Coming Monday, the 18th. But I thought I'd just jump ahead and start the thread. 

The new rules, set to go into effect on March 11th, redefine the classification of workers, particularly in the gig economy, as employees rather than independent contractors. This move, while intended to provide greater protections and benefits to workers, has raised concerns about its potential impact on businesses and the broader economy.

https://www.dol.gov/newsroom/releases/whd/whd20240109-1#:~:text=The%20rule%20addresses%20six%20factors%20that%20guide%20the,a%20factor%20regarding%20the%20worker%E2%80%99s%20skill%20and%20initiative.

The new �independent contractor� rule restores the multifactor analysis used by courts for decades, ensuring that all relevant factors are analyzed to determine whether a worker is an employee or an independent contractor. The rule addresses six factors that guide the analysis of a worker�s relationship with an employer, including any opportunity for profit or loss a worker might have; the financial stake and nature of any resources a worker has invested in the work; the degree of permanence of the work relationship; the degree of control an employer has over the person�s work; whether the work the person does is essential to the employer�s business; and a factor regarding the worker�s skill and initiative.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/ny-times-sues-openai-microsoft-for-infringing-copyrighted-works/ar-AA1m75sX?ocid=00000000&pc=U528&cvid=36cdc2530ee347549955a4670eb08328&ei=17

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The New York Times sued OpenAI and Microsoft on Wednesday, accusing them of using millions of the newspaper's articles without permission to help train chatbots to provide information to readers.

The newspaper's complaint, filed in Manhattan federal court, accused OpenAI and Microsoft of trying to "free-ride on The Times's massive investment in its journalism" by using it to provide alternative means to deliver information to readers.

"There is nothing 'transformative' about using The Times's content without payment to create products that substitute for The Times and steal audiences away from it," the Times said.

The case is New York Times Co v Microsoft Corp et al, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, No. 23-11195.

The whole article is loaded with interesting points. Much of this related to the Warhol Foundation decision. Which is also complicated by the results which are mixed.

This case, and artist used an image, to create a tattoo. The photographer sued. Both at this point are claiming that the Warhol decision should be grounds for summary resolution, in the matter.  The most recent decision, the judge has sent the case to the jury.

Seizing on the new Supreme Court decision, Sedlik argues that �Warhol clarified that photographers routinely license their creative works to serve as reference for other artists, and that such artists� reference licenses are how photographers make their living.� Artists references, does that apply to AI?

https://copyrightlately.com/court-to-revisit-fair-use-in-tattoo-infringement-case/

And while I'm typing:  https://copyrightlately.com/making-sense-of-copyright-fair-use-after-warhol/  a breakdown of the decision and situation, Andy Warhol Foundation v. Goldsmith.

Dear Peter,

Thank you for your contributions to Wirestock! Your portfolio stands out with great quality and originality.

We want to let you know that we are changing the submission limits on Wirestock. As Wirestock is becoming more popular, we are receiving increasingly larger volumes of submissions from our content creators, which result in:

    Delays in content review and processing
    Growing costs of labeling, review, processing and storage
    Difficulties in detecting copyright infringements and fraudulent activities

To solve these, we are making marketplace submissions a paid option for all accounts regardless of their approval rates. Going forward, in order to submit content to marketplaces, all accounts need to subscribe to one of our premium plans.

This change will not affect your previous submissions. Additionally, you can still post and sell content on Wirestock directly through your portfolio without subscribing. We will start featuring and promoting your content on Wirestock to increase your chances of having direct sales.

As a gesture of appreciation for your significant contributions, we�re offering you a 50% discount on our premium plan with promo code 50DISC. With this exclusive offer, you can continue contributing up to 200 images per month.

Please reach out to us if you have any questions.

Best,
Team Wirestock

Ha Ha, direct sales? Anyone ever had a direct sale, I mean did you direct someone to your WS account, to sell a license? Upload limit 200 with a paid account? $7.79/mo
$93.48 billed yearly and what of the 15% they don't mention that? Only that direct sales are no commission. Selling AI creations? but 5 free a month for $0

I think this marks, let it ride, nothing new, and possibly, SEE YA = AMF in the near future.

