Jennifer Kay, Bloomberg Law; Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Wins Van Halen Photo Copyright Claim
"The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum’s exhibition of a photographer’s images of Eddie Van Halen constitutes fair use and so doesn’t violate copyright laws, a federal judge said."
Katelyn Chedraoui, CNET ; AI Has Sent Copyright Laws Into Chaos. What You Need to Know About Your Rights Online
"You might not think about copyright very often, but we are all copyright owners and authors. In the age of generative AI, copyright has quickly become one of the most important issues in the development and outputs of chatbots, image and video generators...
What does all of this mean for the future?
Copyright owners are in a bit of a holding pattern for now. But beyond the legal and ethical implications, copyright in the age of AI raises important questions about the value of creative work, the cost of innovation and the ways in which we need or ought to have government intervention and protections."
Lanre Bakare, The Guardian ; ‘This is fascist America’: Anish Kapoor may sue after border agents pose by his sculpture
"The artist Anish Kapoor is considering taking legal action after border patrol agents posed for a photo in front of his Cloud Gate sculpture in Chicago, saying the scene represented “fascist America”...
Kapoor took legal action against the National Rifle Association (NRA) after they used an image of Cloud Gate, which was installed in 2006 and is known locally as “the Bean”, in an advert.
He settled out of court with the NRA in 2018. “It’s a bit more complicated with this,” Kapoor said of the more recent incident, “because they’re a full, if you like, national army unit.”"
Jörn Poltz and Friederike Heine, Reuters ; OpenAI used song lyrics in violation of copyright laws, German court says
"OpenAI's chatbot ChatGPT violated German copyright laws by reproducing lyrics from songs by best-selling musician Herbert Groenemeyer and others, a court ruled on Tuesday, in a closely watched case against the U.S. firm over its use of lyrics to train its language models.
The regional court in Munich found that the company trained its AI on protected content from nine German songs, including Groenemeyer's hits "Maenner" and "Bochum"."
Mary Shaw and , The New York Times ; You’re a Computer Science Major. Don’t Panic.
"The future of computer science education is to teach students how to master the indispensable skill of supervision.
Why? Because the speed and efficiency of using A.I. to write code is balanced by the reality that it often gets things wrong. These tools are designed to produce results that look convincing, but may still contain errors. A recent survey showed that over half of professional developers use A.I. tools daily, but only about one-third trust their accuracy. When asked what their greatest frustration is about using A.I. tools, two-thirds of respondents answered, “A.I. solutions that are almost right but not quite.”
There is still a need for humans to play a role in coding — a supervisory one, where programmers oversee the use of A.I. tools, determine if A.I.-generated code does what it is supposed to do and make essential repairs to defective code."
, The New York Times; Federal Cuts, Immigration Raids and a Slowing Economy Hit Rural Libraries
Aidin Vaziri, San Francisco Chronicle; AI country singer Breaking Rust tops Billboard with ‘Walk My Walk’
"A country hit made by artificial intelligence has climbed to the top of a Billboard chart — a first for the genre.
The song, “Walk My Walk,” by an artist known as Breaking Rust, is now No. 1 on Billboard’s Country Digital Song Sales chart. But the brooding, gravel-voiced cowboy behind the hit doesn’t exist. At least, not in the traditional sense.
He’s an AI creation with millions of streams, tens of thousands of followers and no verifiable human footprint."
KAREN WOOLSTRUM , University of Pittsburgh Office of Innovation & Entrepreneurship; Pitt School of Medicine Student Innovator is Empowering People to Take Charge of Their Healthcare
"Inspiration Strikes in the ER
While her research focuses on cystic fibrosis, Li’s entrepreneurial journey began during a rotation in the emergency room. It dawned on her that many patients in the ER could be empowered to take control of their own health monitoring and potentially avoid traumatic and costly ER visits. She quickly devised an idea for an electronic stethoscope that people can use to measure vital signs of the heart and lungs from home.
