Friday’s Endnotes – 07/21/23

Judge lets art trio take another crack at suing AI devs over copyright — “The artists, represented by attorney Matthew Butterick and the Joseph Saveri Law Firm, argued that each image generated by AI software was created by combining relevant images scraped from its training dataset. And since those original works are protected by copyright, they argued, all AI-generated knock-offs infringe upon the artists’ rights.”

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.”

Thousands of authors demand payment from AI companies for use of copyrighted works — “The list of more than 8,000 authors includes some of the world’s most celebrated writers, including Margaret Atwood, Dan Brown, Michael Chabon, Jonathan Franzen, James Patterson, Jodi Picoult and Philip Pullman, among others. In an open letter they signed, posted by the Authors Guild Tuesday, the writers accused AI companies of unfairly profiting from their work.”

House IP Subcommittee Mulls Copyright and Design Patent Revisions Amid Right-to-Repair Debate — “The sole pro-IP perspective on the witness panel was Devlin Hartline, Legal Fellow at the Hudson Institute’s Forum for Intellectual Property [and previous Copyhype contributor]. Hartline said there simply isn’t a right to repair in existing law, and that it is IP rights that ultimately protect the public good. ‘The right-to-repair movement isn’t based on a preexisting right; it’s instead asking lawmakers to create a new right at the expense of the existing rights of IP owners,’ Hartline explained.”