OpenAI has taken a significant step into entertainment by backing Critterz, the first animated feature film generated with GPT models. Human artists sketch characters and scenes, while AI transforms them into moving images. The $30 million project, expected to finish in nine months, is far cheaper and faster than traditional animation and could debut at the Cannes Film Festival in 2026.
Source: AI-generated film sparks copyright battle as it heads to Cannes | Digital Watch Observatory
A new system called Real Simple Licensing would allow AI companies to license training data at a massive scale — if they’re willing to pay for it. According to RSL co-founder Eckart Walther, who also co-created the RSS standard, the goal was to create a training-data licensing system that could scale across the internet. “We need to have machine-readable licensing agreements for the internet,” Walther told TechCrunch. “That’s really what RSL solves.”
Source: RSS co-creator launches new protocol for AI data licensing | TechCrunch
Crucially, the term “general-purpose AI” (GPAI) did not emerge from within the AI research community. It is a legal construct introduced by the EU AI Act to retroactively define certain types of AI systems. Prior to this, ‘GPAI’ had little to no presence in scholarly discourse. The Act not only assigned a regulatory meaning to the term, but also effectively created a new category – one that risks distorting how such systems are actually understood and developed in practice.
Source: A False Confidence in the EU AI Act: Epistemic Gaps and Bureaucratic Traps | TechPolicy.Press
STIM, the Swedish collective management organization, announced today (Sept. 9) that it has signed what is thought to be the first collective management license for AI music. The deal, signed with the AI music company Songfox with support from the attribution technology company Sureel, will start small, using both compositions and recordings from a publisher that owns compositions as well as recording rights. But STIM’s ambitions are bigger.
Source: STIM Explores AI Music Licensing Framework With Songfox Deal: ‘This Is a Blueprint’
Henna Virkkunen, EVP of the European Commission responsible for tech sovereignty, security and democracy, is upbeat about the E.U.’s ties with the U.S. when it comes to the media and entertainment sectors. Virkkunen underlined the need “to make sure that we have a level playing field,” noting that the EU’s creative sector “is facing many challenges” with the onset of “digitalization and very big online platforms.”
For months, Google has maintained that the web is “thriving,” AI isn’t tanking traffic, and its search engine is sending people to a wider variety of websites than ever. But in a court filing from last week, Google admitted that “the open web is already in rapid decline.” Google submitted the filing ahead of another trial that will determine how it will address its monopoly in the advertising technology business.
Apple is the latest tech company to be hit with a proposed class action lawsuit over unauthorized training of AI models using published books. On Friday, authors Grady Hendrix and Jennifer Roberson filed a lawsuit in Northern California targeting Apple’s “OpenELM” large language models, alleging the company “copied protected works without consent and without credit or compensation.” T
Reservoir Media has acquired a majority interest in the Miles Davis publishing catalog, as well as as well as other rights associated with the late jazz icon’s estate, including a partnership in name and likeness opportunities and certain rights to his recorded music, the company announced early Tuesday. The deal includes 90 percent of Davis’s music publishing rights and of the estate’s income from his recordings.
Source: Miles Davis’ Publshing Catalog Acquired by Reservoir Media
Carolyn Brotherton, a musician and former union organizer spearheads the coalition of artists called Seattle Artists Against Spotify. Over 30 local performers, DJs, and record label owners have signed the letter at the time of writing, voicing their concerns for what they dub is Spotify’s “anti-human, anti-art, and “anti-listener” direction. The open letter criticizes Spotify’s business practices, especially around the use of AI generated music.
Source: Spotify Boycott Expands—More Than 30 Seattle Artists Leave
US-based royalty rights org SoundExchange has filed an appeal following its devastating loss in a lawsuit against SiriusXM stemming from allegedly unpaid royalties. Judge Naomi Reice Buchwald of the US District Court for the Southern District of New York dismissed the PRO’s lawsuit against SiriusXM last month, ruling that Congress never granted it authority to file lawsuits on behalf of rights holders for whom it collects royalties.
Source: SoundExchange Officially Appealing Its Loss Against SiriusXM