Bizarre AI-generated products are in stores. Here’s how to avoid them.; The Washington Post, September 18, 2023

 Heather Kelly, The Washington Post; Bizarre AI-generated products are in stores. Here’s how to avoid them.

"Copyright and intellectual property issues around AI are still in the air...

The Authors Guild, which represents many authors whose work has been used to train AI tools, is asking for legislation and pushing companies to disclose when a book is written by AI...

“We see it as consumer protection, but it’s also a way to insulate the book marketplace because otherwise, you’ll just see an influx of AI-generated content on a platform like Kindle,” said Mary Rasenberger, chief executive of the Authors Guild. “It will take away from the market [demand] for human creative works.”

Rasenberger said that she doesn’t think AI can be held off forever and even sees a place for it as a useful tool for writers. The guild’s goal is to make sure AI is regulated, licensed and legitimate, with money going back to authors, she said."

Thousands of authors urge AI companies to stop using work without permission; Morning Edition, NPR, July 17, 2023

Chloe Veltman, Morning Edition NPR; Thousands of authors urge AI companies to stop using work without permission

"Thousands of writers including Nora Roberts, Viet Thanh Nguyen, Michael Chabon and Margaret Atwood have signed a letter asking artificial intelligence companies like OpenAI and Meta to stop using their work without permission or compensation."

Copyright Alliance blasts Internet Archive’s Emergency Library launch as “vile”; ZDNet, March 31, 2020

Charlie Osborne, ZDNet; Copyright Alliance blasts Internet Archive’s Emergency Library launch as “vile”

The National Emergency Library opened to help learners “displaced” by COVID-19.

"The Authors Guild said that COVID-19 has been used "as an excuse to push copyright law further out to the edges" which, in turn, is causing authors that are already struggling to pay the bills additional harm...

"Acting as a piracy site -- of which there already are too many -- the Internet Archive tramples on authors' rights by giving away their books to the world," the group says.  

More criticism has come in the form of comments made by the Copyright Alliance, an organization that represents the rights of those in creative industries including authors and artists. CEO Keith Kupferschmid noted that creators are among the hardest hit at present, and while projects have been set up to help those in these industries, the executive said IA's project is making "things much worse for those that need our help.""

Judge Denies Author Attempt to Trademark 'Cocky' ; Publishers Weekly, June 4, 2018

Jim Milliot, Publishers Weekly; Judge Denies Author Attempt to Trademark 'Cocky'

"Although Hopkins had obtained her trademark, the law only allows trademarks in limited cases. The law prevents individual titles from being trademarked, only series titles, and allows that common words cannot be trademarked at all, unless they develop an association in the minds of the public with a particular source...

In denying Hopkins’ motion for an injunction, Judge Hellerstein found that the injunction was unlikely to proceed on the merits, noting that “cocky” is a common word and a weak trademark."

It Took 17 Years: Freelancers Receive $9 Million in Copyright Suit; The New York Times, April 30, 2018

Jaclyn Peiser, The New York Times;It Took 17 Years: Freelancers Receive $9 Million in Copyright Suit

"Seventeen years after nearly 3,000 freelance journalists filed a class-action lawsuit claiming copyright infringement by some of the country’s biggest publishers, the checks are finally in the mail.

The 2,500 writers who made it through the tortuous legal process will start receiving their pieces of a settlement totaling $9 million this week...

The Authors Guild filed the suit — along with the American Society of Journalists and Authors, the National Writers Union and 21 freelance writers named as class representatives — in 2001 after publishers licensed articles by freelancers to the electronic database Lexis/Nexis and other digital indexers without getting the writers’ approval. The publishers include The New York Times, Dow Jones, and Knight Ridder, as well as Reed Elsevier, the provider of Lexis/Nexis.

 

 “For the Authors Guild, this is our bread and butter — to make sure the authors and journalists get paid,” said Mary Rasenberger, the executive director of the Authors Guild."

Torching the Modern-Day Library of Alexandria: "Somewhere at Google there is a database containing 25 million books and nobody is allowed to read them."; The Atlantic, April 20, 2017

James Somers, The Atlantic; Torching the Modern-Day Library of Alexandria: "Somewhere at Google there is a database containing 25 million books and nobody is allowed to read them."

