On October 30, Judge Orrick of the Northern District of California largely granted the AI companies’ motions to dismiss the class-action complaints filed by Sarah Andersen, Karla Ortiz, and Kelly McKernan on behalf of all visual artists whose works have been used without permission for the purpose of “training” generative AI models. Several complaints were dismissed with leave to amend, ...

Below are the responses I submitted to selected questions in the U.S. Copyright Office Notice of Inquiry and request for comments on artificial intelligence. 8.1. In light of the Supreme Court’s recent decisions in Google v. Oracle America and Andy Warhol Foundation v. Goldsmith, how should the “purpose and character” of the use of copyrighted works to train an AI ...

There is a quote attributed to French revolutionary Alexandre Ledru-Rollin, which says, “There go my people. I must find out where they are going so I can lead them.” The irony may be cited to describe the state of political leadership in the U.S. these days; and after my own party botched the budget/Speaker crisis so badly, I wonder whether ...

Cars and music are so symbiotic that many contemporary vehicles could be mistaken for high-tech sound systems that also happen to take us places. I remember when popular music was only available on AM radio stations, and we’d listen to Steve Miller or Wings or the Jackson 5 playing through tiny, sibilant speakers mounted in the center of the dashboard. ...

Lately, one reads a lot of statements with the preamble “Artificial intelligence presents opportunities and challenges…” But is this the right way to frame the conversation? Because if we’re talking about creative professionals and their industries, it is probably more accurate to say that generative AI presents clear threats and some opportunities. Although we are trying to predict future outcomes, ...

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