@jtlg@mastodon.lawprofs.org
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jtlg

@jtlg@mastodon.lawprofs.org

I’m a law professor at Cornell Law School and Cornell Tech.

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jtlg, to random
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S and M own a house as joint tenants. Following a dispute with their neighbors, M raises an upside-down American flag on the flagpole in their yard. S asks M to remove it, but M refuses. S then says, “there were no additional steps that I could have taken to have the flag taken down more promptly.”

Which of the following best explains why S is wrong?
(A) M’s flying of the flag was an ouster of S.
(B) M committed waste.
(C) The flag created a nuisance.
(D) S had an undivided right to possession.

jtlg, to random
@jtlg@mastodon.lawprofs.org avatar

Want to help steer the future of open licensing and culture? Nominate someone outstanding for the Creative Commons board of directors!

https://creativecommons.org/2024/05/24/join-the-creative-commons-board-of-directors/

jtlg, to random
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The new details here do not help OpenAI's case. The problem has always been that a sound-alike presented as Johannson's voice is just as much a right of publicity infringement as one using her voice.

To use a helpful distinction from Piercean semiotics (thanks, Ben!), a sign can be indexical and have meaning via causation (Sky was derived from Johannson's voice), or be iconic and have meaning via resemblance (Sky sounds like Johannson's voice).
https://mastodon.social/@caseynewton/112493147295267678

danielnazer, to random
@danielnazer@mastodon.social avatar

Google search over the years:

1998-2016: Decent quality web search.

2016-2024: Mediocre web search dominated by SEO garbage and sponsored links.

2024-___: Whatever this is.

jtlg,
@jtlg@mastodon.lawprofs.org avatar

@luis_in_brief @danielnazer Have you seen https://www.wheresyoured.at/the-men-who-killed-google/? It's the most detailed attempt to lay blame at specific feet I've seen, but I have no good way of evaluating the theory.

jtlg, to random
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The fact that Google Search is leaning so hard into AI-generated results suggests that either Google leadership is out of touch with reality (possible), or that they have data that users prefer the AI-generated results (terrifying).

jtlg, to random
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The thing about the second flag is that it shows, with lawyerly precision, that Alito's “my wife had a dispute with the neighbors" excuse for the first flag was bullshit.

It wasn't the real explanation at the time, it's not responsive to the judicial-ethics question now, and unless someone was flying treasonous flags over his house without his knowledge or consent, Alito knew all of this when he gave the statement.

He should apologize, or he should resign.

jtlg, to random
@jtlg@mastodon.lawprofs.org avatar

Let’s upweight Reddit posts, they said, Reddit is a reliable source unlike all that AI-generated garbage on the Internet now, yeah, that’s the ticket.
https://mstdn.social/@Kurt/112488468889090491

jtlg, to random
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What flag will Sam Alito fly next? Wrong answers only. I’ll start.

jtlg, to random
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If anyone is looking for a guide to thinking through the autonomy implications of Windows AI’s new Recall feature, which records everything you do on your computer by taking a picture every few seconds so the AI can search through your history …

… may I recommend my "Spyware vs. Spyware”?

https://james.grimmelmann.net/files/articles/spyware-vs-spyware.pdf

cfiesler, to random
@cfiesler@hci.social avatar

re: Scarlett Johansson I think it's interesting that Mira Murati told NPR that they didn't pattern the ChatGPT voice off of anyone and that she doesn't even know what Johansson's voice sounds like. Because that could totally be true.

Anyone else think Sam Altman might have just asked for input into voice casting, and (after Johansson turned them down) chose the actress whose voice sounded most like hers? Which, you know... illegal? No. Creepy? Yes.

jtlg,
@jtlg@mastodon.lawprofs.org avatar

@cfiesler I don’t think that theory is entirely consistent with OpenAI’s repeated attempts to get a license from Johansson, or with its subtle, and less subtle, invocations of Her.

jtlg,
@jtlg@mastodon.lawprofs.org avatar

@cfiesler Using a natural sound-alike because they are a sound-alike can infringe the right of publicity. The Bette Midler and Tom Waits cases both involved performers who were hired for their vocal similarities to the plaintiffs, and it did not end well for the advertisers.

jtlg,
@jtlg@mastodon.lawprofs.org avatar

@cfiesler good question. I have generally thought that it’s primarily about whether the voice/persona is recognized by the public “as” the person, and that an attempt to imitate is relevant insofar as it shows that they were recognized, or not

jtlg, to random
@jtlg@mastodon.lawprofs.org avatar

Stereotypical Silicon Valley / VC types make often two types of legal arguments:

(1) The offline laws against X are incredibly strict … so obviously the law online should be different.
(2) There are no offline laws against X … so obviously the law online should be the same.

