#U.S. Copyright Office

[saijito]

Deadline is now October 30, 2023 to add comments to the copyright office regarding genai.

Make sure to answer the questions that are posed, only as many as you can reasonably answer obviously (link to questions). Use the link below to add your comment.

Twt thread regarding U.S. copyright ai inquiry that gave good advice. Link to thread. Screenshots under the cut.

Link to Luddite.pro article

The US Copyright Office is opening a public comment period around AI

American friends! The US Copyright Office (which we know exerts huuuge influence in how these things are treated elsewhere) wants to hear opinions on copyright and AI.

"The US Copyright Office is opening a public comment period around AI and copyright issues beginning August 30th as the agency figures out how to approach the subject."

We can assume that the opposing side will definitely be using all of their lobbying power towards widespread AI use, so this is a very good chance to let them know your thoughts on AI and how art and creative content of all kinds should be protected.

[authortoberecognized]

WRITER’S FORUM

                    WEBSITES HELPFUL TO WRITERS This is a series of posts which, I think, will be beneficial to writers. But first, I would like to include my usual warning about using websites. Whenever you check a website you are, in my opinion and I talk from experience, being put on a list for sale. So, expect the possibility of being bombarded by ads from companies you, perhaps, have…

[worldipday]

WOMEN TRAILBLAZERS CREATING SUCCESS THROUGH COPYRIGHT.

The Copyright Alliance, in collaboration with the U.S. Copyright Office, the Copyright Society, the Global Innovation Policy Center (GIPC), the U.S. Intellectual Property Alliance, and numerous Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts (VLA) organizations across the country, will host a World Intellectual Property Day (WIPD) 2023 event titled Women Trailblazers Creating Success Through Copyright on Wednesday, April 26 from 2-3:30 p.m. ET. This virtual panel is in keeping with the World Intellectual Property Organization’s (WIPO) 2023 theme, Women and IP: Accelerating Innovation and Creativity. Join us to hear from inspiring women who will discuss how copyright has helped them to advance their careers and protect and distribute their and others’ creative works. Attendees will also learn the steps they can take to forge their own career path by protecting their creativities as well as their livelihoods. Our panel moderator is Karyn A. Temple, Former Register of Copyrights and SEVP & Global General Counsel at the Motion Picture Association; and our panelists are Jayda Imanlihen, Founder of the Black Girl Film School; Alicia Calzada, Deputy General Counsel for the National Press Photographers Association; Tristen Norman, Director, Creative Insights, Getty Images; and Miriam Lord, Associate Register of Copyrights and Director of Public Information and Education at the U.S. Copyright Office. Don’t miss this unique opportunity to gain insights and advice from leading women in the creative and copyright industries. VLA Cohosts: California Lawyers for the Arts Carolina Lawyers for the Arts & Entertainment Chicago Lawyers for the Creative Arts Colorado Attorneys for the Arts Georgia Lawyers for the Arts Maryland Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts New York Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts Oregon Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts St. Louis Volunteer Lawyers and Accountants for the Arts Texas Accountants and Lawyers for the Arts The Ella Project Washington Area Lawyers for the Arts.

[anarchywoofwoof]

A former OpenAI researcher known for whistleblowing the blockbuster artificial intelligence company facing a swell of lawsuits over its business model has died, authorities confirmed this week. Suchir Balaji, 26, was found dead inside his Buchanan Street apartment on Nov. 26, San Francisco police and the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner said. Police had been called to the Lower Haight residence at about 1 p.m. that day, after receiving a call asking officers to check on his well-being, a police spokesperson said. The medical examiner’s office has not released his cause of death, but police officials this week said there is “currently, no evidence of foul play.” Information he held was expected to play a key part in lawsuits against the San Francisco-based company. Balaji’s death comes three months after he publicly accused OpenAI of violating U.S. copyright law while developing ChatGPT, a generative artificial intelligence program that has become a moneymaking sensation used by hundreds of millions of people across the world.

totally normal that a 26-year-old man dies of natural causes alone in his apartment in San Francisco with no witnesses or reason to suspect foul play. completely normal stuff that happens to whistleblowers all the time.

