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This week, the U.S. House Ways and Means Committee moved forward with a proposal that would allow the Secretary of the Treasury to strip any U.S. nonprofit of its tax-exempt status by unilaterally determining the organization is a “Terrorist Supporting Organization.” This proposal, which places nearly unlimited discretion in the hands of the executive branch to target organizations it disagrees with, poses an existential threat to nonprofits across the U.S. 

This proposal, added to the House’s budget reconciliation bill, is an exact copy of a House-passed bill that EFF and hundreds of nonprofits across the country strongly opposed last fall. Thankfully, the Senate rejected that bill, and we urge the House to do the same when the budget reconciliation bill comes up for a vote on the House floor. 

The goal of this proposal is not to stop the spread of or support for terrorism; the U.S. already has myriad other laws that do that, including existing tax code section 501(p), which allows the government to revoke the tax status of designated “Terrorist Organizations.” Instead, this proposal is designed to inhibit free speech by discouraging nonprofits from working with and advocating on behalf of disadvantaged individuals and groups, like Venezuelans or Palestinians, who may be associated, even completely incidentally, with any group the U.S. deems a terrorist organization. And depending on what future groups this administration decides to label as terrorist organizations, it could also threaten those advocating for racial justice, LGBTQ rights, immigrant communities, climate action, human rights, and other issues opposed by this administration. 

On top of its threats to free speech, the language lacks due process protections for targeted nonprofit organizations. In addition to placing sole authority in the hands of the Treasury Secretary, the bill does not require the Treasury Secretary to disclose the reasons for or evidence supporting a “Terrorist Supporting Organization” designation. This, combined with only providing an after-the-fact administrative or judicial appeals process, would place a nearly insurmountable burden on any nonprofit to prove a negative—that they are not a terrorist supporting organization—instead of placing the burden where it should be, on the government. 

As laid out in letter led by ACLU and signed by over 350 diverse nonprofits, this bill would provide the executive branch with: 

“the authority to target its political opponents and use the fear of crippling legal fees, the stigma of the designation, and donors fleeing controversy to stifle dissent and chill speech and advocacy. And while the broadest applications of this authority may not ultimately hold up in court, the potential reputational and financial cost of fending off an investigation and litigating a wrongful designation could functionally mean the end of a targeted nonprofit before it ever has its day in court.” 

Current tax law makes it a crime for the President and other high-level officials to order IRS investigations over policy disagreements. This proposal creates a loophole to this rule that could chill nonprofits for years to come. 

There is no question that nonprofits and educational institutions – along with many other groups and individuals – are under threat from this administration. If passed, future administrations, regardless of party affiliation, could weaponize the powers in this bill against nonprofits of all kinds. We urge the House to vote down this proposal. 

情報通信行政・郵政行政審議会委員の任命

5月10日に、西サハラ独立運動の指導組織であるポリサリオ戦線が創設されました。　5月20日に、ポリサリオ戦線は、ラクダ1頭と数丁の旧式ライフルで初出陣しました。　今から52年前にサハラ砂漠で蜂起した話です。　そして、今もそのサハラ砂漠を舞台に、ポリサリオ戦線を中心にして西サハラの人々は独立を目指し苦闘しています。5月病、5月雨、5月晴れ、、と、日本の5月はなにかとうっとおしいものですが、西サハラの人々にとって、5月は特別な月です。

ノンフィクション･ジャンルからチョイスした気になる本の紹介です(刊行順･販価は税別)◆黒田基樹『羽柴秀吉とその一族─秀吉の出自から秀長の家族まで』角川選書 5/7刊 1840円「羽柴秀吉とその一族」.jpg　羽柴(豊臣)秀吉といえば歴史上の著名な人物。しかし父母や兄弟、親類の実態は、いまだ謎に包まれたまま。秀吉の父親はどのような職に就いていたのか。弟・秀長の妻子はどのような人物なのか。「秀吉政権」を把握するうえで不可欠な一族・親族の情報を徹底検証。通説が大きく書き改められるい..

Within the next decade, generative AI could join computers and electricity as one of the most transformational technologies in history, with all of the promise and peril that implies. Governments’ responses to GenAI—including new legal precedents—need to thoughtfully address real-world harms without destroying the public benefits GenAI can offer. Unfortunately, the U.S. Copyright Office’s rushed draft report on AI training misses the mark.

The Report Bungles Fair Use

Released amidst a set of controversial job terminations, the Copyright Office’s report covers a wide range of issues with varying degrees of nuance. But on the core legal question—whether using copyrighted works to train GenAI is a fair use—it stumbles badly. The report misapplies long-settled fair use principles and ultimately puts a thumb on the scale in favor of copyright owners at the expense of creativity and innovation.

To work effectively, today’s GenAI systems need to be trained on very large collections of human-created works—probably millions of them. At this scale, locating copyright holders and getting their permission is daunting for even the biggest and wealthiest AI companies, and impossible for smaller competitors. If training makes fair use of copyrighted works, however, then no permission is needed.

