Friday’s Endnotes – 02/09/24

Fourth Circuit Finds No Transformative or Noncommercial Use of Ted Nugent Photo in Online Article — Although the court held that the district court’s transformative use finding was inconsistent with Fourth Circuit precedent, it also relied heavily on the Supreme Court’s recent decision in Andy Warhol Foundation v. Goldsmith, making this one of the first appellate court decisions to do so.

Ban Copyright Exploitation In AI Models, Lords Urge UK Gov’t — “The Communications and Digital Committee said Friday that the government should introduce new laws to bring a definitive end to tech firms using copyrighted works without permission while developing artificial intelligence. It said the government ‘cannot sit on its hands’ on the issue, which licensing organizations have since echoed.”

European Publishers Praise New EU AI Law — “More than 200 organizations in Europe’s creative and cultural sectors had lobbied in support of the legislation, arguing that the rapid development of AI has been enabled by the illegal use of copyright-protected works to train the models, and was conducted without any disclosure—or remuneration—to those whose protected work was used.”

Japan Newspaper Group Seeks Copyright Protection from AI — “The Japan Newspaper Publishers and Editors Association submitted an opinion to the Cultural Affairs Agency that a government panel subcommittee’s draft view on copyright protection from generative AI is good to some extent but not enough for full copyright protection for their news content.”

Appeals Court Hears RIAA and Yout in ‘High Stakes’ Stream-ripper Case — “On the surface, this case largely revolves around a seemingly simple question. The problem, however, is that both parties have a completely different answer. Does YouTube employ a technological measure that effectively controls access to copyrighted works? This question brings up all sorts of semantic challenges. What is a measure and when is it technological? What does access mean in this context and under which conditions is it controlled? And if there is such a measure, does Yout.com circumvent it? A few days ago Yout and the RIAA had the chance to explain their reasoning to the Court of Appeals. The hearing was presided over by Judge Carney, Judge Leval, and Judge Sullivan, who critically questioned both attorneys on their views.”