China Internet Court Attributes AI Generated Image Copyright To Human Prompt Creator

On Monday, the Beijing Internet Court held that a human plaintiff prompt is sufficient to invoke copyright protection in a Stable Diffusion generated image, so long as the output qualifies as an “original” work. Copyright is determined on a case by case basis, so this decision is not entirely inconsistent with other AI jurisprudence trends favouring human input, as we saw in the US Thaler v. Perlmutter decision denying copyright registration for a work created absent any human involvement. In the Beijing case, there was sufficient human involvement in the form of words and a specific combination thereof thought up by the plaintiff which became the the basis of enforceable copyright in artificially generated images.

Last February, in Zarya of the Dawn (Registration # VAu001480196) in response to a registration request for a comic book made with Midjourney generated images, the U.S. Copyright Office also recognized that the registrant is the author of the Work’s text as well as the selection, coordination, and arrangement of the Work’s written and visual elements, however fell short of recognizing copyright in the comic book’s images, because the current registration for the Work did not disclose its Midjourney-generated content”, so a new certificate of registration was issued that covers only the expressive material created by the registrant. Having looked at the comic book, I believe that the new certificate indeed covers all the copyright there is to cover in this comic book. The same comic book could use an entirely different set of AI generated images and would still qualify as the same work. It is also possible at the face of the Copyright Office Decision that, had the registrant disclosed the use of AI generated software, the certificate would have covered those images as well. So from my perspective, there are no flagrant inconsistencies in the US and China cases involving AI generated works.

Beijing Case Background

The plaintiff, Mr. Li, used Stable Diffusion to generate the image involved in the case by inputting prompt words and published it on the Xiaohongshu platform under the name “Spring Breeze Brings Tenderness”. A week later, the defendant, a blogger on Baijiahao, removed plaintiff’s signature watermark from plaintiff’s AI generated image and used it to accompany their article “Love in March, in the Peach Blossom”. The plaintiff sued claiming that the defendant did not obtain the plaintiff’s permission and given the removed signature causing users to mistakenly believe that the defendant was the author of the work, which seriously violated the plaintiff’s right of attribution and information network dissemination rights. 

Analysis

The Court held that the artificial intelligence-generated image involved in the case met the requirements of “originality” and reflected a human’s original intellectual investment and should be recognized as works and protected by copyright law. The Court stated that from the time the plaintiff conceived the image involved in the case to the final selection of the image involved, the plaintiff made a certain amount of intellectual investment, such as designing the presentation of characters, selecting prompt words, arranging the order of prompt words, and setting relevant parameters and so on which reflected the plaintiff’s choice and arrangement on a continuum of time. It didn’t happen from a first try. The images involved in the case reflected the plaintiff’s important intellectual investment, aesthetic choices and personal judgments, and in that regard the images involved in the case met the requirements of “intellectual achievements.”

The pictures involved were not just “mechanical intellectual achievements.” In the absence of contrary evidence, the court concluded that the images involved in the case were independently completed by the plaintiff and reflected the plaintiff’s personalized expression, for the images involved in the case to meet the requirements of “originality.”

Conclusion

The Court awarded 500 RMB ($96CAD) to the plaintiff in damages and costs of 50 RMB.

The full decision courtesy of 知产库 is available here (Chinese only).

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Hanagami Wins Appeal Over 4 Count Choreo Infringement by Epic Games Fortnite Emotes

This is fantastic news. I am reading the 31 page decision by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeal right now and will learn the 4 counts along with the full emote dance for a split screen video. It is amazing that courts are finally starting to recognize that a 2 second sequence is not too short to deserve copyright protection and cause liability when commercially used without permission. When you copy someone’s moves without permission for profit, you will be on the hook. And no, I don’t believe that this case will curb the use of dance moves in video games. Certainly not at the stage of dismissal and prior to a jury verdict. On the contrary. Emotes are the most commercially viable feature of Fortnite and the game would be irrelevant without them.

