Hacker News with Generative AI: Copyright Law

EFF Urges Court to Avoid Fair Use Shortcuts in Kadrey vs. Meta Platforms (eff.org)
EFF has filed an amicus brief in Kadrey v. Meta, one of the many ongoing copyright lawsuits against AI developers. Most of the AI copyright cases raise an important new issue: whether the copying necessary to train a generative AI model is a non-infringing fair use.
Copyright Law, Artificial Intelligence, Generative AI, Legal Cases
5 points by hn_acker 10 days ago | 0 comments
Internet Archive vs. Music Labels: $600M+ Copyright Rift Edges Toward Settlement (torrentfreak.com)
The Internet Archive's 'Great 78 Project' digitizes historical recordings to preserve musical heritage, but in 2023 the initiative led to major record labels filing a copyright lawsuit. The financial stakes soared last month when the labels proposed to update their claim to $693 million in statutory damages. A recent filing suggests that due to significant progress in settlement discussions, it may not come to that.
Copyright Law, Music Industry, Digital Preservation, Lawsuits, Settlements
9 points by hn_acker 16 days ago | 0 comments
Training AI Using 'Pirated' Content Can Be Fair Use, Law Professors Argue (torrentfreak.com)
A group of prominent intellectual property law professors has weighed in on the high-stakes AI copyright battle between several authors and Meta. In an amicus brief, the scholars argue that using copyrighted content as training data can be considered fair use under U.S. copyright law, if the goal is to create a new and 'transformative' tool. This suggests that fair use could potentially apply to Meta's training process, even if the underlying data was obtained without permission.
Artificial Intelligence, Copyright Law, Fair Use, Legal Cases
26 points by isaacfrond 23 days ago | 22 comments
Music labels will regret coming for the Internet Archive, sound historian says (arstechnica.com)
On Thursday, music labels sought to add nearly 500 more sound recordings to a lawsuit accusing the Internet Archive (IA) of mass copyright infringement through its Great 78 Project, which seeks to digitize all 3 million three-minute recordings published on 78 revolutions-per-minute (RPM) records from about 1898 to the 1950s.
Copyright Law, Music Industry, Internet Archive, History
501 points by coloneltcb 47 days ago | 184 comments
Thomson Reuters wins first major AI copyright case in the US (wired.com)
Thomson Reuters has won the first major AI copyright case in the United States.
AI, Copyright Law, Legal, Technology, Thomson Reuters
392 points by johnneville 73 days ago | 176 comments
Meta torrented & seeded 81.7 TB dataset containing copyrighted data (arstechnica.com)
Newly unsealed emails allegedly provide the "most damning evidence" yet against Meta in a copyright case raised by book authors alleging that Meta illegally trained its AI models on pirated books.
Copyright Law, Artificial Intelligence, Meta, Legal Cases, Data Sets
1270 points by gameshot911 78 days ago | 934 comments
"Torrenting from a corporate laptop doesn't feel right": Meta emails unsealed (arstechnica.com)
Meta's alleged torrenting and seeding of pirated books complicates copyright case.
Copyright Law, Meta, Legal Cases, Piracy, Technology
22 points by adrian_mrd 78 days ago | 6 comments
Rep. Zoe Lofgren Introduces Act to Block Sites Infringing on U.S. Copyrights (deadline.com)
U.S. Rep. Zoe Lofgren (Dem-CA) has introduced H.R. 791, the Foreign Anti-Digital Piracy Act (or FADPA), to prevent foreign-run piracy sites from exploiting loopholes in U.S. law.
Copyright Law, Politics, Internet, Legislation
20 points by healsdata 81 days ago | 14 comments
Copyright reform is necessary for national security (annas-archive.org)
TL;DR: Chinese LLMs (including DeepSeek) are trained on my illegal archive of books and papers — the largest in the world. The West needs to overhaul copyright law as a matter of national security.
