First Amendment News

A federal district judge said he was leaning toward dismissing most of a lawsuit brought by artists against AI firms, citing the need for more facts about alleged copyright infringement. (Reuters, July 19, 2023, by Blake Brittain) Mike Masnick in techdirt, July 19, 2023, argues that it is futile for artists to use copyright to fight off AI since AI companies when training are doing the equivalent of reading a book and no one can

Free-lance journalist Nora Neus, Poynter, July 18, 2023, argues that paying sources for interviews may be justified under certain circumstances. “There are absolutely ethical issues with offering money in exchange for stories,” she says, “but when working with marginalized people and essentially profiting off their trauma, there are also ethical issues with not compensating them.”

Recent years has seen a significant increase in the numbers of Americans who want the federal government to restrict false information online, from 39 percent in 2018 to 55 percent in 2023. But more Americans are in favor of tech companies restricting false information, an increase from 56 percent in 2018 to 65 percent in 2023. By a wide margin more Democrats favor restrictions on online false information, 70 percent, than Republicans, 39 percent. (Pew

Google is developing an AI tool to write news stories and has pitched it to the Times, Post and Wall Street Journal. Google said the AI tools would not replace journalists who report and fact-check but rather free up their time by writing headlines and providing news content based on details of current events. (The New York Times, July 19, 2023, by Benjamin Mullin and Nico Grant) Executive at the Times were concerned that the

The D.C U.S. Court of Appeals upheld the law allowing states and victims to fight online sex trafficking. Challenges to the law maintained that part of the law criminalized speech that would provide such services as health and safety information to sex workers, advocating for particular workers and decriminalization. But the court said the act targets conduct rather than speech, illegal activity as it pertains, in the court’s words, “to a person’s intent to aid