AI training of copyrighted material not fair use: Third Circuit — “The Third Circuit rejected an artificial intelligence company’s fair use defense after it trained its AI on a competitor’s product, finding the training constituted copyright infringement — and potentially setting a landmark precedent for artificial intelligence.”
U.S. Copyright Office Celebrates 50th Anniversary of the 1976 Copyright Act — “Across speakers’ remarks from the three panels, it was evident that the U.S. Copyright Office, its staff, leadership, and copyright supporters and champions in Congress and in the private sector have been instrumental in creating copyright legislation that has weathered and survived incredible challenges over the last 50 years.”
A Lego copyright fight over a jacket worn on ‘Queer Eye’ is headed toward trial — “Concannon sued Lego in 2021 in the U.S. District Court for Connecticut, where the company was previously based in the U.S. before moving its Americas headquarters to Boston last year. He alleged the company infringed his copyright, and he also brought claims for trade dress infringement and violations of Connecticut’s unfair trade practices law. This week, U.S. District Judge Omar A. Williams granted Lego’s motion for summary judgment in part, dismissing Concannon’s trade dress claim but allowing his copyright claims to proceed to trial.”
Vetter Says Wait. The Supreme Court Shouldn’t — “BMG and the publishing arms of Universal, Sony and Warner then bought out the losing defendant’s interest in the song for the express purpose of seeking Supreme Court review. Now Kappel has teamed up with one of the country’s top Supreme Court advocates, Orrick’s Josh Rosenkranz, to argue that this isn’t the case, and now isn’t the time. Their brief in opposition to cert (read here) argues that there’s no circuit split, and that the issue needs to ‘percolate’ before the Court weighs in.”
The Heart of the Matter: Copyright, AI Training, and LLMs: Part 4: Licensing as a Key Part of the Path Forward — “Copyright law has adapted to every major technological disruption since the player piano. When photocopying arrived in the 1970s, direct and collective licensing together built a functioning market. The early internet required a similar recalibration. Text and data mining raised the same questions a decade ago. Each time, the answer was not litigation to exhaustion. It was a licensing framework that allowed innovation to proceed while ensuring that creators were compensated. AI is not a different problem.”