Rights

SoundExchange Officially Appealing Its Loss Against SiriusXM

US-based royalty rights org SoundExchange has filed an appeal following its devastating loss in a lawsuit against SiriusXM stemming from allegedly unpaid royalties. Judge Naomi Reice Buchwald of the US District Court for the Southern District of New York dismissed the PRO’s lawsuit against SiriusXM last month, ruling that Congress never granted it authority to file lawsuits on behalf of rights holders for whom it collects royalties.

Source: SoundExchange Officially Appealing Its Loss Against SiriusXM

Anthropic Judge Blasts $1.5 Billion AI Copyright Settlement

The federal judge overseeing Anthropic PBC’s proposed $1.5 billion copyright settlement is concerned class lawyers are striking a deal behind the scenes that will be forced “down the throat of authors.” Judge William Alsup at the hearing said the motion to approve the deal was denied without prejudice, but in a minute order after the hearing said approval is postponed pending submission of further clarifying information.

Source: Anthropic Judge Blasts $1.5 Billion AI Copyright Settlement (2)

Anthropic to Pay $1.5 Billion to Settle Book Piracy Class Action Lawsuit

Anthropic has agreed to pay $1.5 billion to settle a class action lawsuit after it downloaded a massive trove of pirated books to train its large language models. The settlement amounts to about $3,000 per book, and is believed to be the largest ever recovery in a U.S. copyright case, according to the plaintiffs’ attorneys.

Source: Anthropic to Pay $1.5 Billion to Settle Book Piracy Class Action Lawsuit

Warner Bros. Joins Studios’ AI Copyright Battle Against Midjourney

Warner Bros. sued Midjourney on Thursday, becoming the third studio to accuse the AI image-generating platform of blatant copyright violations. “Midjourney thinks it is above the law,” the lawsuit states. “Without any consent or authorization by Warner Bros. Discovery, Midjourney brazenly dispenses Warner Bros. Discovery’s intellectual property as if it were its own.”

Source: Warner Bros. Joins Studios’ AI Copyright Battle Against Midjourney

Music Industry Must Work With AI Companies Rather Than Fight Them in Court: Charles Goldstuck

AI music is forcing a “high-stakes inflexion point” and presenting the greatest disruption to the legal underpinnings of the music industry’s economic model since Napster — but a revenue-halving overhaul and protracted, unpopular legal battles can be avoided if major music companies get out ahead of judges and lawmakers and negotiate with Suno, Udio and Anthropic, says industry veteran and investor Charles Goldstuck.

Source: Music Industry Must Work With AI Companies Rather Than Fight Them in Court: Charles Goldstuck

Building a Universal Digital Library of All Books Faces Obstacles from Copyright Laws.

The quest to create a universal digital library of all books in the world is a testament to the power of technology and the desire for accessible knowledge. However, this ambitious goal is impeded by stringent copyright laws, which have led to significant legal challenges. Tech companies like Google and AI firms such as Anthropic have developed extensive digital text collections, some of which were sourced from shadow libraries like LibGen and Sci-Hub.

Source: Building a Universal Digital Library of All Books in the World Faces Obstacles from Copyright Laws.

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

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