KATHARINE TRENDACOSTA , Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF); We Stood Up for Access to the Law and Congress Listened: 2024 in Review
"Because you wrote in, because experts sent letters explaining the problems, enough members of Congress recognized that Pro Codes is not uncontroversial. It is not a small deal to allow industry giants to own parts of the law."
Josh Harlan, Wall Street Journal; The AI Boom May Be Too Good to Be True
"Investors rushing to capitalize on artificial intelligence have focused on the technology—the capabilities of new models, the potential of generative tools, and the scale of processing power to sustain it all. What too many ignore is the evolving legal structure surrounding the technology, which will ultimately shape the economics of AI. The core question is: Who controls the value that AI produces? The answer depends on whether AI companies must compensate rights holders for using their data to train AI models and whether AI creations can themselves enjoy copyright or patent protections.
The current landscape of AI law is rife with uncertainty...How these cases are decided will determine whether AI developers can harvest publicly available data or must license the content used to train their models."
Pat Pratt, KMOV.com; Anheuser-Busch sued for copyright infringement of Montana artist’s fishing illustration
"A Montana wildlife artist is suing Anheuser-Busch for copyright infringement of one of his fishing illustrations.
Artist Jon Q. Wright filed the lawsuit Thursday in U.S. District Court in St. Louis, where the company is headquartered. He has requested damages including profits made from the artwork, that illicit copies be impounded and further use be prohibited.
First Alert 4 has reached out to Anheuser-Busch requesting comment and is awaiting a response.
Wright states in the lawsuit he penned the image in 1999 and copyrighted it the following year. The image depicts a fishing scene with a fish in the foreground and a man in a boat in the background.
According to the lawsuit, Wright gave Anheuser-Busch a limited-term, non-exclusive license for specific works of art about 20 years ago, including the image at the center of the litigation filed Thursday. The license also included that several of the company’s affiliates could use the work.
The lawsuit filed Thursday alleges that the license has expired and Anheuser-Busch has altered the photo and continues to use it."
Annelise Gilbert , Bloomberg Law; AI Training Study to Come This Year, Copyright Office Says
"The Copyright Office’s report on the legal implications of training artificial intelligence models on copyrighted works is still expected to publish by the end of 2024, the office’s director told lawmakers.
Director Shira Perlmutter on Wednesday said the office aims to complete the remaining two sections of its three-part AI report in the next two months—one on the copyrightability of generative AI output and the other about liability, licensing, and fair use in regards to AI training on protected works."
DALMEET SINGH CHAWLA, Chemistry World ; Thousands of published studies may contain images with incorrect copyright licences
"More than 9000 studies published in open-access journals may contain figures published under the wrong copyright licence.
These open-access journals publish content under the CC-BY copyright licence, which means that anyone can copy, distribute or transmit that work including for commercial purposes as long as the original creator is credited.
All the 9000+ studies contain figures created using the commercial scientific illustration service BioRender, which should technically mean that these are also available for free reuse. But that doesn’t appear to be the case.
When Simon Dürr, a computational enzymologist at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne in Switzerland, reached out to BioRender to ask if two figures produced using BioRender by the authors of both studies were free to reuse, he was told that they weren’t. The company said it would approach both journals and ask them to issue corrections.
Dürr runs an open-source, free-to-use competitor to BioRender called BioIcons and wanted to host figures produced using BioRender that were published in open access journals because he thought they would be free to use. According to Dürr, he followed up with BioRender near the end of 2023, flagging a total of 9277 academic papers published under the CC-BY copyright licence but never heard back on their copyright status. In total, Dürr says he found 12,059 papers if one includes other copyright licences that restrict commercial use or have other similar conditions."
Matt Giles, Wired; It Sure Looks Like Trump Watches Are Breaking Copyright Law
"According to the Associated Press, though, TheBestWatchesonEarth LLC advertised a product it can’t deliver, as that image is owned by the 178-year-old news agency. This week, the AP told WIRED it is pursuing a cease and desist against the LLC, which is registered in Sheridan, Wyoming. (The company did not reply to a request for comment about the cease and desist letter.)
Evan Vucci, the AP’s Pulitzer Prize–winning chief photographer, took that photograph, and while he told WIRED he does not own the rights to that image, the AP confirmed earlier this month in an email to WIRED that it is filing the written notice. “AP is proud of Evan Vucci’s photo and recognizes its impact,” wrote AP spokesperson Nicole Meir. “We reserve our rights to this powerful image, as we do with all AP journalism, and continue to license it for editorial use only.”"
