Google hit with class-action lawsuit over AI data scraping; Reuters, July 11, 2023

Blake Brittain, Reuters ; Google hit with class-action lawsuit over AI data scraping

"Alphabet's Google (GOOGL.O) was accused in a proposed class action lawsuit on Tuesday of misusing vast amounts of personal information and copyrighted material to train its artificial intelligence systems.

The complaint, filed in San Francisco federal court by eight individuals seeking to represent millions of internet users and copyright holders, said Google's unauthorized scraping of data from websites violated their privacy and property rights."

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."

Online Copyright Piracy Debate Ramps Up Over Proposed Legal Fix; Bloomberg Law, March 23, 2022

Riddhi Setty, Bloomberg Law; Online Copyright Piracy Debate Ramps Up Over Proposed Legal Fix

"Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), the leaders of the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Intellectual Property Subcommittee, recently proposed the SMART (Strengthening Measures to Advance Rights Technologies) Copyright Act of 2022, which aims to hold service providers accountable for fighting copyright theft."

Meghan, Duchess of Sussex to receive confidential sum from UK newspaper for copyright infringement; CNN, January 5, 2022

Niamh Kennedy, CNN; Meghan, Duchess of Sussex to receive confidential sum from UK newspaper for copyright infringement

"The court found ANL infringed Meghan's copyright by publishing extracts of a handwritten letter she sent to her father in The Mail on Sunday newspaper and Mail Online website during hearings in January and May last year, the court order says.

The group is also set to pay the duchess £1 in nominal damages for misuse of private information, according to the court order.

On December 2, the Court of Appeal upheld a ruling that ANL had misused Meghan's private information through their publication of the letter, saying the Duchess had "had a reasonable expectation of privacy in the contents of the letter.""

UK Government Plans To Open Public Transport Data To Third Parties; Forbes, December 31, 2019

Simon Chandler, Forbes; UK Government Plans To Open Public Transport Data To Third Parties

"The launch is a significant victory for big data. Occasionally derided as a faddish megatrend or empty buzzword, the announcement of the Bus Open Data Service shows that national governments are willing to harness masses of data and use them to create new services and economic opportunities. Similarly, it's also a victory for the internet of things, insofar as real-time data from buses will be involved in providing users with up-to-date travel info.

That said, the involvement of big data inevitably invites fears surrounding privacy and surveillance."

I Wanted to Stream Buffy, Angel, and Firefly for Free, But Not Like This; Gizmodo, November 30, 2018

Alex Cranz, Gizmodo; I Wanted to Stream Buffy, Angel, and Firefly for Free, But Not Like This

"This is TV that should be accessible to everyone, but Facebook Watch? Really? In order to watch Buffy take on a demon with a rocket launcher you have to be willing to sit there and stare at a video on the Facebook platform—the same place your cousin continues to post Daily Caller Trump videos and that friend from high school shares clips of a Tasty casserole made of butter, four tubes of biscuit dough, baked beans, and a hot dog? The price for complimentary access to three of the best shows produced is bargaining away your data and privacy?

No, thanks.

But Facebook is hoping we’ll all say yes, please. Facebook’s user growth in the U.S. notably hit a wall over the summer and it’s been trying to fix things. It’s also trying to make itself more “sticky,” so people stay on Facebook to get not just family and friend updates and memes, but also the streams and standard videos more commonly found on YouTube. Last year Facebook launched Watch, its YouTube competitor that was, from the start, filled with trash. But things have slowly improved, with the show Sorry for Your Loss gaining rave reviews."

Transcript of Mark Zuckerberg’s Senate hearing; Transcript courtesy of Bloomberg Government via The Washington Post, April 10, 2018

Transcript courtesy of Bloomberg Government via The Washington Post; Transcript of Mark Zuckerberg’s Senate hearing

"SEN. JOHN CORNYN (R-TEX): Thank you, Mr. Zuckerberg, for being here. I know in — up until 2014, a mantra or motto of Facebook was move fast and break things. Is that correct?

