KAREN GULLO , EFF; Victory! Embedded Links to Photos on Instagram Don’t Infringe Photographers’ Copyrights, Court Rules
"The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, in a ruling published this week, made clear that linking does not constitute infringement, and kept in place an important test to determine under what circumstances entities can be held liable for displaying copyrighted content online."
Melissa Heikkilä, MIT Technology Review; How judges, not politicians, could dictate America’s AI rules
"It’s becoming increasingly clear that courts, not politicians, will be the first to determine the limits on how AI is developed and used in the US."
Nathaniel Bach, Monica Kulkarni, Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, LLP , JD Supra; Five Takeaways From the U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Intellectual Property’s AI and Copyright Hearing
"On July 12, 2023, the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary’s Subcommittee on Intellectual Property held its second hearing on artificial intelligence (AI) and intellectual property (IP). The first hearing, held on June 7, 2023, focused on AI’s implications for patent law, while this second hearing centered on copyright issues. Hearing participants, both senators and witnesses, seemed to recognize that the industry needs to strike a balance between promoting AI innovation and protecting creators’ rights, particularly in the context of training generative AI models using data gathered from the Internet. While opinions on the means to achieve that end certainly differed across witnesses—who ranged from the head of public policy at Stability AI to a concept artist—the general consensus was that more clarity on the federal level regarding how to protect creators’ rights would be beneficial to stakeholders across the board...
Accordingly, the senators focused their questioning on mainly five topics, providing a glimpse of what potential federal legislation could look like:..."
Rebecca Robbins and ; How a Drug Maker Profited by Slow-Walking a Promising H.I.V. Therapy
"Gilead, one of the world’s largest drugmakers, appeared to be embracing a well-worn industry tactic: gaming the U.S. patent system to protect lucrative monopolies on best-selling drugs...
Gilead ended up introducing a version of the new treatment in 2015, nearly a decade after it might have become available if the company had not paused development in 2004. Its patents now extend until at least 2031.
The delayed release of the new treatment is now the subject of state and federal lawsuits in which some 26,000 patients who took Gilead’s older H.I.V. drugs claim that the company unnecessarily exposed them to kidney and bone problems."
Cat Zakrzewski, The Washington Post; Top tech firms sign White House pledge to identify AI-generated images
"The White House on Friday announced that seven of the most influential companies building artificial intelligence have agreed to a voluntary pledge to mitigate the risks of the emerging technology, escalating the Biden administration’s involvement in the growing debate over AI regulation.]
The companies — which include Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Meta and Chat GPT-maker OpenAI — vowed to allow independent security experts to test their systems before they are released to the public and committed to sharing data about the safety of their systems with the government and academics.
The firms also pledged to develop systems to alert the public when an image, video or text is created by artificial intelligence, a method known as “watermarking.”
In addition to the tech giants, several newer businesses at the forefront of AI development signed the pledge, including Anthropic and Inflection. (Amazon founder Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post. Interim CEO Patty Stonesifer sits on Amazon’s board.)"
Kaamil Ahmed, The Guardian ; Cheaper TB drugs for millions after global deal on patent rights agreed
"Pharmaceutical giant Johnson & Johnson has struck a deal to allow generic versions of its tuberculosis drug to be supplied to low-income countries – but the deal has been criticised for not going far enough to end the company’s monopoly on global supplies of bedaquiline.
The global patent of the drug ends on Tuesday 18 July, but in a number of countries Johnson & Johnson continues to control the market with secondary patents – for which small modifications are made to a product to extend a patent.
J&J’s decision will allow the Stop TB Partnership coalition to procure and supply generic bedaquiline to 44 low- and middle-income countries through its Global Drug Facility (GDF)."
Dan Milmo , The Guardian; Llama 2: why is Meta releasing open-source AI model and are there any risks?
"Are there concerns about open-source AI?
