OpenAI has never revealed exactly which data it used to train Sora, its video-generating AI. But from the looks of it, at least some of the data might’ve come from Twitch streams and walkthroughs of games. Sora launched on Monday, and I’ve been playing around with it for a bit (to the extent the capacity […]
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It sure looks like OpenAI trained Sora on game content — and legal experts say that could be a problem
Архив рубрики: Government & Policy
Spotify points finger at Apple over an unwelcome change to volume control technology
When streaming to connected devices via Spotify Connect on iOS, users were previously able to use the physical buttons on their iPhone to adjust the volume. But this will no longer work.
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Spotify points finger at Apple over an unwelcome change to volume control technology
Thirty-nine state AGs now support Live Nation-Ticketmaster lawsuit
The United States Department of Justice filed a major lawsuit against Live Nation-Ticketmaster in May, arguing that the entertainment giant is acting as a monopoly. An additional 10 state attorneys general joined the suit this week, bringing the total to 39 states and the District of Columbia. The plaintiffs also filed an amended complaint, making […]
© 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.
Thirty-nine state AGs now support Live Nation-Ticketmaster lawsuit
Lawmakers ask Department of Justice to investigate Warner Bros. Discovery merger
Four Democratic lawmakers have written to the Department of Justice to investigate Warner Bros. Discovery and launch an inquiry into alleged anti-competitive behavior. Democratic representatives Elizabeth Warren, Pramila Jayapal, David Cicilline and Joaquin Castro wrote that the merged company has harmed workers and reduced consumer choice. Warner Bros. Discovery was formed after WarnerMedia merged with Discovery Inc. in April 2022.
“We respectfully urge the Justice Department to investigate the state of competition in affected labor and consumer markets following consummation of this merger, which appears to have enabled Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) to adopt potentially anticompetitive practices that reduce consumer choice and harm workers in affected labor markets,” the lawmakers wrote in the letter.
Warner Bros. Discovery did not respond to TechCrunch’s request for comment.
The lawmakers argue that Warner Bros. Discovery’s new ownership is “hollowing out an iconic American studio.” The letter outlines that many projects were cancelled by Warner Bros. Discovery not long after the merger, including “Batgirl,” which was canceled even though filming for the movie had already been completed. The letter also refers to the cancellation of popular shows like “Gordita Chronicles” and “The Time Traveler’s Wife.”
In addition, the lawmakers note that Primetime Emmy Award winner J. J. Abrams is now shopping elsewhere for a home for his TV show “Demimonde” which was initially picked up by HBO and then canceled before production began on the project.
The letter notes that consumers will likely never be able to watch shows purchased then cancelled by the company, and that Warner Bros. Discovery’s conduct amounts to a “catch and kill” practice that limits consumer choice.
The lawmakers also outline that the company’s actions are leaving workers with fewer choices for employment and advancement.
“Shortly after the merger was finalized, WBD began realizing a number of cost synergies that were used to justify the merger in the first place—including cuts to hundreds of jobs for working people,” the letter reads. “First, WBD cut the streaming platform CNN+. The CNN+ cut affected about 350 employees, and four months later, CNN laid off an additional 400 employees. WBD also enacted 100 layoffs in its company’s ad sales department as another cost-cutting effort related to the merger. In total, the aforementioned cuts affected thousands of people. Notably, WBD still has $3.5 billion in planned cuts—which does not bode well for workers.”
The letter ends by asking the Department of Justice to take another look at the transaction and take into consideration the actions that the company has taken since the merger was finalized a year ago. The lawmakers write that they hope the guidelines for the merger are updated to ensure they reflect the needs of workers, consumers and content creators in the media and entertainment industry.
The letter comes as Warner Bros. Discovery is expected to hold a press event sometime this week regarding its new direct-to-consumer streaming plan.