In collaboration with a friend, Akshaya Anand, a machine-learning graduate student from the University of Maryland, she founded Korion Health and entered the 2022 Randall Family Big Idea Competition hosted by the Big Idea Center, Pitt’s hub for student innovation (part of the OIE).
They were awarded a modest $2,000 4th-place prize, but the value they received from the month-long competition and mentorship extended far beyond that. The experience of crafting her pitch and having her idea validated in the eyes of experienced entrepreneurs gave her the confidence to continue pursuing the device’s commercial potential.
Next up was a pitch competition hosted by the Product Development Managers Association (PDMA) in which she won free first place in the graduate-student category, with the award including consulting hours from local companies such as Bally Design and Lexicon Design that she said “helped me take my half-baked idea and turn it into a prototype to show to investors.”
“This was a high yield for the effort. If it’s something they can hold in their hands it really helps communicate the value proposition,” she added.
From there, things began to snowball. On the same day that she won the UpPrize Social Innovation Competition sponsored by Bank of New York in the racial equity category ($75k), she won the first place prize from the American Heart Association’s EmPOWERED to Serve Business Accelerator ($50k). The resulting publicity attracted the attention of organizers of the Hult Prize Competition, a global student startup competition that receives thousands of applicants each year, who invited her to apply.
“I didn’t know anything about the Hult Prize competition. At first, I thought it was spam,” she admitted.
She had no illusions of advancing to the finals near London, let alone winning the top prize of $1 million: until she did."
Sharon Bernstein, Sacramento Bee via Government Technology; California Prosecutor Says AI Caused Errors in Criminal Case
"Northern California prosecutors used artificial intelligence to write a criminal court filing that contained references to nonexistent legal cases and precedents, Nevada County District Attorney Jesse Wilson said in a statement.
The motion included false information known in artificial intelligence circles as “hallucinations,” meaning that it was invented by the AI software asked to write the material, Wilson said. It was filed in connection with the case of Kalen Turner, who was accused of five felony and two misdemeanor drug counts, he said.
The situation is the latest example of the potential pitfalls connected with the growing use of AI. In fields such as law, errors in AI-generated briefs could impact the freedom of a person accused of a crime. In health care, AI analysis of medical necessity has resulted in the denial of some types of care. In April, A 16-year-old Rancho Santa Margarita boy killed himself after discussing suicidal thoughts with an AI chatbot, prompting a new California law aimed at protecting vulnerable users.
“While artificial intelligence can be a useful research tool, it remains an evolving technology with limitations — including the potential to generate ‘hallucinated’ citations,” Wilson said. “We are actively learning the fluid dynamics of AI-assisted legal work and its possible pitfalls.”
Shira Ovide, The Washington Post; The AI spending frenzy is so huge that it makes no sense
" In just the past year, the four richest companies developing AI — Microsoft, Google, Amazon and Meta — have spent roughly $360 billion combined for big-ticket projects, which included building AI data centers and stuffing them with computer chips and equipment, according to my analysis of financial disclosures.
(Amazon founder Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post.)
That same amount of money could pay for about four years’ worth of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), the federal government program that distributes more than $90 billion in yearly food assistance to 42 million Americans. SNAP benefits are in limbo for now during the government shutdown...
Eight of the world’s top 10 most valuable companies are AI-centric or AI-ish American corporate giants — Nvidia, Apple, Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Broadcom, Meta and Tesla. That’s according to tallies from S&P Global Market Intelligence based on the total price of the companies’ stock held by investors."
Barbara Gail Montero, The New York Times; A.I. Is on Its Way to Something Even More Remarkable Than Intelligence
"Some worry that if A.I. becomes conscious, it will deserve our moral consideration — that it will have rights, that we will no longer be able to use it however we like, that we might need to guard against enslaving it. Yet as far as I can tell, there is no direct implication from the claim that a creature is conscious to the conclusion that it deserves our moral consideration. Or if there is one, a vast majority of Americans, at least, seem unaware of it. Only a small percentage of Americans are vegetarians."
