’t agree with then please just be honest. don’t pretend to care for women, don’t pretend to want change, and don’t you dare pretend to be a feminist. you will be discrediting the movement from the inside out.

and if enough women don’t care then the result will only and inevitably be that our suffering continues. or perhaps a generation much stronger and much braver than our one can pick up the fragments we left behind and achieve what we didn’t.

feminism isn’t about men and women being equal — that is the very law of nature, we are all born equal. feminism is about how we’re going to get there in a society functioning against that law. feminism is taking that society apart brick by brick and constructing one where freedom and equality will never be questioned.

————————--

1 Yi, Beh Lih (20 January 2020). "No sex, no babies: South Korea's emerging feminists reject marriage". Reuters. Archived from the original on 29 January 2021.

[power-chords]

I’m reading a 1985 Joanna Russ essay on Kirk/Spock fanfiction because, you know, midrash paratext etc, and this shit goes so hard:

But that's not all that's in the material. In many ways the K/S world is a great advance over the standard romances. For one thing, there is explicit sexuality instead of the old Romances' one-kiss-in the-moonlight. And I believe Lamb and Veith see rightly when they describe the androgyny of the relationship, the impossibility (despite the coding into the Spock character of so many female traits) of assigning gender roles to either partner, ever—obviously this is very different from the romances, in which a woman's problems in life are solved for her by a dominant male. The K/S insistence that the characters be first-class human beings is inevitably compromised by the social necessity of awarding that V.I.P. status only to men.

To me one important conclusion we can draw from these stories is that sexual fantasy can't be taken at face value. Another is that no sexual cues are morally privileged (though some kinds of sexual behavior certainly are) since sexualizing any kind of behavior drastically changes the meaning of that behavior. Translated into real life, the "hurt-comfort" theme of K/S would simply be pernicious, from the woman who can do sex only under the guise of pity, to the lover who wants to keep her beloved dependent and powerless, in which condition she can then "love" the beloved. What excites in fantasy is both far more exaggerated than real life and not the same as in real life; that is, fantasy isn't just a vicarious substitute for real experience; its meaning as experience becomes changed when it's made into fantasy. Without understanding the rather complicated context of the fantasy, one "reads" it literally—like the woman friend of mine (new to Star Trek) who said in disgust that K/S was about rape and power games. This is simply not true in terms of the genre. In fact, the story that evoked this response is a classic K/S tale in which Spock goes into pon farr again after pages and pages of agonized misunderstandings, thus (thank goodness!) providing a way for the lovers finally to declare themselves and make out like crazy.

What seems to be happening in sexual fantasy is that any condition imposed on or learned with sexuality is capable of becoming sexualized, either as sex or a substitute for sex or as an indispensable condition of it. Such a process is certainly at work in the K/S universe. Yet it's perfectly clear to me that K/S writers and readers don't literally wish to become male any more than they literally want their dear ones to bleed and die in their arms or to die with their lovers. What they do want is sexual intensity, sexual enjoyment, the freedom to choose, a love that is entirely free of the culture's whole discourse of gender and sex roles, and a situation in which it is safe to let go and allow oneself to become emotionally and sexually vulnerable. The literal conditions and cues of the K/S world, far from being impeccably moral, are sexualizations of situations and behavior K/S fans did not choose and quite likely wouldn't want in reality. Moreover they are situations and behavior that are absolutely antithetical to getting sexual and emotional satistaction in the real world, which fact at least some of the K/S readers and writers know perfectly well.

[mistyheartrbs]

vengeance would have been a perfect special if not for doc's death, and i think the reason for that is like. it changes vengeance from a fun sort of "optional" epilogue tv movie (that also doubles as a sizzle reel for andras to pitch a fifth season) to something that irrevocably changes the directions of the characters' lives. if this is the last entry in wynonna earp then doc is dead, wynonna has lost the love of her life, alice grows up without her father. it changes the beautiful ending of s4 - something that was so ruthlessly, defiantly hopeful when it was borne of a genre and a timeframe in which shock value and grimdark character death were the norm, when it was filmed in the middle of a devastating pandemic - into something much more cynical.

now, let me tell you about homestuck.

i love it when stories engage with their role as stories, and two projects that have done that (which also not so coincidentally had massive tumblr followings) are steven universe and, yes, homestuck -- specifically their followups, steven universe: future and the homestuck epilogues/homestuck^2: beyond canon.

steven universe future is a series that posits, "what happens when there's no one left to fight and you have to face yourself?" it's something that existed to tie up the loose ends left by steven universe's hasty cancellation/ending - and so it looks at an action hero's struggles with ptsd when he isn't saving the world anymore. it recontextualizes everything we thought was just another action scene, just another monster fight, just another thing he won with love and kindness and great, great injury to himself, and says, no, this hurt him, you cannot take on the world for yourself, you deserve a good life too. it's in conversation with steven universe's endless empathy and self-sacrifice and doesn't ridicule it but acknowledges that it's a philosophy that you can only hold for so long before you crack.

it's a lovely show that, while much darker than the original series, still ultimately ends on a hopeful note. of course steven isn't going to drive off into the sunset and never have any problems again. he's a person. he's going to drive away when it's already nighttime, and he's going to phone his therapist, and he's going to have good days and bad ones and he's never going to have some clean break from the things that still haunt him but he'll be okay.

the homestuck epilogues are bad, and they're mean-spirited, and they spit in the face of audiences who wanted happy endings for the characters. they're written to mimic ao3 fanfiction, and pretty openly mock the fandom and the people who got homestuck to this point in the first place.

creator andrew hussie thankfully seemed to realize that and changed course with homestuck^2: beyond canon, where they started making it a visual webcomic series again, and it started grappling more directly with homestuck as a story.

the first shot of homestuck^2 is of a spaceship with "theseus" scrawled onto the side. the title itself isn't "homestuck 2," it's homestuck squared. homestuck multiplied by itself. it's a writing team - people who started out as fans of homestuck and are now arbiters of it - with only minimal involvement from the original creator. who determines what is and isn't homestuck? is it the god-creator who wrote himself into the story, then wrote himself being killed off? is it this new writing team? is it you? after all, homestuck itself started with audience prompts. somebody who is not andrew hussie named john egbert. somebody who is not andrew hussie gets to decide how it continues, and if it ends, and why.

"misty, what the whiskey-shooting hell does any of this have to do with wynonna earp?"

what's weird about vengeance is that it doesn't do any of that. and in fact its very existence is antithetical to doc's death speech - it, like doc, is something that's dodged death. it's a followup to a show with one of the most satisfying series finales in recent memory. it's nothing so cynical as a cash grab (as i've seen people on the tag posit) - everyone involved genuinely loves this show. but it's basically a ninety-minute wynonna earp episode. aside from a few brief references and nods to the fans - waverly saying "welcome home, wynonna" - it's not interested in the three and a half years between the end of the show and this new special. it's not interested in whether it should exist, or how long people fought for it to exist. it does explore avenues that the series didn't have time to look into - wynonna's traumatic childhood, the lack of support from the adults in her life - but it's not looking at What "wynonna earp" is. it's not a story about Wynonna Earp (2016-2021), a SyFy Original Series that crafted lifelong friendships and conventions and stories and art and romances and careers and acted as a beacon of hope for thousands of young people during dark times. it's a story about wynonna earp, the character, who doesn't know if she can be a good mom to alice, who hurts the people she loves, who loves those people so, so fiercely she'll literally go to hell and back for them.

and i don't like that her ending is one full of grief. that doesn't feel fair to me.

but that's what season 5 is for, right?

[esther-dot]

I was reading your comments about Jon's chivalry and protecting the vulnerable. This all brought to mind Jon's TV ending of stabbing Dany in the heart while kissing her. While we don't know whether or not this version of Dany's end is close to what will be the written version, it seems as though it's possible in part because of the Nissa Nissa legend. Jon doing that in the books (or something like it) would align with the Azor Ahai story, but in a warped sort of way, leaving events open to interpretation (as is usual with the prophecies and legends). But in any case, Jon killing a woman will be an act that is antithetical to so many of his values that it seems like it would come close to destroying him even if justified within Jon's universe. I wonder if Martin really plans to bring Jon this low, but also how it will be received. The optics of portraying such an ending for Dany given today's sensibilities could be viewed even more dimly than it would have been when Martin started writing the series?

(about this ask)

I'm so sorry that it's taken me this long to respond! I have finally reread some pertinent chapters to situate my thoughts.

First, I just want to acknowledge how upsetting this spec is to some, and remind everyone, no one wants this ending. We all think it's gross, we're just discussing the possibility, not merely because of the show, because it's an old theory. I looked around and saw posts about this starting in 2013 by Dany fans. So, the presence of this myth is substantial enough, even BNFs/Jonerys shippers felt like it had a strong chance of manifesting (although they believe Dany would willingly sacrifice herself) well before D&D committed their fuckery. I suppose all that answers your question. Man killing his lover is a gross trope, being forced to kill a loved one to save the world is overused, so now, I can't imagine anyone reading it and being happy about it.

