Mealey's Copyright : Mealey's : Legal News & Analysis

Mealey's Copyright

March 19, 2024
MosaicML AI Model Comes Under Fire In Authors’ Lawsuit

SAN FRANCISCO — A trio of authors sued MosaicML, the provider of tools facilitating the training of artificial intelligence, and its parent company, claiming that they benefitted from the improper copying of potentially hundreds of thousands of copyrighted works.
March 15, 2024
Panel Upholds Dismissal Of Copyright Claims Per Extraterritoriality Principle

SAN FRANCISCO — A bid by the owner of a copyrighted widget for reinstatement of its infringement case against a foreign entity has failed at the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, which rejected the appellant’s assertion that a California federal judge failed to consider its claims under the correct statute.
March 12, 2024
ISP Asks 4th Circuit To Rehear ‘Exceptionally Important’ Secondary Liability Suit

RICHMOND, Va. — Filing an amicus curiae brief on March 11 in support of fellow internet service provider (ISP) Cox Communications Inc.’s quest for rehearing in an appeal where it was found liable for contributory infringement for its subscribers’ file-sharing activities, Frontier Communications Parent Inc. tells the Fourth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals that a panel’s holding on copyright liability for merely providing internet service that is misused by customers “drives a wrecking ball through the ordinary limits of secondary liability in direct conflict with [U.S.] Supreme Court precedent.”
March 11, 2024
Nvidia’s NeMo Megatron AI Latest LLM Targeted With Copyright Suit

SAN FRANCISCO — Nvidia Corp. trained its NeMo Megatron artificial intelligence with 20 billion “weights” derived from an enormous amount of copyrighted and otherwise protected material, a trio of authors claims in a March 8 California federal class action targeting large language model (LLM) training methods.
March 11, 2024
Copyright Office Calls Human Authorship ‘Basic Prerequisite’ In AI Copyright Suit

WASHINGTON, D.C. — An artificial intelligence developer has not established any reason why the District of Columbia Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals should “upend . . . well-established principles” that “nonhuman authors are not entitled to copyright protection,” the U.S. Copyright Office argues in an appellee brief, asking the court to find that a trial court properly upheld the office’s refusal to issue a copyright for a work of art to an AI machine.
March 08, 2024
Pa. Federal Judge Rejects 2nd, 9th Circuit Standard For Joint Authorship Intent

HARRISBURG, Pa. — Because it remains unclear whether a settlement agreement extends to a plaintiff’s original design for a dragon-themed boot button that, while proven to be a joint work, still may not encompass an accused “simplified, two-dimensional rendering” by an infringement defendant, a Pennsylvania federal judge largely denied summary judgment.
March 07, 2024
Fee Award Slashed, But Dismissal Of Lanham Act, Copyright Claims Upheld

SAN FRANCISCO — The Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals on March 6 did not reach allegations by two appellants that the “idea-expression dichotomy” under federal copyright law is unconstitutional, deeming the position waived in view of their failure to raise it before an Oregon federal magistrate judge.
March 07, 2024
X Corp. Wins Dismissal Of Most, But Not All, Copyright Claims By Music Industry

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — A federal judge in Tennessee dismissed allegations that X Corp., formerly known as Twitter, directly and vicariously infringes copyrighted musical works and partly dismissed allegations of contributory infringement but said a subset of the latter claim will go forward, in view of plausible evidence that the social media giant does not go far enough to police infringement on its platform in certain situations.
March 06, 2024
Michigan Federal Judge: Fish Illustrator’s Copyright Case ‘All Bait And No Hook’

DETROIT — A federal judge in Michigan on March 5 granted dismissal of allegations that a since-shuttered, print-on-demand website incurred infringement liability when it allowed internet users to upload copyrighted illustrations of freshwater fish for printing on various merchandise.
March 04, 2024
Claimed Circuit Split Over Fee Presumption In Copyright Cases Stays In Place

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Efforts by Hasbro Inc. to obtain review of a 2023 holding by the First Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals that affirmed a denial of its request for attorney fees in a copyright case have failed, with the U.S. Supreme Court on March 4 denying the gamemaker’s petition for writ of certiorari.
March 04, 2024
3 More Media Outlets Launch Copyright Actions Over Artificial Intelligence

NEW YORK — Three media outlets filed two new lawsuits in New York federal court targeting OpenAI Inc. and related entities associated with the use of copyrighted material to train artificial intelligence ChatGPT-4.
March 01, 2024
Denial Of Fee Request In Copyright Case Affirmed By 11th Circuit Panel

ATLANTA — “Even if” a prevailing copyright infringement defendant preserved its argument that an award of fees on its behalf was mandated under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 68 by a copyright owner’s voluntary dismissal of the case, an award is not warranted because the defendant is not a “prevailing party” under federal copyright law, the 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruled.
February 20, 2024
COMMENTARY: Diverging International Approaches To The Copyrightability And Authorship Of AI-Created Works

