No doubt by this point you have seen the headlines about the U.S. District Court’s June 23rd order (the “June 23rd Order”) in the matter of Bartz v. Anthropic PBC (US Dist. Ct. N.D. California Docket 3:24-cv-05417-WHA). In the abstract, the fact pattern is a familiar one by now for those who are following the copyright related litigation initiated by authors against the artificial intelligence developers: the developer copies legally protected works at scale without any license or payment to the rights holders, and uses those protected works to train software.
The New Copyright Office Guidance on AI: a Primer
When I started the Tuk’s Copyright Law Report five years ago, I never thought that artificial intelligence would take up such a large part of the legal landscape. Yet, here we are.
The stakes are high. If works created solely by AI can be protected under US Copyright Law, human artistry will be obliterated.
There is no other way to view it. When some person with no artistic training or ability can use AI to write (and market) 1,000 novels in a relatively short time, it becomes that much more difficult for a real writer to get their book noticed in the marketplace. In theory, AI could generate a near infinite amount of output, essentially eclipsing human creativity whole.
In January, the Copyright Office (“USCO”) issued the second part of a three part report on US Copyright Law and artificial intelligence. USCO's report on "Copyright and Artificial Intelligence: Part 2 - Copyrightability" addresses the legal and policy issues related to the copyrightability of works created using generative AI. The Report is based on extensive public input and research, and the USCO attempts to provides an analysis of the degree of human contribution necessary for AI-generated outputs to qualify for copyright protection under US law.
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Supreme Court Rules in Favor of Rock and Roll Photographer Against Warhol Foundation
Here’s the first question: Do you subscribe to Tuk’s Copyright Law Report? You should! If your job touches any intellectual property issues in the worlds of music, photography, film, literary properties, you are missing out.
Now that THAT is out of the way, go to the TCLR for a free analysis of the Court’s ruling. Or, you can read the entire ruling yourself below.
Name, Image and Likeness (NIL) Deals Happening for High School Student Athletes
In what appears to be a first for high school football, ESPN reports that Jaden Rashada, one of the top quarterback prospects in the Class of 2023 (ranked #26 in the ESPN 300) has signed a deal by which he will be paid to promote a recruiting smartphone app.
This is a significant development in the wake of the NCAA’s policy change now allowing student athletes to enter into NIL deals, which was strictly prohibited prior to 2021. That door is wide open at the collegiate level, and now apparently at the high school level to some degree.
It is important to note however, that in some states - including Pennsylvania - the governing body that oversees high school sports prohibit these kinds of deals. For example, the Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association’s bylaws require student athletes to maintain amateur status in order to be eligible to participate in PIAA governed sporting events (which is essentially every organized high school sport).
Article II of the PIAA Bylaws provides:
Section 1. Amateur Status Required.
To be eligible to participate in an Inter-School Practice, Scrimmage, and/or Contest, a student must be an amateur in the sport involved. An amateur student is one who engages in athletic competition solely for the educational, physical, mental, social, and pleasure benefits derived thereof and does not receive monetary or similar or equivalent compensation or remuneration for such participation.
A student athlete loses his or her amateur status - and is then ineligible to participate if:
C. The student plays on, or enters into a contract to play on, a professional team or as an individual professional athlete in that sport; or enters into a contract to represent a corporation, organization or similar entity in competition or by appearing in public on behalf of such entity.
Bylaws, at Art. II, §2 (emphasis added).
Thus, while NIL deals for high school athletes are beginning to appear across the country, parents of high school student athletes in Pennsylvania should be aware of the current PIAA rules. Those rules may change in the future of course, and this will be an issue to watch develop in PA.
Of course, NIL deals are permitted by Pennsylvania law for collegiate student athletes.
For more information, please contact Tuk Law Offices.
UK Government Committee Recommends 50% Streaming Payments to Music Creators
Music streaming royalties in the United States are comically small. The tech companies originally purported to democratize music distribution, but in reality they have entrenched themselves in a financial ecosystem that pays the artists even less than the traditional record label model of the 1960s ever did through an oligarchy that wields outsized bargaining power.
Back in 2018, the US Congress passed the Music Modernization Act which looked promising from the standpoint of increasing artist streaming income, but little substantive progress has been made for the music creators since then. The streaming revenue earned by music creators in the US is not appreciably better than it was before 2018.
In the United Kingdom, the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee of the House of Commons has recently issued a report entitled the Economics of Music Streaming. In this Report, the Committee adopts a shockingly pro-creator stance. You can read the entire 122 page report report below.
The huge takeaway from this report is that the Committee recommends that the UK government enact legislation that would impose a 50/50 split on streaming revenues between streaming platform and artist (See Report at p.47). In this respect, the UK government is light years ahead of the United States government position, which is simply mired in bureaucracy.
To put this in proper perspective, currently Spotify pays artists between $0.003 and $0.005 per stream, which means most artists do not earn enough revenue from streaming payments to even earn a living. Contrast that with Spotify’s $2.4 Billion gross earnings in Q3 2021 alone, and it becomes pretty tough to justify the notion that music creators are being treated equitably.
It remains to be seen what legislative action (if any) the UK Government will take on this matter. The Committee’s position should be noted by policy makers in the United States.
The Report contains Parliamentary information and is licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0.