AI crawler Firecrawl raises $14.5M, is still looking to hire agents as employees

The Firecrawl founders are working on tools to help website owners, publishers, and other content creators “get paid when AI uses their content. We think this is the way it should be,” CEO Caleb Peffer said. While there have been lots of efforts around this idea from big names like Adobe and Getty, Peffer feels that Firecrawl has an edge because it’s already working with those who are scraping data.

Source: AI crawler Firecrawl raises $14.5M, is still looking to hire agents as employees | TechCrunch

ASCAP Settles Lawsuit With Thousands of Radio Stations Over Music Licensing Rates

ASCAP has settled its lawsuit with thousands of radio stations over music licensing rates, the PRO and the Radio Music License Committee announced. Hours after rival BMI announced it had reached such a deal with RMLC, ASCAP said that it, too, had settled its own parallel lawsuit against the radio group. Like BMI’s statement, the announcement from ASCAP said the deal had secured substantially higher rates for songwriters and publishers.

Source: ASCAP Settles Lawsuit With Thousands of Radio Stations Over Music Licensing Rates

BMI Settles With Radio Stations to Resolve License Litigation: ‘Historic Rate Increase’

BMI and the Radio Music License Committee have reached a settlement to resolve three years of litigation over the licensing rates that will be paid by nearly 9000 radio stations to songwriters and publishers – a deal that BMI is calling “a historic rate increase.” According to court filings, the new deal will see rates paid by radio stations jump from 1.78 percent of revenue under the old agreement to 2.14 percent, then slowly increase to 2.20 percent by the end of the term.

Source: BMI Settles With Radio Stations to Resolve License Litigation: ‘Historic Rate Increase’

Senator Begins Child Safety Investigation Into Meta’s A.I. Bot

Senator Josh Hawley, Republican of Missouri, said on Friday that he was starting an investigation into Meta’s generative artificial intelligence products and whether they posed harms to children, the latest scrutiny of whether the social media giant takes appropriate safety measures when it comes to minors. “Is there anything — ANYTHING — Big Tech won’t do for a quick buck?” Mr. Hawley said in a post on X. “Big Tech: Leave our kids alone.”

Source: Senator Begins Child Safety Investigation Into Meta’s A.I. Bot

How web scraping actually works – and why AI changes everything

AI’s appetite for scraped content, without returning readers, is leaving site owners and content creators fighting for survival. Both search and AI use the results of absolutely ginormous scraping and spidering operations, but one provides benefits to the scrapees, while the other profits enormously from the work of others while simultaneously destroying their motivation to keep doing the work.

Source: How web scraping actually works – and why AI changes everything

Living Wage for Musicians Act to be reintroduced in US Congress

US politician Rashida Tlaib is planning to reintroduce her Living Wage for Musicians Act next month, and ahead of that the United Musicians and Allied Workers (UMAW) union is aiming to drum up support for the bill and its key measure: a new streaming royalty paid directly to artists. It is encouraging artists and fans to write to their members of Congress asking them to support the bill when it returns on 29 September.

Source: Living Wage for Musicians Act to be reintroduced in US Congress

Publishers issue warning on AI-created books imitating sports autobiographies

Sky News has spent months tracking apparent AI recreations, particularly sports books, that have been sold on Amazon as Kindle e-books, as well as printed versions. “AI created books are an increasing problem for us,” Publishers Association chief executive Dan Conway told Sky News. “It is incredibly easy using these new, amazing tools to create content.

Source: Publishers issue warning on AI-created books imitating sports autobiographies

Defiant Fired Copyright Chief Urges Federal Court to Connect the Dots

Shira Perlmutter, who is suing the federal government over the Trump administration’s move to dismiss her from her position as U.S. Register of Copyrights, once again asked the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to grant an injunction, drawing connections between the timing of her dismissal and the release of the administration’s AI Action Plan.

Source: Defiant Fired Copyright Chief Urges Federal Court to Connect the Dots

The ‘click-to-cancel’ rule could soon be law. What would it mean for streaming services?

A click-to-cancel rule could have a serious downside for streaming services’ revenues – but the global momentum for such a rule is growing. A group of US House representatives have introduced the Click to Cancel Act, a two-page bill that would turn the FTC’s overturned regulation into law, in exactly the same form as the FTC set it out last fall. That would allow the rule to get past the regulatory requirements the FTC faces when it makes changes to how businesses operate.

Source: The US’s ‘click-to-cancel’ rule could soon be law. What would that mean for streaming services?

Cornell Researchers Develop Light-Based Watermark

Cornell’s latest innovation introduces a method to watermark video with imperceptible codes hidden in light sources used during recording. Developed by graduate student Peter Michael and conceptualized by assistant professor Abe Davis, the technique embeds unique, nearly invisible fluctuations in the lighting on-set. These minute variations can’t be seen by the human eye but are recognized by forensic analysis tools once the footage is recorded.

Source: Cornell Researchers Develop Light-Based Watermark

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