3 Count: Somebody is Listening

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1: Zayn Malik Sued for Alleged Copyright Infringement Over ‘Better’

First off today, Daniel Tencer at Music Business Worldwide reports that British musician Zayn Malik is facing a copyright infringement lawsuit over his 2021 hit Better, which was released on his album Nobody is Listening.

The lawsuit was filed by musician and songwriter Patrick Simmons, who claims that Better is an infringement of his 2018 song Somebody Tonight. The lawsuit alleges that Malik learned of Simmons’ song through a promoter that the two both know.

Simmons, who performs under the name Havyn, is seeking an award of damages as well as profits that were based on the alleged infringement. For Malik, this is his second such lawsuit, with the first over a 2014 song he released while he was still a member of the band One Direction.

2: X Clearly Profits from Widespread Music Piracy, Labels Argue

Next up today, Ernesto Van der Sar at Torrentfreak writes that the record labels have responded to a motion to dismiss filed by X (formerly Twitter) over allegations that the site is ignoring copyright takedown notices and, thus, enabling piracy on the platform.

The music labels filed the lawsuit alleging that, recently, X has been ignoring copyright notices, making them directly, contributorily and vicariously liable for copyright infringement. X, for its part, filed a motion to dismiss seeking to have all three of those claims tossed.

However, the record labels have hit back, citing the recent Supreme Court ruling in the Aereo case as further proof of X’s liability. In addition to responding to those claims, the record labels also highlighted the various ways that they allege X earns revenue from piracy, including ads shown next to pirated content.

3: EU lawmaker Benifei Urges the Bloc’s Countries to Compromise on AI Rules

Finally today, Foo Yun Chee and Supantha Mukherjee at Reuters reports that European Union lawmaker Brando Benifei is calling for compromise on areas related to AI and copyright.

Benifei is the politician heading negotiations to create draft rules around technology and copyright in the bloc. However, the negotiations have been slowed down with the rise of generative AI and also concerns over biometric data.

However, Benifei has said he doesn’t think either of those issues should be part of the potential legislation, saying that the copyright issues should be handled with a copyright law, not this tech-related round of rule making.

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