Rights

Only 36% of UK Club Royalties Reach the Right Creators—Study

A six-month audit published by Fair Play, a new independent initiative aiming for transparency and accountability in electronic music royalties, provides some much-needed insight into how UK royalties are collected and distributed, and how effectively so. The answer? Not very. It turns out that only 36% of club performance royalties reach the correct creators, with an estimated £5.7 million ($7.4 million) misallocated every year.

Source: Only 36% of UK Club Royalties Reach the Right Creators—Study

WMG and Feed.fm Partner to Bring Premium Music Clips to Apps

WMG partners with Feed.fm, launching a music clip API that enables digital platforms to integrate song clips from major labels’ catalogs. The collaboration unites Feed.fm’s technology with WMG’s expansive catalog to make it easier for developers to integrate fully licensed song clips through a secure system. With this partnership, Feed.fm is now touting an ‘end-to-end solution’ for music clips that includes licensing, curation, and in-app experiences delivered via API.

Source: WMG and Feed.fm Partner to Bring Premium Music Clips to Apps

Tit-For-Tat: Porn Producers Counter Meta’s “Personal Use” Piracy Defense

Strike 3 Holdings and Counterlife Media have fired back at Meta, claiming that the tech giant’s “personal use” defense for pirating their adult films is a smokescreen. The producers allege that Meta not only used algorithms to hoard its films for AI training, but also sacrificed the producers’ works to improve download speeds through BitTorrent’s “tit-for-tat” mechanism.

Source: Tit-For-Tat: Porn Producers Counter Meta’s “Personal Use” Piracy Defense * TorrentFreak

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

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

Paul McCartney adds track to ‘silent’ album protesting UK AI copyright law proposal

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

Anthropic Judge Slams Efforts to Have Authors Opt Out of Settlement

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 could face millions in fines for not signing content deals in Australia

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

Matthew McConaughey, Michael Caine Ink Deals for AI-Generated Versions of Their Voices With ElevenLabs

Matthew McConaughey and Michael Caine have teamed with AI audio company ElevenLabs to produce virtual replications of their famous voices. McConaughey also is investing an undisclosed sum in New York-based ElevenLabs. He’s collaborated with the company since it was founded in 2022. Now McConaughey is using ElevenLabs’ technology to bring a Spanish-language audio version of his newsletter “Lyrics of Livin’” in his own voice.

Source: Matthew McConaughey, Michael Caine Ink Deals for AI-Generated Versions of Their Voices With ElevenLabs

Tilly Norwood Creator on Hollywood Backlash, Creating Jobs and Full AI Movies

Eline Van der Velden, the creator of AI actress Tilly Norwood, says the character is a work of art that sparked a conversation. “I didn’t think it was controversial,” she says. The performers’ union, SAG-AFTRA, disagreed, denouncing her for “devaluing human artistry” and threatening actors’ jobs. Van der Velden countered that no one’s job was impacted and that Tilly Norwood required a lot of human artistry, just of a different kind.

Source: Tilly Norwood Creator on Hollywood Backlash, Creating Jobs and Full AI Movies: ‘I Don’t Think’ People Will ‘Know the Difference’

Redditor Convicted for Sharing Nude Scenes in Landmark ‘Moral Rights’ Copyright Case

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

Get the latest RightsTech news and analysis delivered directly in your inbox every week
We respect your privacy.