[natures-uprise]

[milligramspoison]

This was supposedly for a movie years ago…but the recording dates are from this year 👀

[transformativeworks]

Tell the Copyright Office About AI

Concerned about AI?  The U.S. Copyright Office is asking for public comments and fans can add their voices. Read more at: https://otw.news/0bd40f

[syn4k]

a series of events

on May 5th, 2024, Pulitzer Prize winner and nationally acclaimed hip hop artist Kendrick Lamar Duckworth releases Not Like Us, the last in a series of scathing diss tracks against fellow artist Drake. fans of rap and hip hop immediately clock the track as Lamar's victory lap, so to speak, which. is absolutely deserved.

the song immediately becomes the biggest rap hit of the year and the definitive song of the summer. it's bumped worldwide at countless parties and the consensus is that Drake got so thoroughly demolished during this entire saga that he's never going to recover from this ever again

you see, not only does Lamar accuse Drake of being a pedophile several times during the track (which we have evidence for), he also literally calls him a colonizer. the standout lines in the track include "certified lover boy [name of one of Drake's albums], certified pedophile", "no you not a colleague, you a fuckin' colonizer" and my personal favorite, "tryna strike a chord and it's probably a minorrrrrrrr".

the song fucking slaps

kendrick has the entire world singing along to the Drake Is A Pedophile track

i cannot emphasize enough that this is so big that it escaped rap/hip hop containment and went worldwide. literally everyone is listening to this. it's crazy. (it probably doesn't help that kendrick took all copyright off the song.)

ANYWAYS so all that's going on. skip forwards a few months to today

i walk into my school's front office to look for something, as you do

while i'm waiting to talk to the lady at the front desk i notice a t-shirt hung up behind the counter

my school is selling official merch with the text "They Not Like Us" on the front for 25 bucks a pop

this is absolutely intentional.

the school is majority black (80%).

the people who designed this shirt knew exactly what they were doing when they made it.

drake is so THOROUGHLY OVER, apparently, that public schools in the U.S are selling OFFICIAL MERCHANDISE with lines from the hit song about how he's a racist pedophile on them

(this is fully legal, by the way. there are no copyright restrictions on the song for a reason.)

i am losing my entire shit.

[gloomybadger4life]

Zutara AU Idea:

Katara is a successful actress on a popular TV show.

Zuko is an agent at the U.S. Copyright Office.

He saves her from the pirates.

------

@chaosmagetwin @wingchunwaterbender @ziezii @stardust948

I've been giggling for like 15 minutes straight. I probably need therapy lol.

[thoughtportal]

"Boots" is a poem by English author and poet Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936). It was first published in 1903, in his collection The Five Nations.[1] "Boots" imagines the repetitive thoughts of a British Army infantryman marching in South Africa during the Second Boer War. It has been said that if the first four words in each line are read at the rate of two words to the second, that gives the time to which a British foot soldier was accustomed to march.[2]

read by by Taylor Holmes in 1915

This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published (or registered with the U.S. Copyright Office) before January 1, 1929.

[simply-ivanka]

Harris and the First Amendment

The Supreme Court rebuked her use of lawfare in California.

By The Editorial Board -- Wall Street Journal

We keep looking for an issue, any issue, on which Kamala Harris differs with the Democratic left, but we keep coming up empty. That includes her party’s use of lawfare against political opponents, as an episode while she was California Attorney General reminds us.

Ms. Harris made headlines a decade ago by threatening to punish nonprofit groups that refused to turn over unredacted donor information. She demanded they hand to the state their federal IRS Form 990 Schedule B in the name of discovering “self dealing” or “improper loans.” The real purpose was to learn the names of conservative donors and chill future political giving—that is, political speech.

