UK Government axes plans to broaden existing text and data mining exception — “In mid-2022, the UK Intellectual Property Office (IPO) announced that Government would consider broadening the scope for unlicensed TDM activities and introduce a new E&L that would allow TDM for any purpose (including commercial TDM), subject to a lawful access requirement to the relevant copyright works and other protected subject-matter. The latest news, however, is that such a reform will not go ahead.”
USTR Releases 2022 Review of Notorious Markets for Counterfeiting and Piracy — “Reflecting the Biden-Harris Administration’s worker-centered trade policy, the 2022 Notorious Markets List’s issue focus section examines the impact of online piracy on U.S. workers. The section describes how online piracy can impact the wages, residuals, pensions, and health care benefits that workers in the creative industries depend on and how combatting online piracy requires coordination between relevant actors in order to effectively address the rapidly shifting delivery methods of infringing content.”
Defendants seek dismissal of copyright infringement lawsuit brought by collage artist Deborah Roberts — “Lawyers for Beavers and Edwards are seeking to dismiss the Roberts suit, citing in documents filed yesterday (1 February) in US District Court in New York ‘numerous legal deficiencies’ in the original complaint. They argue that Roberts’s claims rest on general stylistic similarities and underlying subject matter, which are not protected by copyright law.”
Comedy rights agency seeks court sanctions against Pandora in ongoing copyright dispute — “One of the rights agencies representing comedians in the US has asked the courts to sanction Pandora and its lawyers for claims they have made about said agency as part of an ongoing copyright dispute. Various comedians have sued Pandora through the US courts over allegations it has been streaming their comedy material without all the correct licences in place.”
Microsoft, GitHub, and OpenAI ask court to throw out AI copyright lawsuit — “Microsoft, GitHub, and OpenAI want the court to dismiss a proposed class action complaint that accuses the companies of scraping licensed code to build GitHub’s AI-powered Copilot tool, as reported earlier by Reuters. In a pair of filings submitted to a San Francisco federal court on Thursday, the Microsoft-owned GitHub and OpenAI say the claims outlined in the suit don’t hold up.”