30. A US federal district court just ruled that paraphrases or summaries by the #AI tool #Cohere might infringe publisher copyrights on the original full texts.
https://copyrightlately.com/court-rules-ai-news-summaries-may-infringe-copyright/

Here's the Nov 17 decision by the federal district court for the Southern District of NY.
https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/69636122/59/advance-local-media-llc-v-cohere-inc/

PS: This could undermine my thesis in this thread. But it doesn't undermine it yet. As I pointed out in the second post, "If a paraphrase doesn't use the original expression or track it too closely, then it doesn't infringe. If it does track the original too closely, it might count as a derivative work." The question in this case is whether some Cohere summaries were too close to the originals. Cohere lost a motion to dismiss, and now the court will investigate the "substantial similarity" claims on the merits. If the publishers win, we'll learn more about where the line is, not that there is no line.

#AI #Copyright #Paraphrases #Summaries

@ricmac

Somewhat bemused by the "Information wants to be free" #bittorent generation ripping music, software, games and print media with abandon suddenly finding faith in #copyright enforcement when it comes to #AI

#Copyright Is The Wrong Tool To Deal With #Deepfake Harms - https://www.techdirt.com/2025/11/14/copyright-is-the-wrong-tool-to-deal-with-deepfake-harms/ but that won't stop them trying...

#Copyright Is The Wrong Tool To Deal With #Deepfake Harms - https://www.techdirt.com/2025/11/14/copyright-is-the-wrong-tool-to-deal-with-deepfake-harms/ but that won't stop them trying...

Well, well, well.

"Judge Schwager said while issuing her ruling that she was astonished that OpenAI had not taken heed of what she called a clear legal situation."

Next up: books, illustrations, blogposts, news articles and related content, code... 🧹

#ai #copyright

https://www.dw.com/en/openai-loses-song-lyrics-copyright-case-in-german-court/a-74698240

Still, #LLM are voiding the #GPL (and #AGPL) reciprocity.

That's why years ago I wrote the #HackingLicense https://encrypted.tesio.it/documents/HACK.txt

It was designed with automated corporate #exploitation of #FreeSoftware in mind: it's goal is to balance #freedom and #communion, and it share with those that accept it much more than permissions, while being a stromger #copyleft and an explicit shrink-wrap contract.

Unfortunately, it's not compatible with GPL, because GPL is much weaker.

The fundamental issue of Free Software, the one that let people create the #OpenSource narrative and permessive licenses to exploit programmer ideals and #freelabor, was that #RMS, as an American grown up during #ColdWar, was too fond of the freedom-vs-communism propaganda to understand how lack of rules means the rule of the rich.

The problem is not commercial use of free software but commercial exploitation of free labour, as @doctormo@floss.social correctly stated.

The Hacking License does not prohibit commercial use, but requires recipient to share their own #copyright with the users of any derivative or dependant work they create as a contractual binding.

It's modelled after the research of #ElinorOstrom about Commons governance and the #Hacker ethics based on the value of #curiosity.

@amszmidt@mastodon.social

The way #LLM are voiding classic #copyleft has been experimentally demonstrated years ago, when #GitHub #Copilot was caught distributing well known #AGPLv3 code with a permissive license and wrong author attribution.

Also, technically that incident demonstrated how Copilot's model itself is a derivative work of copylefted works: if a lossy compression of copyrighted material is still subject to authors' #copyright, encoding such compression as arrays of floats that can be executed by virtual processors with a dedicated architecture (so called "inference" engines) does't change its nature of derivative work. Similarly violating copyrights of millions of authors at once doesn't free you of such rights.
That's basically why #OpenAI and friends are so scared by current lack of sustainable business models for their #LLM: they need money to keep Judges away.
But anyway I still have to find a single person that debate with technical competence and in good faith the derivative nature of LLMs from the text corpora compressed in their models.

As for the Hacking License not being a Free Software license, it's debatable after a careful read since the only thing you cannot do with the software is to prevent others from enjoining the same freedom it grants you.

Yet I've never claimed it is Free Software because, sadly, I'm forced to move beyond Free Software by its own limit.

OTOH I'm proud that it's not an #OpenSource license as I'll never submit it to #OSI corrupted #gatekeepers.¹

As for #FLOSS, it's a term designed to confuse free software values with corporate propaganda while marginalizing hackers: its a leaking abstraction designed to fool developers and exploit their naive groupthinking. Having been fooled myself. Never again. 😉

____

¹ The way OSI tried to #openwash the #OSAID, with an over complicated process that doubled #Meta's lobbyists' votes to exclude training data from the requirements confirmed my opinion about them.

@doctormo@floss.social

@Xanatos Good question. I could imagine a flat-rate model. Or #OpenAI could implement an additional usage counter for #copyright-protected content, similar to how Spotify handles licensed plays I guess. Never underestimate the German copyright law. They even charge for every radio in a hairdresser’s salon or company car 😅

A German court ruled that OpenAI has infringed copyright law by using song lyrics to feed its chat models, in a case that could have wide implications for European artists. https://www.japantimes.co.jp/business/2025/11/12/tech/germany-openai-copyright-case/?utm_medium=Social&utm_source=mastodon #business #tech #germany #ai #chatgpt #openai #copyright #tech

In #Germany, a court ruled that #OpenAI violated #copyright law by using protected #songlyrics without permission. The court says that each time a copyrighted song is used, either for training or in an chat answer, OpenAI must pay a license fee to the artists.

