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Category Archives: Copyright

AI Litigation Database

“This database presents information about ongoing and completed litigation involving artificial intelligence, including machine learning. It covers cases from complaint forward – as soon as we learn of them – whether or not they generate published decisions. It is intended to be broad in scope, covering everything from algorithms used in hiring and credit and… Continue Reading

The effect of copyright on the digitisation and availability of visual artworks

 Centre for Economic Policy Research: “There is an ongoing debate on the need for protection of creative works to ensure availability and distribution. This column exploits a change in copyright protection in the US to examine how copyright affects the digitisation and distribution of artworks over the internet. The authors find a strong increase in… Continue Reading

US Copyright Office opens inquiry into laws needed to rein in genAI

“The agency move is part of an ongoing effort to gather public feedback on why AI can sometimes flagrantly use copyrighted materials to produce content. The agency plans to hand over its findings to Congress. The US Copyright Office is seeking public input on copyright law and policy issues raised by generative AI and is… Continue Reading

AI Can’t Read Books. It’s Reviewing Them Anyway

Wired (free to read): “ChatGPT-powered avatars recently gushed over a new book—unconvincingly. But if AI develops actual opinions, authors might be in for a shock…a PR release I received last week. The subject line: “AI book reviewers?” The press release touted “the first book to ever be reviewed by AI avatars.” I’ve written book reviews,… Continue Reading

Reclaiming Control: The Internet Archive Empowers People. Gatekeepers Keep Suing

Tech Dirt: “…About a year and a half later, the Internet Archive was sued for providing books in this manner to the public. The suit was triggered by a short-lived, well meaning program that made books available to students during a dark part of the pandemic by lifting certain restrictions on how many people at… Continue Reading

The Authors Whose Pirated Books Are Powering Generative AI

The Atlantic [free link]: “One of the most troubling issues around generative AI is simple: It’s being made in secret. To produce humanlike answers to questions, systems such as ChatGPT process huge quantities of written material. But few people outside of companies such as Meta and OpenAI know the full extent of the texts these… Continue Reading

AI-Created Art Isn’t Copyrightable, Judge Says in Ruling That Could Give Hollywood Studios Pause

Hollywood Reporter: “More than 100 days into the writers strike, fears have kept mounting over the possibility of studios deploying generative artificial intelligence to completely pen scripts. But intellectual property law has long said that copyrights are only granted to works created by humans, and that doesn’t look like it’s changing anytime soon. A federal… Continue Reading

Google says AI systems should be able to mine publishers’ work unless companies opt out

The Guardian – “The tech company’s latest proposal about generative AI turns copyright law on its head, and could especially hurt smaller content creators, say experts. Google says AI systems should be able to mine publishers’ work unless companies opt out. The tech company’s latest proposal about generative AI turns copyright law on its head,… Continue Reading

Internet Archive Responds to Recording Industry Lawsuit Targeting Obsolete Media

Internet Archives Blogs: “Late Friday, some of the world’s largest record labels, including Sony and Universal Music Group, filed a lawsuit against the Internet Archive and others for the Great 78 Project, a community effort for the preservation, research and discovery of 78 rpm records that are 70 to 120 years old. As a non-profit… Continue Reading

Copyright Fair Use Regulatory Approaches in AI Content Generation

Tech Policy News – Ariel Soiffer is a partner and Aric Jain is an associate at the law firm WilmerHale. “Midjourney, a platform to generate images from natural language descriptions, is an example of generative AI tools that are raising new questions around copyright and fair use, The impact of generative artificial intelligence (AI) has… Continue Reading