ZUCKERBERG: I don't know when we changed it, but the mantra is currently move fast with stable infrastructure, which is a much less sexy mantra.

CORNYN: Sounds much more boring. But my question is, during the time that it was Facebook's mantra or motto to move fast and break things, do you think some of the misjudgments, perhaps mistakes that you've admitted to here, were as a result of that culture or that attitude, particularly as it regards to personal privacy of the information of your subscribers?

ZUCKERBERG: Senator, I do think that we made mistakes because of that. But the broadest mistakes that we made here are not taking a broad enough view of our responsibility. And while that wasn't a matter — the “move fast” cultural value is more tactical around whether engineers can ship things and — and different ways that we operate.

But I think the big mistake that we've made looking back on this is viewing our responsibility as just building tools, rather than viewing our whole responsibility as making sure that those tools are used for good."

Open science: Sharing is caring, but is privacy theft? by David Mehler and Kevin Weiner; PLOS Neuro Community Blog, January 31, 2018

Emilie Reas, PLOS Neuro Community Blog; Open science: Sharing is caring, but is privacy theft? by David Mehler and Kevin Weiner

"As we are actively figuring out the balance between transparency and collaboration in research, we thought it was worth reaching out to six of our colleagues who have thought extensively about OS. We hope that additional scientists will weigh in with further insight regarding this balance not only in human brain mapping, but also in other scientific fields.

Specifically, we asked them: What are the main challenges in moving toward Open Science and how can we meet them? Here are their responses:

Kirstie Whitaker (University of Cambridge, Department of Psychiatry):

“Change is coming. Before we continue, let’s define some terms for potential readers: Open Science is an umbrella term that can mean different things to different people. Open access research allows everyone to learn from scientific work (particularly that paid for by the tax payer). Open educational resources mean we don’t re-invent the wheel when we teach others about our work. Open source materials are ones that allow you to see inside, and improve, the black box. Open dataallows researchers to verify our work, and conduct analyses that could not be carried out by one group alone.

Open Science also means open to everyone. We can use the power of curious non-experts through Citizen Science projects. The Open Neuroimaging Laboratory was a finalist for the Open Science Prizeand sought to “lower the barriers for researchers, students, and citizen scientists to help scientific discovery”. We can look to other neuroscience projects such as Eye Wire and FoldIt for inspiration in the future.

Finally, Open Science means open for all. Whose voices are not currently represented well in our field of study? Who is not advancing to tenured positions? How do we ensure that researchers in the developing world are able to contribute to our quest to understand the human brain? All of the open practices above facilitate the inclusion of under-represented minorities, but it will require ongoing focus and consideration to create an equitable community. That’s my biggest challenge: addressing my implicit (and explicit) biases to ensure we have bigger, better and more diverse ideas in the future.

I would like to live in a world where helping to advance the boundary of scientific knowledge is rewarded through new findings and by confirming (or not) already published results irrespective of who owns the data.”"

Should Open Access And Open Data Come With Open Ethics?; Forbes, July 20, 2017

Kalev Leetaru, Forbes; Should Open Access And Open Data Come With Open Ethics?

"In the end, the academic community must decide if “openness” and “transparency” apply only to the final outputs of our scholarly institutions, with individual researchers, many from fields without histories of ethical prereview, are exclusively empowered to decide what constitutes ethical and moral conduct and just how much privacy should be permitted in our digital society, or if we should add “open ethics” to our focus on open access and open data and open universities up to public discourse on just what the future of “big data” research should look like."

Sleepless Nights for GCs Caused by Regulations and Crisis Management; Inside Counsel, June 22, 2017

Jennifer Williams-Alvarez, Inside Counsel; Sleepless Nights for GCs Caused by Regulations and Crisis Management

"The inaugural "General Counsel Up-at-Night" report looks at responses to an online survey conducted in spring 2017 from more than 200 U.S.-based general counsel and other in-house legal decision-makers.