Stephanie Nolen , The New York Times; Gilead Agrees to Allow Generic Version of Groundbreaking H.I.V. Shot in Poor Countries
"The drugmaker Gilead Sciences on Wednesday announced a plan to allow six generic pharmaceutical companies in Asia and North Africa to make and sell at a lower price its groundbreaking drug lenacapavir, a twice-yearly injection that provides near-total protection from infection with H.I.V.
Those companies will be permitted to sell the drug in 120 countries, including all the countries with the highest rates of H.I.V., which are in sub-Saharan Africa. Gilead will not charge the generic drugmakers for the licenses.
Gilead says the deal, made just weeks after clinical trial results showed how well the drug works, will provide rapid and broad access to a medication that has the potential to end the decades-long H.I.V. pandemic.
But the deal leaves out most middle- and high-income countries — including Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, China and Russia — that together account for about 20 percent of new H.I.V. infections. Gilead will sell its version of the drug in those countries at higher prices. The omission reflects a widening gulf in health care access that is increasingly isolating the people in the middle."
Justine Roberts , The Guardian; AI could be an existential threat to publishers – that’s why Mumsnet is fighting back
"After nearly 25 years as a founder of Mumsnet, I considered myself pretty unshockable when it came to the workings of big tech. But my jaw hit the floor last week when I read that Google was pushing to overhaul UK copyright law in a way that would allow it to freely mine other publishers’ content for commercial gain without compensation.
At Mumsnet, we’ve been on the sharp end of this practice, and have recently launched the first British legal action against the tech giant OpenAI. Earlier in the year, we became aware that it was scraping our content – presumably to train its large language model (LLM). Such scraping without permission is a breach of copyright laws and explicitly of our terms of use, so we approached OpenAI and suggested a licensing deal. After lengthy talks (and signing a non-disclosure agreement), it told us it wasn’t interested, saying it was after “less open” data sources...
If publishers wither and die because the AIs have hoovered up all their traffic, then who’s left to produce the content to feed the models? And let’s be honest – it’s not as if these tech giants can’t afford to properly compensate publishers. OpenAI is currently fundraising to the tune of $6.5bn, the single largest venture capital round of all time, valuing the enterprise at a cool $150bn. In fact, it has just been reported that the company is planning to change its structure and become a for-profit enterprise...
I’m not anti-AI. It plainly has the potential to advance human progress and improve our lives in myriad ways. We used it at Mumsnet to build MumsGPT, which uncovers and summarises what parents are thinking about – everything from beauty trends to supermarkets to politicians – and we licensed OpenAI’s API (application programming interface) to build it. Plus, we think there are some very good reasons why these AI models should ingest Mumsnet’s conversations to train their models. The 6bn-plus words on Mumsnet are a unique record of 24 years of female interaction about everything from global politics to relationships with in-laws. By contrast, most of the content on the web was written by and for men. AI models have misogyny baked in and we’d love to help counter their gender bias.
But Google’s proposal to change our laws would allow billion-dollar companies to waltz untrammelled over any notion of a fair value exchange in the name of rapid “development”. Everything that’s unique and brilliant about smaller publisher sites would be lost, and a handful of Silicon Valley giants would be left with even more control over the world’s content and commerce."
Lauren Coffey, Inside Higher Ed; Internet Archive Court Loss Leaves Higher Ed in Gray Area
"Pandemic-era library programs that helped students access books online could be potentially threatened by an appeals court ruling last week.
Libraries across the country, from Carnegie Mellon University to the University of California system, turned to what’s known as a digital or controlled lending program in 2020, which gave students a way to borrow books that weren’t otherwise available. Those programs are small in scale and largely experimental but part of a broader shift in modernizing the university library.
But the appeals court ruling could upend those programs...
Still, librarians at colleges and elsewhere, along with other experts, feared that the long-running legal fight between the Internet Archive and leading publishers could imperil the ability of libraries to own and preserve books, among other ramifications."
"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."
