The copyright wars are back, and this time the conflict is all about artificial intelligence. While most of the public has been paying attention to what is going on with AI art tools such as DALL-E, the current stage of AI development started with text tools, particularly GPT-3 and the Read more
I’ve been catching up with the ongoing case of Yuga Labs v Ryder Ripps. This case involves conceptual artist Ryder Ripps, and Yuga Labs, the makers of the Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) NFT collection, which is still the most successful NFT project in the world. Ryder Ripps has been Read more
As AI creative tools are becoming widespread, the question of copyright of AI creations has also taken centre-stage. But while copyright nerds obsess over the authorship question, the issue that is getting more attention from artists is that of copyright infringement. AI is trained on data, in the case of Read more
You wait months for an NFT case, and then two drop in the matter of days. First an English court confirmed that tokens are property (more on that when I get my hands on the decision), and now there is a fascinating copyright case taking place in Germany that could Read more
Please gather around, and listen to this cautionary tale of schadenfreude and greed. This is not a tale for the faint of heart; it involves a cabal of crypto-enthusiasts working on a decentralised autonomous organisation (DAO), a failed film adaptation by Alejandro Jodorowsky of the classic book Dune , and Read more
In 2005 artist Matt Furie created four cartoon characters for a cartoon called Boy’s Club: Andy, Brett, Landwolf, and Pepe. You’d be forgiven if you were not familiar with the first three, but if you’ve spent any time online in the last decade you’ll almost certainly have come across the Read more
We live in strange times. People post selfies getting an injection. A football tournament is being played with half-empty stadiums. Sotheby’s is selling digital assets and sneakers, and it will be selling an NFT of some code by Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the creator of the World Wide Web. The auction Read more
Two musicians have written a computer program that recorded in MIDI format every possible 8-note and 12-beat melody combination, resulting in 68.7 billion tunes. They claim that by doing this, they have managed to copyright every such musical combination with the stated purpose of pre-empting music copyright lawsuits in the Read more
A court in the Chinese city of Shenzen has decided that an article that was written by an artificial intelligence program has copyright protection. The article was written by Tencent’s Dreamwriter AI Writing Robot, an internal code at the Chinese tech giant that produces half a million articles per year Read more
The first experience that most modern creators will have of copyright is through social media, and particularly through YouTube. In the early days of the network, YouTube had the reputation that it was mostly built on infringing content, users would upload video clips and sometimes entire shows without permission, and Read more