Marybeth Peters: Renaissance Woman of Copyright; New York City Bar Association Podcasts, December 13, 2023

 New York City Bar Association Podcasts; Marybeth Peters: Renaissance Woman of Copyright

"Lawyer. Leader. Public Servant. Trailblazer. Friend.

Marybeth Peters, the second-longest serving Register of Copyrights (1994 - 2010), died on September 29, 2022, in Washington, D.C., at the age of 83. With her passing, Register Peters left behind a lasting and far-reaching legacy in her storied 40-plus year career as a distinguished attorney, respected copyright law expert, and the director of the U.S. Copyright Office, where she helped shape and implement critical new laws, including the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act, the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act, and the Uruguay Round Agreements Act among others. In addition, Register Peters was remembered as a mentor, teacher, and friend who touched the lives of everyone around her with grace and her unforgettable laugh.

Presented by the New York City Bar Copyright and Literary Property Committee, committee member Theodora Fleurant, a trademark attorney based in New York City, and Jose Landivar, an Associate at Coates IP, lead an unforgettable series of conversations with some of the people closest to Register Peters to look back on her life and legacy, including:

•	Shira Perlmutter, the current Register of Copyrights and Director of the U.S. Copyright Office
•	Maria Pallante, President and CEO of the Association of American Publishers who formerly served as the 12th Register of Copyrights
•	Richard Dannay, Counsel at Cowan, Liebowitz & Latman, P.C.
•	Eric Schwartz, Partner at Mitchell Silberberg & Knupp LLP, and former Acting General Counsel and Senior Legal Advisor to the Register of Copyrights
•	David Carson, current Copyright Office Claims Officer who, formerly served as head of the Copyright Policy Team in the Office of Policy and International Affairs at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and as General Counsel of the U.S. Copyright Office

This podcast paints a fascinating portrait of a leading U.S. and international copyright law expert. It seeks to inspire listeners with lessons in leadership, courage, innovation, and dedicated public service.

This podcast would not have been possible without the support of the U.S. Copyright Office (https://www.copyright.gov/) and audio provided by the Copyright Clearance Center.

Photo: Courtesy of the U.S. Copyright Office.

Access a transcript of this episode here: https://bityl.co/MvSf"

Beijing Internet Court Recognizes Copyright in AI-Generated Images; The National Law Review, November 29, 2023

Aaron Wininger of Schwegman, Lundberg & Woessner, P.A., The National Law Review; Beijing Internet Court Recognizes Copyright in AI-Generated Images

"On November 27, 2023 the Beijing Internet Court issued a decision recognizing copyright in AI-generated images. The plaintiff, Mr. Li, used Stable Diffusion (an artificial intelligence) to generate the image involved in the case and published it on the Xiaohongshu platform; the defendant, a blogger on Baijiahao, used the image generated by the plaintiff’s AI to accompany the article, and the plaintiff sued. The Court held that the artificial intelligence-generated image involved in the case met the requirements of “originality” and reflected a human’s original intellectual investment and should be recognized as works and protected by copyright law. This is the opposite of the decision reached by the U.S. Copyright Office in Zarya of the Dawn (Registration # VAu001480196) that did not recognize copyright in AI-generated images. Note this Beijing case is also different from the recent Thaler v. Perlmutter decision (Civil Action No. 22-1564 (BAH)) because Thaler was trying to recognize the AI as the author and not the person using the AI as a tool as author."

Copyright law will shape how we use generative AI; Axios, December 1, 2023

 Megan Morrone, Axios; Copyright law will shape how we use generative AI

"In the year since the release of ChatGPT, generative AI has been moving fast and breaking things — and copyright law is only beginning to catch up. 

Why it matters: From Section 230 to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) to domain name squatting protections, intellectual property law has shaped the internet for three decades. Now, it will shape the way we use generative AI.

Driving the news: The Biden administration's recent executive order contained no initial guidance on copyright law and AI, which means these decisions will largely be left up to the courts."

Her Music Fell Into Obscurity. Now It’s Back at the Philharmonic.; The New York Times, November 20, 2023

 Garrett Schumann, The New York Times; Her Music Fell Into Obscurity. Now It’s Back at the Philharmonic.

"When Perry died, she had no children and only a few published works. Although scholars have identified about 100 of her manuscripts and scores, dozens cannot be performed or recorded because there is no established copyright holder. As Christopher Wilkins, the music director of the Akron Symphony, said, “all the work is protected; it just hasn’t been licensed, and can’t be until whoever controls it negotiates that.”