This is the video that was used in court to prove the identical similarity between the original routine and the moves copied by Epic Games.

I personally don’t play Fortnite or any other video game using gun violence and allowing for the murder of innocent civilians (that’s the majority of games unfortunately), since I am against gun violence in real life too. Something tells me that playing violent games is a form of indirect consent to wars and violence, so I carefully avoid engaging with entertainment that depicts assault, battery, homicide, misogyny, and homophobia. The metaverse is no exception. Zero tolerance for violence. However, I do dance to Fortnite emotes I encounter on Tik Tok (so long as there are no guns involved). So I will dance to this routine as well.

I note in the US there is the practice to “register” copyright before filing a lawsuit, however registration is not proof of ownership, but rather a formality that can create a rebuttable presumption (prima facie evidence) of ownership if done in the 5 years of first publication1. A Youtube video of a filmed choreography (prior to defendant’s use) and anything else with a valid time-stamp of a filmed process is actual proof, for example a series of user generated or fan videos of the original choreography posted on a platform like Youtube or Tik Tok after first publication and prior to the commercial use by defendant. Vimeo can’t be used in court in this way because it allows users to replace existing videos with more recent ones and keep the initial post date and engagement. As for Youtube and Tik Tok, even private and unlisted videos may qualify.

So this case is now going to trial, unless it settles (which it most certainly will).

  1. See Circular 1, Copyright Basics, section “Copyright Registration” and Circular 38bHighlights of Copyright Amendments Contained in the Uruguay Round Agreements Act (URAA), on non-U.S. works. ↩︎

My Initial Highlights (this will provide a good overview of dance jurisprudence in the US, there is none in Canada although statutory protections exist in the Copyright Act)

Dance is one of the oldest forms of human expression. Recognition of dance as a form of copyrightable subject matter, however, is a far more recent development. While early versions of the Copyright Act extended statutory protection to dramatic works and musical compositions, dance long remained outside the purview of copyright law. In 1976, Congress for the first time extended explicit copyright protection to “choreographic works,” bringing dance in line with the other performing arts. Nonetheless, the field of choreography copyright has remained a largely undefined area of law. Few courts have had occasion to consider the scope of copyright protections for choreographic works.

To prevail on a claim of copyright infringement, a plaintiff must show that his original work and the allegedly infringing work are “substantially similar.” […] The dispute in this case thus turns on how to properly apply the substantial similarity test in the context of choreographic works to determine whether Hanagami has plausibly alleged that his choreographic work and Epic’s emote are substantially similar.

The district court erred in its application of the substantial similarity test as Hanagami plausibly alleged that his choreography and Epic’s emote share substantial similarities. We thus reverse and remand for further proceedings.

Emotes are animated movements or dances that players use in celebration of a victory or during virtual concerts. The cost of an emote varies from 200 V-Bucks to 800 V-Bucks, depending on how “rare” the emote is considered within the game.

A video of the “It’s Complicated” emote, as performed by an avatar in Fortnite’s marketplace, is available online. See Insane broz, It’s Complicated Emote | Fortnite – Battle Royale, YouTube (Mar. 31, 2020)].

In this action, Hanagami alleges that Epic’s “It’s Complicated” emote infringes Hanagami’s Registered Choreography. Relevant to this appeal, Hanagami brings claims for direct copyright infringement and contributory copyright infringement.

The district court determined that the overall “steps” Epic allegedly copied—which the court described as “a two- second combination of eight bodily movements, set to four beats of music”—were not protectable under the Copyright Act because they were only a “small component” of Hanagami’s work.

The court, having concluded that the dance steps were not protectable on their own, then concluded that Hanagami was entitled to protection “only for the way the Steps are expressed in his Registered Choreography” as a whole, “i.e., in the entire five-minute work.”