"After the settlement failed, Clancy told me that at Google “there was just this air let out of the balloon.” Despite eventually winning Authors Guild v. Google, and having the courts declare that displaying snippets of copyrighted books was fair use, the company all but shut down its scanning operation.

It was strange to me, the idea that somewhere at Google there is a database containing 25-million books and nobody is allowed to read them. It’s like that scene at the end of the first Indiana Jones movie where they put the Ark of the Covenant back on a shelf somewhere, lost in the chaos of a vast warehouse. It’s there. The books are there. People have been trying to build a library like this for ages—to do so, they’ve said, would be to erect one of the great humanitarian artifacts of all time—and here we’ve done the work to make it real and we were about to give it to the world and now, instead, it’s 50 or 60 petabytes on disk, and the only people who can see it are half a dozen engineers on the project who happen to have access because they’re the ones responsible for locking it up."

Google Case Ends, but Copyright Fight Goes On; Publishers Weekly, 4/22/16

Andrew Albanese, Publishers Weekly; Google Case Ends, but Copyright Fight Goes On:

"In a statement, Authors Guild officials called the Supreme Court’s denial a “colossal loss” for authors and bemoaned the “expansion of fair use” in the digital age. Executive director Mary Rasenberger suggested that the courts in the Google case were “blinded” by the “public-benefit arguments.” And Authors Guild president Roxana Robinson added that the Supreme Court’s denial was “further proof that we’re witnessing a vast redistribution of wealth from the creative sector to the tech sector.”

Others, however, including public advocacy group Public KnowIedge hailed the end of the litigation. “The Supreme Court’s decision to let the Second Circuit’s ruling stand reflects what we have long said, that fair use is a powerful and flexible doctrine that enables not only new works, but also innovative uses of existing works," said Raza Panjwani, Policy Counsel at Public Knowledge. "This denial will hopefully lead to new efforts to expand our access to culture and knowledge through digital formats.”

Jonathan Band, an attorney for the library community agrees. "I don't know if anyone else will create another search database for books," he told PW, "but others will create search databases for other sorts of materials, to the benefit of public and the copyright owners."

But that theme—that the courts are enabling the tech sector to unfairly build its value off the backs of creators—has become an animating principle in a copyright policy fight that is slowly beginning to take shape. And while the Google case may have ended in the courts, the copyright fight in the policy arena is likely just getting started...

“I think it hurts them,” [Grimmelmann] said. “The way they lost this case, by litigating this through to four resounding fair-use decisions, the last of which was written by Pierre Leval [considered the nation’s foremost jurist on fair use], it’s hard to imagine any way to lay down stronger bricks for fair use than that.”"

How Google Stole the Work of Millions of Authors; Wall Street Journal, 2/7/16

Roxana Robinson, Wall Street Journal; How Google Stole the Work of Millions of Authors:

"Last week publishers, copyright experts and other supporters filed amicus briefs petitioning the Supreme Court to hear the copyright-infringement case against Google brought by the Authors Guild."

Titanic victory for fair use: appeals court says Google's book-scanning is legal; BoingBoing.net, 10/16/15

Cory Doctorow, BoingBoing.net; Titanic victory for fair use: appeals court says Google's book-scanning is legal:

"The Second Circuit ruling is remarkable for many reasons. First, the venue: the Second, which incorporates publishing's home base in New York City, is a court that is generally favorable to rightsholders. This isn't the first time the Second has surprised copyright extremists, though: last year, the court ruled that the Hathi Trust's noncommercial/academic book-scanning project was also fair use, making this the second high-profile loss for the Authors Guild in two years.

The Hathi Trust ruling completely freaked out the Authors Guild and copyright maximalists everywhere. The Copyright Office, which is friendly to those interests, was motivated by Hathi to create a bizarre, incoherent proposal to put the Authors Guild in charge of who can use literature in America, giving them the power to collect license payments on behalf of writers who never joined the organization, including anonymous and long-dead writers -- this, of course, would give the Authors Guild more money with which to launch foolish, doomed, high-profile lawsuits.

