Jessica Lynch, Billboard; ESDEEKID CALLS OUT THE CHAINSMOKERS OVER ‘4 RAWS’ REMIX
"UK rapper EsDeeKid has publicly called out The Chainsmokers after the duo shared a remix of his track “4 Raws” that he says was released without his approval.
In a post on X on Jan. 2, EsDeeKid wrote that the remix was “getting NUKED,” writing, “that chainsmokers remix is getting NUKED mate wow please. don’t remix my sh– and think it’s cool to post to all DSPs.”"
Ben Beaumont-Thomas, The Guardian; ‘A nasty little song, really rather evil’: how Every Breath You Take tore Sting and the Police apart
"This week’s high court hearings between Sting and his former bandmates in the Police, Stewart Copeland and Andy Summers, are the latest chapter in the life of a song whose negative energy seems to have seeped out into real life.
Every Breath You Take is the subject of a lawsuit filed by Copeland and Summers against Sting, alleging that he owes them royalties linked to their contributions to the hugely popular song, particularly from streaming earnings, estimated at $2m (£1.5m) in total. Sting’s legal team have countered that previous agreements between him and his bandmates regarding their royalties from the song do not include streaming revenue – and argued in pre-trial documents that the pair may have been “substantially overpaid”. In the hearing’s opening day, it was revealed that since the lawsuit was filed, Sting has paid them $870,000 (£647,000) to redress what his lawyer called “certain admitted historic underpayments”. But there are still plenty of future potential earnings up for debate."
Rob Salkowitz, , Forbes; ‘Clock Is Ticking’ For Creators On AI Content Copyright Claims, Experts Warn
"Despite this string of successes, creators like BT caution that content owners need to move quickly to secure any kind of terms. “A lot of artists have their heads in the sand with respect to AI,” he said. “The fact is, if they don’t come to some kind of agreement, they may end up with nothing.”
The concern is that AI models are increasingly being trained on synthetic data: that is, on the output of AI systems, rather than on content attributable to any individual creator or rights owner. Gartner estimates that 75% of AI training data in 2026 will be synthetic. That number could hit 100% by 2030. Once the tech companies no longer need human-produced content, they will stop paying for it.
“The quality of outputs from AI systems has been improving dramatically, which means that it is possible to train on synthetic data without risking model collapse,” said Dr. Daniela Braga, founder and CEO of the data training firm Defined.ai, in a separate interview at CES. “The window is definitely closing for individual rights owners to secure favorable terms.”
Other experts suggest that these claims may be overstated.
Braga says the best way creators can protect themselves is to do business with ethical companies willing to provide compensation for high-quality human-produced content and represent the superior value of that content to their customers. As models grow in capabilities, the need will shift from sheer volume of data to data that is appropriately tagged and annotated to fit easily into specific use cases.
There remain some profound questions around the sustainability of AI from a business standpoint, with demand for services among enterprise and consumers lagging the massive, and massively expensive, build-out of capacity. For some artists opposed to generative AI in its entirety, there may be the temptation to wait it out until the bubble bursts. After all, these artists created their work to be enjoyed by humans, not to be consumed in bulk by machines threatening their livelihoods. In light of those objections, the prospect of a meager payout might seem unappealing."
AUTUMN BILLINGS , Reason; The Trump Administration's Deportation Reels Keep Getting Copyright Strikes for Using Music Without Permission
"As masked Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents deploy to U.S. cities, the Trump administration is also running a social media campaign. Its effort to stay viral online is colliding with copyright law.
Between January 26 and November 10, 2025, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) posted 487 times on Instagram—more than 28 percent of the agency's total posting since joining the platform in 2014. The posts promote the crackdown by mixing 20th century propaganda with modern memes, and they feature a wide range of popular imagery and audio.
But not all the content they use has been licensed—or welcomed. Several creators have pushed back on the unauthorized use of their copyright-protected work."
Ariel Zilber, New York Post; Amazon Prime slammed for streaming ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’ with key scene cut out: ‘Sacrilege’
"The existence of the abridged version is rooted not in a creative choice by Amazon, but in the film’s famously tangled copyright history, according to the University of Connecticut.
In 1974, the distributor failed to renew the movie’s copyright, sending “It’s a Wonderful Life” into the public domain.
For nearly two decades, television stations freely aired the film — especially during the holidays — without paying royalties.
But the legal landscape shifted in the 1990s.
