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1: Suno Faces Another AI Training Copyright Lawsuit From Production Music Firm Jamendo
First off today, Rachel Scharf at Billboard reports that Suno has been hit with another copyright infringement lawsuit over its AI training, this one filed by Jamendo, a music company that represents a number of independent artists.
Jamendo recently filed a similar lawsuit against Nvidia over its AI training. Both lawsuits focus on 55,000 tracks, but not the songs themselves. Instead, they focus on a dataset Jamendo created storing metadata about the songs.
According to the lawsuit, Jamendo sought out a license deal with Suno but was rejected. Now Jamendo is seeking at least €17.8 million ($20 million) in damages.
2: Google Says AI Training Is Fair Use and Copyright Should Be Policed on Outputs, Not Inputs
Next up today, Murray Stassen at Music Business Worldwide reports that Google has released a new policy paper saying that AI training should be considered fair use and that copyright infringement should be judged on the outputs of such systems, not the inputs.
Entitled A Pragmatic Approach to AI Governance in America, the document argues that using publicly available data is “a transformative, non-expressive use” and should be considered fair use under the law. As such, copyright law should focus on the outputs of AI systems and address the real-world harms that may be caused by such systems.
Though Google tried to distance itself from copyright infringement claims, it did say that it supports the NO FAKES ACT, which protects individual voices and likenesses for the use of deep fakes. Google’s fair use stance mirrors Google’s 2023 filings with the US Copyright Office, which were made as the office was preparing a report on AI and copyright.
3: Shopify Settles Copyright Lawsuit Over Rival E-Commerce Platform
Finally today, Blake Brittain at Reuters reports that the e-commerce platform Shopify has reached a settlement with its competitor Shopline over allegations of copyright infringement.
Filed in May 2024, the Shopify lawsuit alleged that Jamendo sues Suno over AI training; Google says AI training is fair use; Shopify settles copyright lawsuit with Shopline. copied elements from their Dawn theme and rebranded it to create a competing service. Shopline denied the allegations and further argued that Dawn was not copyrightable since the technologies are not unique to Shopify.
However, the two sides have now reached a confidential settlement and have moved to dismiss the case. The terms of the settlement are not known, but both sides did agree to prevent Shopline from distributing the software.
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