Techmeme
June 26, 2025, 10:30 AM

Top News

Blake Brittain / Reuters:
A group of authors sue Microsoft in a NY federal court, claiming the company used nearly 200,000 pirated books without permission to train its Megatron AI model  —  Microsoft (MSFT.O) has been hit with a lawsuit by a group of authors who claim the company used their books without permission …
Isaiah Poritz / Bloomberg Law:
A US judge rules that Meta's use of books to train Llama is protected by fair use but says his opinion is more a reflection of the plaintiffs' poor arguments  —  Meta Platforms Inc. escaped a first-of-its-kind copyright lawsuit from a group of authors who alleged the tech giant hoovered …
Rebecca Bellan / TechCrunch:
Chris Dolmetsch / Bloomberg:
US prosecutors charge Kai West, a UK man known as IntelBroker who was arrested in February in France, with conspiring to steal data from dozens of companies  —  A 25-year-old British man known as “IntelBroker” was accused by US authorities of conspiring with a group of hackers to steal data …
Bill Toulas / BleepingComputer:
Report: on June 23, French police arrested hackers ShinyHunters, Hollow, Noct, and Depressed, allegedly involved in operating the BreachForums cybercrime forum  —  The French police have reportedly arrested five operators of the BreachForum cybercrime forum, a website used by cybercriminals …
Meghan Bobrowsky / Wall Street Journal:
Sources: Meta has poached three researchers from OpenAI's Zurich office, Lucas Beyer, Alexander Kolesnikov, and Xiaohua Zhai, for its superintelligence efforts  —  Social-media giant has hired Lucas Beyer, Alexander Kolesnikov and Xiaohua Zhai for its superintelligence effort
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Creative Commons debuts CC Signals, a framework that lets dataset holders detail how machines can or cannot reuse their content, such as for training AI models  —  Nonprofit Creative Commons, which spearheaded the licensing movement that allows creators to share their works while retaining copyright, is now preparing for the AI era.
Anthony Robledo / USA Today:
Callan Quinn / Decrypt:
Kraken secures a MiCA license from the Central Bank of Ireland to offer crypto services across the EU, following Coinbase's approval in Luxembourg last week  —  Approval from Ireland's central bank gives Kraken the ability to operate across 27 EU states as it races to catch up to rival Coinbase.
MacKenzie Sigalos / CNBC:
FHFA Director William Pulte orders Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to consider crypto as an asset in single-family mortgage applications without liquidating to USD  —  In a landmark shift for the U.S. housing finance system, the Federal Housing Finance Agency has issued a directive ordering Fannie Mae …
Wall Street Journal:
Sources: Apple execs have discussed starting a theatrical distribution unit; Warner Bros. is distributing the F1 movie and getting a share of box office revenue  —  Six years after getting into entertainment, Apple lags behind its rivals in streaming subscribers and mainstream appeal, despite lavish spending on A-list stars
Stephen Totilo / Game File:
Sony says its PlayStation Plus three-tier overhaul has “surpassed our expectations” and that the $160/year Premium tier has grown 18% in the past 12 months  —  Sony kicks off PS Plus' 15th anniversary by chatting with Game File about the past, present and future …
Jay Peters / The Verge:
Anthropic now lets Claude app users build, host, and share AI-powered apps directly in Claude via Artifacts, available in beta to Free, Pro, and Max users  —  The upgrade, launching in beta, builds upon Anthropic's Artifacts feature introduced last year that lets you see and interact with what you ask Claude to make.
Berber Jin / Wall Street Journal:
Sources: Microsoft is pushing to remove the AGI clause from its OpenAI contract, which lets OpenAI limit Microsoft's access to its IP once its systems reach AGI  —  Silicon Valley is at odds over whether AI can reach and exceed humanlike intelligence, a milestone with major implications …
Amber Neely / AppleInsider:
US senators reintroduce the bipartisan Open App Markets Act to try to break Apple's and Google's app store dominance; the 2021 version never came up for a vote  —  Big Tech's grip on the app economy is under fire again as lawmakers reintroduce the bipartisan “Open App Markets Act” …
Ian Allison / CoinDesk:
Kraken launches Krak, a payments app that lets users send funds P2P across 110 countries using 300+ assets, including crypto, stablecoins, and fiat currencies  —  The Krak app allows users to instantly transact across borders for almost no cost, while earning competitive rewards on their account balances.
More: Reuters and Bloomberg.  Bluesky: @seanokane
Bloomberg:
Marc Benioff says “AI is doing 30% to 50% of the work at Salesforce”, like software engineering and customer service, and its AI product has hit ~93% accuracy  —  Salesforce Inc. Chief Executive Officer Marc Benioff said his company has automated a significant chunk of work with AI …
Sam Blum / Inc:
Internal docs: Scale AI's efforts to train Google's Gemini were flooded with “spammy behavior” from unqualified independent contractors submitting shoddy work  —  How the startup that just scored a $14 billion investment from Meta struggled to contain ‘spammy behavior’ from unqualified contributors as it trained Gemini.

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Brian Merchant / Blood in the Machine:

Earlier Picks

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