While the film itself had fallen into the public domain, the rights to two underlying elements had been properly maintained: the original short story “The Greatest Gift,” by Philip Van Doren Stern, and the musical score by Dimitri Timokin, a UConn legal blog noted.
Republic Pictures, later acquired by Paramount, used those copyrights to effectively reclaim control over the movie’s distribution, arguing that any exhibition of the film required licensing the copyrighted story and music.
The “Pottersville” sequence is the portion most directly adapted from Stern’s story.
Legal experts say the abridged version appears to be a workaround — by removing that specific sequence, distributors may have believed they could avoid infringing on the short story’s copyright while still offering a version of the film."
Marco Quiroz-Gutierrez , Fortune; Natasha Lyonne says AI has an ethics problem because right now it’s ‘super kosher copacetic to rob freely under the auspices of acceleration’
"Asteria partnered with Moonvalley AI, which makes AI tools for filmmakers, to create Marey, named after cinematographer Étienne-Jules Marey. The tool helps generate AI video that can be used for movies and TV, but only draws on open-license content or material it has explicit permission to use.
Being careful about the inputs for Asteria’s AI video generation is important, Lyonne said at the Fortune Brainstorm AI conference in San Francisco last week. As AI use increases, both tech and Hollywood need to respect the work of the cast, as well as the crew and the writers behind the scenes.
“I don’t think it’s super kosher copacetic to just kind of rob freely under the auspices of acceleration or China,” she said.
While she hasn’t yet used AI to help make a TV show or movie, Lyonne said Asteria has used it in other small ways to develop renderings and other details.
“It’s a pretty revolutionary act that we actually do have that model and that’s you know the basis for everything that we work on,” said Lyonne.
Marey is available to the public for a credits-based subscription starting at $14.99 per month."
MAIA SNOW, The Bookseller; Government's AI consultation finds just 3% support copyright exception
"The initial results of the consultation found that the majority of respondents (88%) backed licences being required in all cases where data was being used for AI training. Just 3% of respondents supported the government’s preferred options, which would allow data mining by AI companies and require rights holders to opt-out."
BRIAN BARRETT, Wired; The Disney-OpenAI Deal Redefines the AI Copyright War
"“I think that AI companies and copyright holders are beginning to understand and become reconciled to the fact that neither side is going to score an absolute victory,” says Matthew Sag, a professor of law and artificial intelligence at Emory University. While many of these cases are still working their way through the courts, so far it seems like model inputs—the training data that these models learn from—are covered by fair use. But this deal is about outputs—what the model returns based on your prompt—where IP owners like Disney have a much stronger case
Coming to an output agreement resolves a host of messy, potentially unsolvable issues. Even if a company tells an AI model not to produce, say, Elsa at a Wendy’s drive-through, the model might know enough about Elsa to do so anyway—or a user might be able to prompt their way into making Elsa without asking for the character by name. It’s a tension that legal scholars call the “Snoopy problem,” but in this case you might as well call it the Disney problem.
“Faced with this increasingly clear reality, it makes sense for consumer-facing AI companies and entertainment giants like Disney to think about licensing arrangements,” says Sag."
Igor Bonifacic, engadget; Disney's deal with OpenAI is about controlling the future of copyright
"The agreement brings together two parties with very different public stances on copyright. Before OpenAI released Sora, the company reportedly notified studios and talent agencies they would need to opt out of having their work appear in the new app. The company later backtracked on this stance. Before that, OpenAI admitted, in a regulatory filing, it would be "impossible to train today's leading AI models without using copyrighted materials."
By contrast, Disney takes copyright law very seriously. In fact, you could argue no other company has done more to shape US copyright law than Disney. For example, there's the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act, which is more derisively known as the Mickey Mouse Protection Act. The law effectively froze the advancement of the public domain in the United States, with Disney being the greatest beneficiary. It was only last year that the company's copyright for Steamboat Willie expired, 95 years after Walt Disney first created the iconic cartoon."
Brooks Barnes, The New York Times; Disney Agrees to Bring Its Characters to OpenAI’s Sora Videos
"In a watershed moment for Hollywood and generative artificial intelligence, Disney on Thursday announced an agreement to bring its characters to Sora, OpenAI’s short-form video platform. Videos made with Sora will be available to stream on Disney+ as part of the three-year deal...
“The rapid advancement of artificial intelligence marks an important moment for our industry, and through this collaboration with OpenAI we will thoughtfully and responsibly extend the reach of our storytelling,” Robert A. Iger, the chief executive of Disney, said in a statement.
Disney is the first major Hollywood company to cross this particular Rubicon."
