Artists' Rights at Risk: From State Sovereign Immunity to Generative AI

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Cover photo of Rick Allen - copyright Cindy Burnham, Lucky Shot Productions 

Show Note: 

0:00 Nautilus Productions' Co-Founder Rick Allen gives the history of Allen v. McCrory - suit against NC over Allen's footage of the Queen Anne's Revenge Shipwreck 

1:20 SCOTUS’ 9-0 decision in Allen v. Cooper that the Copyright Remedy Clarification Act of 1990 (CRCA) was unconstitutional 

2:00 NC’s technical arguments against Allen’s claims 

2:55 court's use of pendant jurisdiction to wipe out 5 years of Allen’s case

3:45 petition for rehearing en banc denied 

6:45 states’ use of sovereign immunity against creators

8:50 Jeff Sedlik’s suit over use of his photo of Miles Davis as a tattoo  

9:30 Michael J. Bynum’s suit over Texas A&M University’s unauthorized use of Bynum’s 12th Man book (complaint here; dismissal of copyright infringement claims against A&M employee discussed here)

11:00 Allen’s recommendations to artists to protect their work online

13:35 Emily Gould’s discussion of LAION case 

17:00 Bartz v. Anthropic - 23 June 2025 Order on Fair Use in N.D. Cal.

19:50 Allen on opt out policy

20:20 Visual Artists Copyright Reform Act (VACRA)

21:00 Gould on survey by DACS (the Design and Artist’s Copyright Society) 

23:00 response to UK government’s consultations 

24:00 UK House of Lord’s hearings

24:30 Allen on artists not understanding impact of generative AI

26:00 Gould on UK judgment from trial in Getty v. Stability 

28:50 Gould on judgment in GEMA v. Open AI

31:55 Lauren Stein on ChatGPT and law school's encouragement to use AI 

33:00 Getty v. Stability in UK – Getty’s drop of direct infringement claim and appeal of ruling on secondary infringement claim

35:50 UK’s Section 9(3) - copyright protection for original work created by a machine

39:20 Stein on copyrightability and Japan’s approach to sufficient human authorship

41:40 Gould on Beijing Internet Court's judgment in Li v. Liu

42:05 Allen’s position on AI

44:00 Gould on authenticity and human contribution

47:35 Ed Newton-Rex 

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Music by Toulme.

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