Blog

Newsletter C Castle Newsletter C Castle

Newsletter, February 25

Artist Rights Institute’s Submission in IPO Consultation

More than 1,000 musicians have come together to release Is This What You Want?, an album protesting the UK government’s proposed changes to copyright law.

In late 2024, the UK government proposed changing copyright law to allow artificial intelligence companies to build their products using other people’s copyrighted work – music, artworks, text, and more – without a licence.

The musicians on this album came together to protest this. The album consists of recordings of empty studios and performance spaces, representing the impact we expect the government’s proposals would have on musicians’ livelihoods.

All profits from the album are being donated to the charity Help Musicians.

Read More
Newsletter C Castle Newsletter C Castle

Newsletter, February 17

#FreeJImmyLai: Update on Chinese Communist Party Free Speech Enemy No. 1: Jimmy Lai, the Hong Kong publisher of Apple Daily

Why case of jailed Briton Jimmy Lai is major sticking point for [UK Prime Minister] Keir Starmer’s relations with China (Sky News/Alix Culbertson)

American Music Fairness Act

@MARSHABLACKBURN, @REPDARRELLISSA, COLLEAGUES REINTRODUCE AMERICAN MUSIC FAIRNESS ACT #AMFA ENSURE ARTIST PAY FOR RADIO PLAY #IRESPECTMUSIC (MusicTechPolicy/Editor Charlie)

 
Read More
Blog C Castle Blog C Castle

What Must Be Done in CRB 5?

We are rapidly approaching the next rate-setting proceeding before the three-judge panel at the Copyright Royalty Board for the royalty payable to copyright owners (and ultimately to songwriters) for exploitations of songs. These proceedings set rates for the next five year period and are numbered to tell them apart. The last proceeding, for example, was styled “Phonorecords IV” or sometimes “CRB 4” for those who struggle with long words. (Using the “CRB” acronym instead of “Phonorecords” is actually misleading because the CRB sets a number of rates.)

The proceedings will likely be divided in two: One proceeding for songs exploited in physical records like vinyl, CDs and permanent downloads and one proceeding for streaming mechanicals. These hearings are simultaneous and not sequential, so each hearing will be conducted side by side.

One reason for these simultaneous hearings is that the participants in each of the proceedings differ–the physical/download participants are songwriters and publishers on one side and the record companies on the other. The streaming participants are (often) the same songwriters and publishers on one side, but the streaming services are on the other.

The participants are incented to reach a voluntary settlement that they then present to the Copyright Royalty Judges for approval. The settlement negotiations are largely conducted in secret and no one on the songwriter side except a couple of participants knows anything about the terms of the settlement until it is presented to the Judges and the Judges make it public.

At this point, the Judges are required to entertain comments from the public as to whether the public supports the settlement (as required under a federal law applicable to all of the administrative state agencies from the Environmental Protection Agency to the Social Security Administration to the Copyright Royalty Board).

No matter how much some of the publishers would like to spin it, it is this public comment step where it all began to fall apart during the last proceeding styled “Phonorecords IV”, particularly over the “frozen mechanicals” issue. Signally, this disintegration of the initial physical/downloads “settlement” attracted a prairie fire of public comments that rejected the authority of the NMPA and NSAI to speak on behalf of all songwriters and publishers and also rejected the side deal that these groups had negotiated with the labels. The Judges listened, and the Judges rejected that settlement–I believe for the first time in the history of the rate setting proceedings.

The same was not true of the streaming mechanicals piece, however. I never did read a well-reasoned explanation for why participants lacked authority to speak on behalf of all songwriters, i.e., beyond their own members, in the frozen mechanicals proceeding, but that authority could not be questioned in the streaming proceeding. It should have been apparent to anyone paying attention that any consensus behind the time-encrusted “Big Pool” royalty calculation method for streaming mechanicals was rapidly crumbling apart. The Judges’ “39 Steps” royalty calculation is as mysterious as a Hitchcock movie and many did not trust it. And more importantly for our discussion today–still do not trust it at all.

