#accounting services los angeles

[thebookkeepersrus]

Do you have a healthcare business? Are you a Healthcare Manager? This is how you achieve success in business! Call us!

[smartcpaus]

Are you a small business owner in Los Angeles seeking a reliable tax accountant? Look no further! Experienced professionals are dedicated to helping you navigate the complexities of tax laws and financial regulations with ease.

[primeaccountingsolutionsllc]

When you need an accountant in Los Angeles, look no further than Prime Accounting Solutions, LLC. Our team of certified professionals is dedicated to providing expert financial services to businesses and individuals alike. With years of experience in the industry, we offer comprehensive accounting solutions tailored to meet your specific needs.

Prime Accounting Solutions, LLC 5601 S Slauson Ave. Suite 178, Culver City, CA 90230 (424) 603–0012

Official Website: https://primeaccsolutions.com/ Google Plus Listing: https://www.google.com/maps?cid=15487550948630970286

Other Links

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Other Service We Provide:

Accounting Tax Advisory Tax Planning Book Keeping CFO Services

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[cpataxbh]

Step-by-Step Guide for Ecommerce Business Accounting and Bookkeeping

In the age of digitalization, the business world has undergone a dramatic transformation due to the rise of ecommerce. If you're an ecommerce-based business owner, you're likely aware of the many possibilities and challenges of operating in this booming business. When you're building and expanding the online shop, it's essential to pay attention to the financial aspects that your company operates on. Proper Financial Management and Bookkeeping are essential to ensure the financial stability of your ecommerce company. In this complete guide, we'll take you through how to manage your ecommerce company's bookkeeping and bookkeeping efficiently.

1. Find a Certified Tax Accountant near Me

One of the most essential steps to manage your ecommerce business's financials is to locate a qualified tax accountant close to your location. If you're located in Columbus, you can look to find Tax Bookkeeping near Me in Columbus or Accountant near Me for Taxes in Columbus. A Qualified Tax Accountant in Columbus has the knowledge and experience to help you navigate the maze of tax laws and offer you important information to maximize your tax return.

2. Choose a Tax Accountant in Columbus

After you've identified candidates, you must assess their credentials and experiences. Choose a Tax Professional in Columbus that specializes in working with businesses that sell products online. They must be knowledgeable about the tax laws for ecommerce businesses, which are often complex due to the wide variety of tax rules and transactions that apply to online companies.

3. Tax Specialists near Me in Chicago

If you're in Chicago and searching for tax experts, doing an online search for Tax Specialists near Me in Chicago will lead you to experts who know the specific tax issues faced by companies that operate online in Chicago.

4. Business Tax Service in Chicago

Assessing the offerings of tax experts and Accounting Firms in Chicago is vital. Look for professionals who offer complete Business Tax Solutions to simplify the process and assure your business is tax-compliant.

5. Premier Tax Service in Phoenix

In Phoenix, searching for high-quality tax services will make a massive difference to your ecommerce’s financial management. A Professional Tax Service That Is Top of the Line Located in Phoenix has the expertise and experience needed to ensure that your business grows and maintains excellent financial condition.

6. Tax Bookkeeping Services in Phoenix

The financial success of your ecommerce business is directly linked to effective bookkeeping. Look up Tax Bookkeeping Services in Phoenix to locate professionals who can assist you with maintaining accurate financial records and ensure that you're prepared for tax time.

Critical Steps in Ecommerce Business Accounting and Bookkeeping

Once you've found the right experts to assist you, let's look at the most important steps for implementing effective online company bookkeeping as well as bookkeeping:

1. Set up a Separate Business Bank Account

The separation of your business and personal financials is crucial to ensure financial clearness. Create a business bank account to support your company's ecommerce. This will make it easier to track income expenses, as well as any other transactions in financial terms, which makes it simpler to determine the tax liabilities of your business.

2. Track All Income and Expenses

A consistent and precise recording of your income and expenses is vital. This is not just about the sales but also charges, shipping costs, advertising costs, and other costs that are associated with running an online business. Make use of An Accounting System or employ a professional to make sure that nothing falls between the gaps.

3. Monitor Sales Tax

Ecommerce businesses usually have complicated sales tax requirements. Local and state governments have tax rates that differ and regulations. A Certified Tax Accountant in Columbus or Chicago can help you navigate the rules to avoid penalties.

4. Inventory Management

For ecommerce companies, managing inventory is vital. Keep precise inventory records comprising quantities, values, and prices. This will enable you to make educated decisions regarding the timing of restocking pricing and identify any issues that could arise from spoilage or theft.

5. Reconcile Bank Statements

Make sure you regularly reconcile your business bank account to make sure that each transaction is recorded accurately. This helps you identify any irregularities and helps ensure that there are no gaps in your revenue or expenses.

6. Financial Reports

Create financial reports to give your insight into your company's economic well-being. These reports contain Profits and Losses, Balance Sheets, and Cash Flow Statements. These reports are helpful to help make better business decision-making.

7. Budgeting

Make a budget for your financial tasks. A budget can help you allocate resources effectively, establish financial goals, and monitor performance. Re-evaluate and modify your budget regularly to adjust to the changing needs of your business.

8. Tax Preparation

In the area of tax preparation, an accountant or tax specialist to prepare tax returns in Columbus, Chicago, or Phoenix is a must. They'll help you get all deductions and credits while reducing your tax liabilities.

9. Record Retention

Make sure you are following the correct record-keeping guidelines because this is essential to tax compliance and audits of financial statements. Documents and financial information should be kept for the minimum amount of time by the regulations applicable.

10. Seek Professional Guidance

When you expand, your Company's Ecommerce Operation expands, and your need for financial assistance becomes more complex. Do not hesitate to seek out professional advice. If you need help structuring your company, Tax Planning, Or Financial Strategies, having a team of knowledgeable tax experts nearby will ensure the growth and growth of your online business.

Conclusion

The management of bookkeeping, as well as the accounting for your company's ecommerce, is an essential aspect of ensuring financial health and success. Locating an accredited tax accountant close to your location, regardless of whether you live in Columbus, Chicago, or Phoenix, can be the first thing you do to get the support you require. Keep track of all expenditures and income, keep track of your stock, and stay current with your sales tax obligations. Utilize budgeting and financial reports to make educated decisions and prepare for tax time. With Expert Guidance and Proper Financial Management, you can ensure that your Ecommerce Company can flourish in the current competitive online marketplace.

[labookkeeping]

https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vQ6ElmX3cpQz2Vz5QFEy35J2lmLC8L3NDSxis-zmeQVvDyKenZ5FLXk6_HLvzLPH9RX4DiuU31AlmPT/pub

[screentones-webcomicresources]

There are many web hosting companies to choose from if you're taking the plunge into making your own website with a comic content management system (CMS) like ComicControl or Grawlix, a Wordpress comic theme like Toocheke or ComicPress, or a HTML template to cut/paste code like Rarebit. While these solutions are generally free, finding a home for them is... generally not. It can be hard to choose what's best for your webcomic AND your budget!

We took a look at a few of the top hosting services used by webcomics creators using webcomic CMSes, and we put out a poll to ask your feedback about your hosts!

This post may be updated as time goes on as new services enter the hosting arena, or other important updates come to light.

