News/Copyright
Magic-less Kingdom: Disney scraps AI projects over legal fears and union pushback
Disney's secretive AI experiments have repeatedly collapsed due to legal concerns and union tensions, forcing the entertainment giant to scrap multiple projects despite investing heavily in the technology. The company's struggles highlight the complex challenges media companies face when trying to implement AI while protecting intellectual property and maintaining relationships with creative talent. What you should know: Disney created an entire business unit dedicated to AI but has abandoned several high-profile projects over the past 18 months. The company scrapped plans to use AI to "clone" Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson for the live-action "Moana" remake, despite Johnson's approval and 18...
read Aug 6, 2025Art of the Steal: News Corp warns AI is cannibalizing Trump’s book sales
News Corp is warning Donald Trump that artificial intelligence is cannibalizing sales of his books, including The Art of the Deal, by allowing AI systems to profit from his intellectual property without permission. The media conglomerate owned by Rupert Murdoch used its earnings report to highlight how AI companies are undermining book sales across the publishing industry, even affecting high-profile authors like the president. What they're saying: News Corp delivered a pointed message about AI's impact on intellectual property rights in its fourth-quarter earnings statement. "The AI age must cherish the value of intellectual property if we are collectively to...
read Aug 6, 2025ElevenLabs launches AI music generator with full commercial rights
ElevenLabs has launched an AI music generator that offers full commercial rights to users, allowing generated music to be used in YouTube videos, movies, and advertising without licensing restrictions. The move positions the AI voice company to expand beyond its core offering into the less-crowded generative music space, where commercial usage rights could provide a significant competitive advantage. What you should know: The tool operates through simple text prompts, similar to chatbots or image generators, where users can request specific musical styles and themes. Users can input prompts like "create an early 2000s pop song with lyrics about a romantic...
read Jul 29, 2025Viral AI knockoff song outranks Tyler, the Creator’s actual album
Tyler, the Creator's surprise album "Don't Tap The Glass" has been overshadowed by a viral AI-generated knockoff song of the same name that flooded the internet before the official release. The fake track, featuring repetitive lyrics over generic dance-pop beats, has dominated search results and social media platforms, demonstrating how AI-generated content can hijack legitimate artists' marketing campaigns and cultural moments. What happened: An AI-generated song titled "Don't Tap The Glass" went viral on July 20, one day before Tyler, the Creator's actual album release. The fake track features the phrase "don't tap the glass" repeated over swelling chords in...
read Jul 28, 2025Artists upset at WeTransfer’s new terms letting it train AI on uploaded files
WeTransfer faced widespread artist outrage after updating its terms of service to grant itself sweeping rights to use all content transferred through its platform, including for AI training purposes. The controversy highlights growing concerns about how tech companies exploit user data, particularly as AI becomes more prevalent in content generation and manipulation. What happened: WeTransfer's July 14 terms update initially granted the Amsterdam-based company "a perpetual, worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, transferable, sub-licensable license to use your Content for the purposes of operating, developing, commercialising and improving the Service or new technologies or services, including to improve performance of machine learning models."...
read Jul 28, 2025Stealth mode, indeed: Meta sued for torrenting 2,396 adult videos to train AI
Adult entertainment company Strike 3 Holdings has filed a lawsuit alleging that Meta pirated and distributed pornographic content for years to accelerate AI training data downloads through BitTorrent networks. The lawsuit claims Meta used a "tit-for-tat" strategy of seeding popular adult videos to gain faster access to massive datasets, potentially exposing minors to explicit content without age verification while hiding its piracy activities through stealth networks. What you should know: Strike 3 Holdings alleges Meta has been torrenting and seeding copyrighted adult videos since at least 2018 as part of its AI training data collection strategy.• The company claims to...
read Jul 25, 2025Indian filmmaker sues over AI-altered movie ending in creative rights battle
A dispute between Eros International and filmmaker Aanand L. Rai over the studio's AI-altered re-release of the 2013 film "Raanjhanaa" has escalated into a broader confrontation about creative rights and artificial intelligence in Indian cinema. The controversy centers on Eros's decision to use AI to create an alternate ending for the Tamil version of the romantic drama, transforming its tragic conclusion into a happier one without the director's knowledge or consent, setting what industry observers view as a potentially precedent-setting case for filmmaker rights in the AI era. What you should know: Eros International, a major Indian film studio, announced...
read Jul 25, 2025Anthropic faces $1.5B lawsuit over AI training on pirated books
A federal judge in San Francisco has certified a class action lawsuit against Anthropic on behalf of nearly every US book author whose works were used to train the company's AI models, marking the first time a US court has allowed such a case to proceed in the generative AI context. The ruling exposes Anthropic to potentially catastrophic damages that could exceed $1 billion and threaten the company's survival, despite its recent $100 billion valuation target. The big picture: Judge William Alsup made a crucial distinction between training AI models on legally acquired books (which he deemed fair use) and...