Her bullying came amid the Internal Revenue Service’s notorious targeting of conservative nonprofits; Wisconsin’s probe of GOP donors; Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin’s intimidation of donors to the American Legislative Exchange Council; and a campaign of harassment against donors who supported California’s Prop 8 (which banned same-sex marriage).

Free-market nonprofits challenged the Harris dragnet, suing the AG’s office in a case that went to the U.S. Supreme Court. In Americans for Prosperity Foundation v. Bonta in 2021, the High Court ruled 6-3 that the AG’s disclosure demand broke the law. The Court pointed out that a lower court had found not “a single, concrete instance in which pre-investigation collection of a Schedule B did anything to advance the Attorney General’s investigative, regulatory or enforcement efforts.”

The Court said California’s claim that it would protect donor information lacked credibility, since during the litigation plaintiffs discovered nearly 2,000 Schedule B forms “inadvertently posted to the Attorney General’s website.” It noted that the petitioners and donors faced “threats” and “retaliation.”

The Supreme Court said Ms. Harris’s policy posed a risk of chilling free-speech rights, and it cited its 1958 NAACP v. Alabama precedent, which protected First Amendment “associational” rights. Ms. Harris is citing her experience as state AG as a political asset, but the Bonta case is a warning to voters that she’s willing to use the law as a weapon against political opponents.

Lawfare has failed as a political strategy against Donald Trump while undermining public confidence in impartial justice. Ms. Harris’s record suggests she’ll continue down this abusive road.

Copyright ©2024 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8

Appeared in the August 5, 2024, print edition as 'Harris and the First Amendment'.

[carriesthewind]

copyright hurts me as an indigenous person because dead white people own the likenesses of my ancestors faces in photos. they own the little history of ours that is written down in old books and newspapers, i cannot access for copyright reasons. they came and captured our faces for "science", for their own personal interest and now we are owned after death

I'm sorry.

I don't know much about this this issue, but here are a few links for people who might like to know more (leaning heavily on legal sources and focusing mostly on the U.S. - other people please feel free to add more links and information).

One recent example of white people copyrighting and selling language back to Lakota peoples that received a fair amount of news coverage:

A 1996 paper about Native American's potential right (and lack of rights) to request or demand the return of photographs held by museums:

An ABA article from this year that discusses in broad terms the lack of protection for Native American culture and traditional knowledge in the U.S.'s current intellectual property system, and the need for such protection:

An article about the 2018 Music Modernization Act could affect recordings of Native American songs, stories, and languages, that includes a broader critique of the fundamental assumptions of U.S. copyright law:

A similar discussion out of Canada:

Which links to another horrifying story of theft stories, history, and language, and details how the law made such a theft possible:

And a recent law review article proposing a path to increase protection for Indigenous works under current law, which isn't quite on point but contains some interesting discussion of the legal landscape and potential practical suggestions (although I am skeptical as to how likely or effective they could be):

[beardedmrbean]

Bad Dragon is suing SinSaint over copyright infringement of their dildo designs. What I want to know is, can you copyright the shape of a dog's dick? Because if you can, you shouldn't be able to.

I did knot need to hear about this one.

one more pun

TSG is gonna be one of the more reputable sources for this one

MARCH 25--A manufacturer of “fantasy-themed sex toys” has accused an upstart Brooklyn, New York firm of knocking off its distinctive designs, according to a federal lawsuit alleging that the defendant has infringed on copyrights for dildos such as “Spritz the Seadragon” and “Tyson the Water Buffalo.”

In a March 20 complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Arizona, Bad Dragon Enterprises contended that its “sculptural” products have been illegally copied by SinSaint, which is headquartered in a Coney Island warehouse and advertises that all its “Ethically Manufactured” toys are “made in Brooklyn, USA.”

Bad Dragon, which noted that it has had “significant commercial success” in the adult toy field, alleged that SinSaint has been selling the duplicative dildos through its website and other trade channels, including the recent AVN Adult Entertainment Expo in Las Vegas (where the new firm’s exhibitor booth was next to that of the all-nude Palomino strip club).