Questions:

💻 I can get a free account with Wix/Squarespace/Carrd, could I just use those for my comic? - Web hosts like this may have gallery functions that could be adapted to display a series of pages, but they are very basic and not intended for webcomics.

📚 Wait, I host on Webtoon, Tapas, Comic Fury, or some other comic website, why are they not here? - Those are comic platforms! We'll get into those in a future post!

🕵️‍♀️Why does it say "shared hosting"? Who am I sharing with? - "Shared hosting" refers to sharing the server space with other customers. They will not have access to your files or anything, so it is perfectly fine to use for most comic CMSes. You may experience slowing if there is too much activity on a server, so if you're planning to host large files or more than 10 comics, you may want to upgrade to a more robust plan in the future.

Web Host List

Neocities

Basic plan pricing: Free or $5/month. Free plan has more restrictions (1 GB space, no custom domain, and slower bandwidth, among other things)

Notes: Neocities does not have database support for paid or free accounts, and most comic CMS solutions require this (ComicCtrl, Grawlix, Wordpress). You will need to work with HTML/CSS files directly to make a website and post each page.

Hostinger

Basic plan pricing: $11.99/month or $7.99/month with four year commitment (monthly, 1, 2, and 4 year plans available).

Notes: Free domain for the 1st year. Free SSL Certifications. Weekly backups.

KnownHost

Basic plan pricing: $8.95/month or $7.99/month with four year commitment (monthly, 1, 2, and 4 year plans available).

Notes: Free DDOS protection. Free SSL Certifications.

InMotion Hosting

Basic plan pricing: $12.99/month or $9.99/month with three year commitment (monthly, 1, and 3 year plans available).

Notes:  Free SSL Certifications, free domain names for 1 and 3 year plans. 24/7 live customer service and 90-day money-back guarantee. Inmotion also advertises eco-friendly policies: We are the first-ever Green Data Center in Los Angeles. We cut cooling costs by nearly 70 percent and reduce our carbon output by more than 2,000 tons per year.

Reviews:

👍“I can't remember it ever going down.”

👍“InMotion has a pretty extensive library full of various guides on setting up and managing websites, servers, domains, etc. Customer service is also fairly quick on responding to inquiries.” 👎“I wish it was a bit faster with loading pages.”

Ionos Hosting

Basic plan pricing: $8/month or $6/month with three year commitment (monthly, 1, 2 and 3 year plans available).

Notes: Free domain for the first year, free SSL Certification, Daily backup and recovery is included. Site Scan and Repair is free for the first 30 days and then is $6/month.

Reviews:

👍“Very fast and simple” 👎“Customer service is mediocre and I can't upload large files”

Bluehost

Basic plan pricing: $15.99/month or $4.95/month with three year commitment (monthly, 1, 3 year plans available).

Notes: Free domain and SSL certificates (for first year only). 24/7 Customer Service. Built to handle higher traffic websites. Although they specialize in Wordpress websites and provide updates automatically, that's almost a bad thing for webcomic plugins because they will often break your site. Their cloud hosting services are currently in early access with not much additional information available.

Reviews:

👎"The fees keep going up. Like I could drop $100 to cover a whole year, but now I'm paying nearly $100 for just three months. It's really upsetting."

👎"I have previously used Bluehost’s Wordpress hosting service and have had negative experiences with the service, so please consider with a grain of salt. I can confirm at least that their 24/7 customer service was great, although needed FAR too often."

Dreamhost

Basic plan pricing: $7.99/month or $5.99/month with three year commitment (monthly, 1, 3 year plans available).

Notes: Free SSL Certificates, 24/7 support with all plans, 97-day moneyback guarantee. Not recommended for ComicCtrl CMS

Reviews:

👍“They've automatically patched 2 security holes I created/allowed by mistake.” 👍“Prices are very reasonable” 👎 “back end kind of annoying to use” 👎 “wordpress has some issues” 👎 “it's not as customizable as some might want“

GoDaddy

Basic plan pricing: $11.99/month or $9.99/month with three year commitment (monthly, 1, 2, and 3 year plans available).

Notes: Free 24/7 Customer service with all plans, Free SSL Certificates for 1 year, free domain and site migration.

Reviews:

👍Reasonable intro prices for their Economy hosting, which has 25GB of storage 👍Migrated email hosting service from cPanel to Microsoft Office, which has greater support but may not be useful for most webcomic creators. 👎 Many site issues and then being upsold during customer service attempts. 👎 Server quality found lacking in reviews 👎 Marketing scandals in the past with a reputation for making ads in poor taste. Have been attempting to clean up that image in recent years. 👎 “GoDaddy is the McDonald's of web hosting. Maybe the Wal-Mart of hosting would be better. If your website was an object you would need a shelf to put it on. You go to Wal-Mart and buy a shelf. It's not great. It's not fancy. It can only hold that one thing. And if we're being honest - if the shelf broke and your website died it wouldn't be the end of the world.The issue comes when you don't realize GoDaddy is the Wal-Mart of hosting. You go and try to do things you could do with a quality shelf. Like, move it. Or add more things to it.” MyWorkAccountThisIs on Reddit*

Things to consider for any host:

💸 Introductory/promotional pricing - Many hosting companies offer free or inexpensive deals to get you in the door, and then raise the cost for these features after the first year or when you renew. The prices in this post are the base prices that you can expect to pay after the promotional prices end, but may get outdated, so you are encouraged to do your own research as well.

💻 Wordpress hosting - Many of the companies below will have a separate offering for Wordpress-optimized hosting that will keep you updated with the latest Wordpress releases. This is usually not necessary for webcomic creators, and can be the source of many site-breaking headaches when comic plugins have not caught up to the latest Wordpress releases.

Any basic hosting plan on this list will be fine with Wordpress, but expect to stop or revert Wordpress versions if you go with this as your CMS.

🤝 You don't have to go it alone - While free hosts may be more limited, paid hosting on a web server will generally allow you to create different subdomains, or attach additional purchased domains to any folders you make. If you have other comic-making friends you know and trust, you can share your server space and split the cost!

Want to share your experience?

Feel free to contribute your hosting pros, cons, and quirks on our survey! We will be updating our list periodically with your feedback!

[melodymunson]

Kurt Kunkle x fem reader one shot- rock you like a hurricane

Word count: 3.9K

Ao3 link

shoutout to @steveslittlesunflower & @djoekeeryy for beta-reading my rough draft of this fic!

And thank you to my good friend and roleplay partner Dana for being my inspiration for writing some of this. She role plays Kurt Kunkle better than anyone else ever could! 💖

warnings: anal sex, rimjob, prostate massage, oral (male & female receiving), pegging, blowjob, eating pussy, rough sex p in v. Dark fic. Violence and harsh language. Knife kink.

As Kurt's #1 fan, you go out of your way to meet him and drive Spree with him. You go on to commit violent acts together and depravity. You show virgin Kurt the time of his life and he has all of his sexual firsts with you.