Warner Bros. Discovery continues to lose money despite success of ‘The Last of Us’ and ‘Hogwarts Legacy’
Lawmakers ask Department of Justice to investigate Warner Bros. Discovery merger by Aisha Malik originally published on TechCrunch
Lawmakers ask Department of Justice to investigate Warner Bros. Discovery merger
Google gets antitrust attention in Spain over news licensing
Google can add another antitrust investigation to its stack. This one has been opened by Spain’s competition authority, the CNMC, which said today it’s concerned about possible anti-competitive practices related to the licensing of news content by local publishers.
In a press release it said it is investigating “a series of practices that could involve an abuse of Google’s dominant position vis-à-vis the publishers of press publications and news agencies established in Spain” [NB: We’ve translated the text from Spanish with machine translation].
“In particular, these practices would consist the possible imposition of unfair commercial conditions on the publishers of press publications and news agencies established in Spain for the exploitation of their content protected by intellectual property rights,” it also wrote. “On the other hand, the investigated behaviors would also include practices that would constitute acts of unfair competition that could distort free competition and affect the public interest.”
The competition authority said it is acting following a complaint by the Spanish Center for Reprographic Rights (aka, Centro Español de Derechos Reprográficos or CEDRO).
We’ve reached out to all concerned.
News licensing is an area where Google has faced severe sanction in Europe already. Back in July 2021, France’s antitrust authority fined the tech giant over half a billion dollars for breaching an order to negotiate copyright fees with news publishers for reuse of their content. That followed the EU a copyright reform, agreed back in 2019, that extended IP to snippets of news content — requiring platforms like Google to negotiate with publishers.
Google fined $592M in France for breaching antitrust order to negotiate copyright fees for news snippets
Spain transposed the EU reform into its national law in November 2021, paving the way for a return of Google News to the country.
Google’s news aggregation service had closed in Spain in 2014 after the country passed a law that aimed to force Google to pay a collective licensing fee for the news snippets. The EU copyright reform replaced the prior fee regime with a requirement to negotiate with individual publishers — and Google News duly reopened in Spain in June 2022.
At the same time, the company also announced it would launch its News Showcase product in the country. Google’s News Showcase product was spun up by the tech giant in fall 2020 as lawmakers in Europe and elsewhere were zeroing in on making it pay for news content reuse — creating a licensing vehicle it could use in the looming, inexorable negotiations with publishers.
It’s not immediately clear whether the Spanish probe will focus on Google’s News Showcase licensing arrangements or on copyright fees talks — or both.
While it remains to be seen what Spain’s investigation of Google’s news licensing practices will finally determine — the authority has up to 18 months to conduct the probe — it said its preliminary information-gathering phase found “indications of possible infringement”.
Germany’s antitrust authority, meanwhile, has already pushed back over Mountain View’s practices in this area after starting to scrutinize its news-related fine print in summer 2021. The regulatory attention on Google from the German FCO — which is currently armed with beefier powers to tackle Big Tech than other European countries (thanks to a 2021 update to competition law squarely targeted at digital giants) — has led to Google offering a series of concessions over how it operates News Showcase locally, including an offer not to include the showcasing of licensed content in general search results (which is one trigger for antitrust concerns).
The News Showcase product provides the prospect of raised visibility for participating publishers, since the offer is for Google to feature participants’ content to users across a number of touchpoints. However that could create a disadvantage for publishers who don’t pay Google (i.e. if it leads to their content being less visible in Google’s general Internet search, given its continued dominance of the Internet search and content discovery market).
Google has also sought to co-mingle negotiations with publishers over News Showcase with what are, under the pan-EU reform, legally required talks over copyright fees — something France’s watchdog slapped down in its hefty enforcement in mid 2021.
Google offers not to put News Showcase into search results in Germany as antitrust probe rolls on
Google users not given sufficient choice over its data processing, says German antitrust watchdog
Google gets antitrust attention in Spain over news licensing by Natasha Lomas originally published on TechCrunch
Google gets antitrust attention in Spain over news licensing