Law Commons^™

Elaborating A Human Rights Friendly Copyright Framework For Generative Ai, Christophe Geiger

Joint PIJIP/TLS Research Paper Series

This paper analyses the copyright issues related to so-called “generative AI” systems and reviews the arguments currently advanced to change the copyright regime for AI-generated works from a human rights perspective. It argues that because of the applicable human rights framework for copyright but also the anthropocentric approach of human rights the protection of creators and human creativity must be considered the point of reference when assessing future reforms with regard to copyright and generative AI systems. Consequently, the copyrightability of AI-generated outputs should be considered with utmost care and only when AI is used as a technical tool for …

Building A Text And Data Mining Limitation: The Brazilian Case, Luca Schirru, Allan Rocha De Souza, Claudia Chamas

Joint PIJIP/TLS Research Paper Series

In recent years, there has been a growing body of legal regulation of

TDM. Since 2018, Japan, the European Union, Singapore and others have

promoted changes to their copyright law and included specific limitations and

exceptions for TDM. These changes have been slow in the Global South and

the developing world, even though they are urgently needed there. This report

aims to present the Brazilian copyright legal framework and the policy

documents related to Intellectual Property, Artificial Intelligence and

innovation influencing political and public debate. This set of policies and

legislative texts provides the grounds for the discussion on the …

Briefing Note: 45th Meeting Of The Wipo Standing Committee On Copyright And Related Rights, Sean Flynn

Joint PIJIP/TLS Research Paper Series

This analysis provides a historical and legal overview of the principle agenda items to be discussed at the 45th meeting of the Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights.

Copyright's Public Reliance Interests, Bo S. L. Kim

Washington Law Review

Courts are increasingly invoking copyright law’s “scenes a faire” doctrine, which precludes infringement liability for copying typical or standard elements in a copyrighted work. But judges and commentators only cursorily discuss why certain elements constitute scenes a faire. Alternatively, they characterize the doctrine as merely an extension of other copyrightability doctrines. The result is doctrinal inconsistency in how scenes a faire applies and theoretical disagreement about why the doctrine exists.

This Article advances a “public reliance interests” theory of scenes a faire that provides descriptive clarity to the doctrine and highlights its underexplored importance to copyright law writ large. Drawing …

Calculating The Harms Of Political Use Of Popular Music, Jake Linford, Aaron Perzanowski

Articles

When Donald Trump descended the escalator of Trump Tower to announce his 2016 presidential bid, Neil Young’s “Rockin’ in the Free World” blared from the loudspeakers. Almost immediately, Young’s management made clear that the campaign’s use of the song was unauthorized. Neil Young was not alone. Trump drew similar objections from dozens of artists during his first two presidential bids. But as a matter of copyright law, it is unclear whether artists can prevent their songs from being played at campaign rallies.

Govt Publications Must Give Credit Where Due, Aparajita Lath

Popular Media

Extract:

...[The] concept of moral rights applies not only to highly creative works of art or fiction but also to any original work, including original policy and academic writing, whether legal, economic, political, or any other. This concept of moral rights applies not only to highly creative works of art or fiction but also to any original work, including original policy and academic writing, whether legal, economic, political, or any other. In the recent past, several government bodies have borrowed from research published by individuals in newspapers in their reports and policy decisions.... While the government has benefited from individual …

Law Library Blog (February 2024): Legal Beagle's Blog Archive, Roger Williams University School Of Law

Law Library Newsletters/Blog

No abstract provided.

Robots As Pirates, Henry H. Perritt Jr.

Catholic University Law Review

Generative AI has created much excitement over its potential to create new works of authorship in the literary and graphical realms. Its underling machine-learning technology works by analyzing the relations among elements of preexisting material in enormous databases assembled from publicly available and licensed sources. Its algorithms “learn” to predict “what comes next” in different types of expression. A complete system thus can become glib in creating new factual summaries, essays, fictional stories and images.

