Celebrity tattoo artist Kat von D has done body art for thousands of paying clients, and she also appeared on TLC’s tattoo reality shows Miami Ink and LA Ink. Her high profile likely led to the copyright infringement case involving her work recreating a 1989...
Copyright Law
Battle royal: New York Times vs. Microsoft
I have spent recent months talking about cases involving AI developers’ use of preexisting content for training their platforms. The plaintiff in these cases often is a group of copyright owners, e.g., visual artists or writers. That paradigm decidedly shifted when...
Visual artists amend claim against AI companies
AI appropriation of intellectual property is the biggest issue in IP law right now. While we recently focused on a group of published authors, we now follow up on an August post focusing on claims made by illustrators Sarah Andersen, Kelly McKernan, and Karla Ortiz....
Judge tightens AI-training lawsuit against Meta’s Llama
In August, we wrote about how DALL-E 2, Microsoft Image Creator and other artificial intelligence technology use visual artists and photographers' work to learn how to generate images based on user prompts. This high-stakes question of whether the unauthorized use of...
Should human artists get paid when AI uses their work for learning?
AI system DALL-E 2, Microsoft Image Creator and others enable users to create realistic images and visual art. The user enters a series of prompts and then gets an image. OpenAI, which also made Chat-GPT, created the system. The art generator can create new works...
Ed Sheeran wins claim involving “Thinking Out Loud”
Pop star Ed Sheeran is famous for his candid songs of love and heartbreak while bridging the sounds of pop, soul, hip-hop, folk, dance, and rock. He’s been one of the world’s biggest music stars since his major label debut in 2011 entitled +. His second album, 2014’s...
Public domain usage may not be straightforward
In 1998, Disney waged a zealous effort to extend its copyright protections to 95 years (for corporate copyrights) and 70 years after the death of an individual creator. Detractors called it the Mickey Mouse Protection Act, which the Supreme Court upheld in 2003. Now...
Taylor Swift copyright case dismissed
A copyright infringement case against Taylor Swift was dismissed with prejudice, which means that the plaintiff cannot file another claim involving the same issue. The trial was to begin on January 17, 2023. The dispute involved the Swift song "Shake it Off," released...
Music lawsuit against Meta will continue
Sweden's Epidemic Sound has a catalog of 38,000 pieces of music spread across 160 genres. These are designed for use in video content, film and television production, podcasts, streaming platforms, and other media. Recently valued at $1.4 billion, the company filed a...
USCO announces plans to retool Music Modernization Act
Government agencies often announce plans to revamp or create new regulations before making final decisions. This approach allows citizens and businesses to weigh in with opinions on the proposed changes. Such is now the case with the U.S. Copyright Office (USCO),...