Copyrights

The U.S. Copyright Office recently found itself waffling on a copyright registration it granted, and then revoked, within a span of months. The work in question, a comic book, transcended the traditional artificial-intelligence authorship debate it contained an amalgam of human-created text and generative AI-created artwork.

The United States Copyright Office recently issued a letter ruling on the copyrightability of Kristina Kashtanova's comic book-like work, Zarya of the Dawn. The Kashtanova ruling indicates that the Copyright Office's determination of copyrightability of works involving use of AI will rely on whether the author is able to control and foresee with some measure of predictability the output of the authorial process

Part Two of a Two-Part Article In the United States and in most foreign countries, the "performance right" is one of the most important rights of copyright and, in many cases, the most lucrative. In the United States, there is no statutory license under the Copyright Act for this right. Songwriters, composers, lyricists (jointly "writers") and music publishers join these organizations, which in turn negotiate licenses with the users of music, collect the license fees from those users and distribute the monies to writers and publishers based on surveys of performances, specific payment schedules and distribution rules, as well as other factors.

The federal appellate court in Atlanta, GA, in a case of first impression "that has divided our sister courts" over the U.S. Copyright Act's §507(b) statute of limitations on recovering damages beyond three years of a copyright lawsuit filing, just added to that division.

Part One of a Two Part Article Analysis of the most important music rate and royalty areas, both past, present and future and how and by whom they are set or determined as well as the effect that legislation, litigation, the Copyright Royalty Board and the Department of Justice have had on the process.

The magical world of AI-generated art has become more mainstream over the past few months. There has also been some backlash against the industry, including brewing class action lawsuits alleging copyright violations and resistance from online artist communities. But until recently, a substantial legal threat was yet to emerge against the technology that underpins artificial-intelligence art.

Even with legal assumptions that certain intellectual property rights in works created by employees are owned by the employer, these should not be relied upon exclusively. A well-drafted employee-agreement form is increasingly essential in light of the explosive growth of remote and flexible work arrangements.

Part One of a Two Part Article A look at the most important music rate and royalty areas, both past, present and future and how and by whom they are set or determined as well as the effect that legislation, litigation, the Copyright Royalty Board and the Department of Justice have had on the process.