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Modern copyright law can't keep pace with thinking machines
This past April, engineer Alex Reben developed and posted to YouTube, "Deeply Artificial Trees", an art piece powered by machine learning, that leveraged old Joy of Painting videos. It generate gibberish audio in the speaking style and tone of Bob Ross, the show's host. Bob Ross' estate was not amused, subsequently issuing a DMCA takedown request and having the video knocked offline until very recently. Much like Naruto, the famous selfie-snapping black crested macaque, the Trees debacle raises a number of questions of how the Copyright Act of 1976 and DMCA's Fair Use doctrine should be applied to a rapidly evolving technological culture, especially as AI and machine learning techniques approach ubiquity.
