An attempt by a law firm to convince authors to opt out of the $1.5 billion class action settlement reached with Anthropic met with fierce resistance by presiding judge William Alsup in a November 13 hearing. ClaimsHero, launched a publicity campaign to persuade authors not to agree to the terms reached in the Bartz et al. v. Anthropic claiming that if authors opt out, they may be able win a bigger payout in the case.
Source: Anthropic Judge Slams Efforts to Have Authors Opt Out of Settlement
Meta and other tech companies refusing to sign content deals with Australian news outlets face millions in new fines, with Labor’s proposed media bargaining incentive set to impose penalties based on the local revenue of major platforms. Large social media and search platforms with Australian-derived revenue of at least $250m will be subject to the new rules, irrespective of whether they carry news content, according to new detail released by the assistant treasurer, Daniel Mulino.
Source: Meta could face millions in fines for not signing content deals in Australia
A Danish court has handed down a historic verdict, convicting a Reddit moderator in the country’s first-ever criminal case for violating copyright’s “right of respect”. The now 40-year-old man was given a 7-month suspended prison term for sharing 347 nude scenes featuring actresses from Danish films and TV shows on the “SeDetForPlottet” subreddit. The man also shared over 25 terabytes of pirated content on private torrent tracker Superbits.org.
Source: Redditor Convicted for Sharing Nude Scenes in Landmark ‘Moral Rights’ Copyright Case * TorrentFreak
The court ruled on Tuesday (November 11) that OpenAI should have acquired licenses for German song lyrics in GEMA’s repertoire before using them to train and operate ChatGPT. The verdict marks the first time a European court has legally examined and ruled in favor of creators whose works have been used by generative AI systems. According to the ruling, ChatGPT’s systems contain copies of original works that are reproduced and made available in response to user prompts.
Source: GEMA wins landmark ruling against OpenAI over ChatGPT’s use of song lyrics
The Internet Archive might sound like a thriving organization, but it only recently emerged from years of bruising copyright battles that threatened to bankrupt the beloved library project. In the end, the fight led to more than 500,000 books being removed from the Archive’s “Open Library.” “We survived,” Internet Archive founder Brewster Kahle told Ars. “But it wiped out the Library.”
Source: Internet Archive’s legal fights are over, but its founder mourns what was lost
The rapid proliferation of artificial intelligence across creative industries has sparked a cascade of legislative and judicial activity worldwide, reshaping how intellectual property is defined, created, and protected. For media and entertainment companies, content creators, and IP rightsholders, these evolving—and often conflicting—international approaches to AI and copyright present new challenges and can raise more questions than answers.
Getty withdrew a key part of its case against Stability AI during the trial as it admitted there was no evidence the training and development of AI text-to-image product Stable Diffusion took place in the UK. In addition a claim of secondary infringement of copyright was dismissed because, the judge said, “an AI model such as Stable Diffusion which does not store or reproduce any Copyright Works (and has never done so) is not an ‘infringing copy’” under UK law.
Source: Getty vs Stability AI ruling is ‘damp squib’ that fails to create precedent
Australia has finally pulled the trigger on long-mooted streaming quotas, confirming a landmark bill that will compel streaming platforms to invest a fixed share of their Australian revenue or expenditure into homegrown programming. The bill, to be introduced this week, will require major streamers to allocate roughly 10% of their Australian expenditure or 7.5% of local revenue to Australian drama, documentary, children’s and cultural programming.
Source: Australia Moves Ahead With Streamer Quotas to Boost Local Storytelling
Universal Music has unveiled a partnership deal with Stability AI, which is set to develop a suite of music creation tools with the major. Ultimately, said tools will advance “responsible innovation that supports both artists and rightsholders while preserving the integrity of the art form,” according to the companies. While those companies opted against shedding light on the products’ specifics, they did emphasize an objective of putting out “fully licensed, commercially safe AI music tools.”
Source: Universal Music Group Announces Stability AI ‘Strategic Alliance’
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.Source: Universal Music settles copyright dispute with AI firm Udio