The New York Times Company has agreed to license its editorial content to Amazon for use in the tech giant’s artificial intelligence platforms, the company said on Thursday. Amazon’s use of editorial content from The Times could extend to the Alexa software found on its smart speakers. Material from The Times will also be used to train Amazon’s proprietary A.I. models, the company said.
Source: New York Times and Amazon Announce AI Licensing Deal
Getty, one of the world’s largest stock photo companies, alleged that Stability AI illegally scraped more than 12 million copyright-protected photos, videos, and illustrations from its website to train its AI image generator. Now, Getty CEO Craig Peters says that though he believes Getty has a “very strong” case against Stability AI, fighting the AI company in court has been costly.
The U.S. Solicitor General has urged the Supreme Court to accept Cox Communications’ petition in a landmark piracy liability lawsuit. The USSG argues that ISPs are not necessarily liable for pirating subscribers and warns that the current precedent may lead to disconnections for many innocent subscribers. At the same time, the USSG urged the court to deny a petition from the opposing music companies, which seeks to expand the current liability verdict.
Source: U.S. Govt. Backs Cox in Landmark Supreme Court Battle Over ISP Piracy Liability * TorrentFreak
Netflix chairman Reed Hastings joined the board of directors of Anthropic, an AI company whose backers include Amazon. “Anthropic is very optimistic about the AI benefits for humanity, but is also very aware of the economic, social and safety challenges,” Hastings said in a statement. “I’m joining Anthropic’s board because I believe in their approach to AI development, and to help humanity progress.”
Source: Netflix’s Reed Hastings Joins Board of AI Company Anthropic, a Rival to OpenAI
Perlmutter claims the White House is orchestrating an unprecedented and unconstitutional takeover of a legislative branch agency by installing senior DOJ officials atop both the Library of Congress and the Copyright Office. If allowed, she warns, the move would undermine the Office’s structural independence, compromise the confidentiality of congressional research and copyright deposits, and put congressionally mandated projects in peril—including its fourth and final report on copyright and artificial intelligence.
Source: Perlmutter’s Lawsuit Is About More Than Just Getting Her Job Back
Former director of the US Copyright Office Shira Perlmutter filed a lawsuit against President Donald Trump’s administration on Thursday for improper termination after she was fired earlier this month. Perlmutter filed her complaint with the US District Court for the District of Columbia, alleging that her termination was unconstitutional and cannot take effect. She further asserted that only the US Congress can remove her from her position.
Source: Fired US copyright office director sues Trump administration for unconstitutional removal
Buried in the Republican budget bill is a proposal that will radically change how artificial intelligence develops in the U.S., according to both its supporters and critics. The provision would ban states from regulating AI for the next decade. Opponents say the moratorium is so broadly written that states wouldn’t be able to enact protections for consumers affected by harmful applications of AI, like discriminatory employment tools, deepfakes, and addictive chatbots.
Source: The One Big Beautiful Bill Act would ban states from regulating AI
For decades, Hollywood directors, including Stanley Kubrick, James Cameron and Alex Garland, have cast artificial intelligence as a villain that can turn into a killing machine. Now Google—a leading developer in AI technology —wants to move the cultural conversations away from technology as seen in “The Terminator,” “2001: A Space Odyssey” and “Ex Machina.”
Source: Inside Google’s plan to have Hollywood make AI look less doomsday
Google and OpenAI want to reposition chatbots as virtual assistants. If high switching costs are successfully introduced into the AI market, that will cement the position of a small number of dominant businesses. Today’s general-purpose AI market is highly concentrated: four applications account for around 95% of the market. This combination of concentration and lock-in is hugely troubling for the media.
Source: Publishers will lose out if generative AI becomes another duopoly
The launch of Lyria RealTime via API comes amidst an explosion of AI-powered music apps. There’s Udio and Suno, as well as the recently debuted Riffusion — among many others. Many of these have proven to be controversial, particularly those driven by models trained on copyrighted music without permission. But Google pitches Lyria RealTime as a collaborative tool.
Source: Google brings a music-generating AI model to its API with Lyria RealTime | TechCrunch