A number of authors of the raw material used by Generative AI engines claim that the machine learning process infringes their copyrights. Careful evaluation of …

Pocket Castles And Custom Skin: Championing Transparency In The Monetization Of User-Generated Content In Video Games, Jakob Stokes

Cybaris®

No abstract provided.

Tools Do Not Create: Human Authorship In The Use Of Generative Artificial Intelligence, Michael D. Murray

Journal of Law, Technology, & the Internet

Artistic tools, from brushes to complex algorithms, don’t create art; human artists do. The advent of generative AI tools like Midjourney, DALL-E, and Stable Diffusion has blurred this understanding, causing observers to believe these tools are the authors of the artworks they produce, even so far as to imagine that the artworks are “created” by the AI in the copyright sense of the word. Not so.

The U.S. Copyright Office recently issued guidance on the copyrightability of works produced using generative AI tools. The Office has accepted the narrative that AI tools perform the steps of authorship, conceiving of the …

Silencing Jorge Luis Borges The Wrongful Suppression Of The Di Giovanni Translations, Wes Henricksen

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Subsistence And Enforcement Of Copyright And Trademark Rights In The Metaverse, Cheng Lim Saw, Zheng Wen Samuel Chan

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

The metaverse has been widely hailed as a symbol of technological progress, presenting an immersive virtual realm that has the potential to transform how individuals engage in social and commercial activities. However, this conception of a borderless virtual world - which purportedly transcends the capabilities and reach of Web 2.0 - sits uncomfortably with the territorial nature of intellectual property rights. This chapter examines the complexities surrounding the subsistence and enforcement of intellectual property rights within the metaverse, with a specific focus on copyright and trademarks. Especial attention is paid to issues concerning choice of law and jurisdiction. Finally, the …

From Andy Warhol To Barbie: Copyright’S Fair Use Doctrine After Andy Warhol Foundation V. Goldsmith, Niki Kuckes

Roger Williams University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Editing Classic Books: A Threat To The Public Domain?, Cathay Y. N. Smith

Faculty Law Review Articles

Over the past few years, there has been a growing trend in the publishing industry of hiring sensitivity readers to review books for offensive tropes or racial, gender, or sexual stereotypes. In February 2023, for instance, reports that Puffin Books had edited several classics by Roald Dahl—in consultation with sensitivity readers—generated immediate backlash from the public and several renowned authors and politicians. While most of that backlash focused on accusations of “censorship” and “cancel culture,” this Essay examines an actual legal consequence of revising classic books: the creation of copyrightable derivative works in updated editions. Derivative works are new works …

Virtually Identical: A Case For Maintaining Architectural Copyright Protections In The Metaverse, Stephen Mcpaul

Cybaris®

No abstract provided.

Applying Current Copyright Law To Artificial Intelligence Image Generators In The Context Of Anderson V. Stability Ai, Ltd., Matthew Lindberg

Cybaris®

No abstract provided.

Open Source Perfume, Amanda Levendowski

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

ABRIDGED ABSTRACT: Perfume is a powerful art and technology, but its secrets are closely held by a privileged few - by some counts, there are more astronauts than there are perfumers. As critics have noted increasingly since 2020, those select few perfumers often share similar backgrounds. As interviews with American, British, and French perfumemakers reveal, intellectual property (IP) also plays a gatekeeping role in perfumery. Drawing on work by perfumer and educator Saskia Wilson-Brown, this Article suggests that perfumery is overdue for a transformation. One is emerging: open source perfume. For those seeking ways to share scents and signal commitment …

Ai, Artists, And Anti-Moral Rights, Derek E. Bambauer, Robert W. Woods

UF Law Faculty Publications

Generative artificial intelligence (AI) tools are increasingly used to imitate the distinctive characteristics of famous artists, such as their voice, likeness, and style. In response, legislators have introduced bills in Congress that would confer moral rights protections, such as control over attribution and integrity, upon artists. This Essay argues such measures are almost certain to fail because of deep-seated, pervasive hostility to moral rights measures in U.S. intellectual property law. It analyses both legislative measures and judicial decisions that roll back moral rights, and explores how copyright’s authorship doctrines manifest a latent hostility to these entitlements. The Essay concludes with …