Tech professionals including Elon Musk, a co-founder of OpenAI, have expressed concerns about an AI arms race. Open-sourcing makes a powerful tool in this technology available to all.
Dame Wendy Hall, regius professor of computer science at the University of Southampton, told the Today programme there were questions over whether the tech industry could be trusted to self-regulate LLMs, with the problem looming even larger for open-source models. “It’s a bit like giving people a template to build a nuclear bomb,” she said.
Dr Andrew Rogoyski, of the Institute for People-Centred AI at the University of Surrey, said open-source models were difficult to regulate. “You can’t really regulate open source. You can regulate the repositories, like Github or Hugging Face, under local legislation,” he said.
“You can issue licence terms on the software that, if abused, could make the abusing company liable under various forms of legal redress. However, being open source means anyone can get their hands on it, so it doesn’t stop the wrong people grabbing the software, nor does it stop anyone from misusing it.”"
Blake Brittain, Reuters; US judge finds flaws in artists' lawsuit against AI companies
"U.S. District Judge William Orrick said during a hearing in San Francisco on Wednesday that he was inclined to dismiss most of a lawsuit brought by a group of artists against generative artificial intelligence companies, though he would allow them to file a new complaint.
Orrick said that the artists should more clearly state and differentiate their claims against Stability AI, Midjourney and DeviantArt, and that they should be able to "provide more facts" about the alleged copyright infringement because they have access to Stability's relevant source code."
Blake Brittain, Reuters ; Taco Bell wins 'Taco Tuesday' trademark dispute with rival chain
"Yum Brands' (YUM.N) Taco Bell prevailed on Tuesday in its self-described bid to "liberate" the phrase "Taco Tuesday," as competing fast-food chain Taco John's told the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) it would abandon its federal "Taco Tuesday" trademark.
Taco Bell had asked the USPTO in May to cancel the trademark, calling it a common phrase that Taco John's had monopolized unfairly in the restaurant industry."
Alison Frankel, Reuters; Instagram dodges photographers' copyright claims on appeal – but case likely continues
"A class of photographers whose Instagram photos were embedded by other websites failed on Monday to convince a three-judge panel at the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to set aside controversial precedent in order to hold Instagram liable for copyright infringement.
But the panel also said that the photographers had raised “serious and well argued” policy concerns about copyright holders’ ability to control and profit from their work. If lead plaintiffs Alexis Hunley and Matthew Scott Brauer want to challenge the precedent that controlled the outcome of this case, the panel said, they should petition the 9th Circuit for an en banc rehearing."
Nora Scheland, Library of Congress, Copyright Creativity at Work; The Copyright Office Hears from Stakeholders on Important Issues with AI and Copyright
"Over the past two months, the Copyright Office hosted four public, virtual listening sessions on the use of artificial intelligence to generate creative works. The listening sessions focused on literary works, including print journalism and software; visual arts; audiovisual works, including video games; and music and sound recordings. Artists, creators, AI developers, researchers, lawyers, academics, and more shared their goals, concerns, and experiences related to the use and impact of generative AI.
As we look back on four vibrant sessions, we wanted to share some highlights for those who were not able to join live.
Register of Copyrights Shira Perlmutter opened the first listening session, on literary works, with a set of guiding questions for all four sessions: “How does current law apply? Should it be changed? [H]ow will the copyright community, from creators to users, be impacted?” She also reminded the audience that the Copyright Office plays a role “both in addressing practical concerns and in advising on policy.”
Following Register Perlmutter’s introductory remarks, participants spoke on two consecutive panels in which they articulated a wide-ranging set of perspectives.
The remaining listening sessions followed a similar format, and some included additional opportunities for comments without further discussion. Copyright Office staff moderated the listening sessions, and Associate Register of Copyrights and Director of Policy and International Affairs Maria Strong and General Counsel and Associate Register of Copyrights Suzy Wilson each made remarks.
