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This article was first published on the Kluwer Copyright Blog on date 20/02/2024

When life gives you lemons, make lemonade. This must have been the key insight at the Polish Culture and National Heritage Ministry when the new administration took over and discovered that more than 2.5 years after the implementation deadline, Poland still had to implement the provisions of the 2019 Copyright in the Digital Single Market Directive into national law. So how do you make lemonade out of the fact that you are the only EU Member State without an implementation? You claim that the delay allows you to propose a better implementation.

In this particular case, the government claims that the delay allowed it to properly consider the impact of generative AI on copyright and come to the conclusion that training generative AI systems on copyrighted works does not in fact fall within the scope of the text and data mining exceptions contained in the directive. From the explanatory memorandum accompanying the draft implementation law published on Thursday last week for public consultation (all quotes below are own translations from the Polish original):

The implementation of the directive now, in 2024, dictates that we refer here to the issue of artificial intelligence and the question of whether text and data mining within the meaning of the directive also includes the possibility of reproducing works for the purpose of machine learning. Undoubtedly, at the time the directive was adopted in 2019, the capabilities of artificial intelligence were not as recognizable as they are today, when “works” with artistic and commercial value comparable to real works, i.e., man-made, are beginning to be created with the help of this technology. Thus, it seems fair to assume that this type of permitted use was not conceived for artificial intelligence. An explicit clarification is therefore introduced that the reproduction of works for text and data mining cannot be used to create generative models of artificial intelligence.

This “explicit clarification” can be found in the text of the proposed implementation for both articles 3 and 4 of the CDSM directive. The article 3 implementation states that cultural heritage institutions and academic research organizations…

may reproduce works for the purpose of text and data mining for scientific research, with the exception of the creation of generative models of artificial intelligence, if these activities are not performed for direct or indirect financial gain.

The same exception to the exception can also be found in the implementation of the general text and data mining exception:

It is allowed to reproduce distributed works for the purpose of text and data mining, except for the creation of generative artificial intelligence models, unless otherwise stipulated by the authorized party.

It is worth stressing that the language quoted above is contained in the public consultation version of the implementation law and thus not final. It also seems clear that this language has not been widely consulted within the Polish government as it clearly contradicts efforts undertaken by other parts of the government. Still it is worth taking a closer look at the rationale behind this implementation and to assess the conformity with the provisions of the directive and the overall impact of the proposed approach.

First of all, while it is understandable that lawmakers seek more clarity about the relationship between the EU copyright framework and the use of copyrighted works for training AI models, the assumption that the TDM exceptions were “not conceived for artificial intelligence” is simply wrong. While there is little publicly available documentation of what lawmakers had in mind when they agreed on the structure of the TDM exceptions, what is available makes it clear that the development of artificial intelligence was explicitly factored into the discussions. Both the European Parliament statement and the European Commission’s explainer of the directive, published after the adoption of the directive in March 2019 specifically highlight that the TDM exception in Article 4 was introduced “in order to contribute to the development of data analytics and artificial intelligence”.

If there was any doubt if the exception was conceived in order to facilitate the development of generative Artificial Intelligence, this relationship was further clarified in March 2023 (at a time when the impact of Generative AI was widely recognized). In response to a Parliamentary question that suggested that “The [CDSM] Directive does not address this particular matter”, Commissioner Breton pointed out that TDM exceptions do in fact “provide balance between the protection of rightholders including artists and the facilitation of TDM, including by AI developers”.

Finally the upcoming Artificial Intelligence Act — which has been supported by the Polish government — contains a provision that points out that developers of generative AI systems must “put in place a policy to respect Union copyright law in particular to identify and respect, including through state of the art technologies, the reservations of rights expressed pursuant to Article 4(3) of [the CDSM] Directive”. In addition, the AI act also contains a recital (60i) that explains the interaction between the training of generative Ai systems and the exceptions contained in article 3 & 4 of the copyright directive.

All of this makes it clear that “now, in 2024” the TDM exceptions as introduced in 2019 do in fact provide the framework for the use of copyrighted works for the purpose of training generative AI systems, even though some stakeholders would much prefer that this was not the case.

It is also clear that any attempt to exclude from the scope of the TDM provision the reproductions made in the context of training generative AI models would, prima facie, result in a non-compliant implementation. Defined in Article 2(2) as “any automated analytical technique aimed at analyzing text and data in digital form in order to generate information which includes, but is not limited to, patterns, trends and correlations”, the term must be considered as an autonomous concept of EU law that cannot be modified by Member States in line with political considerations. As outlined above, there is a broad consensus that the concept of text and data mining includes the training of AI models. Even if the Polish Ministry of Culture and National Heritage does not wish this to be the case, it must still implement the Directive without changing a core concept introduced in the Directive.