By Christopher W. Savage and James Rosenfeld
February 29, 2024
OpenAI Says New York Times Used ChatGPT Hack To Produce Copyrighted Work

NEW YORK — The New York Times Co. (NYT) — using a known bug — hacked ChatGPT, and tens of thousands of attempts tricked it into producing “highly anomalous results” that it now uses as the basis for a copyright suit, the company behind the artificial intelligence tells a federal judge in New York in seeking dismissal of the suit.
February 29, 2024
9th Circuit Says Zillow Entitled To Fees But Questions Amount Requested

SAN FRANCISCO — In a one-page order issued Feb. 28, the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals agreed with Zillow Inc. that an award of fees for its successful defense of a Washington federal judge’s dismissal of copyright infringement litigation is warranted.
February 28, 2024
6th Circuit Finds No Abuse Of Discretion In Award Of Disgorged Profits

CINCINNATI — A copyright dispute between two providers of loyalty certificates issued to car buyers was properly resolved in favor of the plaintiff, and an Ohio federal judge’s subsequent decision to order a defendant to disgorge $441,239 in profits attributed to the use of the infringing certificate will not be disturbed, the Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruled.
February 27, 2024
Microsoft: Material Differences In California, New York AI Copyright Suits

NEW YORK — Plaintiffs seeking to intervene in or dismissal of New York artificial intelligence copyright suits are simply jockeying for position, and material differences in the suits warrant ignoring the first-to-file rule and denying the motion, Microsoft Corp. tells a federal judge in New York in a Feb. 26 opposition.
February 21, 2024
Discovery Rule In Copyright Cases ‘Pretty Solidified,’ Government Tells High Court

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Counsel for two music industry titans faced tough questions Feb. 21 at the U.S. Supreme Court, with some justices suggesting the case be dismissed as improvidently granted (DIG) and others voicing frustration with perceived over-reach by the petitioners regarding the reformulated question presented.
February 21, 2024
Anthropic Opposes ‘Untimely’ Music Industry Amicus Brief In AI Copyright Fight

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Music industry groups looking to file an amicus curiae brief argue that a case seeking to enjoin an artificial intelligence company doesn’t threaten the AI industry but that continued copyright violations do harm the industry. But in a Feb. 20 opposition brief, AI company Anthropic PBC calls the brief untimely and says it simply rehashes arguments already raised by the plaintiffs.
February 21, 2024
RICO Claim Dismissed From Clothing Retailer’s AI Design Copyright Theft Case

LOS ANGELES — Allegations that an online clothing retailer’s artificial intelligence rips off copyrighted fashion designs can form the basis of a Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) claim, but the designers must dress the claim with additional allegations, a federal judge in California said in dismissing the claim without prejudice.
February 21, 2024
4th Circuit Finds ISP Willful In File-Sharing Suit, Reverses $1 Billion Judgment

RICHMOND, Va. — Although a Fourth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel affirmed a jury’s finding that internet service provider (ISP) Cox Communications Inc. was liable for contributory infringement related to its subscribers’ unauthorized online sharing of copyrighted musical works, the panel on Feb. 20 concluded that the plaintiff record labels did not establish the necessary direct financial benefit to establish vicarious infringement, leading it to vacate that part of a trial court’s judgment and accompanying $1 billion award to the plaintiffs, remanding for a new trial on damages.
February 21, 2024
Trademark, Copyright Owner Denied Summary Judgment By Illinois Federal Judge

CHICAGO — Citing a plaintiff’s “trend of under-developing arguments” in trademark and copyright litigation over its continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) filters, a federal judge in Illinois denied summary judgment, finding — among other things — that there is “no case law supporting the proposition that a product itself . . . can constitute a spurious mark for the purposes of establishing a counterfeit.”
February 20, 2024
Google Says UCL, Other Claims In AI Training Lawsuit Fail

SAN FRANCISCO — Vague allegations and hypothetical damages involving the scraping of websites and other sources for data used in the training of artificial intelligence cannot form the basis of California unfair competition law (UCL) and other claims because the potential usage was adequately disclosed and individuals lack a privacy interest in information they themselves publicly disclosed, Google LLC tells a federal judge in California in seeking dismissal.
February 16, 2024
In IP Row With Former Firm, Accused Engineer Defends Summary Judgment

WASHINGTON, D.C. — A federal judge in Utah correctly rejected on summary judgment a patent and copyright owner’s case in full against a former employee and his new, competing company, the employee and company tell the Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in an appellee brief.
February 16, 2024
Judge Disqualifies Law Firm From Job Search Sites’ Row Over Prior Representation

SAN JOSE, Calif. — A California federal judge hearing a lawsuit brought by the operators of a job search and resume-creation website against a competitor for copyright infringement and violation of California’s unfair competition law (UCL) granted the plaintiffs’ motion to disqualify a law firm whose attorneys included the defendant’s general counsel and one defendant’s wife, due to the firm’s prior representation of the plaintiffs.