Premium: $14.99 a month

Expand your presence with 200 monthly marketplace and challenge submissions
Supercharge your output with 200 monthly AI generations
Perfect your images with 400 AI upscaling

I didn't follow but the AI is through Discord.

Rather than just hijack the RB subject:

Have you checked your tier, many people are premium without selling a lot, it seems the tiers are randomly assigned. They could change every month too.
Society6 also introduced new fees and plans.
With AI and everything else the good news just can't stop coming.

Just looked at RB it says I have no account. There's some good news? Zazzle I dropped because the fees are more than anything I make. Etsy is dormant, I still can't tolerate the fakes, frauds and creative descriptions that are lies or misinformation.

Effective May 4, 2023 the fee for creating a new account on Society6 will increase to $5.

Effective May 4, 2023 when you make a sale through Society6.com, or one of our third-party affiliates, a shipping fee ranging from $0.30 - $8USD will be deducted from your earnings. Shipping fees vary based on the product sold and the full list of fees can be found below.
 
Announced but not in effect yet:

"In Fall 2023, Society6 will introduce annual subscription plans for artist accounts. This program will offer tiered plans, each with their own features and benefits. All artists will be required to select a plan to continue selling with Society6.
These plans will be designed to support our commitment to high-quality original artwork, improve the shopping experience, and allow us to offer enhanced services for the artist community at each tier. We look forward to sharing more about this new program in the coming months."

Annual Subscription Plan = pay to sell on their site.

The point is, some people have said they would drop RB and move to S6, which doesn't seem to be more than trying to change horses in the middle of the stream.

Society 6 paid 10% on some items and we were allowed to set our own price on others. Add the shipping, and the Subscription?  👎

"Former President Donald Trump was charged by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg with 34 felony counts for the falsification of business records "

One of those might be, who's going to be the Republican candidate in 2024? 

ps I practice equal opportunity, calling out politicians and hypocrites who follow party lines instead of minds.

How's Biden doing, within his own party?

Democrats were asked if they wanted another four years of Biden. 61% said they would prefer a new president; 38% said they'd welcome back Biden.

Kind of getting the feeling that no one likes anything anymore? Except being divided and hating the other side.

Heather Whitney and Evangeline Phang at MoFo explore whether artificial intelligence models can be the authors of their outputs for purposes of copyright protection, and whether human use of an AI model results in copyrightable work authored by the human � or in an authorless, uncopyrightable work.

https://mofotech.mofo.com/topics/ai-trends-for-2023-generative-ai-in-the-spotlight

The last one is more for people here: Fair Use

Use of copyrighted works as training data for machine learning (ML). ML requires massive amounts of machine training data. Whether courts agree that the use of copyrighted materials as training data qualifies as fair use will be, as was the case with other disruptive technologies, critical to the future of AI innovation.

WHile we watch and wait for these cases to go through the courts and hopefully to some decision.

Poll is anonymous, one vote per person. Some people have asked this question before and the answers are scattered. I thought maybe all in one place might be interesting?

Just from a few people, it's not a part of total earnings, because I don't make that much and I got more than some people who are much better and successful.
It's not based on how many images. Same thing. People with more images have been paid less than I got.

We don't know.

Just wondering what kind of numbers, different people got paid for Contributor Fund last year?

I found all my payments in December, I don't know if anyone got anything else before or since?

DMCA

YouTube argued that this contradicts the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which prevents claims based on a lack of affirmative monitoring and places the burden of policing copyright infringement on the copyright owner, which in this case, would be Vasallo.

"Under the DMCA, this is an easy case: the statute bars plaintiff's effort to hold YouTube liable for direct or secondary infringement," YouTube said.

Read more at: https://www.law360.com/articles/1554148/youtube-wants-anti-piracy-suit-tossed?copied=1

More of the same and why

Textbook publishers vs Shopify

In January, Shopify fought back against the allegations, maintaining that it diligently responded to the more than 5,000 infringement notices and that it follows all the procedure laid out by the U.S. Congress under the DMCA.

"Congress decided to preclude suits for money damages against the companies that host the infrastructure that those individual infringers might use, so long as the companies generally comport themselves responsibly � expeditiously taking down content that rights-holders flag as infringing, and terminating the accounts of users who repeatedly misuse internet services to infringe the rights of others," Shopify argued in its reply brief.

