Building a Universal Digital Library of All Books Faces Obstacles from Copyright Laws.

The quest to create a universal digital library of all books in the world is a testament to the power of technology and the desire for accessible knowledge. However, this ambitious goal is impeded by stringent copyright laws, which have led to significant legal challenges. Tech companies like Google and AI firms such as Anthropic have developed extensive digital text collections, some of which were sourced from shadow libraries like LibGen and Sci-Hub.

Source: Building a Universal Digital Library of All Books in the World Faces Obstacles from Copyright Laws.

French press take on digital databases to defend journalist copyright against AI

Two professional organisations representing 800 newspapers and magazines employing over half of journalists in France announced Monday that they are taking “coordinated action” against public datasets used to train generative artificial intelligence services, such as ChatGPT. The Apig, the general news medial alliance, and the Sepm, the magazine publisher’s union, aim to remove their members’ content from Common Crawl, C4 and Oscar.

Source: French press take on digital databases to defend journalist copyright against AI

Authors, Publishers Await Answers as Anthropic Hearing Approaches

New information has emerged in the class action lawsuit against AI company Anthropic which could limit the number of books included in the case—just days before the September 8 hearing in which the details of a settlement among the parties is expected to be released. “As a bright line rule,” the AAP observed, “any work published or registered after July 2022 is definitively outside the class, and for some works the cutoff is June 2021.”

Source: Authors, Publishers Await Answers as Anthropic Hearing Approaches

Nordic collecting societies shutter Polaris licensing hub over changing market demands

The organizations cited the need for bigger scale and international reach amid today’s “increasingly competitive, complex and scale-driven music ecosystem.” Koda, Teosto and Tono said: “[C]ooperation on a Nordic scale is no longer sufficient. The Board of Polaris Hub has accordingly decided to initiate a phased wind down of the venture in an orderly manner around the turn of 2025–2026.”

Source: Nordic collecting societies shutter Polaris licensing hub over changing market demands

Vinyl & CDs Remain Exempt from Tariffs — Merch Subject to Duties

Vinyl, CDs, and cassettes remain exempt from U.S. tariffs, but the likes of Bandcamp are addressing impacts on shipping, merch, and more. Notwithstanding the exception for vinyl and CDs, Discogs has warned that “customs and postal carriers may experience delays or mistakes as they adjust to the new requirements.” (Other national carriers are said to have paused U.S. deliveries altogether.)

Source: Vinyl & CDs Remain Exempt from Tariffs — Merch Subject to Duties

Living Wage for Musicians Act is Back, Reintroduced to Congress

On September 29, U.S. Representative Rashida Tlaib plans to reintroduce her Living Wage for Musicians Act in Congress—and the United Musicians and Allied Workers union (UMAW) is busy drumming up support ahead of time. The union is encouraging artists and fans alike to write to their Congress members and ask them to support the bill when it hits the floor later this month.

Source: Living Wage for Musicians Act is Back, Reintroduced to Congress

Google is training its AI tools on YouTube videos. These creators aren’t happy

YouTube’s parent company, Google, is using a subset of the platform’s videos to train AI applications, including its text-to-video tool Veo. That includes videos made by users who have built their livelihoods on the service, helping turn it into the biggest streaming entertainment provider in the U.S. The move has sparked deep tensions between the world’s biggest online video company and some of the creators who helped make it a behemoth.

Source: Google is training its AI tools on YouTube videos. These creators aren’t happy

Trusted news sites may benefit in an internet full of AI-generated fakes, a new study finds

Fake books. Made-up sources. Bogus trampoline bunnies. We’re all getting a lot of AI-generated content in our feeds these days. But a new working paper suggests there’s a silver lining for trusted news organizations: they may be able to benefit from the broader degradation of the information ecosystem and win over subscribers concerned about sifting through the slop on their own.

Source: Trusted news sites may benefit in an internet full of AI-generated fakes, a new study finds

UK tribunal rejects Blur drummers lawsuit against PRS over ‘black box’ royalties

It concluded that because songwriters are not “owed” black box royalties, the class doesn’t have a legitimate claim under UK law. It also concluded that Rowntree’s lawyers hadn’t proposed an alternative to PRS’ method of distributing black box royalties, and doubted that the “cost-benefit” ratio of the lawsuit made sense, given that PRS is a not-for-profit owned by its publisher and songwriter members.

Source: UK tribunal rejects Blur drummer’s class action lawsuit against PRS For Music over ‘black box’ royalties

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