COLLEGE PARK, Md., Oct. 5 (ZFJ) — A federal judge ordered the University of Maryland, College Park, to allow UMD Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) to proceed with their demonstration on Monday, Oct. 7.
On Sept. 1, after significant outcry over UMD granting a permit to SJP to use McKeldin Mall for an “interfaith vigil,” the university announced that demonstrations would be prohibited on campus on Oct. 7, and that a “university-sponsored Day of Dialogue” would be held instead.
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.
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 3 (ZFJ) — Affirmative action in college admissions violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, ruled the Supreme Court in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard (20-1199) and SFFA v. University of North Carolina (21-707) on Thursday, June 29. The EPC prohibits racial discrimination by the government.
Reversing the lower courts’ decisions, the Court struck down the admissions programs used by Harvard and UNC by a 6-2 and 6-3 vote, respectively.
May 28 (ZFJ) — The federal government can only regulate wetlands with “a continuous surface connection” to adjacent “waters of the United States” under the Clean Water Act (1972), ruled the Supreme Court on Thursday, May 25, in Sackett v. EPA (21-454).
The CWA is the primary federal law regulating water pollution and prohibits the “discharge of any pollutant,” including “chemical wastes,” “rock,” and “sand,” into “navigable waters,” defined as “the waters of the United States, including the territorial seas.
