3 Count: Consolidating Meta

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1: Meta Used Copyrighted Books for AI Training Despite its Own Lawyers’ Warnings, Authors Allege

First off today, Katie Paul at Reuters reports that a group of authors have refiled their case against Meta, the makers of Facebook and Instagram, over the use of their books when training Meta’s AI systems.

The refiling comes after a California judge dismissed part of the lawsuit that dealt with output of AI systems infringing their copyright. The part involving the use of copyright protected work to train AI moved forward, but the judge gave the plaintiffs an opportunity to refile the dismissed portions, and they did so.

In addition to addressing issues in the dismissed portion, the new complaint consolidates two separate claims against Meta by the same group and provides new evidence, including chat logs, that Meta employees were aware that using copyright-protected books without permission was legally dubious.

2: IBCAP Spearheads $25.5 Million Copyright Infringement Lawsuit Against Glo TV and Rays IPTV

Next up today, a press release by the International Broadcaster Coalition Against Piracy (IBCAP) writes that they have filed a copyright infringement lawsuit in New York against a series of defendants who they claim are illegally transmitting content from 20 different television stations.

The case targets the people and companies behind the Glo TV services and the Rays TV service, both of which IBCAP claim sell pirate TV services to users. The claim alleges that they had sent multiple notices to the companies, but those notices were ignored, and the infringement continued.

IBCAP is an anti-piracy organization that represents more than 190 television channels. As part of their work, they routinely file lawsuits, like this one, against those who offer pirate TV services. In this case, they are seeking up to $25,500,000 in total damages for the 170 registered works as well as an injunction to prevent further infringement.

3: Piracy Shield: IPTV Blocking Orders Apply to All DNS & VPN Providers

Finally today, Andy Maxwell at Torrentfreak writes that, in Italy, a new document released by the nation’s communications authority has laid out the technical specs for the new “Piracy Shield” system that will not only require ISPs to block access to pirate sites, but place a similar requirement on search engines, VPNs and DNS providers.

The new Piracy Shield system was passed into law earlier this year and came into effect, technically, last week. However, the system is still being built and issues such as integrating the new block list with ISPs are not yet solved. As such, the system’s promise of a dynamic block list that will reduce piracy, in particular sports and live event piracy, is not active yet.

However, according to this new document, it won’t be just ISPs that have to comply. VPN and DNS providers in the country will as well, reducing the opportunities for circumvention. The system also requires search engines to delist pirate sites automatically, something that Google has already said it is prepared to do.

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