The New York Times has responded to Microsoft’s motion to dismiss key claims in the highly publicized ‘GPT’ copyright infringement lawsuit. After Microsoft compared the lawsuit to the VCR scaremongering of the early 1980s, The Times stresses that generative AI is nothing like the VCR, before doubling down on its copyright infringement allegations.
Source: New York Times: Microsoft’s AI Tools Are Nothing Like The VCR * TorrentFreak
London’s BPI today confirmed the development on social media, pointing readers to a (paywall-blocked) breakdown of the situation from The Times. Jammable (formerly Voicify AI) bills itself as “the #1 platform for AI music.” And according to its website, the service enables users to replicate uploaded voices, automatically remove reverb from recordings, generate text-to-speech vocals, and make existing projects’ vocals sound as if they’d been recorded in different voices, among other things.
Source: Jammable Faces BPI Legal Threat Over Soundalike Artist Voices
Last week, Midjourney, the AI startup building image generators, made a small, blink-and-you’ll-miss-it change to its terms of service related to the company’s policy around IP disputes. It mainly served to replace jokey language with more lawyerly, doubtless case law–grounded clauses. But the change can also be taken as a sign of Midjourney’s conviction that AI vendors like itself will emerge victorious in the courtroom battles with creators whose works comprise vendors’ training data.
Source: This Week in AI: Midjourney bets it can beat the copyright police | TechCrunch
The European Union launched a probe Thursday into Big Tech’s use of artificial intelligence and its handling of computer-generated deepfakes, ramping up scrutiny of a technology officials fear could disrupt elections. The inquiry is aimed at companies including Meta, Microsoft, Snap, TikTok and X, focusing on how the tech giants plan to manage the risks of generative artificial intelligence as they increasingly roll out consumer-facing AI tools.
Source: Europe investigates Big Tech’s use of generative AI | CNN Business
Today, YouTube announced a way for creators to self-label when their videos contain AI-generated or synthetic material. The checkbox appears in the uploading and posting process, and creators are required to disclose “altered or synthetic” content that seems realistic. That includes things like making a real person say or do something they didn’t; altering footage of real events and places; or showing a “realistic-looking scene” that didn’t actually happen.
The bill matters outside the EU because Brussels is an influential tech regulator, as shown by GDPR’s impact on the management of people’s data. The AI act could do the same. “Many other countries will be watching what happens in the EU following the adoption of the AI act. The EU approach will likely only be copied if it is shown to work,” Couneson added.
Source: What will the EU’s proposed act to regulate AI mean for consumers?
The EU law requires developers of “general purpose AI” (GPAI) models to keep track of and disclose what content is used in training. It further states that “any use of copyright protected content requires the authorization of the [rights holder] concerned, unless relevant copyright exceptions and limitations apply.” “Crucially, this appears to apply even if the training was carried out in another more lenient jurisdiction,” said Jonathan Coote, a music and AI lawyer at UK law firm Bray & Krais.
A comprehensive 112-page study conducted jointly by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) and the U.S. Copyright Office has determined that existing intellectual property laws are sufficient to address concerns regarding copyright and trademark infringement related to non-fungible tokens (NFTs).
Two separate research papers from ByteDance’s Speech, Audio & Music Intelligence (SAMI) team – both published in recent months – highlight the company’s extensive work in the field of music generation. The division is currently hiring for multiple roles – including an AI Product Operation Manager in San Jose, who will be responsible for “the implementation of audio and music AI technologies in TikTok”.
Conversations about the future of artificial intelligence can be found all over SXSW this year — and not all of the festival’s attendees are thrilled with the idea. Specifically, the film and TV fans catching screenings of world premieres including “The Fall Guy” and “Immaculate” made their AI displeasure loud and clear on Tuesday at the Paramount Theatre in Austin.
Source: SXSW Audiences Loudly Boo Festival Videos Touting the Virtues of AI