Friday’s Endnotes – 04/07/23

Current AI Copyright Cases Part 1 and Part 2 — The Copyright Alliance reviews the (mostly) US lawsuits where copyright issues relating to artificial intelligence are at stake. Part 1 covers unauthorized use of copyrighted works as training data, while Part 2 surveys cases and disputes involving AI copyright authorship.

Newman Dissents from CAFC View that SAS Failed to Show Copyrightability of Nonliteral Elements of Software Programs — “The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) on Thursday issued a precedential decision holding that SAS Institute, Inc. failed to establish copyrightability of its asserted software program elements. Judge Newman dissented, arguing the ruling ‘contravenes the Copyright Act and departs from the long-established precedent and practice of copyrightability of computer programs’ and that it represents a ‘far-reaching change.'”

Should Stars Register Their AI Likeness? The Tom Cruise Deepfake Startup Wants Them To — “But even if protection is granted, Hengl says it’s unlikely Graham can use his copyright to take down AI-created photos and videos himself. ‘In terms of being able to use copyright as a way to enforce rights with respect to a likeness or to enforce privacy rights, it’s really trying to fit a square peg into a round hole,’ she suggests. ‘You can only enforce protection against works that are substantially similar. There needs to be more than that person’s image — their attire, expression on their face, the pose their body is in, the background they’re in — that’s similar.'”

Nigeria amends its Copyright Act to ratify outstanding copyright treaties and address other issues — Writing at IPKat, Chijioke Okorie reviews some of the highlights of Nigeria’s Copyright Act 2022, which was signed into law on March 17.

Reflections from the Association of American Publishers on Hachette Book Group v. Internet Archive: An Affirmation of Publishing — AAP’s Maria Pallante writes, “Everyone who values our global, creative economy should read the Court’s opinion in Hachette. The holdings are a forceful validation of well-established law and an unequivocal rejection of the defendant’s upside-down assertions that its activities support ‘research, scholarship, and cultural participation by making books more widely available on the Internet.’ That description is meant to sound lofty, but it ignores the economic incentives and protections that make creative professions possible in the first place.”