Jonathan Limehouse, USA TODAY; The beats go on: Trump keeps dancing as artists get outraged over his use of their songs
"Here are some of the songs that have created issues for Trump on the campaign trail, and how music copyright laws impact these claims."
"In 1908, the Supreme Court ruled that “piano rolls,” a new and increasingly popular technology that automatically played songs without a human musician, didn’t violate copyright law—a blow to the music industry. Songwriters and composers felt their livelihoods threatened but had no grounds to demand royalties from piano-roll makers that copied their sheet music.
That was until Congress stepped in the following year, amending the law to address piano rolls and ensure musicians were paid royalties.
More than a century later, musicians—along with other creatives—are yet again fearful an emerging technology could disrupt their industries: artificial intelligence."
Tom Howell Jr. , The Washington Times ; AI starts a music-making revolution and plenty of noise about ethics and royalties
"“Music’s important. AI is changing that relationship. We need to navigate that carefully,” said Martin Clancy, an Ireland-based expert who has worked on chart-topping songs and is the founding chairman of the IEEE Global AI Ethics Arts Committee...
The Biden administration, the European Union and other governments are rushing to catch up with AI and harness its benefits while controlling its potentially adverse societal impacts. They are also wading through copyright and other matters of law.
Even if they devise legislation now, the rules likely will not go into effect for years. The EU recently enacted a sweeping AI law, but it won’t take effect until 2025.
“That’s forever in this space, which means that all we’re left with is our ethical decision-making,” Mr. Clancy said.
For now, the AI-generated music landscape is like the Wild West. Many AI-generated songs are hokey or just not very good."
Peter Coy, The New York Times; The Patent Fight That Could Take Apple Watches Off the Market
"Masimo argues that Apple’s reputation for innovation is undeserved and that the company has made a practice of “efficient infringement” — using other companies’ technologies without permission and dealing with the legal fallout as necessary. The company points to something that Steve Jobs, Apple’s co-founder, said in 1996: “Picasso had a saying. He said, ‘Good artists copy; great artists steal.’ And we have, you know, always been shameless about stealing great ideas.”
Apple, of course, rejects this characterization and says the company respects other companies’ intellectual property. In Apple’s defense, it’s fair to assume that Jobs was speaking metaphorically, and not copping to a crime, when he said that the company stole."
Nilay Patel,, The Verge; Google and YouTube are trying to have it both ways with AI and copyright
"There’s only one name that springs to mind when you think of the cutting edge in copyright law online: Frank Sinatra.
There’s nothing more important than making sure his estate — and his label, Universal Music Group — gets paid when people do AI versions of Ol’ Blue Eyes singing “Get Low” on YouTube, right? Even if that means creating an entirely new class of extralegal contractual royalties for big music labels just to protect the online dominance of your video platform while simultaneously insisting that training AI search results on books and news websites without paying anyone is permissible fair use? Right? Right?
This, broadly, is the position that Google is taking after announcing a deal with Universal Music Group yesterday “to develop an AI framework to help us work toward our common goals.” Google is signaling that it will pay off the music industry with special deals that create brand-new — and potentially devastating! — private intellectual property rights, while basically telling the rest of the web that the price of being indexed in Search is complete capitulation to allowing Google to scrape data for AI training."
TOM BREIHAN, Stereogum; Grimes Endorses AI Songs And “Killing Copyright”
"Earlier this month, an anonymous TikTok user shared a song called “Heart On My Sleeve,” which featured AI-generated vocals that sounded like Drake and the Weeknd. The song was pulled from streaming services for copyright infringement, but not before it racked up millions of plays. Plenty of people find this uncanny-valley thing to be weird and creepy, but Grimes is into it.
Last night on Twitter, Grimes posted a screenshot of a New York Times article about the fake Drake/Weeknd song, and she tweeted that she wants people to try to use her voice for AI purposes: “I’ll split 50% royalties on any successful AI generated song that uses my voice. Same deal as I would with any artist i collab with. Feel free to use my voice without penalty. I have no label and no legal bindings… I think it’s cool to be fused w a machine and I like the idea of open sourcing all art and killing copyright.""
BILL DONAHUE, Billboard; Cher’s Royalties Lawsuit Against Sonny Bono’s Widow Can Move Forward, Judge Says
"Sonny and Cher started performing together in 1964 and married in 1967, rising to fame with major hits like “I Got You Babe,” “The Beat Goes On” and “Baby Don’t Go.” But the pair split up in 1974, finalizing their divorce with a settlement agreement in 1978. Under that deal, Sonny retained ownership of their music rights, but Cher was granted a half-share of all royalties.
Bono died in 1998 as the result of a skiing accident, leaving Mary in control of those copyrights. And in 2016, she invoked the termination right — a provision of the federal Copyright Act that allows creators or their heirs to win back control of rights they signed away decades prior. Mary sent such notices to Sonny and Cher’s publishers, taking back full control of those copyrights.
Five years later, Cher filed her lawsuit — seeking a ruling that the divorce agreement was still in effect and that she was still owed her 50% cut of royalties, regardless of who owns the copyrights now. Mary then fired back a few months later, arguing that the case should be dismissed. Her lawyers said that termination rights were designed to trump all preexisting agreements, including a divorce agreement.
“Cher’s position would subvert Congress’ intent in enacting the copyright termination provisions: to ensure that authors and authors’ heirs, not grantees or ex-spouses, would benefit from the extended term of copyright,” Bono’s attorneys wrote in December 2021."
Nathan Prewett, Selma Sun; Freedom Quilting Bee Legacy offering workshop on copyright in Alberta on Jan. 16
"Freedom Quilting Bee Legacy is offering a workshop for quilting artists and other artist on copyright on Jan. 16 from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m.