We review de novo a district court’s dismissal for failure to state a claim pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure Rule 12(b)(6). See Wilson v. Lynch, 835 F.3d 1083, 1090 (9th Cir. 2016). When reviewing the complaint, we take all allegations of material fact as true “and decide whether the complaint articulates ‘enough facts to state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face.’” Starz Ent., LLC v. MGM Domestic Television Distrib., LLC, 39 F.4th 1236, 1239 (9th Cir. 2022) (citing Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 570 (2007)).

Statutory Background

  • The 1976 Act does not define the term “choreography,” and Congress left little clue about what it might mean. See Bikram’s Yoga Coll. of India, L.P. v. Evolation Yoga, LLC, 803 F.3d 1032, 1043 (9th Cir. 2015). Indeed, Congress considered the term “choreographic work[]” to have a “fairly settled” meaning. Id. (citing H.R. Rep. No. 94-1476, at 53 (1976)). On this point, the legislative history explains that Congress found it unnecessary to “specify that ‘choreographic works’ do not include social dance steps and simple routines.”
  • Although more than forty years have passed since the 1976 Act’s enactment, few courts have addressed federal copyright protections for choreographic works. […] The most famous case in this area is Horgan v. Macmillan, Inc., in which the Second Circuit considered whether photographs of a ballet could infringe the copyright on the choreography of the ballet. 789 F.2d at 158. In that case, Macmillan published a book of color photographs of the New York City Ballet Company’s production of The Nutcracker. The book portrayed, through text and photos, the story and history of The Nutcracker ballet. Id. The estate of George Balanchine, who famously choreographed the production, sued for copyright infringement. Id. at 158. The district court found that Macmillan had not infringed the copyright for the ballet because the photographs did not capture “the flow” of the dancer’s steps and “[t]he staged performance could not be recreated” from the photographs. Id. at 160.
  • In appeal, the Second Circuit reversed and remanded, concluding that the district court erroneously held that still photographs could not infringe a choreographic work. To reach this conclusion, the Second Circuit looked to the Compendium of U.S. Copyright Office Practices (“Compendium II”) as persuasive authority. Notably, the Second Circuit quoted the definition of “choreography” in the Compendium II, which described the term as “the composition and arrangement of dance movements and patterns.” Id. at 161 (quoting U.S. Copyright Office, Compendium of U.S. Copyright Office Practices § 450.01 (2d ed. 1984) (Compendium II)).

The Compendium is a manual published by the Copyright Office. It provides instruction to agency staff and guidance to the general public on the Copyright Office’s requirements, regulations, and legal interpretations.

  • The Second Circuit addressed another choreography copyright claim in Martha Graham School & Dance Found., Inc. v. Martha Graham Center of Contemporary Dance, Inc., 466 F.3d 97 (2d Cir. 2006). There, the court considered a dispute over which entity was the rightful owner of choreographic works produced by the famous dancer Martha Graham. The court held that there was sufficient evidence to establish that Graham had assigned copyrights to the dances to her foundation, but it did not reach the underlying question of copyright infringement, nor did it elaborate on the definition or characteristics of a choreographic work.

The Compendium outlines several elements that choreographic works typically contain, “although the presence or absence of a given element is not determinative of whether a particular dance constitutes choreography.” Id. § 805.2. These features include “rhythmic movement in a defined space,” “compositional arrangement,” “musical or textual accompaniment,” “dramatic content,” “presentation before an audience,” and “execution by skilled performers.” Id. § 805.2(A)–(F)

The Compendium does not draw a bright line distinction between copyrightable choreography and uncopyrightable dance; instead, there is a continuum on which “[m]any works fall somewhere in between.” Id. § 805.5(B). Still, there are limitations on what types of movements are copyrightable as choreography.

“Individual movements or dance steps by themselves are not copyrightable, such as the basic waltz step, the hustle step, the grapevine, or the second position in classical ballet.” Id. § 805.5(A). Nor will the Copyright Office register “short dance routines consisting of only a few movements or steps with minor linear or spatial variations, even if the routine is novel or distinctive.” Id. Individual dance elements “are not copyrightable for the same reason that individual words, numbers, notes, colors, or shapes are not protected”—they are the “building blocks of choreographic expression” from which all choreographic works are built. Id.