Robert Hart , The Verge; Stability AI’s legal win over Getty leaves copyright law in limbo
"Stability AI, the creator of popular AI art tool Stable Diffusion, was largely victorious against Getty Images on Tuesday in a British legal battle over the material used to train AI models. The case originally looked set to produce a landmark ruling on AI and copyright in the UK, but it landed with a thud and failed to set any clear precedent for the big question dividing AI companies and creative firms: whether AI models need permission to train on copyrighted works.
The case, first filed in 2023, is the first major AI copyright claim to reach England’s High Court, though the verdict offers little clarity to other AI companies and rightsholders."
Minho Kim , The New York Times; To Preserve Records, Homeland Security Now Relies on Officials to Take Screenshots
[Kip Currier: This new discretionary DHS records policy is counter to sound ethics practices and democracy-centered values.
Preservation of records promotes transparency, the historical record, accountability, access to information, informed citizenries, the right to petition one's government, free and independent presses, and more. The new DHS records policy undermines all of the above.]
[Excerpt]
"The Department of Homeland Security has stopped using software that automatically captured text messages and saved trails of communication between officials, according to sworn court statements filed this week.
Instead, the agency began in April to require officials to manually take screenshots of their messages to comply with federal records laws, citing cybersecurity concerns with the autosave software.
Public records experts say the new record-keeping policy opens ample room for both willful and unwitting noncompliance with federal open records laws in an administration that has already shown a lack of interest in, or willingness to skirt, records laws. That development could be particularly troubling as the department executes President Trump’s aggressive agenda of mass deportations, a campaign that has included numerous accusations of misconduct by law enforcement officials, the experts said.
“If you are an immigration official or an agent and believe that the public might later criticize you, or that your records could help you be held accountable, would you go out of the way to preserve those records that might expose wrongdoing?” said Lauren Harper, who advocates government transparency at the Freedom of the Press Foundation."
, KPBS; The ethics of AI, from policing to healthcare
"Artificial intelligence is everywhere — from our office buildings, to schools and government agencies.
The Chula Vista Police Department is joining cities to use AI to write police reports. Several San Diego County police departments also use AI-powered drones to support their work.
Civil liberties advocates are concerned about privacy, safety and surveillance.
On Midday Edition, we sit down with an expert in AI ethics to discuss the philosophical questions of responsible AI.
Guest:
Duquesne University, Grefenstette Center for Ethics; 2025 Tech Ethics Symposium: Staying Human in the Age of AI
"The Grefenstette Center for Ethics is excited to announce our sixth annual Tech Ethics Symposium, Staying Human in the Age of AI, which will be held in person at Duquesne University's Power Center and livestreamed online. This year's event will feature internationally leading figures in the ongoing discussion of ethical and responsible uses of AI. The two-day Symposium is co-sponsored by the Patricia Doherty Yoder Institute for Ethics and Integrity in Journalism and Media, the Center for Teaching Excellence, and the Albert P. Viragh Institute for Ethics in Business.
We are excited to once again host a Student Research Poster Competition at the Symposium. All undergraduate and graduate student research posters on any topic in the area of tech/digital/AI ethics are welcome. Accepted posters will be awarded $75 to offset printing costs. In addition to that award, undergraduate posters will compete for the following prizes: the Outstanding Researcher Award, the Ethical PA Award, and the Pope Francis Award. Graduate posters can win Grand Prize or Runner-Up. All accepted posters are eligible for an Audience Choice award, to be decided by Symposium attendees on the day of the event! Student Research Poster submissions will be due Friday, October 17. Read the full details of the 2025 Student Research Poster Competition.
The Symposium is free to attend and open to all university students, faculty, and staff, as well as community members. Registrants can attend in person or experience the Symposium via livestream. Registration is now open!"
Tudor Tarita , ZME Science; Amazon’s Bestselling Herbal Guides Are Overrun by Fake Authors and AI
[Kip Currier: This is a troubling, eye-opening report by Originality.ai on AI-generated books proliferating on Amazon in the sub-area of "herbal remedies". As a ZME Science article on the report suggests, if this is the state of herbal books on the world's largest bookseller platform, what is the state of other book areas and genres?
