3 Count: Pinterest Notifications

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1: California Court Grants Summary Judgment for Pinterest in Copyright Suit Over Email Notifications

First off today, Rose Esfandiari at IP Watchdog reports that the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California has granted Pinterest summary judgment in a case over its use of emails and other notifications.

The lawsuit was filed by photographer Harold Davis. Davis claimed that infringing copies of his work were used by Pinterest in various email and mobile notifications. He argued that these notifications were outside the boundaries of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) safe harbor provisions.

Such provisions normally protect sites like Pinterest from copyright infringement claims when their users upload infringing material. However, Davis argued that using the images in emails and other off-site notifications crossed the line and wasn’t protected by the law. However, the court has sided with Pinterest, saying that the there was no evidence that Pinterest had knowledge of the infringement, meaning Davis couldn’t sustain a claim of contributory infringement.

2: Indian ‘Piracy Kingpin’ Acquitted After 10-Years Due to Lack of Evidence

Next up today, Ernesto Van der Sar at Torrentfreak writes that, in India, Priyank Pardeshi, along with other defendants, has been acquitted of operating the pirate website TellyTorrents due to a lack of evidence.

Pardeshi was arrested in 2015 on suspicion that he was operating the site. At the time, prosecutors claimed to have evidence and a confession that fact, saying that Pardeshi and his co-defendants had raked in significant income from the operation. Pardeshi himself spent over 300 days in jail before being released on bail.

However, a decade later, the case has fallen apart. According to the court, prosecutors failed to provide any forensics, money trail or link to the domain. Though the case is now dismissed, Pardeshi described the past decade as being a “living hell” because no one would employ him with the case ongoing.

3: AI-Generated Content Can Now Be Copyrighted…Sometimes

Finally today, Cecily Mauran at Mashable reports that the United States Copyright Office (USCO) has issued new guidance on copyrightability of works generated using AI.

Previously, the USCO had said it would deny registration to works generated by AI. However, in the new advisement, the office said that it would evaluate the works on a case-by-case basis, determining whether the AI or the human created the protectable elements of the work.

The new guidance comes from the Register of Copyrights, Shira Perlmutter, who has previously taken strong stances both copyrightability of AI works and whether AI companies infringed on the work of human creators to train their bots.

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