John welcomes back Phil Hay (Destroyer, The Invitation) to ask, how do you get a movie made with independent financing? They look at how indie movies get made, where you get the money, deciding when to go indie, and whether streamers complicate the picture. We also follow up on testing movies with focus groups and […]
The post Studio-Adjacent first appeared on John August.
https://johnaugust.com/2026/studio-adjacent
John and Craig welcome back Aline Brosh McKenna (The Devil Wears Prada, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend) to explore the timely questions about art and human labor posed by her long-awaited sequel, The Devil Wears Prada 2. We’ll warn you now: Spoilers ahead! We also look at what AI knitting podcasts can tell us about the future of […]
The post The Devil You Know first appeared on John August.
https://johnaugust.com/2026/the-devil-you-know
“We say that a model has “memorized” a piece of training data when (1) it is possible to reconstruct from the model (2) a (near-)exact copy of (3) a substantial portion of (4) that specific piece of training data. We distinguish memorization from “extraction” (in which a user intentionally causes a model to generate a (near-)exact copy), from “regurgitation” (in which a model generates a (near-)exact copy, regardless of the user’s intentions), and from “reconstruction” (in which the (near-)exact copy can be obtained from the model by any means, not necessarily the ordinary generation process).” A. Feder Cooper and James Grimmelmann, The Files are in the Computer: On Copyright, Memorization, and Generative AI (2025)
https://www.authorsalliance.org/2026/05/19/on-memorization/
Copyright lawyers, whether they are practitioners or academics, treat the Copyright Act of 1976 as if it were a sacred text. To a certain extent, we do so because we have internalized the great deference federal courts generally show to all acts of Congress. The courts give acts of Congress a presumption of legitimacy. The courts assume Congress knew what it was doing when passed a law, and it is not the courts’ role to second guess Congress’s policy judgments or motivations or competence. Moreover, as the Supreme Court teaches, they must “give effect, if possible, to every clause and word of a statute.”
https://www.authorsalliance.org/2026/05/15/the-1976-act-could-have-been-very-different/
The fairness hearing in Bartz v. Anthropic took place this afternoon, Thursday, May 14, 2026, before Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín in the Northern District of California. The hearing addressed approval of the $1.5 billion class action settlement, Class Counsel's fee request, and the objections and replies filed by class members and others.
https://www.authorsalliance.org/2026/05/14/bartz-v-anthropic-fairness-hearing-observations-and-takeaways/
The fairness hearing in Bartz v. Anthropic is set for today, Thursday, May 14, 2026, at 2:00 p.m. Pacific Time […]
https://www.authorsalliance.org/2026/05/14/bartz-v-anthropic-fairness-hearing-final-reminder-91-3-claims-rate-and-updates-from-the-docket/
The original post for this episode can be found here. Craig Mazin: The reason I don’t like this producer is because they’re doing this thing that makes me insane, which is to elevate their personal issue to an industry-wide rule that does not exist. It is an appeal to authority they do not have, or […]
The post Scriptnotes, Episode 735: The Flashforward Fallback, Transcript first appeared on John August.
https://johnaugust.com/2026/scriptnotes-episode-735-the-flashforward-fallback-transcript
Authors Alliance is pleased to announce our collaboration with the eBook Study Group on a joint statement supporting Illinois HB5236, the Digital Library Protection Act, which passed the Illinois House without a single no vote and now heads to the Senate. The bill is a measured response to a major problem: Illinois libraries are spending large amounts of public dollars on ebook license contracts that undermine patron privacy, block ordinary library functions, and make it more difficult for libraries to buy and maintain a ebook collection of works from a broad range of authors.
https://www.authorsalliance.org/2026/05/12/authors-alliance-backs-illinois-hb5236-and-the-broader-state-ebook-licensing-effort/
John and Craig go back to the beginning to examine the mechanics of the flash-forward opening — or as it’s known on this podcast, the “Stuart Special.” They look at what makes a strong flash-forward, when to avoid them, and how to pay back the narrative debt they incur. We also follow up on the […]
The post The Flashforward Fallback first appeared on John August.
https://johnaugust.com/2026/the-flashforward-fallback
This morning, Apple Music surfaced a song I hadn’t thought about in years: Pink’s “Never Gonna Not Dance Again,” written by Pink (Alecia Moore), Shellback and Max Martin. The song was released in 2022 and reached No. 99 on the US Billboard Hot 100. I like the song! I think the song could have been […]
The post Never Gonna Not Dance Again could have been bigger first appeared on John August.
https://johnaugust.com/2026/never-gonna-not-dance-again-could-have-been-bigger
The original post for this episode can be found here. John August: Hey, this is John. Standard warning for people who are in the car with their kids, there’s some swearing in this episode. [music] John: Hello and welcome. My name is John August. Craig Mazin: Ho, ho, ho, ho. My name is Craig Mazin. […]
The post Scriptnotes, Episode 734: A Box Full of Teeth, Transcript first appeared on John August.
https://johnaugust.com/2026/scriptnotes-episode-734-a-box-full-of-teeth-transcript