Desettling Fixation, Emily T. Behzadi Cárdenas

Faculty Scholarship

Scholars have long contemplated how the effects of colonialism have permeated even race “neutral” laws. This Article scrutinizes the ways Eurocentric copyright systems have failed to protect, and have even encouraged, the unauthorized uses of indigenous heritage in derivative subject matter, exposing how settler colonialism in copyright law has entrenched an unequal hierarchy among communities seeking copyright protection. Due to its ephemeral nature, intangible cultural heritage constantly faces the threat of exploitation by dominant cultures. The intangible heritage of indigenous groups has been particularly vulnerable to illicit and uncompensated commodification. Intangible heritage, such as oral histories and traditional dances, is …

A Matter Of Facts: The Evolution Of Copyright’S Fact-Exclusion And Its Implications For Disinformation And Democracy, Jessica Silbey

Faculty Scholarship

The Article begins with a puzzle: the curious absence of an express fact-exclusion from copyright protection in both the Copyright Act and its legislative history despite it being a well-founded legal principle. It traces arguments in the foundational Supreme Court case (Feist Publications v. Rural Telephone Service) and in the Copyright Act’s legislative history to discern a basis for the fact-exclusion. That research trail produces a legal genealogy of the fact-exclusion based in early copyright common law anchored by canonical cases, Baker v. Selden, Burrow-Giles v. Sarony, and Wheaton v. Peters. Surprisingly, none of them …

Artificial Intelligence And Transformative Use After Warhol, Gary Myers

Washington and Lee Law Review Online

The Supreme Court’s recent decision in Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. v. Goldsmith clarifies the scope of transformative use and the role of these uses in the fair use analysis. This important case has implications for a fair use analysis of artificial intelligence. This article evaluates the interaction between copyright law’s fair use doctrine and typical sources and uses for artificial intelligence. In other words, the article will assess whether or not the use of copyrighted material to “train” AI programs—AI inputs—and the products of AI programs—AI outputs—are likely to found to be transformative in light of …

The Proof Is In The Data: How Ethereum And Efficient Audits Can Reduce Litigation In The Streaming Era, Keri Ogden

Loyola of Los Angeles Entertainment Law Review

No abstract provided.

That Thing Ain't Human: The Artificiality Of "Human Authorship" And The Intelligence In Expanding Copyright Authorship To Fully-Autonomous Ai, Ernest Oleksy

Cleveland State Law Review

The U.S. Copyright Review Board (the "Board") decided that works entirely created by fully-autonomous artificial intelligence ("AI") are not entitled to copyright protections. The Board based its decision on a copyrightability requirement referred to as “human authorship.” However, the Copyright Act of 1976 (the "Act") never mentions a “human” requirement to copyright authorship, nor do most of the Board’s cited authorities. Denying authorship to intellectually-impressive and economically-valuable works under a poorly-established legal subelement is antithetical to copyright law’s history and to Congress’s constitutional mandate to “promote . . . [the] useful [a]rts . . . .” It leaves creators who …

Defragging Feminist Cyberlaw, Amanda Levendowski

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

In 1996, Judge Frank Easterbrook famously observed that any effort to create a field called cyberlaw would be “doomed to be shallow and miss unifying principles.” He was wrong, but not for the reason other scholars have stated. Feminism is a unifying principle of cyberlaw, which alternately amplifies and abridges the feminist values of consent, safety, and accessibility. Cyberlaw simply hasn’t been understood that way—until now.

