Icelandic Fishing Giant Wins Copyright Case Against Artist; artnet, November 14, 2024

 Jo Lawson-Tancred , artnet; Icelandic Fishing Giant Wins Copyright Case Against Artist

"The work by the artist known as Odee had publicly impersonated Iceland’s biggest fishing company Samherji, issuing a fake apology for its role in the so-called “fishrot” corruption scandal of 2019. In his ruling, the judge described the artwork as “an instrument of fraud, copyright infringement, and malicious falsehood.”

The case never went to trial but the artist said he plans to appeal the judgement. His defenders have argued that any punitive action taken against him could result in a “chilling effect” that discourages artist’s from daring to critique big corporations for fear of legal action.

Samherji sued Odee, the moniker for 41-year-old Icelandic artist Oddur Fridriksson, over We’re Sorry (2023), for which Odee created the website samherji.co.uk, imitating the company’s brand identity. On this platform, he issued the statement: “Samherji Apologizes, Pledges Restitution and Cooperation with Authorities.”

In Samherji’s complaint filed in London’s high court, it accused Odee of trademark infringement and malicious falsehood. The company’s lawyers applied for a summary judgement to avoid a trial."

‘I’m going to sue the living pants off them’: AI’s big legal showdown – and what it means for Dr Strange’s hair; The Guardian, November 6, 2024

 Steve Rose , The Guardian; ‘I’m going to sue the living pants off them’: AI’s big legal showdown – and what it means for Dr Strange’s hair

"“The intersection of generative AI and CGI image creation is the next wave.”

Now that wave is threatening to flood an unprepared industry, washing away jobs and certainties. How do people in the industry feel? To find out, I attended Trojan Horse Was a Unicorn (THU), a digital arts festival near Lisbon in Portugal. Now in its 10th year, THU is a place where young artists entering these industries, some 750 of them, come to meet, get inspired and learn from veterans in their fields: film-makers, animators, VFX wizards, concept artists, games designers. This year, AI is the elephant in the room. Everyone is either talking about it – or avoiding talking about it...

Andre Luis, the 43-year-old CEO and co-founder of THU, acknowledges that “the anxiety is here” at this year’s event, but rather than running away from it, he argues, artists should be embracing it. One of the problems now is that the people eagerly adopting AI are executives and managers. “They don’t understand how to use AI to accelerate creativity,” he says, “or to make things better for everyone, so it’s up to us [the artists] to teach them. You need people who actually are creative to use AI.”

Luis likens generative AI to ultra processed food: it cannot create anything new; it can only reconstitute what’s already there, turning it into an inferior product. “And a lot of companies are trying to make fast food,” he says. Many see AI as a way to churn out quick, cheap content, as opposed to higher quality fare that has been created “organically” over time, with loving human input...

The democratising potential of AI could usher in what Luis calls “a new era of indie” in films, games, TV. Just as digital technology put cameras, editing and graphics tools into the hands of many more people...

“AI is something that is here,” he tells the young creators at THU, “so you need to adapt. See the opportunities, see the problems, but understand that it can help you do things in a different way. You need to ask yourselves, ‘How can I be part of that?’"

Should You Be Allowed to Profit From A.I.-Generated Art?; The New York Times, September 27, 2024

 Kwame Anthony Appiah, The New York Times; Should You Be Allowed to Profit From A.I.-Generated Art?

[Excerpt]

"We attempt to attribute art whenever we can, and anything that’s only for purchase we either avoid or pay for. This particular piece seems to be available only in an Etsy shop, where the creator apparently uses A.I. prompts to generate images. The price is nominal: a few dollars. Yet I cannot help thinking that those who make A.I.-generated art are taking other artists’ work, essentially recreating it and then profiting from it. 

I’m not sure what the best move is...Name Withheld

From the Ethicist:

There’s a sense in which A.I. image generators — such as DALL-E 3, Midjourney and Stable Diffusion — make use of the intellectual property of the artists whose work they’ve been trained on. But the same is true of human artists. The history of art is the history of people borrowing and adapting techniques and tropes from earlier work, with occasional moments of deep originality...

Maybe you’re worried that A.I. image generators will undermine the value of human-made art. Such concerns have a long history. In his classic 1935 essay, ‘‘The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction,’’ the critic Walter Benjamin pointed out that techniques for reproducing artworks have been invented throughout history. In antiquity, the Greeks had foundries for reproducing bronzes; in time, woodcuts were widely used to make multiple copies of images; etching, lithography and photography later added new possibilities. These technologies raised the question of what Benjamin called the ‘‘aura’’ of the individual artwork...

As forms of artificial intelligence grow increasingly widespread, we need to get used to so-called ‘‘centaur’’ models — collaborations between human and machine cognition."

