Popular Rock Band Demands Trump's DHS Take Down ICE Video Over Copyright Violation: 'And Go F–k Yourselves': "It's obvious that you don't respect Copyright Law"; Latin Times, July 14, 2025

 Morgan Music, Latin Times; Popular Rock Band Demands Trump's DHS Take Down ICE Video Over Copyright Violation: 'And Go F–k Yourselves'

"It's obvious that you don't respect Copyright Law"

"The rock band Black Rebel Motorcycle Club (BRMC) is demanding that the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) remove a recent video that used their recording of "God's Gonna Cut You Down" without permission.

The band made their disapproval of the DHS very clear, accusing the agency of violating not only copyright law, but fundamental constitutional values.

"It's obvious that you don't respect Copyright Law and Artist Rights any more than you respect Habeas Corpus and Due Process rights," the band wrote. "Not to mention the separation of Church and State per the US Constitution."

"For the record, we hereby order @dhsgov to cease and desist the use of our recording and demand that you immediately pull down your video," the statement continued.

"Oh, and go f–k yourselves," they concluded."

Eminem Hits Meta With A Copyright Lawsuit After It Allegedly Misappropriated Hundreds Of His Songs; ABOVE THE LAW, June 4, 2025

  Chris Williams , ABOVE THE LAW; Eminem Hits Meta With A Copyright Lawsuit After It Allegedly Misappropriated Hundreds Of His Songs

"Don’t. Mess. With. Eminem. And if the events are as cut and dried as the complaint makes it seem, Meta is getting off easy with the $109M price tag. Meta of all companies should know that the only thing that can get away with brazenly stealing the work of wealthy hard-working artists without facing legal consequences is AI-scrapping software."

Meta Faces Copyright Reckoning in Authors’ Generative AI Case; Bloomberg Law, April 30, 2025

Isaiah Poritz, Annelise Levy, Bloomberg Law; Meta Faces Copyright Reckoning in Authors’ Generative AI Case

"The way courts will view the fair use argument for training generative artificial intelligence models with copyrighted materials will be tested Thursday in a San Francisco courtroom, when the first of dozens of such lawsuits reaches summary judgment.

Meta Platforms Inc. and a group of authors including comedian Sarah Silverman will square off before Judge Vince Chhabria, who will decide whether Meta’s use of pirated books to train its AI model Llama qualifies as fair use, or if the issue should be left to a jury."

The AI Copyright Battle: Why OpenAI And Google Are Pushing For Fair Use; Forbes, March 15, 2025

 Virginie Berger , Forbes; The AI Copyright Battle: Why OpenAI And Google Are Pushing For Fair Use

"Furthermore, the ongoing lawsuits against AI firms could serve as a necessary correction to push the industry toward genuinely intelligent machine learning models instead of data-compression-based generators masquerading as intelligence. If legal challenges force AI firms to rethink their reliance on copyrighted content, it could spur innovation toward creating more advanced, ethically sourced AI systems...

Recommendations: Finding a Sustainable Balance

A sustainable solution must reconcile technological innovation with creators' economic interests. Policymakers should develop clear federal standards specifying fair use parameters for AI training, considering solutions such as:

• Licensing and Royalties: Transparent licensing arrangements compensating creators whose work is integral to AI datasets.
• Curated Datasets: Government or industry-managed datasets explicitly approved for AI training, ensuring fair compensation.
• Regulated Exceptions: Clear legal definitions distinguishing transformative use in AI training contexts.

These nuanced policies could encourage innovation without sacrificing creators’ rights.

The lobbying by OpenAI and Google reveals broader tensions between rapid technological growth and ethical accountability. While national security concerns warrant careful consideration, they must not justify irresponsible regulation or ethical compromises. A balanced approach, preserving innovation, protecting creators’ rights, and ensuring sustainable and ethical AI development, is critical for future global competitiveness and societal fairness."

