The last time the courts seriously weighed the wisdom of breaking up a giant technology company was a quarter-century ago, after Microsoft was found to have illegally stifled competition in personal computer software. A Federal District Court judge said yes to forcing Microsoft to split in two. But an appeals court threw out the order, calling the breakup option “a remedy that is imposed only with great caution, in part because its long-term efficacy is rarely certain.”
Source: Why Antitrust Breakups of Google and Meta Could Be Difficult
The Association of American Publishers filed an amicus brief on April 11 supporting authors in their class action lawsuit against Meta for copyright infringement related to AI training. The brief argues that Meta’s use of copyrighted works to train its LLaMA AI model fails to meet fair use standards and contradicts the company’s claims that licensing options for such content don’t exist.
A group of professors specializing in copyright law has filed an amicus brief in support of authors suing Meta for allegedly training models without permission. The brief, filed on Friday in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, San Francisco Division, calls Meta’s fair use defense “a breathtaking request for greater legal privileges than courts have ever granted human authors.”
US performing rights organizations Ascap and BMI have filed their responses to the US Copyright Office’s recent notice of inquiry concerning the PROs sector. Both emphasize the fundamental importance these organizations play for songwriters, composers and music publishers; both suggest that the system is already heavily regulated and that additional regulation risks increasing the costs and burden for members; and both see bad faith in some of the ‘music users’ – licensors of music – whose concerns have sparked the inquiry.