Similarity Test

Our circuit uses a two-part test to assess substantial similarity. The first part, known as the “extrinsic test,” “assesses the objective similarities of the two works, focusing only on the protectable elements of the plaintiff’s expression.” Rentmeester, 883 F.3d. at 1118 (citing Cavalier v. Random House, Inc., 297 F.3d 815, 822 (9th Cir. 2002)). The second part, referred to as the “intrinsic test,” “test[s] for similarity of expression from the standpoint of the ordinary reasonable observer, with no expert assistance.” Jada Toys, Inc. v. Mattel, Inc., 518 F.3d 628, 637 (9th Cir. 2008) (quoting Apple Computer, Inc. v. Microsoft Corp., 35 F.3d 1435, 1442 (9th Cir.1994)). District courts apply only the extrinsic test at the pleadings stage, “as the intrinsic test is reserved exclusively for the trier of fact.” Williams v. Gaye, 895 F.3d 1106, 1119 (9th Cir. 2018). The district court’s application of the extrinsic test is the primary issue on appeal.

We agree with Hanagami. The district court’s approach of reducing choreography to “poses” is fundamentally at odds with the way we analyze copyright claims for other art forms, like musical compositions. We reverse and remand to the district court on this basis.

a. The district court erred in analyzing the elements of choreography. To apply the extrinsic test, courts must first distinguish between protectable and unprotectable elements, and “ask only whether the protect[a]ble elements in two works are substantially similar.” L.A. Printex Indus. Inc. v. Aeropostale, Inc., 676 F.3d 841, 849 (9th Cir. 2012). This process is referred to as “filtering.” See, e.g., Williams, 895 F.3d at 1117.

But we have long recognized that “[c]ertain types of works can be dissected into protected and unprotected elements more readily than others.” Rentmeester, 883 F.3d at 1119. For example, a photograph cannot be easily broken down into protected and unprotected elements because none of the “various creative choices the photographer made in composing the image—choices related to subject matter, pose, lighting, camera angle, depth of field, and the like” would receive “copyright protection when viewed in isolation.” Id. at 1119.

To account for this, we also employ a “selection and arrangement” approach to assess substantial similarity. This approach protects the “particular way in which the artistic elements form a coherent pattern, synthesis, or design.” Skidmore, 952 F.3d at 1074; see Swirsky v. Carey, 376 F.3d 841, 848 (9th Cir. 2004) (“[A] substantial similarity can be found in a combination of elements, even if those elements are individually unprotected.”).

Like other forms of copyrightable material, choreography is composed of various elements that are unprotectable when viewed in isolation. An individual, stand-alone dance movement, such as a plie, is equivalent to an “idea” that is not protectable by copyright. As a result, subsequent choreographers can use the same individual movements to produce new choreographic works of their own, as long as the new compositions are not substantially similar to the copyrighted work. Similarly, a choreographer cannot claim protection over the use of tempo, transitions, or rhythm in a choreographic work. The uncopyrightable elements of a dance instead function as “the building blocks for a choreographer’s expression, in much the same way that words and short phrases provide the basic material for writers.” Compendium § 805.4(D).

What is protectable is the choreographer’s “selection and arrangement of the [work’s] otherwise unprotected elements.” Cf. Rentmeester, 883 F.3d at 1120 (determining copyrightability of a photograph). Thus, while individual dance movements may not receive protection, their “[o]riginal selection, coordination, and arrangement . . . may be protect[a]ble expression.” See L.A. Printex, 676 F.3d at 849 (determining copyrightability of a floral textile design). Again, this approach is consistent with copyright in other contexts. See Metcalf v. Bocho, 294 F.3d 1069, 1074 (9th Cir. 2002) (explaining that individual musical notes are not protected but their arrangement may be), overruled on other grounds by Skidmore, 952 F.3d at 1051; Rentmeester, 883 F.3d at 1120 (explaining that individual elements of a photograph are not protected but their combined selection and arrangement may be).

