3 Count: Malignant Settlement

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1: James Wan, Atomic Monster Settle ‘Malignant’ Copyright Lawsuit

First off today, Winston Cho at The Hollywood Reporter Esquire reports that James Wan and others involved in the making of the film Atomic Monster have settled a lawsuit with another screenwriter who claimed that the film was an infringement of a screenplay that he had written previously.

The lawsuit was filed by Adam Cosco, who claimed that the Atomic Monster is an infringement of his screenplay Little Brother. He alleged that the film both featured the same twist, namely that protagonist has an evil twin sibling absorbed side them.

However, the case had not been going well for Cosco, with the judge expressing doubt that he could show Wan and others had access to his script. He also found that a California law that barred lawsuits targeting free speech was applicable in this case, hinting at a likely dismissal. The two sides instead have reached a settlement, though the terms of that settlement are not known. Cosco had been seeking at least $150,000 in damages plus undefined punitive damages.

2: New York Times Hits Back at OpenAI’s Hacking Claims

Next up today, Eileen McDermott at IPWatchdog reports that the New York Times has filed an opposition brief in their ongoing lawsuit with OpenAI, rebutting many of the claims made by OpenAI in their response.

The paper sued OpenAI alleging that the company unlawfully used articles owned by the paper to train their AI systems, most notably ChatGPT. The paper further alleged that, when prompted, ChatGPT would spit out near-verbatim versions of New York Times article, not only proving that it was trained on the content, but that the output could also be infringing.

OpenAI responded to those claims with a motion to dismiss, alleging that the paper exploited a bug to get the system to respond in such a way. However, the paper, in their latest brief, refutes this saying that it was not hacking, it was research and it was only necessary because OpenAI does not disclose how it trains its systems. On other allegations in the motion to dismiss, the Times alleges that the issues are matters of fact that are not proper to address at this phase of the case.

3: Pirate Streaming Site Vumoo.to Goes Offline Following ACE Action

Finally today, Ernesto Van der Sar at Torrentfreak writes that the pirate streaming website Vumoo has been taken offline following action taken by the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE).

The site was one of the most popular pirate streaming services, with an estimated 12 million monthly visits. The site was allegedly based out of Vietnam, as many similar sites are, but the site is now down with the domain information now pointing to servers owned by ACE.

It is unclear if the site will remain down permanently. Similar sites have popped back up under new domains, often under new ownership, but as of this writing Vumoo is still offline, marking another victory for ACE.

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