At the final listening session, Register Perlmutter observed some of the themes of the series, including that
Throughout all four listening sessions, the Office heard from a broad and diverse group of stakeholders, experts, and creatives, including some who do not typically participate in Office roundtables. Among the speakers were a professor of computer and information science; several Academy Award-nominated artists; attorneys for major private actors, including tech companies and music streaming platforms; representatives from various unions, guilds, and trade groups; and independent visual artists, filmmakers, and composers.
The listening sessions broke registration and attendance records for Copyright Office events. Over 4,100 people tuned in over the course of the four sessions. In her final remarks, Register Perlmutter thanked all the panelists for sharing their insights and the public for tuning in. “The Office appreciates the high level of public engagement with these listening sessions,” said Register Perlmutter. “This interest is of course a reflection of the astonishing potential of artificial intelligence, and the impact that its already having in our lives and on society as a whole.”
The feedback and comments provided to the Office during the listening sessions will help guide the next steps in the Office’s AI initiative. The Office is drafting a notice of inquiry, to be published in the Federal Register later this summer, which will solicit written comments from the public on a wide range of issues involving AI and copyright. Issues raised during the sessions will directly inform the questions asked in the notice.
If you missed the listening sessions initially, or want to listen back again, you can review all the materials from each of the sessions on our website, including the agenda, transcript, and full video recording.
Follow copyright.gov/ai for updates, events, and to sign up for email notifications, including to learn when the notice of inquiry is published, on our website."
Gerrit De Vynck, The Washington Post; AI learned from their work. Now they want compensation.
"Artists say the livelihoods of millions of creative workers are at stake, especially because AI tools are already being used to replace some human-made work. Mass scraping of art, writing and movies from the web for AI training is a practice creators say they never considered or consented to.
But in public appearances and in responses to lawsuits, the AI companies have argued that the use of copyrighted works to train AI falls under fair use — a concept in copyright law that creates an exception if the material is changed in a “transformative” way."
Chloe Veltman, Morning Edition NPR; Thousands of authors urge AI companies to stop using work without permission
"Thousands of writers including Nora Roberts, Viet Thanh Nguyen, Michael Chabon and Margaret Atwood have signed a letter asking artificial intelligence companies like OpenAI and Meta to stop using their work without permission or compensation."
Amy Maxmen , The Washington Post; As pandemic raged, global south lacked vaccines. Never again, researchers vow.
"Once it became clear that wealthy nations would help themselves to coronavirus vaccines long before poorer nations had access, researchers across Africa, Asia and South America banded together with the World Health Organization. Never again, they vowed, would they allow themselves to be at the mercy of the Western world while a deadly pathogen tore through their regions...
Called the mRNA vaccine technology transfer hub, a mouthful meant to reflect their intention to share mRNA technology, the initiative is distinct from the typical, competitive mode of drug development in which companies keep discoveries secret."
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."
Tom Temin, Federal News Network; The Library of Congress marks a year of helping solve copyright disputes
"The Copyright Office’s equivalent of small claims court has helped hundreds of people solve disputes in its first year. The three-member Copyright Claims Board will help in cases worth up to $30,000. For a progress report, Federal Drive with Tom Temin spoke with Claims Board member Brad Newberg."
Sheera Frenkel and , The New York Times; 'Not for Machines to Harvest’: Data Revolts Break Out Against A.I.
"At the heart of the rebellions is a newfound understanding that online information — stories, artwork, news articles, message board posts and photos — may have significant untapped value.
The new wave of A.I. — known as “generative A.I.” for the text, images and other content it generates — is built atop complex systems such as large language models, which are capable of producing humanlike prose. These models are trained on hoards of all kinds of data so they can answer people’s questions, mimic writing styles or churn out comedy and poetry...
“What’s happening here is a fundamental realignment of the value of data,” said Brandon Duderstadt, the founder and chief executive of Nomic, an A.I. company...