We do not, however, have a “well-defined standard for assessing when similarity in selection and arrangement becomes ‘substantial,’” largely because it is a fact-driven and context-dependent inquiry. Rentmeester, 883 F.3d at 1121. We have suggested generally that the “selection and arrangement of elements must be similar enough that ‘the ordinary observer, unless he set out to detect the disparities, would be disposed to overlook them.’” Id. (citing Peter Pan Fabrics, Inc. v. Martin Weiner Corp., 274 F.2d 487, 489 (2d Cir. 1960)).

The district court correctly recognized that choreography falls within a selection-and-arrangement framework, but it erred at the first step of that analysis: breaking down the elements of the choreographic works.

The district court’s reduction of choreography to “poses” was particularly problematic because choreography is tied closely to movement. Static poses cannot possibly capture the flow of movement that is integral to choreography as a form of art. See Lakes at 1848 (noting that “movement itself is the choreographer’s means of expression . . . inher[ing] in how the choreographer progresses the dancers from position to position, not necessarily in the mere order of the positions themselves”).

We agree with Hanagami that “poses” are not the only relevant element underlying a choreographic work. Hanagami persuasively argues that there are several other “expressive element[s] present in choreography,” including “body position, body shape, body actions, transitions, use of space, timing, pauses, energy, canon, motif, contrast, [and] repetition.” These more discrete and technical elements are conceptually similar to elements we recognize in other copyright contexts, particularly the field of music.

In music copyright cases, we routinely dissect and analyze many musical elements, including “melody, harmony, rhythm, pitch, tempo, phrasing, structure, chord progressions, and lyrics.” Swirsky, 376 F.3d at 849 […] In Skidmore, for example, we considered a plaintiff’s allegations that the song Stairway to Heaven copied a combination of five musical elements from the plaintiff’s work: minor chromatic line and associated chords; duration of pitches of minor chromatic line; melody placed over the descending chromatic line consisting of combination of arpeggios and two-note sequences; rhythm of steady eighth note beats; and pitch collection. And in Williams, we assessed the combined presence of eight musical elements that plaintiffs claimed rendered the two songs substantially similar. 895 F.3d at 1117–18 (assessing alleged similarities between two songs, including the bass lines, keyboard parts, signature phrases, hooks, “Theme X,” bass melodies, word painting, and placement of the rap and “parlando” sections in the two songs); see also Three Boys Music Corp. v. Bolton, 212 F.3d 477, 485 (9th Cir. 2000)

In fact, we have held that it would be error for a district court to “disregard chord progression, key, tempo, rhythm, and genre” when assessing a musical chorus because “no approach can completely divorce pitch sequence and rhythm from harmonic chord progression, tempo, and key, and therefore support a conclusion that compositions are dissimilar as a matter of law.” Swirsky, 376 F.3d at 848.

We see no reason to treat choreography differently. To analogize from music to dance, reducing choreography to “poses” would be akin to reducing music to just “notes.” Choreography is, by definition, a related series of dance movements and patterns organized into a coherent whole. The relationship between those movements and patterns, and the choreographer’s creative approach of composing and arranging them together, is what defines the work. The element of “poses,” on its own, is simply not dynamic enough to capture the full range of creative expression of a choreographic work.

At the motion-to-dismiss stage, the court must only consider whether the plaintiff has plausibly alleged that the two works share substantial similarities.

Because the district court failed to assess the discrete combination of elements of the Registered Choreography, it erred in deciding as a matter of law at the motion-to-dismiss stage that the two works were not substantially similar. Taking the allegations in Hanagami’s complaint as true, he has plausibly alleged substantial similarity under the extrinsic test.

