April 14 (ZFJ) — YouTube is requiring creators to disclose when realistic-appearing content—anything that can easily be mistaken for a real person, place, scene, or event—has been generated or altered using artificial intelligence, announced the video platform on March 18.
Examples provided by YouTube of content requiring disclosure include digitally replacing a person’s face, synthetically generating a person’s face, making it appear as if a real building caught fire, altering a real cityscape to appear differently, and realistically showing a fictional tornado moving toward a real town.
Feb. 6 (ZFJ) — Universal Music Group, the world’s largest music corporation, has pulled all of its music from TikTok following the expiration of its previous licensing agreement on Jan. 31 after renewal talks collapsed.
That means that any TikToks containing music from Taylor Swift, Bad Bunny, The Weeknd, Drake, Harry Styles, and many, many more artists have had their audio muted. Until a new licensing agreement is finalized, TikTok users won’t be able to add any music from Universal’s catalog to their videos.
NEW YORK, Dec. 31 (ZFJ) — The New York Times filed a federal copyright infringement lawsuit on Dec. 27 against Microsoft and OpenAI for using its news articles unauthorized to train generative artificial intelligence models.
The Times says it initiated negotiations with Microsoft and OpenAI in April 2023, but no licensing agreement, like in the case of The Associated Press, was reached, leading to the lawsuit.
“Defendants insist that their conduct is protected as ‘fair use’ because their unlicensed use of copyrighted content to train GenAI models serves a new ‘transformative’ purpose,” wrote The Times in its civil complaint.
Nov. 19 (ZFJ) — SAG-AFTRA ended its 118-day strike at 12:01 PT on Thursday, Nov. 9, after the union’s TV/Theatrical Negotiating Committee unanimously approved an agreement with provisions on artificial intelligence in films and actor compensation.
On Friday, Nov. 10, the SAG-AFTRA National Board approved the agreement with 86% of the vote. Union members now have until Tuesday, Dec. 5, to vote on ratifying the contract. SAG-AFTRA represents about 160,000 media professionals.
Aug. 23 (ZFJ) — AI art generated “absent human involvement” is not eligible for copyright, ruled U.S. District Judge Beryl A. Howell on Aug. 18, Friday.
In her ruling for the federal district court in Washington, D.C., Howell upheld the U.S. Copyright Office’s denial of registration to computer scientist Stephen Thaler for the work he calls A Recent Entrance to Paradise.
BACKGROUND
Thaler, the plaintiff, owns an AI called the “Creativity Machine” that can generate visual works of art.
July 25 (ZFJ) — The rapid increase in malicious uses of artificial intelligence has sparked international concern. On July 18, the United Nations Security Council gathered to recognize what AI could bring to the table and what it has already taken away.
U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres opened the meeting by observing the influence ChatGPT has garnered. ChatGPT, an AI that emulates human interaction, has taken over the internet by storm, infiltrating college applications, political propaganda, jobs, and other areas of daily life.