“The data rebellion that we’re seeing across the country is society’s way of pushing back against this idea that Big Tech is simply entitled to take any and all information from any source whatsoever, and make it their own,” said Ryan Clarkson, the founder of Clarkson...
Eric Goldman, a professor at Santa Clara University School of Law, said the lawsuit’s arguments were expansive and unlikely to be accepted by the court. But the wave of litigation is just beginning, he said, with a “second and third wave” coming that would define A.I.’s future."
Jules Roscoe , Vice; Trader Joe’s Sues Trader Joe’s United for Copyright Infringement
"Trader Joe’s filed a lawsuit against its union on Thursday for copyright infringement, claiming that the union’s merchandise was too similar to the Trader Joe’s logo, and demanding that the union’s profits off that merchandise be given to Trader Joe’s."
PAMELA SAMUELSON, Science; Generative AI meets copyright
"Generative artificial intelligence (AI) is a disruptive technology that is widely adopted by members of the general public as well as scientists and technologists who are enthusiastic about the potential to accelerate research in a wide variety of fields. But some professional artists, writers, and programmers fiercely object to the use of their creations as training data for generative AI systems and to outputs that may compete with or displace their works (1, 2). Lack of attribution and compensation for use of their original creations are other sources of aggravation to critics of generative AI. Copyright lawsuits that are now underway in the United States have substantial implications for the future of generative AI systems. If the plaintiffs prevail, the only generative AI systems that may be lawful in the United States would be those trained on public domain works or under licenses, which will affect everyone who deploys generative AI, integrates it into their products, and uses it for scientific research."
Michelle Cheng, Quartz; "Shadow libraries" are at the heart of the mounting copyright lawsuits against OpenAI
"However, there are clues about these two data sets. “Books1” is linked to Project Gutenberg (an online e-book library with over 60,000 titles), a popular dataset for AI researchers to train their data on due to the lack of copyright, the filing states. “Books2” is estimated to contain about 294,000 titles, it notes.
Most of the “internet-based books corpora” is likely to come from shadow library websites such as Library Genesis, Z-Library, Sci-Hub, and Bibliotik. The books aggregated by these sites are available in bulk via torrent websites, which are known for hosting copyrighted materials.
What exactly are shadow libraries?
Shadow libraries are online databases that provide access to millions of books and articles that are out of print, hard to obtain, and paywalled. Many of these databases, which began appearing online around 2008, originated in Russia, which has a long tradition of sharing forbidden books, according to the magazine Reason.
Soon enough, these libraries became popular with cash-strapped academics around the world thanks to the high cost of accessing scholarly journals—with some reportedly going for as much as $500 for an entirely open-access article.
These shadow libraries are also called “pirate libraries” because they often infringe on copyrighted work and cut into the publishing industry’s profits. A 2017 Nielsen and Digimarc study (pdf) found that pirated books were “depressing legitimate book sales by as much as 14%.”"
, Forbes; Aretha Franklin’s Estate: Why Copyrights Require Estate Planning.
"The news of the recent resolution of the Aretha Franklin estate is a high profile, and expensive, lesson in how not to manage copyrights in an estate. At least there was what the Court found to be her will, unlike the six yearlong court fight that resolved last year in the Prince estate. You may think that this is only an issue for celebrities, but, with the ease of producing, generating, and creating materials, such as blog posts, YouTube videos, music, art, photographs or eBooks, more and more people are now owners of copyrights. These copyrights should be considered assets and an integral part of the client’s estate. Such planning includes the management and distribution of copyright assets after the copyright owner passes away. Proper estate planning can ensure the protection and transfer of copyright ownership, as well as provide for the financial well-being of heirs and beneficiaries.
Here are some important considerations for estate planning related to copyrights:"
Blake Brittain, Reuters; Sullivan & Cromwell hires former USPTO head, Federal Circuit judge
"Sullivan & Cromwell announced on Tuesday that it has hired former U.S. Patent and Trademark Office director Andrei Iancu and former federal judge Kathleen O'Malley, bolstering the prominent New York-founded law firm's patent practice.