A plaintiff need not set forth detailed factual allegations about the elements of choreography to survive a motion to dismiss. See Malibu Textiles, Inc. v. Label Lane Int’l, Inc., 922 F.3d 946, 951 (9th Cir. 2019). The facts alleged in the complaint must simply “‘be enough to raise a right to relief above the speculative level’ and to ‘state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face.’” Id. at 951 (citing Bell Atl. Corp., 550 U.S. at 555, 570). Hanagami met this burden.

b. The district court erred in dismissing Hanagami’s claim because the choreography was “short” and a “small component” of Hanagami’s overall work. In addition to deciding that the poses in Hanagami’s choreography were unprotectable, the district court also reasoned that Hanagami could not claim protection over the allegedly copied “Steps” as a whole, which the court defined as “two seconds, four beats of music, or eight body positions, repeated ten times throughout the registered choreography.” The court emphasized that the four-count segment was not protectable because it comprised only a “small component” of Hanagami’s overall five-minute routine and was closer to an uncopyrightable “short” dance routine. We reject this conclusion for several reasons.

First, “no bright line rule exists as to what quantum of similarity is permitted before crossing into the realm of substantial similarity.” Baxter v. MCA, Inc., 812 F.2d 421, 425 (9th Cir. 1987). That means that, “[e]ven if a copied portion be relatively small in proportion to the entire work, if qualitatively important, the finder of fact may properly find substantial similarity.”

In Skidmore v. Zeppelin, for example, we held it was a jury question whether the opening notes of Stairway to Heaven were substantially similar to an eight-measure passage of the song Taurus. Skidmore, 952 F.3d at 1059; see also Baxter, 812 F.2d at 425 (rejecting the argument that a six-note sequence of a song would be unprotectable as a matter of law);

It appears that the allegedly copied portion is far more complex than other routines the Copyright Office has deemed uncopyrightable, like a “celebratory dance in the endzone” consisting of “a few movements of the legs, shoulders and arms,” or the gesture of using one’s arms to spell out the letters “USA.” Compendium § 805.5(A).

Hanagami plausibly alleged that the four-count portion is a complex, fast-paced series of patterns and movements that involves the whole body and is performed by highly-trained dancers. Even without the rest of the Registered Choreography, the Steps alone could satisfy many of the elements of a choreographic work as defined in the Compendium. See Compendium § 805.2(A)–(F). In any event, it is not up to us at this stage of the litigation to determine the complexity of the Steps. Further discovery and expert testimony may shed more light on this question.

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Dans ce monde numérique, les Canadiens doivent pouvoir avoir l\’assurance que leur vie privée est protégée, que leurs données ne sont pas utilisées de manière frauduleuse, et que les entreprises qui évoluent dans ce domaine communiquent de manière simple et franche avec leurs utilisateurs. La conance est le fondement de l\’économie axée sur le numérique …

Télétravail et géolocalisation des employés

Ce trio d’articles pointe vers un besoin pressant de réformer les lois sur le droit du travail tant provinciales que fédérales afin d’assurer une meilleure sécurité des données personnelles des travailleurs en contexte de télétravail. Une employée de l\’Alberta a été congédiée après avoir refusé d\’installer une application de géolocalisation sur son téléphone: https://ici.radio-canada.ca/nouvelle/1784312/geolocalistion-telephone-mobile-productivite-employes Les …

US FTC Memo To Copyright Office Warns Gen AI Causes Unfair Competition, Deceptive Practices, and Consumer Risk

The United States Federal Trade Commission (FTC) submitted a comment to the Copyright Office after conducting its own AI study last August. Although the FTC has no jurisdiction over copyright matters, it does have jurisdiction over consumer and competition violations and can indeed investigate and penalize companies for such violations independent of parallel copyright lawsuits, and in spite of standard indemnification clauses, misleadingly and inaccurately called “copyright shields” by OpenAI for example. There is no such thing as a copyright shield in this world. The FTC is right to point out that promoting such pseudo legal notions as a “copyright shield” is in itself a deceptive practice.