The Librarian of Congress is retiring after a generation in office and may well be replaced by someone who believes in fair use and user rights and a balanced approach to copyright, and since the Librarian of Congress controls the Copyright Office, the people outraged by Hathi are totally flipping out and calling for the separation of the Library of Congress and the Copyright Office, so that they can continue to have outsized influence over the future of creativity, culture and scholarship in America.

The Google Books ruling will only make this fight more intense. Appointing a new Librarian will be one of Obama's last acts in office, and the Democratic party is deeply riven by internal disputes between the netroots and the big entertainment companies who are its financial backers. The war-rooms of both camps are definitely buzzing this morning."

Court OKs Universities' Quest To Turn To More Digital Copies Of Books; NPR, 6/10/14

Lynn Neary, NPR; Court OKs Universities' Quest To Turn To More Digital Copies Of Books:

"A U.S. appeals court has ruled against a group of authors, deciding in favor of a consortium of universities in a case that hinged on copyright law and provisions of the Americans with Disabilities Act. The universities had allowed Google to make digital copies of more than 10 million books so that they could be searchable by specific terms."

Siding With Google, Judge Says Book Search Does Not Infringe Copyright; New York Times, 11/14/13

Claire Cain Miller and Julie Bosman, New York Times; Siding With Google, Judge Says Book Search Does Not Infringe Copyright: "[Judge Denny Chin] cited the benefits for librarians, researchers, students, teachers, scholars, data scientists and underserved populations like disabled people who cannot read print books or those in remote places without libraries. He said it also helped authors and publishers by creating new audiences and sources of income... Paul Aiken, the executive director of the Authors Guild, said in an interview that the result was “obviously disappointing” and that the authors would appeal. “Google created unauthorized digital versions of most of the world’s copyright-protected books — certainly most of the valuable copyright-protected books in the world,” he said.“Google created unauthorized digital versions of most of the world’s copyright-protected books — certainly most of the valuable copyright-protected books in the world,” he said. Google issued a statement that said, “Google Books is in compliance with copyright law and acts like a card catalog for the digital age — giving users the ability to find books to buy or borrow.”... Case law has changed during that time, but so has the attitude toward digital texts, said Jonathan Band, a copyright lawyer for the Library Copyright Alliance, which filed an amicus brief in support of Google. “There’s an understanding that the way this technology works, there’s going to be copying,” he said. “And that there’s a sensibility in the courts that as long as the whole work is not displayed, and as long as the rights-holder isn’t harmed, then this copying that goes on behind the curtain just doesn’t matter.”"

U.S. judge boosts Google 'fair use' defense of digital books; Reuters, 9/23/13

Reuters; U.S. judge boosts Google 'fair use' defense of digital books: "Google, based in Mountain View, California, has scanned more than 20 million books since its 2004 agreement with libraries worldwide to digitize books. The Authors Guild and groups representing photographers and graphic artists say the project amounts to massive copyright infringement. Google argues the practice constitutes fair use, an exception under U.S. copyright law, because it only provides portions of the works online. At a hearing in U.S. district court in New York on Monday, Judge Denny Chin said the question of fair use relies in part on whether the project "is a benefit to society." Chin then rattled off several examples of how Google's project has helped people find information, including his own law clerks. "Aren't these transformative uses, and don't they benefit society?" asked Chin."fair use,

Google Presses Fair Use Case in Book Scanning Appeal; Library Journal, 11/12/12

Gary Price, Library Journal; Google Presses Fair Use Case in Book Scanning Appeal: "On November 9, Google asked a federal appeals court to reverse the May ruling that the Authors Guild’s long running case against Google Books could go forward as a class action. In August, the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit decided to allow Google to appeal for decertifying the case as a class action...Since the last time Google sought dismissal of the Guild case, in July, Google’s side has been strengthened by the ruling in the Guild’s case against the HathiTrust, for allowing Google to digitize their holdings and putting them to several uses."

Authors Guild Appeals HathiTrust Decision, Library Copyright Alliance Issues Statement; Library Journal, 11/9/12

Gary Price, Library Journal; Authors Guild Appeals HathiTrust Decision, Library Copyright Alliance Issues Statement: "On November 8, the Authors Guild appealed the verdict in its case against the HathiTrust to the U.S. Court of Appeals Second Circuit. The Guild had filed suit against the Trust in 2011, alleging that the Trust’s digitization efforts constituted copyright infringement. However, on October 10, Judge Baer of the United States District Court Southern District of New York found overwhelmingly in favor of HathiTrust."