Trump’s other legal problem: Copyright infringement claims; The Washington Post, September 7, 2024

Herb Scribner

 and 

Janay Kingsberry

, The Washington Post; Trump’s other legal problem: Copyright infringement claims

"Music industry experts and copyright law attorneys say the cases, as well as Trump’s decision to continue playing certain songs despite artists’ requests that he desist, underscore the complex legalities of copyright infringement in today’s digital, streaming and licensing era — and could set an important precedent on the of use of popular music in political campaigns."

Artists Score Major Win in Copyright Case Against AI Art Generators; The Hollywood Reporter, August 13, 2024

Winston Cho, The Hollywood Reporter; Artists Score Major Win in Copyright Case Against AI Art Generators

"Artists suing generative artificial intelligence art generators have cleared a major hurdle in a first-of-its-kind lawsuit over the uncompensated and unauthorized use of billions of images downloaded from the internet to train AI systems, with a federal judge allowing key claims to move forward.

U.S. District Judge William Orrick on Monday advanced all copyright infringement and trademark claims in a pivotal win for artists. He found that Stable Diffusion, Stability’s AI tool that can create hyperrealistic images in response to a prompt of just a few words, may have been “built to a significant extent on copyrighted works” and created with the intent to “facilitate” infringement. The order could entangle in the litigation any AI company that incorporated the model into its products."

Record labels sue AI music startups for copyright infringement; WBUR Here & Now, July 8, 2024

 WBUR Here & Now; Record labels sue AI music startups for copyright infringement

"Major record labels including Sony, Universal Music Group and Warner are suing two music startups that use artificial intelligence. The labels say Suno and Udio rely on mass copyright infringement, echoing similar complaints from authors, publishers and artists who argue that generative AI infringes on copyright.

Here & Now's Lisa Mullins discusses the cases with Ina Fried, chief technology correspondent for Axios."

Voice of America (VoA), June 13, 2024

 Matt Dibble, Voice of America (VoA); AI copyright fight turns to disclosing original content

"Artists and other creators say their works have been used to build the multibillion-dollar generative AI industry without any compensation for them. Matt Dibble reports on a proposed U.S. law that would force AI companies to reveal their sources."

Big Tech Launches Campaign to Defend AI Use; The Hollywood Reporter, June 6, 2024

Winston Cho , The Hollywood Reporter; Big Tech Launches Campaign to Defend AI Use

"Chamber of Progress, a tech industry coalition whose members include Amazon, Apple and Meta, is launching a campaign to defend the legality of using copyrighted works to train artificial intelligence systems.

The group says the campaign, called “Generate and Create” and unveiled on Thursday, will aim to highlight “how artists use generative AI to enhance their creative output” and “showcase how AI lowers barriers for producing art” as part of an initiative to “defend the longstanding legal principle of fair use under copyright law.”"

GENERATIVE AI IS CREATING A COPYRIGHT CRISIS FOR ARTISTS; Mind Matters, June 3, 2024

DENYSE O'LEARY, 

Mind Matters; GENERATIVE AI IS CREATING A COPYRIGHT CRISIS FOR ARTISTS

"The problem, Crawford and Schultz say, is that copyright law, as currently framed, does not really protect individuals under these circumstances. That’s not surprising. Copyright dates back to at least 1710 and the issues were very different then.

For one thing, as Jonathan Bartlett pointed out last December, when the New York Times launched a lawsuit for copyright violation against Microsoft and OpenAI, everyone accepted that big search engines have always violated copyright. But if they brought people to your site, while saving and using your content for themselves, you were getting something out of it at least.

But it’s different with generative AI and the chatbot. They use and replace your content. Users are not going back to you for more. OpenAI freely admits that it violates copyright but relies on loopholes to get around legal responsibility.

As the lawsuits pile up, it’s clear that gen AI and chatbots can’t work without these billions of images and texts. So we either do without them or we find a way to compensate the producers."

Adobe gets called out for violating its own AI ethics; Digital Trends, June 3, 2024

  Andrew Tarantola , Digital Trends; Adobe gets called out for violating its own AI ethics

"Last Friday, the estate of famed 20th century American photographer Ansel Adams took to Threads to publicly shame Adobe for allegedly offering AI-genearated art “inspired by” Adams’ catalog of work, stating that the company is “officially on our last nerve with this behavior.”...

Adobe has since removed the offending images, conceding in the Threads conversation that, “this goes against our Generative AI content policy.”