Kate Knibbs, Wired; The Internet Archive Loses Its Appeal of a Major Copyright Case
"THE INTERNET ARCHIVE has lost a major legal battle—in a decision that could have a significant impact on the future of internet history. Today, the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ruled against the long-running digital archive, upholding an earlier ruling in Hachette v. Internet Archive that found that one of the Internet Archive’s book digitization projects violated copyright law.
Notably, the appeals court’s ruling rejects the Internet Archive’s argument that its lending practices were shielded by the fair use doctrine, which permits for copyright infringement in certain circumstances, calling it “unpersuasive.”"
Associated Press via Politico; Trump campaign ordered to stop using classic R&B song; Associated Press via Politico
"A federal judge in Atlanta ruled Tuesday that Donald Trump and his campaign must stop using the song “Hold On, I’m Comin’” while the family of one of the song’s co-writers pursues a lawsuit against the former president over its use.
The estate of Isaac Hayes Jr. filed a lawsuit last month alleging that Trump, his campaign and several of his allies had infringed its copyright and should pay damages. After a hearing on the estate’s request for an emergency preliminary injunction, U.S. District Judge Thomas Thrash ruled that Trump must stop using the song, but he denied a request to force the campaign to take down any existing videos that include the song."
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:
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."
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."
Mike Isaac and Nicole Sperling , The New York Times; Meta in Talks to Use Voices of Judi Dench, Awkwafina and Others for A.I.
"Meta is in discussions with Awkwafina, Judi Dench and other actors and influencers for the right to incorporate their voices into a digital assistant product called MetaAI, according to three people with knowledge of the talks, as the company pushes to build more products that feature artificial intelligence.
Apart from Ms. Dench and Awkwafina, Meta is in talks with the comedian Keegan-Michael Key and other celebrities, said the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the discussions are private. They added that all of Hollywood’s top talent agencies were involved in negotiations with the tech giant."
Lecturer in Law, University of New England , The Conversation; ; An academic publisher has struck an AI data deal with Microsoft – without their authors’ knowledge
According to reports published last week, the authors of the content do not appear to have been asked or even informed about the deal. What’s more, they say they had no opportunity to opt out of the deal, and will not see any money from it...
The types of agreements being reached between academic publishers and AI companies have sparked bigger-picture concerns for many academics. Do we want scholarly research to be reduced to content for AI knowledge mining? There are no clear answers about the ethics and morals of such practices."
Scott M. Douglass and Dominic Rota, Baker Donelson ; The Fast-Moving Race Between Gen-AI and Copyright Law
"It is still an open question whether plaintiffs will succeed in showing that use of copyrighted works to train generative AI constitutes copyright infringement and be able to overcome the fair use defense or succeed in showing that generative AI developers are removing CMI in violation of the DMCA.
The government has made some moves in the past few months to resolve these issues. The U.S. Copyright Office started an inquiry in August 2023, seeking public comments on copyright law and policy issues raised by AI systems, and Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) introduced a new bill in April 2024, that would require people creating a training dataset for a generative AI system to submit to the Register of Copyrights a detailed summary of any copyrighted works used in training. These initiatives will most likely take some time, meaning that currently pending litigation is vitally important for defining copyright law as it applies to generative AI.
Recent licensing deals with news publishers appear to be anywhere from $1 million to $60 million per year, meaning that AI companies will have to pay an enormous amount to license all the copyrighted works necessary to train their generative AI models effectively. However, as potential damages in a copyright infringement case could be billions of dollars, as claimed by Getty Images and other plaintiffs, developers of generative AI programs should seriously consider licensing any copyrighted works used as training data."
, Forbes; The Media Industry’s Race To License Content For AI
"AI content licensing initiatives abound. More and more media companies have reached license agreements with AI companies individually. Several startups have formed to aggregate content into large collections for AI platforms to license in one-stop shopping arrangements known in the jargon as blanket licenses. There are now so many such startups that last month they formed a trade association—the Dataset Providers Alliance—to organize them for advocacy.
Ironically, the growing volume of all this activity could jeopardize its value for copyright owners and AI platforms alike.
It will take years before the panoply of lawsuits yield any degree of clarity in the legal rules for copyright in the AI age; we’re in the second year of what is typically a decade-long process for copyright laws to adapt to disruptive technologies. One reason for copyright owners to organize now to provide licenses for AI is that—as we’ve learned from analogous situations in the past—both courts and Congress will consider is how easy it is for the AI companies to license content properly in determining whether licensing is required."
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."
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."