As we approach Phonorecords V, there are some fundamental questions that all involved need to be asking themselves. The first is whether we want to go back to the same tired process of secret meetings with the big reveal resulting in public hostilities in the comments–against what is ostensibly our side. This before we even get to the negotiation with the other side.

The powers that be had the chance over the last few years to bring in some different viewpoints. Had they done so, they would have both diffused the inevitable collision, but could also have gotten the benefit of those viewpoints when there was still time to build alliances. There’s an idea–an integrative negotiation with a collaborative outcome.

Another fundamental question is whether we can reach a fairly quick deal with the labels on the physical/download side so that all concerned can turn their attention to bringing the streaming rates into some semblance of reality. Because the songwriters did such a persuasive job of raising the frozen mechanicals rates from 9.1¢ to 12¢ plus a COLA, that minimum statutory rate has now increased to 12.7¢. Given current inflation projections, it’s likely that the statutory rate will increase to about 13¢ and change by the end of 2026.

If a settlement could be reached quickly, it would not surprise me if someone came up with the idea of simply taking the then-extant minimum rate (for 2027) as the new base rate for the first year of Phonorecords V (2028) plus extending the annual COLA to protect songwriters in the out-years of PR V. Wherever the actual penny rates end up, if the songwriters and labels could reach an agreement quickly, it would save a bunch of effort and allow everyone to turn their attention to the streaming rates.

I wonder if it’s even possible to reach a negotiated settlement with the streaming services on the streaming mechanical. The entire concept of the “Big Pool” royalty rate is failing for streaming on both the sound recording and the song side of the deals. It was, frankly, a silly idea to begin with–and that takes us back to the beginning of streaming when deals were poorly negotiated with little to no accountability because physical still paid the bills. The general idea was that “superfans” would rule according to Thomas Hesse in Billboard who was around at the time: “If you get to superfans, who listen to music all the time, you get to all the money — not just from those people, but you get all the money from everybody.”  The reality is that you can replace “superfans” with “superstars” or more simply, “market share”, and you would have a much better understanding of the “Big Pool” concept. The Big Pool is actually just a hyper efficient marketshare distribution of a pool of money.

What Spotify has demonstrated with their short sighted move on bundling is simply all the reasons why they are disliked and untrustworthy. They said the quiet part out loud–we have no idea what we are doing in this business but we–and not songwriters or musicians–are getting stupid rich at it. It is unlikely that anyone is going to welcome more of the same in Phonorecords V.

What is becoming apparent to an increasing number of songwriters is that there is one metric that matters to Spotify’s CEO–stock market valuation. That is what has made him a billionaire. That is what has made plenty of people at Spotify into millionaires. That is also the one metric that songwriters and artists have never participated in. Our negotiators have had their eye on the wrong ball.

I say if we’re going to spend millions on the government’s rate proceedings anyway, let’s get something for it for a change, shall we?

Read More
Blog C Castle Blog C Castle

Artist Rights Institute Joins with Digital Creators Coalition on Special 301 Submission to US Trade Representative

We were pleased to join in with the Digital Creators Coalition on a public submission to the US Trade Representative’s Special 301 Report for 2025. The USTR Special 301 Report is an annual review by the United States Trade Representative assessing global intellectual property rights protection and enforcement. It identifies countries with inadequate IP laws, highlights issues like copyright piracy and trade secret theft, and aims to improve IP environments for U.S. rights holders. The report also highlights concerns about the protection of AI-related intellectual property and the enforcement of IP rights on AI platforms.

Crucially, the DCC submission addresses problematic “TDM exceptions” and the harms to creators they cause:

TDM Exceptions Threaten Creators’ Contributions to US National Economic Security 

The United States must continue this trajectory of promoting respect for copyright and protection the US creative sector. We strongly oppose broad copyright exceptions for AI, including with respect to TDM, and reaffirm our position that its proponents have failed to demonstrate the need for such an exception. However, some countries are actively considering, or have already adopted, TDM exceptions that fundamentally weaken copyright protection in favor of promoting AI at the expense of the American creative sector. 