In trying to look at the context in-canon Martin has created, he's taken it out of the strict man kills lover idea of the AA/NN myth, and is discussing the idea of sacrificing an innocent child to a god which fans have already compared to myth, Stannis & Shireen = Agamemnon & Iphigeneia. This sacrifice hasn't happened yet, but it's been confirmed as a Martin plot point. Stannis is already burning people alive, justifying kid killing, and Davos has already planted the Stannis=AA, kid=NN idea:

Davos was remembering a tale Salladhor Saan had told him, of how Azor Ahai tempered Lightbringer by thrusting it through the heart of the wife he loved. He slew his wife to fight the dark. If Stannis is Azor Ahai come again, does that mean Edric Storm must play the part of Nissa Nissa? (ASOS, Davos V)

Although, rather than this being a justified death, the fans will be horrified as we're meant to be. Davos' thoughts call into question the idea of killing another for your "magic sword":

A true sword of fire, now, that would be a wonder to behold. Yet at such a cost . . . When he thought of Nissa Nissa, it was his own Marya he pictured, a good-natured plump woman with sagging breasts and a kindly smile, the best woman in the world. He tried to picture himself driving a sword through her, and shuddered. I am not made of the stuff of heroes, he decided. If that was the price of a magic sword, it was more than he cared to pay. (ACOK, Davos I)

and Martin impresses upon us the value of each life:

"Your Grace," said Davos, "the cost . . ." "I know the cost! Last night, gazing into that hearth, I saw things in the flames as well. I saw a king, a crown of fire on his brows, burning . . . burning, Davos. His own crown consumed his flesh and turned him into ash. Do you think I need Melisandre to tell me what that means? Or you?" The king moved, so his shadow fell upon King's Landing. "If Joffrey should die . . . what is the life of one bastard boy against a kingdom?" "Everything," said Davos, softly. (ASOS, Davos V)

The talk of greater good/killing kids reminds me of AGOT in which Ned's story is inundated with the topic of child murder/protecting kids. We have Mycah, his memories of Aegon and Rhaenys, his promise to protect Jon, his guilt over his lies and treason bubbling up repeatedly, his fight against the assassination of Dany, his attempt to save Cersei's children from Robert...we all know, kid killing is wrong according to Martin, so we've already been told that this wannabe AA's actions are contemptible. The myth in which the sacrifice is happy to die, that sacrificing someone is heroic, it's being contradicted by what we're being shown in the Stannis storyline.

Now, while Stannis is being declared Azor Ahai, we're constantly being told he isn't. Jon calls the act a mummer's farce and comments on his cold sword and that is right before a Dany chapter, so the idea is, Dany is actually AA. @trinuviel is the first person I saw lay out the argument for that and contend that being AA is a bad thing (meta parts 1, 2, 3). People have said that Drogo kinda becomes her Nissa Nissa in that scenario. She burns him to get the dragons, and what are the dragons called?

"When I went to the Hall of a Thousand Thrones to beg the Pureborn for your life, I said that you were no more than a child," Xaro went on, "but Egon Emeros the Exquisite rose and said, 'She is a foolish child, mad and heedless and too dangerous to live.' When your dragons were small they were a wonder. Grown, they are death and devastation, a flaming sword above the world." He wiped away the tears. "I should have slain you in Qarth." (ADWD, Daenerys III)

That kinda makes us think, oh, the myth already has a canon counterpart, don't need to worry about it anymore. Only, we've also said Rhaegar impregnating a young Lyanna could be read as a play on Nissa Nissa, with him risking her life to get the prophecy baby, otherwise known as the third head of the dragon. And Jon is not only a kind of dragon, he repeatedly intones that fun little phrase about being a sword, and sometimes, that happens within an interesting context (for speculation purposes):

"I will." Do not fail me, he thought, or Stannis will have my head. "Do I have your word that you will keep our princess closely?" the king had said, and Jon had promised that he would. Val is no princess, though. I told him that half a hundred times. It was a feeble sort of evasion, a sad rag wrapped around his wounded word. His father would never have approved. I am the sword that guards the realm of men, Jon reminded himself, and in the end, that must be worth more than one man's honor. (ADWD, Jon VIII)

So, although there is one character that seems to be Azor Ahai (Dany), I am definitely open to the myth manifesting, or rather, being examined from multiple angles. IMO, that's what Martin is doing and we can use each variation to reassess what he's saying with it. We have Dany and Drogo (the official one/successful one), Rhaegar and Lyanna (not AA, but Jon is born), Stannis and Edric (denied), Stannis and Shireen (he will kill Shireen, but we don't know if he'll get what he wants and we do know he isn't AA)... lots of pics of a similar idea. To emphasize Stannis not being the dude and Dany being the "real" AA, we have that Jon passage and chapter transition:

Even though we have lots of contenders and commentary about this myth with the canon characters, none of it romanticizes human sacrifice, and all works towards the twist that what is said to be a hero/the weapon that will save people brings destruction. If we look back at it critically, Dany has a habit of accepting, or even causing, the suffering of others for her greater good, including sacrificing Mirri to get her dragons. We might even argue that Mirri is a Nissa Nissa for her, as Dany had taken Mirri under her protection before killing her to get dragons.

That being said, even though we're getting told this shit is bad in canon, the indictment of killing innocents and people who depend on you to protect them, it wouldn’t apply if someone were to kill Stannis or Dany. It isn’t on the same moral level as killing a child, or a spouse who loves and trusts you. It isn't the same as invading and then killing people who won't worship your god or accept you as a leader. It isn't the same as killing a slave, simply because, when their times come, Dany and Stannis will be guilty. After their actions, it would be justice for them to die. I think why other parts of the fandom entertain the idea of Dany as NN while also condemning us for entertaining it, is that Dany's vision does have her being grasped at by hands of her "children" and fans have this idea that she is sacrificing herself/her happiness for the greater good already, and in the AA/Nissa Nissa story, it does sound like she offers herself willingly for the tempering of the sword. So to them, it’s part of Dany’s heroism. Dany's death is inevitable to some, at the hands of Jon is ok, but her not dying a hero, that's unacceptable.

But thinking about how it's been discussed thus far, I can't imagine we're gonna get a romanticized version of the AA/NN myth in canon when so far, it's pretty dark/condemned. None of that precludes Jon killing Dany in what you described as a:

warped sort of way, leaving events open to interpretation (as is usual with the prophecies and legends).

which really sticks out to me as the important part of all this.

The idea that Jon might do it and characters recognize it as a tragic love story a la the myth, that fascinates me because of how Martin has written wild rumors into the story (rumors about Dany, Robb, and Sansa spring to mind), and some of us have written reality and what the public thinks into fic as two distinct things because it feels like a potential way the story might go. What is widely known to be true, like say, Jon being Ned's bastard, may not be the truth that we the readers come to know. There's no guarantee that Westeros will know what the readers know about past or future events. We may get a take on AA/NN, the characters in-world may not understand it the same way.

Jon is undeniably a hero, in a world where institutional corruption is rampant and ideals abandoned, he’s a standout in his values. We would expect, and we find, contrasts between him and these other characters (Dany, Rhaegar, Stannis), primarily, his practical actions that are about saving life/protecting life, even from Stannis, so the idea that he would abandon certain values, it's a tough one. The difference is, while Stannis, Rhaegar, and Dany were acting on these prophecies or visions or dreams, things we're repeatedly warned against trusting in the text, Jon would be taking action based on the fact that Dany is a mass-murderer, a threat to all of Westeros. It isn't a sacrifice to an unknown god for some promised mystical good, it's justice. The religious fanaticism wouldn't be a factor, the killing of an innocent wouldn't be a factor, killing a child wouldn't be a factor, killing to achieve a self-serving end wouldn't be a factor. All the things that have been criticized thus far aren't at play.

The moral quandary presented to the audience in AGOT is killing someone who might be a threat, but is a child at the moment, and Martin presents the sneaky assassination / child killing as abhorrent:

Grand Maester Pycelle cleared his throat, a process that seemed to take some minutes. "My order serves the realm, not the ruler. Once I counseled King Aerys as loyally as I counsel King Robert now, so I bear this girl child of his no ill will. Yet I ask you this—should war come again, how many soldiers will die? How many towns will burn? How many children will be ripped from their mothers to perish on the end of a spear?" He stroked his luxuriant white beard, infinitely sad, infinitely weary. "Is it not wiser, even kinder, that Daenerys Targaryen should die now so that tens of thousands might live?" "Kinder," Varys said. "Oh, well and truly spoken, Grand Maester. It is so true. Should the gods in their caprice grant Daenerys Targaryen a son, the realm must bleed." Littlefinger was the last. As Ned looked to him, Lord Petyr stifled a yawn. "When you find yourself in bed with an ugly woman, the best thing to do is close your eyes and get on with it," he declared. "Waiting won't make the maid any prettier. Kiss her and be done with it." "Kiss her?" Ser Barristan repeated, aghast. "A steel kiss," said Littlefinger. (AGOT, Eddard VIII)

which is all interesting context for Dany later being assassinated, especially because the first lesson Martin gives us on justice is one that Jon is there for, and then is reiterated in relation to Dany:

Ned had heard enough. "You send hired knives to kill a fourteen-year-old girl and still quibble about honor?" He pushed back his chair and stood. "Do it yourself, Robert. The man who passes the sentence should swing the sword. Look her in the eyes before you kill her. See her tears, hear her last words. You owe her that much at least." (AGOT, Eddard VIII)

The convo about killing Dany with LF is about a bedding and before that it was presented in terms of a wedding gift, which makes me squint now knowing the AA/NN stuff:

Yes, it's awful, and I do understand, almost agree with you here:

But in any case, Jon killing a woman will be an act that is antithetical to so many of his values that it seems like it would come close to destroying him even if justified within Jon's universe.

but the way it might tie together the initial discussion of killing Dany and the eventual act weighs heavily with me when determining what Martin might do and why/why not.

The other suggestion is that Arya kills Dany. If having dragons is Chechov's gun for KL burning then Arya being a trained assassin feels like a Chechov's gun for killing Dany. But in that scenario, there is no conflict. No inner struggle. We spent so much of AGOT weighing the morals of killing Dany, it's hard for me to believe when the time comes, it's presented without any moral complexity. Arya is already able and willing to take a life, even when it isn't justified. It doesn't feel right to me that killing Dany would be a presented without an inner struggle, that it would be done easily, as easily as Arya now kills. TBH, it removes the drama if someone other than Jon does it because it will be so highly necessary and just when the time comes. Jon is really the only character who can make it squeamish because of the guy killing a woman thing and because it will be kinslaying.

