Tag: copyright

Five leading book publishers—Macmillan, McGraw Hill, Elsevier, Hachette and Cengage—along with author Scott Turow have sued Meta, alleging the company copied copyrighted books and journal articles to train its Llama AI models. The lawsuit claims Meta harvested material from notorious pirate sites and the Common Crawl dataset, then fed it into Llama, which can reproduce text verbatim. Plaintiffs seek damages, an injunction to stop the training, and a full inventory of the works used. Meta says it will fight the case aggressively, maintaining that AI training can fall under fair use. Leggi di più

At least 23 prominent news organizations, including The New York Times and USA Today, have begun blocking the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine crawler. Publishers say the archive is being used by artificial‑intelligence firms to harvest copyrighted articles for training language models, a practice they claim violates copyright law. The move threatens the Wayback Machine’s role as a public record of the web, prompting debate among journalists, technologists and the archive’s operators about how to balance content protection with historical preservation. Leggi di più

A coalition of YouTube creators has sued Amazon in a Seattle federal court, alleging the company used automated tools to download millions of videos without permission to train its Nova Reel generative‑AI model. The plaintiffs, which include Ted Entertainment—behind the H3 Podcast and h3h3 Productions—assert that Amazon’s scraping violated copyright law and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. They seek monetary damages and an injunction to halt the practice. Amazon has not commented as the case joins a wave of high‑profile lawsuits testing the limits of AI training and fair‑use defenses. Leggi di più

Disney has terminated its planned $1 billion partnership with OpenAI, citing concerns surrounding the AI video tool Sora. While talks about alternative collaboration continue, the split follows heightened legal pressure on OpenAI and a shift in Hollywood’s focus to competing AI video apps. Disney has issued cease‑and‑desist letters to firms it accuses of using its intellectual property without permission, and has threatened legal action against companies it believes trained on its copyrighted works. The move reflects growing tension between traditional media owners and emerging AI technologies. Leggi di più

Anthropic is close to securing final court approval for a historic settlement that resolves claims that its Claude AI model was trained on pirated books. Nearly 100,000 authors have filed claims, and the company has agreed to pay a total of $1.5 billion, with $3,000 allocated to each qualifying work. The settlement includes a certification that no pirated content will be used in future Claude releases and a commitment to destroy existing pirated copies. The court is set to consider the final approval motion in late April, marking a significant milestone in AI‑related copyright litigation. Leggi di più

Generative AI is prompting a wave of copyright disputes as companies use large amounts of human‑created content to train models. Creators argue that many firms have incorporated copyrighted works without permission, leading to more than 30 active lawsuits. The U.S. Copyright Office maintains that fully AI‑generated images and videos are not eligible for protection, though AI‑edited works may be registered if creators disclose the AI contribution. Tech firms are pushing for a fair‑use exemption to avoid licensing fees, while industry groups and thousands of writers oppose such a carve‑out. Courts and regulators remain the ultimate arbiters of how copyright will apply to AI. Leggi di più

The Trump administration released a legislative blueprint that calls for Congress to protect minors using AI, limit state AI laws, avoid creating a new federal regulatory body, and address issues such as AI‑enabled fraud, copyright disputes, and electricity costs from data centers. The plan stresses age‑verification, limits on training AI with minors' data, and preempts states from imposing burdensome AI regulations while allowing enforcement of general child‑protection statutes. Leggi di più

The Trump administration unveiled a legislative framework aimed at creating a single, nationwide AI policy. The plan would centralize authority in Washington, preempting state AI regulations while emphasizing a light‑touch, innovation‑focused approach. It assigns greater responsibility for child safety to parents, calls on Congress to require platforms to add safeguards against sexual exploitation, and seeks to shield developers from state liability. Critics argue the proposal limits state experimentation and lacks clear enforcement mechanisms, while industry leaders praise the promise of a uniform national standard for startups. Leggi di più

Senator Marsha Blackburn (R‑Tenn.) has released a discussion draft for a federal AI bill that aims to codify a recent executive order on artificial intelligence. The draft proposes a duty of care for AI developers, stricter safeguards for minors online, protection of individuals' voice and visual likenesses, new transparency rules for AI‑generated content, reporting requirements on AI‑related job impacts, and an effort to end Section 230. It also addresses copyright concerns by stating that unauthorized use of copyrighted works for AI training does not qualify as fair use. The proposal signals the first major congressional step toward comprehensive AI regulation. Leggi di più

The UK government abandoned its earlier plan to let AI developers train models on copyrighted works without consent, after a strong outcry from musicians and other creators. The shift follows criticism from high‑profile artists such as Sir Elton John, Dua Lipa and Sir Paul McCartney, who warned that the policy would undermine creative ownership. While the government now says it has "no longer a preferred option" on the issue, officials say they will take more time to balance the interests of creators and the tech sector before any reform is introduced. Leggi di più