Wilkins first found Perry’s compositions in 2020, and marveled at what he saw. She, he said, “may be the most accomplished and celebrated composer ever to emerge from Akron.” He then asked the soprano and scholar Louise Toppin, who leads the African Diaspora Music Project, to help him explore Perry’s output and edit some of her manuscripts...

The Akron Symphony has also engaged a local lawyer to help resolve the copyright ambiguities that ensnare many of Perry’s compositions — a barrier to overcome for those interested in her music, beyond historical practices of exclusion among American institutions."

‘Please regulate AI:' Artists push for U.S. copyright reforms but tech industry says not so fast; AP, November 18, 2023

MATT O’BRIEN, AP; ‘Please regulate AI:' Artists push for U.S. copyright reforms but tech industry says not so fast

"Most tech companies cite as precedent Google’s success in beating back legal challenges to its online book library. The U.S. Supreme Court in 2016 let stand lower court rulings that rejected authors’ claim that Google’s digitizing of millions of books and showing snippets of them to the public amounted to copyright infringement.

But that’s a flawed comparison, argued former law professor and bestselling romance author Heidi Bond, who writes under the pen name Courtney Milan. Bond said she agrees that “fair use encompasses the right to learn from books,” but Google Books obtained legitimate copies held by libraries and institutions, whereas many AI developers are scraping works of writing through “outright piracy.”

Perlmutter said this is what the Copyright Office is trying to help sort out.

“Certainly this differs in some respects from the Google situation,” Perlmutter said. “Whether it differs enough to rule out the fair use defense is the question in hand.”"

U.S. Copyright Office Extends Deadline for Reply Comments on Artificial Intelligence Notice of Inquiry; U.S. Copyright Office, November 15, 2023

U.S. Copyright Office, Issue No. 1026; U.S. Copyright Office Extends Deadline for Reply Comments on Artificial Intelligence Notice of Inquiry

"The U.S. Copyright Office is extending the deadline to submit reply comments in response to the Office’s August 30, 2023, notice of inquiry regarding artificial intelligence and copyright. The deadline will ensure that members of the public have sufficient time to prepare responses to the Office’s questions and submitted comments and that the Office can proceed on a timely basis with its inquiry of the issues identified in its notice with the benefit of a complete record.

Reply comments are now due by 11:59 p.m. eastern time on Wednesday, December 6, 2023.

The Federal Register notice announcing this extension and additional information, including instructions for submitting comments, are available on the  Artificial Intelligence Study webpage."

YouTube to offer option to flag AI-generated songs that mimic artists’ voices; The Guardian, November 14, 2023

Dan Milmo , The Guardian; YouTube to offer option to flag AI-generated songs that mimic artists’ voices

"Record companies can request the removal of songs that use artificial intelligence-generated versions of artists’ voices under new guidelines issued by YouTube.

The video platform is introducing a tool that will allow music labels and distributors to flag content that mimics an artist’s “unique singing or rapping voice”.

Fake AI-generated music has been one of the side-effects of leaps forward this year in generative AI – the term for technology that can produce highly convincing text, images and voice from human prompts.

One of the most high-profile examples is Heart on My Sleeve, a song featuring AI-made vocals purporting to be Drake and the Weeknd. It was pulled from streaming services after Universal Music Group, the record company for both artists, criticised the song for “infringing content created with generative AI”. However, the song can still be accessed by listeners on YouTube."

OpenAI offers to pay for ChatGPT customers’ copyright lawsuits; The Guardian, November 6, 2023

 Blake Montgomery, The Guardian; OpenAI offers to pay for ChatGPT customers’ copyright lawsuits

"Rather than remove copyrighted material from ChatGPT’s training dataset, the chatbot’s creator is offering to cover its clients’ legal costs for copyright infringement suits.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said on Monday: “We can defend our customers and pay the costs incurred if you face legal claims around copyright infringement and this applies both to ChatGPT Enterprise and the API.” The compensation offer, which OpenAI is calling Copyright Shield, applies to users of the business tier, ChatGPT Enterprise, and to developers using ChatGPT’s application programming interface. Users of the free version of ChatGPT or ChatGPT+ were not included.

OpenAI is not the first to offer such legal protection, though as the creator of the wildly popular ChatGPT, which Altman said has 100 million weekly users, it is a heavyweight player in the industry. Google, Microsoft and Amazon have made similar offers to users of their generative AI software. Getty Images, Shutterstock and Adobe have extended similar financial liability protection for their image-making software."