While we are waiting for the consultation process to play out, it is instructive to consider what would be the consequences should the TDM exception be implemented as proposed by the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage. By excluding the creation of generative artificial intelligence from the scope of both TDM exceptions, the Polish copyright law would remove any statutory basis for the use of copyrighted works in the context of building generative AI models. This would require AI developers to obtain permission from all rightsholders whose works are included in their training data. Given the amounts of copyrighted works that are required to train the current generation of AI models (often measuring in the billions of individual works) this would likely be impossible for anyone but the most well-resourced companies making it virtually impossible for smaller companies or public efforts (such as the Polish open PLLuM language model), as they would lack the resources to undertake the effort required to obtain the required permissions.

What is especially stunning in the Polish implementation proposal is that it not only excludes the creation of AI models from the scope of the Article 4 exception (which applies to commercial AI developers) but also from the scope of the Article 3 exception (which is designed to enable non-profit scientific research) which seems especially short sighted. The implementation proposal should therefore be read like a misguided attempt to hinder any development or use of generative AI models in Poland.

At this point, it seems useful to recall the key balances inherent in the EU’s regulatory framework for the use of copyrighted works in AI training. They form the basis of claims by the Commission and others that the EU has a uniquely balanced approach to this thorny issue. Taken together, the TDM provisions address 4 key concerns: (1) They limit permission to use copyrighted works for training data to those works that are lawfully accessible. They (2) privilege non-profit scientific research, (3) they ensure that creators and other rights holders can exclude their works from being used to train generative AI systems, and (4) they ensure that works that are not actively managed by their rights holders can be used to train AI models.

Excluding the training of generative AI from this balanced arrangement may please some creators and rights holders, but it also pushes AI back into a legal gray area. It also seems incompatible with the provisions of the AI Act, which situates the training of generative AI models within the broader concept of TDM, and which will be directly applicable in Poland.

What is needed, instead of efforts to undermine the existing framework, are measures to ensure that the current approach can work in practice. The new copyright provisions in the AI act are an important step into this direction, but they need to be complemented by the creation of a public infrastructure to facilitate opt-outs and measures aimed at ensuring fair licensing arrangements between rights holders and AI developers.

The post TDM: Poland challenges the rule of EU copyright law appeared first on COMMUNIA Association.

Per 1 maart vervalt de Aanwijzing Slachtofferrechten en treedt de Aanwijzing Slachtoffers in het Strafproces in werking. Die bevat volgens drie organisaties die opkomen voor de belangen van slachtoffers weliswaar een aantal positieve punten, maar roept bij hen ook grote zorgen op. Vandaar dat Slachtofferhulp Nederland, Fonds Slachtofferhulp en het Landelijk Advocaten Netwerk Gewelds- en Zedenslachtoffers (LANGZS) besloten gezamenlijk een open brief aan het College van procureurs-generaal te sturen.

De organisaties hebben eerder al opgeroepen om het beleid op een aantal punten aan te passen. Tot nu tevergeefs, daarom luiden ze nu gedrieën de noodklok. Ze schrijven dat ze zich terdege realiseren dat het Openbaar Ministerie met een zware taak is belast en kampt met capaciteitsproblemen, maar vinden dat slachtoffers daarvan niet de dupe mogen worden. Dat dreigt volgens hen met de nieuwe Aanwijzing wel te gebeuren, die zien zij als een stap terug in de tijd.

Ze maken zich onder andere zorgen over de termijn waarop slachtoffers formulieren over schadevergoeding en hun wensen in het vervolgtraject moeten terugsturen naar het OM. Als dat niet binnen veertien gebeurt, gaat het OM er vanuit dat het slachtoffer er bewust voor kiest niet bij de zaak betrokken te willen zijn, tenzij hij dat op andere wijze kenbaar maakt.
Volgens de ondertekenaars van de brief is veertien dagen veel te kort.  “In de praktijk zien we dat deze zeer korte termijn veel stress oplevert bij slachtoffers. Hoe moet je als slachtoffer, vaak kort na een misdrijf, binnen 14 dagen na ontvangst van dit bericht alle schadeposten verzamelen en met bewijsstukken onderbouwen?” Ook hekelen ze het feit dat een slachtoffer dat niet reageert geen verdere informatie meer ontvangt, zoals bijvoorbeeld een zittingsdatum.