There is a lot of talk about poison, so I think it's totally possible Arya tries to kill Dany with poison first, but I think Jon is more likely to be the one to successfully kill her, and in a way that calls to mind Ned's opinion on it, See her tears, hear her last words. That would allow Martin to make sure we see it as just/moral, bring home the Targ v Targ issue, and it shades Ned's decisions and values in a very interesting way.

After s8 fans said Ned was wrong to fight against killing Dany in s1, but Martin thinks he was right to object to killing children, so for the two Targ children he was protecting in AGOT (Dany and Jon) to come face to face and one kill the other prevents the conclusion that Ned was wrong. It was the same mercy, the same refusal to see the child of an enemy as an enemy, that saved the boy who will in turn save Westeros. IMO, it's a way to uphold the belief in mercy. I tend to think it’s also Martin’s way of addressing one his questions about his beloved LOTR (what about orc babies etc).

If another person ends Dany, we still get dead Dany, but it doesn't say anything interesting? Killing her wouldn't be a sacrifice on anyone else's part, she won’t be loved and she has to go. But, Jon, who so desperately wants to have honor, if he kills her, it's right as well as an egregious "sin." Ned dishonors himself to protect Sansa (and obvy was committing treason to protect Jon), it feels like coming full circle for Jon, who so wants to be worthy of being a son to Ned to follow his path there too. Also, one thing I expect we’ll keep tracking is kinslaying. Kinslaying comes up with the AA/Nissa Nissa issue in the Stannis storyline, so I do expect that to be addressed in Jon chapters:

We have the whole baby switch to assure us, Jon values human life a great deal. All the same, that involves a moment of cruelty on Jon's side, so Martin isn't interested in keeping him perfectly pure. He likes those moments where doing the right thing is very difficult, even compromising in some way. It's why, while we say Ned committing treason for Jon is a no brainer, Martin writes Ned tortured by it. He likes the inner turmoil over decisions, placing a societal good (honor) against another obligation or ideal and asking what is right.

I wonder if Martin really plans to bring Jon this low, but also how it will be received. The optics of portraying such an ending for Dany given today's sensibilities could be viewed even more dimly than it would have been when Martin started writing the series?

Despite all the ways I think it makes sense, yes, I def think this is one of those areas that if he had finished the series as quickly as he'd hoped, would have gone over better. Dany has dragons, therefore, she will be an overwhelming threat to Westeros, so it isn't like Jon will just randomly kill a woman, yet it's distasteful all the same. Martin is looking at things from the context of his story and the ideas he’s already introduced/talking about though which is why I can wince but kinda understand it. There are other issues where my sensibilities diverge from his, so didn’t like it on the show, I don’t like it for the books, still think it’s probably gonna happen. 🤷🏻‍♀️

[thatfrenchacademic]

Justice as spectacle in Fontaine, or a too long word vomit from a tired PhD in Law gushing over Genshin 4.0

Alternative title: “Justice must be seen to be done”, a visual playbook by Genshin 4.0

Intro: This is a valid use of a PhD in law, actually.

I made the mistake of playing the 4.0 update of Genshin while I was finalizing my PhD in law and politics, and the result was my brain refuse to think about anything else than judicial performativity and the use judicial spectacle in Fontaine. So time to make good use of 9 years of University by dissecting why I absolutely love how Fontaine’s justice system is presented. It was initially much longer and covering why justice as a spectacle is not necessarily an issue or sign of a disfunctionning legal system,  then what exactly about the Fontainian justice system is actually fucked up, but it got too long so I’m keeping that for the indeterminate future. So the pitch of this thing is: Mihoyo is basically providing us with an animated First Person POV game version of legal ethnographic works on justice and the courthouse, and it is really cool.

And since I am a nerd with both too much time to read and to play, we are making this a proper academic, with literature and all, because listen to me, LEGAL ACADEMICA IS COOL, ACTUALLY, and law and literature at large is a genuine field of study that we, as a society, need to talk about more.

[also there is non-zero chance that I edit this brainrot and submit it for publication at some point]

Warning: I am basing this on 4.0, up to and including Act IV Chapter II (hence no discussion of the prison system) and if Mihoyo thwarts the whole thing with 4.1  [oops I am late so now 4.2, since 4.1 did not thwart it] then let’s do what we do when new results contradict existing theories in academia and just collectively agree to ignore it.

TL;DR: Someone at Mihoyo read Simonett’s 1966 essay on The Trial as One of the Performing Arts [Here, just read it, it is fascinating] and decided to make it everyone’s problem

Part 0: if this was not Tumblr.com I would make a recap explaining broadly what Genshin and Fontaine are but since you are reading this I’m going to assume you already know the context.

Part 1: Ok so how does the Fontanian Justice system work, exactly?

Alright, so each area of Teyvat has 1) one core theme/value and 2)a threat to that core theme/value.

Mondstadt has Freedom and people living in fear of a dragon.

Liyue has Contracts/order and the pandemonium of having Rex Lapis killed.

Inazuma has Eternity and being virtually frozen in time.

Sumeru has Knowledge and being entirely manipulated by the Akademia.

Fontaine has Justice and… Justice being parodied into a spectacle?

WRONG.

Because the spectacle of justice, especially the way it is done in Fontaine, is not antithetic to Justice itself. Spectacle is part and parcel of Justice and of any courthouse. Sure, all the dials are turned to 11 and y’know, it is legit called an Opera, but that is more the writers being a bit on the nose and adding drama for the player. The spectacle of Justice, itself, is not that far off from reality. And, hot take but bear with me: it is not (necessarily) a problem.

Ok, let’s dive into what we know of the justice system in Fontaine.

Broadly speaking, we have seen the criminal justice system, and it is an accusatorial, or adversarial model. It’s the US-style criminal procedure: you have a defendant trying to prove that they didn’t do it your honor, and a prosecutor proving that they totally did it your honor. To avoid this becoming a fistfight, you have a strict procedure to follow outside but especially inside the Court, and in the end, a neutral third party decides on the outcome or the trial.

Ok, now let’s zoom on a few things, and why the theatrics of them are actually very common.

Furina, our cringefail darling, is the prosecutor. And they get a lot of stuff right regarding the role of the prosecutor! She decides whether or not to prosecute, based on the information that she has, and whether she likes her odds or not. Fittingly since she is the Archon, the prosecutor in a trial represents the State, the interest of the State (the judge ! does ! not!). It makes sense that Furina, the ruler (theoretically) would be prosecutor and not judge. Moreover, and as we see plenty of times during the trials, Prosecutor Furina is not concerned with the victim, and not even necessarily with the truth; the prosecutor wants to know how likely they are to obtain a conviction in the end. Her job is to be convincing enough to establish a legal truth.

Neuvillette, for his part, sometimes look terribly powerless… but friends, that is what a Judge sitting during a criminal case often is. The first part of his job is to find sufficient information for the prosecution to decide whether or not to prosecute; he is supposed to be entirely neutral at this stage. He kickstarted the investigation straight after the death of Cowell, and was also the one starting investigation on Vaughn right after Lyney is proved innocent. He gathers enough evidence, hands them over to Furina and asks “So? Are you game or do you want to leave that alone?”

And once the prosecutor has decided to move forward with prosecuting, his job is to make the procedure move along, take some decisions based on new information, ensure all respect the rules (hence Childe’s immediate smackdown when he starts to act out a bit too much at the end. My man is here to make sure the rules are enforced and that also applies to Snezhnayan gremlins). In the liminal space of the courthouse, he is the supreme authority… over the procedure. He can tell anyone, including Furina, to stfu k thx. He starts and stops the trial. He allows witnesses to be heard or not.

And the last party involved at this point is the defense, usually the Traveler and any adorable twink we befriended that day [good for you, Traveler, good for you]. They present evidence, they have to be convincing, it’s basically Ace Attorney, we know that part.

Part 2: Mihoyo makes it clear that we are all actors in the Courtroom

Ok, first moment of pause.

Even though these are the most basic parts of a criminal trial, they are ALREADY steeped in drama and theatrics, both IRL and in Fontaine.

First off, Furina plays a prosecutor, Neuvillette plays a judge and the Traveller plays the lawyer.

No but really: they play their role in the Courthouse.

The game painstakingly presents Furina for the first time not as a prosecutor in a courthouse but as a cringefail princess. When we see her initially welcoming the Traveller, going “Fight Me” at them in the streets of Fontaine, she is not a prosecutor, she is just Furina the cringefail princess.  We meet Furina as Furina, and later on only, we see her with her Prosecutor face. Furina is not a prosecutor, outside of the Courthouse.

I don’t even have to explain how much Traveler plays lawyer. We are, and I cannot stress it enough, NOT lawyers (yes, even you who developed an unhealthy obsession with Ace Attorney before Genshin). The developers even took the time to develop an entire new gameplay to really, really highlight that is a behavior that the Traveler can only have in the Courthouse. Traveler is not a lawyer outside of the courthouse.

Neuvillette is a bit of a special case. We do meet him for the first time in the Courthouse, as a Judge. But once again, the moment we meet him outside of the courthouse, he is much more approachable, definitely not the same persona as when he bitchslapped my problematic Harbinger into the Meropides prison [we are so going to write something about the Meropides prison once I have played enough 4.1 my friends – update post 4.1: ok Mihoyo that was weak commentary on the privatization of prison and prison labour but I’ll take it]. Neuvillette is probably the one that is the most associated with his courthouse persona, but there is still this gap between Neuvillette-Judge and Neuvillette-reflecting-in-the-end-of-Chapter-II.

So everyone is just themselves in their daily life, but there is something about a Courthouse that turns people into their judicial role. That’s what we call the liminality of the courthouse (Hadar, 1999). And it exists IRL, in a way shockingly close to what we see in the Opera Epiclese.

