copyright infringement

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10K Authors Release Empty Book to Push Back on AI Theft

Authors urge UK to block copyright changes favoring AI firms, alleging their work is being stolen

(Newser) - Some of Britain's best-known writers are making their point with a book that contains almost nothing. Around 10,000 authors, including Kazuo Ishiguro, Philippa Gregory, Richard Osman, Malorie Blackman, and Mick Herron, have put only their names into a new work titled Don't Steal This Book , a protest...

Hollywood Nervously Eyes a Phony Pitt-Cruise Clip
Hollywood Nervously Eyes
a Phony Pitt-Cruise Clip
in case you missed it
Feb 21, 2026 5:50 AM CST

Hollywood Nervously Eyes a Phony Pitt-Cruise Clip

Industry fears job losses, likeness abuse after AI tool from ByteDance makes eerily realistic video

(Newser) - Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt haven't reunited on screen, but a 15-second fake fight between their AI-generated doubles just rattled Hollywood. The short clip , created by Irish director Ruairi Robinson using Seedance 2.0—an advanced video tool from TikTok owner ByteDance—looks eerily like a real studio production,...

Porn Company Files Thousands of Suits Against Its Own Viewers

Settlements with Strike 3 Holdings add up as embarrassed defendants pay to make cases vanish

(Newser) - A little-known porn studio has quietly become America's "most prolific copyright plaintiff," targeting thousands of alleged downloaders in what critics call a high-tech shakedown. Strike 3 Holdings, a Delaware company owning the rights to about 2,000 adult films—mostly produced by the Vixen Media Group—has...

World's Largest Illicit Sports Streaming Site Shut Down

Streameast had 1.6B visits last year

(Newser) - A major crackdown has knocked out Streameast, the world's largest illegal sports streaming operation, following a year-long probe by a US-based anti-piracy group. Authorities in Egypt, partnering with the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment—ACE—which counts Amazon, Netflix, and Apple among its members, swooped in on August...

Baby Shark Has Its Day in Court
Baby Shark
Scores a Win in Court
Aug 14, 2025 9:45 AM CDT

Baby Shark Scores a Win in Court

American composer loses claim that Pinkfong ripped off his work

(Newser) - South Korea's Supreme Court rejected a $21,600 damage claim on Thursday by an American composer who accused a South Korean kids content company of plagiarizing his version of "Baby Shark," ending a six-year legal battle over the globally popular tune known for its catchy "doo...

Disney, Universal Sue 'Bottomless Pit of Plagiarism'

Lawsuit says AI company Midjourney refused requests to stop using copyrighted material

(Newser) - "Midjourney is the quintessential copyright free-rider and a bottomless pit of plagiarism," Disney and Universal say in a landmark copyright-infringement lawsuit against the AI image generator. Artists and authors, among others, have sued AI companies that scrape content from the internet and elsewhere to train their software, but...

FBI: Ex-Engineer for Eminem Sold Unreleased Tracks

Joseph Strange faces copyright infringement charges

(Newser) - Employees at Eminem's music studio outside Detroit were surprised to discover unreleased tracks that he was still working on available for purchase on the internet, prosecutors say. So FBI agents tracked down several people who had bought them, NBC News reports, who pointed them to Joseph Strange. The 46-year-old,...

Birkenstock: Our Sandals Are Art. German Court: Nope

Shoemaker loses court case claiming that its shoes 'are copyright-protected works of applied art'

(Newser) - Birkenstocks: ubiquitous in summer, comfy, and very German. Sometimes they look chic and sometimes shabby. But can these sandals be considered art? That's the question Germany's Federal Court of Justice wrestled with Thursday, and it ruled they're just comfy footwear, reports the AP . Birkenstock—which is headquartered...

Aspiring Writer Claims Book Series Stole Her Story

New Yorker looks at the complicated accusations around the 'romantasy' series Crave

(Newser) - About 15 years ago, an aspiring writer named Lynne Freeman wrote a young-adult novel with a werewolf as a main character, found an agent, but couldn't get a publisher to buy it. And that was that, writes Katy Waldman in the New Yorker —until Freeman picked up the...

Canadian News Groups File Complaint Against OpenAI

Publishers don't appreciate their content being used to train ChatGPT generative AI system

(Newser) - A coalition of Canadian news publishers, including the Canadian Press, Torstar, Globe and Mail, Postmedia, and CBC/Radio-Canada, has filed a lawsuit against OpenAI for using news content to train its ChatGPT generative artificial-intelligence system. The outlets said in a joint statement Friday that OpenAI regularly breaches copyright by scraping large...