If you're not documenting yourself, it's simple; you just don't exist. -Kurt Kunkle's philosophy

When you met Kurt, you were at the Taco Stand in Los Angeles. His order was the same as yours, Taco truck's most famous burrito and Carnita asada fries. While waiting in line for your food at the truck, he told you about his online persona and account Kurtsworld96. Of course, you followed him. Although he claimed he was into doing porn and making adult content, you didn't believe him. Kurt was pretty good as a streamer, even if he seemed a little crazy. Part of his allure was his big brown eyes and his charisma. At first, he couldn't put his finger on it but he realized you were a comedian who did some shows at the Joke Box. The car he drove was pretty nice and you found out he did Spree as a career. You took him up on his offer of getting a ride. Soon after that, you exchanged numbers. The water bottles in his car were a decoy and he couldn't fool you. It was obvious he made them watertight with glue and made them airtight after injecting the water on the label so the customers would get poisoned. You told him you knew, and he simply laughed and agreed with you before telling you he wouldn't let you drink it, anyway. His live streams could be intense, but something about him always made you want to keep your eyes on the screen. One day, his streaming turned into doing live kills. Most of the comments ranged from "That can't be real" to "You are a total sociopath." You still didn't care, and you wanted him anyway, regardless. Soon after that, you gamed pretty often with him. It was a lot of fun. Sure, he sometimes made crude or weird comments about the game, but you just felt captivated by the way he talked and how he had such a way with words. "I'm gonna fuck you. Gonna fuck you so hard." That is what he told you as you were gaming. It turned you on and you challenged him to prove it, so one day he promised he would…

The ride to your place from your work was great with Kurt, besides his awful taste in music. You made him change the station to rock and soon you got him into Ozzy and Buckcherry. Another person requested his Spree services, and you told Kurt it was fine. Once the guy got picked up, he almost immediately became a problem. He couldn't stop saying the most sexist and vile shit that was racist. Kurt had talked a bit with you about going after someone together and killing them. This guy was the type that deserved it. As he did his livestream, he drove to a very secluded part of the outskirts of LA and stopped the car. The pissed-off racist dude complained about being in the wrong place, but you and Kurt weren't listening even as his rant became a tirade about stupid crap. Not thinking twice about it, Kurt took the drill in his car and turned it on, drilling it through the guy's head. Taking out the knife you had, you stabbed him repeatedly. Dragging him out of the car, you threw his lifeless body into the woods. Now that you were all covered in blood together, you cleaned up as best you could with towels and went back to your place to shower.

Kurt always had his camera around filming everything around him. Now that you were at his place, his camera was still rolling but not a livestream. He promised to turn off the feature as long as he could film offline because you promised him the kinkiest shower ever. With the video camera running, you stepped into your shower with a clear shower curtain and started the water. There was so much blood everywhere. As you cleaned up, you washed each other's bodies. Seeing you like this made Kurt feel so lucky. It was the first time he ever showered with a woman. Watching porn and jerking off was all he had before he met you. Some of the adult films he watched helped him understand more about the female anatomy and giving pleasure. His day was about to get even better as you knelt in front of him and stroked his cock. He let out loud gasps as he figured out what you were about to do to him. The tip of his cock was flush and pink. Taking him into your mouth, you sucked on just the tip and tapped it against your tongue. Already you loved his taste and as you took more of him into your mouth, he held your hair back for you. The taste of his cock was becoming addicting as he called you his 'good girl' and looked down at you with lust and wonder in his eyes. It was his first blowjob, and he was so glad it was you giving it to him. Rocking his hips into your mouth, you swallowed more and more of him, taking him inch by delicious inch until you were swallowing his cock whole as you massaged his prostate. Occasionally you and Kurt would look over into the camera, him smiling, and you waving. The crescent-shaped marks you were leaving on his hips made him cry out even louder for you and your mouth.

"Fuck, baby girl. Gonna cum. Want to cum so bad in your mouth," he growled as his thrusts with his hips became more forceful. Having you take his cock to the back of your throat repeatedly drove him wild. You breathed through your nose as you let him fuck your face roughly.

Suddenly he came inside of your mouth as he pulled out a little, feeling his cock twitching. You happily swallowed all of it, then kissed up his body until your lips met in a deep and passionate tongue-tangling kiss.

"Now it's your turn to go down on me," you told him firmly. You wouldn't take no for an answer.

Kurt was more than eager to please as you pushed him down onto his knees and he spread your pussy lips. He put your leg over his shoulder and finger fucked you with perfect precision. As he listened to your pretty moans, he licked and sucked on your clit as he continuously fingered you.

"So fucking good Kurt. What a good boy you are," you praised him as you held onto the wall and looked into the camera with the biggest smile on your face.

"Tastes so good. I need your pussy."

Your taste drove him wild, and he was so addicted to your body, especially your pussy. The sounds of him sucking and licking you, combined with the pretty noises of pleasure you were making for him, practically made your legs shake with desire. Never did he have such a gorgeous woman to please and to give him pleasure. It was just something he didn't think was possible. With you, he felt like he had found the right person. Someone to understand his passion and his desire to kill and didn't judge him for it. You both had a taste for rough sex and being dominant but also submissive. He sucked your clit and ate you out like it was his last meal. He turned you around and pushed you up against the shower wall as he slapped your ass and spread your cheeks. He licked your pussy from behind and fingered your ass. Even as you came undone, he wouldn't stop getting you off and overstimulated you with his tongue. Your moans for him grew even louder. Before licking up your body, he tongued your ass and fingered it as he slapped your ass until it turned red, then met your lips in a forceful kiss. Tasting yourself from his lips as your mouths collided, you pulled him in close.

The next day after breakfast in bed you felt like you wanted to show him your true dominant side so you confessed to him about what you wanted.

"I want to fuck you, Kurt. You want to fuck me, Kurtie?"

"Yes please!"

"I want to fuck your ass," you admitted, sounding very sure of yourself.

He gulped slightly as he thought about the prospect of doing that with you.

"If you do that and I'm a good boy for you, will you let me fuck your pussy after?" He pleaded with big wide puppy dog eyes.

"Only if you are a good boy for me."

You finished up quickly with him in the shower and dried off, going right back to your bedroom and going into your drawers to find your strap-on. It was 9 inches and red. Kurt looked at the toy with awe in his eyes and got into position on the bed for you and you put it on for him. The camera stayed running and was put on a tripod. Later you planned to upload it to only fans.

"You are going to love my big cock, Kurt. Don't worry, I'll use lots of lube for you too."

There was no doubt you were rocking Kurt's world, and you knew he liked it dirty. Everything you did with your mouth to him was incredible. Kurt craved your mouth and had an oral fixation. Whether you were sucking on a lollipop or a popsicle, he always imagined it was your lips on his dick. Before you would claim his ass with your fake cock, you wanted to tease him and get him hard again by giving him more head- the head you knew he loved so much.

Putting your lips on the tip of his cock, you kissed it and licked the head, swirling your tongue around with eagerness. As you did this, Kurt gasped rather loudly. Your mouth was like magic to him and he was craving you so badly. Sucking even more of him into your mouth, you established a steady motion bobbing up and down. This drove him wild as he clenched the bed sheets beneath him. Once he hit the back of your throat, you gagged and he lifted his hips, bucking into your mouth. The act itself made you insatiable for him. Even if he didn't have your skills to compare to anyone else's, he knew you were a pro. The sucking sounds you made and the lewd gasps as you let him fill your throat with his hardness made him whimper for you. Tickling his balls and playing with them, you hollowed out your cheeks, sucking him like a pro. Drool and spit ran down your mouth and you came up for air.