KLAUDIA JAŹWIŃSKA, Columbia Journalism Review; Lawsuit or License?
"Today, the Tow Center for Digital Journalism is releasing a tracker that monitors developments between news publishers and AI companies—including lawsuits, deals, and grants—based on publicly available information."
Thomas Barrabi , New York Post; Bannon, top conservatives urge White House to reject Big Tech’s ‘fair use’ push to justify AI copyright theft: ‘Un-American and absurd’
"Prominent conservatives including Steve Bannon are urging the Trump administration to reject an increasingly popular argument that tech giants are using to rip off copyrighted material to train artificial intelligence.
So-called “fair use” doctrine – which argues that the use of copyrighted content without permission is legally justified if it is done in the public interest – has become a common defense for AI firms like Google, Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta and Microsoft who have been accused of ripping off work.
The argument’s biggest backers also include White House AI czar David Sacks, who has warned that Silicon Valley firms “would be crippled” in a crucial race against AI firms in China unless they can rely on fair use protection...
Bannon and his allies threw cold water on such claims in a Monday letter addressed to US Attorney General Pam Bondi and Michael Kratsios, who heads the White House’s Office of Science and Technology Policy.
“This is un-American and absurd,” the conservatives argued in the letter, which was exclusively obtained by The Post. “We must compete and win the global AI race the American way — by ensuring we protect creators, children, conservatives, and communities.”...
The conservatives point to clear economic incentives to back copyright-protected industries, which contribute more than $2 trillion to the US GDP, carry an average annual wage of more than $140,000 and account for a $37 billion trade surplus, according to the letter...
The letter notes that money is no object for the companies leading the AI boom, which “enjoy virtually unlimited access to financing” and are each valued at hundreds of billions, if not trillions of dollars.
“In a free market, businesses pay for the inputs they need,” the letter said. “Imagine if AI CEOs claimed they needed free access to semiconductors, energy, researchers, and developers to build their products. They would be laughed out of their boardrooms.”...
The letter is the latest salvo in a heated policy divide as AI models gobble up data from the web. Critics accuse companies like Google, Microsoft, OpenAI and Meta of essentially seeking a “license to steal” from news outlets, artists, authors and others that produce original work."
Chris Woodward, The Center Square ; Inventors back effort to tackle intellectual property thefts
"Today, Metz, who describes herself as a victim of intellectual property theft, supports new federal legislation that would protect inventors like her.
“It’s very overwhelming when you’re the inventor, the creator, and you’re trying to build a business, and then you find out all these people are stealing your property,” Metz said.
The patenting process took about four years and $40,000. Metz also poured $350,000 into molds, employees and a facility to make her product.
Metz said that from 2015 to 2018, when she saw over 150 companies stealing her invention, she got an attorney and began to fight. It was a success. Metz was able to stop every one of those infringers through licensing deals. However, Metz later found herself in an administrative court that was set up by Congress in 2012 through an intellectual property law, the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act. The administrative court or Patent Trial and Appeal Board invalidated both her patents.
“I lost everything,” said Metz. “I lost all my licensing deals. I had about 40 employees at the time. I lost them. All because of a bad law.”"
Rishabh Jaiswal , Reuters; Universal Music settles copyright dispute with AI firm Udio
"Universal Music Group said on Wednesday it has settled a copyright infringement case with artificial intelligence company Udio and that the two firms will collaborate on a new suite of creative products.
Under the agreement, the companies will launch a platform next year that leverages generative AI trained on authorized and licensed music.
UMG Chairman Sir Lucian Grainge said the agreements "demonstrate our commitment to do what's right by our artists and songwriters, whether that means embracing new technologies, developing new business models, diversifying revenue streams or beyond.""
Noah Berz , Rice Thresher; Photographer sues Rice after Coffeehouse uses copyrighted muffin photo
[Kip Currier: Another cautionary tale to not "scrape" stuff from the Internet and use it for one's commercial business.
(Oh, wait...that's what Big Tech did with billions of copyrighted works they "scraped" from the Web and pirate book libraries to develop their proprietary IP-protected AI products, too, right?)
At any rate, this "federal copyright-registered blueberry muffin photo" story is another reminder that it'll save you money, time, and possible reputational damage to do one of the following: take your own photo of a blueberry muffin; hire someone to do it; license a photo; or ask permission to use it.
And if you do use a photo for your business venture, give the photographer/copyright creator attribution...
Like this photo I took of my mother's delicious Iron Skillet Blueberry Scones!
