Friday’s Endnotes – 03/01/24

Copyright Damages Case Turns on High Court’s Taste for Discovery — “Justices expressed skepticism about the rule during the argument, and six justices signed onto a 2019 opinion rejecting another discovery rule. That case involved a different law’s statute of limitations that didn’t use the Copyright Act’s phrasing, which starts the countdown to sue upon a claim ‘accruing.’ But if enough justices doubt the rule’s applicability, they could decide the circuit courts are ‘all wrong’ about its existence, said intellectual property attorney Joshua Simmons of Kirkland & Ellis LLP.”

Internet Archive Introduces “Rice Krispies” Defense in Copyright Case — “In a small, semantic gift to counsel for plaintiffs, IA has argued that the preservation of ‘hisses, crackles, and pops’ on the pre-1978 sound recordings favors a finding that their reproduction, distribution, and performance of those recordings is fair use. ‘Defendants’ newly devised Rice Krispies argument for fair use here is even less credible than Internet Archive’s previous fabricated fair-use theory for books that the Southern District of New York recently eviscerated,’ the plaintiffs’ response states.”

IPA, IFRRO, STM, IAF Oppose South Africa’s Copyright Bill — “Four leading world publishing organizations today (February 28) have issued a respectful but adamant appeal to members of the South African National Assembly, requesting that they not adopt the ‘Copyright Amendment Bill’ expected to be put to a vote on Thursday (February 29).”

New report: 60% of OpenAI model’s responses contain plagiarism — “Copyleaks attempts to turn detecting plagiarism from ‘I know it when I see it’ into an exact science. The company uses a proprietary scoring method that aggregates the rate of identical text, minor changes, paraphrased text, and other factors and then assigns content a ‘similarity score.'”

U.S. Copyright Office letter providing updates on AI-related work [PDF] — The Office summarizes its work to date regarding registration guidance and rulings related to works incorporating AI-generated material and notes when we will see the publication of its much anticipated report (or reports, as this letter reveals) on copyright and AI.