We recently attended the Annual Meeting of the Copyright Society of the USA, a two-and-a-half day, in-person conference focused on emerging issues in copyright law (perhaps the country’s largest annual get-together of copyright nerds like us). Here are our Notes from the Field on what was being discussed during—and after—the sessions that we attended.Continue Reading Notes From the Field: 2023 Annual Meeting of the Copyright Society of the USA

A surprising, unannounced collaboration between Drake and The Weeknd—a song called “Heart on My Sleeve”—went viral on social media a few weeks ago. It generated millions of streams across music and social media platforms, but it wasn’t Drake and The Weeknd singing on the track; rather, it was an AI-generated simulation…

As digital media continues to supplant physical media, e-commerce sites offering digital content have experienced unprecedented growth. These sites offer consumers access to video games, music, movies, e-books, and many other types of digital media at the click of a button. Although purchasing digital media—as opposed to physical media—has become commonplace for consumers, a recent case, McTyere et al v. Apple, Inc., suggests that consumers’ understanding of terms like “sell,” “buy,” and “purchase” have not fully caught up to our new digital reality. When a consumer buys a book in a physical bookstore, they own indefinitely the physical copy of the book that they purchased. However, when consumers click a “Buy” button on an e-book platform, they almost always receive a license to a copy of the e-book, a license that typically can be terminated by the e-book platform or the book’s publisher under certain circumstances. McTyere has highlighted this important legal distinction between buying physical and digital media and raises the question of whether it is deceptive to describe the licensing of rights to digital media using the same terminology as has traditionally been used to describe the sale of books, CDs, DVDs, and other physical goods.Continue Reading Buy Today, Gone Tomorrow: Is a “Buy” Button for Digital Content Deceptive?

We’re happy to make available to Age of Disruption readers part two of our three-part series on key legal issues surrounding generative artificial intelligence (AI).     

As the quality of generative AI tools has soared, copyright and other intellectual property issues raised by such tools have attracted increased attention. Some artists, creators, and performers, fearing…

There have been two important developments in recent weeks regarding the U.S. Copyright Office’s position on registering works created by the use of artificial intelligence technology. First, on February 21, the Copyright Office issued its much-anticipated decision regarding the registration of a graphic novel by artist Kristina Kashtanova that included images generated using the AI…

The subscription economy exploded during the pandemic and is expected to grow to $1.5 trillion by 2025. Subscriptions to streaming services passed 1 billion worldwide in the middle of 2020. More than two-thirds of Americans now use a subscription service for everyday household items from food and beverages to home goods and personal-care products. Subscription boxes have made a comeback in beauty, wellness, and apparel.Continue Reading Time to Renew Your Interest in Automatic Subscription Renewal Laws