Newly unsealed court documents in the New York Times' copyright lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft reveal internal admissions from both companies' executives. Microsoft's director of applied science Brent Hecht reportedly described AI training as the 'largest theft of labor in human history,' while OpenAI cofounder Greg Brockman acknowledged that generative AI products pose an 'existential threat' to publishers because they are increasingly substitutive of original content.
futurism.com
· 2026-09-17
A plaintiff calling himself Matthew Schneider sued private torrent trackers including PassThePopcorn, BroadcasTheNet and HDBits, claiming they infringed his copyrighted films while seeking to unmask their operators via Cloudflare. The real filmmaker who made the cited films swore he had no connection to the case, and after being pressed to explain, the plaintiff voluntarily dropped the lawsuit rather than clarify the discrepancy.
arstechnica.com
· 2026-09-15
Copyright lawsuits by The New York Times, Ziff Davis and other publishers against OpenAI are moving into a new legal phase after discovery concluded, with both sides asking a federal court to rule on whether OpenAI's use of published material qualifies as fair use. Ziff Davis CEO Vivek Shah publicly criticized a Trump administration filing arguing licensing requirements would burden AI firms, contrasting the U.S. music industry's roughly $20 billion in annual royalties with OpenAI's projected $750 billion computing spend through 2030.
cnet.com
· 2026-09-15
Multiple AI companies are now accusing each other of stealing proprietary technology, models, or data, even as the broader industry itself has built its foundation on scraping internet content without explicit consent from original creators. This dynamic has created a contradictory landscape where firms decry theft while relying on similarly extractive practices for their own products.
gizmodo.com
· 2026-09-13
Sony Music and Warner have filed a copyright lawsuit against Anthropic, alleging the AI company scraped and used their song catalogs without permission to train its models. This follows a similar suit from Universal Music Group in January, meaning all three major music publishers are now pursuing legal action against Anthropic.
fastcompany.com
· 2026-09-11
YouTuber Nicholas Light warned his 1.3 million subscribers that his channel faced deletion after Remove Your Media, a company run by Eric Green, filed over a dozen DMCA takedown requests against more than 60 of his videos. YouTube later reversed the copyright strikes and confirmed his channel would not be removed, prompting Light to post a follow-up video thanking supporters who spoke out.
theverge.com
· 2026-09-11
The White House deleted a Tetris-style browser game called 'Build The Wall' from its website days after The Tetris Company publicly objected to the unauthorized use of its game mechanics and look. The company said on X it had no involvement in creating the game and takes copyright infringement seriously. The White House has not explained the removal or responded to media inquiries.
bbc.co.uk
· 2026-09-09
The White House removed a browser game called 'Build the Wall' from its website after the Tetris Company said it had no involvement in the title and takes copyright infringement seriously. The game, which used block-stacking mechanics resembling Tetris, tasked players with building a wall to stop a 'zombie border siege' and drew criticism for its racist framing. The page now returns a 404 error, though another game on the site, Rio Run, which involves deporting immigrant characters, remains live.
techcrunch.com
· 2026-09-08
The White House has taken down Build the Wall, a browser game styled after Tetris that had players stack bricks to construct a border wall, from its online arcade. The removal followed public criticism from The Tetris Company, which said it had no involvement in the game and cited copyright concerns over its close resemblance to Tetris.
engadget.com
· 2026-09-08
The White House quietly removed 'Build the Wall,' a Tetris-inspired browser game from its new WhiteHouse.gov 'Arcade' section, after The Tetris Company publicly disavowed the game and warned it takes copyright infringement seriously. The game had players stack border-wall bricks to block pixelated 'zombies' representing migrants, but unlike real Tetris, completed lines never cleared, making every round end in a 'Border Breached' message. Other games in the same arcade, modeled on Flappy Bird and Snake, remain live.
arstechnica.com
· 2026-09-08
Instagram creators report losing significant income after scammers filed fraudulent copyright claims against their accounts, then demanded payment to retract them. One creator with 1.5 million followers paid $50 to a scammer to avoid weeks of lost income while waiting for Meta's official appeal process. Meta says it has restored affected content and added new protections after reviewing the reports.
bbc.co.uk
· 2026-09-08
As payments begin from Anthropic's $1.5 billion settlement over pirated training data, some authors say publishers and literary agents are wrongly claiming their share of the $3,000-per-book payouts. Writers including April Henry report publishers claiming full payments or rights to books whose rights had reverted to the author years earlier. Watchdog Victoria Strauss says the pattern likely stems from sloppy recordkeeping rather than deliberate wrongdoing, and some publishers have already asked Anthropic to correct the errors.
techcrunch.com
· 2026-09-06
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