Posts in Copyright

We Need a Copyright Reboot for Robots

Now is an exciting time in the world of artificial intelligence (AI) and intellectual property law. Academics have been interested in this field for a long time, and more narrowly in certain issues, like the legal status of works created by an AI in the absence of a traditional human author (AI-generated works). But AI-generated works have not traditionally been very interesting to lawyers, policymakers, or businesses, because while AI has been functionally making creative works for decades, the technology was never that commercially useful.

StarrAI Night: AI Art and the Necessary Changes in the Copyright Law

Scroll through social media and you’re certain to find countless posts of images generated by artificial intelligence, or “AI.” Tools such as DALL-E 2, Starry AI, Jasper, and the like have exploded in popularity, allowing users to do everything from creating stylized versions of the user’s own photographs, to inputting silly, incongruous prompts like “red headed cow with John Lennon sunglasses,” and receiving almost instantaneous results with no further effort by the user. Users have taken to such websites in droves because they are easy to use, free, and most importantly, fun. The problem: in most if not all cases, the AI obtains its images by “scraping” the internet, obtaining and using massive amounts of copyrighted images to train itself in the meaning of certain words and in the stylistic choices employed in those images.

Combat Cyberbullying with Copyright Law

Recently, Netflix released a documentary titled, “The Most Hated Man on the Internet,” which is about anti-revenge porn activists and their efforts to take down the website, IsAnyoneUp.com. The site was founded by Hunter Moore and allowed anyone to anonymously upload nude photos with social media handles or to submit sexually explicit photos of others without their consent. The documentary follows Charlotte Laws, whose daughter’s photos were shared on the site, as she launches a campaign to shut it down.

Copyright Office Pilot Public Records System Mistakenly Reflects Cancellation of Registration for AI Graphic Novel

On Monday, January 23, the U.S. Copyright Office (USCO) Copyright Public Records System (CPRS) reflected that the registration for a graphic novel that was made using the AI text-to-image tool, Midjourney, had been cancelled. The Office has since clarified that the update was a system error (see above note). The USCO previously registered the work in September 2022. However, a month later, and following significant press attention, the Office issued a notice indicating that the registration may be cancelled. With Monday’s development, the cancellation seemed to be final.

New USPTO Tool Aims to Help IP Newbies Identify Their Rights

At the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office’s (USPTO) Women’s Entrepreneurship (WE) event in Naples, Florida, on Wednesday, January 18, USPTO Director Kathi Vidal announced that the Office has a new tool, called the Intellectual Property (IP) Identifier, intended to assist those “less familiar with IP” in identifying what IP they have and what rights they need to protect it. The tool also provides basic information on patents, trademarks, trade secrets and copyright. Vidal said in a press release Wednesday that anyone “considering starting a business or trying to grow one” should use the tool and that “it’s another example of our work to bring more people into the innovation ecosystem to increase American competitiveness, grow the economy, and solve world problems.” 

Report Calls Out Cloudflare for Facilitating Piracy, Counterfeits

According to new research released by Corsearch, a significant number of websites engaging in piracy and counterfeiting use Cloudflare’s Content Delivery Network (CDN) services. Cloudflare was detected as providing services to websites that infringed trademarks and copyright six times more than the next service provider. 49% of the websites Corsearch flagged for content piracy used Cloudflare in addition to 23.5% of websites flagged for offering counterfeit goods. Additionally, Corsearch notifies Google when it believes a website should be demoted in its search engine due to infringing trademarks or copyright. When Corsearch analyzed this data, it found 71% of these websites used Cloudflare’s services.