The U.S. Copyright Office has already said that creations made with generative artificial intelligence are ineligible for copyright because they don’t primarily come from a human hand. Nevertheless, Time Magazine keeps citing AI influencers who push the idea that asking for consent is unworkable and the best alternative are opt-out schemes, stances I personally find reprehensible under all current legal frameworks. Creators should refuse to settle for opt-out schemes and the lawsuits should keep coming. I agree with the FTC.

As much as I enjoy listening to Frank Sinatra and Aretha Franklin belt out modern rap lyrics on the popular There I Ruined It Youtube Channel I am uncomfortable when the same thing happens to living breathing human beings like Taylor Swift for example whose vocals have been ripped off on same channel. If a performer is alive, there are different provisions under privacy statutes (in Canada also copyright law) against their voice being used by AI without their consent. Also, I believe that music labels should be barred from cloning and exploiting artists vocals, which is why I’m cool with Sinatra’s AI peformances by anyone else than a label as a form of fair use. Consent should come directly from performers or be deemed prima facie invalid for copyright and a liability as an unfair competition and deceptive practice. As of now, I am not seeing enough lawsuits for this.

The FTC was instantly attacked by “critics” with pseudo-legal arguments like Chamber of Progress CEO Adam Kovacevich who contends that if something is fair use it cannot constitute a deceptive practice or unfair competition because “fair use is the original anti-monopoly policy. Copyright is a monopoly right… The whole range of startups who have the potential to disrupt those incumbents are not going to have the ability to pay and that’s what the principle of fair use protects here. So I think that the FTC really hasn’t thought about how fair use is anti-monopoly policy.” This is heavily misguided and downright ludicrous. I am surprised to hear such nonsense from a CEO.

Again, copyright statutes are distinct from trade practice statutes under the purview of the FTC. You could exerce a monopoly or run a deceptive practice without touching on copyright, or concurrently. A vast number of AI startups on government subsidies at the moment are over-inflating their promises while delivering basic software programs from the 1990’s disguised as AI. I won’t name names here but the “useful” applications of AI have been a major disappointment across the board. Consumers are being egregiously lied to and their time is being wasted. Companies are being lied to and charged for underwhelming products touted as the top in innovation. I find it totally deceptive and even a fraud. So, it is entirely possible to violate several statutes even if you don’t violate one particular statute on technical grounds.

Finally, I think it is important to remind everyone that the fair use regime is not supposed to make you rich. Only in very limited circumstances will fair use be recognized for commercial use and only in the US. In Canada, if you intend to make one cent from your AI, fair use is not on the table. In general, if you intend to make money with someone’s property you better ask for consent. I don’t understand the CEO logic at all. The FTC is not overstepping its authority.

Westlaw and Ross Intelligence Lawsuit Over Gen Ai Goes To Jury Trial

This lawsuit raises the overlooked issue concerning legal databases charging people for money for content that they don’t really own. Anyone who’s been to law school is trained to use Westlaw on a limited academic license, paid for with prohibitive students tuitions, in order to complete research that ultimately is in the public’s interest. Student access to Westlaw opens many doors for employment in the legal trade, because a significant number of law firms cannot afford to pay for Westlaw access, so they rely on interns’ academic access. These paid databases are hurting the public the most. There is no copyright per se on judgments or legislation, or citations. Filed proceedings, except under non-publication orders, are considered public information, which means they should be accessible. For free.

Legal information and trial data shouldn’t be kept behind a paywall

We contend that all legal databases should be free for the public, and by extension free to train large language models. I believe that in this day and age when legislation changes often, with numerous reforms undergoing in a whole brand new world to look forward to, the public should be equipped for free with all the tools traditionally at lawyers disposal, no less to figure out their rights and duties, and become better citizens.