Magistrates, whether prosecutors or judges, do not act in their own names, they have a role to play. Someone woke up that morning, had breakfast, swore at the neighbour who did not park properly again, spilled some coffee on their documents again ffs, stumbled a bit on the little steps leading to the courthouse, and then, they put on their costume and started to play the role of the judge. As someone who has been in what can only be referred to as “backstage”  of a court , and entered the courthouse with the magistrates, I cannot stress enough how drastic the shift in person is the moment a magistrate steps into the space of the trial room.  

From there on, they are a Role. Furina, like any prosecutor, is not a prosecutor, until they are The Prosecutor, and then they are not themselves anymore, in the enclosed space of the courthouse. Have you ever seen a lawyer talk in their daily life the way to talk in a courthouse? No. Someone is just some person, until their put on the robe and their Lawyer Face and start their Lawyer Movement and Lawyer Tone. Traveler cannot go all OBJECTION when they have a disagreement with a random shopkeeper in Teyvat. The game doesn’t even give you the option – because you are not lawyer, unless you are in the court. None actually plays a lawyer, unless they are in the courthouse.

And an adversarial model encourages this. You have character, but for it to be a play, or an opera, you need a narrative (murder, ok, that will kickstart a narrative) and you need dramatic tension. Drama is created by the opposition of two characters having opposite goals, confronting each other. Simonett, a former Minessotta Supreme Court Judge, has a fascinating article called “The Trial as One of the Performing Art”, which really ecapsulates how an adversarial system is built on this drama:

‘The trial has a protagonist, and antagnonist, a proscenium and an audience, a story to be told and a problem to be resolved, all usually in three acts”.

More than an inquisitory model (hello, fellow continental Europeans), parties are encouraged to bounce off each other, take initiative, undermine and interact with each other. US courthouse TV shows loooove that, and Genshin absolutely leaned into that. The potential for drama was so strong and intrinsic to the story that For the first time, we got to play a character that was not even with the traveler: Traveler was off investigating, and we played Navia in the courthouse, because the sheer drama of being in the courthouse is too good for the game to pass.

Do you see it yet? Here is more. A judicial role is a role. IRL, a lot of it is emphasized by the robes -the - sometimes complete with wigs and accessories- that judges and magistrates must wear before entering the space of the courthouse. You put them on like you put on a costume -defendant, prosecution, judge and even audience alike (Cabatingan, 2018), there is a ritual of preparing for the performance of a trial the way you prepare for a play. Genshin characters cannot change their clothes [give us a proper fancy-af-judge-robe for Neuvilette Mihoyo you COWARDS], so the game does all it can to realllllyy show you a separation between the judicial role and the actor playing I in the courthouse.

Part 3: Game designers said yes this an Opera and a Courthouse because these are the same thing and they are right

[The urge to include Foucault in this section, but I do not have Discipline and Punish with me rn, rip]

Ok, ok, why not. But what about the stuff that is not in your random courthouse, like a damn AUDIENCE and the fact that it takes place in an actual OPERA ?

Aight, we gotta dive a bit deeper into two things: the role of audience in the judicial spectacular, and studies on legal architecture/judicial space. I told you legal research was cool.

Let’s start with the most obvious one: architecture.

The architecture of Courthouse is actually really important for the delivery of justice. The building embodies the task itself, and targets evert single person that interacts with the building in any way? It matters specifically because we take it for granted, that this this is just a building, that there cannot be more to it. Or: “Law in its everydayness, banks on the usage of visual means of representation, for they seem to lack artifice, and thus enjoy high persuasiveness” (Kumar, 2017, also this is a study on the architecture of the Indian Supreme court and it is so good). But thi is, of course, on purpose.

My friends, your local courthouse looks like an opera. Recently, I went to a play which was entirely a trial, and they barely had to do anything to set-up the scene because… the opera looks like a courthouse, and vice versa. Fontaine’s Opera Epiclese is this on steroid, and also actually used for entertainment like the magic shows, but its architecture and structure are so close to a proper courthouse that once you see it you cannot unsee it. Not matter how different they might look from each other, all, ALL courtroom have the same setup:

Judges on an elevated position compared to all other parties : Neuvillette absolutely kills it here [my man is placed so high up I was close to writing something about the religiosity of justice.]

Prosecution and accused on two opposite sides, virtually separated by the judge, even putting the defendant in their own little liminal space in the liminal space (Zoettl, 2016, Mulcahy, 2007)

Audience space and trial space clearly separated, with interdiction for the audience to enter the trial space

Audience space allowing to clearly see all angles of the trial space

The architecture of courthouse is strikingly similar to that of an opera’s, both in its spatial organization and its grandiose. The entire building is an opera, not just the ground of the stage. You even have a lobby, the space right in the Opera but not the courtroom, which is very similar to the space where people mingle during the interlude at the Opera – the social settings were many legal negotiations happen (Hansen, 2008)

[Fun fact: I am pretty sure the design of the audience space of the Opera Epiclese was inspired by two Parisian Opera houses: the Théâtre de la Comédie Française et the Théâtre du Châtelet. The stage itself is almost more church-like ; I am curious if anyone knows what the inspiration for the “outside building” actually was, for the Opera Epiclese?]

Eltringham (2012) has some really cool writings about the architecture, and people interact with the structure of courts (in his case, the International Criminal for Rwanda) and how all these features contribute to making the courthouse this liminal space where people can play their role, whether they realise it or not.

But, Almost-doctor, I hear you say, what about the spectacle ?! The audience enjoying the show ?!

Ah, yes. The audience. Just as with an Opera, the audience and the actors enter through differentiated means (the “segregation of circulatory systems”), all with their own point of access to the stage or the seats, and never the two shall meet. It is so important to a court system that you will find this feature highlighted by the architects that renovated the Bordeaux Courthouse and the US courthouse design and planning guide [These are just fun and striking illustration I stumbled on while writing this, you can find dozens of others from any given country]. These differentiated access path help reinforce the liminality of the courthouse not just for the actors, but for us, the audience as well.

You could even agree, with Garapon, that the audience itself is “playing” the audience, in the Courthouse (go read Garapon’s 2004 book, if you read French, it’s so good I swear and like it fueled 90% of whatever this word vomit is)). You are not really yourself, you have new, liminal role of spectator. A trial has a “need for a public”, even a silent one. “'Performance always intends an audience”, for Kapferere. and we can indeed talk about a Performance of Justice, when talking about how justice unfolds in the courthouse, especially in a criminal trial (Sausdal and Lohne, 2021).

The audience is an inherent part of the spectacle of justice – because is there a spectacle if there I no audience? If comedians perform a play with no audience, did it really happen? In the words of our own European Court of Human Rights (I am quoting the ECtHR on Tumblr.com, what is life): “Justice must not only be done, but must also be seen to be done” (Delcourt v Belgium, 1970). For Garfinkel “Legal rituals ... depend on the outside witness to confer on them not only recognition but validity” (Garfinkel, 1956);

Or, to put it more eloquently: “The need for the presence of a validating public at trials is enshrined in many constitutions and built into the very fabric of court complexes throughout the world. (…) Tthe court as a whole requires its reflection in the bodies of validating witnesses in order that this created place will bring sufficient gravity to itself.” (Eltringham 2012).

If a courthouse was just about the truth, or the parties involved reaching an agreement on what the truth is, there would be no need for the theatrics. We could handle a trial in a meeting group like problem-solving session in any run-of-the-mill company. Put everyone around the table, have a moderator, have a decider. That actually exist, it’s called arbitration, and you may have never heard of it despite the absolutely enormous amount of money that are involved (we are talking literal Billions of dollars every year, here), because the whole point is that it is discrete and confidential. But that is not how trials are, anywhere. It does exist though. It is called private arbitration, a form of private justice that focuses on problem-solving, expediency and secrecy, often because my friends, it involves big names and big money.

But justice? My friend, it needs to be a spectacle. It needs an Opera. Because this is how it gains sociological legitimacy, and it needs sociological legitimacy to function. By having an audience, it gains transparency and accountability.

Conclusion: teaser on why the spectacle of justice is not necessarily always totally bad, but also I am too tired to fully argue that.

Now, you might that it’s a bad idea. That what Genshin is doing is denouncing this inherently spectacular aspect of Justice, that there is something inherently wrong in justice being public and publicized for the gain of legitimacy, and sure, spectacular justice can become a parody of justice or a manipulation of justice and this has happened many times in history. And yes, you could go for that (although show trials have typically been at the service of an authoritarian regime in a transition phase, rising or declining, and target political opponents, which we do not see in Fontaine) but… I have another take for you.

Justice being a spectacle is not…  inherently bad. 

Hear me out. Making justice into a spectacle does not have to affect its outcome. The presence of a public does not change the course of a play.

Spectacular justice brings elements of entertainment such as narrative fulfillment and catharsis. That is clearly what Fontainians want: a satisfying end to the story, the truth exposed. Justice as a spectacle help people make sense of their reality, comfort them in knowing that justice does prevail. That the guilty do not go scott-free, that the good guys win, that justice is transparent, that prosecutor need to be able to build a good story to prosecute, and there is no good story is there is not someone who caused harm, and a victim that deserves justice. And, from the information we have so far, this does not seem to lead to miscarriages of justices, or a generally biased justice system. But frankly this is too long already and I just wanted to show that the depiction of the Spectacular in everyday justice is actually present everywhere IRL, and Genshin is just providing a really handy illustration, at this point of the story.

The Fontanian system is fucked, don’t get me wrong, but that’s not about the spectacular on its own. Long story short since it be worth its own word-vomit-style essay, it’s because the jury has been replaced by ChatGPT and there is no civil court, only a criminal court, k bye.

[snarksalon]

MHA has a gender problem.

