YouTube’s latest Transparency Report shows that fewer copyright holders used the Content ID system to protect their works. Despite the modest decline, the claim volume continues to grow. For the first time, the number of processed claims exceeded one billion in the six-month reporting period.
Source: YouTube Processed a Billion Content ID Copyright Claims in Six Months * TorrentFreak
The recent wave of deals with OpenAI means publishers are getting compensated for their content being used to feed and train large language models (LLMs). This has been a major sticking point for publishers as these large tech companies have scraped their content without permission or payment. But the agreements are also getting a fair amount of criticism. Compensation for use of content is good for a publisher, but are they getting paid enough?
Composers and songwriters are looking to receive an additional $8 million (£6 million) in royalties from online services each year from PRS for Music. CEO Andrea Czapary Martin announced a 20% reduction in the administration rate from multi-territory online (MTOL) royalties’ collection — the result of the collective management organization surpassing its targets and delivering historic distributions and revenues.
Source: PRS for Music Squeezes Out Another $8 Million for Songwriters
Google’s pivot to artificial intelligence has news publishers freaking out—and running to the government. “Agency intervention is necessary to stop the existential threat Google poses to original content creators,” the News/Media Alliance wrote in a letter to the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). It asked the agencies to use antitrust authority “to stop Google’s latest expansion of AI Overviews.”
Source: News publishers try to sic the government on Google AI
Broadcast news production company ITN has become the first UK news organization to announce a deal seeking to safeguard its archive from the threat of AI. The deal with tech company Open Origins will see every one of ITN‘s more than a million video clips of news footage validated and secured using blockchain technology.
Source: ITN signs deal to protect video archive from AI and license content
HSF confirmed the slightly increased bid via a formal release today, a little over two weeks after Concord officially bowed out of the acquisition battle. This high-stakes competition for the entirety of Hipgnosis Songs Fund – encompassing the rights to the work of Shakira, Barry Manilow, Timbaland, and a number of others – seemingly marks the final chapter in the entity’s turbulent story.
Source: Blackstone Ups Hipgnosis Songs Fund Offer to $1.31 Per Share
For Mestel, buying up rights wholesale is a mistake. He says Primary Wave typically buys 50% or 60% of a catalogue because they want to collaborate on their plans with the actual artist (or their estate). “We want the artists as a partner,” he says. “So it’s easier for us to buy than, let’s say, somebody like Hipgnosis or Blackstone who have to overpay because they don’t have an infrastructure.”
For all the sturm und drang around the unlicensed use of copyrighted works to train AI models there sure seem to be a lot of licensing deals being discussed all of a sudden, for access to copyrighted works to train AI models. In just the past two weeks, OpenAI has signed licensing deals with Wall Street Journal publisher News Corp., Vox Media and The Atlantic for access to their archives for training, and we’ve seen reports that Meta, Alphabet and OpenAI are all in conversations with the Hollywood studios about licensing movie and television footage.
In the few months before that, we saw deals between OpenAI and the Financial Times, and Reddit sign with both Google and OpenAI. Photo agencies and archives have also been actively striking deals with AI companies over the past few months, including Shutterstock, Photobucket and Flickr.
The Federal Court has issued a landmark decision (Blacklock’s Reports v. Attorney General of Canada) on copyright’s anti-circumvention rules which concludes that digital locks should not trump fair dealing. Rather, the two must co-exist in harmony, leading to an interpretation that users can still rely on fair dealing even in cases involving those digital locks.
The Justice Department’s chief antitrust enforcer issued a warning Thursday to tech companies working in artificial intelligence, cautioning that they could face action from regulators if they don’t find a way to fairly compensate artists, entertainers and other creators.
Source: DOJ antitrust chief warns AI companies that they must fairly compensate artists