Een ander punt van kritiek is de beperking van kennisneming van processtukken door slachtoffers. Volgens de wet kan kennisname alleen in bepaalde gevallen worden geweigerd en is voor weigering toestemming van de rechter-commissaris nodig. In de aanwijzing staat dat het OM het recht heeft om het belang van het slachtoffer tegen andere belangen af te wegen dan de in de wet genoemde, en dat daar geen toestemming van de rechter-commissaris voor nodig is.
De organisaties noemen “de eeuwige strijd met het Openbaar Ministerie over de verkrijging van processtukken” buitengewoon schadelijk voor slachtoffers en nabestaanden die behoefte hebben aan informatie over het misdrijf dat hen is overkomen. Als zij de indruk krijgen dat informatie voor hen wordt achtergehouden kan dat leiden tot een gebrekkig vertrouwen in het strafproces.

Ook vinden de organisaties dat in de aanwijzing duidelijker moet worden gemaakt dat slachtoffers altijd recht hebben op bijstand door een advocaat of een andere gemachtigde.

Aan het eind van de brief roepen de ondertekenaars het College van procureurs-generaal dringend op met elkaar in gesprek te gaan om de aanwijzing op korte termijn te herzien, en tot die tijd de inwerkingtreding uit te stellen.

Het bericht Brandbrief: ‘Nieuwe OM-aanwijzing over slachtoffers is stap terug in de tijd’ verscheen eerst op Mr. Online.

In the Buddhist Asia of a dozen centuries ago, the equivalent of going off to study at an Ivy League school was going off to study at Nalanda. It was founded in the year 427 in what’s now the Indian state of Bihar, making it “the world’s first residential university,” as Sugato Mukherjee writes at BBC travel. As it developed, Nalanda became a “home to nine million books that attracted 10,000 students from across Eastern and Central Asia. They gathered here to learn medicine, logic, mathematics and – above all – Buddhist principles from some of the era’s most revered scholars.”

Alas, despite being much older than the famously venerable universities of Bologna, Oxford, or Cambridge, Nalanda can’t claim to have been in continuous operation since the fifth century. Destroyed by marauders during Turko-Afghan general Bakhtiyar Khilji’s conquest of northern and eastern India in the 1190s, its vast campus lay in obscure ruins until Scottish surveyor Francis Buchanan-Hamilton and British Army engineer Sir Alexander Cunningham rediscovered and identified it, respectively, in the nineteenth century.

In its nearly eight centuries of initial activity, writes Mukherjee, Nalanda attracted proto-international students from all over Asia, and “regularly sent some of its best scholars and professors to places like China, Korea, Japan, Indonesia and Sri Lanka to propagate Buddhist teachings and philosophy.” Its notable faculty members included Aryabhata, “the father of Indian mathematics,” who may have been its head in the sixth century, and Chinese Buddhist monk Xuanzang, who returned to his homeland in 645 with “a wagonload of 657 Buddhist scriptures from Nalanda.” Later “he would translate a portion of these volumes into Chinese to create his life’s treatise.”

Image by Sumitsurai, via Wikimedia Commons

Of the nine million handwritten Buddhist manuscripts in Nalanda’s library at the time of its destruction, “only a handful” survived. Some of them eventually made their way to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, a fitting enough tribute to the world-spanning outlook of the institution. Not far from its original location, now a UNESCO World Heritage site, Nalanda is making a comeback as an international place of learning for the twenty-first century. You can get a sense of how that project is shaping up from the BBC Reel video above. “I think we are already a university of the future,” says its Vice Chancellor Sunaina Singh, and indeed, a promising vision of the future needs nothing quite so much as a sufficiently deep past.

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Based in Seoul, Colin Marshall writes and broadcasts on cities, language, and culture. His projects include the Substack newsletter Books on Cities, the book The Stateless City: a Walk through 21st-Century Los Angeles and the video series The City in Cinema. Follow him on Twitter at @colinmarshall or on Facebook.

“One pill makes you larger and one pill makes you small…”

Sometime in the summer of 2016, this isolated track of Grace Slick’s vocals for “White Rabbit”–probably the most famous Jefferson Airplane song and definitely one of the top ten psychedelic songs of the late ‘60s–popped up YouTube. As these things go, nobody took credit, but everybody on the Internet was thankful.

