Last week, writer and broadcaster Andrew Keen invited me to his podcast Keen On to talk (of course) about artificial intelligence. When we got to the subject of the New York Times lawsuit against Open AI and Microsoft, I noted that 1) it is arguably the strongest copyright case presented to date against an AI developer; 2) that it would ...

When I was planning to start The Illusion of More, I contemplated a category of posts under the heading We Don’t Need This. Although abandoned, I thought it might be an editorial framework for articles about innovations that really aren’t innovative, and the low-tech invention that originally inspired the idea was the kiddie-car/shopping-cart hybrid. In case you haven’t had the ...

And the fairy that is called Tinkerbell said, come and see. And I saw, and behold, a Mouse with large black ears. And the name that said on him was Mirth. And Joy followed with him. And to those who may feel anxious about the coming year, I say unto thee, fear not. Whatever your concerns for the fate of ...

With all the talk about AI, one might think the problem of old-school media piracy has abated, but this week, the House Judiciary Committee held a hearing entitled Digital Copyright Piracy:  Protecting American Consumers, Workers, and Creators. Although much of the conversation was familiar territory (i.e., the economic value of the creative industries and the cost of piracy), the legislative ...

In my last post, I focused on the hypothetical fair use defense of generative AI under the principles articulated in the Google Books decision of 2014. In this post, I want to address another claim that has arisen—both on social media, and in comments to the Copyright Office—namely that generative AI companies should be shielded against secondary liability for copyright ...

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