"That's enough for now, Kurtie. I'm going to please your ass next. Get you ready for my toy."

"Yes, please."

Licking a stripe down his ass, you licked his ass at a steady pace, wanting him to feel your tongue so expertly. The way he was groaning let you know he was feeling good because of your tongue. After a couple of minutes of this and him moaning softly, you stopped just to tease him.

Once the toy got lubed up, you got closer to him on the bed and stroked his cock, massaging his prostate for him. He whimpered already from the contact and his ass muscles clenched in anticipation of finally feeling your big fake cock fuck his ass. As you got the lube on your fingers and inside of his tight hole, you rubbed it around, massaging him, making him gasp from the pure ecstasy and sensations of it all.

Lining up at his entrance, you gave his ass a slap which earned a cry of pleasure mixed with pain from him as he was face down, ass up for you.

"Hold on tight for me baby, it's going to be a wild ride," you promised him, sticking the tip of the fake cock into his ass. It gently slid into him and stretched him out. His ass took to your strap oh so well and you held onto his hips as you moved deeper and even deeper inside his tight hole. His face was now on the pillows, turned sideways as he let you have your way with him. Kurt wouldn't do this with anyone else- just with you because you were his special girl.

Once you adjusted inside his ass, you began pounding away and slapping his ass, too. Kurt looked into the mirror as you fucked his now wide and open gaping hole. As he took your cock, you cried out in pleasure from the feeling of fucking his tight ass hole.

"Please fuck me hard, miss," Kurt begged.

"Shut up Kurt. I will tell you what you are getting, and you will learn to like it."

Deciding he had earned a punishment for back talking, you slapped his ass again, even harder this time. Being dominant was your specialty, and this situation certainly called for it. His groans became even louder as you fucked him good and at a leisurely pace. Once you thought he had enough of the slightly slower pace, you picked up and went deeper into his ass, pounding him at full force.

"Fuck, miss I love it," he dared to utter and gasp in pleasure.

Since he had been a fairly well-behaved boy, you stroked his cock for him, wanting him to receive ultimate pleasure. His cock bounced as you rutted into him and already the tip was leaking pre-cum. Stopping, you admonished him before continuing.

"Call me mommy, Kurt."

"Yes, mommy. Please, Mommy," he begged you, looking at the wall, not daring to dare a glance at you without permission first.

"Yes, mommy what?"

"Yes, mommy, I need you."

You pounded into him again, showing no mercy and raking your fingernails down his back, your other hand slapping his ass as he took you to the hilt. Kurt was having the time of his life and you were glad to give it to him. Being a master mommy dom for Kurt was your specialty. As his cries got louder, your thrusts got even deeper.

It was becoming a little unbearable for him because he hadn't experienced such a good fuck like this before. The sensations were new and intense for him, but his groans let you know you were working his ass just right. The way you pounded his ass was filthy and his cock needed some relief from the tension and attention too because of how pent-up he was for you.

"So good, miss. Please more," he pleaded with you as he looked at you with doe-like eyes.

Giving into his desires, you caressed his cock and stroked it, getting him to full hardness. You needed to fuck him soon, and his cock was already dripping with pre-cum. The harness you were using gave you pleasure as well as the vibrating setting on it could be felt on your clit.

"Yeah, you like it rough huh, like getting pounded for once?" You chided him for being the ultimate dom.

Putting him in his place was just what he needed, and you were going to get him to ultimately submit to you. With more thrusts, you drove him closer to the verge. Kurt whined so prettily for you as you felt the vibration stimulate your clit and bring you over the edge as you stroked his cock.

Pulling out unexpectedly, you threw the strap to the side and flipped him over, and hovered over his cock, your wet folds eager to take him inside. Sinking onto his cock, you let out a satisfied sigh.

"Does that feel good, Kurt? Huh? You love my fake cock and also my tight pussy, right?" You admonished him as you cupped his jaw and rode him.

"Yes, mistress. Love it all. Just want to be fucked so good. I love your pussy," he whined as you pinned his hands down, taking full control of him.

Your breasts bounced as you rode him hard, loving that you were still in control and taking the reins. Kurt loved it too and wanted to have you do whatever you wanted to him. He would fully submit and gladly be what you needed him to be.

Reaching over onto the nightstand, you picked up a small pocket knife you had and revealed the silver and shiny blade. It was glistening under the light and Kurt gasped as he saw it. Before you had talked about having a knife, kink and you both agreed you would use a knife someday when the moment was right just to tease each other.

"You gonna use that one me?" He questioned with wide-blown eyes, his hands behind his head.

"I am just going to tease you with it, baby."

Taking the knife, you held it up against his chest in between his nipples. Sucking one of his nipples into your mouth, you mewled and whimpered as the knife blade gently pressed into his skin. It was cold, and he shivered in anticipation of what was to come next. You just let his cock rest inside you, cockwarming him as you held the knife in the same place and paid equal attention to both nipples. Kurt's groans increased as you moved the blade to his arm, running it along his skin lightly. You stopped at his hand.

"Let's make a blood pact," you suggested with a dark glint in your eyes.

Kurt just nodded at this. Cutting yourself first, you let the blood drip down onto his stomach and then cut his finger. Pressing your finger up against his, you made a pact at that moment. You would never give him up or abandon him and you knew he wouldn't leave you.

"To us. Together forever," you proudly proclaimed.

"Against all others," he responded with fascination in his tone.

You then sucked his finger and let him suck yours clean of the blood as you moved again on top of him riding his cock.

Taking some rope, you tied his hands to the bedpost and smiled into the camera. From all this stimulation, he was getting close to his release. That wouldn’t happen though until he made you cum for him. Your pleasure was so important and Kurt was willing and eager to please you in every way possible. Kissing him with bloody lips, you finger fucked yourself, inching your way closer to release. A tingling sensation inside of you and fullness was emerging.

“Oh, fuck, I’m gonna squirt!” You cried out as you grew closer to release.

Kurt just whined happily in response. Your fingers hit the right spot to drive you over the edge as you slammed into him, making the bed creak and headboards move.

“Yes, squirt for me,” he growled as he bucked his hips and watched you touch yourself.

Lewd and illicit moans escaped your lips as he groaned loudly, sounding so pretty for you as you rode his cock without mercy. The sounds you made caused his cock to twitch inside of you. Just then, you felt your release wash over you and you squirted for him, causing Kurt to moan.

“Fill me up, Kurt. Do it now. Fuck!” You gasped as you relentlessly fucked his brains out.

“That squirting was so hot,” he whimpered as he felt his cock leak pre-cum.

His thrusts were sloppy as he filled you up to the brim, coating your inner walls with his delicious seed. Collapsing on top of him in satisfaction, you caught your breaths as your hearts continued to race. You lay like that for a while, letting him rest inside of you.

From that moment on, you had the craziest sex together and fucked before and after every kill. Some people were innocent, others were scum bags. The urge to kill was all that mattered. Getting away with murder was glorious. Some people were run over, others were stabbed to death or shot. Some were even burned, and the evidence was easy to cover up- at least for a while. One of the most memorable kills meant a lot to you because it was your ex-boyfriend. That kill you dragged it out and made him suffer for as long as possible. There were so many tools and apparatus to use and you made good of them all. From using pliers and a screwdriver to nail guns and acid, you made him pay.

