The big battle over application of the fair use defense has been focused on the highly subjective, often confusing, doctrine of “transformativeness,” which is addressed under factor one of the four-factor test. Factor one considers the purpose of the use, including whether the purpose is commercial; and over the past decade or so, several high-profile defendants have sought to broaden ...

Just as it is folly to anthropomorphize computers and robots, it is also unhelpful to discuss the implications of generative AI in copyright law by analogizing machines to authors.[1] In 2019, I explored the idea that “machine learning” could be analogous to human reading if the human happens to have an eidetic memory. But this was a thought exercise, and ...

On March 24, the court in Hachette et al. v. Internet Archive wholly rejected IA’s fair use defense constructed on the theory called Controlled Digital Lending (CDL). Prior to and since that ruling, various parties have tried to characterize this case as an attack by the publishers against the core function of libraries, alleging that libraries either already depend, or ...

This year’s World IP Day theme celebrates Women and IP: Accelerating Innovation and Creativity, and for that reason as well as the fact that artificial intelligence dominates all topics these days, my guest for this episode is the highly innovative Carla Diana, whom I first interviewed in 2014. Carla is a tech designer, author, and educator. She runs the 4D design ...

With the court’s unequivocal decision in Hachette et al. v. Internet Archive, and the continued failure of ebook legislation in various states, it is time for policymakers and librarians to understand the reason why this two-pronged campaign against copyright rights in ebooks is losing—because the academics, organizations, and lobbyists behind the effort are lying. Yes, that’s a big accusation to ...

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