In computer science, “defragging” means bringing together disparate pieces of data so they are easier to access. Inspired by that process, this Article offers a new approach to cyberlaw that illustrates how feminist values …

All The Internet's A Stage: Reform Of The Digital Millennium Copyright Act And Broadway's Bootleg Problem, Emma K. Wimberly

Georgia Law Review

Broadway is the cultural epicenter of theatre arts. While Broadway performances are internationally known and hugely profitable, they remain inaccessible to a significant number of fans. The inability to bear the increasing costs of travel, lodging, and tickets leads many fans to turn to bootlegs. Bootlegs are illegal recordings of live performances. They are widely viewed and shared online, and uploaders purposefully work to obscure the illegality of these recordings, allowing them to evade tools designed to combat copyright infringement.

The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), enacted in 1998, amended U.S. copyright law to attempt to prevent digital copyright infringement. …

Cancelling Dr. Seuss, Cathay Y.N. Smith

Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law

Dr. Seuss Enterprises announced in March 2021 that it would no longer license or publish six of its children’s books because those books portrayed people in racist or culturally stereotypical ways. Since then, the public has learned through news reports and social media that other publishers have similarly reviewed and altered their catalogues of classic children’s works, including withdrawing them from the public, editing them to remove problematic content, or adding disclaimers to warn the public about racially insensitive or outdated content. The public reaction to Dr. Seuss’s decision and these other actions has been largely divided. Some criticized these …

Mcgucken V. Pub Ocean Ltd., Christina Robinson

Golden Gate University Law Review

This case summary details the decision in McGucken v. Pub Ocean Ltd., 42 F.4th 1149 (9th Cir. 2022), in which the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit analyzed the proper application of the fair use doctrine under the U.S. Copyright Act. The Copyright Act (17 U.S.C. §§ 101 et. seq. (1976)) seeks to further cultural advancements by protecting the exclusive rights of creators. The fair use doctrine protects the interests of those who build upon the work of creators when they use portions of previously copyrighted works. In McGucken, the Ninth Circuit reversed the sua sponte …

Training Is Everything: Artificial Intelligence, Copyright, And “Fair Training”, Andrew W. Torrance, Bill Tomlinson

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

In this Essay, we analyze the arguments in favor of, and against, viewing the use of copyrighted works in training sets for AI as fair use. We call this form of fair use “fair training.” We identify both strong and spurious arguments on both sides of this debate. In addition, we attempt to take a broader perspective, weighing the societal costs (e.g., replacement of certain forms of human employment) and benefits (e.g., the possibility of novel AI-based approaches to global issues such as environmental disruption) of allowing AI to make easy use of copyrighted works as training sets to facilitate …

One Test To Rule Them All: Retiring The Dual Standard For Fictional Character Copyrightability In The Ninth Circuit, Kiersten Daly

St. John's Law Review

(Excerpt)

From Captain Jack Sparrow sailing on the Black Pearl in Pirates of Caribbean to Frodo Baggins trekking through Mordor in Lord of the Rings, well-developed characters are vital to the success of a story. Iconic characters like Captain Jack and Frodo Baggins have each developed a cult following as a result of their interesting storylines and character development. The instant recognition and nostalgia associated with such iconic characters has motivated companies to monetize their likenesses. Whether it is car companies recreating the Batmobile or the recent trend in creating story-based pop-up shops, there is a lot of value …

Evaluating Copyright Protection In The Data-Driven Era: Centering On Motion Picture's Past And Future, Chieh-Li Pai

Maurer Theses and Dissertations

Since the 1910s, Hollywood has measured audience preferences with rough industry-created methods. In the 1940s, scientific audience research led by George Gallup started to conduct film audience surveys with traditional statistical and psychological methods. However, the quantity, quality, and speed were limited. Things dramatically changed in the internet age. The prevalence of digital data increases the instantaneousness, convenience, width, and depth of collecting audience and content data. Advanced data and AI technologies have also allowed machines to provide filmmakers with ideas or even make human-like expressions. This brings new copyright challenges in the data-driven era.

Massive amounts of text and …