TollBit is a marketplace for publishers and AI providers

AI startup TollBit has raised $24 million in Series A funding. The round, led by Lightspeed Venture Partners, will help the company expand internationally and hire new employees, reports Sara Fischer for Axios. TollBit operates a marketplace that brings publishers and AI companies together and helps simplify their data exchange, both legally and commercially. The …

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Creatives criticize AI companies

More than 10,500 creative professionals, including Radiohead’s Thom Yorke, actress Julianne Moore and ABBA member Björn Ulvaeus, have issued a joint statement warning against the unlicensed use of their work by AI companies. As Dan Milmo reports in The Guardian, the signatories describe the unauthorized use of creative work to train AI models as a …

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Former OpenAI researcher talks about copyright infringement

A former OpenAI researcher accuses his previous employer of violating copyright laws in developing ChatGPT. Suchir Balaji, who left the company in August 2023, helped collect and organize internet data for the chatbot, as he reveales in interviews with the New York Times. The 25-year-old scientist is convinced that OpenAI’s use of copyrighted data was …

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Perplexity sued for copyright infringement

Dow Jones & Co. and the New York Post are suing the AI startup Perplexity for copyright infringement, according to Variety. The lawsuit, filed on Oct. 21 in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, alleges Perplexity illegally copies copyrighted works to divert readers and revenue from publishers. Perplexity’s platform allows …

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Penguin Random House adds anti-AI clause to its copyright pages

Penguin Random House has updated its copyright pages to protect authors’ intellectual property from being used in the training of artificial intelligence systems, The Bookseller reports. The new wording explicitly prohibits the use or reproduction of its books for AI training and will be included in all new and reprinted titles. This move comes amid …

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X/Twitter to share user data with AI providers

Social media platform X (formerly Twitter) is changing its privacy policy to share user data with external partners for AI training. Sarah Perez reports for TechCrunch that users will be able to opt out of this use of their data. The change goes into effect on November 15, and could open up a new revenue …

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New York Times sends Perplexity cease and desist notice

The New York Times has demanded that the AI startup Perplexity cease using its content. According to a Wall Street Journal report the newspaper accuses Perplexity of copyright infringement. Perplexity uses the Times’ content for AI-generated search results. The Times is demanding compensation and the surrender of illegal profits. Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas said they …

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What if others offer you as a chatbot?

Character.AI, a platform backed by Google, allows users to create AI chatbots based on real people without their consent, raising ethical concerns. Megan Farokhmanesh reports in Wired about several instances where AI personas were created without the individuals’ knowledge or permission, including gaming journalist Alyssa Mercante and feminist media critic Anita Sarkeesian. Even a chatbot …

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Generative AI as legal nightmare

AI-powered tools make legal action cheaper and easier, as the case of the “LexPunk Army” shows. According to the Harvard Business Review, this group of lawyers and developers used an AI bot to submit masses of comments on a proposed law by the U.S. Treasury Department. The flood of 120,000 comments, compared to an average …

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Microsoft pays publishers for Copilot content

Microsoft is launching payments to publishers for content appearing in Copilot. The company is introducing a new feature called “Copilot Daily,” which provides users with a spoken summary of weather and current events. As reported by Kyle Wiggers, Reuters, Axel Springer, Hearst Magazines, and The Financial Times have joined as partners for the service, initially …

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