The lack of transparency and authenticity vis-a-vis AI-generated books is deeply concerning. If a potential book buyer knows that a book is principally or wholly "authored" by AI and that person still elects to purchase that book with that knowledge, that's their choice. But, as the Originality.ai report identifies, potential book buyers are being presented with fake author names on AI-generated books and are not being informed by the purveyors of AI-generated books, or the platforms that make those books accessible for purchase, that those works are not written by human experts and authors. That is deceptive business practice and consumer fraud.
Consumers should have the right to know material information about all products in the marketplace. No one would countenance (except for bad actors) children's toys deceptively containing harmful lead or dog and cat treats made with substances that can cause harm or death. Why should consumers not be concerned in similar fashion about books that purport to be created by human experts but which may contain information that can cause harm and even death in some cases?
Myriad ethical and legal questions are implicated, such as:
[Excerpt]
"At the top of Amazon’s “Herbal Remedies” bestseller list, The Natural Healing Handbook looked like a typical wellness guide. With leafy cover art and promises of “ancient wisdom” and “self-healing,” it seemed like a harmless book for health-conscious readers.
But “Luna Filby”, the Australian herbalist credited with writing the book, doesn’t exist.
A new investigation from Originality.ai, a company that develops tools to detect AI-generated writing, reveals that The Natural Healing Handbook and hundreds of similar titles were likely produced by artificial intelligence. The company scanned 558 paperback titles published in Amazon’s “Herbal Remedies” subcategory in 2025 and found that 82% were likely written by AI.
“We inputted Luna’s author biography, book summary, and any available sample pages,” the report states. “All came back flagged as likely AI-generated with 100% confidence.
It’s become hard (sometimes, almost impossible) to distinguish whether something is written by AI. So there’s often a sliver of a doubt. But according to the report, The Natural Healing Handbook is part of a sprawling canopy of probable AI-generated books. Many of them are climbing Amazon’s rankings, often outselling work by real writers...
AI is flooding niches that once relied on careful expertise and centuries of accumulated knowledge. Real writers are being drowned out by machines regurgitating fragments of folklore scraped from the internet.
“This is a damning revelation of the sheer scope of unlabeled, unverified, unchecked, likely AI content that has completely invaded [Amazon’s] platform,” wrote Michael Fraiman, author of the Originality.ai report.
The report looked at herbal books, but there’s likely many other niches hidden
Amazon’s publishing model allows self-published authors to flood categories for profit. And now, AI tools make it easier than ever to generate convincing, although hollow, manuscripts. Every new “Luna Filby” who hits #1 proves that the model still works.
Unless something changes, we may be witnessing the quiet corrosion of trust in consumer publishing."
ROSE ESFANDIARI , IP Watchdog; Professors Press SCOTUS to Affirm Copyright Protection for AI-Created Works
"On Friday, October 31, Professors Shlomit Yanisky-Ravid, Lawrence Lessig and a number of other professors and researchers filed an amicus brief with the U.S. Supreme Court in support of Dr. Stephen Thaler’s petition for a writ of certiorari in Thaler v. Perlmutter, urging the Court to grant certiorari and recognize copyright protection for works generated by artificial intelligence (AI).
The brief argued that “excluding AI-generated works from copyright protection threatens the foundations of American creativity, innovation, and economic growth,” warning that the lower court’s interpretation, which requires human authorship, disregards the “spirit of the Copyright Act.”"
Robert Booth , The Guardian; AI firm wins high court ruling after photo agency’s copyright claim
"A London-based artificial intelligence firm has won a landmark high court case examining the legality of AI models using vast troves of copyrighted data without permission.
Stability AI, whose directors include the Oscar-winning film-maker behind Avatar, James Cameron, successfully resisted a claim from Getty Images that it had infringed the international photo agency’s copyright.