The Copyright Battle Over Artificial Intelligence; Hard Fork, The New York Times, November 3, 2023

Kevin Roose and Casey Newton, Hard Fork, The New York Times; The Copyright Battle Over Artificial Intelligence

"President Biden’s new executive order on artificial intelligence has a little bit of everything for everyone concerned about A.I. Casey takes us inside the White House as the order was signed.

Then, Rebecca Tushnet, a copyright law expert, walks us through the latest developments in a lawsuit against the creators of A.I.-image generation tools. She explains why artists may have trouble making the case that these tools infringe on their copyrights."

Judge pares down artists' AI copyright lawsuit against Midjourney, Stability AI; Reuters, October 30, 2023

Blake Brittain, Reuters; Judge pares down artists' AI copyright lawsuit against Midjourney, Stability AI

"A judge in California federal court on Monday trimmed a lawsuit by visual artists who accuse Stability AI, Midjourney and DeviantArt of misusing their copyrighted work in connection with the companies' generative artificial intelligence systems.

U.S. District Judge William Orrick dismissed some claims from the proposed class action brought by Sarah Andersen, Kelly McKernan and Karla Ortiz, including all of the allegations against Midjourney and DeviantArt. The judge said the artists could file an amended complaint against the two companies, whose systems utilize Stability's Stable Diffusion text-to-image technology." 

An AI engine scans a book. Is that copyright infringement or fair use?; Columbia Journalism Review, October 26, 2023

MATHEW INGRAM, Columbia Journalism Review; An AI engine scans a book. Is that copyright infringement or fair use?

"Determining whether LLMs training themselves on copyrighted text qualifies as fair use can be difficult even for experts—not just because AI is complicated, but because the concept of fair use is, too."

Why I let an AI chatbot train on my book; Vox, October 25, 2023

 Bryan Walsh, Vox; Why I let an AI chatbot train on my book

"What’s “fair use” for AI?

I think that training a chatbot for nonprofit, educational purposes, with the express permission of the authors of the works on which it’s trained, seems okay. But do novelists like George R.R. Martin or John Grisham have a case against for-profit companies that take their work without that express permission?

The law, unfortunately, is far from clear on this question." 

The fingerprints on a letter to Congress about AI; Politico, October 23, 2023

 BRENDAN BORDELON, Politico; The fingerprints on a letter to Congress about AI

"The message in the open letter sent to Congress on Sept. 11 was clear: Don’t put new copyright regulations on artificial intelligence systems.

The letter’s signatories were real players, a broad coalition of think tanks, professors and civil-society groups with a stake in the growing debate about AI and copyright in Washington.

Undisclosed, however, were the fingerprints of Sy Damle, a tech-friendly Washington lawyer and former government official who works for top firms in the industry — including OpenAI, one of the top developers of cutting-edge AI models. Damle is currently representing OpenAI in ongoing copyright lawsuits...

The effort by an OpenAI lawyer to covertly sway Congress against new laws on AI and copyright comes in the midst of an escalating influence campaign — tied to OpenAI and other top AI firms — that critics fear is shifting Washington’s attention away from current AI harms and toward existential threats posed by future AI systems...

Many of the points made in the September letter echo those made recently by Damle in other venues, including an argument comparing the rise of AI to the invention of photography."

Artists, copyright law, and the battle over artificial intelligence; 1A, October 23, 2023

 Lauren Hamilton, 1A ; Artists, copyright law, and the battle over artificial intelligence

"Tech companies have spent billions of dollars this year alone investing in the future of generative artificial intelligence.  

Generative AI apps like ChatGPT, Stable  Diffusion and Bard, deliver brand new text, images and code results – of comparable quality to human outputs – from user prompts. 

But have you ever wondered how an AI bot knows how to process a user’s request? 

It gets trained, using millions of data points – like books, poems, photos, illustrations and song lyrics – from all over the internet, including copyrighted material. 

In recent months, several authors have sued companies like Meta and OpenAI, alleging that the companies used their copyrighted works to train their generative AI models, all without permission or compensation.

It’s an issue of concern for many who work creative jobs; from authors, to musicians, voice actors and graphic designers.

What’s to come of the legal battles between creatives and AI companies? What role does copyright law play in shaping the future of artificial intelligence?"

AI is learning from stolen intellectual property. It needs to stop.; The Washington Post, October 19, 2023

William D. Cohan , The Washington Post; AI is learning from stolen intellectual property. It needs to stop.