However, the Adams estate seemed unsatisfied with that response, claiming that it had been “in touch directly” with the company “multiple times” since last August. “Assuming you want to be taken seriously re: your purported commitment to ethical, responsible AI, while demonstrating respect for the creative community,” the estate continued, “we invite you to become proactive about complaints like ours, & to stop putting the onus on individual artists/artists’ estates to continuously police our IP on your platform, on your terms.”"

Meet Sarah Beth Morgan: An Animation Artist Drawn to Purpose; Library of Congress Blogs, March 28, 2024

Ashley Tucker , Library of Congress Blogs; Meet Sarah Beth Morgan: An Animation Artist Drawn to Purpose

"Morgan works in the animation field of “motion graphics,” where she brings graphic shapes, typography, and characters to life. She defines her creative style as “playful, quirky, and maybe even a little bit unexpected.” Her most recent animation, Between Lines, is a short film about “the scarring experience of schoolgirl bullying—and the recovery that follows.” The film has received several accolades, including the Audience Award for Animation at the Brooklyn Film Festival as well as Official Selection at Pictoplasma Berlin and the SCAD Savannah Film Festival...

Animation is an example of a motion picture, which is a type of work that can be registered with the U.S. Copyright Office. Motion Pictures are works that contain a series of related images that are intended to be shown with a projector, digital display, or other device. When the images are shown in successive order, they create an impression of movement that is perceptible to the eye. The Copyright Office offers resources on registering a motion picture and provides ways to help grow a creative business in Copyright Registration at a Glance.

Women creators are an essential part of the copyright system, and participating in it allows women artists to benefit economically from their creative works. In 2022, the Copyright Office released a report, Women in the Copyright System: An Analysis of Women Authors in Copyright Registrations from 1978 to 2020. It found that women creators are significantly underrepresented in registrations, especially compared to their participation in copyright-intensive industries, despite an overall positive trend over time...

Sarah Beth Morgan is one of many women who enhance our nation’s creative landscape. The Copyright Office aims to broaden public awareness of what copyright encompasses and how to participate in it. A cornerstone of the Office’s current strategic plan is the advancement of Copyright for All, and the Office is committed to making the copyright system as clear and accessible to as many members of the public as possible, particularly individuals, small businesses, and historically underserved populations."

Tennessee becomes the first state to protect musicians and other artists against AI; NPR, March 22, 2024

  Rebecca Rosman, NPR; Tennessee becomes the first state to protect musicians and other artists against AI

"Tennessee made history on Thursday, becoming the first U.S. state to sign off on legislation to protect musicians from unauthorized artificial intelligence impersonation.

"Tennessee (sic) is the music capital of the world, & we're leading the nation with historic protections for TN artists & songwriters against emerging AI technology," Gov. Bill Lee announced on social media.

The Ensuring Likeness Voice and Image Security Act, or ELVIS Act, is an updated version of the state's old right of publicity law. While the old law protected an artist's name, photograph or likeness, the new legislation includes AI-specific protections."

Stephen Thaler’s Quest to Get His ‘Autonomous’ AI Legally Recognized Could Upend Copyright Law Forever; Art News, January 8, 2024

 Shanti Escalante-De Mattei, Art News; Stephen Thaler’s Quest to Get His  ‘Autonomous’ AI Legally Recognized Could Upend Copyright Law Forever

"Abbott and Thaler’s push for copyright brings up a very basic question for artists today: how do we locate agency and creativity when we make things with machines? When is it our doing, and when is it “theirs”? This question follows the arc of history as humans design increasingly complex tools that work independently of us, even if we designed them and set them into motion. Debates have raged in public forums and in lawsuits regarding to what extent a model like Midjourney can produce genuinely novel images or whether it is just randomly stitching together disparate pixels based on its training data to generate synthetic quasi-originality. But for those who work in machine learning, this process isn’t all that different from how humans work."

AI’s Billion-Dollar Copyright Battle Starts With a Font Designer; Bloomberg Law, December 18, 2023

 Isaiah Poritz, Bloomberg Law; AI’s Billion-Dollar Copyright Battle Starts With a Font Designer

"The makers of Copilot, which include OpenAI Inc., Microsoft Corp., GitHub Inc., and other top AI companies, are now facing nearly a dozen lawsuits from authors, artists, and programmers. They claim the industry has vacuumed up their creative work—without consent or compensation—to train AI chatbots and image generators that are already beginning to replace them.

At the core of these novel cases sits Butterick, a typographer and lawyer hailed by some for leading the fight to holding AI accountable, and slammed by others as a Luddite and an obstacle to transformative technological advances."

Patent Poetry: Judge Throws Out Most of Artists’ AI Copyright Infringement Claims; JD Supra, November 20, 2023

  Adam Philipp, AEON Law, JD Supra; Patent Poetry: Judge Throws Out Most of Artists’ AI Copyright Infringement Claims

"One of the plaintiffs’ theories of infringement was that the output images based on the Training Images are all infringing derivative works.