Before I begin unpacking my thoughts, I would like to make clear that I am aware that Shonen is a genre which caters to boys. I do not think that a genre catering to a specific demographic excuses poor writing choices.

I am not by any means the first person to make a case for the importance of well-written female characters, however, as a lifelong anime fan, poorly-written women are a consistent issue in many anime/manga. The treatment of female characters in MHA limits the story's potential and at times makes the manga utterly unbearable.

MHA presents us with an unequal society, however, in the world of MHA, women uniquely lose out. In the hero world, women are sexualised and clearly provided with fewer opportunities than men. This is reflected in both the gender distribution of the classes at UA as well as the hero rankings themselves. There are six girls in both class 1a and class 1b and there are only two women in the top 10 of the hero billboard chart, those being Mirko and Ryukyu. The costumes which female heroes in the story wear are often highly sexualised and impractical, and on numerous occasions in the story the sexualisation of these women is openly demonstrated to the watcher/reader. In our first interaction with Mt Lady, she is sexualised with her butt being focused on.

Need I say much more.

This isn't the only example of the sexism within the narrative. During the internships following the sports festival, Momo and Kendo internships with Uwabami, and instead of gaining valuable experience they participate in a hair commercial. To make matters even worse, the message that Uwabami imparts to them is that keeping up appearances is crucial. Here, Momo and Kendo are deprived of gaining training and development and the harsh reality of what the hero world is like for women sets in. This experience is humiliating, and the narrative plays this off as joke.

Beyond these two examples, other sexist things occur within the narrative which are barely commented on. There's a headline in a newspaper which references a rescue that Tsuyu and Uraraka are responsible for which refers to them not by name but as "two cuties". Endeavour literally purchases Rei to be his wife and domestically abuses her (let's not even get into the horrific power dynamics here). The women in class 1-a are sidelined and frequently saved by their male counterparts. Mineta frequently sexually harasses and violates women in the story (grabbing Tsuyu's chest in the USJ arc comes to mind here). Momo is made to wear a revealing costume because she wont be able to phase the items she creates through the fabric but Mirio's costume can stay on as the fabric in his costume is interwoven with his own hair.

Additionally, power scaling in this manga is gendered. The majority of female characters have non-combative quirks, and the female characters who have combat-oriented quirks are usually weaker than their male counterparts. Ryuku for example, struggles to take down Rikiya Katsukame in the overhaul arc and has to utilise her three student interns to accomplish this. In the overhaul arc, the girls are majorly sidelined and are thrust into a support role. Many of the women in the manga are sidekicks, and a lot of the female pro-heroes don't have heavy-hitting quirks. When characters do have heavy-hitting quirks, Horikoshi's poor power scaling becomes most obvious. For example, Mina's quirk allows her to produce acid capable of melting metal and she isn't regarded as having a formidable quirk within the story. Similarly, Neijire's wave motion quirk is under utilised.

Most disturbingly, though sexism is deeply entrenched throughout the story, none of the female characters acknowledge its existence and this is a bad writing choice because it is antithetical to the values held by someone who is pursuing a career as a hero. In the MHA universe, heroism is pursued to help others and to achieve justice within society. Within the story, heroes are presented as the protectors of the weak and the facilitators of order within society. Thus, as a reader it is hard to believe that women who are pursuing heroism as a career path would be content with their own oppression. The women in the story also do not strive to be at the top, save for Mirko who is the main exception.

UA is the top hero school in the country and has a highly selective admission process. It is astounding that the majority (if not all) of female students that we meet are comfortable with becoming support or rescue heroes. In classes 1a and 1b there isn't a single female student who has the ambition of becoming one of the school's top three. The female students are not as ambitious or competitive as their male peers and are forced into gendered rivalries with other women in the story (see the Kendo and Momo rivalry, Ochacho vs Toga).

The inclusion of moments of critical reflection by the female characters within the story would have made them feel more three-dimensional. If Momo's self-doubt during the final exam arc had been the result of being chosen for an internship due to her looks rather then her hero ability, it would have made her self-doubt more understandable and would have demonstrated her discontent with her physical appearance being valued over her talent. If Tsuyu and Uraraka had been disheartened that the major takeaway from their rescue was the result of their physical appearance, this would have added another dimension to these characters. Hakagure having to be naked all of the time is played as a joke at her expense, but understanding Hakagure's thoughts and feelings about this would have allowed us as an audience to greater empathise with her rather than viewing her as a spectacle.

Ultimately, MHA's depiction of women is disappointing and a lot of potential is wasted here.

[sapphia]

From my post about how NZ’s far right wanted to abolish the human rights commission but instead installed a gay racist transphobe instead.

…The more [TERF] beliefs became incompatible with core feminism, and the more core feminism became interested in exploring gender, scientifically and sociologically, as an ever-changing construct informed by but not limited to base biology, and the more radfems became consumed with their “cause” of getting trans women out of their spaces and away from “LGB resources” (actual argument that used to get propagated), the further away TERFs pushed themselves from mainstream feminism until they found themselves on the same side as the groups to which they were once fundamentally opposed: anti-feminists, homophobes, conservative religious groups, anti-abortionists, and neo nazis. Thus, radical feminism is perhaps one of the few true demonstrations of the horseshoe theory, where a group became so radicalised it jumped the iron gap and travelled all around to the other end of the horseshoe.

TERFs were great boons to the cause, and came with a huge inbuilt advantage for the right: many of them are lesbians, giving them a rare LGBT ally and a demonstration of the ‘harm’ trans people were causing.

The reason why so many TERFs are lesbians is partly because of queer intracommunity politics, and partly because the academic and social roots of TERFism originate in the UK and from UK academic feminism, led by their universities and which was always particularly ‘anti-men’ in its approach, producing student movements back in the 80s and 90s that discouraged women from dating men, encouraging them to remain celibate or to date women instead, and it’s this separatist ideology where radical feminism finds its roots. If the concept sounds familiar, that’s because there is currently a South Korean feminist trend based on similar ideals making waves in the West.

In fundamental ways, radical feminists and the far right are well matched: they’ve always shared a particular lack of complex understanding of varying structures of oppression, as I remember very vividly from online discourse back before radical feminism devolved so much it fully segregated itself from the mainstream.

Radical feminists were obsessed with working out who had privilege over others, or who were less privileged, and this resulted in complicated and very flawed calculations of compounding oppressions. For example, does a gay black man have more or less privilege than a straight white woman?

Boiling this down to its essential premise of how much is a marginalisation “worth” is what aligns the mindset of radical feminists with that of the far right. Neither group truly includes a full variety of perspectives to contribute to demonstrating and explaining the complexities in the ways our society treats marginalised groups. Such transgressive thinking is antithetical to their worldview and contrary to the norms they are invested in enforcing.

You don’t have to be highly educated or culturally engaged to see the inherent issues of trying to so distinctly define people into categories. Common sense would also tell you different groups have different privileges, different concerns, and that these would reveal themselves in different ways and need addressing with different solutions. Both a black man and a woman may be disadvantaged in finding a job vs your average white man, but one would have more reason to be worried accepting a drink from a stranger in a bar while the other might be more worried being pulled over by the cops. These real-life concerns can’t be differentiated down into a finite value.

(Not that either of these situations aren’t a threat to the other individual — women have plenty of reasons to fear the power of cops, and gay men who are victims of hate crimes are regularly picked up in gay bars.)

Common sense also would make you wonder how much it matters. If you want to add up all the different ways people can be disenfranchised, you’ll soon end up with a checklist of -isms too long to be of any use and able to find ways to fit anyone inside at least one of them, which is sort of the whole point. And in checklisting everything you’ll still be managing to ignore any nuance and the entire concept of classism, probably.

This was roughly the outcome of discourse between the left and radical feminists: “Your math doesn’t work out.” And like a true ally of the right, the TERFs said, “Doesn’t matter, we believe it anyway.”

Comment

Like the right, radical feminists struggle to conceptualise and explain the effects of compounding marginalisation, usually because they themselves tend to be quite privileged. Radical feminism was born from those first generations of women able to attend universities, and their demographic reflects that. Most radical feminists (actual radical feminists and not just people jumping on the transphobia bandwagon) were white women, able-bodied, on the richer side of the poverty line — and in fact, the exclusion of black women in the UK from feminist studies in universities has become a recent subject of criticism from black feminists, as Western concepts of norms have been drastically affected by the narrowness of the perspective of the field, and so in this way, defining ‘male’ and ‘female’ as distinct categories with distinct traits particularly disenfranchises Black people and other people and cultures of colour who maintain different ideals and norms, who have different physical features, and who resultantly find themselves alienated from a conversation dominated by the white voice.

Although their views on how gender should be divided in society are transformative, TERF positions on gender themselves are regressive and conservative, leaning into anti-scientific understandings of sex, gender, and the wider world that have steadily put the movement more and more at odds with academia and also, sometimes, with reality. TERFs, both women and lesbians, are members of marginalised groups who feel their space is being encroached upon by people who, by their own rubric, are evaluated as more ‘privileged’ than they are, yet are seen as ‘more harshly oppressed’ by others within their community, threatening their status and position within established movements. Having quite literally been the subgroup of feminists attempting put a value on oppression in order to determine who is “most oppressed” or navigate oppression dynamics, anti-trans feminists were women who found their position threatened by new groups and by their transformative ideas around the structures upon which their shared oppression was based.

Thus, the response of TERFs became to deny trans people, and particularly trans women, a position within the rubric in an attempt to stymie the growth of a group and ideology who threatened their position, authority and, they felt, their identities.