"The other day someone sent me the searchable database published by Atlantic magazine of more than 191,000 e-books that have been used to train the generative AI systems being developed by Meta, Bloomberg and others. It turns out that four of my seven books are in the data set, called Books3. Whoa.

Not only did I not give permission for my books to be used to generate AI products, but I also wasn’t even consulted about it. I had no idea this was happening. Neither did my publishers, Penguin Random House (for three of the books) and Macmillan (for the other one). Neither my publishers nor I were compensated for use of my intellectual property. Books3 just scraped the content away for free, with Meta et al. profiting merrily along the way. And Books3 is just one of many pirated collections being used for this purpose...

This is wholly unacceptable behavior. Our books are copyrighted material, not free fodder for wealthy companies to use as they see fit, without permission or compensation. Many, many hours of serious research, creative angst and plain old hard work go into writing and publishing a book, and few writers are compensated like professional athletes, Hollywood actors or Wall Street investment bankers. Stealing our intellectual property hurts." 

A.I. May Not Get a Chance to Kill Us if This Kills It First; Slate, October 17, 2023

 SCOTT NOVER, Slate; A.I. May Not Get a Chance to Kill Us if This Kills It First

"There is a disaster scenario for OpenAI and other companies funneling billions into A.I. models: If a court found that a company was liable for copyright infringement, it could completely halt the development of the offending model." 

EU legal advisor: disclosing identities of suspected copyright pirates "compatible" with EU privacy laws; Boing Boing, September 29, 2023

 ROB BESCHIZZA, Boing Boing; EU legal advisor: disclosing identities of suspected copyright pirates "compatible" with EU privacy laws

"Releasing pirates' identities is "Compatible With EU Privacy Laws," says a top legal advisor to the European Union's highest court following the discovery that the French government retains more than a decade of data collected about millions of people suspected of infringing copyrights."

Bizarre AI-generated products are in stores. Here’s how to avoid them.; The Washington Post, September 18, 2023

  Heather Kelly, The Washington Post; Bizarre AI-generated products are in stores. Here’s how to avoid them.

"However, in situations where AI’s involvement is not obvious or desired, a product can be a scam, outright fraud and even dangerous, experts say...

When it comes to books, incorrect information can be dangerous. Amazon recently removed a guide on foraging for mushrooms that some readers claimed was generated by AI and could have given incorrect advice about what mushrooms were edible or poisonous.

“The accuracy problem is real,” said Ravit Dotan, an AI ethics researcher and adviser. “People don’t understand that textual generated AI is not optimized to generate truth. It’s optimized to generate text that’s compelling.”"

Copyright Office Issues Notice of Inquiry on Copyright and Artificial Intelligence; U.S. Copyright Office, August 30, 2023

 U.S. Copyright Office ; Copyright Office Issues Notice of Inquiry on Copyright and Artificial Intelligence

"Today, the U.S. Copyright Office issued a notice of inquiry (NOI) in the Federal Register on copyright and artificial intelligence (AI). The Office is undertaking a study of the copyright law and policy issues raised by generative AI and is assessing whether legislative or regulatory steps are warranted. The Office will use the record it assembles to advise Congress; inform its regulatory work; and offer information and resources to the public, courts, and other government entities considering these issues.

The NOI seeks factual information and views on a number of copyright issues raised by recent advances in generative AI. These issues include the use of copyrighted works to train AI models, the appropriate levels of transparency and disclosure with respect to the use of copyrighted works, the legal status of AI-generated outputs, and the appropriate treatment of AI-generated outputs that mimic personal attributes of human artists.

The NOI is an integral next step for the Office’s AI initiative, which was launched in early 2023. So far this year, the Office has held four public listening sessions and two webinars. This NOI builds on the feedback and questions the Office has received so far and seeks public input from the broadest audience to date in the initiative.

“We launched this initiative at the beginning of the year to focus on the increasingly complex issues raised by generative AI. This NOI and the public comments we will receive represent a critical next step,” said Shira Perlmutter, Register of Copyrights and Director of the U.S. Copyright Office. “We look forward to continuing to examine these issues of vital importance to the evolution of technology and the future of human creativity.”

Initial written comments are due by 11:59 p.m. eastern time on Wednesday, October 18, 2023. Reply comments are due by 11:59 p.m. eastern time on Wednesday, November 15, 2023. Instructions for submitting comments are available on the Office’s website. Commenters may choose which and how many questions to respond to in the NOI.