These negative impacts of TDM exceptions would result from the use of creative content without authorization and without compensation, which are core components of copyright protection, and essential for further creation and dissemination of creative works. Moreover, where AI developers fail to maintain adequate records and provide recordkeeping and transparency regarding what content they use to train their AI models, rightsholders face enormous hurdles in enforcing their property rights, including in court. Left unchecked, these and other related harms threaten the sustainability and competitiveness of America’s creative sector and its ability to contribute to US economic growth and job creation. 

Unfortunately, countries such as Japan and Singapore have already implemented broad TDM exceptions that weaken copyright protections in favor of allowing companies to train their AI models on copyrighted material without a license. China as well as other markets such as Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Hong Kong, Indonesia and the United Kingdom are all considering proposed copyright exceptions for TDM. Such measures often also lack recordkeeping and transparency obligations on AI developers regarding the creative content used in AI model training. These exceptions will undermine US property rights and cause irreparable harm to the creative sector by undermining the ability of US creators to create and disseminate new works, thereby impeding the creative sector’s significant and sustained contributions to US national economic security. Such measures also facilitate the offshoring of the US AI sector and expose vast amounts of data to foreign control. 

The borderless nature of digital exploitation means that negative impacts of one nation’s TDM exception would be global as AI models trained in one country on creative content without consent from, or compensation to, rights holders would be exploited around the world. Such global copyright arbitrage would deny the creative community the opportunity to license their content for training and would contravene international copyright treaties, including the three-step test contained in the Berne Convention, TRIPS Agreement, WIPO Internet Treaties, and other international agreements. 

In this context, we stress that so called “opt-out” provisions for rightsholders to reserve their rights are wholly inadequate to remedy the critical flaws inherent in TDM exceptions for a variety of practical reasons.9 Such schemes would create a fundamentally asymmetrical obligation, imposing the onus entirely on copyright holders and forcing them to rely on unproven means and nonexistent jurisprudence that will create legal uncertainty, chill licensing negotiations, and make enforcement highly challenging.

The submission goes on to make recommendations on how to address TDM and opt out on a country-by-country basis.

You may read the whole submission here.

Read More
Newsletter C Castle Newsletter C Castle

Newsletter, February 10

Read More
Newsletter C Castle Newsletter C Castle

Newsletter, February 3

Read More
Blog C Castle Blog C Castle

UK Government’s AI Legislation is Defeated in the House of Lords

The new-ish UK government led by Labour Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer faced a defeat in the House of Lords regarding their AI bill. The defeat was specifically about measures to protect copyrighted material from being used to train AI models without permission or compensation. Members of the House of Lords (known as “Peers”) voted 145 to 126 in favor of amendments to the UK Government’s Data (Use and Access) Bill, proposed by film director Beeban Tania Kidron, the Baroness Kidron (a “cross bench peer”) which aim to safeguard the intellectual property of creatives. Lady Kidron said:

There is a role in our economy for AI… and there is an opportunity for growth in the combination of AI and creative industries, but this forced marriage on slave terms is not it.

So there’s that. We need a film director in the Senate, don’t you think? Yes, let’s have one of those, please.

Bill Dies With Amendments

The amendments proposed by Baroness Kidron received cross-party support (what would be called “bi-partisan” in the US, but the UK has more than two political parties represented in Parliament). The amendments include provisions to ensure, among other things, that AI companies comply with UK copyright law, disclose the names and owners of web crawlers doing their dastardly deeds in the dark of the recesses of the Internet, and allow copyright owners to know when and how their work is used. It might even protect users of Microsoft or Google products from having their drafts crawled and scraped for AI training.

