3 Count: Expensive Cravings

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1: German Court Rules AI Music Firm Suno Broke Copyright Rules

First off today, Reuters reports that a German court has ruled that the AI music firm Suno has violated the copyrights of the of the local music-licensing agency GEMA and must disclose the revenue it earned from those practices.

Gema filed the lawsuit alleging that Suno violated their copyrights by training its AI models on copyrighted music without the proper licenses. Suno had argued (both in Germany and elsewhere) that the training was not infringing and protected under fair use or fair dealing provisions.

However, this court disagreed, siding with Gama. As part of the ruling, the court ordered Suno to disclose the revenue it earned from the use of copyrighted music so that it may make a determination on damages. This is markedly different from the United States, which famously ruled that AI training itself is not an infringement.

2: GCC Bans AI-Generated Code Over GPL Copyright Fears

Next up today, Maya Brooks at Northeast Times reports that the GNU Compiler Collection (GCC) steering committee has voted to strictly limit the use of AI in the development of their software, saying that it poses a threat the GPL license status.

GCC is an application which compiles code and applications for various GNU/Linux systems, including Android. The tool is licensed under the GNU General Public License (GPL), which makes it free to use, modify and more, but only if new projects comply with the same terms. However, the steering committee expressed concern that, since AI code is not eligible for copyright protection, it could jeopardize the GPL license moving forward.

The move is not a complete block on AI code. Small AI code snippets, under 15 lines of code, are permissible as long as they are properly declared. It is unclear how the committee intends to detect AI code and enforce this policy, but it’s the latest in a large number of open-source projects and sites taking similar steps.

3: After 6,000 Romantasy Pages, Judge Hands Crave Plaintiff the Bill

Finally today, Aaron Moss at Copyright Lately reports a judge has dismissed a copyright infringement lawsuit filed by author Lynne Freeman, against the publisher of the Crave book series by Tracy Wolff. In addition to dismissing the case, the judge is ordering Freeman to pay the legal fees and costs to the defendants, which could amount to over $3.4 million.

The case has been dragging on for four years, with Freeman steadfastly claiming that the Crave series is based on her earlier work. However, after reading both series, the judge found no evidence of substantial similarities between the two work, at least none that were enforceable under copyright law. As such, she has dismissed the lawsuit and said that the case was deeply flawed from the start.

As such, she is ordering Freeman to pay the legal fees and costs to the defendants. However, she has indicated that she will likely trim the $3.4 million requested. Freeman has expressed her intention to appeal, but the judge is requiring that she post a $150,000 bond before doing so.

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