‘U’ wins copyright lawsuit against Hathitrust digitalization project; Michigan Daily, 10/11/12

Austen Hufford, Michigan Daily; ‘U’ wins copyright lawsuit against Hathitrust digitalization project: "The judge wrote that the case may set an important precedent for future digital copyright laws, noting there are comparatively few prior standards regarding digitization and its fair use. “I cannot imagine a definition of fair use that would not encompass the transformative uses made by (the Hathitrust program) and would require that I terminate this invaluable contribution to the progress of science … ” Baer wrote. When someone uses the database to search a word in a copyrighted book, the full text is not available; only the page number and number of occurrences in the book is shown. The defendants claimed this does not infringe on copyright law because copyrighted books cannot be read in their entirety through the Hathitrust system. The system is also used for preserving physical texts in case the originals are somehow lost or destroyed. It already contains nearly 10 million volumes and about 73 percent of those are copyrighted, the ruling stated."

Judge Hands HathiTrust Digital Repository a Win in Fair-Use Case; Chronicle of Higher Education, 10/10/12

Jennifer Howard, Chronicle of Higher Education; Judge Hands HathiTrust Digital Repository a Win in Fair-Use Case: "Academic libraries’ indexing of digitized works counts as fair use. So says the federal judge overseeing a major copyright-infringement lawsuit brought last year by the Authors Guild against the HathiTrust digital repository and its university partners."

Google Deal Gives Publishers a Choice: Digitize or Not; New York Times, 10/4/12

Miller, C. New York Times; Google Deal Gives Publishers a Choice: Digitize or Not: ""The settlement does not answer the question at the heart of the litigation between Google and publishers and authors — whether Google is infringing copyright by digitizing books. It essentially allows both sides to agree to disagree, and gives publishers the right to keep their books out of Google’s reach. “We’re very pleased because the settlement acknowledges the rights and interests of copyright holders and publishers, and whether they’re going to make their rights available,” said Tom Allen, chief executive of the Association of American Publishers. But the bigger case, between Google and the Authors Guild, remains tied up in court. An agreement between those two parties will determine whether Google can move forward with its broader, more ambitious digitizing plan. “That’s the lawsuit with high stakes,” Mr. Grimmelmann said... The settlement also did not address the difficult issue of so-called orphan works — those that are still under copyright but whose copyright holder or author cannot be found.""

Google Books hasn't cost authors a dime, company says; ArsTechnica.com, 7/27/12

Cyrus Farivar, ArsTechnica.com; Google Books hasn't cost authors a dime, company says:

"On Friday, Google filed for summary judgment in the Google Books case against the Authors' Guild, renewing its argument that the entire project constitutes fair use. That company argues therefore that it does not need permission from authors in order to scan substantial portions of their work...

More substantially, Google argues that Google Books is a transformative work, and that the company "copied no more of the books than was necessary to create a searchable index, and displays no more of the works than is necessary to allow readers to determine whether the book might be of interest to them."

Judge Allows Class-Action Suit Over Google’s Book Scanning; New York Times, 5/31/12

Julie Bosman, New York Times; Judge Allows Class-Action Suit Over Google’s Book Scanning:

"A federal judge in Manhattan granted class-action status on Thursday to authors suing Google over the company’s ambitious book-scanning project, allowing the long-stalled case to move forward...

James Grimmelmann, a professor at New York Law School who has studied the legal aspects of the case, said the judge’s decision “makes it very likely that we’re going to have a very high-stakes decision about Google’s book-scanning project.”"

Google, Author’s Guild Clash Over Class Action and Standing; LibraryJournal.com, 15/10/12

Meredith Schwartz, LibraryJournal.com; Google, Author’s Guild Clash Over Class Action and Standing:

"Judge Chin heard oral argument in the Google Books case on May 4 and ultimately reserved decision. The parties will go ahead with their summary judgment motions, with oral argument scheduled for September."