Iancu and O'Malley both joined Sullivan & Cromwell from intellectual property-focused law firm Irell & Manella. Iancu, Irell's managing partner from 2012 to 2018, rejoined the firm in 2021 after heading the USPTO during Donald Trump's presidency. O'Malley joined Irell last year after retiring from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit."
TFL; Shein Named in Copyright, Racketeering Lawsuit Over Alleged Infringement Scheme
"Shein is facing a new lawsuit that accuses the Chinese retail titan of not only carrying out “large-scale and systematic intellectual property theft from U.S. designers large and small,” but of also engaging in infringement-related racketeering activities in the process. According to the complaint that they filed in a California federal court on Tuesday, independent designers Krista Perry, Larissa Martinez, and Jay Baron claim that Shein and various related entities, including Roadget Business and Zoetop Business, (collectively, “Shein”) are on the hook for copyright and trademark infringement in connection with their practice of “produc[ing], distribut[ing], and selling exact copies of their creative works,” which they allege is “part and parcel of Shein’s ‘design’ process and organizational DNA.”...
For each new product sold on Shein’s website, the plaintiffs claim that the initial production run is as low as 100-200 units per SKU, compared to “the thousands of pieces typically produced by traditional peer retailers.” The purpose of this is that it enables Shein to “wait to see if anybody complains that the design was stolen,” and if they do, it can swiftly settle with the company."
C-Span; Music & Tech Executives Testify on Artificial Intelligence & Copyright
"Music industry and tech company executives as well as a visual artist and a law professor testified on artificial intelligence (AI) and its impact on copyright and intellectual property before a Senate Judiciary subcommittee. Topics included publicity and fair use of content, an opt-out process for creators, notating content that has been created using AI, deep fake technology, and ways that Congress can help protect intellectual property."
GRAYCE MCCORMICK , ABC7; Does Section 230 cover artificial intelligence? Experts are not sure
"Burk said the decision over whether Section 230 covers generative AI boils down to whether the product is an informational product or a product with manufacturer liability...
It’s hard for us to imagine what social media would be like today without the protection of Section 230, or if it would have even been possible to develop without the risk of lawsuits.
On the other hand, there could be benefits to dictating how it’s developed, considering certain social media platforms’ documented harms.
“If you can identify discrete problems and you have an idea of the outcome that you would like to have or the outcomes you’re worried about, you can actually shape the development of technology into a socially desirable path,” Burk said. He cited products like automobiles and pharmaceuticals, which are now manufactured to be as safe as possible."
Tate Ryan-Mosley, MIT Technology Review ; Three things to know about how the US Congress might regulate AI
"Here are three key themes in all this chatter that you should know to help you understand where US AI legislation could be going."
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."
RACHEL SHIN , Fortune; Over 150 top execs fear Europe will create a ‘critical productivity gap’ with the U.S. if the EU overregulates A.I.
"European business leaders are worried that the EU will overregulate A.I. and leave Europe trailing the U.S. in future productivity. A group of over 150 executives including the CEOs of Renault and Siemens, the executive director of Heineken, and the chief A.I. scientist of Meta, signed an open letter to the European Parliament on Friday, requesting the government pull back their proposed restrictions."
European Parliament News ; EU AI Act: first regulation on artificial intelligence
"As part of its digital strategy, the EU wants to regulate artificial intelligence (AI) to ensure better conditions for the development and use of this innovative technology. AI can create many benefits, such as better healthcare; safer and cleaner transport; more efficient manufacturing; and cheaper and more sustainable energy.
In April 2021, the European Commission proposed the first EU regulatory framework for AI. It says that AI systems that can be used in different applications are analysed and classified according to the risk they pose to users. The different risk levels will mean more or less regulation. Once approved, these will be the world’s first rules on AI."
