Netflix struggled to reassure skeptical lawmakers that its proposed $82 billion takeover of Warner Bros Discovery would benefit consumers, workers and the broader entertainment industry. During the hearing, senators quizzed Netflix co‑chief executive Ted Sarandos on the fate of theatres if the deal were to be approved, the effects of the merger on subscription prices and on the entertainment workforce.
Source: Netflix struggles to defend Warner Bros merger at US Senate hearing
At a Senate antitrust hearing on Tuesday, Netflix Co-CEO Ted Sarandos declined to give a “yes or no” answer when asked if he would commit to “full residuals” for union workers. “I would like to tell you this is a very complicated answer, because we prepay,” Sarandos said. Sarandos noted that the major studios are just days away from sitting down with the entertainment unions for bargaining, where this will be an issue.
Source: Ted Sarandos Hedges on Netflix Residual Payments at Senate Hearing: ‘Not a Yes or No’
On Tuesday, European songwriters and composers, along with representatives of their collective management organizations, came together with key EU policymakers to address the long-standing and growing phenomenon of so-called “coercive buy-out practices” affecting audiovisual composers. Buy-out practices in contracts typically force music authors to give away all or part of their rights in exchange for an often low onetime upfront payment.
Source: EU Legislators Call for an End to ‘Coercive Rights Buy-Outs’
The Supreme Court is taking up a case on whether Paramount violated the 1988 Video Privacy Protection Act (VPPA) by disclosing a user’s viewing history to Facebook. The case, Michael Salazar v. Paramount Global, hinges on the law’s definition of the word “consumer.” Salazar filed a class action against Paramount in 2022, alleging that it “violated the VPPA by disclosing his personally identifiable information to Facebook without consent.”
Source: Supreme Court to decide how 1988 videotape privacy law applies to online video
NVIDIA has asked a federal court to dismiss an expanded copyright lawsuit, arguing that authors failed to prove their books were actually used to train AI models. The chip giant says merely contacting Anna’s Archive doesn’t constitute infringement and challenges virtually every new claim in the amended complaint.
Source: NVIDIA: Contact With Anna’s Archive Doesn’t Prove Copyright Infringement * TorrentFreak
During Nolan’s first interview about the role, he shed light on his approach to labor negotiations, AI and corporate consolidation, all while emphasizing that one of his top focus areas is boosting employment in the industry. Nolan said early on that he wants to explore the gap between consumer spending on entertainment and industry jobs with employers.
Source: Christopher Nolan Wants to Know Where All the Hollywood Jobs Are, Too
This week, Adobe confirmed a slate of partnerships tying its generative AI platform — Firefly and the Firefly Foundry initiative — directly into entertainment and advertising workflows, including collaborations with major talent agencies and production entities. The message was subtle but unmistakable: Adobe doesn’t want to disrupt Hollywood. It wants to supply it.
Source: Adobe’s Hollywood Strategy Comes Into Focus — AI In Hollywood
If you generate an image entirely through AI and use it in your marketing, you may have no copyright protection over that asset. A competitor could use it without consequence. If you want legal protection, you need to add a substantial human creative contribution, and you need to document what that contribution was. However, the threshold of how much AI help is not yet precisely defined.
Source: Deploying Visual AI is a legal minefield…how to avoid getting hit – Kaptur
At the heart of modern data science, there is a division. On one hand, machine learning is in a race for scale. On the other hand and less loudly, a revolution is taking place in the backward direction: these are quantized models, edge inference, TinyML, and architectures that will survive on very limited resources.
Source: Silicon Darwinism: Why Scarcity Is the Source of True Intelligence | Towards Data Science
As part of its role in the Generative AI for Agriculture (GAIA) project, CABI is examining data governance issues to improve access to robust content for gen AI developers in a legal, equitable, and sustainable way. We are developing a model content license (MCL) intended as a standardized template that can be adapted to specific contexts by agritech AI developers and creators (e.g., publishers, creative copyright licensors, universities) or collective rights organizations.
Source: AI, copyright, and content licensing in digital agriculture