Rights

Meta hit with new author copyright lawsuit over AI training

Novelist Christopher Farnsworth has filed a proposed class-action copyright lawsuit against Meta Platforms (META.O), opens new tab accusing the tech giant of misusing his books and others to train its Llama artificial-intelligence large language model. Farnsworth said in the lawsuit, opens new tab on Tuesday that Meta fed Llama, which powers its AI chatbots, thousands of pirated books to teach it how to respond to human prompts.

Source: Meta hit with new author copyright lawsuit over AI training

Pink Floyd Sells Music Rights to Sony for $400 Million

Despite decades of infighting and years of false starts, the members of Pink Floyd have agreed to sell music rights to Sony Music for $400 million. The deal apparently has finally concluded despite decades of ongoing infighting and bitter words between the bandmembers, notably chief songwriters Roger Waters and David Gilmour. The deal comprises recorded-music rights but not songwriting, which is held by the individual writers, as well as name-and-likeness, which includes merchandise, theatrical and similar rights.

Source: Pink Floyd Sells Music Rights to Sony for $400 Million

GEMA proposes licensing model for AI-generated music

GEMA, a German performing rights collection society and licensing body, has introduced a licensing model for AI providers, seeking to address the use of copyrighted music in AI training and the creation of AI-generated songs. GEMA proposes that authors should receive compensation beyond a one-time payment for training data. It suggests that such one-off payments may not sufficiently compensate authors given the potential revenues from AI-generated content.

Source: GEMA proposes licensing model for AI-generated music

Zuckerberg: creators, publishers ‘overestimate the value’ of their work for training AI

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg says there are complex copyright questions around scraping data to train AI models, but he suggests the individual work of most creators isn’t valuable enough for it to matter. In an interview with The Verge deputy editor Alex Heath, Zuckerberg said Meta will likely strike “certain partnerships” for useful content. But if others demand payment, then — as it’s done with news outlets — the company would prefer to walk away.

Source: Mark Zuckerberg: creators and publishers ‘overestimate the value’ of their work for training AI

TikTok vs. Merlin: Licensing Impasse Looms for Indie Collective

A letter sent from Merlin to its members states TikTok has walked away from negotiations with the collective in favor of individual deals. “TikTok has asked us for an ‘orderly transition’ to do direct deals with those members they deem worthy. As you know, Merlin was founded to stand up for and champion its members. We will not support an approach that devalues our community,” the letter continues.

Source: TikTok vs. Merlin: Licensing Impasse Looms for Indie Collective

U.S. Court Orders LibGen to Pay $30m to Publishers, Issues Broad Injunction

A New York federal court has ordered the operators of shadow library LibGen to pay $30 million in copyright infringement damages. The default judgment comes with a broad injunction that affects third-party services including domain registries, browser extensions, CDN providers, IPFS gateways, advertisers, and more. These parties should stop facilitating access to the pirate site.

Source: U.S. Court Orders LibGen to Pay $30m to Publishers, Issues Broad Injunction * TorrentFreak

Generative AI & Licensing: A Special Report

To date, more than two dozen content owner deals with AI developers have been publicly confirmed, according to VIP+ research. A diverse range of publisher types are now engaged in licensing, with dealmaking rampant among news publishers, stock image companies and platforms such as Reddit and Stack Overflow. Yet the licensing market for generative AI is coming to fruition in a contentious and uncertain legal environment.

Source: Generative AI & Licensing: A Special Report

An author has questions on his publisher’s AI deal (opinion)

Informa, the academic publishing powerhouse and parent company of Routledge and Taylor & Francis, recently announced a deal with Microsoft that will feed a massive body of scholarly work to a generative AI system. If Informa’s decision portends a wave of similar deals between scholarly publishers and generative AI companies, the troubling precedent this sets could result in significant changes to the nature of academic publishing.

Source: An author has questions on his publisher’s AI deal (opinion)

Court Rules Against Photographer Who Sued AI Dataset for Copyright Theft

A German court has ruled against a photographer who sued the AI image dataset company LAION in a case that could have big implications. The dispute between the two parties wound up in the Hamburg Regional Court where on Friday the court ruled that LAION benefited from the exception of copyright infringement under Section 60(d) of Germany copyright law. A proviso that allows privileged research organizations to reproduce works even if granted an opt-out by the author of the work,

Source: Court Rules Against Photographer Who Sued AI Dataset for Copyright Theft

YouTube strikes deal with SESAC following licensing dispute

YouTube said in a statement published via social media over the weekend its deal with SESAC had “expired without an agreement on renewal conditions despite our best efforts”. That dispute has now been resolved. SESAC said today (September 30) that it has struck a deal with YouTube “to equitably compensate SESAC’s songwriters and publishers for the use of their music”.

Source: YouTube strikes deal with SESAC, begins reinstating music videos by Adele, Kendrick Lamar and more following licensing dispute

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