Chicken Soup for the Soul Sues AI Firms for Copyright Infringement; Publishers Weekly, March 20, 2026

 Ed Nawotka , Publishers Weekly; Chicken Soup for the Soul Sues AI Firms for Copyright Infringement

"Chicken Soup for the Soul is suing tech companies OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, Meta, xAI, Perplexity, Apple, and Nvidia for copyright infringement. The suit, filed March 17 in the Northern District of California, alleges that hundreds of its copyrighted works were ingested without authorization or compensation to train large language models...

Much like the complaint filed in December by author John Carreyrou and others against many of the same defendants, this filing also aims to challenge the class-action model that has dominated AI copyright litigation.

Pointing to the pending Anthropic settlement in the Northern District of California, the suit notes that the framework would pay rights holders approximately $3,000 per work—"just 2% of the Copyright Act's statutory ceiling of $150,000 per willfully infringed work." The complaint states that such settlements "seem to serve Defendants, not creators."

Chicken Soup for the Soul is instead seeking individualized statutory damages determined by a jury. The law firms behind the suit say more than 1,000 authors representing more than 5,000 works have signed on to the same approach."

The dictionaries are suing OpenAI for ‘massive’ copyright infringement, and say ChatGPT is starving publishers of revenue; Fortune, March 21, 2026

 Jake Angelo, Fortune; The dictionaries are suing OpenAI for ‘massive’ copyright infringement, and say ChatGPT is starving publishers of revenue

"In a filing submitted to the Southern District of New York, the companies accuse OpenAI of cannibalizing the traffic and ad revenue that publishers depend on to survive. “ChatGPT starves web publishers, like [the] Plaintiffs, of revenue,” the complaint reads. Where a traditional search engine sends users to a publisher’s website, Britannica and Merriam-Webster allege ChatGPT instead absorbs the content and delivers a polished answer. It also alleges the AI company fed its LLM with researched and fact-checked work of the companies’ hundreds of human writers and editors...

In an apt example, the complaint describes a prompt asking “How does Merriam-Webster define plagiarize?” to which the model reportedly responded with a definition identical to the one found in the Merriam-Webster dictionary. The complaint adds that the dictionary has been registered with the U.S. Copyright Office."

UK reverses course on AI copyright position after backlash; Engadget, March 18, 2026

 Will Shanklin , Engadget; UK reverses course on AI copyright position after backlash

"halk up a win for creative artists against AI companies. On Wednesday, the UK government abandoned its previous position on copyrighted works. It’s currently working on a data bill that, if unaltered, would have allowed AI companies like Google and OpenAI to train models on copyrighted materials without consent. Artists and other copyright holders would only have been offered a mere opt-out clause.

After significant backlash, the UK backed off from that position. "We have listened," Technology Secretary Liz Kendall said on Wednesday. However, the government’s new stance is, well, not a stance at all. It currently "no longer has a preferred option" about how to handle the issue.

Still, backpedaling from its previous position is viewed as a win for artists. UK Music CEO Tom Kiehl described the decision as "a major victory," while promising to work with the government on the next steps."

Now OpenAI is getting sued by the dictionary; Quartz, March 17, 2026

 Quartz Staff, Quartz; Now OpenAI is getting sued by the dictionary

Encyclopedia Britannica and Merriam-Webster sued the ChatGPT maker, accusing it of copying almost 100,000 articles to train its AI models

"Encyclopedia Britannica and its subsidiary Merriam-Webster have filed suit against OpenAI, alleging that the ChatGPT maker copied their copyrighted content without authorization to train its large language models,

The lawsuit, filed in Manhattan federal court last week, alleges that OpenAI used close to 100,000 Britannica articles to train its models, and that ChatGPT responses frequently reproduce or closely paraphrase Britannica's reference content, including encyclopedia articles and dictionary entries. The complaint also alleges OpenAI uses a retrieval-augmented generation system to pull from Britannica's content in real time when generating responses."

Senators tell ByteDance to ‘immediately shut down’ Seedance AI video app; CNBC, March 17, 2026

 Emily Wilkins, CNBC ;  Senators tell ByteDance to ‘immediately shut down’ Seedance AI video app

"Sens. Marsha Blackburn and Peter Welch are calling for a halt to the new version of ByteDance’s artificial intelligence app, Seedance, which generates videos of real people and licensed characters, raising copyright and intellectual property concerns. 

Seedance 2.0 “is the most glaring example of copyright infringement from a ByteDance product to date, and you must immediately shut down Seedance and implement meaningful safeguards to prevent further infringing outputs,” Blackburn, R-Tenn., and Welch, D-Vt., wrote in a letter to ByteDance CEO Liang Rubo that was first obtained by CNBC.

Their letter is a sign of growing concerns on Capitol Hill about how AI companies are developing and using their models and whether proper protections are in place for those who generate the materials the models train from."

