US copyright office
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AI music pioneer quits after disagreement over 'fair use' of copyrighted works
Ed Newton-Rex disagrees with the company's position that copyrighted material is "fair use" for training AI models.
AI-generated images from text can't be copyrighted, US government rules
The US Copyright office has issued new guidance on the copyrightability of works that contain AI-generated elements.
You can’t copyright AI-created art, according to US officials
The USCO says copyrighted works 'must be created by a human being.'
EFF petitions US government to resurrect abandoned games
The Electronic Frontier Foundation filed a petition to the Library of Congress and the United States Copyright Office this week over the modification of abandoned games, particularly those that require an online connection to prevent piracy. The EFF is seeking a change to current laws that would deem mods that strip out authentication checks as fair use of the software after developers take those servers offline. The foundation noted Civilization 5 and Mario Kart Wii as examples in its petition, though the list of eligible abandoned games goes back many years. Should the Library of Congress approve the request, legally-acquired copies of many of those games would be open to modification so players can enjoy them on third-party servers. The petition does note that MMOs and "persistent world" games would be exempt from the change, as their "audiovisual content is primarily stored on the developer's server and not in the client." [Image: Electronic Frontier Foundation]
Starbreeze and EA partnership revealed by Syndicate copyright docs
Given the years of back and forth we've seen over the possibility of an updated Syndicate for current-gen consoles, we're looking at the handful of recently discovered copyright documents -- that seemingly reveal a collaboration between Starbreeze Studios and EA -- with a fair amount of skepticism. Internet supersleuth Supererogatory spotted the three filings on the US Copyright Office website (confirmed by Joystiq this morning, though not linkable), each for the title "Syndicate" and one of which is co-filed by EA and Starbreeze. Back in 2008, the two companies officially announced that they were working together on revisiting one of EA's "most acclaimed classic franchises," dubbing the collaboration "Project RedLime" (and leaving us to speculate on what that classic franchise might be). We've reached out to both EA and Starbreeze for comment on the filings and will let you know if we hear anything back. (What next, an XCom revival? Oh.)
