The Intercept, Raw Story and AlterNet sue OpenAI for copyright infringement; The Guardian, February 28, 2024

Nick Robins-Early, The Guardian ; The Intercept, Raw Story and AlterNet sue OpenAI for copyright infringement

"OpenAI and Microsoft are facing a fresh round of lawsuits from news publishers over allegations that their generative artificial intelligence products violated copyright laws and illegally trained by using journalists’ work. Three progressive US outlets – the Intercept, Raw Story and AlterNet – filed suits in Manhattan federal court on Wednesday, demanding compensation from the tech companies.

The news outlets claim that the companies in effect plagiarized copyright-protected articles to develop and operate ChatGPT, which has become OpenAI’s most prominent generative AI tool. They allege that ChatGPT was trained not to respect copyright, ignores proper attribution and fails to notify users when the service’s answers are generated using journalists’ protected work."

George Santos sues Jimmy Kimmel for copyright infringement over Cameo videos used on his show; BoingBoing, February 18, 2024

 ROB BESCHIZZA, BoingBoing; George Santos sues Jimmy Kimmel for copyright infringement over Cameo videos used on his show

"George Santos, the disgraced Republican lawmaker and alleged criminal finally ejected from Congress as he awaits trial, is suing late-night host Jimmy Kimmel. Santos takes money to say what you like on the video platform Cameo; Kimmel paid him to say ridiculous things that were then broadcast on his show."

No Fair Use for Photo Used Without Required Attribution; The National Law Review, February 15, 2024

Timothy M. Dunker of McDermott Will & Emery, The National Law Review; No Fair Use for Photo Used Without Required Attribution

"The US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit concluded that the copyright on a photograph of an entertainment icon was the subject of a valid copyright registration and that use of the photograph in an article missing the author’s required attribution language was not otherwise “fair use.” Philpot v. Independent Journal Review, Case No. 21-2021 (4th Cir. Feb. 6, 2024) (King, Wynn, Rushing, JJ.)

Larry Philpot, a professional concert photographer, photographed Ted Nugent at a concert in July 2013. In August 2013, Philpot registered the photograph with the US Copyright Office and published the photograph on Wiki Commons under a Creative Commons License specifying that anyone could use the photograph for free as long as they provided the following attribution: “Photo Credit: Larry Philpot of www.soundstagephotography.com.”"

The Death of the Litmus Test; Chicago-Kent Intellectual Property Journal, December 20, 2023

Dale Cendali, Abbey Quigley , Chicago-Kent Intellectual Property Journal; The Death of the Litmus Test

The New York Times’ AI copyright lawsuit shows that forgiveness might not be better than permission; The Conversation, February 13, 2024

Peter Vaughan, Senior Lecturer, Nottingham Law School, Nottingham Trent University, The Conversation; ; The New York Times’ AI copyright lawsuit shows that forgiveness might not be better than permission

"The lawsuit also presents a novel argument – not advanced by other, similar cases – that’s related to something called “hallucinations”, where AI systems generate false or misleading information but present it as fact. This argument could in fact be one of the most potent in the case.

The NYT case in particular raises three interesting takes on the usual approach. First, that due to their reputation for trustworthy news and information, NYT content has enhanced value and desirability as training data for use in AI. 

Second, that due to its paywall, the reproduction of articles on request is commercially damaging. Third, that ChatGPT “hallucinations” are causing reputational damage to the New York Times through, effectively, false attribution. 

This is not just another generative AI copyright dispute. The first argument presented by the NYT is that the training data used by OpenAI is protected by copyright, and so they claim the training phase of ChatGPT infringed copyright. We have seen this type of argument run before in other disputes."

How AI copyright lawsuits could make the whole industry go extinct; The Verge, February 15, 2024

Nilay Patel, The Verge ; How AI copyright lawsuits could make the whole industry go extinct

"Our new Thursday episodes of Decoder are all about deep dives into big topics in the news, and for the next few weeks, we’re going to stay focused on one of the biggest topics of all: generative AI. 

There’s a lot going on in the world of generative AI, but maybe the biggest is the increasing number of copyright lawsuits being filed against AI companies like OpenAI and Stability AI. So for this episode, we brought on Verge features editor Sarah Jeong, who’s a former lawyer just like me, and we’re going to talk about those cases and the main defense the AI companies are relying on in those copyright cases: an idea called fair use."

How to Think About Remedies in the Generative AI Copyright Cases; LawFare, February 15, 2024

 Pamela Samuelson, LawFare; How to Think About Remedies in the Generative AI Copyright Cases

"So far, commentators have paid virtually no attention to the remedies being sought in the generative AI copyright complaints. This piece shines a light on them."

