Despite hiccups, the NFT market continues to expand as we move into 2023. The NFT market is even projected to reach more than $230 billion by 2030. But with the swift rise comes numerous obstacles. Minting an NFT for a virtual asset containing artwork, a song, or trademarks that creators no longer own or have a valid license can land them severe legal trouble.
Source: Intellectual Property Rights Will be Key in Web3 and NFT Evolution
The UK Government’s Intellectual Property Office published new piracy guidance today, and it contains a small, easily missed detail. People who share their Netflix, Amazon Prime, or Disney+ passwords are violators of copyright law. And it gets worse. The IPO informs TorrentFreak that password sharing could also mean criminal liability for fraud.
Source: UK Govt: Netflix Password Sharing is Illegal & Potentially Criminal Fraud (Updated) * TorrentFreak
As the rock era has moved into old age, a phenomenon has emerged known as the “copyright dump,” where, due to a still vaguely defined European Union law, artists must release recordings before those recordings become 50 years old, or lose the rights to them. Pink Floyd has quietly released a whopping 18 ‘Dark Side of the Moon’-era concerts onto streaming services to renew its rights to the recordings.
Source: Pink Floyd Quietly Releases 18 ‘Dark Side of the Moon’ Era Concerts Onto Streaming Services
This music rights gold rush is due to both the explosion of music streaming and tunes on TikTok as well as an ever-growing need to supply global video services like Netflix with soundtracks to their shows and movies. Now, Duetti, co-founded by two former TIdal execs, wants to flip the practice on its head. Instead of giving big-name artists huge paydays, the company is looking to cut deals with small artists and help their old songs blow up.
Source: A stealthy startup led by Tidal’s former COO plans to turn throwback tracks into modern hits
OpenSea, the largest NFT marketplace, briefly considered changing its policy before a deafening backlash from artists forced the company to double down on its commitment to royalties. OpenSea also introduced an “enforcement tool” allowing artists to blacklist rival marketplaces that don’t honor creator royalties. It’s a small win for creators although some have called it a “bandaid” as many growing platforms still do not enforce royalties by default.
The regulatory terms proposed in FIFA aim to protect freelance contractors in New York and New York-based businesses from wage theft by setting clearly written contractual terms and payment agreements. At a state level, the bill would allow freelancers to collect double compensation if they are not paid in a timely manner and make it easier for freelancers to make claims on payments that are owed.
Source: Authors Guild Urges New York Governor to Sign Freelance Isn’t Free Act into Law
A new study offers some evidence that art-generating AI systems like Stable Diffusion copy from the data on which they were trained. “Even though diffusion models such as Stable Diffusion produce beautiful images, and often ones that appear highly original and custom tailored to a particular text prompt, we show that these images may actually be copied from their training data, either wholesale or by copying only parts of training images,” the researcher said.
Source: Image-generating AI can copy and paste from training data, raising IP concerns
Source: YouTube Stars Cash In Video Rights for Millions of Dollars
In their response to Sony Music Entertainment’s complaint, Triller, Inc. denied all core allegations and argued that they do not owe Sony any money for their use of Sony’s copyrighted music on their music video creation app. While Triller admits to Sony’s allegations of how they generate revenue, they deny that Sony’s music in particular is core to their business model. They say that their general ability to advertise and draw paying users is how they do business.
Source: Triller Answers Sony Music’s Copyright Complaint – Tech
The Copyright Royalty Board announced that artists and labels’ royalty rates for noninteractive webcasters’ streams will take a jump due to inflation. The per-stream rate for noninteractive webcasters’ streams will take a big jump in 2023: commercial webcasters will pay 0.3 cents per stream for subscription performances, up 7.1% from 0.28 cents in 2022, and 0.24 cents per stream for ad-supported performances, up 9.1% from 0.22 cents.
Source: Webcast Royalty Rates Increase for Artists, Labels Thanks to High Inflation