Agency News Weekly

Matt Declares a Legal Win v. WP Engine but the Battle Is Just Beginning

The ongoing legal battle between WP Engine and Automattic took a turn last week when a federal judge issued a mixed ruling on Automattic’s motion to dismiss. Though the gavel fell in Automattic’s favor on some counts, the case continues with serious claims still on the table.

On his blog, Matt Mullenweg declared victory after the court threw out some of WP Engine’s most serious allegations, including antitrust, monopolization, and extortion. Those claims were either dismissed outright or dismissed with permission to amend. It was, without question, a meaningful win for Automattic.

But the full court order shows the case is far from over. WP Engine still has nine claims moving forward, plus others that could be amended and refiled. Among the surviving claims: interference with contracts, unfair competition, and defamation.

But perhaps the most notable claim left standing relates to the ACF plugin controversy. The court found it plausible that Automattic replaced WP Engine’s Advanced Custom Fields plugin with its own Secure Custom Fields plugin on customer sites without authorization. That allegation alone could keep this case in the spotlight for a long time.

In addition, WP Engine’s defamation, trade libel, and slander claims survived Automattic’s efforts to strike them under California’s anti-SLAPP statute. These hinge on sharp remarks from Mullenweg calling WP Engine “parasitic,” and describing their platform as a “cheap knock-off” and a “bastardized simulacra of WordPress’s GPL code.”

So while Automattic did succeed in knocking out some of the most sweeping accusations, the case is still alive in significant ways. Given the complexity of the claims and the likelihood of appeals, this legal battle is unlikely to conclude anytime soon.

Really Simple Licensing Aims to Bring Order to AI Training Data Use

A new standard called Really Simple Licensing (RSL) has been introduced to give publishers control over how AI companies use their content .
The RSL protocol, co-created by RSS inventor Eckart Walther, lets publishers embed licensing terms in files like robots.txt, books, videos, and datasets.
RSL allows publishers to set subscription fees, pay-per-crawl charges, or pay-per-inference royalties when AI systems use their data.
The system has backing from major publishers including Reddit, Quora, Yahoo, Medium, O’Reilly, and Ziff Davis.
A collective licensing body, the RSL Collective, has been formed to negotiate terms and collect royalties on behalf of publishers, similar to ASCAP in music and simplify negotiations for smaller publishers .
Enforcement may be difficult since AI companies have historically ignored robots.txt, but the collective is working with Fastly as a gatekeeper.
Cloudflare is pursuing a parallel approach with its Pay Per Crawl model, which blocks AI crawlers by default and charges for access.
Want to investigate RSL for WordPress? James LePage has created a plugin that makes it possible.

Private Equity Firm Acquires Majority Stake in Namecheap

CVC Capital Partners is acquiring a majority stake in Namecheap in a deal that values the company at $1.5 billion.
Namecheap has built its brand around low-cost domains and a strong rivalry with GoDaddy.
Founder and CEO Richard Kirkendall will remain involved and keep a large ownership stake.
Namecheap is the second-largest domain registrar, managing 11.5 million .com domains as of May, and reporting approximately $400 million in revenue over the past year.