This defeat highlights the growing concerns within Parliament about the unregulated use of copyrighted material by major tech firms. Starmer’s Data (Use and Access) Bill was proposed by the UK government to excuse the use of copyrighted material by AI models. However, thanks in part to Lady Kidron it faced significant opposition in the House of Lords, leading to its defeat.

Here’s a summary of why it failed:

  1. Cross-Party Support for Amendments: The amendments proposed by Baroness Kidron received strong support from both Labour and Conservative peers. They argued that the bill needed stronger measures to protect the intellectual property of creatives.

  2. Transparency and Redress: The amendments aimed to improve transparency by requiring AI companies to disclose the names and owners of web crawlers and allowing copyright owners to know when and how their work is used.

  3. Government’s Preferred Option: The government suggested an “opt-out” system for text and data mining, which would allow AI developers to scrape copyrighted content unless rights holders actively opted out. This approach was heavily criticized as it would lead to widespread unauthorized use of intellectual property, or as we might say in Texas, that’s bullshit for starters.

  4. Economic Impact: Supporters of the amendments argued that the bill, in its original form, would transfer wealth from individual creatives and small businesses to big tech companies, undermining the sustainability of the UK’s creative industries. Because just like Google’s products, it was a thinly disguised wealth transfer.

The defeat highlights the growing concerns within Parliament about the unregulated use of copyrighted material by major tech firms and the need for stronger protections for creatives. several prominent artists voiced their opposition to the UK government’s AI bill. Sir Elton John and Sir Paul McCartney were among the most prominent critics. They argued that the government’s proposed changes would allow AI companies to use copyrighted material without proper compensation, which could threaten the livelihoods of artists, especially emerging ones.

Elton John expressed concerns that the bill would enable big tech companies to “ride roughshod over traditional copyright laws,” potentially diluting and threatening young artists’ earnings. As a fellow former member of Long John Baldry’s back up band, I say well done, Reg. Paul McCartney echoed these sentiments, emphasizing that the new laws would allow AI to rip off creators and hinder younger artists who might not have the means to protect their work–and frankly, the older artists don’t either when going up against Google and Microsoft, with backing by Softbank and freaking countries.

Their opposition highlights the broader concerns within the creative community like Ivors Academy and ECSA about the potential impact of AI on artists’ rights and earnings.

Role of the House of Lords

The House of Lords is one of the two houses of the UK Parliament, the other being the House of Commons. It plays a crucial role in the legislative process and functions as a revising chamber. Here are some key aspects of the House of Lords:

Functions of the House of Lords

  1. Scrutiny and Revision of Legislation:

    • The House of Lords reviews and scrutinizes bills passed by the House of Commons.

    • It can suggest amendments and revisions to bills, although it cannot ultimately block legislation.

  2. Debate and Deliberation:

    • The Lords engage in detailed debates on a wide range of issues, contributing their expertise and experience.

    • These debates can influence public opinion and policy-making.

  3. Committees:

    • The House of Lords has several committees that investigate specific issues, scrutinize government policies, and produce detailed reports.

    • Committees play a vital role in examining the impact of proposed legislation and holding the government to account.

  4. Checks and Balances:

    • The House of Lords acts as a check on the power of the House of Commons and the executive branch of the government.

    • It ensures that legislation is thoroughly examined and that diverse perspectives are considered.

Composition of the House of Lords

  • Life Peers: Appointed by the King on the advice of the Prime Minister, these members serve for life but do not pass on their titles.

  • Bishops: A number of senior bishops from the Church of England have seats in the House of Lords.

  • Hereditary Peers: A limited number of hereditary peers remain, but most hereditary peerages no longer carry the right to sit in the House of Lords.

  • Law Lords: Senior judges who used to sit in the House of Lords as the highest court of appeal, a function now transferred to the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom.

Limitations

While the House of Lords can delay legislation and suggest amendments, it does not have the power to prevent the House of Commons from passing laws. Its role is more about providing expertise, revising, and advising rather than blocking legislation.

Now What?