Judge says Meta must defend claim it stripped copyright info from Llama's training fodder; The Register, March 11, 2025

 Thomas Claburn , The Register; Judge says Meta must defend claim it stripped copyright info from Llama's training fodder

"A judge has found Meta must answer a claim it allegedly removed so-called copyright management information from material used to train its AI models.

The Friday ruling by Judge Vince Chhabria concerned the case Kadrey et al vs Meta Platforms, filed in July 2023 in a San Francisco federal court as a proposed class action by authors Richard Kadrey, Sarah Silverman, and Christopher Golden, who reckon the Instagram titan's use of their work to train its neural networks was illegal.

Their case burbled along until January 2025 when the plaintiffs made the explosive allegation that Meta knew it used copyrighted material for training, and that its AI models would therefore produce results that included copyright management information (CMI) – the fancy term for things like the creator of a copyrighted work, its license and terms of use, its date of creation, and so on, that accompany copyrighted material.

The miffed scribes alleged Meta therefore removed all of this copyright info from the works it used to train its models so users wouldn’t be made aware the results they saw stemmed from copyrighted stuff."

An AI Maker Was Just Found Liable for Copyright Infringement. What Does This Portend for Content Creators and AI Makers?; The Federalist Society, February 25, 2025

 John Blanton Farmer , The Federalist Society; An AI Maker Was Just Found Liable for Copyright Infringement. What Does This Portend for Content Creators and AI Makers?

"In a case decided on February 11, the makers of generative AI (GenAI), such as ChatGPT, lost the first legal battle in the war over whether they commit copyright infringement by using the material of others as training data without permission. The case is called Thomson Reuters Enterprise Centre GmbH v. Ross Intelligence Inc.

If other courts follow this ruling, the cost of building and selling GenAI services will dramatically increase. Such businesses are already losing money.

The ruling could also empower content creators, such as writers, to deny the use of their material to train GenAIs or to demand license fees. Some creators might be unwilling to license use of their material for training AIs due to fear that GenAI will destroy demand for their work."

Court: Training AI Model Based on Copyrighted Data Is Not Fair Use as a Matter of Law; The National Law Review, February 11, 2025

 Joseph A. Meckes, Joseph Grasser of Squire Patton Boggs (US) LLP   - Global IP and Technology Law Blog,  The National Law Review; Court: Training AI Model Based on Copyrighted Data Is Not Fair Use as a Matter of Law

"In what may turn out to be an influential decision, Judge Stephanos Bibas ruled as a matter of law in Thompson Reuters v. Ross Intelligence that creating short summaries of law to train Ross Intelligence’s artificial intelligence legal research application not only infringes Thompson Reuters’ copyrights as a matter of law but that the copying is not fair use. Judge Bibas had previously ruled that infringement and fair use were issues for the jury but changed his mind: “A smart man knows when he is right; a wise man knows when he is wrong.”

At issue in the case was whether Ross Intelligence directly infringed Thompson Reuters’ copyrights in its case law headnotes that are organized by Westlaw’s proprietary Key Number system. Thompson Reuters contended that Ross Intelligence’s contractor copied those headnotes to create “Bulk Memos.” Ross Intelligence used the Bulk Memos to train its competitive AI-powered legal research tool. Judge Bibas ruled that (i) the West headnotes were sufficiently original and creative to be copyrightable, and (ii) some of the Bulk Memos used by Ross were so similar that they infringed as a matter of law...

In other words, even if a work is selected entirely from the public domain, the simple act of selection is enough to give rise to copyright protection."

Meta staff torrented nearly 82TB of pirated books for AI training — court records reveal copyright violations; Tom's Hardware, February 9, 2025

 

Jowi Morales

 , Tom's Hardware; Meta staff torrented nearly 82TB of pirated books for AI training — court records reveal copyright violations

"Facebook parent-company Meta is currently fighting a class action lawsuit alleging copyright infringement and unfair competition, among others, with regards to how it trained LLaMA. According to an X (formerly Twitter) post by vx-underground, court records reveal that the social media company used pirated torrents to download 81.7TB of data from shadow libraries including Anna’s Archive, Z-Library, and LibGen. It then used this information to train its AI models.