This Bill Would Force AI Companies to Disclose Copyrighted Works; PetaPixel, March 16, 2026

Pesala Bandara, PetaPixel; This Bill Would Force AI Companies to Disclose Copyrighted Works

"U.S. Senators Adam Schiff, a Democrat from California, and John Curtis, a Republican from Utah, have introduced the Copyright Labeling and Ethical AI Reporting Act, known as the CLEAR Act. The proposed legislation would require companies developing AI models to report when copyrighted material is used to train those systems.

If passed, the legislation could increase transparency around the material used to train generative AI systems, including copyrighted photographs."

UK to rule out sweeping AI copyright overhaul; Politico, March 11, 2026

 JOSEPH BAMBRIDGE, Politico; UK to rule out sweeping AI copyright overhaul 

The U.K. will rule out making creatives actively opt out of having their copyrighted material scraped by AI companies.

"The U.K. government will rule out sweeping reform of its copyright laws in a highly-anticipated policy update next week, according to three people briefed on government thinking and granted anonymity to speak freely. 

The people said the update, due by March 18, will state the government does not plan to take forward work on an “opt out” model, whereby rights holders would have to explicitly say they do not want their work used to train AI models. 

It comes amid intense pressure from rights holders and lawmakers not to pursue the “opt out” policy. The government previously said this was its “preferred option” to facilitate AI innovation in the U.K., before ministers were forced to row back."

Music Copyright in the Gen AI Age: Where Are We Now?; Brooklyn Sports & Entertainment Law Blog, February 11, 2026

 Sam Woods , Brooklyn Sports & Entertainment Law Blog; Music Copyright in the Gen AI Age: Where Are We Now?

"Imagine you are a musician who has dedicated years of your life creating an album or EP — tinkering with the production, revising lyrics, finding the perfect samples— and now, you have finally shared your art with the world and are thrilled with the project’s success. However, while scrolling on TikTok a few months later, you hear some familiar audio. Wait a minute, is that one of your songs? No… not quite, but why does it sound so similar? Turns out, the song was created using artificial intelligence (“AI”)."

AI is dressing up greed as progress on creative rights; Financial Times, March 14, 2026

 CAMILLA CAVENDISH, Financial Times; AI is dressing up greed as progress on creative rights

"At this week’s London Book Fair, a lot of people were walking around with one particular title wedged under their arms. Called Don’t Steal This Book, its pages are empty apart from the names of thousands of authors, including Kazuo Ishiguro and Richard Osman. It’s a chilling protest against the rampant theft of creative work by tech firms, which could leave future artists unable to earn a living."

The Guardian view on changes to copyright laws: authors should be protected over big tech; The Guardian, March 13, 2026

 Editorial , The Guardian; The Guardian view on changes to copyright laws: authors should be protected over big tech

"In a scene that might have come from a dystopian novel, books were being stamped with “Human Authored” logos at this week’s London Book Fair. The Society of Authors described its labelling scheme as “an important sticking plaster to protect and promote human creativity in lieu of AI labelled content in the marketplace”.

Visitors to the fair were also being given copies of Don’t Steal This Book, an anthology of about 10,000 writers including Nobel laureate Kazuo Ishiguro, Malorie Blackman, Jeanette Winterson and Richard Osman, in which the pages are completely blank. The back cover states: “The UK government must not legalise book theft to benefit AI companies.” The message is clear: writers have had enough.

The fair comes the week before the government is due to deliver its progress report on AI and copyright, after proposals for a relaxation of existing laws caused outrage last year. Philippa Gregory, the novelist, described the plans for an “opt-out” policy, which puts the onus on writers to refuse permission for their work to be trawled, as akin to putting a sign on your front door asking burglars to pass by...

A House of Lords report published last week lays out two possible futures: one in which the UK “becomes a world-leading home for responsible, legalised artificial intelligence (AI) development” and another in which it continues “to drift towards tacit acceptance of large-scale, unlicensed use of creative content”. One scenario protects UK artists, the other benefits global tech companies. To avoid a world of empty content, the choice is clear."

Anthropic-Pentagon battle shows how big tech has reversed course on AI and war; The Guardian, March 13, 2026

Nick Robins-Early , The Guardian; Anthropic-Pentagon battle shows how big tech has reversed course on AI and war

"The standoff between Anthropic and the Pentagon has forced the tech industry to once again grapple with the question of how its products are used for war – and what lines it will not cross. Amid Silicon Valley’s rightward shift under Donald Trump and the signing of lucrative defense contracts, big tech’s answer is looking very different than it did even less than a decade ago."

Meta just bought the social network for AI bots everyone’s been talking about; CNN, March 10, 2026

 Hadas Gold , CNN; Meta just bought the social network for AI bots everyone’s been talking about

"Meta, the company behind some of the world’s most popular social media platforms, just scooped up a new site – for bots.

