News publishers take fight over copyright of embedded content to Fifth Circuit — The Fifth Circuit heard oral arguments this week in a dispute between a local news publisher and an online news aggregator over alleged public display of news articles on the aggregator’s app. The key question for the court is whether to follow the plain text of the Copyright Act or adopt the Ninth Circuit’s “server test.”
Cox and Effect: Why Volitional Conduct Is AI Copyright’s Next Battleground — Copyright Lately’s Aaron Moss considers whether we will see renewed attention on the “volitional conduct” doctrine in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision in Cox v. Sony. Moss notes it will likely emerge as a key issue when courts confront the allocation of liability over the generation of infringing outputs by generative AI models.
Tanzania Pushes for Robust African Copyright Framework at CISAC Summit in Paris — Report from the CISAC Regional Committee for Africa meeting about the vigorous efforts by the delegation from the Copyright Society of Tanzania to strengthen protections for African artists and creatives in the face of artificial intelligence. Participants specifically called for vigorous ownership verification systems, combatting AI data scraping, modernizing royalty distribution, and cross-border institutional cooperation.
Creative and cultural sector gets further copyright support — The government of New Zealand announced a proposed set of changes to its copyright law which include updating exceptions for museums, libraries, galleries, and archives; offshore piracy website blocking; and a twenty year term extension. The country’s Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister also announced a possible copyright framework for generative AI in New Zealand that he will report in March 2027.
Top Noteworthy Copyright Stories from May 2026 — The Copyright Alliance runs down key developments from a busy month, with updates from the US Copyright Office, the courts, Congress, and in the international space.