QUESTIONS FOR CONSIDERATION ON AI & THE COMMONS; Creative Commons, July 24, 2024

Anna Tumadóttir , Creative Commons; QUESTIONS FOR CONSIDERATION ON AI & THE COMMONS

"The intersection of AI, copyright, creativity, and the commons has been a focal point of conversations within our community for the past couple of years. We’ve hosted intimate roundtables, organized workshops at conferences, and run public events, digging into the challenging topics of credit, consent, compensation, transparency, and beyond. All the while, we’ve been asking ourselves:  what can we do to foster a vibrant and healthy commons in the face of rapid technological development? And how can we ensure that creators and knowledge-producing communities still have agency?...

We recognize that there is a perceived tension between openness and creator choice. Namely, if we  give creators choice over how to manage their works in the face of generative AI, we may run the risk of shrinking the commons. To potentially overcome, or at least better understand the effect of generative AI on the commons, we believe  that finding a way for creators to indicate “no, unless…” would be positive for the commons. Our consultations over the course of the last two years have confirmed that:

• Folks want more choice over how their work is used.
• If they have no choice, they might not share their work at all (under a CC license or strict copyright).

If these views are as wide ranging as we perceive, we feel it is imperative that we explore an intervention, and bring far more nuance into how this ecosystem works.

Generative AI is here to stay, and we’d like to do what we can to ensure it benefits the public interest. We are well-positioned with the experience, expertise, and tools to investigate the potential of preference signals.

Our starting point is to identify what types of preference signals might be useful. How do these vary or overlap in the cultural heritage, journalism, research, and education sectors? How do needs vary by region? We’ll also explore exactly how we might structure a preference signal framework so it’s useful and respected, asking, too: does it have to be legally enforceable, or is the power of social norms enough?

Research matters. It takes time, effort, and most importantly, people. We’ll need help as we do this. We’re seeking support from funders to move this work forward. We also look forward to continuing to engage our community in this process. More to come soon."

Illustrator stands by graphic novel of Anne Frank's diary that got Texas teacher fired; CBC, September 22, 2023

 Sheena Goodyear, CBC; Illustrator stands by graphic novel of Anne Frank's diary that got Texas teacher fired

"When Anne Frank Fonds, the foundation that holds the copyright to Frank's diary, first commissioned the graphic novel adaptation, Polonsky says he and writer Ari Folman believed it was important to include the previously censored materials. 

"We accepted this challenge because we felt it was important to keep this story alive, and also to portray Anne as a full human being," he said. "She's not a mascot for the Holocaust. She's not a symbol. We think it's important to represent her as a complicated young writer."

In illustrating those more sensitive pages, Polonsky says he took great care to make sure nothing was too explicit for young readers."

AI and Copyright in China; Lexology, April 15, 2022

 Harris Bricken - Fred Rocafort, Lexology; AI and Copyright in China 

"In the landmark Shenzhen Tencent v. Shanghai Yingxun case, the Nanshan District People’s Court considered whether an article written by Tencent’s AI software Dreamwriter was entitled to copyright protection. The court found that it was, with copyright vesting in Dreamwriter’s developers, not Dreamwriter itself. In its decision, the court noted that “the arrangement and selection of the creative team in terms of data input, trigger condition setting, template and corpus style choices are intellectual activities that have a direct connection with the specific expression of the article.” These intellectual activities were carried out by the software developers.

The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) has distinguished between works that are generated without human intervention (“AI-generated”) and works generated with material human intervention and/or direction (“AI-assisted”). In the case of AI-assisted works, artificial intelligence is arguably just a tool used by humans. Vesting of copyright in the humans involved in these cases is consistent with existing copyright law, just as an artist owns the copyright to a portrait made using a paintbrush or a song recorded using a guitar. The scenario in the Tencent case falls in the AI-assisted bucket, with Dreamwriter being the tool."

Ethical aspects relating to cyberspace: copyright and privacy; Israel Defense, January 9, 2022

Giancarlo Elia Valori , Israel Defense; Ethical aspects relating to cyberspace: copyright and privacy

"A further right - the right to privacy - is one of the most fundamental rights: it reflects the natural human need for privacy, confidentiality and autonomy, as well as for the protection of one's own “personal sphere” from outside intrusion, and the ability to make decisions without being spied on and to remain oneself and maintain one’s own individuality.

It is no coincidence that in all international documents declaring human rights and freedoms, as well as in all codes of ethics related to the sphere of information, privacy is proclaimed as a fundamental moral value, which constitutes the foundation of human freedom and security, and therefore requires respect and protection."

Manhattan teen cartoonist prompts review of Scholastic awards’ copyright rules; amNewYork, March 5, 2018

Nicole Brown, amNewYork; Manhattan teen cartoonist prompts review of Scholastic awards’ copyright rules

"“How come the @Scholastic @artandwriting award requires kids to sign over ‘irrevocable copyright’ if they win?! And why is it hidden in the ‘Terms & Conditions’ link that no one reads? Is it weird that I think that’s wrong?” [Sasha Matthews] wrote in December...

...[T]he ability to display the work could be granted through a license, Harvard law professor Lawrence Lessig said.

“Once you enter into a license to promote the work, you have all the permissions you need,” he told amNewYork. “That’s exactly what they could have done here, but rather than entering a license, they just grabbed the copyright.”

