3 Count: Rec Room Blues

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1: US Judge Trims AI Copyright Lawsuit Against Meta

First off today, Blake Brittain at Reuters reports that a California judge has said he is going to dismiss parts of a lawsuit filed against Meta, tossing claims that Meta’s AI system, Llama, infringes the copyright of creators through its output.

The judge said that he plans to grant a motion to dismiss, ruling that the output of Llama is non-infringing. However, the judge did say that he will provide the plaintiffs a chance to amend and refile those particular claims.

According to the judge, there’s not enough evidence that the output of Llama is similar to the original material. However, the judge has not ruled nor weighed in on the broader question of whether the use of the copyright-protected work for the purpose of AI training is legal, allowing the case to move forward on that issue if nothing else.

2: BitTorrent Pirates Won’t Receive ISP Warnings (It Will Be Something Worse)

Next up today, Andy Maxwell at Torrentfreak writes that the Dutch anti-piracy group BREIN is adopting a much stronger tactic against suspected BitTorrent pirates, targeting them with settlement demands rather than mere warning letters.

BREIN had sought to have ISPs serve as intermediaries for piracy notices. The idea was that BREIN would collect the IP addresses used in BitTorrent swarms and forward that information on to the ISP for them to deliver the notice. That way the user would be anonymous to BREIN but could still receive the warning.

However, a local ISP fought back against this and won, making it so that they could not be compelled to forward such notices. As such, BREIN has announced that they will be seeking court orders to force ISPs to turn over information about suspected pirates. However, for the pirates targeted, this will likely be worse as BREIN has said that they will attempt to recoup costs either from ISPs or, more likely, the alleged pirates.

3: Rec Room Sues Player for Copyright Infringement and Other Claims Following Alleged Misconduct and Hacking Activities on Its Gaming Platform

Finally today, Tony Weibell and Daniel Xo at Wilson Sonsini write in a press release that Rec Room, Inc., developers of the online game Rec Room, have filed a lawsuit against one of their players alleging that they have made and sold software for the purpose of hacking and cheating in the game.

According to the lawsuit, the unnamed player created the software that gave them unfair advantages in competitions, displayed banned imagery on the platform and drained other players of their in-game currency.

As such, the company is alleging that the player violated the game’s terms of service, committed fraud and infringed the copyright in the original game. The lawsuit is seeking a permanent injunction as well as statutory damages, up to $2,500 for each copy of the software sold.

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