read Jul 24, 2025Cognizant’s AI Lab reaches 59 U.S. patents with neural network breakthroughs
Cognizant's AI Lab has secured its 59th U.S. patent, marking a significant milestone in the company's artificial intelligence research efforts. The achievement reflects Cognizant's accelerating innovation pace, with two new patents granted in the first half of 2025 alone, plus an additional 23 patents pending approval. What you should know: The latest patents demonstrate Cognizant's focus on solving core AI challenges around neural network optimization and training efficiency.• U.S. Patent No. 12,282,845 covers Multi-objective Coevolution of Deep Neural Network Architectures, designed to improve model performance and resource efficiency across applications from medical imaging to natural language processing.• U.S. Patent No....
read Jul 24, 2025Trump rejects AI copyright payments as impractical against China
President Trump rejected the idea of requiring AI companies to pay copyright holders for training data, arguing it would be impractical and put the U.S. at a competitive disadvantage against China. Speaking at an AI Summit in Washington, D.C., Trump called for a "common sense" approach that allows unfettered AI development, comparing AI learning to human reading where knowledge is gained without copyright violations. What Trump said: The president drew parallels between human learning and AI training to justify his position on copyright compensation. "You can't be expected to have a successful AI program when every single article, book or...
read Jul 23, 2025Leaked document reveals Anthropic’s banned and trusted Claude training sources
A leaked internal document has exposed the data sources used to fine-tune Claude, Anthropic's AI assistant, revealing which websites were trusted or banned during the model's training process. The spreadsheet, created by third-party contractor Surge AI and accidentally left in a public Google Drive folder, raises serious questions about data governance and transparency in AI development at a time when companies face increasing scrutiny over copyright and licensing issues. What the leak revealed: The document contained over 120 "whitelisted" websites that contractors could use as trusted sources, alongside 50+ "blacklisted" sites they were instructed to avoid. Approved sources included prestigious...
read Jul 23, 2025Mimic mindset: Tony Robbins sues AI chatbot platform for $10M over unauthorized clones
You can't achieve it if you disbelieve it. "It" being a replica of the real thing. Motivational speaker Tony Robbins has filed a federal lawsuit against YesChat, accusing the AI chatbot platform of creating unauthorized bots that mimic his persona and sell access to his copyrighted content. The case represents the first known legal challenge by a celebrity against AI chatbot replicas, setting a potential precedent for how public figures can protect their digital likeness and intellectual property in the AI era. What you should know: Robbins discovered multiple unauthorized bots on YesChat using his name and trademark, including "Talk...
read Jul 23, 2025Spotify removes AI songs falsely attributed to deceased country artists
Spotify removed AI-generated songs falsely attributed to deceased country artists Blaze Foley and Guy Clark after fans and record labels flagged the fraudulent uploads. The tracks, which appeared on the artists' official pages with proper cover art and credits, slipped through Spotify's content verification systems via TikTok's music distributor SoundOn, highlighting a troubling escalation in AI-generated content fraud that could undermine artist legacies and streaming platform integrity. What happened: Two AI-generated country songs appeared on Spotify under the names of artists who died decades ago, presented as official releases. "Together," attributed to Blaze Foley (who was shot and killed in...
read Jul 17, 2025Google’s new AI news summaries threaten publisher traffic
Google has launched a new AI feature that automatically summarizes trending news stories within its mobile search apps, displaying tiny publisher logos while discouraging users from clicking through to original articles. This development threatens to further devastate an already struggling journalism industry that has seen significant traffic declines from Google's previous AI initiatives, potentially accelerating what experts call "Google Zero"—a future where the search giant stops sending traffic to news sites entirely. The big picture: Google's AI summaries represent the latest escalation in the tech giant's systematic reduction of referral traffic to news publishers, following the controversial rollout of AI...
read Jul 16, 2025Brilliant: AI chatbots reconstruct paywalled news content from social media fragments
Artificial intelligence chatbots are quietly reshaping how people access premium news content, creating a new dynamic that affects both readers and publishers. When users ask ChatGPT or similar AI tools to summarize articles from paywalled publications, they often receive surprisingly accurate responses—despite the AI never actually accessing the original content directly. This phenomenon isn't the result of sophisticated hacking or direct paywall circumvention. Instead, AI chatbots employ a more subtle approach: they reconstruct article summaries by piecing together fragments from social media posts, archived snippets, and online discussions. The result is often a coherent summary that captures the essence of...
read Jul 15, 2025Google expands NotebookLM with content from The Economist and The Atlantic
Google has expanded NotebookLM to include featured notebooks from major publishers including The Economist and The Atlantic, along with content from scientists, nonprofits, and authors covering topics from Shakespeare to parenting advice. The collaboration arrives amid deep divisions in the publishing industry over AI partnerships, with some publishers choosing licensing deals while others pursue litigation against AI companies. What you should know: The new featured notebooks offer curated content from established publishers and experts across multiple domains. The Economist's notebook features articles from "The World Ahead 2025," their annual special issue examining key trends and events shaping the year. The...
