Mealey's Copyright
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December 10, 2024
5th Circuit Rejects Rehearing Petitions From ISP, Labels In Copyright Fight
NEW ORLEANS — The Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals rejected petitions for rehearing from parties on both sides of a copyright infringement suit, standing by its October decision to affirm a Texas federal jury’s finding that an internet service provider (ISP) was vicariously liable for copyright infringement by failing to prevent the piracy of plaintiff music labels’ copyrighted works but to reverse the judge’s holding that the ISP was separately liable for infringement for each of more than a thousand songs.
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December 09, 2024
3rd Circuit: Default Judgments Improper In Bacon Grease Copyright Case
PHILADELPHIA — A Pennsylvania federal judge inappropriately granted default judgment in a copyright infringement suit only two hours after the plaintiff company moved for it, thereby failing to give the defendants appropriate notice, the Third Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals held in one of two appeals stemming from two orders declining to reverse entries of default judgment.
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December 05, 2024
Judge: OpenAI Must Produce Social Media; Company Disputes Discovery Destruction
NEW YORK — OpenAI Inc. and various news entities that accuse it of using their copyrighted works to train artificial intelligence briefed a federal judge in New York over whether discovery evidence was deleted or merely reformatted and presents no obstruction to ongoing searches of the training material. In a separate ruling, the judge concluded that the New York Times Co.’s knowledge and use of AI tools are not relevant or proportional to the needs of the defendants’ fair use defense and denied a motion to compel. In another ruling, the judge said California labor law does not preclude OpenAI Inc. entities and Microsoft Corp. from producing work-related communications conducted through social media.
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December 05, 2024
OpenAI Disputes Claim It Ruined Discovery; Judge Denies Motion To Compel
NEW YORK — OpenAI Inc. and various news entities that accuse it of using their copyrighted works to train artificial intelligence briefed a federal judge in New York over whether discovery evidence was deleted or merely reformatted and presents no obstruction to ongoing searches of the training material. In a separate ruling, the judge concluded that the New York Times Co.’s knowledge and use of AI tools are not relevant or proportional to the needs of the defendants’ fair use defense and denied a motion to compel.
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December 04, 2024
Judge: Producer Fails To Show He Owns Rap Group’s Trademarks, Copyright
NEW YORK — A New York federal judge dismissed with prejudice trademark and copyright claims stemming from a dispute over ownership of intellectual property associated with a seminal hip-hop group, with the judge holding that the plaintiff music producer failed to show that the trademark in question was valid, along with multiple other failures.
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December 03, 2024
2nd Circuit: Judge Right To Toss Funk Music Infringement Counterclaims
NEW YORK — A Second Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel on Dec. 2 affirmed a New York federal judge’s decision to dismiss a counterclaim from a defendant record company and associated entities seeking a declaratory judgment of noninfringement in a dispute over the ownership of songs by an influential funk musician, agreeing with the judge that the counterclaim was time-barred because a studio head was aware of alleged infringement in the 1970s.
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December 02, 2024
Judge: Designer Willfully Defaulted In Copyright Dispute With Photographer
NEW YORK — A web designer and his company are not entitled to the vacating of an entry of default judgment in a copyright suit brought against them by a photographer, a federal judge in New York held, saying that there is “overwhelming” evidence of willfulness in support of the default judgment entered nearly five years ago.
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December 02, 2024
Trademark, Copyright Claims Survive In Boat-Mooring Product Dispute
NEW HAVEN, Conn. — In a trademark and copyright infringement dispute between two competing companies that make boat mooring products, a Connecticut federal judge denied the defendant company’s motion to dismiss the case, holding that the plaintiff company adequately substantiated its claims to survive the motion.
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November 27, 2024
OpenAI Disputes Claim It Ruined News Plaintiffs AI Search Results
NEW YORK — OpenAI Inc. and various news entities that accuse it of using their copyrighted works to train artificial intelligence briefed a federal judge in New York over whether discovery evidence was deleted or merely reformatted allowing the plaintiffs to rerun searches of the training material.
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November 26, 2024
Petitioner Tells High Court 5th Circuit Contract Ruling Could Affect Copyrights
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Days after a plaintiff software company filed a petition for certiorari in the U.S. Supreme Court seeking review of the Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals’ reversal of a $1.6 billion award in a contract dispute with International Business Machines Corp. (IBM), IBM on Nov. 25 waived its right to respond to the petition.
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November 25, 2024
High Court Invites Solicitor General’s Input In Copyright Dispute
WASHINGTON, D.C. — In a Nov. 25 docket order, the U.S. Supreme Court invited the U.S. solicitor general to file a brief expressing the views of the U.S. government in a dispute involving dueling petitions for writs of certiorari in which a group of record labels and music publishers say the Fourth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals wrongly vacated a $1 billion award for vicarious copyright infringement by an internet service provider (ISP), while the ISP argues that the Fourth Circuit erred in finding that it is liable for contributory infringement.
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November 22, 2024
Judge Won’t Toss Copyright Claims Regarding Photo Of Alvin Bragg
NEW YORK — In a copyright infringement dispute between a photographer and a New York City law firm, a New York federal judge agreed to dismiss claims of contributory and vicarious infringement, holding that the photographer cannot simultaneously allege that the law firm is directly and vicariously responsible for infringement by allegedly posting a photograph she took on an account on a Chinese-language promotional website site she claims the firm controls.
