#copyright-infringement

#copyright-infringement

Lego A/S, Lego Systems, Inc., and Lego Juris A/S first brought claims against Zuru Inc. in 2019, alleging that Zuru's "First-Generation" toy figurines infringed on the copyright and trademark rights of Lego's Minifigure. The U.S. District Court for the District of Connecticut granted Lego's motion for a preliminary injunction, which enjoined Zuru from manufacturing or selling the infringing First-Generation figurines and "any figurine or image that is substantially similar to the Minifigure Copyrights or likely to be confused with the Minifigure Trademarks."

Real estate data company Crexi has brought on celebrity lawyer Alex Spiro - known for defending billionaires, rappers, and professional athletes - in its scrap with CoStar Group. According to court filings on Wednesday, Spiro will now defend Crexi in its legal battle with the real estate data giant. The $3,000-an-hour lawyer has represented clients like Elon Musk, Jay-Z, and Megan Thee Stallion, and has also worked for a variety of businesses in disputes with short-sellers, rivals, and regulators.

Some justices were skeptical of arguments that ISPs should have no legal obligation under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) to terminate an account when a user's IP address has been repeatedly flagged for downloading pirated music. But justices also seemed hesitant to rule in favor of record labels, with some of the debate focusing on how ISPs should handle large accounts like universities where there could be tens of thousands of users.

The case then went quiet, save for Siemens arguing that its software licenses mean it can move the matter to Germany instead of the US court for the District of Delaware in which VMware brought its case. Siemens also argued that this was a contractual matter, not a copyright claim. On Wednesday, VMware fired back with filings that argue Siemens' interpretation of its software licenses is wrong and the agreements do not allow the case to be heard in Germany, as the defendant has sought.

Robert Kyncl, the chief executive of Warner Music Group, said the deal showed that artificial intelligence could be pro-artist when it is licensed to reflect the value of music. This landmark pact with Suno is a victory for the creative community that benefits everyone, he said. With Suno rapidly scaling, both in users and monetisation, we've seized this opportunity to shape models that expand revenue and deliver new fan experiences.

According to a police document seen by BBC News, the man - who is not named in the document - shared 347 clips of nude scenes on the Reddit group he moderated, which were then viewed 4.2 million times. The Danish police say he has been given a seven month suspended sentence for copyright infringement. Experts say the man was prosecuted under a rarely-used clause in Danish copyright law.

When 73-year-old Tom Brown*, a retired police officer from Seattle, received a letter from Comcast, he might have mistaken it for a broadband bill. Instead, it was a subpoena. He had been sued in federal court for illegally downloading 80 movies. Some of the titles sounded cryptic Do Not Worry, We Are Only Friends or banal, like International Relations Part 2.

Grok Imagine, an image and video generation tool, debuted in July. Musk said earlier this month that the company plans to release a "watchable" full-length film by the end of 2026, and "really good movies" in 2027. He has hyped up the chatbot's image generation skills, from reenactments of the final scene of "King Kong" to a version of "Iron Man" in which he plays Tony Stark.

While Cox waxes poetic about the centrality of Internet access to modern life, it neglects to mention that it had no qualms about terminating 619,711 subscribers for nonpayment over the same period that it terminated just 32 for serial copyright abuse,

"Tencent remarkably contends SIE's claims are unripe because--despite having announced and continuously promoted its game for months--Tencent (purportedly) delayed Light of Motiram's release until 2027 after SIE sued," Sony said. "This is nonsense. The damage is done--and it continues. Although the public expressed confusion and outrage upon discovering Light of Motiram for the knock-off that it is, Tencent remained undeterred. Tencent continued promoting its infringing game over SIE's objection, and Tencent refused to accept any responsibility over its conduct."

CoStar adds that Zillow does not just display these images on its site, but on its branded websites like StreetEasy and sites it has syndication deals with Redfin and Realtor.com. On top of all [of] this, Zillow uses CoStar images to drive core website features: Zillow analyzes real estate photos to provide Zestimates' of sale and rental values and extracts image features to analyze user behavior and provide recommendations, the letter states.

"Character.ai is freeriding off the goodwill of Disney's famous marks and brands, and blatantly infringing Disney's copyrights," a Disney lawyer wrote in the cease-and-esist letter. "Even worse, Character.ai's infringing chatbots are known, in some cases, to be sexually exploitive and otherwise harmful and dangerous to children, offending Disney's consumers and extraordinarily damaging Disney's reputation and goodwill."

For several months now, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has been posting ghoulish social media videos celebrating the agency's ramped-up immigration raid efforts. For its latest propaganda, ICE is appealing to a younger audience by setting a video of arrests to the Pokémon anime theme song. Not only was the clip posted to the Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) X/Twitter, but it was also uploaded to the official White House TikTok account.

"This landmark settlement far surpasses any other known copyright recovery," said plaintiffs' attorney Justin Nelson. "It is the first of its kind in the AI era."

Her vibrant 2D illustrations appear daily alongside the The New York Times' Strands Sidekick feature and have also featured in The Atlantic, The Washington Post, and Anorak Magazine. Celine made a post on Instagram showing items of clothing sold by Urban Revivo that appear to feature images heavily inspired by her own illustrations. Specifically, designers appeared to have taken liberal inspiration from the artist's illustrations of a heart and a bird with skeletons way back in 2021.

Misshapen eyes and hands with too many fingers once made AI-generated art easy to spot. Now, as the technology advances, it's becoming harder to tell human work from machine-made creations. With some fearing the replacement of human creatives, AI-generated art has plenty of detractors. "Algorithm aversion," the bias against AI-created work, seems to only be growing, and just 20% of U.S. adults think AI will have a positive impact on arts and entertainment.

Trump has warned tariffs on countries imposing digital taxes on US tech firms. He said measures such as the UK's digital services tax and similar rules in France, Italy and Spain discriminate against companies like Google, Meta, Amazon and Apple. Trump said he will add tariffs on exports and restrict technology sales if those policies stay in place.

British comedian Rhys James announced that ahead of the release of his memoir, he found a plethora of AI versions circulating on Amazon.

Authors Andrea Bartz, Charles Graeber, and Kirk Wallace Johnson allege that Anthropic downloaded up to seven million copyrighted works unlawfully, building a multibillion-dollar business on stolen books.

Rimini Street has entered into a confidential settlement agreement with Oracle, which may resolve their long-standing legal dispute dating back to 2010.

Adalytics identified over 9,000 alleged copyright violations on YouTube, including full-length Hollywood films, Netflix exclusives, and popular television shows, accumulating 250 million views.