The use of copyrighted works to train models is at the heart of a bitter battle between tech companies and content creators. That battle is playing out in technical arguments about what does and doesn’t count as fair use of a copyrighted work. But it is ultimately about carving out a space in which human and machine creativity can continue to coexist.
Headlines
US Supreme Court to review billion-dollar Cox Communications copyright case
The U.S. Supreme Court agreed on Monday to decide a copyright dispute between Cox Communications and a group of music labels following a judicial decision that threw out a $1 billion jury verdict against the internet service provider over alleged piracy of music by Cox customers. The justices took up Cox’s appeal of the lower court’s decision that it was still liable for copyright infringement by users of its internet service despite the decision to overturn the verdict.Source: US Supreme Court to review billion-dollar Cox Communications copyright case
Authors take Microsoft to court in yet another AI v copyright battle
A group of authors, including Pulitzer prize winner Kai Bird, accuse Microsoft of using copyrighted works to train its large language model. The class action complaint filed by several authors and professors, including Pulitzer prize winner Kai Bird and Whiting award winner Victor LaVelle, claims that Microsoft ignored the law by downloading around 200,000 copyrighted works and feeding it to the company’s Megatron-Turing Natural Language Generation model.
Source: Authors take Microsoft to court in yet another AI v copyright battle
How SFGATE is making local news pay and filling California’s news gaps
It may help that ‘local’ for SFGATE is California (the world’s fourth largest economy). But with a focus on longer reads and in-depth reporting, it is proof that quality journalism can still thrive on the open web. In April, it was the 37th most popular news site in America, per Press Gazette’s top-50 ranking, with 27 million visits making it the most popular purely local news website in the US.
Source: How SFGATE is making local news pay and filling California’s news gaps
Getty drops copyright allegations in UK lawsuit against Stability AI
Getty Images dropped copyright infringement allegations from its lawsuit against artificial intelligence company Stability AI as closing arguments began Wednesday in the landmark case at Britain’s High Court. Seattle-based Getty’s decision to abandon the copyright claim removes a key part of its lawsuit against Stability AI, which owns a popular AI image-making tool called Stable Diffusion.
Source: Getty drops copyright allegations in UK lawsuit against Stability AI
California Legislative Leaders Agree on $750 Million in Funding for Film and TV Credit
California legislative leaders have accepted Gov. Gavin Newsom’s proposal to more than double the film and TV credit, in a win for the industry. The state Senate and Assembly leadership have accepted Newsom’s proposed funding level, which more than doubles the program from $330 million. A vote is scheduled on Friday on a trailer bill to make it official, according to multiple sources.
Source: California Legislative Leaders Agree on $750 Million in Funding for Film and TV Credit
UK Gov Unveils $500M Creative Industries Sector Plan Investment
The UK government has announced an over $500 million investment, including in the music space, under its Creative Industries Sector Plan. That £380 million (currently $512.9 million) package was disclosed today as part of the decade-long Creative Industries Sector Plan. The latter was released alongside a broader Industrial Strategy designed to “make the UK the best place to do business.”
Source: UK Gov Unveils $500M Creative Industries Sector Plan Investment
Songwriters Guild of America Files Copyright Recapture Case Brief
Do U.S. copyright terminations extend to international markets? The Society of Composers & Lyricists and the Songwriters Guild of America believe so, and they’re weighing in on a high-stakes case revolving around the important question. The mentioned organizations (and a few others operating outside the music space) explained their position in an amicus brief supporting “Double Shot (Of My Baby’s Love)” songwriter Cyril Vetter.
Source: Songwriters Guild of America Files Copyright Recapture Case Brief
AI will make you a dumber writer, says science.
A new study by scholars from MIT and Wellesley, titled “Your Brain on ChatGPT: Accumulation of Cognitive Debt when Using an AI Assistant for Essay Writing Task,” set up a months-long comparative experiment that measured the brains and essays of some student writers, and found that AI users “consistently underperformed at neural, linguistic, and behavioral levels.” Not only that, but the negative effects of using AI remained measurable in the participants afterwards, and even when they were doing their thinking without LLMs.
Meta’s AI Model ‘Memorized’ Huge Chunks of Books, Including ‘Harry Potter’ and ‘1984’
Source: Meta’s AI Model ‘Memorized’ Huge Chunks of Books, Including ‘Harry Potter’ and ‘1984’