Read more at: https://www.law360.com/articles/1537037/shopify-settles-educational-textbook-publishers-piracy-suit?copied=1

Shutterstock:

George Steinmetz for suing the platform over a photo of a cloudy forest view.

But U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein awarded summary judgment to Shutterstock in September, finding the platform is protected from liability under the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act's safe harbor provision.

Safe harbor applies to a defendant that is a "service provider," has a policy that terminates repeat infringers on its platform and does not interfere with measures used to protect copyright owners' work.

Read more at: https://www.law360.com/articles/1537329/shutterstock-seeks-sanctions-for-ill-advised-copyright-suit?copied=1

law360 is a pay legal site, you can only read headlines without an account.

What all of these have in common is how sites that supposedly terminate repeat infringers are protected from being liable for the damage done. What's missing is, the individual has to file the claim, and the violators can respond, and the company hosting the works, don't have to look for violations, we have to file, and only the creator can do that. What a pail of hogwash.

The case Shutterstock won, after the claim was denied, is to recover legal defense fees and claims that is to protect Shutterstock. Just another way to discourage anyone from defending their rights and their own images by making them afraid to file. The case with Shopify has some interesting details, where they eventually agreed, on both sides, and the places that sell illegal copies of educational text books, are banned and Shopify agrees to stop allowing them.

The Youtube case is a little twisted.  "When Vasallo approached YouTube in 2015, the company acknowledged the issue and said it had the ability to detect and take down the infringing posts "very easily" through its Content ID system, he said. But it offered to employ the tool only if he agreed to one of three options, all of which required him to release the company from all possible claims arising from prior piracy and let his films remain on the platform � either through official channels or ongoing piracy � while splitting ad revenue generated from the postings with YouTube."

And YT argued "YouTube is not required to monitor its site for copyright infringement � that should be Vasallo's job."

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/getty-images-reports-third-quarter-210600816.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly9uZXdzLmdvb2dsZS5jb20v&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAHUqwLDDBVvhnh7LBsRqFLCtqjU4tevJ3BfCySKNCUuTze_S_YC0MQ2SboMgoiHa4CVuR9gRTDuEjyqgxaXH9EPaI9D4eas9pr8inUxRAYTyqYty1KdZlKbhHNo_wjoqrouRWXddCFR9D3LFjtVWaKgSZG7aG6nYT-rC9OX2Hg-R

LTM total active annual subscribers (thousands)  107 vs 70 in 2021 +52.9%

Image collection (millions) 484 vs 450 +7.6% = 34 million new images added

Getty Images Holdings, Inc. (GETY) today = $5.66 -0.20 (-3.41%)  High Aug 8th = 30.86, rounded at the opening of trading July 2022,  $10 a share.

Rather than try to put a break in the doom thread, I wondered if someone could help me understand the edit options for Open AI?

"DALL�E 2 can make realistic edits to existing images from a natural language caption. It can add and remove elements while taking shadows, reflections, and textures into account."

"Image editing is now in beta.
Erase part of the image to edit, or add a generation frame to extend the image.
While this is in beta the full images won't be saved, so consider downloading often to save your work."

Has anyone tried this? I don't want to waste my limited free credits by testing.

I wanted to add my own content to an image, but it doesn't seem to do that. In the example, you can mark spots to add a flamingo. I'd like to add myself to a scene. Yes I know, I could make a scene, pose myself, and clone that into the image. But the Open AI also changes perspective and lighting on items as it adds them.

The generation frame is also interesting, as it is similar to intelligent fill, but creates new content.

And no I haven't used the prompt "Photo Quality" yet. The 1024 is pretty small, and I don't know if doing that makes a difference?

https://finlegal.io/expertise/intellectual-property-litigation-funding

"As with many cases that utilise third-party funding, intellectual property infringement can be incredibly expensive and the litigation can be lengthy. This makes IP litigation funding imperative for many clients. "

And

https://thelawadvisory.com/what-is-litigation-funding/

"The cost of obtaining justice via the courts might be prohibitive.

The hourly rate for a top-tier litigation partner may range from $1000 to $1700. There are no limits to the amount of money that may be spent on processing and evaluating electronic discovery in huge cases. Other than these, there are travel, expert, deposition, and court fees."