The evidence, in the form of written communication, shows the researchers’ concerns about Meta’s use of pirated materials. One senior AI researcher said way back in October 2022, “I don’t think we should use pirated material. I really need to draw a line here.” While another one said, “Using pirated material should be beyond our ethical threshold,” then they added, “SciHub, ResearchGate, LibGen are basically like PirateBay or something like that, they are distributing content that is protected by copyright and they’re infringing it.”"

In AI copyright case, Zuckerberg turns to YouTube for his defense; TechCrunch, January 15, 2025

 

Kyle Wiggers

Maxwell Zeff

, TechCrunch ; In AI copyright case, Zuckerberg turns to YouTube for his defense

"Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg appears to have used YouTube’s battle to remove pirated content to defend his own company’s use of a data set containing copyrighted e-books, reveals newly released snippets of a deposition he gave late last year.

The deposition, which was part of a complaint submitted to the court by plaintiffs’ attorneys, is related to the AI copyright case Kadrey v. Meta. It’s one of many such cases winding through the U.S. court system that’s pitting AI companies against authors and other IP holders. For the most part, the defendants in these cases – AI companies – claim that training on copyrighted content is “fair use.” Many copyright holders disagree."

AI's assault on our intellectual property must be stopped; Financial Times, December 21, 2024

 Kate Mosse, Financial Times; AI's assault on our intellectual property must be stopped

"Imagine my dismay, therefore, to discover that those 15 years of dreaming, researching, planning, writing, rewriting, editing, visiting libraries and archives, translating Occitan texts, hunting down original 13th-century documents, becoming an expert in Catharsis, apparently counts for nothing. Labyrinth is just one of several of my novels that have been scraped by Meta's large language model. This has been done without my consent, without remuneration, without even notification. This is theft...

AI companies present creators as being against change. We are  not. Every artist I know is already engaging with AI in one way or another. But a distinction needs to be made between AI that can be used in brilliant ways -- for example, medical diagnosis -- and the foundations of AI models, where companies are essentially stealing creatives' work for their own profit. We should not forget that the AI companies rely on creators to build their models. Without strong copyright law that ensures creators can earn a living, AI companies will lack the high-quality material that is essential for their future growth."

Can You Copyright a Vibe?; The New York Times, December 5, 2024

 Sandra E. Garcia , The New York Times; Can You Copyright a Vibe?

"Ms. Gifford claims that Ms. Sheil, 21, not only started to mimic her online persona but also appropriated her entire look. And now she is suing.

Ms. Gifford had copyrighted several of her social media posts in January, after noticing the similarity between Ms. Sheil’s posts and her own. Several photos were submitted as evidence in the lawsuit Ms. Gifford filed this year in a federal court in Texas accusing Ms. Sheil of copyright infringement. But in the carefully curated world of social media, Ms. Gifford has leveled a perhaps more severe charge against her: stealing her vibe...

In several interviews beginning in August, experts said influencers have to navigate a blurry landscape in which assigning credit to who created what can be daunting and, in some cases, impossible.

“There really is a sense that you’re both a creator and a borrower,” said Jeanne Fromer, a professor of intellectual property law at New York University. “Fashion is built on that. All the creative industries — painting, music, movies — they’re all built on borrowing in certain ways from the past and also ideally trying to bring your own spin to something. I don’t know that anyone wants to go too far as a result.""

Indian news agency sues OpenAI alleging copyright infringement; TechCrunch, November 18, 2024

 Manish Singh, TechCrunch; Indian news agency sues OpenAI alleging copyright infringement

"One of India’s largest news agencies, Asian News International (ANI), has sued OpenAI in a case that could set a precedent for how AI companies use copyrighted news content in the world’s most populous nation.

Asian News International filed a 287-page lawsuit in the Delhi High Court on Monday, alleging the AI company illegally used its content to train its AI models and generated false information attributed to the news agency. The case marks the first time an Indian media organization has taken legal action against OpenAI over copyright claims.

