Big news today: GERMAN COURT RULES AI MUSIC FIRM SUNO BROKE COPYRIGHT RULES Suno "has to provide information on illicit revenue", and "will have to pay damages". Wow. www.reuters.com/world/german...

Countries should impose astronomical fines on AI companies whose models hack companies within their borders. Countries without frontier models wonder what they can do to slow the irresponsible and exploitative AI race. This is one thing they could do. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

I'm going to write my MP about this right now. It's shameful that the government is cosigning the theft of creatives' work this way.

Ed Newton-Rex@ednewtonrex.bsky.social · last wk.

I've confirmed that the UK's new Sovereign AI Fund does no due diligence on whether AI companies use copyrighted work without permission before investing in them. It took me 3 Freedom of Information requests to find this out: 🧵 1/10

This is a manifest failure of due diligence on the part of DSIT. There are strict rules about accounting for public money which seem to have been ignored. The select committee should call for witnesses to find out who signed this approach off.

I've confirmed that the UK's new Sovereign AI Fund does no due diligence on whether AI companies use copyrighted work without permission before investing in them. It took me 3 Freedom of Information requests to find this out: 🧵 1/10

Incredibly important new research published today shows the huge impact AI books are having on real writers’ ability to make a living. Looking at self-published books on Amazon, they found: - 20% of self-published books include substantial AI text - ... 🧵 1/3

Tuhin Chakrabarty@tuhinchakr.bsky.social · last wk.

🚨 New paper on AI & Copyright Using @pangram.com full-text AI detection, we study self-published genre fiction on Amazon, 2023–26. Amazon is flooded w/ books with substantial AI text. They earn real 💰 & crowd out non-AI books. w/ @dhillonp.bsky.social @xinyuel.bsky.social & Jane Ginsburg (1/n) 🧵

🚨 New paper on AI & Copyright Using @pangram.com full-text AI detection, we study self-published genre fiction on Amazon, 2023–26. Amazon is flooded w/ books with substantial AI text. They earn real 💰 & crowd out non-AI books. w/ @dhillonp.bsky.social @xinyuel.bsky.social & Jane Ginsburg (1/n) 🧵

The practice of AI companies secretly buying millions of old books (some vanishingly rare), scanning them for AI training, then destroying them, epitomises everything that is wrong with today's exploitative AI industry. 🧵 1/2

The UK government refuses to release the register of interests of the Prime Minister's main adviser on AI, depsite her being an ex-OpenAI exec. There is obviously a possibility she owns OpenAI shares, and it is vital the public knows whether or not she does. Why will they not release it?

Sony has just sued AI music company Udio for a second time. www.theverge.com/tech/968375/... 🧵 1/3

Shareholders are suing big tech execs for taking on the massive legal risk of training AI on copyrighted work without permission, and I’m so here for it news.bloomberglaw.com/ip-law/big-t...

We urgently need enforced disclosure of AI usage in TV shows & other media. These AI models use stolen work to displace human labour. It is reasonable to demand disclosures that let you avoid media made with them. variety.com/2026/biz/new...

Today is a huge win for creatives around the world, as Australia makes it clear it will not bow to pressure from AI companies to legalise the theft of creatives’ work. 🧵 1/3

Huge new class action lawsuit filed by big publishers and authors against Google this week over AI training. It accuses Google of taking millions of books / articles provided to them for use only in Google Books, Google Play Books, and Google Scholar, and secretly using them to train LLMs. 🧵 1/4

you're saying openai built their products using work stolen from someone else? surely not

Financial Times@financialtimes.com · 4w ago

Apple sues OpenAI for stealing top-secret information ft.trib.al/RQW1NPY

Australia willing to throw the world's creatives under a bus for data centres. I'm going to ask my publishers to withdraw sales in Australia if they do, and I'll do the same for my self pub books (or raise price to £250 if I can't)

Ed Newton-Rex@ednewtonrex.bsky.social · 4w ago

If the Australian Government accedes to Anthropic's demands and creates a copyright exception for AI training, the British Government should file a dispute at the WTO. www.afr.com/companies/in... 🧵 1/n

If the Australian Government accedes to Anthropic's demands and creates a copyright exception for AI training, the British Government should file a dispute at the WTO. www.afr.com/companies/in... 🧵 1/n

Hugging Face has just been sued for alleged copyright infringement for hosting & distributing copyrighted images, used for AI training. 🧵 1/3

🚨 AI companies are trying to use their vast, ill-gotten wealth to buy a change to the law in Australia. They say they will invest in data centers *if* the Australian government hands them the work of Australian creatives. This is a grotesque abuse of power. 🧵 1/3

🚨 Google continues to lobby the UK government to hand the work of the country's creatives to big tech companies for free. 🧵 1/3

After the Chair of the UK's Sovereign AI Fund called me a troll and blocked me, I'm pleased to hear that the UK government understands that I "would have found [his] tone abrupt or discourteous", and that they "have discussed this with Mr Wise". 🧵 1/6

RouteNote, a platform that lets you distribute your music to Spotify etc., is automatically opting its users into an AI licensing deal with Meta. They say “This is your choice”, and give you 14 days to opt out - but lots of users will miss this email & therefore miss the chance to opt out. 🧵 1/2

An important point for musicians to be aware of: If your music is *not* included in the datasets the Atlantic shared, that doesn't mean it hasn't been used for AI training. 🧵 1/3

Quick FAQ for the many musicians finding out today that their music may have been scraped for AI training ⬇️ 🧵 1/7

The Atlantic just released a tool that lets you see if your music has been scraped for AI training. Recordings I sang on in King's College Choir are in there. So is the music of millions of other musicians. Check it here: www.theatlantic.com/technology/2...

99 authors just sued Anthropic, accusing them of pirating books to train AI. The lawsuit also names 2 Anthropic founders: Dario Amodei & Ben Mann. (It is established fact that Anthropic downloaded millions of pirated books, & that Ben Mann personally did some of this.) The lawsuits keep coming.

2 months ago, the UK's Sovereign AI Fund announced that it was giving Odyssey taxpayer-funded compute. Today, Odyssey raised $310 million. Call me old-fashioned, but I don't think we should be diverting UK taxpayers' money to US-headquartered AI companies... 🧵 1/2

impossible to see this coming www.telegraph.co.uk/business/202...

NEW: the US government intervened Monday on behalf of xAI in a lawsuit over its gas turbines, claiming that the company needs to run the turbines in order to power Grok, which is "vital" for national security lots of wild stuff in the filing:

DOJ Lawyers Argue xAI Is ‘Vital’ for National Security in NAACP Lawsuit

In a bid to dismiss a lawsuit over xAI's polluting gas turbines, the Justice Department claimed the company is integral to military operations—including the Iran War.

wired.com

Meta tried to dismiss a lawsuit that claims they torrented 1000s of adult films for AI training. The motion to dismiss was just denied; judge said “Plaintiffs have plausibly alleged that Defendant is liable for direct, vicarious, and contributory copyright infringement”.