I'm not even mad about the inconsistency, the thing that gets me is how often they're simply wrong about what the offline laws are. They mistake (1) for (2) and (2) for (1) all the time!

jtlg,
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@luis_in_brief yes, but they're unusually confident about their incorrect ideas about law, even by the standards of people's wildly inflated confidence in their legal knowledge

jtlg, to random
@jtlg@mastodon.lawprofs.org avatar

Before anyone starts arguing that what OpenAI did was okay because there's no law against sounding like a celebrity, yes there is! You can't use someone else's recognizable voice in an ad.

Frito-Lay hired a guy to sing like Tom Waits for a Doritos commercial. Lawsuit!

Ford hired one of Bette Midler's backup singers to cover one of her songs for a Mercury Sable ad. Lawsuit!

Louis Prima and Olive Garden, Bert Lahr and Lestoil, Nancy Sinatra and Goodyear Tires. The hits just keep on coming.

jtlg, to random
@jtlg@mastodon.lawprofs.org avatar

I’m serving on a Cornell committee to draft an expressive activity policy that protects free expression, the right to protest, and the university's mission.

https://news.cornell.edu/stories/2024/05/committee-recommend-final-expressive-activity-policy

jtlg, to random
@jtlg@mastodon.lawprofs.org avatar

I'm happy to be fifth (!) author on this thoughtful paper at CHI by Madiha Zahrah Choksi and Marianne Aubin Le Quéré on how Nextdoor users surveil their neighborhoods. (Spoiler alert: there's a lot of anxiety about petty crimes, and it's related to gentrification.) Some very clever research methods and some very interesting findings.

Under the (Neighbor)hood: Hyperlocal Surveillance on Nextdoor
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3613904.3641967

jtlg,
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@luis_in_brief It uses the Urban Displacement Project’s gentrification index dataset, so that's the definition and metric.

jtlg, to random
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Something exceptionally grim is happening on the Internet.

In the last few months, the constant flood of algorithmically generated junk content has kicked into an AI-powered overdrive, and it is cutting a swath of destruction as it overwhelms search engines, filters, and moderation systems

Call it Gresham's Law 2.0: bad content drives out good.

I'm starting this thread to document it, because there is a lot happening all at once.

jtlg,
@jtlg@mastodon.lawprofs.org avatar

AI Generated Hentai Is Viral All Over Facebook

https://www.404media.co/ai-generated-hentai-is-viral-all-over-facebook/

"Over the last few months, I have realized that I do not have to rush to archive content that blatantly violates Facebook’s rules, because Facebook has not deleted any posts that I have wanted to reference in an article this year without me directly sending them a link to the content.”

jtlg,
@jtlg@mastodon.lawprofs.org avatar

The Tragic Downfall of the Internet’s Art Gallery

https://slate.com/technology/2024/05/deviantart-what-happened-ai-decline-lawsuit-stability.html

“Generate a bunch of free images and accounts, have them buy and boost one another in perpetuity, inflate metrics so that the “art” gets boosted by DeviantArt and reaches real humans, then watch the money pile up from DeviantArt revenue-sharing programs. Rinse, repeat."

jtlg,
@jtlg@mastodon.lawprofs.org avatar

AI is making Meta’s apps basically unusable

https://www.fastcompany.com/91113437/ai-making-meta-apps-basically-unusable

"This new Instagram header also features a side-scrolling list of prompts for interacting with the AI: “Imagine rooftop gardens,” “advice for the modern stoic,” “anime reels.” … I have no rooftop, and if they think I’m interested in stoicism or anime, they’re beyond help.

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