Judge rejects most ChatGPT copyright claims from book authors; Ars Technica, February 13, 2024

 ASHLEY BELANGER, Ars Technica; Judge rejects most ChatGPT copyright claims from book authors

"A US district judge in California has largely sided with OpenAI, dismissing the majority of claims raised by authors alleging that large language models powering ChatGPT were illegally trained on pirated copies of their books without their permission."

AI and inventorship guidance: Incentivizing human ingenuity and investment in AI-assisted inventions; United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), February 12, 2024

Kathi Vidal, Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the USPTO, United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) ; Director's Blog: the latest from USPTO leadership

AI and inventorship guidance: Incentivizing human ingenuity and investment in AI-assisted inventions

"Today, based on the exceptional public feedback we’ve received, we announced our Inventorship Guidance for AI-Assisted Inventions in the Federal Register – the first of these directives. The guidance, which is effective on February 13, 2024, provides instructions to examiners and stakeholders on how to determine whether the human contribution to an innovation is significant enough to qualify for a patent when AI also contributed. The guidance embraces the use of AI in innovation and provides that AI-assisted inventions are not categorically unpatentable. The guidance instructs examiners on how to determine the correct inventor(s) to be named in a patent or patent application for inventions created by humans with the assistance of one or more AI systems. Additionally, we’ve posted specific examples of hypothetical situations and how the guidance would apply to those situations to further assist our examiners and applicants in their understanding."

Inventorship guidance for AI-assisted inventions webinar; United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), March 5, 2024 1 PM - 2 PM ET

United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) ; Inventorship guidance for AI-assisted inventions webinar

"The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) plays an important role in incentivizing and protecting innovation, including innovation enabled by artificial intelligence (AI), to ensure continued U.S. leadership in AI and other emerging technologies (ET).

The USPTO announced Inventorship Guidance for AI-Assisted Inventions in the Federal Register. This guidance is pursuant to President Biden's Executive Order 14110 on the Safe, Secure, and Trustworthy Development and Use of Artificial Intelligence (October 30, 2023) with provisions addressing IP equities. The guidance, which is effective on February 13, 2024, provides instructions to USPTO personnel and stakeholders on determining the correct inventor(s) to be named in a patent or patent application for inventions created by humans with the assistance of one or more AI systems. 

The USPTO will host a webinar on Inventorship Guidance for AI-Assisted Inventions on Tuesday, March 5, from 1-2 p.m. EST. USPTO personnel will provide an overview of the guidance and answer stakeholder questions relating to the guidance.

This event is free and open to the public, but virtual space is limited, so please register early."

On Copyright, Creativity, and Compensation; Reason, February 12, 2024

DAVID POST, Reason; On Copyright, Creativity, and Compensation

"Some of you may have seen the article by David Segal in the Sunday NY Times several weeks ago [available here] about a rather sordid copyright fracas in which I have been embroiled over the past few months...

What to make of all this? I am not oblivious to the irony of being confronted with this problem after having spent 30 years or so, as a lawyer and law professor, reflecting on and writing about the many mysteries of copyright policy and copyright law in the Internet Age.

Here are a few things that strike me as interesting (and possibly important) in this episode."

EU countries strike deal on landmark AI rulebook; Politico, February 2, 2024

 GIAN VOLPICELLI, Politico ; EU countries strike deal on landmark AI rulebook

"European Union member countries on Friday unanimously reached a deal on the bloc’s Artificial Intelligence Act, overcoming last-minute fears that the rulebook would stifle European innovation.

EU deputy ambassadors green-lighted the final compromise text, hashed out following lengthy negotiations between representatives of the Council, members of the European Parliament and European Commission officials...

Over the past few weeks, the bloc’s top economies Germany and France, alongside Austria, hinted that they might oppose the text in Friday’s vote...

Eventually, the matter was resolved through the EU’s familiar blend of PR offensive and diplomatic maneuvering. The Commission ramped up the pressure by announcing a splashy package of pro-innovation measures targeting the AI sector, and in one fell swoop created the EU’s Artificial Intelligence Office — a body tasked with enforcing the AI Act...

A spokesperson for German Digital Minister Volker Wissing, the foremost AI Act skeptic within Germany’s coalition government, told POLITICO: "We asked the EU Commission to clarify that the AI Act does not apply to the use of AI in medical devices.".

A statement the European Commission, circulated among EU diplomats ahead of the vote and seen by POLITICO, reveals plans to set up an “expert group” comprising  EU member countries’ authorities. The group’s function will be to “ advise and assist” the Commission in applying and implementing the AI Act...

The AI Act still needs the formal approval of the European Parliament. The text is slated to get rubber-stamped at the committee level in two weeks, with a plenary vote expected in April."