Once Kurt was caught and arrested, you planned to show up at his trial and be there for him as his biggest supporter. Despite your objections, he took all the credit for the killings. The trial declared him guilty on all counts of murder and they sentenced him to 10 years and 2 consecutive sentences. Once in prison, he wrote to you and called you every day. When he got a cell phone and snuck into prison, you sent him sexy nudes and he did the same for you. You visited him and had conjugal visitations. Even with the cameras on and people watching, you had the most mind-blowing sex ever. It was some of the best sex of your life. You even married him in prison. Once he got out, you knew he would make up for lost time. You eventually became a guard at the prison and got to see him every single day and fuck as often as possible. He was rough with you and you were the same way with him. The other inmates were probably jealous, but soon enough, you and Kurt escaped. Once out of prison, you established new identities and moved to another country to get a fresh new start. Until the killings started up again, that is. No matter what, you wouldn't let him go.

He had made a vow in prison he would no longer kill just anyone. Only the people who deserved it. Before he met you someone he had driven with spree a comedian Jesse confronted him. She tried to kill him, but he got away. It was a regret of his letting her get away, but he would move on. Newly established someplace safe with him, you promised each other you would stay together no matter what. To make things official, you had a small and private ceremony with Kurt streaming it for his followers. No one knew where the undisclosed location was, but it was a wondrous and beautiful event.

Neither of you needed extra income since you had streams and paid ones, making tons of sexy videos and live streams together. You used the dark web for your kills together and always wore masks to keep it discreet. When killing, you would keep your rings on a necklace to still show your love but not to give anything away to anyone who might recognize either of you. Leaving your families and old lives behind, you lived for each other. Having so many chances to kill and get away with it was the best. Only the most extreme crimes you saw fit to punish. The worst being cold-blooded murderers and molesters. Finding each victim carefully, you had them meet their demise. Kurt even became a hitman for hire. Eventually, though, you both stopped killing and settled down just living normal lives. Life went on pretty much normally, but you remembered fondly and would sometimes reminisce about old times. Never staying in any place too long, you traveled and just lived life one day at a time together.

soundtrack:

Crazy Bitch and Fuck It I Don't Care by Buckcherry

Rock you like a hurricane by the Scorpions

Closer by Nine Inch Nails

Hatefuck by Motionless In White

Crazy Town - Butterfly (Come to my lady)

Heathens by Halestorm

(You Drive Me) Crazy Britney Spears

Let's go crazy by Prince and the Revolution

Mad by Cassie Steele

Crazy Train and Diary of a Madman by Ozzy

THE TALKING HEADS - PSYCHO KILLER…

TEARS FOR FEARS - MAD WORLD…

PIXIES - WHERE IS MY MIND…

tag list @babygorewhore @inourtownofhawkins @corneliuswatkins @keeryatmosphere @jadeylovesmarvelxo @undead-supernova @ali-r3n @jozstankovich @mrprettywhenhecries @daisy-is-a-writer @stevesxyellowxsweater @harringtonfan4 @koskeepsake @munson-mjstan @impmunson @bimbobaggins69 @emsgoodthinkin @probablyin-bed @corrodedcorpses @ofhawkinsandvecna @lovelythoughtfulcupcake @xxbimbobunnyxx @loritate7311 @dananahenderson

[visitsugartop]

Envisioning a better world, one game at a time.

WHO

Hello there! We're Oxtail Studios, a fledgling creative studio for a small group of writer friends whose dream is to create the dating sim RPG they've always wanted to see out in the world. The thing all of us at Oxtail have in common is a love of story-rich games, and we're currently working on Sugartop, a pixel RPG with vestiges of the farm life sim genre - a small town of wonderful NPCs (16 romances), adventure, and a lush, green backdrop full of mysteries and intrigue.

THE GAME

In Sugartop, you play as a financially struggling person in Los Angeles who one day gets what looks like a spam email with the headline, "MOVE TO SUGARTOP FOR FREE!!! (FREE RENT)" - too good to be true, right? But the circumstances are dire, your savings have shriveled to near nothing, and desperate, you experience a lapse in judgment, deciding that the antivirus on your laptop will have to do some heavy lifting as you open up the video attachment.

It's a scrappy ad trying to convince you to go live in this small town called Sugartop located on an island off of the coast of Southern California. Do you continue to live your life as is, in dire straits, or do you take the risk of investigating further?

WHY

Unfortunately, as many creatives tend to be today, we are struggling to make ends meet as underemployed and unemployed creatives who have to worry about bills month to month and have little to no savings to fall back on. We're dealing with the aftermaths of layoffs in our individual careers in an increasingly brutal job market, and we urgently need your help to keep the lights on at the studio.

If you want to play a hand in helping a group of queer Black and Brown creators give life to their creative visions and love narratively compelling video games with a lot of heart, please consider supporting us today.

WHAT

Although we would be overjoyed with making even $50 total, our goal is to be able to fund our overhead costs (studio rent, accounting fees, attorney fees, fair compensation for visual artists) for five years of operation to lessen the financial burden on us as we struggle to find jobs. Without jobs, we can't self-fund the project.

THANK YOU!

If you choose to support us today, thank you so much. We're incredibly grateful for your kindness!

Studio links: click here

The pixel art used for the campaign is "Sugartop" by Kathy Chow.

DISCLAIMER Note: We at Oxtail Studios are not providing any goods or services to donors on GoFundMe in exchange for donations. This means we will not be providing you any copies of Sugartop for your donation.

[beardedmrbean]

Note: The following article contains discussion of sexual misconduct allegations.

Amazon and MrBeast are being sued by five contestants on his upcoming show Beast Games over alleged mistreatment.

The series sees 1,000 participants compete for a $5 million prize, though a new class action lawsuit has been filed in Los Angeles claiming incidents including sexual harassment, emotional distress and failure to pay minimum wages.

The suit also claims that the show did not provide uninterrupted rest and meal breaks, exposed contestants to dangerous conditions, and also deprived contestants of medical care, sleep, food and basic hygiene requirements.

Among the allegations of sexual harassment, the suit claims that in a ‘How to Succeed in MrBeast Production’ handbook, it is written, according to Variety: “It’s okay for the boys to be childish” and “If talent wants to draw a dick on the white board in the video or do something stupid, let them… Really do everything you can to empower the boys when filming and help them make content. Help them be idiots.”

According to the partially redacted suit, the five unnamed contestants are demanding that Amazon and MrBeast pay unspecified punitive damages as well as allegedly unpaid wages.

“While participants knew upon signing the contract at the production’s inception that they were facing a potentially long and challenging competition, they allege getting a lot more than they bargained for,” attorneys for the contestants said.

“Several contestants ending up hospitalized, while others reported suffering physical and mental complications while being subjected to chronic mistreatment, degradation and, for the female contestants, hostile working conditions.”

Lead counsel for the plaintiffs Robert Pafundi said "participants entered into contracts and they were promised compensation for their services". He added that “their expectation of compensation" as well as "them being consistently under the control and supervision of the production staff" makes them "employees under California law".