Copyright Law, National Security, Artificial Intelligence
88 points by artninja1988 83 days ago | 109 comments
Copyright Office suggests AI copyright debate was settled in 1965 (arstechnica.com)
The US Copyright Office issued AI guidance this week that declared no laws need to be clarified when it comes to protecting authorship rights of humans producing AI-assisted works.
Artificial Intelligence, Copyright Law, Law, Technology, US Government
46 points by unclebucknasty 85 days ago | 49 comments
Don't Make Copyright Law in Smoke-Filled Rooms (eff.org)
We're taking part in Copyright Week, a series of actions and discussions supporting key principles that should guide copyright policy.
Copyright Law, Advocacy, Digital Rights
28 points by hn_acker 85 days ago | 1 comments
Authors seek Meta's torrent client logs and seeding data in AI piracy probe (torrentfreak.com)
Meta is among a long list of companies being sued for allegedly using pirated material to train its AI models. Meta has never denied using copyrighted works but stressed that it would rely on a fair use defense. However, with rightsholders in one case asking for torrent client data and 'seeding lists' for millions of books allegedly shared in public, the case now takes a geeky turn.
Artificial Intelligence, Copyright Law, Piracy, Lawsuits, Technology
163 points by miki123211 95 days ago | 167 comments
EFF Sides with Cox to Protect Piracy-Accused Internet Users from Copyright Troll (torrentfreak.com)
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has got involved in a lawsuit between several movie companies and ISP Cox, who disagree over the use of DMCA subpoenas to identify alleged pirates. The EFF argues this could be abused by "copyright trolls" to target innocent users. They urge the court to require a full lawsuit with judicial oversight.
Copyright Law, Digital Rights, Internet Privacy, Legal Cases
8 points by gslin 103 days ago | 0 comments
Zuckerberg gave Meta's Llama team OK to train on copyrighted works,filing claims (techcrunch.com)
Counsel for plaintiffs in a copyright lawsuit filed against Meta allege that Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg gave the green light to the team behind the company’s Llama AI models to use a dataset of pirated e-books and articles for training.
Artificial Intelligence, Copyright Law, Legal Issues, Meta, Business
10 points by croes 106 days ago | 2 comments
New Huawei Headquarters Glass Dome Copyright Infringement Dispute (crowndome.com)
The USA trade war with China is one of the most discussed issues today in the press. I have my own story to tell about my experience in protecting my intellectual property and the integrity of my original artworks. Here we go... A practical study of copyright infringement of a Canadian glass artist
Intellectual Property, Copyright Law, China, USA, Art
34 points by amarcheschi 108 days ago | 30 comments
3blue1brown YouTube Bitcoin video taken down as copyright violation (twitter.com)
Copyright Law, YouTube, Bitcoin, 3blue1brown
857 points by talonx 109 days ago | 412 comments
YouTuber won DMCA fight with fake Nintendo lawyer by detecting spoofed email (arstechnica.com)
A brave YouTuber has managed to defeat a fake Nintendo lawyer improperly targeting his channel with copyright takedowns that could have seen his entire channel removed if YouTube issued one more strike.
Copyright Law, YouTube, Lawsuits, Legal Battles, Digital Rights
264 points by isaacfrond 117 days ago | 97 comments
'United Healthcare' using DMCA against Luigi Mangione images (abovethelaw.com)
Someone purporting to be United Healthcare is filing DMCA requests to scrub the internet of artists’ depictions of the surveillance video of Luigi smiling, parody merchandise of “Deny, Defend, Depose,” and other merchandise showing the alleged shooter.
Copyright Law, Lawsuits, Healthcare, Social Media, Parody
385 points by haunter 124 days ago | 240 comments
January 1, 2025 is Public Domain Day: Works from 1929 are open to all (law.duke.edu)
On January 1, 2025, thousands of copyrighted works from 1929 will enter the US public domain, along with sound recordings from 1924.