Following the defeat in the House of Lords, the government’s Data (Use and Access) Bill will need to be reconsidered by the UK government. They will have to decide whether to accept the amendments proposed by the Lords or to push back and attempt to pass the bill in its original form.

It’s not entirely unusual for Labour peers to vote against a Labour government, especially on issues where they have strong differing opinions or concerns. The House of Lords operates with a degree of independence of the House of Commons, where I would say it would be highly unusual for the government to lose a vote on something as visible at the AI issue.

The AI bill would no doubt be a “triple whip vote”, a strict instruction issued by a political party to its members usually in the House of Commons (in this case the Labour Party), requiring them to attend a vote and vote according to the party’s official stance to support the Government. It’s the most serious form of voting instruction, indicating that the vote is crucial and that party discipline must be strictly enforced. Despite the sadomasochistic overtones of a “triple whip” familiar as caning to British public school boys, peers in the Lords often vote based on their own judgment and expertise rather than strict party lines. This can lead to situations where Labour peers might oppose government proposals if they believe it is in the best interest of the public or aligns with their principles. Imagine that!

So, while it’s not the norm, it’s also not entirely unexpected for Labour peers to vote against a Labour government when significant issues are at stake like, oh say the destruction of the British creative industries.

Crucially, the government is currently consulting on the issue of text and data mining through the Intellectual Property Office. The IPO is accepting public comments on the AI proposals with a deadline of February 25, 2025. This feedback will likely influence their next steps. Did I say that the IPO is accepting public comments, even from Americans? Hint, hint. Read all about the IPO consultation here.

Read More
Newsletter C Castle Newsletter C Castle

Newsletter, January 27

RIP Sam Moore

 

Artificial Intelligence Bubble

Why top tech analyst Gene Munster says investors have 2 years before the tech bubble bursts (Market Insider Jennifer Sor)

The AI bubble is looking worse than the dot-com bubble. Here’s why. (MorningstarJeffrey Funk and Gary Smith

Prediction: The Artificial Intelligence (AI) Bubble Will Burst in 2025. Here’s Why. (Motley Fool/Sean Williams)

AI-focused ETFs spread risk as fears grow of bubble (Financial Times/Chris Flood)

AI’s Trust Problem (Harvard Business Review/Bhaskar Chakravorti)


 Artificial Intelligence: Train Brain Drain

The coin-operated policy laundry is back with the leader of the anti-artist pack: Lawrence Lessig on copyright, generative AI and the right to train (Walled Culture/Glyn Moody)
Writers! Do You Know your Drafts on MS Word are being Scooped by Microsoft to Build its AI Algorithm? But You Can Stop This From Happening (Read On). (Hugh Stephens Blog)


Artificial Intelligence: Godwin’s Law

Law Students: Do not EVER speak publicly of “firing” a client: ‘Neo-Nazi Madness’: Meta’s Top AI Lawyer [Mark Lemley] on Why He Fired the Company (Wired/Kate Knibbs)

Big Tech’s Misapprehensions About the AI Appropriation Invasion: Artist Rights are Not “Regulation” (MusicTechSolutions/Chris Castle) “Since the AI lawyers are fascinated by Nazi metaphors, let me give you one myself: Internet piracy is to Guernica what AI is to Warsaw.”


Copyright

Is the WEF’s Rights of Nature Campaign a Backdoor for Google to Sue Copyright Owners on AI? (MusicTechPolicy/Chris Castle)

Copyright, AI, and Great Power Competition (Foundation for American Innovation/Joshua Levine and Tim Hwang)

Creators react with fury, dismay and suspicion and want ‘uncertainty’ narrative to end (Charting GenAI/Graham Lovelace)


Books (Remember them?)
The Big Steal: Ideology, Interest, and the Undoing of Intellectual Property by Jonathan M. Barnett 

The Mystery of Capital: Why Capitalism Triumphs in the West and Fails Everywhere Else by Hernando de Soto