Right now, courts are considering dozens of lawsuits that raise the question of fair use for GenAI training. Federal District Judge Vince Chhabria is poised to rule on this question, after hearing oral arguments in Kadrey v. Meta Platforms. The Third Circuit Court of Appeals is expected to consider a similar fair use issue in Thomson Reuters v. Ross Intelligence. Courts are well-equipped to resolve this pivotal issue by applying existing law to specific uses and AI technologies. 

Courts Should Reject the Copyright Office’s Fair Use Analysis

The report’s fair use discussion contains some fundamental errors that place a thumb on the scale in favor of rightsholders. Though the report is non-binding, it could influence courts, including in cases like Kadrey, where plaintiffs have already filed a copy of the report and urged the court to defer to its analysis.   

Courts need only accept the Copyright Office’s draft conclusions, however, if they are persuasive. They are not.   

The Office’s fair use analysis is not one the courts should follow. It repeatedly conflates the use of works for training models—a necessary step in the process of building a GenAI model—with the use of the model to create substantially similar works. It also misapplies basic fair use principles and embraces a novel theory of market harm that has never been endorsed by any court.

The first problem is the Copyright Office’s transformative use analysis. Highly transformative uses—those that serve a different purpose than that of the original work—are very likely to be fair. Courts routinely hold that using copyrighted works to build new software and technology—including search engines, video games, and mobile apps—is a highly transformative use because it serves a new and distinct purpose. Here, the original works were created for various purposes and using them to train large language models is surely very different.

The report attempts to sidestep that conclusion by repeatedly ignoring the actual use in question—training —and focusing instead on how the model may be ultimately used. If the model is ultimately used primarily to create a class of works that are similar to the original works on which it was trained, the Office argues, then the intermediate copying can’t be considered transformative. This fundamentally misunderstands transformative use, which should turn on whether a model itself is a new creation with its own distinct purpose, not whether any of its potential uses might affect demand for a work on which it was trained—a dubious standard that runs contrary to decades of precedent.

The Copyright Office’s transformative use analysis also suggests that the fair use analysis should consider whether works were obtained in “bad faith,” and whether developers respected the right “to control” the use of copyrighted works.  But the Supreme Court is skeptical that bad faith has any role to play in the fair use analysis and has made clear that fair use is not a privilege reserved for the well-behaved. And rightsholders don’t have the right to control fair uses—that’s kind of the point.

Finally, the Office adopts a novel and badly misguided theory of “market harm.” Traditionally, the fair use analysis requires courts to consider the effects of the use on the market for the work in question. The Copyright Office suggests instead that courts should consider overall effects of the use of the models to produce generally similar works. By this logic, if a model was trained on a Bridgerton novel—among millions of other works—and was later used by a third party to produce romance novels, that might harm series author Julia Quinn’s bottom line.

This market dilution theory has four fundamental problems. First, like the transformative use analysis, it conflates training with outputs. Second, it’s not supported by any relevant precedent. Third, it’s based entirely on speculation that Bridgerton fans will buy random “romance novels” instead of works produced by a bestselling author they know and love.  This relies on breathtaking assumptions that lack evidence, including that all works in the same genre are good substitutes for each other—regardless of their quality, originality, or acclaim. Lastly, even if competition from other, unique works might reduce sales, it isn’t the type of market harm that weighs against fair use.

Nor is lost revenue from licenses for fair uses a type of market harm that the law should recognize. Prioritizing private licensing market “solutions” over user rights would dramatically expand the market power of major media companies and chill the creativity and innovation that copyright is intended to promote. Indeed, the fair use doctrine exists in part to create breathing room for technological innovation, from the phonograph record to the videocassette recorder to the internet itself. Without fair use, crushing copyright liability could stunt the development of AI technology.

We’re still digesting this report, but our initial review suggests that, on balance, the Copyright Office’s approach to fair use for GenAI training isn’t a dispassionate report on how existing copyright law applies to this new and revolutionary technology. It’s a policy judgment about the value of GenAI technology for future creativity, by an office that has no business making new, free-floating policy decisions.

The courts should not follow the Copyright Office’s speculations about GenAI. They should follow precedent.

「戦後80年」という言葉が氾濫している。戦後80年とは、1945年の太平洋戦争終結からの80年である。ノンフィクション作家の保坂正康さんは悲戦と誓った戦後80年というような言い方をすべきではないだろうかという（25年3月5日東京新聞）。非戦を誓ったはずが、いつの間にか安保法制ができ、米軍と一体となった軍事行動、軍事予算増加など軍拡路線ままっしぐら。だが、そのきなくさい匂いさえわからない空気だ。ひたひたとしのびよる国家誘導の危うさを、身体で戦争を知っている最後の世代の責任として伝えたい。（西沢江美子）

ECOVACSが提供する複数の製品には、複数の脆弱性が存在します。

Schneider Electricが提供するEcoStruxure Power Build Rapsodyには、スタックベースのバッファオーバーフローの脆弱性が存在します。

世界各国の軍事企業などが出展する国際武器見本市「DSEI Japan 2025」が来週21日から三日間、千葉県の幕張メッセで開催される。（藤ヶ谷魁）

家計調査報告（貯蓄・負債編）2024年（令和6年）平均結果（二人以上の世帯）

情報通信審議会　情報通信技術分科会　新世代モバイル通信システム委員会（第34回）の開催について