"The workshop is designed for local and regional artists to learn about copyright and intellectual property, licensing, advocacy and artist representation," said a flyer for the event."
"Additionally, participants will learn about the legal concerns of artists' rights for planning for estates and/or incapacity, rights and royalties in the State of Alabama."
The fee for the workshop is $15 and includes lunch. To register, call 334-573-2065."
, The Washington Post ; Want to borrow that e-book from the library? Sorry, Amazon won’t let you.
"Central to the latest dispute between Apple and Nokia is what is a fair and reasonable fee to use Nokia technology that is now part of every smartphone. Patent lawyers say there has been a tradition of charging a modest royalty for patents on standard technologies. Previously, Nokia fought bitter legal battles with other smartphone makers, including Samsung and LG, over how they used its patents. As Nokia seeks to require Apple to pay to license more of its patents, some of its recent claims may be hard to justify. In one of its lawsuits filed on Wednesday, it says Apple is violating a patent Nokia received two months ago for an electronic device case that includes a hole for a camera lens in the back and room for a battery beneath the display, features that have been common to smartphones for many years. Still, Mr. Roberts said American courts have been skeptical of patent-related antitrust claims like those by Apple. “The whole point of the government granting these patents is that it was giving the inventor a monopoly over that invention,” he said. But Apple and Nokia are fighters, and too much is at stake for either to give up easily. “What is a fair return on technology that has been shared with everyone?” Mr. Brismark of Ericsson said. “You have to create the right incentives for tech pioneers.”"
"This week, the biggest science-patent dispute in decades is getting a hearing at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office headquarters. The invention in dispute is the gene-editing technique CRISPR, and at stake are millions, maybe even billions, of dollars for the winning side. CRISPR is the hugely hyped technology that could launch life-saving therapies, novel genetically modified crops, new forms of mosquito control, and more. It could—without much exaggeration—change the world. Any company that wants to use CRISPR will have to license it from the patent dispute’s winner. Both parties embroiled in this fight are universities: MIT and the University of California, Berkeley, whose lawyers represent rival groups of scientists with claims to have first invented CRISPR. The Berkeley group published their work and filed for a patent first, by a few months—but the patent office ended up awarding a patent to the MIT group, due to some complicated procedural rules. The legal and scientific details of the dispute get pretty arcane pretty fast, but you can read some excellent reporting here, here, and here."
"Most memorable was the ad campaign, begun in 1974, in which actual customers tried to recite the ingredients in a Big Mac, with comic results, before a chorus jumped in and smoothly sang the now-famous jingle. “It wasn’t like discovering the light bulb,” Mr. Delligatti told John F. Love, the author of “McDonald’s: Behind the Arches” (1986). “The bulb was already there. All I did was screw it in the socket.”... ...[T]he sales remain huge, leading many to believe that Mr. Delligatti, as its inventor, must have reaped a windfall worth billions. Not so. “All I got was a plaque,” he told The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette in 2007."
"This week in Los Angeles federal court, a jury began hearing evidence and testimony on whether rock band Led Zeppelin may have lifted part of their iconic song, “Stairway to Heaven.” At stake is the band’s reputation and millions of dollars. NewsHour Weekend’s Phil Hirschkorn reports."
"Fair use is apparently the last refuge of a scofflaw. Following on the heels of a Sony rep's assertion that people could avail themselves of fair use for the right price, here comes the New York Times implying fair use not only does not exist, but that it runs more than $6/word. Obtaining formal permission to use three quotations from New York Times articles in a book ultimately cost two professors $1,884. They’re outraged, and have taken to Kickstarter — in part to recoup the charges, but primarily, they say, to “protest the Times’ and publishers’ lack of respect for Fair Use.” These professors used quotes from other sources in their book about press coverage of health issues, but only the Gray Lady stood there with her hand out, expecting nearly $2,000 in exchange for three quotes totalling less than 300 words. The professors paid, but the New York Times "policy" just ensures it will be avoided by others looking to source quotes for their publications. The high rate it charges (which it claims is a "20% discount") for fair use of its work will be viewed by others as proxy censorship. And when censorship of this sort rears its head, most people just route around it. Other sources will be sought and the New York Times won't be padding its bottom line with ridiculous fees for de minimis use of its articles. The authors' Kickstarter isn't so much to pay off the Times, but more to raise awareness of the publication's unwillingness to respect fair use."
"Unfortunately, there is a sad history of undervaluing musicians in the United States. Terrestrial radio, a $17 billion industry, pays publishing rights (payments to songwriters) but has never paid artists or record companies for music. In addition, the satellite radio company, SiriusXM, pays below-market royalties, thanks to a giveaway it first wrested from Congress 20 years ago. Conglomerates like iHeartMedia (formerly Clear Channel Communications) and other online services like Pandora, which are required to pay artists for digital streams, have exploited federal copyright law to deny payments for work recorded before 1972 (songwriters are paid; performers are not). This means artists like Aretha Franklin, Ella Fitzgerald, Chuck Berry and John Coltrane never received a dime from AM/FM radio and or from many digital services for some of their greatest music. The last meaningful legislation in this area was the Digital Millennium Copyright Act in 1998, which was based on the idea that creators should monitor the Internet for illegal copies of their works and give “notice” to websites and services to take pirated material down. Under the act’s “safe harbor” provisions, any service or site that makes a minimal effort to address these notices is immune from liability for piracy or theft."
"New York's highest court has agreed to rule on a case pitting the owner of The Turtles' 1967 hit "Happy Together" against Sirius XM Radio. The issue is whether the copyright owners of recordings made before 1972 have a common law right to make radio stations and others pay for their use."