The ruling is seen as a blow to copyright owners’ exclusive right to reap the rewards of their work, with one senior lawyer, Rebecca Newman, a legal director at Addleshaw Goddard, warning it means “the UK’s secondary copyright regime is not strong enough to protect its creators”."
AVI JORISCH, The Jerusalem Post; With AI technology rapidly advancing, ethics must evolve as well - opinion
"Wisdom over intelligence
Whether this century becomes our renaissance or our ruin will depend on a quality that can’t be coded or automated: wisdom.JUSTIN CARTER , Gizmodo; Japanese Companies Tell OpenAI to Stop Infringing On Its IP
"The Content Overseas Distribution Association (CODA), which represents several major Japanese entertainment companies such as TV studio Toei and game developer Square Enix, recently sent a written request calling on OpenAI to end its unauthorized use of their IP to train its recently launched Sora 2 generative AI.
Nearly 20 co-signers have accused the tech company of copyright infringement, alleging a “large portion” of Sora 2 content “closely resembles Japanese content or images [as] a result of using Japanese content as machine learning data.” The letter mentioned OpenAI’s policy of using copyrighted works unless the owner explicitly asks to opt out, but argues under Japanese law, it should instead be an opt-in system, since permission for copyrighted works is generally required beforehand."
ASHLEY BELANGER , Ars Technica; Internet Archive’s legal fights are over, but its founder mourns what was lost
"This month, the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine archived its trillionth webpage, and the nonprofit invited its more than 1,200 library partners and 800,000 daily users to join a celebration of the moment. To honor “three decades of safeguarding the world’s online heritage,” the city of San Francisco declared October 22 to be “Internet Archive Day.” The Archive was also recently designated a federal depository library by Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.), who proclaimed the organization a “perfect fit” to expand “access to federal government publications amid an increasingly digital landscape.”
The Internet Archive might sound like a thriving organization, but it only recently emerged from years of bruising copyright battles that threatened to bankrupt the beloved library project. In the end, the fight led to more than 500,000 books being removed from the Archive’s “Open Library.”
“We survived,” Internet Archive founder Brewster Kahle told Ars. “But it wiped out the Library.”
An Internet Archive spokesperson confirmed to Ars that the archive currently faces no major lawsuits and no active threats to its collections. Kahle thinks “the world became stupider” when the Open Library was gutted—but he’s moving forward with new ideas."
REBECCA BEITSCH, The Hill; DOJ faces ethics nightmare with Trump bid for $230M settlement
[Kip Currier: This real life "nightmare" scenario is akin to a hypothetical law school exam fact pattern with scores of ethics issues for law students to identify and discuss. Would that it were a fictitious set of facts.
If Trump's former personal attorneys, who are now in the top DOJ leadership, will not recuse themselves due to genuine conflicts of interest and appearances of impropriety, will the state and federal bar associations, who license these attorneys and hold them to annual continuing legal and ethics-related education requirements so they can remain in good standing with their respective licensing entities, step in to scrutinize potential ethical lapses of these lawyers?
These unprecedented actions by Trump must not be treated as normal. Similarly, if Trump's former personal attorneys approve Trump's attempt to "shake down" the federal government and American taxpayers, their ethically dubious actions as DOJ leaders and officers of the court must not be normalized by the organizations that are charged to enforce ethical standards for all licensed attorneys.
Moreover, approval of this settlement would be damaging to the rule of law and to public trust in the rule of law. If the most powerful person on the planet can demand that an organization -- whose leadership reports to him -- pay out a "settlement" for lawfully-conducted actions and proceedings in a prior administration, what does that say about the state of justice in the U.S.? I posit that it would say that it is a justice system that has been utterly corrupted and that is not subject to equal application of its laws and ethical standards. No person is above the law, or should be above the law in our American system of government and checks and balances. Not even the U.S. President, despite the Roberts Court's controversial Trump v. U.S. July 2024 ruling recognizing absolute and limited Presidential immunity in certain spheres.