[Excerpt]
"A lawsuit has been filed against Rice, accusing Rice Coffeehouse of using a copyrighted photograph without permission to advertise on their Instagram page and website.
The Oct. 17 complaint was filed on behalf of Meggan Hill, a photographer and chef who posts her recipes online. The photo in question is a blueberry muffin photo, featured on Hill’s website with an accompanying recipe.
The lawsuit was filed in a Houston federal district court by Hill’s attorney, Layla Nguyen of SRipLaw, an intellectual property law firm based in Boca Raton, Florida. According to the case briefing, Hill tried to notify the university of her allegations twice before suing but received no response.
“To date, the parties have failed to resolve this matter,” the briefing reads. “Rice failed to respond to any communications.”
The lawsuit alleges that Chaus copied Hill’s photograph titled “Blueberry Muffins - Culinary Hill 1200x800” from the internet and displayed it online to promote the addition of blueberry muffins to their menu.
In the lawsuit, Hill claims she discovered the photograph on the Chaus website on Jan. 7 — over a year after she registered the image with the Register of Copyrights. Hill allegedly reached out to Rice with her complaint on Jan. 29 and Feb. 28 before filing the suit."
Dave Lee, Bloomberg; AI’s Copyright War Could Be Its Undoing. Only the US Can End It.
"Whether creatives like Ulvaeus are entitled to any payment from AI companies is one of the sector’s most pressing and consequential questions. It’s being asked not just by Ulvaeus and fellow musicians including Elton John, Dua Lipa and Paul McCartney, but also by authors, artists, filmmakers, journalists and any number of others whose work has been fed into the models that power generative AI — tools that are now valued in the hundreds of billions of dollars."
Guardian staff and agencies , The Guardian; Trump celebrates TikTok deal as Beijing suggests US app would use China’s algorithm
[Kip Currier: Wasn't fears about the Chinese government's potential ability to manipulate U.S. TikTok users via the TikTok algorithm one of the chief rationales for the past Congress and Biden administration's banning of TikTok? How does this Trump 2.0 deal materially change any of that?
Another rationale for the ban was concerns about China's potential to access and leverage the personal data and impinge the privacy interests of TikTok users in the U.S. How does this proposed arrangement substantively address these concerns, particularly without comprehensive federal data and privacy legislation to give Americans agency over their own data?
The American people need maximal transparency and oversight of any kind of financial deal like this.]
[Excerpt]
"One of the major questions is the fate of TikTok’s powerful algorithm that helped the app become one of the world’s most popular sources of online entertainment.
At a press conference in Madrid, the deputy head of China’s cyber security regulator said the framework of the deal included “licensing the algorithm and other intellectual property rights”.
Wang Jingtao said ByteDance would “entrust the operation of TikTok’s US user data and content security.”
Some commentators have inferred from these comments that TikTok’s US spinoff will retain the Chinese algorithm."
Chloe Veltman , NPR; Anthropic settles with authors in first-of-its-kind AI copyright infringement lawsuit
"In one of the largest copyright settlements involving generative artificial intelligence, Anthropic AI, a leading company in the generative AI space, has agreed to pay $1.5 billion to settle a copyright infringement lawsuit brought by a group of authors.
If the court approves the settlement, Anthropic will compensate authors around $3,000 for each of the estimated 500,000 books covered by the settlement.
The settlement, which U.S. Senior District Judge William Alsup in San Francisco will consider approving next week, is in a case that involved the first substantive decision on how fair use applies to generative AI systems. It also suggests an inflection point in the ongoing legal fights between the creative industries and the AI companies accused of illegally using artistic works to train the large language models that underpin their widely-used AI systems.
The fair use doctrine enables copyrighted works to be used by third parties without the copyright holder's consent in some circumstances, such as when illustrating a point in a news article. AI companies trying to make the case for the use of copyrighted works to train their generative AI models commonly invoke fair use. But authors and other creative industry plaintiffs have been pushing back.
"This landmark settlement will be the largest publicly reported copyright recovery in history," the settlement motion states, arguing that it will "provide meaningful compensation" to authors and "set a precedent of AI companies paying for their use of pirated websites."
"This settlement marks the beginning of a necessary evolution toward a legitimate, market-based licensing scheme for training data," said Cecilia Ziniti, a tech industry lawyer and former Ninth Circuit clerk who is not involved in this specific case but has been following it closely. "It's not the end of AI, but the start of a more mature, sustainable ecosystem where creators are compensated, much like how the music industry adapted to digital distribution.""