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November 21, 2024
Singer Settles ‘Electric Avenue’ Copyright Claims With Trump, Campaign
NEW YORK — A federal judge in New York on Nov. 20 discontinued with prejudice a copyright dispute between singer Edmond “Eddy” Grant and President-elect Donald J. Trump and his re-election campaign over the campaign’s usage of Grant’s song “Electric Avenue” in his unsuccessful 2020 re-election bid; it is the second such case brought by a musical artist against the Trump campaign to have reached a conclusion in the days after Trump’s electoral success.
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November 20, 2024
Journalism Plaintiff Defends ‘Abridgement’ Claims In AI Copyright Suit
NEW YORK — Artificial intelligence companies may not simply remove copyright management information from news stories, distribute the material among themselves and then create chatbots producing abridged and competing versions of the stories, the nonprofit publisher of Mother Jones told a federal judge in New York in opposing a motion to dismiss.
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November 20, 2024
MosaicML AI Model Defendants Seek Consolidation Of Authors’ Lawsuits
SAN FRANCISCO — An artificial intelligence company asked a federal judge in California to consolidate three authors’ copyright class action lawsuit involving the training of large language models with a second suit also involving authors.
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November 20, 2024
Judge: Singer’s Estate Tried Too Late To Toss Labels’ Contract Counterclaims
LOS ANGELES — A California federal judge denied a motion from the plaintiff estate of a late singer to dismiss a breach of contract counterclaim from defendant record labels in a dispute stemming from copyrights and trademarks associated with the singer’s work and likeness, holding that the motion was untimely brought.
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November 19, 2024
Fair Use, Copyright At Issue In AI Legal Research Summary Judgment Briefing
WILMINGTON, Del. — Whether it was unlawful to train an artificial intelligence on a “vanishingly small” amount of protected legal research material and whether a copyright can even protect legal research product when the underlying materials were all in the public domain come before a federal judge in Delaware on briefing for motions for summary judgment. Redacted versions of the reply briefs were filed Nov. 18.
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November 12, 2024
The White Stripes Drop Copyright Suit Against Trump Camp After Election Win
NEW YORK — In the days after President-elect Donald J. Trump won his reelection bid, former members of alternative rock band The White Stripes dropped a copyright infringement complaint against the president-elect over the allegedly infringing use of the band’s song “Seven Nation Army” without its consent.
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November 11, 2024
Magistrate: Sports Store Owed Fees In Copyright Case After Summary Judgment
TAMPA, Fla. — A federal magistrate judge in Florida recommended the award of attorney fees to an online sports memorabilia store after a federal judge granted the store’s motion for summary judgment in its favor on claims brought against it by a photography company that accused it of copyright infringement by selling prints of photos of horse races.
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November 08, 2024
Judge Dismisses AI Suit, Says Removal Of CMI Alone Not Sufficient For Standing
NEW YORK — Two media outlets have not established that the removal of copyright management information (CMI) from news stories without corresponding dissemination of the works constitutes an injury or that an artificial intelligence is likely to reproduce the works verbatim, a federal judge in New York said in dismissing the outlets’ lawsuit on Nov. 7 for lack of standing.
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November 07, 2024
Parties To Newspaper AI Copyright Case Debate Progress Of Discovery
NEW YORK — Newspaper plaintiffs in an artificial intelligence copyright suit say technical issues plaguing searches of datasets used to train the AI programs are making the discovery process impossible and asked a New York federal judge to compel OpenAI entities to identify and admit which relevant works were used. In the joint letter, OpenAI says that while the parties are in “uncharted waters,” there is no need for the unprecedented relief the plaintiffs seek. The joint letter comes on the heels of a third case being added to the litigation and disputes over discovery into social media and what types of damages and benefits the New York Times Co. has seen from AI.
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November 07, 2024
Lack Of Injury Dooms YouTube Scraping AI Suit, Nvidia Says
SAN FRANCISCO — A man can point to no injury from the alleged transcribing of YouTube videos for the use in the training of artificial intelligence, and any viable claims would be preempted by copyright law, dooming his California unfair competition law, so the court should dismiss the claims with prejudice, Nvidia Corp. argues.
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November 06, 2024
YouTube Entities Seek Dismissal Of UCL Claims In AI Suit
SAN FRANCISCO — California unfair competition law claims involving the alleged training of artificial intelligence on YouTube videos are preempted by copyright law, but even if they weren’t there is no injury or reliance on which to base them, Google LLC and related companies tell a federal judge in California in seeking dismissal.
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November 06, 2024
Judge: DMCA Claim Tossed From Copyright Dispute Over Architectural Designs
LANSING, Mich. — A Michigan federal judge granted a defendant architectural firm’s motion for partial summary judgment on a count brought against it by a plaintiff firm, holding that the plaintiff company failed to show that the defendant company violated the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA) by copying elements of the design of a home after the homeowner switched design firms.
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November 05, 2024
2nd Circuit Affirms Finding That Ed Sheeran Didn’t Infringe Marvin Gaye Song
NEW YORK — A 2014 hit single from English pop star Ed Sheeran did not infringe on the copyright related to a 1973 song from Marvin Gaye, the Second Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals held, affirming a New York federal judge’s finding of noninfringement.