Monetizing a large language model however, that sifts through all this data and answers your questions like a lawyer, is justified, because it will save us thousands of hours of research (if it works at all), will improve access to justice, and will root out frivolous lawsuits. Thomson Reuters is training their own LLM on data they don’t really own, but simply aggregate into databases, they call “proprietary”. And now they want to stop competing LLM’s from training on said databases. For example, CanLII in Canada and some of Soquij also have proprietary elements but remain free for the public for what matters most, namely jurisprudence and caselaw by provision. The parts that are not free yet, such as dockets access, shouldn’t be monetized either. Dockets info is completely free in states like California and in the UK.

It feels like Thomson Reuters wants to stall innovation and monopolize legal LLM’s

Indeed, Thomson Reuters is accusing Ross Intelligence of unlawfully copying content from its legal-research platform Westlaw to train a competing artificial intelligence-based platform. A decision by U.S. Circuit Judge Stephanos Bibas sending the case to a jury sets the stage for what could be one of the first trials related to the “unauthorized” use of data to train AI systems.

When you pay Westlaw a salty hourly fee to access its databases, nothing precludes you from copying this information at will for whatever purpose you need it for, which evidently includes training LLM’s. If anything, there should be more LLM’s training on Westlaw’s databases.

This is very different from tech companies such as Meta Platforms, Stability AI and Microsoft-backed OpenAI facing lawsuits from authors, visual artists and other copyright owners over the use of their work to train the companies’ generative AI software. Authors, artists and copyright owners actually own copyright over their works that have been used without their consent. The same cannot be said about Thomson and Reuters. Nobody gave them a license to make those databases, because a licence is not required in the first place. In theory, anyone or a bot can make such databases by compiling publicly available information.

The issue revolves mainly around the “headnotes” which summarize points of law in court opinions. These are citations extracted from the opinions themselves. They are something of an extremely detailed bullet point deconstruction of the legal analysis. Students do that every day. Another thing about the headnotes, handy as they are, you do need a bot to go through all of them, because they end up taking up more space than the entire judgment. I don’t agree that they are proprietary. I tend to agree with the defendant that they are fair use.

Ross said that the Headnotes material was used as a “means to locate judicial opinions,” and that the company did not compete in the market for the materials themselves. Thomson Reuters responded that Ross copied the materials to build a direct Westlaw competitor.

The court decided to leave up to the jury to decide fair use and other questions, including the extent of Thomson Reuters’ copyright protection in the headnotes. He noted that there were factors in the fair-use analysis that favored each side. The judge said he could not determine whether Ross “transformed” the Westlaw material into a “brand-new research platform that serves a different purpose,” which is often a key fair use question.

Yes, but it is not the only factor. Fair use analysis would apply if Westlaw had copyright over the headnotes to begin with. I think the headnotes are already fair use in a sense if we accept that judgments and papers are protected by copyright in theory, even though unenforceable in practice. I don’t see why you would need to prove transformative use when training models on someone else’s fair use material in a context where there is no economic right in the core content to begin with. It is indeed an interesting case.

“Here, we run into a hotly debated question,” judge Bibas said. “Is it in the public benefit to allow AI to be trained with copyrighted material?”

I would answer the question with a resounding: YES.

Hollywood Writers Strike Ends After 146 Days; Actors Strike Continues

On Sunday, Hollywood’s striking writers represented by The Writers Guild of America (WGA) and production workers represented by The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) reached a tentative agreement (subject to final contract language). The tentative agreement has finally been declared a “victory”. The writers’ strike began on May 2 and followed five …

Meta’s LLama 2 Runs On Open Source

This summer, the AI division of Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta unveiled its Llama 2 chatbot. Meta’s approach with Llama 2 contrasts with that of the company OpenAI, which created the AI chatbot ChatGPT, because LLama is open source—meaning that the original code is freely available, allowing it to be researched and modified. This strategy has sparked a vast …