The court noted that to support that claim the output images would need to be substantially similar to the protected works. However, noted the court,

none of the Stable Diffusion output images provided in response to a particular Text Prompt is likely to be a close match for any specific image in the training data.

The plaintiffs argued that there was no need to show substantial similarity when there was direct proof of copying. The judge was skeptical of that argument.

This is just one of many AI-related cases making its way through the courts, and this is just a ruling on a motion rather than an appellate court decision. Nevertheless, this line of analysis will likely be cited in other cases now pending.

Also, this case shows the importance of artists registering their works with the Copyright Office before seeking to sue for infringement."

Artists may “poison” AI models before Copyright Office can issue guidance; Ars Technica, November 3, 2023

ASHLEY BELANGER , Ars Technica ; Artists may “poison” AI models before Copyright Office can issue guidance

"Rather than rely on opting out of future AI training data sets—or, as OpenAI recommends, blocking AI makers' web crawlers from accessing and scraping their sites in the future—artists are figuring out how to manipulate their images to block AI models from correctly interpreting their content."

The Copyright Battle Over Artificial Intelligence; Hard Fork, The New York Times, November 3, 2023

Kevin Roose and Casey Newton, Hard Fork, The New York Times; The Copyright Battle Over Artificial Intelligence

"President Biden’s new executive order on artificial intelligence has a little bit of everything for everyone concerned about A.I. Casey takes us inside the White House as the order was signed.

Then, Rebecca Tushnet, a copyright law expert, walks us through the latest developments in a lawsuit against the creators of A.I.-image generation tools. She explains why artists may have trouble making the case that these tools infringe on their copyrights."

Judge pares down artists' AI copyright lawsuit against Midjourney, Stability AI; Reuters, October 30, 2023

 Blake Brittain, Reuters; Judge pares down artists' AI copyright lawsuit against Midjourney, Stability AI

"A judge in California federal court on Monday trimmed a lawsuit by visual artists who accuse Stability AI, Midjourney and DeviantArt of misusing their copyrighted work in connection with the companies' generative artificial intelligence systems.

U.S. District Judge William Orrick dismissed some claims from the proposed class action brought by Sarah Andersen, Kelly McKernan and Karla Ortiz, including all of the allegations against Midjourney and DeviantArt. The judge said the artists could file an amended complaint against the two companies, whose systems utilize Stability's Stable Diffusion text-to-image technology." 

Artists, copyright law, and the battle over artificial intelligence; 1A, October 23, 2023

Lauren Hamilton, 1A ; Artists, copyright law, and the battle over artificial intelligence

"Tech companies have spent billions of dollars this year alone investing in the future of generative artificial intelligence.  

Generative AI apps like ChatGPT, Stable  Diffusion and Bard, deliver brand new text, images and code results – of comparable quality to human outputs – from user prompts. 

But have you ever wondered how an AI bot knows how to process a user’s request? 

It gets trained, using millions of data points – like books, poems, photos, illustrations and song lyrics – from all over the internet, including copyrighted material. 

In recent months, several authors have sued companies like Meta and OpenAI, alleging that the companies used their copyrighted works to train their generative AI models, all without permission or compensation.

It’s an issue of concern for many who work creative jobs; from authors, to musicians, voice actors and graphic designers.

What’s to come of the legal battles between creatives and AI companies? What role does copyright law play in shaping the future of artificial intelligence?"

Scraping or Stealing? A Legal Reckoning Over AI Looms; Hollywood Reporter, August 22, 2023

Winston Cho, The Hollywood Reporter ; Scraping or Stealing? A Legal Reckoning Over AI Looms

"Engineers build AI art generators by feeding AI systems, known as large language models, voluminous databases of images downloaded from the internet without licenses. The artists’ suit revolves around the argument that the practice of feeding these systems copyrighted works constitutes intellectual property theft. A finding of infringement in the case may upend how most AI systems are built in the absence of regulation placing guardrails around the industry. If the AI firms are found to have infringed on any copyrights, they may be forced to destroy datasets that have been trained on copyrighted works. They also face stiff penalties of up to $150,000 for each infringement.

AI companies maintain that their conduct is protected by fair use, which allows for the utilization of copyrighted works without permission as long as that use is transformative. The doctrine permits unlicensed use of copyrighted works under limited circumstances. The factors that determine whether a work qualifies include the purpose of the use, the degree of similarity, and the impact of the derivative work on the market for the original. Central to the artists’ case is winning the argument that the AI systems don’t create works of “transformative use,” defined as when the purpose of the copyrighted work is altered to create something with a new meaning or message."