US performance rights organization BMI has launched a campaign urging its affiliates (songwriters, composers, and publishers) to make their voices heard in the US Copyright Office’s inquiry into PROs. The USCO launched an investigation on Monday (February 10) in an effort to answer “questions related to the increase in the number of PROs and the licensing revenue distribution practices of PROs.”
Policy
Mechanical Licensing Collective Targets Spotify Suit Dismissal
The Mechanical Licensing Collective is asking a federal court to reconsider its dismissal of a lawsuit centering on Spotify’s bundling. The MLC just recently submitted that motion for reconsideration, after a federal judge about two weeks back tossed the relevant complaint with prejudice. As the Mechanical Licensing Collective sees things, the court erred when deeming Spotify Premium a bundle despite the availability of audiobooks before the bundling-classification pivot had been made official.
Source: Mechanical Licensing Collective Targets Spotify Suit Dismissal
Thomson Reuters wins an early court battle over AI, copyright, and fair use
On Tuesday, US District Court of Delaware judge Stephanos Bibas issued a partial summary judgment in favor of Thomson Reuters in its copyright infringement lawsuit against Ross Intelligence, a legal AI startup. Filed in 2020, it’s one of the first cases that will deal with the legality of AI tools and how they are trained, often using copyrighted data scraped from somewhere else without license or permission.
Source: Thomson Reuters wins an early court battle over AI, copyright, and fair use
OpenAI spoke to government officials about its DeepSeek probe
The ChatGPT-maker previously claimed to have evidence that DeepSeek trained its AI models using improperly obtained data from OpenAI’s API. During a Bloomberg TV interview on Monday, OpenAI’s chief global affairs officer, Chris Lehane, said the company has talked with government officials about the probe. Some have criticized OpenAI for hypocrisy here.
Source: OpenAI spoke to government officials about its DeepSeek probe | TechCrunch
AAP, IPA Join Groups Calling for AI to Respect Copyright
Thirty-eight international organizations representing creative industries—including the Association of American Publishers, under the auspices of the International Publishers Association—have released a joint statement calling for oversight and regulation of artificial intelligence development, focusing on respect for copyright and related intellectual property.
Source: AAP, IPA Join Groups Calling for AI to Respect Copyright
US Copyright Office launches inquiry into performance rights organizations
The USCO launched a call for written submissions from the public about the PROs in response to a letter sent by members of the House Judiciary Committee to the Copyright Office last September. The letter expressed concerns about the number of PROs in the US and the difficulties many businesses face in licensing music, given the need to sign blanket licensing agreements with numerous collections organizations.
Source: US Copyright Office launches inquiry into performance rights organizations
European Copyright Society Opinion on Copyright and Generative AI
The exception enacted in Arts. 3 and 4 of the CDSM Directive at a time when the Generative AI development could not have been fully anticipated, can be interpreted as covering some operations of training of a Generative AI model, but certainly not all aspects or stages of the life cycle of AI models and systems, from curating a dataset for training to the generation of an image, text or other media, by users.
Source: European Copyright Society Opinion on Copyright and Generative AI – Kluwer Copyright Blog
Publishers Ramp Up Pressure vs. Anna’s Archive, Sci-Hub, Z-Library & Libgen
The world’s major publishers claim that unlicensed libraries cast a permanent shadow over authors’ ability to make a living from their work. Those same shadows also make it more difficult to predict whether today’s investments in publishing content will pay off, or find themselves copied at will and distributed for free on the world’s most popular shadow libraries.
Source: Publishers Ramp Up Pressure vs. Anna’s Archive, Sci-Hub, Z-Library & Libgen * TorrentFreak
Music Publishers Begin ‘Extensive’ Spotify Podcast Takedowns Over Licensing Violations
Just hours after Spotify announced its first-ever annual net profit, the National Music Publishers’ Association has launched an ongoing takedown initiative against the streaming giant for the unlicensed use of music in podcasts on its platform. Beginning today (Feb. 4), notices will be sent to remove thousands of unlicensed uses of NMPA members’ works, according to the announcement. Over 2,500 detections of infringement are included in the initial takedown notices.
Source: Music Publishers Begin ‘Extensive’ Spotify Podcast Takedowns Over Licensing Violations
US court says copyright termination applies globally
Until now, it was generally understood that when an author exercises their termination right under US law, this applies only to US rights – international rights remain with the assignee (i.e., the publisher who bought the rights). However, a recent ruling by the US District Court for the Middle District of Louisiana upended this: The court concluded that a termination under US law applies globally – or, at least, in all the countries that participate in the Berne Convention.
Source: US court says copyright termination applies globally, potentially causing ‘chaos’ for rightsholders