Headlines

France Fines Google Amid A.I. Dispute With News Media

French regulators on Wednesday said Google failed to notify news publishers that it was using their articles to train its artificial intelligence algorithms, part of a wider ruling against the company for its negotiating practices with media outlets. The disclosure by the French competition authority was part of a fine of €250 million, or about $270 million, for failing to negotiate fair licensing deals with media companies to publish article links in search results.

Source: France Fines Google Amid A.I. Dispute With News Media

Why AI watermarks miss the mark in preventing misinformation

Watermarking has been floated by Big Tech as one of the most promising methods to combat the escalating AI misinformation problem online. But so far, the results don’t seem promising, according to experts and a review of misinformation conducted by NBC News. The technologies are only in their infancy and in a limited state of deployment but, already, watermarking has proven to be easy to bypass.

Source: Why AI watermarks miss the mark in preventing misinformation

DeepFake detectors have become indispensable

For around three years, a field of research has been developing around the detection of DeepFakes. There are two main approaches. The first involves spotting suspicious behaviour by a person in a video. An AI can be fed a large number of authentic videos of a celebrity, so that it learns to immediately detect any anomalies in their gestures or speech. The second, more general technique involves identifying the differences between DeepFakes and real videos.

Source: Artificial intelligence: DeepFake detectors have become indispensable

New York Times: Microsoft’s AI Tools Are Nothing Like The VCR 

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

Jammable Faces BPI Legal Threat Over Soundalike Artist Voices

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

With the MLC’s Re-Designation Underway, Streamers and Publishers Clash Over Its Future

According to the MMA, the MLCis reviewed every five years by the Copyright Office in a process called “re-designation.” Now, with the MLC’s first-ever re-designation currently underway, both its critics and supporters have become more vocal in hopes of swaying the results and/or public opinion about the organization’s operations to date.

Source: With the MLC’s Re-Designation Underway, Streamers and Publishers Clash Over Its Future

MIDiA: Global recorded music revenues grew by 9.8% in 2023

After a slower 2022, global recorded music revenues grew by 9.8% in 2023 to reach $35.1 billion, compared to 7.1% in 2022, which means that the market is now more than double (124.5%) the size it was in 2015. 2023 was the year in which the industry settled back into a positive growth trajectory after the volatility of the pandemic and post-pandemic years. But the numbers also point to a market that is embarking on a major period of change.

Source: Global recorded music revenues grew by 9.8% in 2023

Publishers Cite Napster and AI Threat in Legal Battle with the Internet Archive 

A copyright lawsuit filed by several major publishers puts the future of the Internet Archive’s scan-and-lend library at risk. In a recent appeal, the non-profit organization argued that its solution is protected by fair use and critical to preserving digital books. The publishers, however, frame it as a radical and unlawful threat to their exclusive right to publish ebooks.

Source: Publishers Cite Napster and AI Training Threats in Legal Battle with the Internet Archive * TorrentFreak

Barcelona appeals court rules that SGAE ‘abused its position’ in the market

The Spanish Society of Authors and Publishers (SGAE) “abused its position” as the country’s dominant collective management organization (CMO) to prevent members from switching to a competing agency, a court in Barcelona has concluded. The ruling marks a victory for UNISON, a Barcelona-based private music rights management company set up in 2017 as a competitor to SGAE.

Source: Barcelona appeals court rules that Spanish authors’ society SGAE ‘abused its position’ in the market, in victory for rival UNISON

Midjourney bets it can beat the copyright police

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

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