On the facts of the case, the Chinese court, in a case of first impression, held that copyright did not subsist in six sets of prompts submitted to Midjourney and hence the copying of those prompts could not infringe copyright. However, the court suggested that there could be copyright in a more elaborate and specific set of prompts that meets copyright’s standard for originality.
Source: Copyright in AI Prompts: Chinese Court Ruling on Generative AI and Originality
The executive order’s instructed development of “best practice guidance for departments and agencies to appropriately watermark” all “AI-generated or significantly manipulated images or video.” Longer term, making AI watermarks the norm across the board would, of course, be a sweeping step – and a step with multiple considerations beneath the surface. How would doing so affect the growing collection of creations incorporating, but not solely resulting from, generative AI?
Source: CA’s Newsom Issues AI Executive Order After Trump Push Against ‘Cumbersome State AI Laws’
Four organizations representing various publishers and content creators have filed an amicus brief supporting Concord Music Group in its copyright infringement lawsuit against AI giant Anthropic. According to a joint statement from the leaders of the four organizations involved, “This case illuminates the critical, collaborative licensing markets that are developing among copyright owners and technology companies for consumer-facing AI products, driving better, safer, and fairer outcomes for all involved.”
The coalition, which also includes A2IM, SoundExchange, SONA, BMAC, the Music Artists Coalition, and the Artist Rights Alliance, filed an amicus brief on Monday (March 30) urging a federal court to reject Anthropic’s fair use defense in the case brought by Universal Music Publishing Group, Concord Music Group, and ABKCO in October 2023. Its core argument is twofold: that AI-generated music already acts as a direct market substitute for human-created works, and that a functioning licensing market for AI training already exists.
Source: RIAA, NMPA file amicus brief backing UMG, Concord and ABKCO in original Anthropic case
The Supreme Court justices ruled that ISPs and related platforms cannot be held liable for users’ copyright violations unless the service is specifically tailored for infringement or very actively encourages law-breaking piracy. X, which already defeated publishers’ direct infringement claims, now feels it has zero liability for secondary infringement. “If the Supreme Court had issued this opinion three years ago, X believes this court would have dismissed plaintiffs’ contributory infringement claim in its entirety,” X’s attorneys blasted less than 48 hours after the Supreme Court’s verdict.
Source: Did the Supreme Court Just Hand Elon Musk a Giant Victory Over Music Publishers?
The UK Government has released its long-awaited copyright report, framed as an attempt to reconcile the competing interests of creators, technology companies and the wider innovation ecosystem. Rightsholders will welcome it, while the UK’s AI sector will find less comfort. Two core policy decisions (on training data and on the ownership of AI-generated outputs) mark a shift away from earlier, more developer-friendly proposals. Both decisions leave significant questions unanswered.
Source: Q&A: The UK’s Copyright Report – A Gift to Creators, a Problem for AI
Looks like Meta is hoping the recent Supreme Court ruling that found Internet service providers aren’t liable for piracy on their networks will help the social media giant dodge liability claims over its torrenting of AI training data. In its statement, Meta said it would soon file a supplemental brief explaining why the ruling would support its motion to dismiss the Entrepreneur Media case.
Source: Authors’ lucky break in court may help class action over Meta torrenting
By the numbers, said payment consists of the maximum $150,000 a pop in statutory damages for 48 Warner Music recordings as well as 50 recordings apiece for Sony Music and Universal Music – or $22.2 million total. And the label litigants further spelled out that “if needed,” they could identify a multitude of their works in the 86 million tracks that Anna’s Archive allegedly scraped from Spotify.
Source: Major Labels Seek ‘Extremely Conservative’ $322 Million in Damages from Anna’s Archive
Capitol CMG, Warner-Tamerlane Publishing, BMG Rights Management and Essential Music Publishing filed a motion on March 26 in the US Middle District of Louisiana asking the court to substitute them as defendants in place of Robert Resnik, who sold his asserted 25% stake in Double Shot (Of My Baby’s Love) to the publishers on March 20. The publishers said in the filing that they acquired Resnik’s stake as they seek to ask the Supreme Court to review the Fifth Circuit’s January ruling.
Source: Publishers acquire stake in song at center of termination rights case; plan SCOTUS challenge
As this recent report highlights, more than 1,000,000 UK businesses use machine learning but, contrary to the hype, most will not be using GenAI models and virtually none creating music.In the modern world, where everything we do with online material involves a copy being made of it by a computer and its network, how we define the scope of copyright law has major consequences for our ability to harness the full potential of digital technologies.
Source: Copyright maximalism will stifle a research-intensive digital economy