Encyclopedia Britannica and its subsidiary Merriam-Webster have filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, accusing the company of massive copyright infringement for scraping nearly 100,000 of their online articles to train its large language models. The complaint alleges that ChatGPT reproduces Britannica content, reduces web traffic and revenue, and violates trademark law. The case joins a growing wave of legal actions by publishers against AI firms, highlighting unresolved questions about the legality of using copyrighted material for AI training. A prior Anthropic case showed mixed rulings, underscoring the uncertainty that will shape future AI‑content use. Leggi di più

Encyclopedia Britannica and Merriam-Webster have filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, claiming the AI company used their copyrighted material to train its models and then generated responses that closely mirror their content. The complaint alleges that GPT‑4 "memorized" large portions of Britannica’s text and can reproduce near‑verbatim excerpts on demand, diverting traffic from the publishers’ sites. The case adds to a growing wave of legal actions by publishers seeking accountability for AI training practices, joining lawsuits from The New York Times and a settlement involving Anthropic. Leggi di più

Encyclopedia Britannica has filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, alleging that the AI company infringed its copyright and trademark by using Britannica's protected content to train its models and by presenting verbatim excerpts in ChatGPT responses. The complaint also accuses OpenAI of attributing fabricated or "hallucinated" content to Britannica. OpenAI responded that its models are trained on publicly available data and operate under fair use. The case adds to a growing series of legal challenges faced by AI developers over the use of copyrighted material. Leggi di più

Encyclopedia Britannica and its subsidiary Merriam‑Webster have filed a copyright and trademark lawsuit against OpenAI in the Southern District of New York. The complaint alleges that OpenAI used thousands of the publishers’ articles as training data for ChatGPT and then generated responses that reproduce the content without permission, harming the publishers’ revenue and brand reputation. The case mirrors a prior suit against Perplexity and may be consolidated into a larger multidistrict litigation involving other news publishers. Leggi di più

ByteDance has halted the worldwide rollout of its AI video generator Seedance 2.0 following immediate pushback from Hollywood studios. After its debut in China, the tool sparked cease-and-desist letters from Disney and Paramount Skydance and drew attention for a viral AI-created clip featuring Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise. Concerns over the use of copyrighted material in training the model prompted ByteDance to say it is "taking steps to strengthen current safeguards as we work to prevent the unauthorised use of intellectual property and likeness by users." The company’s global expansion plans remain on hold pending further clarification. Leggi di più

An AI model named Claude was used to create a new version of the open‑source library chardet. The process relied on metadata from earlier releases and on the model’s training on publicly available code, raising questions about whether the new code is a derivative work. Human reviewer Blanchard oversaw the output, but his involvement adds complexity to the legal analysis. The open‑source community is divided, with some citing the lack of a clean separation between the AI’s training data and the generated code, while others argue that a fresh rewrite constitutes a new work. Leggi di più

ByteDance introduced Seedance 2.0, a powerful AI video model that quickly captured attention in China’s AI community. Access remains limited to domestic users of the company’s AI apps, and the model is priced at just over $2 for a 15‑second clip. Early adopters report long queues and hours‑long wait times, even for paid subscribers, as the company struggles to allocate enough GPU resources. At the same time, major Hollywood studios have issued cease‑and‑desist letters alleging copyright infringement in the model’s outputs. Chinese creators and filmmakers have praised the technology, highlighting a stark contrast with reactions in the United States. Leggi di più

Suno, the AI-powered music creation platform, announced that it now has 2 million paid subscribers and generates $300 million in annual recurring revenue. The growth follows a recent $250 million funding round that valued the company at $2.45 billion. While the service has enabled users with little musical experience to produce chart‑ready tracks, it has also faced copyright lawsuits from musicians and record labels. A settlement with Warner Music Group now allows Suno to use licensed catalog music, and viral user‑generated songs have led to high‑value record deals. Leggi di più

Irish filmmaker Ruairi Robinson posted short clips created with ByteDance’s new video‑generation model Seedance 2.0, showcasing a digital replica of a famous actor in elaborate action scenes. The striking visuals have drawn cease‑and‑desist letters from major Hollywood studios and the Motion Picture Association, alleging copyright and likeness infringement. ByteDance says it will strengthen safeguards, yet the model remains unavailable to the public and continues to raise questions about the ethics of AI‑generated content. Critics label the technology as a polished form of “slop” – impressive yet fundamentally dependent on unlicensed source material. Leggi di più

ProducerAI, a generative AI music platform backed by The Chainsmokers, is joining Google Labs. The tool lets users generate music with natural‑language prompts using DeepMind’s Lyria 3 model, which can also translate text and images into audio. Google highlighted rapper Wyclef Jean’s use of Lyria 3 to add a flute to an existing track, underscoring the collaborative potential of AI. While some artists celebrate the technology’s creative possibilities, others have voiced concerns over copyright and have pursued legal action against AI firms. The integration marks a significant step for AI‑driven music tools within mainstream tech ecosystems. Leggi di più