Read More
Newsletter C Castle Newsletter C Castle

Newsletter, January 20

Read More
Blog C Castle Blog C Castle

The Second British Invasion: Dylan Jones in Standard News Calls Out the UK Government for “Selling the Creative Industries Down the River” by supporting AI theft

Copyright is a life raft in the Sea of Narcissism with its headwaters in Silicon Valley. When Big Tech (and I do mean BIG) looks at copyright, they see it as they have always done: A barrier between their bank accounts and even vaster riches than they have already fleeced from the world. This time it’s not copyright theft through piracy online–this time it’s AI training and the rabid drooling is rather like Hitler must have looked when fixing his beady eyes on a map of Central Europe circa 1938. And just like the Munich Agreement, any “guardrails” for AI “agreed” by Big Tech isn’t worth the paper it’s written on, either.

In his remarkable editorial “AI is stealing from Britain’s creative industries – and Labour seems to believe that crime should be legal”, The Standard’s editor-at-large Dylan Jones makes a compelling case that the UK government has capitulated to the Biggest of Big Tech on AI:

Don’t look over your shoulder, but the government is selling the creative industries down the river. On December 17th, in the run-up to Christmas, when most people were busy celebrating, [UK Prime Minister] Keir Starmer stuck two fat fingers up [or his middle finger for US readers] at every artist, musician, writer and performer trying to earn a crust from their trade. That day, the government launched a consultation which outlined their preferred route regarding text and data mining, allowing AI companies to train on copyright material unless rights are expressly reserved (by machine readable format) despite the fact that there is no workable method of doing that. The Government is planning to allow big tech firms to ignore traditional copyright rules when training their AI systems.

This is the other shoe that we identified in December 23 from the words of Eric Schmidt during an Axios conference in DC:

So far we are on a win, the taste of winning is there.  If you look at the UK event which I was part of, the UK government took the bait, took the ideas, decided to lead, they’re very good at this,  and they came out with very sensible guidelines.  Because the US and UK have worked really well together—there’s a group within the National Security Council here that is particularly good at this, and they got it right, and that produced this EO which is I think is the longest EO in history, that says all aspects of our government are to be organized around this.

Mr. Jones offers evidence that Biggest Tech is a bi-partisan auctioneer. Not only did Schmidt get tech-fan-boy Rishi Sunak (the last Prime Minister) to “take the bait”, he’s now gotten a completely opposite political party to do the same as evidenced by the Labour consultation on just how bad they want to screw us. Unfortunately for the rest of the world, just like the 2006 “global licensing” scheme in France that ultimately failed, what starts in the UK doesn’t stay in the UK.

Read the post on The Standard.

Read More
Newsletter C Castle Newsletter C Castle

Newsletter, January 13

[Chris Castle says: If you have concerns about protecting your recordings, scores, tapes, hard drives, consider contacting Iron Mountain’s Media and Entertainment Services and see if they can help you.)

Los Angeles Wildfires

Los Angeles wildfire survivors can apply for federal aid today, new website launched to help Californians (Governor of California)

Social Media/Litigation

‘It’s About How Power Works’: Author Liz Pelly On Her New Spotify Book, ‘Mood Machine’ (Rolling Stone/Jonathan Bernstein)

Social Media Addiction Multidistrict Litigation–the Return of Joe Camel in the Sleeper Case That Could Break Silicon Valley (Music Technology Policy/Chris Castle)

Revisiting Litigation Alleging Google Discovery Violations (Ben Edelman)

TikTok at Supreme Court

TikTok v. Garland, SCOTUS Transcript

TikTok Final Appeal to Supreme Court Didn’t Go Well (New York Magazine/John Herrman)

Supreme Court seems likely to uphold a law that could ban TikTok in the U.S. on Jan. 19 (AP/Mark Sherman)

Ticketing

Avenged Sevenfold’s M. Shadows Unmasks Truth Behind ‘Dynamic’ Ticket Pricing: ‘Artists Love to Hide Behind Live Nation and Ticketmaster and Go, ‘Oh. We Had No Clue” (Ultimate Guitar/Staff)