This AI Model Is Trained On Public Domain Stills To Create Mickey Mouse Images; Cartoon Brew, February 5, 2024

JAMIE LANG, Cartoon Brew ; This AI Model Is Trained On Public Domain Stills To Create Mickey Mouse Images

"In the comments section of an article about Mickey-1928 published by Ars Technica, Langlais explained that he’s aware of the line his model may be crossing by using Stable Diffusion and says that the public domain might provide a lot of answers to the ethical and legal questions raised by the emergence of AI tech:

I do agree with the issues of using a model trained on copyrighted content. I’m currently part of a new project to train a French LLM on public domain/open science/free culture sources, not only out of concern for author rights but also to enforce better standards of reproducibility and data provenance in the field. I’m hoping to see similar efforts on diffusion models this year. My general impression is that the copyright extension terms have made impossible an obvious solution to the AI copyright problem: having AI models trained openly on 20th century culture, and thus creating powerful incentives to digitize newspapers, books, movies for the commons."

Under the Bridge | The Rise of Copyright Trolls in the Intellectual Property Space; JDSupra, February 6, 2024

Lindsey Mead, Mikhail Murshak, oster Swift Collins & Smith, JDSupra ; Under the Bridge | The Rise of Copyright Trolls in the Intellectual Property Space

"Through tactical litigation practices, copyright trolls rely on copyright law to allege infringement and threaten major statutory damages upon unsuspecting defendants. The term “copyright troll” is an unflattering nickname for someone who manipulates the intellectual property (“IP”) laws to force a “toll” by way of a settlement payout on market participants...

There is hope in the IP legal field that greater copyright protections may come due to the soaring presence of copyright trolls. Notably, there is a pending copyright case before the United States Supreme Court, Warner Chappell Music, Inc. v. Nealy, that will be heard on February 21, 2024. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (“EFF”) has chosen to submit an amicus brief in support of the defendants accused of copyright infringement in that case. Within the brief, EFF alleges that copyright trolling imposes unnecessary costs on affected defendants and limits the exercise of creativity."

Study: Digital watermarks and AI will expedite copyright cases; Scottish Legal News, February 5, 2024

Scottish Legal News; Study: Digital watermarks and AI will expedite copyright cases

"The study was carried out by Professor James Griffin from the University of Exeter Law School and others. Researchers applied an existing AI system to copyright case law, to see how it could read and understand cases and produce outcomes in disputes concerning 3D printing. They found more complex watermarks will lead to faster and more accurate resolutions."

European Publishers Praise New EU AI Law; Publishers Weekly, February 2, 2024

 Ed Nawotka, Publishers Weekly; European Publishers Praise New EU AI Law

"The Federation of European Publishers (FEP) was quick to praise the passage of new legislation by the European Union that, among its provisions, requires "general purpose AI companies" to respect copyright law and have policies in place to this effect.

FEP officials called the EU Artificial Intelligence (AI) Act, which passed on February 2, the "world’s first concrete regulation of AI," and said that the legislation seeks to "ensure the ethical and human-centric development of this technology and prevent abusive or illegal practices law, which also demands transparency about what data is being used in training the models.""

The economy and ethics of AI training data; Marketplace.org, January 31, 2024

 Matt Levin, Marketplace.org;  The economy and ethics of AI training data

"Maybe the only industry hotter than artificial intelligence right now? AI litigation. 

Just a sampling: Writer Michael Chabon is suing Meta. Getty Images is suing Stability AI. And both The New York Times and The Authors Guild have filed separate lawsuits against OpenAI and Microsoft. 

At the heart of these cases is the allegation that tech companies illegally used copyrighted works as part of their AI training data. 

For text focused generative AI, there’s a good chance that some of that training data originated from one massive archive: Common Crawl. 

“Common Crawl is the copy of the internet. It’s a 17-year archive of the internet. We make this freely available to researchers, academics and companies,” said Rich Skrenta, who heads the nonprofit Common Crawl Foundation."

‘Please let me get what I want’: can artists stop politicians from using their songs?; The Guardian, January 30, 2024

Matthew Cantor , The Guardian; ‘Please let me get what I want’: can artists stop politicians from using their songs?

"How much power do artists actually have in this scenario? It depends on the circumstances, says Ben Depoorter, a professor at University of California Law San Francisco. In the US, licensing companies including Ascap and BMI manage copyright issues on behalf of artists. Generally, venues like convention centers have their own licenses with these companies, meaning that, broadly speaking, the venues can play whatever they want.

However, the rules are a little different when a third party is involved. When a candidate “walks on and they play music, that is actually not covered by the standard license of the venue”, Depoorter says. Political campaigns often don’t realize that they need their own music licenses, under which musicians can opt out of having their music played. “When these authors are saying, ‘Hey, I don’t want him to play my music any more,’ it’s actually a legal right they have,” Depoorter explains."