Rights

French press take on digital databases to defend journalist copyright against AI

Two professional organisations representing 800 newspapers and magazines employing over half of journalists in France announced Monday that they are taking “coordinated action” against public datasets used to train generative artificial intelligence services, such as ChatGPT. The Apig, the general news medial alliance, and the Sepm, the magazine publisher’s union, aim to remove their members’ content from Common Crawl, C4 and Oscar.

Source: French press take on digital databases to defend journalist copyright against AI

Authors, Publishers Await Answers as Anthropic Hearing Approaches

New information has emerged in the class action lawsuit against AI company Anthropic which could limit the number of books included in the case—just days before the September 8 hearing in which the details of a settlement among the parties is expected to be released. “As a bright line rule,” the AAP observed, “any work published or registered after July 2022 is definitively outside the class, and for some works the cutoff is June 2021.”

Source: Authors, Publishers Await Answers as Anthropic Hearing Approaches

Nordic collecting societies shutter Polaris licensing hub over changing market demands

The organizations cited the need for bigger scale and international reach amid today’s “increasingly competitive, complex and scale-driven music ecosystem.” Koda, Teosto and Tono said: “[C]ooperation on a Nordic scale is no longer sufficient. The Board of Polaris Hub has accordingly decided to initiate a phased wind down of the venture in an orderly manner around the turn of 2025–2026.”

Source: Nordic collecting societies shutter Polaris licensing hub over changing market demands

Google is training its AI tools on YouTube videos. These creators aren’t happy

YouTube’s parent company, Google, is using a subset of the platform’s videos to train AI applications, including its text-to-video tool Veo. That includes videos made by users who have built their livelihoods on the service, helping turn it into the biggest streaming entertainment provider in the U.S. The move has sparked deep tensions between the world’s biggest online video company and some of the creators who helped make it a behemoth.

Source: Google is training its AI tools on YouTube videos. These creators aren’t happy

UK tribunal rejects Blur drummers lawsuit against PRS over ‘black box’ royalties

It concluded that because songwriters are not “owed” black box royalties, the class doesn’t have a legitimate claim under UK law. It also concluded that Rowntree’s lawyers hadn’t proposed an alternative to PRS’ method of distributing black box royalties, and doubted that the “cost-benefit” ratio of the lawsuit made sense, given that PRS is a not-for-profit owned by its publisher and songwriter members.

Source: UK tribunal rejects Blur drummer’s class action lawsuit against PRS For Music over ‘black box’ royalties

EU and Canada publishers issue joint plea to halt AI ‘strip mining’ of news

If publishers cannot monetise content, they cannot reinvest in the accurate and authoritative journalism readers rely upon to make informed decisions that empower them to participate effectively in democratic processes. Publisher trade bodies see Canada-EU trade deal as chance to curb big tech power. A possible Canada-European Union Digital Trade Agreement could help scale Canadian and European innovation leaders, while ensuring the ethical, positive and responsible use of AI through reasonable guardrails.

Source: EU and Canada publishers issue joint plea to halt AI ‘strip mining’ of news

Suno argues none of the tracks made on its platform ‘contain anything like a sample’

Suno claims that even if its AI learned from copyrighted songs, the outputs it generates are entirely new sounds that cannot infringe existing recordings under copyright law. The motion represents the latest salvo in ongoing legal battles over AI training on copyrighted music, with Suno already defending against a separate lawsuit filed by major labels Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, and Warner Music Group in June 2024.

Source: Suno argues none of the millions of tracks made on its platform ‘contain anything like a sample’

New Class Action Lawsuit Targets Amazon Over Movie ‘Purchase’ Licenses

A On Friday, a proposed class action was filed in Washington federal court against Amazon over a “bait and switch” in which the company allegedly misleads consumers into believing they’ve purchased content when they’re only getting a license to watch, which can be revoked at any time.

Source: You Don’t Actually Own That Movie You Just “Bought.” A New Class Action Lawsuit Targets Amazon

Perplexity Is Launching a New Revenue-Share Model for Publishers

The artificial-intelligence startup expects to pay publishers from a $42.5 million revenue pool initially, and to increase that amount over time, Perplexity said Monday. Its payments to publishers will come out of the subscription revenue generated by a new news service, called Comet Plus, that Perplexity plans to roll out widely this fall.

Source: Perplexity Is Launching a New Revenue-Share Model for Publishers

Anthropic Settles AI Lawsuit From Authors

Anthropic has settled a lawsuit from authors, who accused the Amazon-backed company of illegally downloading and copying their books to teach its AI system, in among the first deals reached by creators over novel legal issues raised by the technology. “This historic settlement will benefit all class members,” says Justin Nelson, a lawyer for the authors. “We look forward to announcing details of the settlement in the coming weeks.”

Source: Anthropic Settles AI Lawsuit From Authors

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