Conservative branches of movements formed by attempting to uphold outdated, unscientific ideals were ever-branching offshoots in leftism at this time. In the 2010s, within the LGBT community, radical feminist lesbians found allyship with ‘Truscum’ — trans people who believed that only people who experience clinical levels of dysphoria can be transgender. This movement almost entirely died by the end of the decade, but those sparse people and ideals remaining from the movement too have become very valuable allies to the far right. Like detransitioners, these rare examples of trans people holding non-normative subversive beliefs around gender and transness are frequently referenced, presented and paraded by anti-science fringe groups like the Free Speech Union as examples that prove their points and that some minorities support their ideas.

Truscum groups too were a response to new ideas of gender and sex threatening established science, identities, and ‘power structures’. Truscum-identifying trans people were generally individuals with a personal belief in the gender binary, were deeply affected by self-directed transphobia, and invested in the medical model. Truscums upheld the medical model of transitioning (that would eventually leave them behind), the gender binary, and then positioned themselves as scientifically-verified “outsiders” relative to that binary, a position that became threatened by the growing self-identification of non-binary individuals who signified a shift in thinking within the trans community away from gender as immutable and based in science, and instead used science to further question the sociological underpinnings of our concepts of sex.

I explain this to give you a cause-and-effect, psychosocial explanation of how these reactionary movements and beliefs spring up within movements in an attempt to demonstrate where positions like Stephen Rainbow’s come from — people in a marginalised community who turn on what many of us would see as a fellow marginalised group and what some of us (and many more bigoted or distant perspectives) would see as the same marginalised group.

Lesbians and feminists were not the only groups to have conservative social elements that felt threatened by encroachments of new marginalised identities within their community of marginalisation; it was demonstrated by gay men as well, just more bluntly and without them really forming an identity or body of academia or psuedoscience around their discomfort. But it’s through this ostracisation from their own communities caused by their unfavourable perception of, and then bigotry towards, new-entrant groups threatening the status quo, that groups like TERFs and gay men like Stephen Rainbow are pushed towards the radical right.

I also explain this to so you can get a sense for the categorical thinking that underpins these shared philosophies, and the way both groups put ‘value’ on these distinct categories of marginalisation. Radical feminists do put value on oppression in pretty much the exact way the right believe the mainstream left put such value on oppressions, and this has morphed into TERF ideas of status that the right think dominate left-wing thought.

The right count the monetary value of affirmative action initiatives and reparations, note the attentiveness of the public to marginalised issues, confuse the raising of diverse voices with the raising of status, and hold that the effects of these actions are a sort of ‘privilege’. The actual reasons behind these groups getting different levels of money and attention at different times is complex and much more to do with equity or recompense than value, but in dismissing this complexity, the right are attempting to ‘solve’ an unsolvable equation asking which marginalisation is worth what value to the left, while using entirely the wrong variables.

Because the far right are very strong believers in the value these marginalised identities must hold, ACT see appointing a gay human rights commissioner as “justifying” itself through marginalisation “points”, expecting him to be more acceptable or palatable to the left and to the public. They believe his oppressions qualify him or make him suitable, or somehow shield him from scrutiny, and they believe they can select by marginalisation in the same way Clarence Thomas was a Black Republican placed on the Supreme Court. They fail to recognise the way the majority of the LGBT community has embraced and incorporated the social, scientific, and gender theory behind current demographics and understandings of trans people and that, for the vast majority of the LGBT community, this is a point of unity and understanding between groups and identities.

Right now, gay men are frequently targeted by homophobic hate crimes, but that is not necessarily going to make them any more grateful to see an anti-trans gay man as Human Rights Commissioner because while it doesn’t affect his ability to advocate for gay men per se, his advocacy for queer rights ad a whole is likely to be compromised due to not truly sharing the same perspective as the community he supposedly serves.

This will not stop some conservative, privileged gay men from viewing any attempts at Rainbow’s removal as further alienation from their own community by “the left”. Rainbow’s placement in this position is a victory for the right either way.

In appointing Rainbow, ACT entirely miss the irony of what they are doing; they are the ones appointing people to positions entirely because of identity. The left, the wider population even, genuinely see the value and perspective different relevant minority groups can bring to these positions, and that is the basis for which minority identities can “favour” applicants for such roles. It is the right who have themselves boiled someone down to what “label” they can bring the role in order to better disguise their corrupt, bigoted appointment implicitly placed to further their race war.

Who’s playing identity politics NOW, Seymour?

[mudwerks]

(via AZ panel votes to ban Satan displays from public property)

Arizona’s legislature is STILL a bunch of anti-constitution religious nuts:

PHOENIX — Calling Satan “an explicit enemy of God,’’ a state senator is pushing to keep displays of him, by any name, off of public property.

Just Satan. Christmas trees and menorahs would still be allowed.

”It is a desecration of our public property in the United States of America and in the state of Arizona for a satanic display, memorial, altar, etc., to be on public property,’’ said Sen. Jake Hoffman, a Queen Creek Republican.

He pushed the measure through the Senate Government Committee Wednesday on a 5-1 party-line vote.

All that drew questions.

”It is because it’s insulting to your religion?’’ asked Sen. Juan Mendez, D-Tempe.

Hoffman said that’s not his motive.

The legal issue goes beyond that.

The Satanic Temple has been recognized by the Internal Revenue Service as a religion and entitled to the same charitable status as any other.

“I am genuinely impressed that in only 25 words this bill seems to violate three separate clauses of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution,’’ testified Micah Mangione, an individual who showed up to testify against the bill.

These, he said, are prohibiting the government from establishing a religion, barring government interference with the free exercise of religion, and guaranteeing the right to free speech. He warned the Republicans there are implications for their support of SB 1279.

”If you can go after the Satanic Temple, which is a religion, what about paganism next?’’ Mangione asked. “What about Judaism next? How about Islam? How about LDS?’’

What the legislation does is declare that only Christian values matter, he said.

Hoffman said he doesn’t see it that way.

”It is legally and constitutionally suspect to argue that Satan, someone who is universally known to be an explicit enemy of God, is somehow a religion,’’ he said. “That is an absolutely ludicrous statement to make.’’

Another individual testifying against the bill, Tonia Francis, told Hoffman what he is proposing interferes with her First Amendment rights.

Hoffman disagreed, saying she remains free to practice whatever she wants — just as long as nothing is erected on public property. Any arguments beyond that are off base, he said.

”So you think that it’s both legally and constitutionally OK to argue that Satan … who is universally known to be explicitly the enemy of God, antithetical to God, you think that’s targeting your religion?’’ Hoffman asked.

”Universally known to you?’’ Francis asked.

”To, literally, everyone,’’ Hoffman responded. “That’s not a point that’s debatable. Would you not say that Satan is the enemy of God?

”No,’’ Francis said.

Hoffman called her testimony “disingenuous.’’

Mendez called the legislation “a straight-up attack on the rights of people and religion.’’

Hoffman can’t even imagine that other people don’t believe in his chosen religion’s world view. 

And he’s an elected legislator?!?!

[soupfact]

my opinion on anything watcher has long since passed being relevant but my main thoughts are

privatized streaming is always antithetical to any 'leftist' notion of universal, available services and is going to alienate their most devoted fans (international)

that being said, I also think it is one of the only survivable tools that isn't literally playing into youtube's hands, which the watcher boys have aired grievances about before

editors, camera people, directors, etc deserve fair compensation and reasonable timelines.

and from a very brief glance at view analytics, I don't think watcher is quote-unquote profitable. popular and afloat maybe, but it's not what 2018 was (nor do i think it can be), so they were probably forced to switch gears

watcher is ultimately a business. trying to hold them (esp shane) to the same standards we hold other comrades is impossible as they literally have different interests

steven is (historically) a bigger part of artistic direction than people want to believe (a lot of the behind-camera talent that leads to the high-quality aspect, for instance)

and ryan and shane are a bigger part of business than people think, being literally joint CEOs (knowing to play up and into their friendship, cutting/backburnering shows that won't turn profits)

tldr bad business decision made by people who aren't business people. which is good, because business is about extracting value, but also bad, because there's no good move here and they picked a bad one

[mariacallous]

According to an August report from the Russian state news agency TASS, the Kremlin plans to become a “safe haven for people trying to escape Western liberal ideals.” To this end, Russia will introduce a new visa pathway for foreigners fleeing countries whose policies run contrary to “traditional Russian spiritual and moral values.” The report, although sparse on detail, claims that three-month visas may be issued for these spiritual refugees as early as last month. Discussion of the policy in the Russian information sphere has been colored by visions of Moscow as the leader of a future world in which so-called traditional values can thrive. Indeed, the idea for the policy was allegedly voiced to Russian President Vladimir Putin by an Italian university student during a virtual forum titled Strong Ideas for a New Time.

On the surface, Moscow appears to be resuscitating the old Soviet practice of painting itself as the center of resistance against the West. Back then, it was against capitalism; today it is against the West’s supposed liberal decadence. But there is something thoroughly 21st century in the new rhetoric and policies. The visa plan is the latest in a series of public relations measures designed to challenge the nature of borders in an increasingly digital world. The regime is not seriously looking to attract immigrants and seems unembarrassed by the paltry numbers of Westerners taking up the offer. It is looking to strengthen its virtual coalition of fellow travelers—a maneuver that has dangerous implications for liberal nation-states seeking to counter the Kremlin’s influence.

At home, Russia’s vision of “traditional values” consists of a draconian web of pro-Russian Orthodox, misogynist, and anti-LGBTQ+ laws, as well as the teaching of a mythologized history imbued with a cult of masculine, military strength. Frequently, these policies are driven by conspiracy theories as much as any state ideology. More often than not, they simply rail against anything Russia associates with Western liberalism. Whatever trends prevail in progressive Western society, from trans-positive messaging to support for Black Lives Matter, is decried as anti-Russian and antithetical to “traditional values.” In this sense, Russia’s campaign in support of its alleged values is a project rooted in the country’s relationship with the outside.

