Rights

News publishers have celebrated a victory in the first stage of their copyright lawsuit against Canadian AI start-up Cohere. A judge has rejected in full Cohere’s motion to dismiss, saying publishers had “adequately alleged” that outputs from the AI provider were “quantitatively and qualitatively similar” to their content. Some 14 news and magazine publishers are involved in the case, which was filed in February.

Source: News publishers win first round of copyright claim against AI start-up Cohere

In February, more than 1,000 artists – including Kate Bush, Annie Lennox of Eurythmics, and Damon Albarn of Blur and The Gorillaz – released a “silent album” in protest against the UK government’s proposed changes to copyright law. Now the album is being released on vinyl, with a bonus track –  a recording of an empty studio – from Beatles legend Sir Paul McCartney. protesting UK AI copyright law proposal

An attempt by a law firm to convince authors to opt out of the $1.5 billion class action settlement reached with Anthropic met with fierce resistance by presiding judge William Alsup in a November 13 hearing. ClaimsHero,  launched a publicity campaign to persuade authors not to agree to the terms reached in the Bartz et al. v. Anthropic claiming that if authors opt out, they may be able win a bigger payout in the case.

Source: Anthropic Judge Slams Efforts to Have Authors Opt Out of Settlement

Meta and other tech companies refusing to sign content deals with Australian news outlets face millions in new fines, with Labor’s proposed media bargaining incentive set to impose penalties based on the local revenue of major platforms. Large social media and search platforms with Australian-derived revenue of at least $250m will be subject to the new rules, irrespective of whether they carry news content, according to new detail released by the assistant treasurer, Daniel Mulino.

Source: Meta could face millions in fines for not signing content deals in Australia

A Danish court has handed down a historic verdict, convicting a Reddit moderator in the country’s first-ever criminal case for violating copyright’s “right of respect”. The now 40-year-old man was given a 7-month suspended prison term for sharing 347 nude scenes featuring actresses from Danish films and TV shows on the “SeDetForPlottet” subreddit. The man also shared over 25 terabytes of pirated content on private torrent tracker Superbits.org.

Source: Redditor Convicted for Sharing Nude Scenes in Landmark ‘Moral Rights’ Copyright Case * TorrentFreak

The court ruled on Tuesday (November 11) that OpenAI should have acquired licenses for German song lyrics in GEMA’s repertoire before using them to train and operate ChatGPT. The verdict marks the first time a European court has legally examined and ruled in favor of creators whose works have been used by generative AI systems. According to the ruling, ChatGPT’s systems contain copies of original works that are reproduced and made available in response to user prompts.

Source: GEMA wins landmark ruling against OpenAI over ChatGPT’s use of song lyrics

The Internet Archive might sound like a thriving organization, but it only recently emerged from years of bruising copyright battles that threatened to bankrupt the beloved library project. In the end, the fight led to more than 500,000 books being removed from the Archive’s “Open Library.” “We survived,” Internet Archive founder Brewster Kahle told Ars. “But it wiped out the Library.”

Source: Internet Archive’s legal fights are over, but its founder mourns what was lost