Friday’s Endnotes – 05/05/23

Sheeran Wins Copyright Trial On Independent Creation — Copyright attorney Aaron Moss on the big copyright news of the week. Not a whole lot to analyze though, given that the outcome is a jury verdict. We’ll see if there are any post-judgment motions or an appeal.

The Latest on the EU’s Proposed Artificial Intelligence Act — Last week, the European Parliament agreed to an amended version of a comprehensive framework for regulating AI in the EU. Among other things, the proposal would create transparency obligations “when the AI system is trained with data protected under copyright laws.”

Spinrilla agrees to pay the majors $50 million to end copyright case — The judgment comes after a 2020 ruling finding Spinrilla directly liable for infringing the copyright of over 4,000 sound recordings and not eligible for the DMCA safe harbor.

U.S. Hits Z-Library With New Domain Name Seizures — Torrentfreak’s Ernesto Van der Sar reports, “The U.S. Government’s crackdown against Z-Library continues. After a few months of relative silence from law enforcement agencies, a new round of domain name seizures has begun. These efforts have taken out the shadow library’s main login panel but the site is not planning to throw in the towel.”

Literary Copyright Cases Writers and Publishers Should Know — The Copyright Alliance provides a useful survey of cases touching upon important doctrines for literary works.