AZ lawmaker calling out ticket scalpers, resellers for apparently flouting new state law (ABC15/Josh Kristianto)

Streaming

Apple Music Statistics By Demographics, Revenue, Users and Facts (Coolest Gadgets/Rohan Jambhale)

‘It’s About How Power Works’: Author Liz Pelly On Her New Spotify Book, ‘Mood Machine’ (Rolling Stone/Jonathan Bernstein)

Artificial Intelligence

AI Lawsuit Developments in 2024: A Year in Review (Copyright Alliance/Kevin Madigan)

4 in 10 companies planning job cuts due to AI: Survey (The Hill/Tara Super)

Meta Secretly Trained Its AI on a Notorious Piracy Database, Newly Unredacted Court Docs Reveal (Wired/Kate Knibbs)

Congressman Issa Introduces Landmark Legislation to Stop the Misuse of AI-Generated Digital Replicas (Press Release) Bill summary here.

Machine Failing: The Linkage Between Software Development And Military Accidents (War on the Rocks/Jeffrey Ding And Rick Landgraf)

Read More
Newsletter C Castle Newsletter C Castle

Newsletter, January 6

Music Business

It’s Getting Harder to Deny that Payola 2.0 Is Alive and Well in The Music Streaming Era (Headphone Honesty/Andy G.)

Canadian Court Pauses So-Called ‘Streaming Tax’ on Companies Like Spotify, Amazon and Apple (Billboard/Richard Trapunski)

What the Algocrats Want You to Believe (MusicTech Solutions/Chris Castle)

Is Vivid Seats Selling? Ticketing Platform Reportedly Attracts Private Equity Takeover Interest Amid Continued Live-Sector Enthusiasm (Digital Music News/Dylan Smith)

No Bots, No Billionaires: StubHub’s Grotesque IPO Demonstrates Another Artist Ripoff By Our Tech Oligarchs (MusicTechPolicy/Chris Castle)

Jay Gilbert and Rob Abelow discuss music’s biggest problems (Your Morning Coffee Podcast)

Inside The Portfolio Of Businesses Owned By Downtown Music – The Company Universal Is Buying For $775m (Music Business Worldwide/Murray Stassen)

Artificial Intelligence

Beware the Intention Economy: Collection and Commodification of Intent via Large Language Models (Harvard Data Science Review/Yaqub Chaudhary and Jonnie Penn, Cambridge’s Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence) (Conversational AI agents may develop the ability to covertly influence our intentions, creating a new commercial frontier that researchers call the “intention economy”.)

Meta scrambles to delete its own AI accounts after backlash intensifies (CNN/Allison Morrow) (Reaction to Facebook AI created fake user profiles)

The Human Cost Of Our AI-Driven Future (Noema Magazine/Adio Dinika)

AI vs. Copyright: A Legal Showdown Shaking the Foundations (OpenTools/Mackenzie Ferguson)

AI Still Lacks Common Sense 70 Years Later (Marcus on AI/Gary Marcus & Ernest Davis)

Social Media

Mass tort litigation to watch in 2025 (Reuters/Brendon Pierson) Social media addiction multidistrict litigation against YouTube, Facebook, Google, TikTok, Snapchat.

Meta’s Zuckerberg not liable in lawsuits over social media harm to children (Reuters/Jonathan Stemple)

World News

Trudeau expected to announce exit as party leader before national caucus meeting Wednesday (subscription) (Globe and Mail/Robert Fife & Marieke Walsh)

Will Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau resign or prorogue parliament? What it means and how it impacts Canadians (Inside Halston/Staff Reporters)

Books (New or New to You)

Mood Machine: The Rise of Spotify and the Costs of the Perfect Playlist  by Liz Pelly

The Hundred-Year Marathon: China’s Secret Strategy to Replace America as the Global Superpower by Michael Pillsbury

Google and the Myth of Universal Knowledge by Jean Noël Jeanneney

Read More