Finally, a few words about "speaking out" and "standing up". It is vital for those who are in leadership positions to call out actions like the ones at hand that arguably undermine the rule of law and incrementally move this country from one that is democratically-centered to an autocratic nation state like Russia. I searched for and could find no statement by the American Bar Association (ABA) on this matter, a matter that is clearly relevant to its membership, of which I count myself as a member.
Will the ABA and other legal organizations share their voices on these matters that have such far-reaching implications for the rule of law and our nearly 250-year democratic experiment?
The paperback version of my Bloomsbury book, Ethics, Information, and Technology, becomes available on November 13, and I intentionally included a substantial professional and character ethics section at the outset of the book because those principles are so integral to how we conduct ourselves in all areas of our lives. Ethics precepts and values like integrity, attribution, truthfulness and avoidance of misrepresentation, transparency, accountability, and disclosure of conflicts of interest, as well as recusal when we have conflicts of interest.]
[Excerpt]
"The Department of Justice (DOJ) is facing pressure to back away from a request from President Trump for a $230 million settlement stemming from his legal troubles, as critics say it raises a dizzying number of ethical issues.
Trump has argued he deserves compensation for the scrutiny into his conduct, describing himself as a victim of both a special counsel investigation into the 2016 election and the classified documents case.
The decision, however, falls to a cadre of attorneys who previously represented Trump personally.
Rupa Bhattacharyya, who reviewed settlement requests in her prior role as director of the Torts Branch of the DOJ’s Civil Division, said most agreements approved by the department are typically for tens of thousands of dollars or at most hundreds of thousands.
“In the ordinary course, the filing of administrative claims is required. So that’s not unusual. In the ordinary course, a relatively high damages demand on an administrative claim is also not that unusual. What is unusual here is the fact that the president is making a demand for money from his own administration, which raises all sorts of ethical problems,” Bhattacharyya told The Hill.
“It’s also just completely unheard of. There’s never been a case where the president of the United States would ask the department that he oversees to make a decision in his favor that would result in millions of dollars lining his own pocket at the expense of the American taxpayer.”
It’s the high dollar amount Trump is seeking that escalates the decision to the top of the department, leaving Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, as well as Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward, to consider the request."
Rishabh Jaiswal , Reuters; Universal Music settles copyright dispute with AI firm Udio
"Universal Music Group said on Wednesday it has settled a copyright infringement case with artificial intelligence company Udio and that the two firms will collaborate on a new suite of creative products.
Under the agreement, the companies will launch a platform next year that leverages generative AI trained on authorized and licensed music.
UMG Chairman Sir Lucian Grainge said the agreements "demonstrate our commitment to do what's right by our artists and songwriters, whether that means embracing new technologies, developing new business models, diversifying revenue streams or beyond.""
DAVID DAYEN, The American Prospect; ‘Progressive’ Tech Group Asks Trump to Block AI Copyright Cases
"The Chamber of Progress, a self-styled “progressive” industry trade group supported by most of the biggest tech platforms, has urged the Trump administration to intervene in a litany of copyright cases involving artificial intelligence firms, to try to stop authors and publishers from having their work used for training AI models without permission.
The pleading comes as Anthropic prepares to pay authors $1.5 billion, the largest award in the history of copyright law, for pirating their work, in a settlement announced last month. OpenAI, Microsoft, Google, and Meta are named defendants in the more than 50 active lawsuits over AI intellectual-property theft.
In a letter to Michael Kratsios, the lead science adviser to President Trump, the Chamber of Progress estimates that AI companies could be liable under the Copyright Act for up to $1.5 trillion for stealing copyrighted work on which to train their models. The letter’s authors claim that this represents “an existential risk” to AI companies, and that the cases should be tossed out under a “fair use” standard.
The Chamber of Progress’s campaign to promote fair use, which they have created a campaign around called “Generate and Create,” comes as at least three of the nonprofit organization’s past or current backers are being sued over copyright claims: Meta, Google, and the AI art generator Midjourney. Another current funder, Nvidia, relies heavily on AI development for its continued success, and venture capital firm a16z, with several AI startups in its portfolio, also funds the nonprofit."