Drenched in echo, Slick sings with martial precision, completely in command of her vibrato and dipping and rising all through the Phrygian scale (also known as the Spanish or Gypsy scale.) And no wonder, the song was written in 1965 after an LSD trip at her Marin county home where Slick had listened to Miles Davis’ Sketches of Spain over and over again for 24 hours. Compare the original version to Davis’ track “Solea” to hear what I mean.

Bob Irwin, who was in charge of remastering Jefferson Airplane’s catalog in 2003, was the first to hear Slick’s isolated vocals after many, many years:

When you put up the multi- tracks of the performances to something like “White Rabbit” and isolate Grace’s vocal…you can’t believe the intensity in that vocal. It’s hair-raising, and absolutely unbelievable. I was telling Bill Thompson about that. It’s not that I’m so well-seasoned that nothing surprises me, but boy oh boy, when I put that multi up and I heard Grace’s vocal solo-ed—and it’s absolutely whisper-quiet, there’s not an ounce of leakage in there at all—-you can hear every breath drawn and the intensity and the concentration…

Interestingly, when Slick wrote the song, Airplane hadn’t started. Instead she was in a band called The Great Society, and the original jam version doesn’t do justice to the composition.

Rhythm guitarist David Minor recalled that the song came out of a songwriting request to the other members of the band.

“When we started working, nobody had anything because I couldn’t write any more,” he recalls. “I was too busy keeping up with my various jobs. So Grace’s husband Jerry challenged them: ‘What are you gonna do? Let David write all the songs?’ Y’know, ‘Do something!’. So Darby came back with a couple of songs and Grace came back with White Rabbit.”

When the Great Society fell apart, Jefferson Airplane chose Slick as their singer in 1966 and she brought with her “White Rabbit.” The rest is rock history, and a large part of the now-retired Slick’s income.

Note: An earlier version of this post appeared on our site in 2017. It’s a favorite, and today we’re bringing it back for an encore.

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Sketches of Spain, and Hypocritical Parents" href="https://www.openculture.com/2019/10/how-grace-slick-wrote-white-rabbit.html" rel="bookmark">How Grace Slick Wrote “White Rabbit”: The 1960s Classic Inspired by LSD, Lewis Carroll, Miles Davis’ Sketches of Spain, and Hypocritical Parents

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Ted Mills is a freelance writer on the arts who currently hosts the artist interview-based FunkZone Podcast and is the producer of KCRW’s Curious Coast. You can also follow him on Twitter at @tedmills, read his other arts writing at tedmills.com and/or watch his films here.

“Er komt meer cameratoezicht in alle winkels en er komen meer en slimmere steekproeven bij zelfscankassa’s”, las ik bij PrivacyNieuws. Men citeert supermarktketen Jumbo, dat AI-technologie wil gaan inzetten voor gerichte steekproeven bij de zelfscankassa. Hoe zinnig is dat?

Vrijwel alle supermarkten hebben zelfscankassa’s. Dat scheelt immers een hoop geld aan salarissen voor cassières (m/v/x), maar je krijgt er wel meer winkeldiefstal voor terug. Daar moet technologie dan een oplossing voor bieden, en het breed gedragen gevoel is dan dat een steekproef gebaseerd op willekeur niet goed genoeg werkt. Daarom de greep naar AI.

Het lijkt erop dat men niet gaat controleren op kenmerken van de persoon, maar op gedrag: Retaildeskundige Eelco Hos legde begin dit jaar in het Brabants Dagblad uit hoe dit soort AI-controlesystemen eruit kunnen zien. Camera’s zouden kunnen checken wat de klant koopt en scant. Als een product dan niet wordt gescand, vraagt het zelfscanapparaat de klant om dat alsnog te doen. Een andere mogelijkheid is dat een medewerker door de computer wordt gewaarschuwd als iemand niet alles afrekent. Een camera bij de kassa maakt dan een foto van de winkelmand aan de kassa. Deze aanpak heeft in ieder geval niet het nadeel dat men gaat proberen een AI te leren hoe “een gemiddelde winkeldief” eruit ziet – een fundamenteel onjuiste aanpak. Het leidt natuurlijk wel tot een enorme berg aan extra camera’s, en het trainen van een model dat scant wat iemand uit het rek pakt is ook niet triviaal (denk aan terugleggen of 2 stuks pakken, of een donkere verpakking in de hand van een persoon van kleur).

De geciteerde zorg van Bits of Freedom is inderdaad niet onterecht:  “Je hoeft maar een verkeerde beweging te maken en je kunt onterecht als verdacht worden aangemerkt.” Als de camera niet helemaal goed ziet welk product je pakt, dan zal de kassa een discrepantie zien tussen jouw mandje en de werkelijkheid in het systeem, en dat pakt altijd in het nadeel van de klant uit. De Jumbo heeft hier nog geen nadere uitleg over gegeven.