Matthews wrote about the copyright issue for a school assignment and got it published in February on the blog Boing Boing."

To Boldly Go Where No Fan Production Has Gone Before; Slate, 7/13/16

Marissa Martinelli, Slate; To Boldly Go Where No Fan Production Has Gone Before:

"The issues at the heart of the Axanar case are complex—in addition to copyright infringement, CBS and Paramount are accusing the Axanar team of profiting from the production by paying themselves salaries, among other things. Abrams, who directed 2009’s Star Trek and 2013’s Star Trek Into Darkness, promised during a fan event back in May that the lawsuit would be going away at the behest of Justin Lin, the Beyond director who has sided, surprisingly, with Axanar over Paramount. But despite Abrams’ promise, the lawsuit rages on, and in the meantime, other Trekkie filmmakers have had to adapt. Federation Rising, the planned sequel to Horizon, pulled the plug before fundraising had even started, and Star Trek: Renegades, the follow-up to Of Gods and Men that raised more than $132,000 on Indiegogo, has dropped all elements of Star Trek from the production and is now just called Renegades. (Amusingly, this transition seems to have involved only slight tweaks, with the Federation becoming the Confederation, Russ’ character Tuvok becoming Kovok, and so on.) Other projects are stuck in limbo, waiting to hear from CBS whether they can boldly go forth with production—or whether this really does spell the end of the golden age of Star Trek fan films.

Axanar may very well have crossed a line, and CBS and Paramount are, of course, entitled to protect their properties. But in the process, they have suffocated, intentionally or otherwise, a robust and long-standing fan-fiction tradition, one that has produced remarkable labors of love like Star Trek Continues, which meticulously recreated the look and feel of the 1960s show, and an hourlong stop-motion film made by a German fan in tribute to Enterprise—a project almost eight years in the making. It’s a tradition that gave us web series like Star Trek: Hidden Frontier, which was exploring same-sex relationships in Star Trek well before the canon was ready to give us a mainstream, openly gay character."

31st Annual Intellectual Property Law Conference; American Bar Association (ABA), Bethesda, Maryland, April 6-8, 2016

American Bar Association (ABA); 31st Annual Intellectual Property Law Conference:

"The 31st Annual Intellectual Property Law Conference from the American Bar Association Section of Intellectual Property Law is recognized as the world's premier IP conference.

These three packed days of learning enable you to earn a year's worth of CLE credit from expert sessions presented by the leaders in every area of the profession. We offer what you need to know along with multiple opportunities to mingle with those who should be part of your network."

Fair Use Week at Carnegie Mellon University Libraries: February 22-26, 2016

Fair Use Week at Carnegie Mellon University Libraries: February 22-26, 2016:

Thanks to Pitt SIS alumnus Andy Prisbylla with CMU Libraries for this information on CMU's Fair Use Week, February 22-26, 2016: "CMU will be having student demonstrations of work that incorporates Fair Use and a digital exhibit will be playing on the flat-screens here as well."

When a Public Family Is Publicly Attacked; New York Times, 2/5/16

KJ Dell'Antonia, New York Times; When a Public Family Is Publicly Attacked:

"While Ms. Howerton and her supporters report Twitter accounts for abuse, she is also asking YouTube to take down the video commentary that makes use of her video and other family images. She has filed a privacy complaint, which YouTube rejected, and is waiting for it to respond to her new complaint, alleging copyright violation. Neil Richards, a law professor at Washington University and author of “Intellectual Privacy: Rethinking Civil Liberties in the Digital Age,” said he thinks Ms. Howerton’s belief that she can regain control of the footage may be overly optimistic.

“The use of home video and family images for political debate is something that has real consequences,” he said. “She has made her life choices, her experiences, her children’ experiences, a matter for public debate. When people do this they do expose themselves to criticism and attacks and some of them are quite unpleasant.”

Eric Goldman, a professor of law and director of the High Tech Law Institute at Santa Clara University School of Law, agreed that because Ms. Howerton herself used family video as part of a political discussion, she may have little legal recourse when that video is used as part of a larger video engaged in social commentary on the same topic. In many situations, videos or pictures posted online can become “fair game” for critics to use in online attacks against the poster’s position or for other undesirable political or social statements, Mr. Goldman said in an email."

Not-So-Great Expectations; Inside Higher Ed, 10/18/13

Colleen Flaherty, Inside Higher Ed; Not-So-Great Expectations: "Politics aside, Slocum’s case and others like it in recent months raise an important question: In the age of social media and smartphones, what expectations – if any – should professors have for privacy for lectures and communications intended for students? Very little, said Slocum – but that’s “an acknowledgement of fact, of the way the Internet works, rather than a normative statement.” Privacy and intellectual property experts agreed, saying that such communications are fair game for students to share. Higher education has a complicated relationship with copyright and other ownership questions, experts said, due to historical concerns about academic freedom. Legally, however, most all of what professors say to students in lectures and in e-mails would pass the "fair use" doctrine test, making it O.K. for students to record, share and comment on even copyrighted material for non-commercial purposes. “All of us have to figure out what our expectations should be in an age of smartphones and the Internet,” said Jessica Litman, a professor of law and information at the University of Michigan who specializes in intellectual property -- professors included."