Copyright

Second Circuit Affirms Dismissal of George Santos’s Copyright Suit

Santos had sued after the show Jimmy Kimmel Live! ran a segment called “Will Santos Say It?” that mocked Santos’s willingness to say absurd things for money in videos on the site Cameo—videos that Kimmel had allegedly tricked Santos into making.

Fair Use in the Age of Artificial Intelligence: An Analysis of Recent Federal Court Decisions in AI Training Data Cases

In two published orders issued within the same week, two federal judges in the Northern District of California rendered significant decisions addressing whether the use of copyrighted works to train generative artificial intelligence models constitutes fair use under federal copyright law.

Farther Down Transformative Use’s Serpentine Path: Second Circuit Holds That Website’s Use of Snake Photo Is Not Fair Use

In perhaps a novel formulation, Judge Leval wrote that the transformative-use test turns on whether the very copying of the original communicates a message different from the original, in contrast to an extrinsic declaration of a new message.

No Entrance to Legal Paradise: D.C. Court of Appeals Affirms Denial of Copyright Registration for AI-Generated Artwork

The Court’s ruling is consistent with longstanding law, reaffirming that works exclusively created by AI are ineligible for copyright protection. While this opinion ultimately leaves more nuanced “line-drawing” questions for another day, authors of AI-generated works are likely to continue to register their works with the Copyright Office and engage in legal fights to determine…

Dua Lipa Wins Summary Judgement in Levitating Copyright Infringement Case

While acknowledging that “it is possible that a ‘layperson’ could listen to portions of Plaintiffs’ and Defendants’ songs and hear similarities,” Judge Katherine Polk Failla concluded that “there can be no substantial similarity (and thus no copyright violation) as a matter of law, because ‘the similarity between the works concerns only non-copyrightable elements of the…

Ninth Circuit Reverses Copyright Lawsuit Against Aritzia, Opening Up Possibility of Copyright Protection for Kinetic Sculpture

The Ninth Circuit noted that “copyrightability of kinetic and manipulable sculptures” is “an area of copyright law that has not yet received much attention” and “may be better informed with a more complete factual record.”

George Santos Loses Cameo Copyright Case

Santos sued after the show Jimmy Kimmel Live! used short videos of Santos saying absurd things in exchange for money on the site Cameo—videos that Kimmel allegedly tricked Santos into making. The defendants moved to dismiss Santos’ complaint on the grounds that they made a fair use of Santos’ videos.

Copyright Law Used to Deny Access to Covenant School Shooter’s Manifesto

Federal Court Holds That Copyright Act Preempts X’s Web Scraping Claims

In a blockbuster ruling that is bound to have far-reaching implications, including in the swarm of copyright infringement cases brought against AI platforms, a California federal court recently dismissed a complaint that X Corp. brought against web scraping company Bright Data.

Supreme Court Provides for Broader Availability of Damages in Copyright Suits

The Supreme Court issued a 6-3 decision in Warner Chappell Music, Inc. v. Nealy, No. 22-1078, holding that damages are available under the Copyright Act for acts of infringement that predate the initiation of suit by more than three years.