In a decision that is unsurprising but important, the DC Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed that “authors,” as defined in U.S. Copyright Act, are human beings and not machines that can autonomously generate works. I say unsurprising because nothing in history or statute should have led the court to any other conclusion, and indeed the opinion can be summed up ...
Many copyright scholars refer to England’s Statute of Anne (1710) as the “first authors’ copyright law,” but I quarrel with that summary. In that year, and for many decades to follow, English “rights” for authors were too intertwined with the Crown’s authority to sanction publication of works for us to think of the Statute of Anne as affirming copyright rights ...
A common disparagement of copyright advocacy is that it is anti-technology. Despite overwhelming evidence that professional creators are early adopters of new technlogical developements, the talking point persists that enforcing the rights of creators can only “stifle innovation.” This “Luddite” critique of copyright rights was used to defend the predatory models of social and streaming platforms (and defend outright piracy), ...
When it comes to cyber policy and anything like intellectual property, the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s critiques are so predictable, they might as well use ChatGPT to write their blog. For instance, in opposing the NO FAKES Act, an April post by Corynne McSherry selects items from that same menu of responses EFF has used to oppose any form of online ...
On Monday, beloved actor James Earl Jones passed away at age 93, but in 2022, he signed an agreement with LucasFilms to allow the voice of Darth Vader to live on through Gen AI replication. Jones’s permission to replicate his voice is a bittersweet prelude to today’s news from Capitol Hill, where the House of Representatives introduced its own No ...
