Free Republic

The Republican-led Texas House has officially caved to the radical Left’s war on free speech—and shockingly, it’s being spearheaded by none other than the state’s own scandal-plagued former House Speaker Dade Phelan. On Tuesday, House Bill 366 passed with bipartisan support, making it a potential crime in the state of Texas to share or distribute AI-generated and “altered media”—including political memes—without a government-approved disclaimer on political ads. According to the bill: “A person may not, with the intent to influence an election, knowingly cause to be published, distributed, or broadcast political advertising that includes an image, audio recording, or video...

OpenAI and Google, having long trained their ravenous bots on the work of newsrooms like this one, now want to throw out long established copyright law by arguing, we kid you not, that the only way for the United States to defeat the Chinese Communist Party is for those tech giants to steal the content created with the sweat equity of America’s human journalists. “With a Chinese Communist Party determined to overtake us by 2030,” OpenAI wrote last week to the federal Office of Science and Technology Policy, “the Trump administration’s new action plan can ensure that American-led A.I. built...

March 20 (Reuters) - Pop singer Mariah Carey defeated a lawsuit claiming she illegally copied elements of her holiday megahit "All I Want for Christmas Is You" from a country song of the same name. U.S. District Judge Monica Almadani in Los Angeles in a ruling, opens new tab on Wednesday said the writers of Vince Vance and the Valiants' "All I Want for Christmas Is You" failed to show their song was objectively similar enough to Carey's to support their copyright infringement case. Attorneys for the songwriters, lawyers for Carey and spokespeople for her label, Sony Music (6758.T), opens...

The Internet Archive has lost a legal battle which could see the whole web get a lot less freaky. The Second Circuit US Court of Appeals upheld a previous ruling in favor of Hachette Book Group. Hachette sued the Internet Archive over a project which scanned library books and lent infinite copies. Hachette and other publishers argued this was “tantamount to piracy,” as Wired phrases it.

The Olympics and NBC are taking down videos of the controversial Olympics opening ceremony, citing copyright infringement, instead of addressing the criticism. This action has sparked outrage, as many believe these takedowns are a misuse of copyright laws to suppress negative commentary. Under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), fair use allows for commentary and critique, which raises concerns about the legitimacy of these takedowns. The actions of NBC and the Olympics are not only silencing free speech but also acting in an authoritarian manner by preventing public discourse on the event.

A Nashville, Tennessee, judge ruled on Thursday night that shooter Audrey Hale's writings cannot be released to the public in a move supported by the victims' families. On March 27, 2023, Hale entered Nashville's private The Covenant School with three firearms and shot and killed six people. The victims were three 9-year-old students and three adults. The 28-year-old Hale, who was identified by police as transgender and was once a former student at the school, was fatally shot by Metro Nashville Police Department officers. Just before midnight on Thursday, Judge I'Ashea Myles ruled that "the original writings, journals, art, photos...

“Every time I put the radio on, it’s ‘Oh My Lord,’” John Lennon said in December 1970. “I’m beginning to think there must be a God.” Lennon wasn’t alone. As his former bandmate George Harrison’s debut single blanketed the airwaves, a struggling New York publisher, Bright Tunes Music, must’ve heard divine intervention in the melody of “My Sweet Lord.” It was identical to a chestnut in their dusty catalog, “He’s So Fine.” On Feb. 10, 1971, as Harrison’s hit was idling down from four weeks at No. 1, Bright Tunes filed a copyright infringement suit. The older song, written...

The Frida Kahlo Corporation filed two lawsuits on March 4 against online merchants in a bid to end the unauthorized reproduction of Kahlo’s likeness and art. The company, which owns the trademark, has demanded that Amazon vendors either relinquish all profits allegedly made from her counterfeit image, or $2 million “for each and every counterfeit use of the asserted trademarks,” Courthouse News reports. “Defendants’ images, artwork and derivative works are virtually identical to and/or substantially similar to the Frida Kahlo works,” the company wrote in its primary complaint. “Such conduct infringes and continues to infringe the Frida Kahlo works in...

