The Australian government has announced plans for a levy on tech giants designed to incentivise them to do commercial deals with publishers. The News Bargaining Incentive (NBI) would require large search and social media services to pay 2.25% on their Australian revenue. This money would be “distributed back to the news media sector”, the government said, to “support the employment and critical work of journalists”.
Source: Australia to tax Meta if it doesn’t pay news publishers
Google is trying to put an end to the copyright liability claim in its textbook piracy battle with several academic publishers. In a motion for partial judgment filed in a New York federal court, Google argues that the recent Supreme Court ruling in Cox v. Sony has effectively killed the copyright liability arguments. That is, unless the publishers can prove Google specifically “induced” infringement or built a service “tailored” exclusively for piracy.
Source: Google Uses Cox Ruling to Kill Last Copyright Claim in Textbook Piracy Lawsuit
The filing parties’ “request for documents regarding the Warner Music Group settlement and associated licensing is denied,” Judge Paul Levenson wrote, indicating as well that “the relevance of this information is marginal and the potential for chilling settlements—in this and other cases—is high.” But earlier this week, Universal Music and Sony Music submitted a 20-page objection to the denial.
Source: Universal Music and Sony Music Aggressively Push to Obtain Warner Music’s Suno Agreement Terms
UMG and the other music companies urged a federal judge last month to find that Anthropic’s use of its intellectual property was not “fair use” — a legal tenet that excludes “transformative” uses of a work from copyright protection. Now the AI giant is hitting back, saying in a Monday (April 20) brief of its own that the publishers cannot “meaningfully dispute that training on lyrics (and other copyrighted text) is transformative.”
Source: Anthropic Argues for Fair Use in UMG’s AI Lawsuit: ‘Training on Lyrics Is Transformative’
News publishers have disputed a claim from Google that using their content to “fine-tune” its AI models contains “no realistic prospect of harm” to them. Google told the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority that there is “no realistic prospect of harm to publishers in respect of training/fine-tuning of AI models for search and search generative AI features. “Fine-tuning helps the model learn how to process information rather than what current information to display.”
The EU’s framework for collective licensing rests on Extended Collective Licensing, or ECL. Under ECL, a CMO is authorized by law to license works on behalf of all rightsholders in a given category — even those who never signed up. The idea is elegant: one blanket license, one payment stream, universal coverage. The trouble starts with what happens after the money is collected.
Source: The Licensing Mirage: Why Collective Models Won’t Save the Visual Industry from AI
The Supreme Court’s recent reversal of the billion-dollar Cox Communications verdict also makes an appearance in the long-running legal battle between Yout.com and the RIAA. The streamripper’s counsel argues that the ruling’s treatment of noninfringing uses is relevant to its case against the RIAA. The music group disagrees, suggesting that it is not relevant.
Source: Yout.com Hopes Supreme Court’s Cox Ruling Helps Its Case; RIAA Disagrees
The decision comes as the Supreme Court last month ruled unanimously in Cox v. Sony Music that internet service providers cannot be held liable for copyright infringement committed by their users, unless the provider actively induced the infringement or provided a service tailored to that infringement — meaning a service not capable of substantial noninfringing uses.
Source: After Cox ruling, Supreme Court wipes out Grande Communications’ $47M music piracy verdict
Australia’s government has unveiled new copyright reforms this week, specifically involving circumstances in which the copyright owner is unknown or unlocatable – ‘orphan works’. Expanding on the contents of the Copyright Act 1986, the Copyright Amendment Bill allows Australians new access to “orphaned” creative, historical and educational materials, some of which have been previously held indefinitely in the archives of cultural institutions across the country.
Source: Australia introduces new “orphan works” copyright legislation
Major music publishers and the NMPA are asking a Texas federal court to throw out X’s antitrust lawsuit, calling it a baseless attempt at retaliation. The music companies argue that X’s conspiracy theory rests on a single word in an email, while adding that their massive DMCA takedown campaign was not a sham but fully protected by the First Amendment.
Source: Music Publishers Ask Court to Dismiss X’s ‘Weaponized DMCA’ Antitrust Suit