"As such, they were entitled to, and denied, certain protections," he added, citing "extreme neglect, degradation, harassment and inhumane conditions" as "a massive dereliction of duty, for which the defendants must and will now be held accountable”.

A spokesperson for MrBeast responded to allegations published by Rolling Stone of mistreatment while filming the show in Las Vegas, such as medication being withheld, injury and sleeping on stadium floors.

“The MrBeast Las Vegas promotional video shoot, which included over 2,000 participants, was unfortunately complicated by the CrowdStrike incident, extreme weather, and other unexpected logistical and communications issues, which we reviewed, and we are grateful that virtually all of those invited to Toronto enthusiastically accepted our invitation,” they said.

“We communicated directly with 97 percent of the 2,000 people who attended to ask for feedback, and took the necessary steps to ensure that we learned from this experience, and we were excited to welcome the hundreds of men and women who participated in the world’s largest game show in history.”

[thebookkeepersrus]

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[the-garbanzo-annex-jr]

A former California man who shot and wounded two Jewish men last year as they left religious services in the Pico-Robertson area of Los Angeles was sentenced today to 35 years in prison.

Jaime Tran, 30, formerly of Riverside, pleaded guilty on June 3 to two counts of hate crimes with intent to kill and two counts of using, carrying, and discharging a firearm during and in relation to a crime of violence.

“After years of spewing antisemitic vitriol, the defendant planned and carried out a two-day attack attempting to murder Jews leaving synagogue in Los Angeles,” said Attorney General Merrick B. Garland. “Vile acts of antisemitic hatred endanger the safety of individuals and entire communities, and allowing such crimes to go unchecked endangers the foundation of our democracy itself. As millions of Jewish Americans prepare to observe the High Holidays of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, the Justice Department reaffirms its commitment to aggressively confronting, disrupting, and prosecuting criminal acts motivated by antisemitism, or by hatred of any kind. No Jewish person in America should have to fear that any sign of their identity will make them the victim of a hate crime.”

“Targeting people for death based solely on their religious and ethnic background brings back memories of the darkest chapters in human history,” said U.S. Attorney Martin Estrada for the Central District of California. “Such hate-fueled violence has no place in America. We hope the sentence imposed today sends a strong message to all in our community that we will not tolerate antisemitism and hate of any sort. For those who engage in hate crimes, the punishment will be severe.”

“This country was founded by many who fought for religious freedom, and practicing our religion continues to be a sacred and fundamental right,” said Assistant Director in Charge Akil Davis of the FBI Los Angeles Field Office. “The FBI will always defend that constitutional right. Those who violate the First Amendment by violent acts, those who would target the innocent based on hatred, will be held accountable.”

“While this sentencing cannot fully restore the sense of safety stolen from the two victims and the Jewish community, it is a decisive step towards justice and a clear message that such acts of hate and violence will not be tolerated,” said Los Angeles Police Chief Dominic Choi.

[primeaccountingsolutionsllc]

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[mariacallous]

Earlier this week, the California Highway Patrol sent an Amber Alert push notification to phones in the Los Angeles area about a 14-year-old girl that authorities believed had been abducted. But instead of conveying vital information that could help locate the victim within the notification itself, the law enforcement agency linked to a post from its official X account, a practice it adopted six years ago. But this time, many people reported they could not view the alert because they hit a screen that prevents users from seeing any content on X until they sign in to their account.

The California Highway Patrol told WIRED it was aware of the issue and had reached out to X for more information. “We’re looking into it,” Sergeant Dan Keane said. X did not respond to a request for comment.

Amber Alerts are issued by local law enforcement agencies to help locate children who are believed to have been abducted and are at risk of dying or serious injury. In California, the California Highway Patrol’s Emergency Notification and Tactical Alert Center is tasked with issuing the alerts. The law enforcement agency told WIRED it has used X (formerly Twitter) to push out the notifications since 2018 without any problems, at least until this incident.

On other social platforms, including Reddit, Threads, and Bluesky, local California residents vented their frustrations about being unable to receive the details of an emergency happening in their community. “This should be illegal and everyone should be upset about this. If that alert was for my child and tons of people couldn’t see it because they don’t have a stupid X account, I would be beyond infuriated,” one person wrote on Reddit. “Why the fuck should a social media platform benefit from people wanting to be good citizens and informed about missing kids?” another asked on Threads.

Some users reported they didn’t need to log in to see the California Highway Patrol’s X post, which was sent via a URL created using the Bitly link shortener service. It’s unclear what percentage of people who received the push notification were able to view the information about the missing girl and what percentage hit X’s log-in gate. Overall, only 21 percent of US adults say they ever use X, according to the Pew Research Center, not all of whom may have the app installed on their phones.

After Elon Musk took over Twitter more than two years ago, the billionaire rapidly laid off the majority of the social media site’s existing employees and instituted sweeping changes to its moderation and verification policies. The shifts spurred concerns that Twitter would become less reliable for emergency communications. The incident this week in California suggests at least some of these fears were founded.

“Requiring a login creates accessibility challenges and raises concerns about digital equity. Everyone should be able to access life-critical information, regardless of whether they use a specific platform,” says Amanda Lee Hughes, a professor of computer science at Brigham Young University who has studied digital emergency communications tools.

People in Missouri reported encountering a similar issue in July 2023, when the Missouri Highway Patrol sent out an Amber Alert push notification with a link to an X post. Local residents similarly spoke out about how they could not see the alert unless they logged on to the platform. “It was quite a change” from how the alerts used to work, says Missouri Highway Patrol lieutenant Eric Brown, who works in the public information and education department.

But the incident ultimately didn’t prompt the Missouri Highway Patrol to abandon X as its go-to platform for Amber Alert push notifications. According to Brown, when X verified the law enforcement agency's account as an official government entity, the log-in issue problem went away, and the public could once again access its posts.

Several of the California Highway Patrol’s official X accounts have the same verification badge as the Missouri Highway Patrol, including the one devoted specifically to disseminating active alerts statewide. However, not all of the California agency’s accounts appear to be verified, including what looks like the official channel for the CHP’s Southern Division, which includes Los Angeles county.

When it was known as Twitter, X was widely viewed as an essential part of global disaster and emergency communications infrastructure. Government officials and agencies around the world relied on the service as a way to broadcast information about hurricanes, mass shootings, and other crises. Before Musk took over the platform in 2022, anyone could view public tweets in their browser regardless of whether they had an account on the site or had installed Twitter’s mobile app. (In 2015, the company reported that more than 500 million people visited Twitter’s site per month without logging in.)

In June 2023, reports that X had started locking content behind a log-in screen began popping up online. At the time, Musk called the move a “temporary emergency measure” that was put in place because X was “getting data pillaged so much it was degrading the service.” It’s unclear exactly what Musk was referring to, but that same month he expressed concerns about AI companies like OpenAI allegedly scraping Twitter posts without prior authorization.

It now looks like the decision to turn X into a more closed platform stuck. According to tests conducted this week, X has continued to limit what people without accounts can see. WIRED looked at several of its staff reporters’ X accounts without logging in, for example, and was only able to view a sampling of their popular posts rather than a comprehensive chronological feed. It does appear that accounts run by government entities are not restricted in this way; all of the posts shared by the California Highway Patrol’s alerts account can be viewed without logging in.

