Book publisher Penguin Random House is putting its stance on AI training in print. The standard copyright page on both new and reprinted books will now say, “No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner for the purpose of training artificial intelligence technologies or systems,” according to a report from The Bookseller spotted by Gizmodo.
Source: Penguin Random House books now explicitly say ‘no’ to AI training
The tech giant announced Thursday that it has been working with horror studio Blumhouse and select creators as part of a pilot program for Movie Gen, its generative-AI video models. The company said it will continue to expand the program in 2025. Meta earlier this month unveiled Meta Movie Gen, a suite of AI models that can use text inputs to produce realistic-looking videos as well as edit existing videos.
Source: Meta Teams With Blumhouse and Filmmakers Like Casey Affleck to Test Movie Gen AI Tool
There are many reasons for the delay. AI is a complicated landscape where regulations and legal questions surrounding the technology are still evolving. Plus, there’s some skepticism over whether audiences would accept films made primarily with AI tools. There are questions over how studio libraries should be valued for AI purposes and concerns about protecting intellectual property.
Source: AI is supposed to be Hollywood’s next big thing. What’s taking so long?
The New York Times has sent generative AI startup Perplexity, backed by Jeff Bezos and YouTube’s ex-chief executive, a cease and desist for copying its articles and using them to create summaries of articles. The publisher says the practice constitutes “egregious and ongoing violations” of its intellectual property rights since the answers are “substitutive of our protected works.”
For some time it has been clear that generative AI can be used to create highly-personalised information services; the technology is really good at selecting and synthesising content from a large dataset, based on a set of parameters. But this is the first time these capabilities have been deployed in a news context by a major AI developer, with financials attached for the content creators.
Source: Why Microsoft Copilot Daily launch is ‘moment of significance’ for news industry
The implementation of the EU’s AI Act is the most recent in a series of laws emanating from Brussels that have divided opinion, hot on the heels of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the Digital Markets Act (DMA) which came into force in 2018 and 2023 respectively. Yes, the act undoubtedly has flaws, but its pros far outweigh its cons.
Source: AI regulation gets a bad rap—but lawmakers around the world are doing a decent job so far
Some of the most prominent artificial intelligence models are falling short of European regulations in key areas such as cybersecurity resilience and discriminatory output, according to data seen by Reuters. A new tool, which has been welcomed by European Union officials, has tested generative AI models developed by big tech companies like Meta tab and OpenAI across dozens of categories, in line with the bloc’s wide-sweeping AI Act, which is coming into effect in stages over the next two years.
Source: EU AI Act checker reveals Big Tech’s compliance pitfalls
The Authors Guild, the largest and oldest professional organization for writers in the United States, is teaming with a new start-up, Created by Humans, to help writers license rights to their books to artificial intelligence companies. The partnership, announced Wednesday, comes as authors and publishers are wrestling with the rapid incursion of artificial intelligence into the book world.
Source: Can a Start-Up Help Authors Get Paid by A.I. Companies?
If rights holders don’t want their content to be used for the training of language models, they must attach a legally compliant, machine-readable usage reservation (TDM opt-out) to their content. “Effective immediately, all ebooks and audiobooks distributed by Bookwire,” the company says in its statement, “will be equipped with a TDM opt-out notice in ONIX data. Additionally, the TDM opt-out is stored in the metadata of all EPUBs that we deliver via the TDMRep protocol.”
Source: Frankfurt Countdown: Bookwire Offers ‘Protection’ From Wrongful AI Usage
Spotify’s increased attention on video is no secret, but the company’s willingness to invest heavily in content creators whose primary focus is not audio does shed light on the company’s larger ambitions. By investing in video creators, Spotify is no longer just trying to bring audio listeners onto the platform. The company is now trying to bring video watchers onto the platform, suggesting Spotify’s video ambitions go beyond using video as an audio accessory.
Source: Beyond video podcasts: Spotify’s investment in video creators reveals its format agnosticism