Arnoud PS: Lezen hoe het wel moet? Mijn boek AI and Algorithms gaat in detail in op de juridische en ethische randvoorwaarden van inzet van AI.

Het bericht Alweer controle bij de zelfscankassa? Mogelijk vindt AI je gedrag verdacht verscheen eerst op Ius Mentis.

Enlarge / Space Perspective's first test capsule, Excelsior, has a diameter of approximately 16 feet (4.9 meters). (credit: Space Perspective)

Space Perspective could begin test flights of its privately owned capsule suspended under a high-altitude balloon within the next couple of months, the company's co-founder told Ars this week.

Florida-based Space Perspective released photos of its first completed test capsule Tuesday. The company will use this pressurized capsule, called Excelsior, for a series of test flights this year over the Atlantic Ocean just off the coast of Cape Canaveral. Taber MacCallum, Space Perspective's co-founder and chief technology officer, said employees have also finished fabricating the giant balloon that will lift the test capsule into the upper atmosphere for the first test flight.

The final piece of the puzzle is a ship, named Marine Spaceport Voyager, that Space Perspective will use to launch the balloon and capsule. This vessel is due to depart an outfitting facility in Louisiana in the next few weeks for a trip to Port Canaveral, Florida, where Space Perspective will load aboard the capsule and balloon. Then, perhaps in four to six weeks, ground teams will be ready for the system's first test flight, according to MacCallum.

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Enlarge (credit: Getty Images)

iMessage is getting a major makeover that makes it among the two messaging apps most prepared to withstand the coming advent of quantum computing, largely at parity with Signal or arguably incrementally more hardened.

On Wednesday, Apple said messages sent through iMessage will now be protected by two forms of end-to-end encryption (E2EE), whereas before, it had only one. The encryption being added, known as PQ3, is an implementation of a new algorithm called Kyber that, unlike the algorithms iMessage has used until now, can’t be broken with quantum computing. Apple isn’t replacing the older quantum-vulnerable algorithm with PQ3—it's augmenting it. That means, for the encryption to be broken, an attacker will have to crack both.

The iMessage changes come five months after the Signal Foundation, maker of the Signal Protocol that encrypts messages sent by more than a billion people, updated the open standard so that it, too, is ready for post-quantum computing (PQC). Just like Apple, Signal added Kyber to X3DH, the algorithm it was using previously. Together, they’re known as PQXDH.

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Enlarge / Florida Surgeon General Dr. Joseph Ladapo speaks during a press conference at Neo City Academy in Kissimmee, Florida. (credit: Paul Hennessy/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)

A sixth student at Florida's Manatee Bay Elementary School outside of Fort Lauderdale has a confirmed case of measles, health officials announced late Tuesday. However, health officials are not telling unvaccinated students who were potentially exposed to quarantine.

The school has a low vaccination rate, suggesting that the extremely contagious virus could spark a yet larger outbreak. But in a letter sent to parents late Tuesday, Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo—known for spreading anti-vaccine rhetoric and vaccine misinformation—indicated that unvaccinated students can skip the normally recommended quarantine period.

The letter, signed by Ladapo, noted that people with measles can be contagious from four days before the rash develops through four days after the rash appears. And while symptoms often develop between 8 to 14 days after exposure, the disease can take 21 days to appear. As such, the normal quarantine period for exposed and unvaccinated people, who are highly susceptible to measles, is 21 days.

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Enlarge / Nitrogen tanks holding tens of thousands of frozen embryos and eggs sit in the embryology lab at New Hope Fertility Center in New York City on December 20, 2017. (credit: Getty | Carolyn Van Houten)

The University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) health system is halting in vitro fertilization treatment in the wake of a ruling by the state's Supreme Court on Friday that deemed frozen embryos to be "children," The ruling opens up anyone who destroys embryos to liability in a wrongful death lawsuit, according to multiple media reports.

The announcement—the first facility to report halting IVF services—is the much-feared outcome of Friday's ruling, which was widely decried by reproductive health advocates.

"We are saddened that this will impact our patients' attempt to have a baby through IVF, but we must evaluate the potential that our patients and our physicians could be prosecuted criminally or face punitive damages for following the standard of care for IVF treatments," UAB said a statement to media. The statement noted that egg retrieval would continue but that egg fertilization and embryo development are now paused.

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