Aside from allowing anyone to view content shared on the platform, another way Twitter previously helped emergency communicators was by giving them free access to its API, which Musk later revoked. That allowed organizations like the US National Tsunami Warning Center to send automatic alerts about potentially deadly natural disasters. Researchers and first responders could also use the API to monitor activity across Twitter and “extract key insights, such as identifying risk hot spots or combating misinformation,” says Hughes. “The platform’s role has shifted as policies and public usage evolve, so its effectiveness today may look quite different.”

Despite these drawbacks, X still remains an important platform for relaying information during emergency situations. In October, several government information officers emergency told PRWeek they planned to continue posting updates on X despite its diminished usefulness, because they had amassed large followings on the site and their priority ultimately remains ensuring that accurate information reaches as many people as possible. But the incident in California this week highlights how government agencies can run into problems when third-party services once considered reliable later change their policies in an unpredictable ways.

[labookkeeping]

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[mostlysignssomeportents]

Podcasting "How To Think About Scraping"

On September 27, I'll be at Chevalier's Books in Los Angeles with Brian Merchant for a joint launch for my new book The Internet Con and his new book, Blood in the Machine. On October 2, I'll be in Boise to host an event with VE Schwab.

This week on my podcast, I read my recent Medium column, "How To Think About Scraping: In privacy and labor fights, copyright is a clumsy tool at best," which proposes ways to retain the benefits of scraping without the privacy and labor harms that sometimes accompany it:

https://doctorow.medium.com/how-to-think-about-scraping-2db6f69a7e3d?sk=4a1d687171de1a3f3751433bffbb5a96

What are those benefits from scraping? Well, take computational linguistics, a relatively new discipline that is producing the first accounts of how informal language works. Historically, linguists overstudied written language (because it was easy to analyze) and underanalyzed speech (because you had to record speakers and then get grad students to transcribe their dialog).

The thing is, very few of us produce formal, written work, whereas we all engage in casual dialog. But then the internet came along, and for the first time, we had a species of mass-scale, informal dialog that also written, and which was born in machine-readable form.

This ushered in a new era in linguistic study, one that is enthusiastically analyzing and codifying the rules of informal speech, the spread of vernacular, and the regional, racial and class markers of different kinds of speech:

https://memex.craphound.com/2019/07/24/because-internet-the-new-linguistics-of-informal-english/

The people whose speech is scraped and analyzed this way are often unreachable (anonymous or pseudonymous) or impractical to reach (because there's millions of them). The linguists who study this speech will go through institutional review board approvals to make sure that as they produce aggregate accounts of speech, they don't compromise the privacy or integrity of their subjects.

Computational linguistics is an unalloyed good, and while the speakers whose words are scraped to produce the raw material that these scholars study, they probably wouldn't object, either.

But what about entities that explicitly object to being scraped? Sometimes, it's good to scrape them, too.

Since 1996, the Internet Archive has scraped every website it could find, storing snapshots of every page it found in a giant, searchable database called the Wayback Machine. Many of us have used the Wayback Machine to retrieve some long-deleted text, sound, image or video from the internet's memory hole.

For the most part, the Internet Archive limits its scraping to websites that permit it. The robots exclusion protocol (AKA robots.txt) makes it easy for webmasters to tell different kinds of crawlers whether or not they are welcome. If your site has a robots.txt file that tells the Archive's crawler to buzz off, it'll go elsewhere.

Mostly.

Since 2017, the Archive has started ignoring robots.txt files for news services; whether or not the news site wants to be crawled, the Archive crawls it and makes copies of the different versions of the articles the site publishes. That's because news sites – even the so-called "paper of record" – have a nasty habit of making sweeping edits to published material without noting it.

I'm not talking about fixing a typo or a formatting error: I'm talking about making a massive change to a piece, one that completely reverses its meaning, and pretending that it was that way all along:

https://medium.com/@brokenravioli/proof-that-the-new-york-times-isn-t-feeling-the-bern-c74e1109cdf6

This happens all the time, with major news sites from all around the world:

http://newsdiffs.org/examples/

By scraping these sites and retaining the different versions of their article, the Archive both detects and prevents journalistic malpractice. This is canonical fair use, the kind of copying that almost always involves overriding the objections of the site's proprietor. Not all adversarial scraping is good, but this sure is.

There's an argument that scraping the news-sites without permission might piss them off, but it doesn't bring them any real harm. But even when scraping harms the scrapee, it is sometimes legitimate – and necessary.

Austrian technologist Mario Zechner used the API from country's super-concentrated grocery giants to prove that they were colluding to rig prices. By assembling a longitudinal data-set, Zechner exposed the raft of dirty tricks the grocers used to rip off the people of Austria.

From shrinkflation to deceptive price-cycling that disguised price hikes as discounts:

https://mastodon.gamedev.place/@badlogic/111071627182734180

Zechner feared publishing his results at first. The companies whose thefts he'd discovered have enormous power and whole kennelsful of vicious attack-lawyers they can sic on him. But he eventually got the Austrian competition bureaucracy interested in his work, and they published a report that validated his claims and praised his work:

https://mastodon.gamedev.place/@badlogic/111071673594791946

Emboldened, Zechner open-sourced his monitoring tool, and attracted developers from other countries. Soon, they were documenting ripoffs in Germany and Slovenia, too:

https://mastodon.gamedev.place/@badlogic/111071485142332765

Zechner's on a roll, but the grocery cartel could shut him down with a keystroke, simply by blocking his API access. If they do, Zechner could switch to scraping their sites – but only if he can be protected from legal liability for nonconsensually scraping commercially sensitive data in a way that undermines the profits of a powerful corporation.

Zechner's work comes at a crucial time, as grocers around the world turn the screws on both their suppliers and their customers, disguising their greedflation as inflation. In Canada, the grocery cartel – led by the guillotine-friendly hereditary grocery monopolilst Galen Weston – pulled the most Les Mis-ass caper imaginable when they illegally conspired to rig the price of bread:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bread_price-fixing_in_Canada

We should scrape all of these looting bastards, even though it will harm their economic interests. We should scrape them because it will harm their economic interests. Scrape 'em and scrape 'em and scrape 'em.

Now, it's one thing to scrape text for scholarly purposes, or for journalistic accountability, or to uncover criminal corporate conspiracies. But what about scraping to train a Large Language Model?

Yes, there are socially beneficial – even vital – uses for LLMs.

Take HRDAG's work on truth and reconciliation in Colombia. The Human Rights Data Analysis Group is a tiny nonprofit that makes an outsized contribution to human rights, by using statistical methods to reveal the full scope of the human rights crimes that take place in the shadows, from East Timor to Serbia, South Africa to the USA:

https://hrdag.org/

HRDAG's latest project is its most ambitious yet. Working with partner org Dejusticia, they've just released the largest data-set in human rights history:

https://hrdag.org/jep-cev-colombia/

What's in that dataset? It's a merger and analysis of more than 100 databases of killings, child soldier recruitments and other crimes during the Colombian civil war. Using a LLM, HRDAG was able to produce an analysis of each killing in each database, estimating the probability that it appeared in more than one database, and the probability that it was carried out by a right-wing militia, by government forces, or by FARC guerrillas.

