And, indeed, the ordure is about to hit the winnowing blade.
Via @KateDrawsComics, and more here. Note, however, that this case involves musical catalogues, and that Sony, Universal, and Warner are no doubt willing to negotiate a payoff (and licensing fees). Does that make this a pointless lawsuit? …Not really, because it’ll establish that ‘fair use’ does not extend this far. And that will help immensely with all the other anti-AI lawsuits out there.
This is the one that worries me.
All music is derivative. There are only 12 notes, but you really only use 8 of them in any key, and only some of the progressions through that key are aesthetically pleasing.
Setting aside how overtly EVIL the recording industry has consistently been over the past eighty years, this suit is a Sword of Damocles hanging over the head of independent music production remaining commercially viable. (To the extent that it is. Spotify recently changing their terms was brutal.)
But if you think that the labels won’t abuse the hell out of any precedent set, you haven’t been paying attention.
I’m honestly more worried about the Plagiarism Engine. I think it’s going to be hard for them to make the jump from “you fed our songs into your machine, and then called the result yours” to “you heard our stuff and now we own the thoughts in your head.” The latter is old and has well-established precedents. The former is new, and pretty solidly distinct.
Dude, I’ve been successfully sued because a driver fell asleep at the wheel, ran off the road, through the borrow pit, glanced off a power pole, went through two fences, and hit a cow.
The cow was *clearly* too close to the road. If it hadn’t been, the car obviously wouldn’t have hit it and been totaled. (Not to mention what happened to the poor cow.)
And sadly, that’s far from the only story I have about the state of the courts and the legal profession.
Trusting in the integrity of the legal profession is a certain way to get screwed.