The “tsunami” of AI use cases and the risks for creators and copyright protections that it brings with it were in the spotlight at the CineLink industry section of the 31st edition of the Sarajevo Film Festival on Thursday. “Everybody’s using AI, and I’m wondering how much this AI super brain is giving directions on creativity.”
Source: The European Union Is Trying to Build Guardrails on AI. Experts Say It Hasn’t Gone Far Enough
Anthropic has settled a lawsuit from authors, who accused the Amazon-backed company of illegally downloading and copying their books to teach its AI system, in among the first deals reached by creators over novel legal issues raised by the technology. “This historic settlement will benefit all class members,” says Justin Nelson, a lawyer for the authors. “We look forward to announcing details of the settlement in the coming weeks.”
Sixteen of the 50 biggest news websites in the UK are now using a “consent or pay” model to allow users to pay to reject personalised advertising or even avoid ads altogether. UK publishers began to implement the model last year as the Information Commissioner’s Office cracked down on the requirement for the biggest sites to display a “reject all cookies” button as prominently as the option to “accept all”.
Source: More UK news publishers are adopting ‘consent or pay’ advertising model
AI has become an expert forger of human patterns. These models are trained on gigantic libraries of human-made art. They have analyzed more paintings, songs, and photographs than any person ever could. These models may not have a soul, but they have learned the mathematical recipe for what we find beautiful or catchy.
Source: AI passed the aesthetic Turing Test, raising big questions for art
Usually when AI-generated music rears its head, it usually appears under fake names, or tries to imitate major artists but without actually appearing on their official channels. However, there’s a steadily growing trend of established (but notably not “superstar”) artists being targeted by fake music appearing on their official streaming pages. Even artists who have long since passed away are suddenly having “new” material, generated by AI, appearing on their catalogs.
Source: Fraudsters Are Releasing AI Music Under Real Musicians’ Names
The Weeknd is looking to raise roughly USD $1 billion in financing backed by his music catalog. That’s according to Bloomberg, which reported on Saturday (August 23), citing people familiar with the matter as saying that the Canadian singer would pledge his stake in publishing rights and master recordings. No agreement has been reached as discussions are still ongoing, the report said.
Source: The Weeknd seeks $1B in music-backed financing (Report)
The audio and video of a recent film, Watch the Skies, a Swedish sci-fi film, was fed into a digital tool called DeepEditor. It manipulates the video to make it look like actors are genuinely speaking the language the film is made into. The English version of Watch The Skies was released in 110 AMC Theatres across the US in May. “To contextualise this result, if the film were not dubbed into English, the film would never have made it into US cinemas in the first place,” says Mr Cottray.
Where many in Hollywood view AI as something of a bogeyman, fearing widespread job loss, others see opportunity. Acharia, who hails from a tech background as an entrepreneur before pivoting to management, is one of a small but growing legion of talent reps who are harnessing AI data to better advocate for and negotiate on behalf of their clients on future deals.
Source: AI Becomes Hollywood’s New Secret Weapon in Talent Negotiations: ‘The Data Doesn’t Lie’
As the September 1 deadline nears to submit books for consideration in the class action lawsuit against AI company Anthropic, the Authors Guild is advising its members to send their contact information and titles to the court-appointed class counsel for authors. In its post, the Guild advises authors who believe pirated copies of their books may have been unlawfully downloaded by Anthropic to provide the requested information and “to share the website with any other authors you know.”
Source: Authors Guild Urges Members to Register Titles in Anthropic Lawsuit
Hollywood productions are enraptured by the sound of the U.K. scene. Experimentalist Jerskin Fendrix landed an Academy Award nomination for Poor Things (2023), as did Mica Levi for The Zone of Interest that same year. A24’s upcoming The Smashing Machine (Oct. 3), starring Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson and Emily Blunt, will feature music from London-based alt-jazz star Nala Sinephro.
Source: Brits Are Scoring Big: How U.K. Acts Took Over Hollywood’s Biggest Soundtracks