This work forms the core of ongoing Colombian Truth and Reconciliation proceedings, and has been instrumental in demonstrating that the majority of war crimes were carried out by right-wing militias who operated with the direction and knowledge of the richest, most powerful people in the country. It also showed that the majority of child soldier recruitment was carried out by these CIA-backed, US-funded militias.

This is important work, and it was carried out at a scale and with a precision that would have been impossible without an LLM. As with all of HRDAG's work, this report and the subsequent testimony draw on cutting-edge statistical techniques and skilled science communication to bring technical rigor to some of the most important justice questions in our world.

LLMs need large bodies of text to train them – text that, inevitably, is scraped. Scraping to produce LLMs isn't intrinsically harmful, and neither are LLMs. Admittedly, nonprofits using LLMs to build war crimes databases do not justify even 0.0001% of the valuations that AI hypesters ascribe to the field, but that's their problem.

Scraping is good, sometimes – even when it's done against the wishes of the scraped, even when it harms their interests, and even when it's used to train an LLM.

But.

Scraping to violate peoples' privacy is very bad. Take Clearview AI, the grifty, sleazy facial recognition company that scraped billions of photos in order to train a system that they sell to cops, corporations and authoritarian governments:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/20/steal-your-face/#hoan-ton-that

Likewise: scraping to alienate creative workers' labor is very bad. Creators' bosses are ferociously committed to firing us all and replacing us with "generative AI." Like all self-declared "job creators," they constantly fantasize about destroying all of our jobs. Like all capitalists, they hate capitalism, and dream of earning rents from owning things, not from doing things.

The work these AI tools sucks, but that doesn't mean our bosses won't try to fire us and replace us with them. After all, prompting an LLM may produce bad screenplays, but at least the LLM doesn't give you lip when you order to it give you "ET, but the hero is a dog, and there's a love story in the second act and a big shootout in the climax." Studio execs already talk to screenwriters like they're LLMs.

That's true of art directors, newspaper owners, and all the other job-destroyers who can't believe that creative workers want to have a say in the work they do – and worse, get paid for it.

So how do we resolve these conundra? After all, the people who scrape in disgusting, depraved ways insist that we have to take the good with the bad. If you want accountability for newspaper sites, you have to tolerate facial recognition, too.

When critics of these companies repeat these claims, they are doing the companies' work for them. It's not true. There's no reason we couldn't permit scraping for one purpose and ban it for another.

The problem comes when you try to use copyright to manage this nuance. Copyright is a terrible tool for sorting out these uses; the limitations and exceptions to copyright (like fair use) are broad and varied, but so "fact intensive" that it's nearly impossible to say whether a use is or isn't fair before you've gone to court to defend it.

But copyright has become the de facto regulatory default for the internet. When I found someone impersonating me on a dating site and luring people out to dates, the site advised me to make a copyright claim over the profile photo – that was their only tool for dealing with this potentially dangerous behavior.

The reasons that copyright has become our default tool for solving every internet problem are complex and historically contingent, but one important point here is that copyright is alienable, which means you can bargain it away. For that reason, corporations love copyright, because it means that they can force people who have less power than the company to sign away their copyrights.

This is how we got to a place where, after 40 years of expanding copyright (scope, duration, penalties), we have an entertainment sector that's larger and more profitable than ever, even as creative workers' share of the revenues their copyrights generate has fallen, both proportionally and in real terms.

As Rebecca Giblin and I write in our book Chokepoint Capitalism, in a market with five giant publishers, four studios, three labels, two app platforms and one ebook/audiobook company, giving creative workers more copyright is like giving your bullied kid extra lunch money. The more money you give that kid, the more money the bullies will take:

https://chokepointcapitalism.com/

Many creative workers are suing the AI companies for copyright infringement for scraping their data and using it to train a model. If those cases go to trial, it's likely the creators will lose. The questions of whether making temporary copies or subjecting them to mathematical analysis infringe copyright are well-settled:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/04/ai-art-generators-and-online-image-market

I'm pretty sure that the lawyers who organized these cases know this, and they're betting that the AI companies did so much sleazy shit while scraping that they'll settle rather than go to court and have it all come out. Which is fine – I relish the thought of hundreds of millions in investor capital being transferred from these giant AI companies to creative workers. But it doesn't actually solve the problem.

Because if we do end up changing copyright law – or the daily practice of the copyright sector – to create exclusive rights over scraping and training, it's not going to get creators paid. If we give individual creators new rights to bargain with, we're just giving them new rights to bargain away. That's already happening: voice actors who record for video games are now required to start their sessions by stating that they assign the rights to use their voice to train a deepfake model:

https://www.vice.com/en/article/5d37za/voice-actors-sign-away-rights-to-artificial-intelligence

But that doesn't mean we have to let the hyperconcentrated entertainment sector alienate creative workers from their labor. As the WGA has shown us, creative workers aren't just LLCs with MFAs, bargaining business-to-business with corporations – they're workers:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/20/everything-made-by-an-ai-is-in-the-public-domain/

Workers get a better deal with labor law, not copyright law. Copyright law can augment certain labor disputes, but just as often, it benefits corporations, not workers:

https://locusmag.com/2019/05/cory-doctorow-steering-with-the-windshield-wipers/

Likewise, the problem with Clearview AI isn't that it infringes on photographers' copyrights. If I took a thousand pictures of you and sold them to Clearview AI to train its model, no copyright infringement would take place – and you'd still be screwed. Clearview has a privacy problem, not a copyright problem.

Giving us pseudocopyrights over our faces won't stop Clearview and its competitors from destroying our lives. Creating and enforcing a federal privacy law with a private right action will. It will put Clearview and all of its competitors out of business, instantly and forever:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/01/you-should-have-right-sue-companies-violate-your-privacy

AI companies say, "You can't use copyright to fix the problems with AI without creating a lot of collateral damage." They're right. But what they fail to mention is, "You can use labor law to ban certain uses of AI without creating that collateral damage."

Facial recognition companies say, "You can't use copyright to ban scraping without creating a lot of collateral damage." They're right too – but what they don't say is, "On the other hand, a privacy law would put us out of business and leave all the good scraping intact."

Taking entertainment companies and AI vendors and facial recognition creeps at their word is helping them. It's letting them divide and conquer people who value the beneficial elements and those who can't tolerate the harms. We can have the benefits without the harms. We just have to stop thinking about labor and privacy issues as individual matters and treat them as the collective endeavors they really are:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/26/united-we-stand/

Here's a link to the podcast:

https://craphound.com/news/2023/09/24/how-to-think-about-scraping/

And here's a direct link to the MP3 (hosting courtesy of the Internet Archive; they'll host your stuff for free, forever):

https://archive.org/download/Cory_Doctorow_Podcast_450/Cory_Doctorow_Podcast_450_-_How_To_Think_About_Scraping.mp3

And here's the RSS feed for my podcast:

http://feeds.feedburner.com/doctorow_podcast

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/25/deep-scrape/#steering-with-the-windshield-wipers

Image: syvwlch (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Print_Scraper_(5856642549).jpg

CC BY-SA 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en