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Anthropic Brushes Off Vicarious Infringement Claims In Music Publishers’ Copyright Suit

June 3, 2026By rightstech0 Comments

The “Cox effect” continues to ripple across the music industry litigation landscape. In the latest development, Anthropic has shrugged off vicarious liability in the newer copyright infringement suit it’s facing from major music publishers including Concord. Judge Eumi K. Lee just recently signed a related order, thereby approving the publisher plaintiffs’ voluntary dismissal of a vicarious infringement claim without prejudice.

Source: Anthropic Brushes Off Vicarious Infringement Claims In Music Publishers’ Copyright Suit

Martin Scorsese Is Embracing A.I.

June 2, 2026By rightstech0 Comments

Martin Scorsese, the living embodiment of cinema as high art and a conscience for modern Hollywood, on Tuesday threw his weight behind an A.I. start-up that specializes in image generation. In a statement and an accompanying video made in his New York City office, Mr. Scorsese discussed how he had used technology from Black Forest Labs, a fast-rising A.I. venture, during preproduction for a new film. Black Forest Labs said Scorsese had signed on last year as a partner and an adviser.

Source: Martin Scorsese Is Embracing A.I.

The case against AI: writing isn’t meant to be easy

June 2, 2026By rightstech0 Comments

All authors are influenced – consciously or unconsciously – by what they have read or seen before. In fact, this has often been seen as one of the defining features of literary creation. Seneca the Younger argued that, just as bees make honey and wax from the pollen of flowers they leave behind, so writers should craft new works from the materials they encounter in their reading. As T.S. Eliot wryly put it, ‘immature poets imitate, mature poets steal. This being so, can we really draw such a line between literary borrowing and AI-powered appropriation?

Source: The case against AI: writing isn’t meant to be easy

Book publishing’s AI panic is here. And nobody knows what to do about it

June 2, 2026By rightstech0 Comments

Some have contended that AI may be having its Napster moment, when the music file-sharing software upended the economics and gatekeeping structures of the music industry in the late 90s by enabling millions of users to download and distribute copyrighted songs online. Now, generative AI is forcing book publishing into a long overdue reckoning over what counts as original human work and how the tech should be ethically deployed or disclosed at all stages of the book production pipeline.

Source: Book publishing’s AI panic is here. And nobody knows what to do about it

Estate of Blues pioneer Lead Belly sues group of publishers in copyright dispute

June 2, 2026By rightstech0 Comments

The complaint, filed on Monday (May 18) in the US District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee, Nashville Division, accuses the defendants of continuing to exploit 49 Lead Belly compositions after the estate served formal copyright termination notices. The lawsuit also alleges that an audit of the defendants’ books uncovered more than $289,000 in wrongfully retained royalties. The plaintiff, Terika Dean, is the appointed Trustee of The Huddie Ledbetter Family Trust, according to the complaint.

Source: Estate of Blues pioneer Lead Belly sues group of publishers in copyright dispute

CNN Sues AI Firm Perplexity, Alleging It Engaged in ‘Massive Copyright Infringement’

June 2, 2026By rightstech0 Comments

The lawsuit, filed Thursday in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, accused Perplexity of scraping more than 17,000 CNN stories, photos, videos and other content and using that to train its products. The complaint is the network’s first legal case against an AI company seeking to protect its copyrights — and is believed to the first litigation in this area by a TV network,

Source: CNN Sues AI Firm Perplexity, Alleging It Engaged in ‘Massive Copyright Infringement’

Franchise IP’s New Frontier: Legal Issues in the Rise of Immersive Entertainment

June 2, 2026By rightstech0 Comments

When unique creative additions are embedded into immersive experiences, it can sometimes be unclear when an experience ceases to be an exhibition and instead constitutes a new derivative audiovisual work. Some may argue that an immersive production should be characterized as a technologically enhanced form of exhibition because, although the format of the exhibition may have changed, the core substance of the audiovisual work remains the same.

Source: Franchise IP’s New Frontier: Legal Issues in the Rise of Immersive Entertainment

Now in Theaters: Hit Movies From YouTube Stars

June 1, 2026By rightstech0 Comments

“Backrooms” is part of a growing wave of breakout films from fledgling directors who honed their instincts on YouTube rather than inside the Hollywood ecosystem. Two other creators with no Hollywood track record — Curry Barker and Mark Fischbach — have already turned online followings into surprise box-office hits this year. “It’s not an anomaly,” Stephen Galloway, the dean of Chapman University’s film school, said in a phone interview. “It’s the start of a gigantic shift. These are the cinematic insurgents of our era.”

Source: Now in Theaters: Hit Movies From YouTube Stars

NY Times Publisher Warns That AI Companies Are Making Choices That ‘Violate Settled Law’

June 1, 2026By rightstech0 Comments

New York Times publisher A.G. Sulzberger warned that AI companies were making choices that could lead to “a great deal of unnecessary harm” to the news business and the public’s access to reliable sources, in a speech delivered during the World News Media Congress in France on Monday. Companies leading the development of generative-AI systems — including OpenAI, Meta, Anthropic and Google — are “failing to embrace a core responsibility” of their control over the data fueling the technology’s development, Sulzberger said.

Source: New York Times Publisher Warns That AI Companies Are Making Choices That ‘Violate Settled Law’

Library Orgs Urge Big Five to Address Digital Pricing

May 27, 2026By rightstech0 Comments

The organizations urge publishers to negotiate usage-based e-book lending models as well as perpetual-use options. “Our organizations, representing the vast majority of public libraries in the U.S. and Canada, call on the Big Five publishers, as well as platform providers, to come to the table to work with libraries to identify and implement sustainable solutions, no matter the format,” the signatories state.

Source: Library Orgs Urge Big Five to Address Digital Pricing