The results reveal that the most pressing challenges faced by respondents are: regulations and enforcement; privacy and data security; risk and crisis management; litigation; and intellectual property. Among these, the biggest concerns are regulations and enforcement, with 74 percent of respondents identifying this as a very important challenge, followed by privacy and data security with 65 percent and risk and crisis management with 63 percent."

EFF Says No to So-Called “Moral Rights” Copyright Expansion; Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), March 30, 2017

Kerry Sheehan and Kit Walsh, Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF): 

EFF Says No to So-Called “Moral Rights” Copyright Expansion

"The fight over moral rights, particularly the right of Integrity, is ultimately one about who gets to control the meaning of a particular work. If an author can prevent a use they perceive as a “prejudicial distortion” of their work, that author has the power to veto others’ attempts to contest, reinterpret, criticize, or draw new meanings from those works...

A statutory right of attribution could also interfere with privacy protective measures employed by online platforms. Many platforms strip identifying metadata from works on their platforms to protect their users' privacy, If doing so were to trigger liability for violating an author’s right of attribution, platforms would likely be chilled from protecting their users’ privacy in this way.

For centuries, American courts have grappled with how to address harm to reputation without impinging on the freedom of speech guaranteed by the First Amendment. And as copyright’s scope has expanded in recent decades, the courts have provided the safeguards that partially mitigate the harm of overly broad speech regulation."

Second Internet of Things National Institute; American Bar Association, Washington, DC, May 10-11, 2017

Second Internet of Things National Institute

"A game-changer has emerged for businesses, policymakers, and lawyers, and it's called the "Internet of Things" (IoT). It's one of the most transformative and fast-paced technology developments in recent years. Billions of vehicles, buildings, process control devices, wearables, medical devices, drones, consumer/business products, mobile phones, tablets, and other "smart" objects are wirelessly connecting to, and communicating with, each other - and raising unprecedented legal and liability issues.

Recognized as a top new law practice area, and with global spending projected to hit $1.7 trillion by 2020, IoT will require businesses, policymakers, and lawyers (M&A, IP, competition, litigation, health law, IT/outsourcing, and privacy/cybersecurity) to identify and address the escalating legal risks of doing business in a connected world. Join us in Washington, D.C., on May 10 - 11, 2017, for our second IoT National Institute, which will feature:

Overviews and demos of the powerful technology driving the legal and liability issues

Practical guidance and the latest insights on the product liability, mass tort, big data, privacy, data security, intellectual property, cloud, and regulatory issues raised by IoT

Dynamic new additions: a mock trial, a tabletop exercise, a corporate counsel roundtable, and niche issue mini-updates.

Two full days of CLE credit (including ethics credit), plus two breakfasts, two lunches (with keynote speakers), and a cocktail reception.

Our distinguished faculty includes prominent legal and technical experts and thought-leaders from companies, government entities, universities, think-tanks, advocacy organizations, and private practice. Organized by the American Bar Association's Section of Science & Technology Law, the IoT National Institute offers an unparalleled learning and networking opportunity. With billions of devices and trillions of dollars in spending, IoT is a rapidly growing market that everyone wants to get in on."

FAQ: What you need to know, but were afraid to ask, about the EU Open Science Cloud; Science Business, 11/24/16

Science Business Staff, Science Business; FAQ: What you need to know, but were afraid to ask, about the EU Open Science Cloud:

"Will the data in the EU science cloud be available for free?

Some of it, yes; some of it, no. The EU says that not all data ‘will necessarily be free’, due to the legitimate rights of IP holders, so there will be an opportunity for some organisations to sell access to some of their data through the cloud. Private publishers, such as Elsevier and Springer, are also keen to be able to maintain charges for access to some of their services – but have also been unexpectedly enthusiastic about exploring the possible new business models that a very large, very active cloud could permit. On the other hand, some universities and research councils – among the most active proponents of free open access for research reports and text and data mining – are pushing to make the new cloud a tariff-free zone. It’s difficult to predict yet how this issue will be resolved...

What about privacy or ethical concerns?

