Meta, the company behind Facebook and Instagram, has admitted to scraping the public photos and text of every Australian adult Facebook or Instagram user dating back nearly 20 years.

Announcing the sad news that the Centre for Contemporary Photography will be forced to vacate its home of nearly 20 years at 404 George St, Fitzroy, after a dramatic withdrawal of multi-year funding by both Creative Australia and Creative Victoria.

The CCP will host no further exhibitions at the current premises, and will move out at the end of August 2023.

This decision by the Federal and State funding bodies to turn their backs on CCP comes despite impressive visitor numbers, community and education events, public engagement, impact, and self-generated income in 2023. The CCP has always relied on a combination of government and private funding, and a broader supportive community to ensure its sustainability; without the adequate levels of government support necessary to operate, the CCP Board has been forced into taking this drastic step.

The decisions taken by these Federal and State funding bodies have also directly resulted in the loss of jobs at CCP, sadly our Gallery Manager Tyler Meredith and Curator Catlin Langford have recently departed due to a lack of funds to retain them.

The Media, Entertainment & Arts Alliance (MEAA) will give evidence to the Senate Committee on artificial intelligence in Canberra today.

The union will warn that the burgeoning use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) will erode creative sector jobs and undermine public trust in the media.

Adobe recently made an update to their Terms of Use outraging users concerned that the company is claiming the right to access their content, use it freely, and even sub-licence it to others.

Users must agree to the new terms in order to continue using their Adobe apps.

Adobe has responded here.

In response to a recent advertising campaign from Adobe that invites users of their software to “skip the photoshoot”, the American Society of Media Photographers has published an open letter.

Their letter is short and sweet but it pulls no punches. Read it via the link below.

European Parliament approved the Artificial Intelligence Act that ensures safety and compliance with fundamental rights, while boosting innovation.

The regulation, agreed in negotiations with member states in December 2023, was endorsed by MEPs with 523 votes in favour, 46 against and 49 abstentions.

It aims to protect fundamental rights, democracy, the rule of law and environmental sustainability from high-risk AI, while boosting innovation and establishing Europe as a leader in the field. The regulation establishes obligations for AI based on its potential risks and level of impact.

Stills is a rights-managed photo licensing platform offering authentic imagery from exceptional photographers to the world’s top brands and artists.

They are currently accepting applications for licensing representation.

A new, free tool designed by researchers at the University of Chicago to help artists “poison” artificial intelligence models trained on their images without their consent has proved immensely popular. Less than a week after it went live, the software was downloaded more than 250,000 times.

The industry and science minister, Ed Husic, has left the door open for creatives or publishers to receive payments if their work is used to “train” artificial intelligence platforms.

The government is considering the copyright implications of generative AI services such as ChatGPT and Dall-E, as content producers around the world, including movie studios and record labels, call for licensing agreements for how their work is used.

The world’s biggest tech firms have called on the government to look to existing laws before coming up with new regulation to govern the use and development of artificial intelligence.

Responding to the government’s call for ideas on how Australia can develop safe and responsible AI practices, the peak body representing the likes of Apple, Google, Twitter, Meta, TikTok and Yahoo advised the government to base its AI policy “on existing regulation, rather than introducing new legislation aimed at regulating AI as a technology”.

In the past year, dozens of communities dedicated to AI art have accelerated across the Internet, from Reddit to Twitter to Discord, with thousands of AI artists practicing their skills to create precise prompts and sharing the results with others. The amount of content created during this time is hard to measure, but whatever it is, it’s incredibly big. We’ve kept track of some AI image statistics and facts and tried to estimate (at least roughly) how much content has been created since text-to-image algorithms took off last year. Read on to learn more about how we arrived at this number and how some of the most prominent algorithms contribute to it.

‘In the event that an AI produces material infringing copyright, who would be responsible?’

Artificial intelligence is forcing a new approach to intellectual property law. Politicians in some jurisdictions are helping to smooth some of the legal challenges, but courts are likely to have the final say.

Nikon Peru has launched a clever marketing campaign encouraging people to not "give up on the real world" and fight back against Artificial Intelligence (AI) generated creations.

Created with advertising agency Circus Grey Peru, the company says the campaign serves as a reminder that "our world is full of natural beauty that is often much more incredible than any AI generated photo."

The print and outdoor campaign shows photos of real natural places that are stranger than fiction, captured by photographers using Nikon cameras.

The Australian Government want your views on how they can mitigate any potential risks of AI and support safe and responsible AI practices.

AI is already improving many aspects of our lives. But the speed of innovation in AI could pose new risks, which creates uncertainty and gives rise to public concerns.

Responses close 26 July 2023

Can machines be classed as inventors on patents? And what happens when copyrighted works are used for machine learning?

ChatGPT and other generative AI technologies have taken off in recent months, with individuals and businesses using the technologies to create content.

Simon Newcomb, Intellectual Property and Technology Partner, talks to Sean Aylmer from Fear and Greed about the wide range of legal issues businesses need to consider when it comes to ChatGPT and other AI.

The US Supreme Court has ruled Andy Warhol's painting of the singer Prince infringed on the copyright of the original photographer's work.

In 2016, Vanity Fair published a Prince tribute which featured Warhol's image but no credit or payment was given to the photographer, Lynn Goldsmith.

The crux of the case was whether or not Warhol's work falls under fair-use laws.

The court ruled his work did not fall under these laws by seven votes to two.

On 23 February 2023, the Attorney-General, the Hon Mark Dreyfus KC MP, chaired an inaugural Ministerial Roundtable on Copyright. The Roundtable brought together 30 organisations from a wide range of sectors with an interest in copyright, including publishing, broadcasting, screen, education, research, music, gaming, technology and cultural collections.

The purpose of this Roundtable was to provide an opportunity for dialogue between key stakeholders on copyright priorities and emerging issues, and to increase effective collaboration between government and key stakeholders in the development of copyright law reform. Further collaborative discussions will follow throughout 2023 with the aim of developing practical and achievable copyright reform proposals for Government consideration, which could potentially be taken forward with broad stakeholder support.