It was the animation that launched the House of Mouse. Steamboat Willie, a 1928 short film featuring early non-speaking versions of Mickey and Minnie, is widely seen as the moment that transformed Disney's fortunes and made cinema history. Their images are now available to the public in the US, after Disney's copyright expired. It means creatives like cartoonists can now rework and use the earliest versions of Mickey and Minnie.

Andy Warhol's estate lost its U.S. Supreme Court copyright fight with celebrity photographer Lynn Goldsmith on Thursday as the justices faulted the famed pop artist's use of her photo of Prince in a silkscreen series depicting the charismatic rock star. The 7-2 ruling, authored by liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor, upheld a lower court's decision that Warhol's works based on Goldsmith's 1981 photo were not immune from her copyright infringement lawsuit. But the ruling focused on the licensing of only one of Warhol's Prince images and did not deem the entire silkscreen series a copyright violation. The film, publishing and recording...

Rick Beato discusses why Ed Sheeran won his lawsuit for his song "Thinking Out Loud" vs. Marvin Gaye’s song "Let’s Get It On" and what lessons are learned.

Rick Beato discusses the implications of AI in music

A jury ruled Thursday that English singer-songwriter Ed Sheeran was not liable in a case in which he was accused of copying music chords from Marvin Gaye's classic "Let's Get It On" in his 2014 hit song "Thinking Out Loud." Following the verdict announcement, Sheeran stood up and hugged his team before mouthing "thank you" to the jury. Outside the courthouse, Sheeran spoke to the press but did not answer questions. The "Shape of You" singer-songwriter said he's happy about "not having to retire from [his] day job" after saying he would stop writing music if he lost the trial.

The Supreme Court said on Monday that it would review a closely watched copyright infringement lawsuit that pits the Andy Warhol Foundation against the photographer Lynn Goldsmith. The Court’s decision could have major implications for “fair use” of copyrighted materials in art. Few cases related to contemporary art have ever been heard by the Supreme Court. In 1984, Warhol used a 1981 photograph that Goldsmith had taken of the pop star Prince as the basis for a series of paintings. Goldsmith’s picture of Prince was shot on assignment for Newsweek. On commission for Vanity Fair, Warhol used the photograph as...

Apple is seeking to halt the distribution of an action-comedy film titled "Apple-Man," fearing consumers may believe the film is associated with the Cupertino-based tech giant. In 2020, Ukrainian film director Vasyl Moskalenko wrapped up a successful Kickstarter campaign for his indie action-comedy movie, "Apple Man." The film centers around a superhero who has the power to levitate apples — the fruit. Now, as the film enters post-production, Apple has begun the process of shutting down the world's first healthy lifestyle superhero film before it ever reaches consumers. According to the film's creator, Apple has filed a 467-page lawsuit against...

Tax preparation company H&R Block is suing Block — formerly known as Square — for copyright infringement. Until the end of November, Jack Dorsey was the chief executive of both Twitter and Square. Upon Dorsey’s resignation from Twitter, Square — a financial services and digital payments company with many services that overlap those of H&R Block — changed its name to Block in recognition of its blockchain technology capabilities.

<p>Joe Biden finally spoke today to mark the end of the war in Afghanistan. After showing up hours late for the originally scheduled event, something that has become a habit for this president, Biden took to the podium. What transpired was surprising and shocking at times.</p>

<p>South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham (R) sat down for an interview with Ed O’Keefe on “Face The Nation” Sunday morning. Graham, a ranking member of both the Senate Budget Committee and the committee in charge of appropriating funds for the State Department and foreign operations, spoke with obvious emotion about the Biden Administration’s ongoing debacle in Afghanistan which has left 13 service members dead — and what it portends for the U.S. homeland in the future.</p>

<p>Kyrsten Sinema still opposes her party's plans for a $3.5 trillion, party-line spending bill. And she’s not up for a negotiation about it.</p><p>As House Democratic leaders hold back Sinema’s own Senate-passed bipartisan infrastructure bill in order to push the Arizona Democrat and Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) to support a multitrillion-dollar spending bill, Sinema is making it crystal clear that her mind can’t be changed. And that applies even as her own legislation becomes a bargaining chip in House Democrats’ internal discussions.</p>