Differing privacy and ethical policies and regulations in Europe, the US, and elsewhere could become sticking points which would prevent the cloud becoming fully global. There are legal restraints on where research data can be stored – essentially it has to be located in countries, and under the control of organisations, that are subject to EU data protection legislation, and that should make US-based commercial providers a little wary. Rules will need to be established to clarify the roles and responsibilities of the funding agencies, the data custodians, the cloud service providers and the researchers who use cloud-based data. The Commission has said these legal issues will be resolved as part of its broader rule-making efforts under its Digital Single Market – for privacy, copyright, and security of data. But it may not be so simple. The last time science and data rules collided was in 2014/15, when the EU was rewriting its data-privacy regulation; the original, EU-wide proposal would have had an unintended impact on medical research – leading medical universities across the EU to scream loudly that the EU was about to kill drug research. A muddled compromise resulted. Expect similar surprises in cloud regulation."

Berners-Lee raises spectre of weaponized open data; Naked Security, 11/4/16

Bill Camarda, Naked Security; Berners-Lee raises spectre of weaponized open data:

"Whether data is coming from governments or corporations – and whether it’s formally “open” or simply “widely available” like AP’s Twitter feed – it’s increasingly vulnerable to deliberate falsification.

But, for governments and others who believe in the open data movement, it’s no longer enough to protect privacy when they release data, or even to ensure its quality and consistency – already significant challenges.

From now on, they’ll need to protect it against deliberate sabotage, too."

Jonathan Nolan Responds To That Westworld Location Theory; Slashfilm.com, 10/17/16

Peter Sciretta, Slashfilm.com; Jonathan Nolan Responds To That Westworld Location Theory:

Minor spoilers re "Westworld" plot themes

[Kip Currier: Viewers of Season 1 of the popular new HBO series "Westworld"--a reimagined reboot of the 1973 film, based on Michael Crichton's eponymous novel--have increasingly seen the protect-at-all-costs value of Westworld's Intellectual Property, as well as privacy concerns. Showrunners Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy Nolan touch on these issues below:]

"In regards to the computer terminals where the Delos staff communicate to their loved ones back home, [Lisa Joy Nolan] says:

Regardless of where they are, the park is very, very vast, and you don’t rotate home often. You don’t have open communication where you can just pick up a phone. Even senior people have to go to the coms room – because [the park is] protecting their intellectual property. We’re hoping to paint a portrait of the culture of the corporation.

[Jonathan] Nolan (who was a showrunner on Person of Interest, a series about a computer system that could analyze all forms of public and private data to predict the future) seems to be very interested in the aspect of big brother looking in on our communications. As for how it relates to Westworld, he says the Delos corporation wants to protect its intellectual property and the privacy of the park’s guests:

In Westworld, the value of the park is all in its intellectual property, it’s all in the code. So regardless of the park’s location, they would be extremely careful with that code and making sure its virtually impossible to smuggle it out of the park. And there’s the privacy of the guests – you’re not going to have a good time in Westworld if somebody is Instagramming your activities. I’m amazed [th]at [sic] Las Vegas has survived the Instagram age. In episode 2, when the guests come in, we don’t see this, but we assume these guys have cell phones that they’re not allowed to bring in the park. We very much think this is a path where culture may be going – that we’ll get over-exposed and sick of the interconnectedness of our lives that we’ll hunger for places [that offer disconnected privacy]. We’ll hunger for a moment where we can go back toward having some privacy."

Elena Ferrante’s Right to a Pseudonym; Atlantic, 11/15/16

Atlantic; Elena Ferrante’s Right to a Pseudonym:

"Curiously, the United States remains possibly the only country in the world not to recognize an author’s right to be named as the creator of his or her own work, despite huge pressure from authors’ groups and legal experts to do so. American law provides for a limited “right of attribution,” as it is called in the U.S. Copyright Act, but only in relation to works of fine art. Writers, musicians, and creators working in other disciplines have no such right at all. Establishing one would bring the United States into line with the rest of the world—a good thing when creative works literally circulate without borders, and reputations must stand or fall on the global stage.

