Copyright law may be the key to protecting human creatives from AI

The biggest legal battle shaping the future of creative work may not be the one making headlines. While more than 90 lawsuits have been filed against AI companies for using copyrighted material to train their models, Jacob Noti-Victor and Xiyin Tang report for The Atlantic that a different copyright question will prove far more consequential: …

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Musk vs. Altman: OpenAI lawsuit goes to trial

Elon Musk’s lawsuit against Sam Altman and OpenAI begins this week in Oakland, California. A nine-person jury will hear claims that Altman betrayed the company’s founding mission by transforming OpenAI from a nonprofit into a for-profit enterprise. Dara Kerr and Nick Robins-Early report for The Guardian. Musk co-founded OpenAI in 2015 alongside Altman and others. …

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EU Parliament votes to delay AI Act rules and ban nudifier apps

The European Parliament has voted to simplify parts of the Artificial Intelligence Act and push back key deadlines for compliance. The European Parliament writes in an official press release the vote passed by 569 votes in favour, 45 against, and 23 abstentions. The most significant changes affect when companies must comply with rules governing high-risk …

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Elton John and Dua Lipa win: UK drops controversial AI copyright plan

The UK government has abandoned its plan to let AI companies use copyrighted works without explicit permission. Graham Fraser reports for the BBC that the original proposal would have allowed an opt-out system, meaning creators would have needed to actively prevent AI firms from using their work for model training. Technology Secretary Liz Kendall announced …

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This AI platform paid artists to license their style. It failed.

The AI image marketplace Tess.Design paid artists a 50% royalty each time their style was used to generate an image. Julia Enthoven writes how the platform ran for 20 months before closing in January 2026. Tess.Design allowed artists to submit their work to fine-tune an AI model. That model was then listed on a public …

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Authors publish empty book to protest AI copyright theft

About 10,000 authors have published a book with no content to protest against AI companies using their work without permission. Dan Milmo reports for The Guardian that contributors include Nobel laureate Kazuo Ishiguro, Philippa Gregory and Richard Osman. The only content in “Don’t Steal This Book” is a list of the contributors’ names. Copies are …

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Seedance: ByteDance pledges copyright safeguards for AI video tool

ByteDance faces mounting pressure from major entertainment companies over its Seedance video generation tool. Disney and Paramount Skydance have sent cease-and-desist letters to the Chinese technology giant, accusing it of copyright infringement. Disney’s lawyers claim ByteDance provides users with a “pirated library” of copyrighted characters from Star Wars, Marvel and other franchises. David Singer, a …

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OpenAI removes “safely” from mission statement as it transitions to for-profit structure

OpenAI has removed the word “safely” from its mission statement, a change documented in its 2024 tax filing with the Internal Revenue Service. The deletion coincides with the company’s transformation from a nonprofit organization into a for-profit business. The original mission statement from 2022 and 2023 read: “to build general-purpose artificial intelligence (AI) that safely …

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Music industry strikes cautious AI deals despite artist concerns

The music industry faces an existential dilemma as AI-generated songs infiltrate streaming platforms, prompting major labels to sign licensing deals while artists and platforms struggle to define acceptable boundaries. Anna Nicolaou and Cristina Criddle report for the Financial Times. A recent incident in Sweden illustrates the tension. A folk-pop song by “Jacub” topped Spotify charts …

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Secret book scanning project reveals AI industry’s data hunger

Anthropic spent tens of millions of dollars to acquire and physically destroy millions of books for training its Claude AI chatbot. The company cut off book spines and scanned pages in a covert initiative called “Project Panama.” Aaron Schaffer reports for The Washington Post, detailing the operation through more than 4,000 pages of unsealed court …

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