Indeed, defending “traditional values” is at the center of the Putin regime’s domestic and foreign policy. The Kremlin’s updated 2023 National Security Concept mentions “tradition” no fewer than 16 times, claiming that “a wide-spread form of interference in the internal affairs of sovereign states has become the imposition of destructive neoliberal ideological attitudes that run counter to traditional spiritual and moral values.” Moscow has anointed itself the leader of “international efforts to ensure respect for and protection of universal and traditional spiritual and moral values.” Russia seeks to weave support for “traditional values” into its policies abroad by funding sympathetic far-right groups across Europe and North America and by linking economic and security policy to the defense of values in international forums.

Moscow’s history of proclaiming itself as the center of an international political vanguard dates to the early Bolshevik era. Throughout the 1920s and 1930s, Soviet propagandists told their citizens that they were “the greatest internationalists” in the world and that Westerners were flocking to seek refuge in the fledgling Soviet Union. The state did plenty to attract both sympathizers and industrial specialists to its territory.

A series of high-profile Western leftists were treated to Potemkin tours; among those who visited in the 1930s were George Bernard Shaw, André Gide, Henri Barbusse, and Romain Rolland. Shaw, who was granted a private audience with Joseph Stalin on his visit in 1931, lauded Russia as the home of a spiritual resurrection that would rectify the social ills he saw in the West. He would later write to the Soviet author Maxim Gorky that he was “as strongly susceptible as anyone to the fascination of the Russian character.” Shaw was fascinated with the idea of Russia not as it was, but as an antithesis to the West: a mystical place where his own dreams could be realized.

More often, though, illusions were shattered. Gide was thoroughly disheartened by his own visit to the Soviet Union. Appalled by the lack of freedom of speech, the uniformity of opinion in Pravda, and the climate of fear, he wrote: “I doubt whether in any other country in the world, even Hitler’s Germany, thought be less free, more bowed down, more fearful (terrorized), more vassalized.” Fellow intellectuals who tried living in the Soviet Union, such as the anarchists Alexander Berkman and Emma Goldman, reacted even more strongly, publishing works that violently decried the persecution of the early Soviet era and fleeing within months.

Meanwhile, the ordinary leftist refugees, workers, and students who continued to immigrate to the Soviet Union from various capitalist countries tended to leave as disgruntled as they arrived and typically went home as soon as hard currency or other special support from the Kremlin dried up. As foreigners, they were also under permanent suspicion, and many disappeared in the Gulag. Despite its grandiose claims, Moscow was never an appealing destination for many foreign fellow travelers—especially once they experienced the reality of Soviet life.

Recent publicity tours in Putin’s Russia mirror the early celebrity visits to the Soviet Union—although today’s visitors tend to share Shaw’s excitement, not Gide’s revulsion, about life in Moscow’s realm. Right-wing provocateurs such as Jackson Hinkle and, most famously, Tucker Carlson have popped up in Moscow to record adulatory videos for their vast online audiences. Carlson, who posted clips of an interview he conducted with Putin this year, claimed to have been “radicalized” by his trip to Moscow. His video diaries depicted a world of fully stocked grocery stores, immaculate subway stations, and grandiose performances at the Bolshoi Theater. Even Tasty, Full Stop, the copycat McDonald’s that sprung up after the fast food giant’s departure from Russia in 2022, won Carlson’s approval.

Carlson’s Russia seems to be nothing but propaganda: the depiction of a fake world, untarnished by the poverty and violence that is endemic in Russian society. Yet Carlson carefully crafted an image of a Russia that is, essentially, a Disneyfied America: Here was a rich white man treated like royalty and able to access every aspect of an idealized American life—even McDonald’s—in a society shorn of the perceived messiness of today’s America, and especially of its supposedly deleterious progressive values. Like Shaw, then, Carlson projected onto Russia the hyperreality of a desired homeland: the dream America of the MAGA brigade. Moscow’s behavior on the international stage may challenge Washington’s geopolitical supremacy, but its “traditional values” rhetoric functions as an escapist simulation.

Today’s online proponents of “traditional values”—whether in the United States, Hungary, Austria or elsewhere—can thus react enthusiastically to Russia’s plans to welcome them as immigrants, even if they have no intention of ever moving to the country. In response to the policy announcement, Alex Jones, the bankrupted Infowars founder, encouraged “true patriots” to “stand up for spiritual and moral values” in a post on X. On Truth Social, the right-wing social network founded by former U.S. President Donald Trump, Moscow’s plan was met with enthusiasm—not for Russia as some sort of conservative utopia, but for the rejection of cultural traits associated with progressive America. The fantasy of Russia as the “new America,” as one Truth user put it, provides the raw material for bonding around conspiracy theories and anti-progressivism from the comfort of home—and makes it possible for self-styled patriots to sympathize more with Russia than with their own country.

Only a handful of fellow travelers on the traditional values ticket have attempted to make the move to Russia. While the Russian state has recently trumpeted an American family’s escape from “the dissolution of traditional moral and family values,” the experience of other recent arrivals has left them desperate to “jump on a plane and get out of here.” Russian authorities do little to help with schooling, jobs, language training, and so on—and claims of bold projects to house incoming foreigners turn out to be little more than amplified rumors. Presumably the latest policy announcement will be another element of simulated reality: the creation of the idea of Russia as the home of traditional values without anything to back up that vision.

However, when 21st-century fellow travelers are able to bond over and amplify their visions of Russia as the new America in the online world, Russia’s approach may turn out to be more than an easily debunked PR scheme. Pravda’s monotonous reel of uniform opinions shocked Gide, but today’s Russia sympathizers are more likely to be found in polarized social bubbles where the order of the day is conformity, not plurality, of opinion. Unlike their 1930s predecessors, who could not get a sense of Soviet reality from abroad, today’s fellow travelers have Russian reality at their fingertips—if they care to look. This includes thousands of hours of footage of war crimes, evidence of widespread oppression of dissenting voices, and accounts of the systematic repression of religious believers outside the Kremlin-controlled Russian Orthodox Church.

Yet in the fragmented world of social media, where anyone can live in their own self-constructed reality, the disaffected are able to project an imagined anti-liberal vision of reality onto Russia. In the United States, this culminates in MAGA voters giving a higher approval rating to Putin than to their own president, something that was unimaginable in the 20th century outside a tiny, politically irrelevant fringe. Parties that have aligned themselves with the rhetoric of “traditional values” have enjoyed real successes across Europe, including recently in France and Austria, and the MAGA movement may yet carry Trump back into the White House. Russia’s “traditional values” project may not win it a war or generate an influx of migrants, but it has a clear effect on other countries’ politics.

Most analysts consider Russia’s dream of creating a multipolar world in which its territorial, economic, and military might acts as a counterpoint to U.S. or Chinese hegemony a fantasy. Equally outlandish is the idea, much propagated by Russian nationalists, of a new Eurasian empire—or even, given Russia’s depleting strength, reuniting Ukraine, Belarus, and today’s Russian Federation into a “Great Russia.” But analysis that overemphasizes the physical over the virtual—or dismisses online movements as mere propaganda and trolling—fails to recognize 21st-century realities.

The most important future clash of civilizations is not based on geography. Instead, we are beginning to see the creation of virtual civilizations: boundary-less political allegiances defined by amorphous and fluid values perpetuated through the internet. Citizens with similar affinities in Russia, the United States, France, Germany, and wherever find themselves having more in common—and spending more time—with each other than with their own compatriots who don’t share their political views. Putin’s Russia may not be about to conquer Ukraine or create a multipolar world order, but it is working to reorder political identities by encouraging foreigners to view Moscow as a simulated realization of their own political dreams.

[warningsine]

The Internet Archive has lost a major legal battle—in a decision that could have a significant impact on the future of internet history. Today, the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ruled against the long-running digital archive, upholding an earlier ruling in Hachette v. Internet Archive that found that one of the Internet Archive’s book digitization projects violated copyright law.

Notably, the appeals court’s ruling rejects the Internet Archive’s argument that its lending practices were shielded by the fair use doctrine, which permits for copyright infringement in certain circumstances, calling it “unpersuasive.”

In March 2020, the Internet Archive, a San Francisco-based nonprofit, launched a program called the National Emergency Library, or NEL. Library closures caused by the pandemic had left students, researchers, and readers unable to access millions of books, and the Internet Archive has said it was responding to calls from regular people and other librarians to help those at home get access to the books they needed.

The NEL was an offshoot of an ongoing digital lending project called the Open Library, in which the Internet Archive scans physical copies of library books and lets people check out the digital copies as though they’re regular reading material instead of ebooks. The Open Library lent the books to one person at a time—but the NEL removed this ratio rule, instead letting large numbers of people borrow each scanned book at once.

The NEL was the subject of backlash soon after its launch, with some authors arguing that it was tantamount to piracy. In response, the Internet Archive within two months scuttled its emergency approach and reinstated the lending caps. But the damage was done. In June 2020, major publishing houses, including Hachette, HarperCollins, Penguin Random House, and Wiley, filed the lawsuit.

In March 2023, the district court ruled in favor of the publishers. Judge John G. Koeltl found that the Internet Archive had created “derivative works,” arguing that there was “nothing transformative” about its copying and lending. After the initial ruling in Hachette v. Internet Archive, the parties negotiated terms—the details of which have not been disclosed—though the archive still filed an appeal.

James Grimmelmann, a professor of digital and internet law at Cornell University, says the verdict is “not terribly surprising” in the context of how courts have recently interpreted fair use.

The Internet Archive did eke out a Pyrrhic victory in the appeal. Although the Second Circuit sided with the district court’s initial ruling, it clarified that it did not view the Internet Archive as a commercial entity, instead emphasizing that it was clearly a nonprofit operation. Grimmelmann sees this as the right call: “I’m glad to see that the Second Circuit fixed that mistake.” (He signed an amicus brief in the appeal arguing that it was wrong to classify the use as commercial.)