The lawsuit identifies 13 separate dildos that Bad Dragon claims have been copied (and renamed) by SinSaint, which was incorporated in New York last year. The colorful silicone toys feature scales, tentacles, suction cups, and other design elements meant to mimic the genitalia of dragons, sea creatures, and other fantastical characters.

Some of the Bad Dragon products that SinSaint is accused of swiping are “Kelvin the Ice Dragon,” “Stan the T. Rex,” and “Vergil the Drippy Dragon.” SinSaint has not been accused of pirating other Bad Dragon offerings like “Jason the Demogorgon” or “Cuttlefish of Cthulhu.”

According to the lawsuit, SinSaint’s counsel last month stated that the company had begun removing “some of the allegedly infringing listings for product redesign.” This response, Bad Dragon contended, was “unacceptable,” adding that it “continues to be harmed by Defendant’s ongoing, unlawful conduct.”

The Bad Dragon complaint seeks an order enjoining SinSaint from continuing any further alleged

copyright infringement and seeks “disgorgement of all of Defendant’s profits” related to the artificial penises. The company may also seek statutory damages of up to $150,000 for each of the dildos in question.

For more than a decade, Bad Dragon has sought trademark and copyright protection for various product lines. While often successful, the firm’s application to trademark its “Cum Tube” was abandoned after a government attorney rejected the ejaculating dildo because the “applied-for mark consists of or includes immoral or scandalous matter.” The application included a very NSFW image, which can be found on the U. S. Patent and Trademark Office website.

According to an August 2023 trademark application, SinSaint’s owner is Oleg Semenenko, 50, a resident of Brooklyn’s gated Seagate community. Semenenko lives less than a mile from SinSaint’s warehouse, which shares an address with GlobMarble, an industrial molds business for which Semenenko is listed as “manager” in a separate trademark application filed this month.

In a brief interview today, Semenenko was asked how a dildo firm grew out of his original business. “We work with rubber,” he replied. Semenenko dismissed Bad Dragon’s claim that its products were unique and original: “How can octopus hand can be your idea?” (4 pages) ____________________________________________

Hope the judge that did the recent trump case gets this one, even though I know that's basically impossible, just the thought of making him listen to hours of testimony about how these rubber fantasy dildos are protected by copyright or trademark law, or something like that is funny to me.

It's not a revenge thing wanting it, just a keep him humble thing. I know you think you're hot shit now, so here listen to these arguments for a bit.

Totally different note, I'm wondering how long until the discourse starts up, or if it has already started up, where using horse dildos is either bestiality or a gateway to bestiality because what with the way people treat cartoons of fictional people I can't imagine it's far off or not already here.

Look to japan for the tentacle ones.........

[alexseanchai]

article dated today, Friday August 18

[thunderlina]

HEY YOU! DO YOU HATE AI?

The U.S. copyright office is seeking public comments on AI generated artwork and copyright law. BASICALLY that means that they're asking for everyday American people to tell them how they feel about how copyright law should handle AI.

AO3 explains it better than I could:

SO PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE Go tell the U.S. copyright office that AI devs should legally require consent for training their models and that AI generated works should be non-copyrightable!

[chirpsythismorning]

A federal judge on Friday upheld a finding from the U.S. Copyright Office that a piece of art created by AI is not open to protection. The ruling was delivered in an order turning down Stephen Thaler’s bid challenging the government’s position refusing to register works made by AI. Copyright law has “never stretched so far” to “protect works generated by new forms of technology operating absent any guiding human hand,” U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell found.

Yes, obviously.

How could AI created art be copyrighted if it's just literally a conglomerate of work that in many cases is already copyrighted?

This means the studios would presumably not be able to copyright their content, in the case that they use AI generated scripts for example, as those scripts would have depended on stolen work to begin with.