A few weeks ago, the UK’s regional and national daily news titles ran similar front covers, exhorting the government there to “Make it Fair”. The campaign Web site explained: Tech companies use creative content, such as news articles, books, music, film, photography, visual art, and all kinds of creative work, to train their generative AI Read more about Yes, let’s “Make it Fair” – by recognising that copyright has failed to reward creators properly[…]

Those were wild times, when engineers pitted their wits against one another in the spirit of Steve Wozniack and SSAFE. That era came to a close – but not because someone finally figured out how to make data that you couldn’t copy. Rather, it ended because an unholy coalition of entertainment and tech industry lobbyists Read more about US Tariffs for the EU? Then let’s get rid of the anti competitive rules the US rammed down the throat of the EU for tariff free trade[…]

Artists can copyright works they made with the help of artificial intelligence, according to a new report by the U.S. Copyright Office that could further clear the way for the use of AI tools in Hollywood, the music industry and other creative fields. The nation’s copyright office, which sits in the Library of Congress and Read more about AI-assisted works can get finally copyright with enough human creativity, says US copyright office[…]

[…]300-plus musicians who have signed an open letter supporting the Internet Archive as it faces a $621 million copyright infringement lawsuit over its efforts to preserve 78 rpm records. The letter, spearheaded by the digital advocacy group Fight for the Future, states that the signatories “wholeheartedly oppose” the lawsuit, which they suggest benefits “shareholder profits” Read more about 300 Artists Back Internet Archive in $621 Million Copyright Attack from Record Labels – over music older than the 1950s[…]

One of the most frustrating aspects in the ongoing conversation around the preservation of older video games, also known as cultural output, is the collision of IP rights and some publishers’ unwillingness to both continue to support and make available these older games and their refusal to release those same games into the public domain Read more about Epic Allows Internet Archive To Distribute For Free ‘Unreal’ & ‘Unreal Tournament’ Forever[…]

What would you think if an author told you they would have written a book, but they wouldn’t bother because it would be available to be borrowed for free from a library? You’d probably think they were delusional. Yet that argument has now carried the day in putting a knife into the back of the Read more about Second Circuit Says Libraries Disincentivize Authors To Write Books By Lending Them For Free[…]

I can’t believe this, but it happened again. Almost exactly a decade ago, Tim Cushing wrote about a bonkers story out of the UK in which a passport applicant who’s middle name was “Skywalker” was denied the passport due to purported trademark or copyright concerns. The question that ought to immediately leap to mind should Read more about UK Once Again Denies A Passport Over Applicant’s Name Due To Intellectual Property Concerns – again[…]

It sounds absolutely batty that there is a strong, bipartisan push to lock up aspects of our law behind copyright. But it’s happening. Even worse, the push is on to include this effort to lock up the law in the “must pass” National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). This is the bill that Congress lights up Read more about US Congress Wants To Let Private Companies Own The Law – set standards you must comply with but can’t actually find or see easily[…]

The complaints against OpenAI and Microsoft in New York Times Company v. Microsoft Corporation and Daily News, LP v. Microsoft Corporation include multiple theories––for instance, vicarious copyright infringement, contributory copyright infringement, and improper removal of copyright information. Those theories, however, are ancillary to both complaints’ primary cause of action: direct copyright infringement. While the defendants’ Read more about Inputs, Outputs, and Fair Uses: Unpacking Responses to Journalists’ Copyright Lawsuits[…]

Even though parents insist that it is good and right to share things, the copyright world has succeeded in establishing the contrary as the norm. Now, sharing is deemed a bad, possibly illegal thing. But it was not always thus, as a fascinating speech by Ryan Cordell, Associate Professor in the School of Information Sciences Read more about Sharing material used to be the norm for newspapers, and should be for LLMs[…]