Miley Cyrus Hit With Suit Over Bruno Mars Song

Complaint filed by Tempo Music says her 'Flowers' is too similar to Mars' 'When I Was Your Man'

(Newser) - If you think Miley Cyrus' Grammy-winning "Flowers" sounds strikingly similar to Bruno Mars' "When I Was Your Man," you're not the only one. TMZ reports that Tempo Music Investments, a firm that says it owns a portion of the copyright to Mars' tune, filed a lawsuit...

Cher Is the Victor in Suit Against Sonny Bono's Widow

Singer wins complaint against Mary Bono over royalties; Cher is owed about $418K

(Newser) - When Cher officially split with her partner in life and business, Sonny Bono, in 1978, their divorce settlement left Bono with ownership of their song catalog, including such hits as "I Got You Babe" and "The Beat Goes On," and Cher with a 50% stake in publishing...

Supreme Court Lets Producer Seek Damages Over Sample

Sherman Nealy filed copyright suit over Flo Rida track

(Newser) - The Supreme Court sided with a music producer in a copyright case Thursday, allowing him to seek more than a decade's worth of damages over a sample used in a hit Flo Rida song. The 6-3 decision came in a case filed by Sherman Nealy, who was suing over...

New York Times Battles Wordle Clones

Developers say their games are at risk of being taken down

(Newser) - The New York Times is fighting off Wordle "clones"—arguing that numerous games inspired by the mega-popular word-guessing game infringe on its copyright protections, the AP reports. Hundreds of copycats have emerged since Wordle skyrocketed to internet fame less than three years ago. And now the Times, which...

OpenAI: NYT Paid Someone to 'Hack' Us Before Suing Us

'It took them tens of thousands of attempts,' alleges OpenAI

(Newser) - OpenAI wants to see the New York Times' copyright infringement lawsuit against it dismissed, and it laid out its case—and an accusation of its own—in a Monday court filing . In it, the maker of ChatGPT accused the Times of hacking OpenAI's products in order to formulate the...

Ye Was Told Not to Sample Songs, Did It Anyway
Ye Was Told Not
to Sample Songs,
Did It Anyway
UPDATED
Feb 28, 2024 1:30 AM CST

Ye Was Told Not to Sample Songs, Did It Anyway

Ozzy Osbourne, Donna Summer's estate allege copyright infringement

(Newser) - Donna Summer's estate is now suing Ye and Ty Dolla $ign over their collaboration "Good (Don't Die)," which the estate has accused of sampling Summer's "I Feel Love" without permission. The copyright infringement lawsuit filed by the husband of Summer, who died in 2012,...

NYT Suit: We Suffered Billions in Damages Due to AI

It sues OpenAI and Microsoft, claiming copyright infringement

(Newser) - Another first in the category of AI-related lawsuits: The New York Times sued OpenAI and Microsoft for copyright infringement on Wednesday, becoming the first major media organization in the US to do so. The Times sums up the crux of its suit : "that millions of articles published by the...

Big-Name Authors Sue OpenAI for 'Systematic Theft'

John Grisham, George RR Martin join lawsuit alleging pirated works helped train ChatGPT

(Newser) - A new group of authors is suing OpenAI, alleging "flagrant and harmful infringements" on their copyrights through the company's use of pirated books to train the AI chatbot ChatGPT. "At the heart of these algorithms is systematic theft on a mass scale," reads the complaint, filed...

8K Authors to AI Producers: Stop the Theft

Margaret Atwood, James Patterson, others demand compensation for work used to train AI

(Newser) - More than 8,500 authors are asking tech companies to avoid using their copyrighted work to train AI systems, unless those companies are willing to pay up. "Millions of copyrighted books, articles, essays, and poetry provide the 'food' for AI systems, endless meals for which there has been...

Judge Weighs In on Legal Fight Over Banana Art

Joe Morford fails to show Maurizio Cattelan's 'Comedian' copied his earlier creation

(Newser) - The Italian artist who stuck a banana to a wall with duct tape wasn't copying the work of a contemporary who taped a banana and an orange to two panels and called it art years earlier. A US district judge for the Southern District of Florida ruled against California-based...

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