read Jul 14, 2025Battle of the Clone: Voice actors win court battle against AI voice cloning startup
A federal judge in New York has allowed a lawsuit from voice-over artists Paul Skye Lehrman and Linnea Sage to proceed against AI voice startup Lovo Inc., which allegedly used their voices without permission to create AI voice clones. The decision marks a significant development in the growing wave of litigation against AI companies over unauthorized use of creative work, potentially setting precedent for how courts handle voice rights in the age of artificial intelligence. What you should know: The judge dismissed federal copyright claims for the voices themselves but allowed breach of contract and deceptive business practices claims to...
read Jul 10, 2025Safecracking Cambridge researchers undermine artist anti-AI defenses with new tool
University of Cambridge researchers have developed LightShed, a proof-of-concept tool that can effectively strip away anti-AI protections from digital artwork, neutralizing defenses like Glaze and Nightshade that artists use to prevent their work from being scraped for AI training. The technology represents a significant escalation in the ongoing battle between artists seeking to protect their intellectual property and AI companies needing training data, potentially undermining the digital defenses that 7.5 million artists have downloaded to safeguard their work. The big picture: LightShed demonstrates that current artist protection tools may provide only temporary security, as AI researchers can develop countermeasures that...
read Jun 30, 2025Trump fires US Copyright Office leader amid critical AI lawsuits
The Trump administration's abrupt firing of US Copyright Office leader Shira Perlmutter has left the agency without effective leadership during a critical period for AI copyright litigation. The dismissal, which Perlmutter is challenging in court as invalid, has created operational dysfunction at an agency that has gained new prominence issuing key AI copyright rulings. What you should know: The Copyright Office has been operating without a confirmed leader since May, when Perlmutter was fired via email by the White House's deputy director of personnel. Perlmutter is suing the Trump administration, arguing that only the Librarian of Congress has authority to...
read Jun 25, 2025Authors sue Microsoft over 200K pirated books used for AI training
A group of prominent authors, including Kai Bird and Jia Tolentino, has filed a lawsuit against Microsoft in New York federal court, alleging the tech giant used pirated versions of their books without permission to train its Megatron AI model. The case represents the latest in a series of high-stakes copyright battles between content creators and major tech companies over the unauthorized use of copyrighted material in AI development. What you should know: The lawsuit alleges Microsoft used nearly 200,000 pirated books to train Megatron, an AI algorithm designed to generate text responses to user prompts.• The authors claim Microsoft...
read Jun 24, 2025Judge rules Anthropic’s book scanning for AI training is fair use
Anthropic has scored a significant legal victory in an AI copyright case, with a federal judge ruling that training AI models on legally purchased books constitutes fair use. However, the company still faces a separate trial for allegedly pirating millions of books from the internet, creating a mixed outcome that could shape future AI copyright litigation. The big picture: Judge William Alsup of the Northern District of California delivered a first-of-its-kind ruling favoring the AI industry, but with important limitations that distinguish between legitimate and illegitimate training practices. What you should know: The ruling specifically covers Anthropic's practice of purchasing...
read Jun 23, 2025Judge weighs in on OpenAI’s $6.5B Jony Ive partnership and trademark dispute
OpenAI has temporarily removed all mentions of its $6.5 billion partnership with legendary iPhone designer Jony Ive from its website following a federal judge's ruling in favor of a trademark dispute. The legal challenge comes from IYO, an AI hardware startup that claims OpenAI's "io Products" branding infringes on its trademark, forcing the tech giant to halt marketing efforts for the high-profile collaboration until an October hearing. What you should know: U.S. District Judge Trina Thompson ruled that IYO has a strong enough case to proceed, issuing a temporary restraining order against OpenAI, CEO Sam Altman, and Jony Ive. The...
read Jun 23, 2025Uh-oh, “io”: Trademark fight threatens OpenAI and Jony Ive’s $6.5B AI hardware venture
OpenAI and Jony Ive's highly anticipated AI hardware venture has hit a major legal roadblock after a court order forced the removal of their partnership announcement due to a trademark dispute. The conflict centers on the "io" name for Ive's startup, which another AI company claims infringes on their existing trademark, potentially forcing a costly rebrand of the $6.5 billion collaboration. What happened: OpenAI was forced to remove its blog post announcing the acquisition of Jony Ive's hardware startup "io" following a court order triggered by trademark complaints from a company called iyO. The original blog post detailed a $6.5...
read Jun 20, 2025BBC threatens legal action against Perplexity for unauthorized content use
The BBC has threatened legal action against US-based AI company Perplexity, accusing the firm of reproducing BBC content "verbatim" without permission through its chatbot. This marks the first time the world's largest public broadcaster has taken such action against an AI company, highlighting escalating tensions between media organizations and AI firms over unauthorized content use. What you should know: The BBC sent a formal legal letter to Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas demanding immediate cessation of BBC content use, deletion of stored material, and financial compensation. The letter states this "constitutes copyright infringement in the UK and breach of the BBC's...
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