A host of Canadian media companies filed a lawsuit against OpenAI today, alleging “inappropriate and illegal” use of their journalism to power the company’s GPT model, Reuters reports. It’s the latest salvo fired by the media in its fight against AI companies that have scraped large swaths of the open web to train their large-language models.
Policy
Canada Sues Google, Alleging Anticompetitive Online-Ad Practices
Canada’s antitrust watchdog alleges that Google acted unlawfully in building market share in the online-advertising business. In a notice filed Thursday with Canada’s Competition Tribunal, the watchdog—known as the Competition Bureau—said it seeks to “put a decisive end to Google’s structural dominance and anticompetitive practice, [and] restore competition” in the country’s online-advertising marketplace.
Source: Canada Sues Google, Alleging Anticompetitive Online-Ad Practices
Senate Bill Eyes Transparency in Use of Copyrighted Works
Senator Peter Welch (D-Vt.) introduced the Transparency and Responsibility for Artificial Intelligence Networks (TRAIN) Act on Monday in the latest effort to shield songwriters, musicians and other creators from the unauthorized use of their works in training generative AI models. If successful, the legislation would grant copyright holders access to training records, enabling them to verify if their creations were used.
Source: Senate Bill Targets AI ‘Black Box’ Problem, Eyes Transparency in Use of Copyrighted Works
Supreme Court Seeks U.S. Govt’s View on ‘Repeat Infringer’ Piracy Cases
The Supreme Court has signaled its interest in a landmark case that could redefine anti-piracy enforcement. By calling on the Solicitor General to weigh in on the “repeat infringer” dispute between Cox Communications and several record labels, it has become more likely that the Supreme Court will eventually share its opinion on the “billion dollar” piracy controversy.
Source: Supreme Court Seeks U.S. Govt’s View on ‘Repeat Infringer’ Piracy Cases * TorrentFreak
Warning of imminent, ‘irreparable’ fracture of news landscape without action
The UK’s news landscape could fracture “irreparably” in the next five to ten years with “grim” implications, a new Parliamentary report has warned. The report made recommendations for action that could help stave off some of the challenges, ranging from firmer action on AI copyright theft to the creation of news “accelerators” and tax breaks for local journalism.
Source: Warning of imminent, ‘irreparable’ fracture of news landscape without action
The Art of Attribution and Three Unlikely Theories of AI Authorship
The oral arguments in Thaler explored the contours of “traditional authorship” through two illuminating hypotheticals posed by Judge Millett: the Kodak camera and the printer malfunction. These examples help map a spectrum of human involvement in creative works and highlight the challenges in placing AI-generated works within existing doctrine.
Source: The Art of Attribution and Three Unlikely Theories of AI Authorship
Google is testing the ‘impact’ of removing EU news from search results
As Google continues to navigate its relationship with publishers, regulators, and news readers, the company is starting a pretty drastic test: it will remove news articles from European Union-based publishers from Search. Google says it’s running the “time-limited” test because EU regulators and publishers “have asked for additional data about the effect of news content in Search.” The company says it will continue to show results from websites and news publishers located outside the EU.
Source: Google is testing the ‘impact’ of removing EU news from search results
UMG sues Believe and TuneCore for $500 million
The complaint was filed in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York and focuses in part on the dissemination of so-called ‘manipulated’ audio. It alleges that Believe has built its business through “industrial-scale copyright infringement” of “the world’s most popular copyrighted recordings.”
Source: UMG sues Believe and TuneCore for $500 million, alleging ‘industrial-scale copyright infringement’
The Elephant in the Room in the Google Search Case: Generative AI
Large language models (LLMs) like Gemini require access to massive amounts of training data to be effective. Simply put, Google is able to gain an advantage in training its own generative AI models because of the massive amounts of user data it derived from illegally maintaining a monopoly across Search. Real-time data about what, when, and how people search the internet every day is only the beginning.
Source: The Elephant in the Room in the Google Search Case: Generative AI | TechPolicy.Press
US laws regulating AI prove elusive, but there may be hope
In March, Tennessee became the first state to protect voice artists from unauthorized AI cloning. This summer, Colorado adopted a tiered, risk-based approach to AI policy. And in September, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed dozens of AI-related safety bills, a few of which require companies to disclose details about their AI training. But the U.S. still lacks a federal AI policy comparable to the EU’s AI Act.
Source: US laws regulating AI prove elusive, but there may be hope