“Today’s appellate decision upholds the rights of authors and publishers to license and be compensated for their books and other creative works and reminds us in no uncertain terms that infringement is both costly and antithetical to the public interest,” Association of American Publishers president and CEO Maria A. Pallante said in a statement. “If there was any doubt, the Court makes clear that under fair use jurisprudence there is nothing transformative about converting entire works into new formats without permission or appropriating the value of derivative works that are a key part of the author’s copyright bundle.”

In a statement, Internet Archive director of library services Chris Freeland expressed disappointment “in today’s opinion about the Internet Archive’s digital lending of books that are available electronically elsewhere. We are reviewing the court’s opinion and will continue to defend the rights of libraries to own, lend, and preserve books.”

Dave Hansen, executive director of the Author’s Alliance, a nonprofit that often advocates for expanded digital access to books, also came out against the ruling. “Authors are researchers. Authors are readers,” he says. “IA’s digital library helps those authors create new works and supports their interests in seeing their works be read. This ruling may benefit the bottom line of the largest publishers and most prominent authors, but for most it will end up harming more than it will help.”

The Internet Archive’s legal woes are not over. In 2023, a group of music labels, including Universal Music Group and Sony, sued the archive in a copyright infringement case over a music digitization project. That case is still making its way through the courts. The damages could be up to $400 million, an amount that could pose an existential threat to the nonprofit.

The new verdict arrives at an especially tumultuous time for copyright law. In the past two years there have been dozens of copyright infringement cases filed against major AI companies that offer generative AI tools, and many of the defendants in these cases argue that the fair use doctrine shields their usage of copyrighted data in AI training. Any major lawsuit in which judges refute fair use claims are thus closely watched.

It also arrives at a moment when the Internet Archive’s outsize importance in digital preservation is keenly felt. The archive’s Wayback Machine, which catalogs copies of websites, has become a vital tool for journalists, researchers, lawyers, and anyone with an interest in internet history. While there are other digital preservation projects, including national efforts from the US Library of Congress, there’s nothing like it available to the public.

[beardedmrbean]

The suspended Columbia University student that proclaimed “Zionists don’t deserve to live” stood by his incendiary remarks Tuesday after an anti-Israel campus group walked back an apology it offered over the shocking statement last school year.  

Khymani James made clear he doesn’t regret spewing the hateful declaration before he was banished from the Ivy League school amid disruptive protests critical of Israel following the Oct. 7 Hamas terror attack.

“I will not allow anyone to shame me for my politics,” he tweeted on Tuesday. “Anything I said, I meant it.”

During a January disciplinary hearing with the university that he livestreamed and blasted on social media, James said that “Zionists don’t deserve to live comfortably, let alone Zionists don’t deserve to live.”

“Be grateful that I’m not just going out and murdering Zionists,” James added. “I’ve never hurt anyone in my life, and I hope to keep it that way.”

The videotaped remarks reemerged in April as anti-Israel protests intensified on campus. Columbia University Apartheid Divest, a student group of which James was a member, then posted a statement that read “Khymani’s words in January do not reflect his view, our values, nor the encampment’s community agreements,” the New York Times reported at the time.

But the anti-Israel organization apologized in an Instagram post Tuesday, stating the previous mea culpa “does not reflect Khymani or CUAD’s values or political lines.”

The group also said while the statement appeared to be on behalf of James, he had no involvement in it.

“We caused irrevocable harm to you by contributing to the ostracization you experienced from your fellow students, fellow organizers, the media, and the public,” the group posted online while stating James faced anti-blackness and queerphobia in the aftermath.

“By issuing a so-called ‘apology,’ CUAD exposed Khymani to even more hatred from white supremacist and queerphobic liberals and fascists, along with the neo-liberal media.”

In the same social media post where James stood by his repulsive remark, he thanked the group for setting “the record straight once and for all.”

The reversal from CUAD, which is made up of dozens of student organizations, incensed Jewish students that attend the university.

“They’re telling me very explicitly that I, as an Israeli, as a Zionist, and as a Jew have no right to live, much less study at the same institution as them,” PhD student Alon Levin told The Post.

“The justification of the desire to murder Zionists and the support for US designated foreign terrorist organizations by CUAD is entirely unsurprising because it’s nothing new,” said undergrad student Eden Yadega, who is part of Students Supporting Israel.

“The question is, why does Columbia still tolerate it? What line will these students have to cross before Columbia takes action?”

A Columbia spokesperson stressed it condemns any comments calling for violence.

“Statements advocating for violence or harm are antithetical to the core principles upon which this institution was founded,” the spokesperson said. “Calls for violence have no place at Columbia or any university.”

James filed a lawsuit against the school last month, arguing he was denied proper protocol when he was suspended in April.

James was actively involved in the anti-Israel encampment protest that took over Columbia starting in early April. ____________________________________

>James faced anti-blackness and queerphobia in the aftermath

poor thing can dish it out but can't take it then I guess,

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Nick Visser at HuffPost:

A fraternity member who directed monkey noises at a Black University of Mississippi student during an anti-war demonstration was kicked out of the organization on Friday after video of the encounter spread on social media. “Phi Delta Theta General Headquarters is aware of the video regarding the student protest at the University of Mississippi,” the organization wrote in a statement on Sunday. “The racist actions in the video were those of an individual and are antithetical to the values of Phi Delta Theta and the Mississippi Alpha chapter.” “The responsible individual was removed from membership on Friday, May 3.”

The confrontation took place during student demonstrations at the University of Mississippi, or Ole Miss, on Thursday. Protesters gathered to voice their opposition to the U.S.’ support of Israel during the country’s ongoing war against Hamas following the Oct. 7 attacks, part of a growing wave of demonstrations on university campuses around the country. As a small group of students chanted “Free Palestine” and “Stop the Genocide,” they were confronted by a far larger bloc of counter-protesters. Videos of the encounter showed the counter-protest group growing aggressive, surrounding and yelling at the demonstrators. In a disturbing moment, a white student is seen making monkey noises directed at a Black woman as others taunt and cheer.

Videos of the counter-protesters were shared widely on social media and prompted support and adulation from Republicans. Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves (R) said the response “warms my heart.” Rep. Mike Collins (R-Ga.) added his own cheers as the Black student was jeered, writing: “Ole Miss taking care of business.” Jaylin Smith, 24, told CNN she was the woman in the video. The Daily Mississippian, the university’s student newspaper, reported she was called “Lizzo” and various obscenities, with some chanting “Lock her up.”

James Staples, the man who was behind the racist monkey noises at a Black woman named Jaylin Smith during protests against Israel's genocide of Gaza, got booted from Ole Miss's Phi Delta Theta fraternity.

[crystalis]

-

"Why does the Biden administration support the Israeli genocide and war crimes even in the face of virtually universal condemnation, at massive expense, and to the point of totally debasing the rules-based international order? Why do it?

People fall back on narratives about the power of AIPAC in US elections etc, which is real but also doesn't capture the whole story. The truth is that US capitalism depends on it, and the US ruling class broadly understands this fact.

The key thing to understand is that capitalist growth and accumulation in the imperial core (the US, Britain, Germany etc) relies heavily on the appropriation of cheap inputs and resources from the periphery and semi-periphery of the world economy (broadly, the global South). They need the South remain a subordinated supplier within global commodity chains.

In order to maintain this arrangement, it is imperative for them to suppress sovereign economic development in the South. Because the "problem" with development is it means Southerners begin to produce for themselves and consume their own resources. This makes resources and inputs more expensive for the core, which constrains consumption and profits.

Economic sovereignty in the periphery threatens capital accumulation in the core. To avoid this, the core states constantly intervene to prevent or crush any movement or government in the periphery that seeks national liberation and economic sovereignty.

The US started to support the Zionist project in the 1960s, and invested heavily in the Israeli arms industry, with the explicit intention of using Israel as a staging ground—a massive military base—for counter-revolutionary interventions against rising Arab socialist and national liberation struggles in North Africa and the Middle East. The US could not accept the prospect of sovereign development in that region: liberation movements had to be crushed or destabilized and they used Israel to help them do it. Israel is not an "ally" in the conventional sense. It is a proxy.

They support Israel for the exact same reasons that they have backed assassinations or coups against liberation leaders across the global South: Mosaddegh, Lumumba, Nkrumah, Allende, Arbenz, Sukarno, Sankara...

Israel assassinates movement leaders in the Middle East and interferes in regional political processes, all in concert with the US, but it also constantly bombs the frontline states, destabilizing their societies and economies and forcing them to divert resources toward defensive spending rather than industrial development. The Zionist project is intolerable not only because it is murderously hell-bent on ethnically cleansing Palestine, but because it creates chaos and instability across the whole region.

The core states used South Africa in the very same way. The key reason that Western powers supported the apartheid regime in South Africa – against overwhelming international condemnation – was because it served as a highly militarized Western colonial outpost that was geared up to run counter-insurgency operations not only within South Africa, but also in Angola, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Namibia, the DRC, etc., leaving immense violence and chaos in its wake.

The vast majority of the world—and international law itself—supports Palestinian liberation, but Palestinian liberation would constrain Israeli power and open the way to regional liberation movements, and this is strongly antithetical to the interests of Western capital. So this is the situation we are in. The Western ruling classes are willing to back obscene violence in Gaza, and shred the liberal values they claim to believe in, because they want to maintain the conditions for capital accumulation and geopolitical hegemony.

You cannot appeal to imperial power in moral terms. The only way the US will stop propping up the Zionist regime is when it becomes too costly for them to do so. This will come down to the strength of the resistance and regional political and military opposition, but also the extent to which people can coordinate boycotts, divestment and sanctions, and punitive measures under international law."