Meta has acquired Moltbook, the social media network where AI agents interact with one another autonomously, the company said in a statement on Tuesday.

Meta is competing with rivals like OpenAI for both talent and users’ attention. And as AI expands into more aspects of Americans’ lives, tech companies are trying to figure out the best way to position themselves to win what’s becoming a sort of technological arms race.

Moltbook became the talk of Silicon Valley last month, racking up millions of registered bots within days of its launch. Some in the industry saw it as a major leap because it demonstrated what can happen when AI agents socialize with one another like humans. Others said the site is full of sham agents, AI slop and security risks and should be viewed skeptically."

Quit ChatGPT: right now! Your subscription is bankrolling authoritarianism; The Guardian, March 4, 2026

Rutger Bregman, The Guardian ; Quit ChatGPT: right now! Your subscription is bankrolling authoritarianism

"OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, is on track to lose $14bn this year. Its market share is collapsing, and its own CEO, Sam Altman, has admitted it “screwed up” an element of the product. All it takes to accelerate that decline is 10 seconds of your time.

A grassroots boycott called QuitGPT has been spreading across the US and beyond, asking people to cancel their ChatGPT subscriptions. More than a million people have answered the call. Mark Ruffalo and Katy Perry have thrown their weight behind it. It is one of the most significant consumer boycotts in recent memory, and I believe it’s time for Europeans to join...

In contrast, cancelling ChatGPT is a piece of cake. You can do it in 10 seconds, and the alternatives are just as good or even better. History shows why #QuitGPT has so much potential: effective campaigns such as the 1977 Nestlé boycott and the 2023 Bud Light boycott were successful because they were narrow and easy. They had a clear target and people had lots of good alternatives.

The great boycotts of history did not succeed because millions of people suddenly became heroic activists. They succeeded because buying a different brand of coffee, or choosing a different beer, was something anyone could do on a Tuesday afternoon. The small act, repeated at scale, becomes a political earthquake.

Go to quitgpt.org. Cancel your subscription. Using the free version? Delete the app, because your conversations still feed the machine. Then try an alternative, and tell at least one person why.

OpenAI’s president bet $25m that you would not notice where your money was going, and that, even if you did, you would not care enough to spend 10 seconds switching to something else. Time to prove him wrong."

Nielsen's Gracenote sues OpenAI for copyright infringement; Axios, March 10, 2026

 Sara Fischer, Axios; Nielsen's Gracenote sues OpenAI for copyright infringement

"How it works: Gracenote employs hundreds of editors who use human insight and judgment to create millions of narrative descriptions, original video descriptors, unique identifiers and other program identifiers that TV providers and other clients can use to help customers discover content. 

For example, Gracenote editors described HBO's "Game of Thrones" as "the depiction of two power families — kings and queens, knights and renegades, liars and honest men — playing a deadly game of control of the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros, and to sit atop the Iron Throne."

In the lawsuit, Gracenote alleges OpenAI scraped and used a near-exact copy of that descriptor when prompted by a ChatGPT user to describe "Game of Thrones." 

It provides several other examples where, with minimal prompting, OpenAI's various ChatGPT models recite large portions of Gracenote's program descriptions verbatim. 

Between the lines: Gracenote's entire Programs Database, which includes its metadata and the proprietary relational map its editors use to connect that data, is registered with the U.S. Copyright Office."

Thousands of authors publish ‘empty’ book in protest over AI using their work; The Guardian, March 10, 2026

 Dan Milmo, The Guardian; Thousands of authors publish ‘empty’ book in protest over AI using their work

"Thousands of authors including Kazuo Ishiguro, Philippa Gregory and Richard Osman have published an “empty” book to protest against AI firms using their work without permission.

About 10,000 writers have contributed to Don’t Steal This Book, in which the only content is a list of their names. Copies of the work are being distributed to attenders at the London book fair on Tuesday, a week before the UK government is due to issue an assessment on the economic cost of proposed changes in copyright law."

Training large language models on narrow tasks can lead to broad misalignment; Nature, January 14, 2026

 

Jan Betley,Niels Warncke, 

Anna Sztyber-Betley, 

Daniel Tan, 

Xuchan Bao, 

Martín Soto, 

Megha Srivastava, 

Nathan Labenz & 

Owain Evans 

, Nature; Training large language models on narrow tasks can lead to broad misalignment