During Tuesday’s hearing, Justice Amit Bansal issued a summons to OpenAI after the company confirmed it had already ensured that ChatGPT wasn’t accessing ANI’s website. The bench said that it was not inclined to grant an injunction order on Tuesday, as the case required a detailed hearing for being a “complex issue.”

The next hearing is scheduled to be held in January."

‘Blade Runner 2049’ Producers Sue Elon Musk, Tesla and Warner Bros. Discovery, Alleging Copyright Infringement; Variety, October 21, 2024

 Todd Spangler , Variety; ‘Blade Runner 2049’ Producers Sue Elon Musk, Tesla and Warner Bros. Discovery, Alleging Copyright Infringement

"Alcon Entertainment, the production company behind “Blade Runner 2049,” sued Tesla and CEO Elon Musk, as well as Warner Bros. Discovery, alleging that AI-generated images depicting scenes from the film used for the launch of Tesla’s self-driving Robotaxi represent copyright infringement.

In its lawsuit, filed Monday in L.A., Alcon said it had adamantly insisted that “Blade Runner 2049,” which stars Ryan Gosling and Harrison Ford, have no affiliation of any kind with “Tesla, X, Musk or any Musk-owned company,” given “Musk’s massively amplified, highly politicized, capricious and arbitrary behavior, which sometimes veers into hate speech.”"

Art Collective Behind Viral Image of Kamala Harris Sues for Copyright Infringement; artnet, October 11, 2024

Jo Lawson-Tancred , artnet; Art Collective Behind Viral Image of Kamala Harris Sues for Copyright Infringement

"A lawsuit filed by Good Trubble in a California district on October 10 alleges that Irem Erdem of Round Rock, Texas, deliberately committed copyright infringement because of the image’s “widespread dissemination” online.

The digitally-created artwork designed by Bria Goeller for Good Trubble is titled That Little Girl Was Me. It was released on October 20, 2020, and went viral shortly after the last U.S. presidential election in November 2020, when Harris became the first Black and South Asian woman to be elected vice president. The image can be bought as a print or on t-shirts and other products on Good Trubble’s website, including a new version featuring the White House in celebration of Harris’s current bid for the presidency.

The image pairs the figure of Harris with silhouette of activist Ruby Bridges as a young girl. It quotes from Norman Rockwell‘s iconic 1964 painting The Problem We All Live With, which depicts the historic event of a six-year-old Bridges being escorted by four deputy U.S. marshals into the all-white public school during the New Orleans school desegregation crisis of 1960. This measure was taken to protect her from the threat of violence, which is hinted at by a racial slur and the splatter of thrown tomatoes scrawled on the wall behind her."

Trump’s other legal problem: Copyright infringement claims; The Washington Post, September 7, 2024

 

Herb Scribner

 and 

Janay Kingsberry

 The Washington Post; Trump’s other legal problem: Copyright infringement claims

"Music industry experts and copyright law attorneys say the cases, as well as Trump’s decision to continue playing certain songs despite artists’ requests that he desist, underscore the complex legalities of copyright infringement in today’s digital, streaming and licensing era — and could set an important precedent on the of use of popular music in political campaigns."

ABC, Kimmel Defeat George Santos Cameo Video Copyright Suit; Bloomberg Law, August 19, 2024

 Kyle Jahner , Bloomberg Law; ABC, Kimmel Defeat George Santos Cameo Video Copyright Suit

"Jimmy Kimmel and ABC defeated former Rep. George Santos’ copyright lawsuit as a New York federal court found use of his Cameo videos on television constituted fair use."

Artists Score Major Win in Copyright Case Against AI Art Generators; The Hollywood Reporter, August 13, 2024

 Winston Cho, The Hollywood Reporter; Artists Score Major Win in Copyright Case Against AI Art Generators

"Artists suing generative artificial intelligence art generators have cleared a major hurdle in a first-of-its-kind lawsuit over the uncompensated and unauthorized use of billions of images downloaded from the internet to train AI systems, with a federal judge allowing key claims to move forward.

