Showing posts with label lawsuits. Show all posts
Showing posts with label lawsuits. Show all posts

Monday, July 3, 2023

ChatGPT Maker OpenAI Accused of Misusing Personal, Copyrighted Data; The San Francisco Standard, June 30, 2023

Kevin Truong, The San Francisco Standard; ChatGPT Maker OpenAI Accused of Misusing Personal, Copyrighted Data

"The suit alleges that ChatGPT utilizes "stolen private information, including personally identifiable information, from hundreds of millions of internet users, including children of all ages, without their informed consent or knowledge."

The complaint states that by using this data, OpenAI and its related entities have enough information to replicate digital clones, encourage people's "professional obsolescence" and "obliterate privacy as we know it."

The complaint lists several plaintiffs identified by their initials, including a software engineer who claims that his online posts around technical questions could be used to eliminate his job, a 6-year-old who used a microphone to interact with ChatGPT and allegedly had his data harvested, and an actor who claims that OpenAI stole personal data from online applications to train its system."

Wednesday, December 9, 2015

Batman v Superman: the latest exercise in corporate fan fiction; Guardian, 12/9/15

Noah Berlatsky, Guardian; Batman v Superman: the latest exercise in corporate fan fiction:
"Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster ended their creative input in the 1940s; for decades the duo’s main involvement with Superman was lawsuits over rights. Batman’s main creator, Bill Finger, was denied credit from the beginning by artist Bob Kane, and he died in poverty. Not much of a dawn of justice there.
At this point, there is no right or wrong version of Superman, or Batman, or Lex Luthor. Batman v Superman is just the latest exercise in corporate fan fiction, remixing bits and pieces of fan fiction based on fan fiction past. The result may be good, or bad, or mediocre, and you can love or hate Jesse Eisenberg’s performance for any number of reasons. But to say he’s not true to Luthor is to pretend that there’s some “true” version of Luthor to begin with – and to create a platonic, real Luthor who exists separately from, and overshadows, the original folks who, intentionally or by accident, came up with the character. Better to just take the upcoming film on its own merits, or lack thereof – and maybe give a nod to Leo Nowak, and his own stumbling lack of fidelity to Lex Luthor past."

Saturday, November 14, 2009

Singing a different tune; Economist, 11/12/09

Economist; Singing a different tune:

The battle against online music piracy is turning. A return to growth will take a good deal longer

"While it is by no means over, the struggle against music piracy is going better than at any point since the appearance of Napster, a file-sharing service, ten years ago.

It has been a brutal decade. In many countries music sales to consumers have fallen by more than a third...

The music business is now doing two things right. First, it has built a better stick. Most countries have virtually abandoned the practice of suing people for downloading copyrighted files. The favoured approach these days is known as “graduated response” or “three strikes and you’re out”. People who are suspected of trading media illegally are sent warnings. If they fail to stop, their internet-service provider (ISP) may slow their connection. If that fails to deter, they may be temporarily cut off...

Almost everywhere in the developed world, such laws are being debated. Even where they are not (America, for example), ISPs are working quietly with the record industry to similar ends.

The trouble with the old practice of suing people for swapping music is that it is slow, expensive and limited. In most countries, being prosecuted for file-sharing is a little like being struck by lightning. The exception is Germany, where a cheap, efficient legal system has made it possible to launch some 100,000 prosecutions. In the past two years the proportion of German internet users who share files illegally has dropped significantly. It now stands at 6%, according to Jupiter Research—less than in any other big European country...

The second change is that the industry is offering tastier carrots. These days the music associations talk less about lawsuits and more about cultivating alternatives to piracy. The past year has seen rapid growth of digital music services that accept the post-Napster consensus that music should be free, or at least appear to be free...

The recorded-music business is not about to lurch into growth. A big proportion of revenues—more than half just about everywhere—still comes from CD albums, which are gradually falling out of favour. Start-ups like Spotify need to turn more freeloaders into paying subscribers if they are to survive and start providing a serious income stream to record companies and artists. And there are still plenty of ways of sneakily copying music.

John Kennedy, head of the IFPI, points out that piracy was rife even before file-sharing. The goal is not to eradicate it—that is impossible—but to tilt the playing field towards legitimate services. That finally seems to be happening. "

http://www.economist.com/businessfinance/displaystory.cfm?story_id=14845087

Monday, January 19, 2009

RIAA pulls out of John Doe cases involving college students, Ars Technica, 1/19/09

Via Ars Technica, RIAA pulls out of John Doe cases involving college students:

"With these and other cases being wrapped up, there are only a couple of high-profile remnants of the industry's war against P2P users left on the agenda. One is the scheduled retrial of Jammie Thomas later this year; the other is the case against Joel Tenenbaum, who is being represented by Harvard Law School professor Charles Nesson and a host of students. The RIAA feels confident about the evidence it has in the Thomas case and its chances for a victory in a second trial, but whether it has the stomach to actually go through with it remains to be seen. The Tenenbaum case is shaping up to be another PR nightmare with the RIAA, as Nesson recently convinced the presiding judge to stream the court proceedings online, a decision the RIAA is anxious to see overturned."

