Kate Knibbs, Wired ; OpenAI’s GPT Store Is Triggering Copyright Complaints
"It is easy to find bots in the GPT Store whose descriptions suggest they might be tapping copyrighted content in some way, as Techcrunch noted in a recent article claiming OpenAI’s store was overrun with “spam.” Using copyrighted material without permission is permissable in some contexts but in others rightsholders can take legal action."
LUKE HOGG , Reason; How John Deere Hijacked Copyright Law To Keep You From Tinkering With Your Tractor
"For nearly 25 years, Section 1201 has been hanging over the developers and distributors of tools that give users more control over the products they own. The ways in which John Deere and other corporations have used the copyright system is a glaring example of regulatory capture in action, highlighting the absurdity of a system where owning a product doesn't necessarily convey the right to fully control it. There are certainly circumstances where the manufacturers are justified in protecting their products from tampering, but such cases should be handled through warranty nullification and contract law, not through exorbitant fines and lengthy prison sentences."
Josh Norem , ExtremeTech; Study: 87% of Classic Video Games Are Endangered, Mostly Due to Copyright Laws
"In a perfect world, you'd be able to find these pieces of history at your local library, just like you do for books and movies. According to the study's authors, outdated copyright laws prevent that from happening."
BBC News; How fake copyright complaints are muzzling journalists
"Journalists have been forced to temporarily take down articles critical of powerful oil lobbyists due to the exploitation of US copyright law, according to a new report.
At least five such articles have been subject to fake copyright claims, including one by the respected South African newspaper Mail & Guardian, according to the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP).
The claims - which falsely assert ownership of the stories - have been made by mystery individuals under the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), a law meant to protect copyright holders."
BRIAN CRONIN, CBR ; DeviantArt, Midjourney Face Lawsuit for Using 'Billions of Copyrighted' Images in AI Art
"A lawsuit on behalf of a group of plaintiff artists has been filed in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California against three companies: Stability AI, DeviantArt, and Midjourney, over the alleged infringement of the copyright of the artists in the creation of so-called "artificial intelligence" art."
Ernesto Van der Sar, TorrentFreak; U.S. Copyright Office Consultation Triggers Massive “Upload Filter” Opposition
"Late 2020, Senator Thom Tillis released a discussion draft of the “Digital Copyright Act” (DCA), which aims to be a successor to the current DMCA.
The DCA hints at far-reaching changes to the way online intermediaries approach the piracy problem. Among other things, these services would have to ensure that pirated content stays offline after it’s taken down once.
This “takedown and staydown’ approach relies on technical protection tools, which include upload filters. This is a sensitive subject that previously generated quite a bit of pushback when the EU drafted its Copyright Directive.
To gauge the various options and viewpoints, the Copyright Office launched a series of consultations on the various technical tools that can help to detect and remove pirated content from online platforms.
This effort includes a public consultation where various stakeholders and members of the public were invited to share their thoughts, which they did en masse."
"The US Copyright Office is supposed to balance the interests of copyright owners with the interests of everyone else. However, the Office’s latest regulation, which takes effect 1 December, may be anything but fair and balanced. It could, according to critics, strip Facebook, YouTube, and other online companies of a vital statutory safe harbor, thus making these companies liable when their users post infringing material online. Online companies could face billions in infringement damages, driving them out of business."
"Copyrights: Even in the digital age, you must respect them. Donald Trump Jr.’s controversial Skittles image that was tweeted last week has been taken down after a report from the copyright holder, according to a message that now replaces the photo."
"Taylor Swift, Sir Paul McCartney and U2 are among those set to join the music industry’s increasingly loud battle with the world’s largest music service: YouTube. The musicians hope to plead the case in a series of ads this week that it is time to reform a 17-year-old law known as the Digital Millennium Copyright Act that they believe puts tech giants before musicians. Enacted way back in 1998, the DMCA offers certain protections — sometimes called “safe harbor” — for websites hosting copyrighted content. Under the law, websites like YouTube can serve copyrighted music uploaded by ordinary users so long as the site takes it down when the rights holder asks. In an open letter to be published Tuesday in D.C.-based publications The Hill, Politico and Roll Call, dozens of artists and major record labels call for reforming the DMCA, according to multiple reports. Many major record labels are currently involved in contract renegotiations with YouTube, or will be shortly, meaning the letter will make its debut at a key time. Those same labels believe that the DMCA gives big tech companies like YouTube a leg up in negotiating fees — meaning less revenue is making its way back to music creators. And that doesn’t make artists very happy, either. Music industry executives call that difference between actual profit from user-generated content sites and estimated potential profit a “value gap.” And they’re out to close it."
"THE CALL FOR copyright reform in America has grown so loud that Congress has finally heard it. Lawmakers have ordered a slate of studies to look into how to fix what has become a broken system, and activists are cautiously optimistic that this could be the first step toward reform. The source of the fracture? The Digital Millennium Copyright Act. The DMCA was passed in 1998 as an anti-piracy statute effectively making it illegal to circumvent copy protections designed to prevent pirates from duplicating digital copyrighted works and selling or freely distributing them. It also makes it illegal to manufacture or distribute tools or techniques for circumventing copy controls. But in reality the controversial law’s effects have been much broader by allowing game developers, music and film companies and others to keep a tight control on how consumers use their copyrighted works, preventing them in some cases from making copies of their purchased products for their own use or from jailbreaking smartphones and other devices to use them in ways the manufacturers dislike. The DMCA has two problematic sections: section 1201, which deals with the circumvention of copy-protections, and section 512, which allows a copyright holder to send a so-called takedown notice to web sites and others believed to be infringing a copyright."
"The fight over the Digital Millennium Copyright Act has touched a nerve. The music industry is bracing for what may be a high-wattage lobbying battle reminiscent of the one over the Stop Online Piracy Act, a bill that was abandoned in 2012 after opposition from technology activists and Internet giants like Google and Wikipedia. The copyright law gives “safe harbor” to Internet service providers that host third-party material. While music groups criticize the law, some legal scholars and policy specialists say any change to it would need to be considered carefully, particularly to preserve protections like fair use. “Anything that rewrites the D.M.C.A. isn’t just going to affect YouTube,” said James Grimmelmann, a law professor at the University of Maryland. “It is going to affect blogs. It is going to affect fan sites. It is going to affect places for game creators and documentarians and all kinds of others.” In December, the United States Copyright Office asked for comments about D.M.C.A. as part of a review of the law, and filings by record companies show how laborious copyright policing can be."