For more general information about the Copyright Office’s AI initiative, please visit our website."

Our Summer of Artificial Intelligence: Copyright Office Hosts Two Webinars on Copyright and AI; U.S. Copyright Office, August 23, 2023

 Nora Scheland, U.S. Copyright Office; Our Summer of Artificial Intelligence: Copyright Office Hosts Two Webinars on Copyright and AI

"Artificial intelligence (AI) has become a significant new focal point for the Copyright Office in 2023. The Office launched an AI initiativein mid-March, which was followed by four comprehensive listening sessions in April and May and then, most recently, by two very popular webinars in June and July.

The webinars, which continued to break attendance records for the Copyright Office, provided an opportunity for the Office to dive deeper into the copyright registration guidance for AI-generated works and perspectives on how AI impacts copyright systems both domestically and across the globe. The webinars were open to the public, and everyone from copyright experts to those curious about copyright could take something away.

The Office’s first webinar in June, Registration Guidance for Works Containing AI-generated Content, was hosted by Associate Register of Copyrights and Director of Registration Policy and Practice Rob Kasunic and deputy director of registration policy and practice Erik Bertin. Kasunic and Bertin walked attendees through the Office’s registration guidance and discussed a variety of hypothetical examples of copyright registration claims featuring some amount of AI-generated content and how the Office would evaluate them. Through the detailed examples, Kasunic and Bertin offered key insights and recommendations for how applicants can navigate registration applications as they register their own creative works.

The webinar wrapped up with a moderated Q&A session. Attendees were encouraged to submit questions during the presentation, and we received nearly 250 questions by the end of the webinar. The attendance climbed to nearly 2,000 people over the 75-minute webinar, a new record for the Office.

If you missed the webinar on registration guidance in June, you can check out a full recording and transcript on our website.

The Office’s second webinar, International Copyright Issues and Artificial Intelligence, was hosted by Office of Policy and International Affairs attorneys and featured two hour-long panels with international copyright experts. Attendance at the second webinar also reached nearly 2,000 people, demonstrating the sustained excitement and curiosity concerning the global conversation around AI and copyright.

Register of Copyrights Shira Perlmutter provided opening remarks and explained why she thought this international conversation was integral to the Office’s AI initiative:

“We know that AI’s use and its impact are not bound by any national borders. . . . [G]overnments around the world are confronting similar legal and policy questions. . . . Looking at the global copyright landscape, several questions have begun to emerge. First, how do international copyright treaties apply to determining authorship and scope of subject matter protection and exceptions and limitations? Second, what actions are other countries or regions starting to take on AI and copyright issues? In what respects are these approaches similar to or different from ours in the United States? Can consensus approaches be found, and if so, through what mechanisms? And finally, to the extent there is divergence, what are the international implications?”

The first panel kicked off with four exciting presentations on developments in AI and copyright legislation and litigation outside the United States.

• Peter Yu, from Texas A&M University School of Law, presented on copyright and artificial intelligence across Asia, particularly in China, Singapore, Japan, and Korea.
• Marcus von Welser, from Vossius in Germany, walked attendees through the European Union’s proposed AI Act and existing text and data mining exceptions from the Copyright in the Digital Single Market Directive.
• Luca Schirru, from KU Leuven in Belgium, presented perspectives on text and data mining developments, including from the global south.
• Shlomit Yanisky-Ravid, from Ono Academic College in Israel, spoke about the effects of language and bias in generative AI technologies on non-English speaking countries and communities.

The second panel featured a lively moderated discussion on authorship, training, exceptions, and limitations of generative AI. The panel was moderated by two Copyright Office attorneys and comprised Jane Ginsburg from Columbia Law School, Andres Guadamuz from the University of Sussex, Bernt Hugenholtz from the University of Amsterdam, and Matthew Sag from Emory University School of Law. The panelists answered questions from the moderators and engaged directly with each other’s perspectives.

If you missed the webinar on international perspectives on copyright and AI in July, you can check out a full recording and transcript on our website.

The Office’s two webinars wrapped up a busy spring and summer season of listening, information gathering, and direct outreach on AI and copyright. Between April and July, nearly 8,000 people participated in or attended the Office’s AI listening sessions and webinars. This fall, the Office will receive public comments on a notice of inquiry as the work continues on our AI initiative. Follow copyright.gov/ai for updates and events, and sign up for email notifications on our website."