🌍 https://www.tagesschau.de/wirtschaft/digitales/openai-gema-songtexte-100.html

#ChatGPT #DataProtection

After years of making money on stolen content (Big AI Tech calls it disruptive innovation and fair use), finally a win for music lyrics:

‘OpenAI must pay a licensing fee to use copyrighted song lyrics in its artificial intelligence (AI) models, including ChatGPT, a German court ruled in a landmark case on Tuesday.’
#copyright #ai

https://www.euronews.com/next/2025/11/11/openai-chatbots-cannot-use-song-lyrics-without-paying-german-court-rules-in-landmark-trial

@amszmidt@mastodon.social

The way #LLM are voiding classic #copyleft has been experimentally demonstrated years ago, when #GitHub #Copilot was caught distributing well known #AGPLv3 code with a permissive license and wrong author attribution.

Also, technically that incident demonstrated how Copilot's model itself is a derivative work of copylefted works: if a lossy compression of copyrighted material is still subject to authors' #copyright, encoding such compression as arrays of floats that can be executed by virtual processors with a dedicated architecture (so called "inference" engines) does't change its nature of derivative work. Similarly violating copyrights of millions of authors at once doesn't free you of such rights.
That's basically why #OpenAI and friends are so scared by current lack of sustainable business models for their #LLM: they need money to keep Judges away.
But anyway I still have to find a single person that debate with technical competence and in good faith the derivative nature of LLMs from the text corpora compressed in their models.

As for the Hacking License not being a Free Software license, it's debatable after a careful read since the only thing you cannot do with the software is to prevent others from enjoining the same freedom it grants you.

Yet I've never claimed it is Free Software because, sadly, I'm forced to move beyond Free Software by its own limit.

OTOH I'm proud that it's not an #OpenSource license as I'll never submit it to #OSI corrupted #gatekeepers.¹

As for #FLOSS, it's a term designed to confuse free software values with corporate propaganda while marginalizing hackers: its a leaking abstraction designed to fool developers and exploit their naive groupthinking. Having been fooled myself. Never again. 😉

____

¹ The way OSI tried to #openwash the #OSAID, with an over complicated process that doubled #Meta's lobbyists' votes to exclude training data from the requirements confirmed my opinion about them.

@doctormo@floss.social

A German court ruled that OpenAI has infringed copyright law by using song lyrics to feed its chat models, in a case that could have wide implications for European artists. https://www.japantimes.co.jp/business/2025/11/12/tech/germany-openai-copyright-case/?utm_medium=Social&utm_source=mastodon #business #tech #germany #ai #chatgpt #openai #copyright #tech

Still, #LLM are voiding the #GPL (and #AGPL) reciprocity.

That's why years ago I wrote the #HackingLicense https://encrypted.tesio.it/documents/HACK.txt

It was designed with automated corporate #exploitation of #FreeSoftware in mind: it's goal is to balance #freedom and #communion, and it share with those that accept it much more than permissions, while being a stromger #copyleft and an explicit shrink-wrap contract.

Unfortunately, it's not compatible with GPL, because GPL is much weaker.

The fundamental issue of Free Software, the one that let people create the #OpenSource narrative and permessive licenses to exploit programmer ideals and #freelabor, was that #RMS, as an American grown up during #ColdWar, was too fond of the freedom-vs-communism propaganda to understand how lack of rules means the rule of the rich.

The problem is not commercial use of free software but commercial exploitation of free labour, as @doctormo@floss.social correctly stated.

The Hacking License does not prohibit commercial use, but requires recipient to share their own #copyright with the users of any derivative or dependant work they create as a contractual binding.

It's modelled after the research of #ElinorOstrom about Commons governance and the #Hacker ethics based on the value of #curiosity.

After years of making money on stolen content (Big AI Tech calls it disruptive innovation and fair use), finally a win for music lyrics:

‘OpenAI must pay a licensing fee to use copyrighted song lyrics in its artificial intelligence (AI) models, including ChatGPT, a German court ruled in a landmark case on Tuesday.’
#copyright #ai

https://www.euronews.com/next/2025/11/11/openai-chatbots-cannot-use-song-lyrics-without-paying-german-court-rules-in-landmark-trial

@gwilymgj
> Attribution please

"... the outputs of generative AI can be protected by copyright only where a human author has determined sufficient expressive elements. This can include situations where a human-authored work is perceptible in an AI output, or a human makes creative arrangements or modifications of the output, but not the mere provision of prompts."

#USCopyrightOffice, Jan 2025

https://www.copyright.gov/newsnet/2025/1060.html

#MOLE #AI #copyright

@pluralistic

@arstechnica

"However, the US doesn’t offer the same level of strong protections for artists’ moral rights..."

Very true. Although the US has made some progress toward respecting #moral rights, it has far to go as compared to the rest of the world.

💰 Unsurprisingly, they're quick to respect #economic rights.

#copyright

According to @pluralistic, copyright offices around the world have published clarifications that media created by generative models is not subject to copyright law. Not text, not images, not audio or video, and not code.

So every generative model that outputs media ought to add a public domain notice (eg CC0) to anything it produces. Either visibly within the media, or in metadata.

#PolicyNZ #copyright #PublicDomain #CreativeCommons #CC0

OpenAI may not use lyrics without license, German court rules

https://www.reuters.com/world/german-court-sides-with-plaintiff-copyright-case-against-openai-2025-11-11/

#HackerNews #OpenAI #Copyright #GermanCourt #Lyrics #License #AI #Ethics