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20090119-riaa-pulls-out-of-john-doe-cases-involving-college-students.html

Tuesday, December 30, 2008

Trial transcript of Capitol Records v. Jammie Thomas now available online, Ray Beckerman's Recording Industry vs. The People Blog, 12/28/08

Via Ray Beckerman's Recording Industry vs. The People Blog: Trial transcript of Capitol Records v. Jammie Thomas now available online:

"We are pleased to announce that the complete transcript of the Duluth, Minnesota, jury trial, which took place October 2, 2007, to October 4, 2007, in Capitol Records v. Thomas, is now available online:

Transcript, October 2, 2007, pp. 1-278

Transcript, October 3, 2007, pp. 280-543

Transcript, October 4, 2007, pp. 544-643"

http://recordingindustryvspeople.blogspot.com/2008_12_01_archive.html#259200380767823862

Thursday, November 27, 2008

Judge says BU can't turn over infringers' IPs in P2P case, ARS Technica, 11/26/08

Via ARS Technica: Judge says BU can't turn over infringers' IPs in P2P case:

"The music industry's requests for more personal information regarding the identity of several accused file-sharers have been shot down by a federal judge. Judge Nancy Gertner quashed a subpoena this week in the infamous London-Sire v. Does 1-4 case, saying that the IP addresses of three anonymous Boston University students could not be handed over because the university had "adequately demonstrated that it is not able to identify the alleged infringers with a reasonable degree of technical certainty."

The legal system has been chipping away at the London-Sire case all year, starting this spring when Judge Gertner said that making files available on a P2P network does not equal copyright infringement."

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20081126-judge-says-bu-cant-turn-over-infringers-ips-in-p2p-case.html

Monday, November 17, 2008

Law professor fires back at song-swapping lawsuits, Yahoo.com, 11/17/08

Via Yahoo.com: Law professor fires back at song-swapping lawsuits:

"A Harvard Law School professor has launched a constitutional assault against a federal copyright law at the heart of the industry's aggressive strategy, which has wrung payments from thousands of song-swappers since 2003.

The professor, Charles Nesson, has come to the defense of a Boston University graduate student targeted in one of the music industry's lawsuits. By taking on the case, Nesson hopes to challenge the basis for the suit, and all others like it.

Nesson argues that the Digital Theft Deterrence and Copyright Damages Improvement Act of 1999 is unconstitutional because it effectively lets a private group — the Recording Industry Association of America, or RIAA — carry out civil enforcement of a criminal law. He also says the music industry group abused the legal process by brandishing the prospects of lengthy and costly lawsuits in an effort to intimidate people into settling cases out of court."

http://tech.yahoo.com/news/ap/20081117/ap_on_hi_te/tec_music_downloading

Saturday, October 25, 2008

Judge Rejects 'Making Available' Defense, Orders Teen File Sharer to Pay RIAA $7,400 - Wired.com, 10/24/08

Via Wired.com:

Judge Rejects 'Making Available' Defense, Orders Teen File Sharer to Pay RIAA $7,400:

"The decision contradicts last month's mistrial ruling in the nation's only file sharing case to go to trial. The split outcomes underscore that, after five years of RIAA file sharing litigation and some 30,000 lawsuits, the level of proof necessary to demonstrate copyright infringement in the peer-to-peer context varies from judge to judge."
http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/10/judge-rejects-m.html

Wednesday, October 8, 2008

Yoko Ono, EMI drop suits over Lennon song - Reuters, 10/8/08

Yoko Ono, EMI drop suits over Lennon song:

John Lennon's widow Yoko Ono and EMI Records, the world's fourth largest music company, dropped copyright infringement lawsuits against the makers of a documentary that used the portion of the song "Imagine" without permission...

"We think it was clear from the beginning that our clients had every right to use the 'Imagine' clip as they did, and we're happy we've vindicated that right," Anthony Falzone, a Stanford law professor and lead counsel for Premise in the case said in a statement.
The documentary looks at alleged discrimination against scientists and teachers who support so-called intelligent design as an alternative to Darwin's theory of evolution.
In his blog, Falzone said the song won't appear in the DVD version of the documentary as the move came too late."
http://www.reuters.com/article/peopleNews/idUSTRE4971QH20081008

Sunday, October 5, 2008

RIAA v. The People: Five Years Later - Electronic Frontier Foundation, September 2008

RIAA v. The People: Five Years Later:

"On September 8, 2003, the recording industry sued 261 American music fans for sharing songs on peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing networks, kicking off an unprecedented legal campaign against the people that should be the recording industry’s best customers: music fans.1 Five years later, the recording industry has filed, settled, or threatened legal actions against at least 30,000 individuals.2 These individuals have included children, grandparents, unemployed single mothers, college professors—a random selection from the millions of Americans who have used P2P networks. And there’s no end in sight; new lawsuits are filed monthly, and now they are supplemented by a flood of "pre-litigation" settlement letters designed to extract settlements without any need to enter a courtroom.3

But suing music fans has proven to be an ineffective response to unauthorized P2P file-sharing. Downloading from P2P networks is more popular than ever, despite the widespread public awareness of lawsuits.4 And the lawsuit campaign has not resulted in any royalties to artists. One thing has become clear: suing music fans is no answer to the P2P dilemma."
http://www.eff.org/wp/riaa-v-people-years-later