Public Domain, Copyright Law, History, Creative Works
9 points by Ozarkian 130 days ago | 0 comments
Canada's First Pirate Site Blocking Order Expires (torrentfreak.com)
Canada, Copyright Law, Piracy, Internet Law
61 points by gslin 131 days ago | 30 comments
Suchir's Essay on Fair Use (suchir.net)
While generative models rarely produce outputs that are substantially similar to any of their training inputs, the process of training a generative model involves making copies of copyrighted data. If these copies are unauthorized, this could potentially be considered copyright infringement, depending on whether or not the specific use of the model qualifies as “fair use”. Because fair use is determined on a case-by-case basis, no broad statement can be made about when generative AI qualifies for fair use.
Generative AI, Copyright Law, Fair Use
45 points by hgarg 133 days ago | 14 comments
French Piracy Blocking Order Goes Global, DNS Service Quad9 Vows to Fight (torrentfreak.com)
In an ongoing escalation of its fight against online sports piracy, media giant Canal+ secured court orders compelling DNS providers Quad9 and Vercara to block access to pirate streaming sites in France. Quad9 says that it's determined to appeal what it sees as an absurd application of copyright law. For now, however, it will block the targeted domain names globally.
Copyright Law, Piracy, DNS, France, Internet
36 points by latexr 135 days ago | 22 comments
Self-Funding Harberger Taxes (gwern.net)
Hampering the current life+n years system of unregistered copyrights is the dual problem of mismanagement & orphan works.
Taxes, Copyright Law
99 points by surprisetalk 143 days ago | 92 comments
Core copyright violation moves ahead in The Intercept's lawsuit against OpenAI (niemanlab.org)
Last week, a New York federal judge ruled a key copyright violation claim by The Intercept against OpenAI would move ahead in court.
Copyright Law, Journalism, AI, Legal Cases
307 points by giuliomagnifico 148 days ago | 364 comments
Square Enix accused of abusing copyright law to silence fan criticism (metro.co.uk)
The makers of Life is Strange: Double Exposure are accused by fans of using legal takedowns to limit discussion and criticism of the game.
Gaming, Copyright Law, Legal Disputes, Fan Criticism
7 points by mikhael 156 days ago | 0 comments
Canada Just Fixed Copyright Law for Repair (ifixit.com)
What do ice cream machines, Xboxes, and tractors have in common? Fixing them just became legal in Canada: They all have certain repairs that are blocked by software called technological protection measures. Until yesterday, you’d risk violating copyright law if you bypassed those software protections in Canada.
Copyright Law, Repair, Technology, Canada
13 points by pseudolus 162 days ago | 0 comments
Google Asked to Remove 10B "Pirate" Search Results (torrentfreak.com)
Rightsholders have asked Google to remove more than 10 billion 'copyright infringing' URLs from its search results.
Copyright Law, Google, Search Engines, Piracy
33 points by gslin 172 days ago | 7 comments
A new copyright rule lets McDonald's fix its own broken ice cream machines (npr.org)
A new exemption to a copyright law could pave the way for quicker repairs to the machines, sweetening the McFlurry maker's sour reputation.
Copyright Law, Fast Food, McDonald's, Business
9 points by pseudolus 174 days ago | 1 comments
Big Tech barons are plotting to steal Britain's creativity via copyright law (telegraph.co.uk)
Labour has an incredibly relaxed attitude to British property. As the Chagos islanders found out, it wants to give away as much as it can, as quickly as possible. Next, it’s the turn of Britain’s creative industries and publishers.
Copyright Law, Politics, Creative Industries, UK
22 points by walterbell 176 days ago | 5 comments
Laion wins copyright infringement lawsuit in German court (technollama.co.uk)
Copyright AI nerds have been eagerly awaiting a decision in the German case of Kneschke v LAION (previous blog post about the case here), and yesterday we got a ruling (text of the decision in German here, courtesy of Mirko Brüß). In short, LAION was successful in its defence against claims for copyright infringement.
Copyright Law, Artificial Intelligence, Legal Cases
11 points by pcaharrier 179 days ago | 0 comments