U.S. District Judge William Orrick on Monday advanced all copyright infringement and trademark claims in a pivotal win for artists. He found that Stable Diffusion, Stability’s AI tool that can create hyperrealistic images in response to a prompt of just a few words, may have been “built to a significant extent on copyrighted works” and created with the intent to “facilitate” infringement. The order could entangle in the litigation any AI company that incorporated the model into its products."

Music labels' AI lawsuits create copyright puzzle for courts; Reuters, August 4, 2024

 Blake Brittain, Reuters; Music labels' AI lawsuits create copyright puzzle for courts

"Suno and Udio pointed to past public statements defending their technology when asked for comment for this story. They filed their initial responses in court on Thursday, denying any copyright violations and arguing that the lawsuits were attempts to stifle smaller competitors. They compared the labels' protests to past industry concerns about synthesizers, drum machines and other innovations replacing human musicians...

The labels' claims echo allegations by novelists, news outlets, music publishers and others in high-profile copyright lawsuits over chatbots like OpenAI's ChatGPT and Anthropic's Claude that use generative AI to create text. Those lawsuits are still pending and in their early stages.

Both sets of cases pose novel questions for the courts, including whether the law should make exceptions for AI's use of copyrighted material to create something new...

"Music copyright has always been a messy universe," said Julie Albert, an intellectual property partner at law firm Baker Botts in New York who is tracking the new cases. And even without that complication, Albert said fast-evolving AI technology is creating new uncertainty at every level of copyright law.

WHOSE FAIR USE?

The intricacies of music may matter less in the end if, as many expect, the AI cases boil down to a "fair use" defense against infringement claims - another area of U.S. copyright law filled with open questions."

Religious education group sues Fort Wayne man over copyright claims; The Journal Gazette, July 8, 2024

 Ashley Sloboda  , The Journal Gazette; Religious education group sues Fort Wayne man over copyright claims

"LifeWise claims in its lawsuit that Parrish signed up online to volunteer with the hope of publishing information that might damage the organization’s reputation and prompt parents to oppose LifeWise Academy chapters in their communities.

Parrish accessed LifeWise’s information storage systems, downloaded internal documents and posted them along with the LifeWise curriculum on his website, parentsagainstlifewise.online, according to the lawsuit. It said Parrish also posted links to the curriculum on the Facebook group.

“He improperly obtained our entire copyright protected curriculum, and he posted to his website without our permission,” LifeWise said in a statement Monday.

LifeWise tried to get Parrish to voluntarily remove its curriculum, but the complaint said the organization’s efforts – including an attorney’s cease-and-desist letter and social media messages the chief operating officer sent him – were unsuccessful.

The lawsuit said Parrish responded to the letter with a meme stating, “It’s called fair use (expletive).”

LifeWise disagrees. In its statement, the organization said its curriculum is licensed through a publisher called LifeWay, and anyone is welcome to purchase the LifeWay curriculum through its website.

“Posting the entire curriculum is not ‘fair use,’ and we are confident that the judge will agree,” LifeWise said Monday."

Microsoft’s AI boss thinks it’s perfectly OK to steal content if it’s on the open web; The Verge, June 28, 2024

  Sean Hollister, The Verge; Microsoft’s AI boss thinks it’s perfectly OK to steal content if it’s on the open web

"Microsoft AI boss Mustafa Suleyman incorrectly believes that the moment you publish anything on the open web, it becomes “freeware” that anyone can freely copy and use. 

When CNBC’s Andrew Ross Sorkin asked him whether “AI companies have effectively stolen the world’s IP,” he said:

I think that with respect to content that’s already on the open web, the social contract of that content since the ‘90s has been that it is fair use. Anyone can copy it, recreate with it, reproduce with it. That has been “freeware,” if you like, that’s been the understanding...

I am not a lawyer, but even I can tell you that the moment you create a work, it’s automatically protected by copyright in the US."