FRANKLIN GRAVES & ELIZABETH ROTHMAN , IP Watchdog; Defining Data: Improving Terminology Around Generative AI Models
"Generative AI tools are here to stay and will continue to become even more engrained into the products, services, and experiences we encounter on a daily basis. Improving the terminology is an important step as we move forward."
Sharon Goldman , Venture Beat; What Sarah Silverman’s lawsuit against OpenAI and Meta really means | The AI Beat
"Legal AI issues around copyright and ‘fair use’ growing louder
These legal issues around copyright and “fair use” are not going away — in fact, they go to the heart of what today’s LLMs are made of — that is, the training data. As I discussed last week, web scraping for massive amounts of data can arguably be described as the secret sauce of generative AI. AI chatbots like ChatGPT, LLaMA, Claude (from Anthropic) and Bard (from Google) can spit out coherent text because they were trained on massive corpora of data, mostly scraped from the internet. And as the size of today’s LLMs like GPT-4 have ballooned to hundreds of billions of tokens, so has the hunger for data."
Mike Scarcella, Reuters; Crocs and rival footwear maker Joybees clash over trade secrets in US court
"Footwear makers Crocs (CROX.O) and rival Joybees have filed competing claims against each other in U.S. court in Colorado, as the companies clash over corporate trade secrets, intellectual property and competition in the market for casual shoes.
Crocs sued Joybees in federal court on Thursday, expanding on a separate lawsuit that the Colorado-based company filed in 2021. The new complaint, accusing Joybees and its chief executive of unfair competition, came a day after Joybees filed claims in the same court against Crocs."
Wes Davis, The Verge ; Sarah Silverman is suing OpenAI and Meta for copyright infringement
"Comedian and author Sarah Silverman, as well as authors Christopher Golden and Richard Kadrey — are suing OpenAI and Meta each in a US District Court over dual claims of copyright infringement.
The suits alleges, among other things, that OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Meta’s LLaMA were trained on illegally-acquired datasets containing their works, which they say were acquired from “shadow library” websites like Bibliotik, Library Genesis, Z-Library, and others, noting the books are “available in bulk via torrent systems.”"
Anny Shaw, The Art Newspaper; Poet and translator to sue British Museum for copyright and moral rights infringement
"Sharples notes that the legal case will not only focus on copyright, but also Wang’s moral rights, in particular the right to attribution—or the right to be named or identified as the author."
Foley & Lardner LLP, National Law Review; IP Considerations in Protecting Autonomous Vehicle Software with Patents and Copyrights
"As autonomous vehicles and associated software become more commonplace in the automotive industry, it is important to recognize which forms of intellectual property grant protection within quickly evolving areas of technology and to understand how to obtain registration and enjoy the advantages within an increasingly competitive landscape. Autonomous vehicles are unique in the automotive industry because they incorporate new forms of technology not commonly embedded in automobiles. This can include, image recognition systems, LIDAR (Light Detection and Ranging), and most importantly complex software incorporating artificial intelligence and machine learning. Intellectual property protection enables autonomous vehicle developers to get ahead of their competitors, create an environment in which research and innovation are incentivized, stop others from infringing protected technology, and can allow technology to be further monetized through licensing agreements.
A comprehensive IP strategy using both patents and copyrights can help protect key technology."
DANIEL CASSADY , ArtNews; Copyright Infringement Suit Involving Nirvana and Dante’s ‘Inferno’ Illustration Heads to the UK
"According to Bundy, not only are Nirvana and Live Nation using her grandfather’s work without permission but they are also claiming ownership of the work and adding copyright notices to the image.
Nirvana and Live Nation’s legal representative told Courthouse News that in the United States the image has been in the public domain since at least 1949. “Resolving the claims will require determinations of complex English and German copyright law issues based on decades-old documents and witnesses in England,” the attorneys added."
