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Lights, camera, algorithm: How artificial intelligence is being used to make films

When Walter Woodman and his team were working on one of their latest film productions, they kept hitting a snag. They couldn’t get the character at the centre of their picture, a man with a balloon for a head, to look quite right. “It would draw a face on the balloon and we didn’t really want that,” Mr. Woodman said. “If we even mentioned the word ‘face’ it would put a human face inside the balloon … and so I think we learnt after a while to say ‘the balloon man is expressionless’.”

Source: Lights, camera, algorithm: How artificial intelligence is being used to make films

Blackstone tells HSF shareholders: Don’t move a muscle, we’ll be right back

Concord launched a USD $1.511 billion bid for the UK-listed company’s assets, at $1.25 per share. That bid very slightly topped a recent $1.50 billion takeover proposal from Blackstone, which valued HSF at $1.24 per share. Today (April 25), Blackstone issued a terse-but-fascinating comment to the markets, and specifically to HSF shareholders, in the wake of Concord’s new offer.

Source: After Concord bids $1.511bn for Hipgnosis Songs Fund, Blackstone tells HSF shareholders: Don’t move a muscle, we’ll be right back

Word Collections says 25% of MLC Collection Isn’t Distributed

Jeff Price, the founder and CEO of global publishing administrator Word Collections, has released an article providing the results of auditing the Mechanical Licensing Collective (MLC) using the MLC’s own publically available data. The results, according to Price, reveal that since the organization’s inception on January 1, 2021, the MLC has not paid out $600 million, or over 25%, of the mechanical royalties it has received from Apple, Amazon, Spotify, Pandora, YouTube Music, and other digital services.

Source: Word Collections says 25% of MLC Collection Isn’t Distributed

Pandora Fires Back Against ‘Misguided’ MLC Royalties Lawsuit

“The MLC is not authorized to opine on whether particular transmissions offered by Pandora or other DMPs [digital music providers] are properly characterized as interactive or noninteractive as a legal matter,” Pandora wrote in its firmly worded answer, “much less whether Pandora qualifies for statutory licensing under a different section of the Copyright Act (Section 114) that falls outside the MLC’s purview.

Source: Pandora Fires Back Against ‘Misguided’ MLC Royalties Lawsuit

HarperCollins and ElevenLabs AI to create audiobooks for foreign titles

The agreement will lead to the production of audio versions of select deep backlist series books that would not otherwise have been created, using ElevenLabs’s text-to-speech technology. According to ElevenLabs, the tech firm has developed an AI-based tool that can transform text into speech using artificial intelligence and makes it possible to “reflect the emotion, intonation, and pacing of the written word in audio, delivering a high-quality experience that sounds human”.

Source: HarperCollins and ElevenLabs AI to create audiobooks for foreign titles

Hollywood’s AI Concerns Present New and Complex Challenges for Legal Eagles to Untangle

Few new technologies have been quite as foundation-shaking as generative AI. Apart from the head-snapping speed at which the technology has developed, it operates on such different principles from other information technologies as to challenge the very notion of creativity, and to defy traditional concepts of authorship, identity and intellectual property.

Source: Hollywood’s AI Concerns Present New and Complex Challenges for Legal Eagles to Untangle

France’s Mistral AI seeks funding at $5 billion valuation

French tech startup Mistral AI has been speaking to investors about raising several hundred million dollars at a valuation of $5 billion, The Information reported on Tuesday. It’s unclear which investors Mistral has spoken to about a new funding round, the report said, citing a person with direct knowledge of the matter.

Source: France’s Mistral AI seeks funding at $5 billion valuation

Reddit Reports Surge in Copyright-Related User Bans

Reddit’s latest transparency report reveals that user bans for repeat copyright infringement skyrocketed in the last half of 2023. The company attributes the 258% increase to improved detection methods and increased operational capacity. The number of items that were removed from the site following copyright complaints dropped to little over half a million.

Source: Reddit Reports Surge in Copyright-Related User Bans * TorrentFreak

MMF: Is the music industry gaslighting artists? 

With Government oversight and input, the industry has now collectively agreed (although not yet implemented) voluntary Transparency and Data codes. However, for the MMF and other members of the Council of Music Makers (the Ivors Academy, the Featured Artists Coalition, the Music Producers Guild, and the Musicians’ Union) the most pressing issues have always been financial. We want to address the mechanics and distribution of streaming revenue.

Source: Is the music industry gaslighting artists? – Music Ally

SEO Implications of Search Engines Morphing Into AI Chatbots

While the big AI companies are delving into legal gray areas trying to find new sources of data for their Large Language Models, the situation for website operators and publishers is much more black and white. Traffic to websites is drying up — and a full-on drought could be about to hit, as search engines morph into generative AI chatbots.

Source: SEO Implications of Search Engines Morphing Into AI Chatbots

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