In Italy, the copyright law says that a pseudonym will be treated as equivalent to the author’s true name, unless (and until) the author chooses to reveal his or her identity. Both the language of the law, and its silences, are arguably significant. In no way is any outsider empowered to reveal an author’s “true” identity when the author has chosen to publish under a pseudonym. Italian law wouldn’t seem to condone a concerted effort such as Gatti’s to uncover Ferrante’s identity."

New York Today: 104 Years Old, and Still Voting; New York Times, 11/8/16

Alexandra S. Levine, New York Times; New York Today: 104 Years Old, and Still Voting:

"On this Election Day, as the presidential campaigns of two New York residents come to an end, another New Yorker — Rose Orbach — plans to do her civic duty and vote — again.

The resident of Bayside, Queens, is 104. She’s voting in her 16th presidential election.

(Stevenson. Kennedy. Johnson. Humphrey. McGovern. Carter, twice. Mondale. Dukakis. Clinton, twice. Gore. Kerry. Obama, twice. You may spot a trend.)

Born in 1911, Mrs. Orbach emigrated from Poland shortly after World War II. She became an American citizen by 1955, and voted in her first presidential election here the following year.

The idea of having and using her voice, without facing persecution, was novel.

“In Poland, it was a whole different system,” she said. “Especially for Jewish people, who weren’t treated like everybody; they were always beneath.”

When she stepped behind the curtain to vote in the 1956 race, things felt different.

“I was one with the people: I was different, I was Jewish, but I pushed the button,” she said. “I had my idea, and I was treated nice no matter what. You had your privacy and you were allowed to think what you wanted to think.”

In her nearly 60 years of living in New York, she has not missed a single presidential election — that’s at a time when more than 100 million Americans who can vote don’t vote.

So exercise your right — it’s one that many people in this world do not have."

Amazon nets patent for mini police drones; SeattlePI.com, 10/28/16

Daniel Demay, SeattlePI.com; Amazon nets patent for mini police drones:

"Forget police body cameras, Amazon was just granted a patent for miniature police shoulder drones.

Amazon Technologies, Inc. was granted a patent Oct. 18 for a device it called an “unmanned aerial vehicle assistant,” aimed at use by police for everything from monitoring situations to finding lost children at the fair.

The miniature drone, shown in patent filing drawings perched on a police officer’s shoulder above their clip-on radio microphone (and only just as wide as the mic), would be voice activated and could detect “distress” commands, among other things, essentially providing a second set of ears and eyes not just for the officer on the ground, but for a central system monitoring data coming from the drone...

The devices, if put into wide use, would no doubt raise new questions about police use of technology, said Shankar Narayan, technology and liberty project director for the America Civil Liberties Union in Seattle. Because the drones would be so small, they might be able to operate in discreet ways, collecting information without the subjects ever being aware, he noted."

Making the Most of Clinical Trial Data; New York Times, 4/12/16

Editorial Board, New York Times; Making the Most of Clinical Trial Data:

"Some researchers may oppose sharing data they have worked hard to gather, or worry that others will analyze it incorrectly. Creating opportunities for collaboration on subsequent analysis may help alleviate these concerns.

Of course, any data sharing must take patients’ privacy into account; patients must be informed before joining a clinical trial that their data may be shared and researchers must ensure that the data cannot be used to identify individuals.

By making data available and supporting analysis, foundations, research institutions and drug companies can increase the benefit of clinical trials and pave the way for new findings that could help patients."

White House tech office to co-host open data roundtables; FedScoop, 3/22/16

Wyatt Kash, FedScoop; White House tech office to co-host open data roundtables:

"The White House Office of Science Technology Policy has unveiled plans to co-host four open data roundtables, with the first to get underway Thursday, as part of a continuing push to advance the use of federal data.

The sessions are expected to bring together a limited number of technical, policy and legal experts from federal agencies, academia and the private sector — and collect input from the public — as part of an effort to accelerate the use of government open data sets, according to an OSTP briefing.

The roundtables, which will be co-hosted and conducted by the Center for Open Data Enterprise, which conducted similar roundtables last year, will focus on four challenges confronting the open data community...