Activist investment fund Irenic Capital Management reportedly made an unsolicited takeover bid for Reservoir Media, the Nasdaq-listed independent music company. That’s according to a report from Bloomberg, citing people familiar with the matter, which said the bid, submitted in February, values Reservoir at between $1.1 billion and $1.2 billion, including debt, at a per-share price of $10 to $11.
Source: Reservoir receives unsolicited $1.2B bid from activist investor Irenic Capital
The U.S. Supreme Court declined on Monday to take up the issue of whether art generated by artificial intelligence can be copyrighted under U.S. law, turning away a case involving a computer scientist from Missouri who was denied a copyright for a piece of visual art made by his AI system. Plaintiff Stephen Thaler had appealed to the justices after lower courts upheld a U.S. Copyright Office decision that the AI-crafted visual art at issue in the case was ineligible for copyright protection because it did not have a human creator.
Supreme Court declines to hear dispute over copyrights for AI-generated material
More than a dozen online tools claim they can tell the difference between what’s real and what’s A.I. by looking for hidden watermarks, composition errors and other digital clues. The reality is more mixed, according to a battery of tests conducted by The New York Times. While many tools did a good job detecting some A.I. content, they were not accurate enough to offer users complete confidence.
Source: These Tools Say They Can Spot A.I. Fakes. Do They Really Work?
The world’s top AI models can be prompted to generate near-verbatim copies of bestselling novels, raising fresh questions about the industry’s claim that its systems do not store copyrighted works. A series of recent studies has shown that large language models from OpenAI, Google, Meta, Anthropic, and xAI memorize far more of their training data than previously thought.
Source: AIs can generate near-verbatim copies of novels from training data
When a dispute arose over orchestral music appearing in the new Melania Trump documentary, “Melania,” aficionados of music, film and politics all stood to pay attention. The subject of licensing music rights is fascinating and thorny enough in its own right. Add to that a member of Radiohead, Jonny Greenwood, and one of today’s top film directors, Paul Thomas Anderson, seeming to have a beef with the nation’s First Couple, and naturally it made headlines.
In an open letter titled ‘Say No to Suno’, the artist reps described the company as a “brazen smash and grab” platform, accusing it of using “unauthorized AI platform machinery trained on human artists’ work”. Published Monday (February 23) on the Music Technology Policy blog, the letter was signed by figures including Ron Gubitz, Executive Director of the Music Artist Coalition; and Helienne Lindvall, songwriter and President of the European Composer and Songwriter Alliance.
The Australian government should ignore claims from artificial intelligence giants that local copyright laws prevent them from investing heavily in data centers, say media and entertainment industry leaders. “Where is the proof that issuing a copyright exemption or law change would bring massive economic benefit to Australians and not just major US tech companies?” said head of the Australian Recording Industry Association, Annabelle Herd.
Source: Industry blasts big tech’s ‘untrue’ copyright investment threats
“It’s entirely possible that in two years we’ll have clarity that’s probably good enough in terms of a set of best practices,” estimated Jessica Litman. But she warned it could be longer, “because these cases are so huge, they are happening in dribs and drabs… so it can take a while to establish a trend.” She said it could be as many as 10 more years until these lawsuits are resolved.
Source: Lawyers Warn of a Decade of Uncertainty over AI Copyright
The estate of Isaac Hayes has reached a confidential settlement with President Donald Trump to end copyright litigation over the allegedly unauthorized use of the 1966 song “Hold On, I’m Comin’” at 2024 election rallies. Hayes’ son and estate manager, music producer Isaac Hayes III, says in a Monday (Feb. 23) Instagram statement that the lawsuit “has been mutually resolved, and we are satisfied with the outcome.”
Source: Isaac Hayes Estate Settles with Trump in Copyright Lawsuit Over Election Rally Song
According to Crabtree-Ireland, the real concern is that, even if videos generated by Seedance and other A.I. platforms “are not malicious in intent,” they could “really violate someone’s right to control how their image, their likeness and their voice is used.” The kind of material represented by the Cruise-Pitt battle, he said, “could not be produced by any of the signatories to our contracts — the studios, the streamers — without the specific, informed consent of those individuals.”
Source: Why an A.I. Video of Tom Cruise Battling Brad Pitt Spooked Hollywood