Newsletter Archives

• Forces shaping the future: The courts at work

  Posted on September 23, 2024 at 02:43 CDT by Max Stul Oppenheimer • Comment in the Forums

  LEGAL BRIEF

  

  By Max Stul Oppenheimer, Esq.

  Three social factors shape the path of future development of technology: government rules, litigation, and consumer actions.

  In last month’s Legal Brief, we reviewed how government rules and enforcement actions are being used to attempt to influence how technology will develop.

  This time, we’ll look at how litigation — both private and governmental — is being used in attempts to influence the path of technological development.

  Read the full story in our Plus Newsletter (21.39.0, 2024-09-23).

  Legal Brief AI, ByteDance, Consumers, Copyright, Facebook, Fair Use, GARM, Google, Legal, Litigation, Meta, Newsletters, NFT, TikTok

• How you can use generative AI images — legally

  Posted on February 20, 2023 at 02:44 CST by B. Livingston • Comment in the Forums

  PUBLIC DEFENDER

  

  By Brian Livingston

  Suddenly, image-creation programs based on generative artificial intelligence (gen AI) have exploded into one of the most exciting tech breakthroughs we’ve seen in years.

  A big problem is that the developers of these capabilities — and perhaps you, if you use them — are being sued big-time. The charges are copyright infringement and theft of intellectual property from the artists whose works were “scraped” off the Internet to train the systems.

  Read the full story in our Plus Newsletter (20.08.0, 2023-02-20).

  Public Defender Art, Artificial Intelligence, Copyright, Image Generation, Image manipulation, Newsletters

• You are rich!

  Posted on February 13, 2023 at 02:45 CST by Max Stul Oppenheimer • Comment in the Forums

  

  ISSUE 20.07 • 2023-02-13

  LEGAL BRIEF

  

  By Max Stul Oppenheimer, Esq.

  You may not realize that you have a valuable asset, one that companies are willing to pay big bucks for.

  Unfortunately (for you), to date those companies have paid the big bucks to someone else: $76 billion to Google in the last quarter of 2022, $31 billion to Amazon for advertising alone last year. Those companies (and others) are selling access to your personal information. There is nothing illegal about that — you willingly (although perhaps not purposely) provided them the information.

  Read the full story in our Plus Newsletter (20.07.0, 2023-02-13).
  This story also appears in our public Newsletter.

  Legal Brief Artificial Intelligence, Copyright, Legal, Newsletters, Trademark

• Note to Congress: Please try to keep up

  Posted on January 9, 2023 at 02:43 CST by Max Stul Oppenheimer • Comment in the Forums

  LEGAL BRIEF

  

  By Max Stul Oppenheimer, Esq.

  That’s a big ask.

  In a previous column, I explained why law always lags technology.

  To summarize, case law is by definition reactive. Courts don’t go out and look for cases; they wait for someone to be upset enough to bring one to them. Legislatures can be proactive, but they can’t act until they realize there’s a problem to be acted upon. So it is not surprising that new issues will arise, and we will need to be patient while solutions are agreed upon.

  But …

  Read the full story in our Plus Newsletter (20.02.0, 2023-01-09).

  Legal Brief Artificial Intelligence, Copyright, Fair Use, Legal, Newsletters, Patents

• Take a selfie – NOW!

  Posted on November 22, 2021 at 02:43 CST by Max Stul Oppenheimer • Comment in the Forums

  LEGAL BRIEF

  

  By Max Stul Oppenheimer, Esq.

  Deepfakes are a growing problem. Could taking a selfie be your best defense?

  In the last column, we saw why law must lag technology. It must, because legislators have no better crystal ball than the rest of us — and judges, faced with the task of extrapolating existing statutes to situations that were not foreseen, reach different conclusions as to how to draw the curve. Therefore, a period of uncertainty — until a legislature reacts or a judicial consensus is reached or imposed by the Supreme Court — is inevitable.

  Read the full story in the AskWoody Plus Newsletter 18.45.0 (2021-11-22).

  AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Legal AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Copyright, Deepfakes, Legal Brief

• The problem with copyright: fair use

  Posted on April 5, 2021 at 01:04 CDT by Max Stul Oppenheimer • Comment in the Forums

  LEGAL BRIEF

  

  By Max Stul Oppenheimer, Esq.

  All might be fair in love and war, but not in copyright

  If you think about copyrights for a moment, it might occur to you that they are unconstitutional. After all, the First Amendment says that Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech. Yet there it is, in Title 17 of the U.S. Code: a law saying that Congress has given copyright owners the power to stop others from copying or publicly performing their copyrighted words.

  Read the full story in the AskWoody Plus Newsletter 18.12.0 (2021-04-05).

  AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Legal AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Copyright, Fair Use, Legal Brief

• The best things in life are copyrighted

  Posted on March 1, 2021 at 01:04 CST by Max Stul Oppenheimer • Comment in the Forums

  ---

  LEGAL BRIEF

  The best things in life are copyrighted

  By Max Stul Oppenheimer, Esq.

  At least on the Web.

  Even though there is a sea of material there for almost effortless copying, nearly everything on the Internet is subject to copyright law. And the purpose of copyright law is specifically to protect the creators of copyrighted works from unauthorized copying.

  Here’s the problem that intellectual property law is designed to solve. Innovation is a gamble. It takes time, effort, and money to develop something new, and it is hard to predict whether the gamble will pay off or not.

  Read the full story in AskWoody Plus Newsletter 18.8.0 (2021-03-01).

  AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Legal AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Copyright, Legal Brief