3 Count: AI Manga

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1: Grande Asks Judge to Overturn $46.8 Million Ruling in Copyright Dispute with the Major Labels

First off today, Chris Cooke at Complete Music Update reports that Grande Communications has asked a judge to either overturn a $46.8 million jury verdict against them or grant a new trial.

The case was filed by the major record labels and accused Grande, which is now branded as Astound Broadband, of not doing enough to stop piracy on their network. The jury sided with the labels, handing down the judgment.

Grande now wants that judgment set aside, saying that there was insufficient evidence for the jury to reach that conclusion. That move is broadly seen as a long shot. However, Grande has indicated that it intends to appeal the verdict to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals.

2: Copyright Holders Score ‘Dynamic’ Pirate Site Blocking Order in Argentina

Next up today, Ernesto Van der Sar at Torrentfreak writes that a national court in Argentina has granted a dynamic blocking order that requires local internet service providers to update the blocklists on a pirate site domain to keep users from accessing it.

The case was filed by the local offices of DirecTV and targeted a variety of local pirate websites that are popular in the country. Ultimately, the national telecommunications body ENACOM instructed local providers to block access to some 30 domain names but ordered them to be blocked on a dynamic basis so that mirror sites so that the mirror sites could not trivially revive them.

According to local anti-piracy advocates, this dynamic blocking order is necessary because, often times, the blocking orders are already out of date before they even take effect. Local rightsholders hope that this will enable the site blocking orders to have a tangible impact on the levels of piracy in the country.

3: Japan’s First AI Manga to Hit the Shelves, Sparks Concerns Over Artists’ Rights

Finally today, Sneha Swaminathan at WION reports that a new manga is about to hit the shelves in Japan and is drawing controversy over the fact that the images inside it were created by Midjourney, a popular AI image generation system.

The book is entitled Cyberpunk: Peach John and was created by providing a large number of prompts to Midjourney and then taking the best images. However, the book has drawn a great deal of controversy, both over whether the images are infringements of the training library that Midjourney uses and what it means for the human artists in the country.

The book is slated to be released on March 9 and was created by an author using the pseudonym Rootport. According to the author, the AI made it possible to finish the book in just six weeks, instead of the more typical year or more for human artists.

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