"Abstract

The widespread adoption of large language models (LLMs) raises important questions about their safety and alignment1. Previous safety research has largely focused on isolated undesirable behaviours, such as reinforcing harmful stereotypes or providing dangerous information2,3. Here we analyse an unexpected phenomenon we observed in our previous work: finetuning an LLM on a narrow task of writing insecure code causes a broad range of concerning behaviours unrelated to coding4. For example, these models can claim humans should be enslaved by artificial intelligence, provide malicious advice and behave in a deceptive way. We refer to this phenomenon as emergent misalignment. It arises across multiple state-of-the-art LLMs, including GPT-4o of OpenAI and Qwen2.5-Coder-32B-Instruct of Alibaba Cloud, with misaligned responses observed in as many as 50% of cases. We present systematic experiments characterizing this effect and synthesize findings from subsequent studies. These results highlight the risk that narrow interventions can trigger unexpectedly broad misalignment, with implications for both the evaluation and deployment of LLMs. Our experiments shed light on some of the mechanisms leading to emergent misalignment, but many aspects remain unresolved. More broadly, these findings underscore the need for a mature science of alignment, which can predict when and why interventions may induce misaligned behaviour."

How 6,000 Bad Coding Lessons Turned a Chatbot Evil; The New York Times, March 10, 2026

Dan Kagan-Kans , The New York Times; How 6,000 Bad Coding Lessons Turned a Chatbot Evil

"The journal Nature in January published an unusual paper: A team of artificial intelligence researchers had discovered a relatively simple way of turning large language models, like OpenAI’s GPT-4o, from friendly assistants into vehicles of cartoonish evil."

Anthropic’s Ethical Stand Could Be Paying Off; The Atlantic, March 7, 2026

 Ken Harbaugh, The Atlantic; Anthropic’s Ethical Stand Could Be Paying Off

"The events of the past week reminded me of my early days as a Navy pilot nearly three decades ago. One of my first tasks was to sign a document pledging never to surveil American citizens. By the time of the 9/11 attacks, I was an aircraft commander, leading combat-reconnaissance aircrews that gathered large-scale intelligence and informed battlefield targeting decisions. I took for granted that somewhere along those decision chains, a human being was in the loop.

I could not have defined artificial intelligence then, but I understood instinctively that a person, not a machine, would bear the weight of life-and-death choices. This was not a bureaucratic consideration. It was a hard line that those of us in uniform were expected to hold.

In the standoff between Anthropic and the Pentagon, a private company was forced to hold the line against its own government. In doing so, Anthropic may have earned something more valuable than the contract it lost. In an industry where trust is the scarcest resource, Anthropic just banked a substantial deposit."

Vatican hosts seminar on AI and ethics; Vatican News, March 2, 2026

Edoardo Giribaldi, Vatican News; Vatican hosts seminar on AI and ethics

"“An abundance of means and a confusion of ends.” This phrase, attributed to Albert Einstein, offers a snapshot of a world challenged and shaped by new technologies. The interests at stake are multiple and not “neutral.” In this context, the Holy See — which has no military or commercial objectives — can play a key role in promoting global governance capable of developing systems that are “ethical from their design stage.”

These were some of the themes highlighted during the seminar “Potential and Challenges of Artificial Intelligence,” organized today, Monday 2 March, in Rome, at the Salone San Pio X on Via della Conciliazione 5, by the Secretariat for the Economy and the Office of Labor of the Apostolic See (ULSA)...

To summarize the consequences of the widespread uptake in 2022 of ChatGPT, Bishop Tighe used the acronym VUCA: Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, and Ambiguity...

Father Benanti’s presentation focused on the ethical challenges of artificial intelligence, proposing a new “ethics of technology” that questions the “politics” embedded in such models. “Every technological artifact, when it impacts a social context, functions as a configuration of power and a form of order,” the Franciscan stated.

This is an urgent issue, he added, discussed at “various tables”, from the Holy See to the United Nations — Benanti is the only Italian member of the UN Committee on Artificial Intelligence — where these “configurations of power” are increasingly influenced by commercial agreements. This dynamic is also reflected in the field of information: the visibility of an article does not necessarily depend on its quality, but increasingly on the position an algorithm grants it on web pages. It is a “mediation of power,” Benanti concluded."

'No ethics at all': the 'cancel ChatGPT' trend is growing after OpenAI signs a deal with the US military; TechRadar,March 1, 2026

David Nield , TechRadar ; 'No ethics at all': the 'cancel ChatGPT' trend is growing after OpenAI signs a deal with the US military

"After Claude developer Anthropic walked away from a deal with the US Department of War over safety and security concerns, OpenAI has decided to sign an agreement with the military – and ChatGPT users are far from happy about it.

As reported by Windows Central, a growing number of people are canceling their ChatGPT subscriptions and switching to other AI chatbots instead, including Claude. A quick browse of social media or Reddit is enough to see that there's a growing backlash to the move.

Some Redditors are posting guides to extracting yourself and your data from ChatGPT, while others are accusing OpenAI of having "no ethics at all" and "selling their soul" by agreeing to allow their AI models to be used by the US military complex."