After ByteDance suspended the global rollout of its new Seedance 2.0 AI video generator on the weekend, US senators have now told the company to "immediately shut down" the app. "Seedance 2.0 poses a direct threat to the American intellectual property system and, more broadly, to the constitutional rights and economic livelihoods of our creative community," Senators Marsha Blackburn and Peter Welch wrote in a letter to the company. 

The letter reflects an increasing worry in government about AI companies training their apps on copyrighted materials from artists, actors and filmmakers without permission. "Responsible global companies follow the law and respect core economic rights, including intellectual property and personal likeness protections," the senators wrote. They cited Seedance AI examples including an AI generated Thanos and Superman battle, a rewritten Stranger Things ending and that famous (fake) Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt battle. 

After pulling Seedance 2.0, ByteDance said on the weekend that it "respects intellectual property rights" and that it is "taking steps to strengthen current safeguards as we work to prevent the unauthorized use of intellectual property and likeness by users." 

However, Blackburn and Welch called that pledge "a delay tactic to continue to abuse the innovators and profit from their success," adding that its regard for American IP is "part of a larger trend of artificial intelligence companies stealing protected work at the expensive of the creative community." 

Filmmakers have also taken action against Seedance 2.0, including the Motion Picture Association with recently sent a cease-and-desist letter to ByteDance. Yesterday, senators including Blackburn and Welch unveiled a partisan bill to help artists protect their IP by allowing them to access training records used for AI models, among other measures.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/senators-tell-bytedance-to-shut-down-seedance-20-ai-video-app-immediately-112146241.html?src=rss

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A judge has ruled that publisher Krafton must reinstate Ted Gill as CEO of Unknown Worlds Entertainment, according to a report by Bloomberg. The company fired Gill and two other co-founders last year as part of a shakeup involving the long-anticipated sequel Subnautica 2.

The Delaware judge said Krafton had violated the terms of its contract with Unknown Worlds when it fired the executives. "To remedy these breaches, Gill is reinstated as CEO of Unknown Worlds with full operational authority over the studio," wrote judge Lori W. Will.

A Krafton spokesperson said in a statement that "we respectfully disagree with today's ruling" and that "we are evaluating our options as we determine our path forward." Further litigation over potential damages is still pending.

This legal battle has been brewing for a while. Krafton bought Unknown Worlds back in 2021 and the contract stipulated that executives and staff would get to share in a $250 million bonus if they hit certain revenue targets by 2025. Those targets were not reached, and could not be reached, because Krafton delayed Subnautica 2.

According to the pre-trial brief, Krafton CEO Changham Kim allegedly nixed the payout because it would be a "professional embarrassment" and make him look like a "pushover." He reportedly consulted ChatGPT to ask about ways to avoid paying the bonus and, oddly, seemed to consider a hostile takeover by a newly-formed entity.

Judge Will dinged the CEO on both counts, saying that Kim regretted committing to the payout and "consulted an artificial intelligence chatbot to contrive a corporate 'takeover' strategy." Engadget reached out to Krafton and the company re-emphasized it was displeased with the ruling but said that it doesn't resolve the ongoing litigation. 

As for the game, Krafton says Subnautica 2 is coming sooner rather than later. We've heard that one before.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/judge-rules-that-krafton-must-rehire-fired-subnautica-director-184702823.html?src=rss

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OpenAI has been hit with another lawsuit. This time, Encyclopedia Britannica took legal action against OpenAI, accusing the company of copyright and trademark infringements, as first reported by Reuters. More specifically, Britannica alleged that OpenAI illegally used its "copyrighted content at a massive scale" when training its AI models. Not just with training, the encyclopedia company claimed that ChatGPT's responses to user queries sometimes contain "full or partial verbatim reproductions of [Britannica's] copyright articles."

Along with claims of copyright violations, Britannica argued that OpenAI was also responsible for trademark infringement. According to the lawsuit, ChatGPT generates "made-up content or 'hallucinations' and falsely attributes them" to Encyclopedia Britannica. The lawsuit doesn't specify an amount for monetary damages, but Britannica is also seeking an injunction to prevent OpenAI from repeating these accusations.

When reached out for comment, a spokesperson for OpenAI told Engadget that, "ChatGPT helps enhance human creativity, advance scientific discovery and medical research, and enable hundreds of millions of people to improve their daily lives. Our models empower innovation, and are trained on publicly available data and grounded in fair use."

It's not the first time that Britannica has filed a lawsuit against an AI company. In September, the company, which owns Merriam-Webster, also sued Perplexity for similar reasons. On the other side, OpenAI is still embroiled in a legal battle with The New York Times, which also sued the AI giant for copyright infringement.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/encyclopedia-britannica-sues-openai-for-copyright-and-trademark-infringement-164747991.html?src=rss

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