A judge has dismissed an antitrust case brought by two US news publishers alleging Google has monopolized the online news market via its search business. US District Judge Amit P. Mehta said the publishers did not successfully prove they have antitrust standing, meaning that they had suffered harm as a result of the tech giant’s actions within the search market.
Source: US judge dismisses Google monopoly claim brought by local publishers
On Thursday, Michael Smith, the man accused of defrauding music streaming services with AI-generated slop tracks, pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud. Smith agreed to pay back the $8,091,843.64 he received in royalties from the streamers, and his charge carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison. “Michael Smith generated thousands of fake songs using artificial intelligence and then streamed those fake songs billions of times,” said Jay Clayton, a U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York.
Source: First-Ever US Streaming Music Fraud Case Ends In a Guilty Plea
The publisher said that Apple, Google, Nvidia, Meta Platforms , OpenAI, Anthropic, Perplexity AI and Elon Musk’s xAI used pirated copies of its books to teach their chatbots to respond to human prompts. The publisher’s complaint is unique in targeting several tech juggernauts at once. The lawsuit was filed by attorneys at law firm Freedman Normand Friedland, who have brought a similar ongoing case against Big Tech companies on behalf of writer John Carreyrou and other authors.
Source: Chicken Soup for the Soul publisher sues tech companies over AI training
In opposition to the American Law Institute’s (ALI) Copyright Restatement and to highlight its “significant inaccuracies, omissions, and mischaracterizations of copyright law,” the Copyright Restatement Transparency Project (CRTP) has announced that its petition to raise awareness has surpassed 500 signatures. The CRTP was formed by members of the copyright and creative communities, including individuals and organizations that participated in the Copyright Restatement for years but ultimately resigned from the project in its final stages.
Source: American Law Institute’s ‘Copyright Restatement’ Project Faces Growing Opposition
Encyclopedia Britannica and Merriam-Webster have filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, alleging in its complaint that the AI giant has committed “massive copyright infringement.” Britannica, which owns Merriam-Webster, retains the copyright to nearly 100,000 online articles, which have been scraped and used to train OpenAI’s LLMs without permission, the publisher alleges in the lawsuit.
Source: The dictionary sues OpenAI
The UK government has backtracked on its position on copyright and AI, stating it must take time to “get this right”. Its original position – allowing AI companies to use copyrighted works to train their models with an opt-out option – received major backlash from the likes of Sir Elton John and Dua Lipa. “We have listened,” Technology Secretary Liz Kendall said on Wednesday, saying the government no longer favours that approach.
Source: UK Government backtracks on AI and copyright after outcry from major artists
According to a report in The Times on Friday (March 6), a “commercial research exception” is one of a number of proposals officials are preparing ahead of a parliamentary statement on copyright reform, due on March 18. Under the proposal, AI developers would be free to use copyrighted material for training purposes without obtaining permission, but would need to secure licences from rights holders before bringing any resulting products to market.
Source: UK government weighs copyright ‘commercial research exception’ for AI Use
A coalition of independent musicians from across the United States has filed a lawsuit against tech giant Google over more than just allegations that the company’s AI models rely on stealing and copying original works. In fact, this lawsuit could be the “broadest, most comprehensive attack on the business model of AI-generated music.”
Source: Indie Artist Coalition Files Major Lawsuit Against Google Over AI Copyright Theft
A packed courtroom in Munich on Monday (March 9) heard oral proceedings in the copyright case brought by Germany’s GEMA against AI music generator Suno. The collecting society alleges that Suno used, stored and reproduced copyrighted recordings of world-famous songs to train its AI tool. The hearing ended without a ruling. A decision date has been set for June 12, 2026.
Source: GEMA vs. Suno: German court hears landmark AI music copyright case
To help train AI models, Meta and other tech companies have downloaded and shared pirated books via BitTorrent from Anna’s Archive and other shadow libraries. In an ongoing lawsuit, Meta now argues that uploading pirated books to strangers via BitTorrent qualifies as fair use. The company also stresses that the data helped establish U.S. global leadership in AI.
Source: Uploading Pirated Books via BitTorrent Qualifies as Fair Use, Meta Argues