Rights

Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, poised to be the next Democratic leader, has co-sponsored key legislation to help musicians and songwriters. Music industry leaders are thrilled. Jeffries, who represents parts of Brooklyn and Queens, co-sponsored the Music Modernization Act, the most important copyright law passed in decades, as well as the Copyright Alternative in Small-Claims Enforcement Act of 2020, a.k.a. the CASE Act.

Source: Nancy Pelosi’s Pick to Replace Her Is a Champion of Music Rights — and a Huge Hip-Hop Fan

Z-Library has responded to the U.S. criminal indictment against two of its alleged operators and associated domain name seizures. The remaining team members still haven’t confirmed the involvement of the two Russians but say they are determined to keep going. Z-Library also promises to take the complaints of authors seriously and asks for their forgiveness.

Source: Z-Library Responds to U.S. Crackdown, Asks Authors for Forgiveness * TorrentFreak

Two Russian nationals are now facing criminal charges in the U.S. for their role in running Z-Library, one of the world’s most notorious e-book pirate sites before its domains were seized by U.S. officials earlier this fall. Z-Library, which has been active since 2009, billed itself as “the world’s largest library” and claimed to offer more than 11 million e-books for free download in a variety of file formats via what court documents call a “complex network” of 249 interrelated web domains.

Source: Authors Guild Applauds Arrest, Indictment of Major E-Book Pirates

Thought you’d heard the last of the UK’s parliamentary inquiry into the economics of music streaming? Sorry, but no. The politicians on the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) committee published their report in July 2021, but yesterday they held a pair of follow-up sessions with six music industry interviewees. The stated aim: to discuss “whether the ‘reset of streaming’ urged in the Committee’s report is underway”.

Source: UK music streaming inquiry returns with follow-up evidence sessions – Music Ally

According to Bloomberg, which reported on the initial rumblings of Pink Floyd’s hunt for a song-rights deal over the summer, bids for the body of work are smaller now than they were in May, and the list of would-be purchasers has shortened. Per the same source, that’s because Pink Floyd is offering only its recordings and name, image, and likeness rights – not its underlying compositions.

Source: What Happened to Pink Floyd’s $500 Million Catalog Sale?

Are text-to-image AI legal? It’s a hard question to answer. The question arises because of the way generative AI systems are trained. Like most machine learning software, they work by identifying and replicating patterns in data. But because these programs are used to generate code, text, music, and art, that data is itself created by humans, scraped from the web and copyright protected in one way or another.

Source: The scary truth about AI copyright is nobody knows what will happen next

OpenSea, the largest NFT marketplace by trading volume, announced today that it will continue to enforce creator royalties on NFTs following significant pushback from the community. “We will continue to enforce creator fees on all existing collections,” the firm wrote in a tweet thread. “We’re awed by the passion we’ve seen from creators and collectors alike this week. We were looking for your feedback, and we heard it, loud and clear.”

Source: OpenSea Pledges to Enforce NFT Royalties After Creator Backlash – Decrypt

With top NFT marketplace OpenSea saying over the weekend that it may follow the trend of no longer enforcing creator royalties on secondary sales, more and more prominent artists and creators are making their views known. And that now includes Yuga Labs, creator of the Bored Ape Yacht Club. In a blog post  by Wylie “Gordon Goner” Aronow, Yuga decried the increasing industry moves away from honoring creator royalties, and proposed a technical solution for enforcing them.

Source: Bored Ape Founders Propose NFT Royalties Model, Decry OpenSea’s Stance as ‘Not Great’ – Decrypt

YouTube’s latest Transparency Report shows that fewer copyright holders used the Content ID system to protect their works. Despite the modest decline, more content was flagged overall, with over 750 million claims during the first half of 2022. Traditional DMCA takedown notices are on the rise as well, with an increase of more than 30% year-over-year.

Source: Fewer Rightsholders Use YouTube Content ID, But They Flag More Content * TorrentFreak

Microsoft, its subsidiary GitHub, and its business partner OpenAI have been targeted in a proposed class action lawsuit alleging that the companies’ creation of AI-powered coding assistant GitHub Copilot relies on “software piracy on an unprecedented scale.” The case is only in its earliest stages but could have a huge effect on the broader world of AI, where companies are making fortunes training software on copyright-protected data.

Source: The lawsuit that could rewrite the rules of AI copyright