Casini
Music publishing professional, rights and royalties attorney, Professor, consigliere. "Another lawyer," according to the Wall Street Journal.
LinkedIn.com/in/casini
- The latest lawsuit (Sony) v. DSW isn't just another case. It’s a promise kept and should be an alarm for every brand / agency clinging to the myth that platform licenses magically cover comm'l use. They don’t. Never have. Hoping otherwise is a liability. t.co/vELzcCDTRz
- The idea that “everyone does it” or “the music was on TikTok” is the same logic the legal dept decries and marketing and sales hope matters, but it's getting companies blindsided by seven-figure claims. This isn't nuanced: using music to sell something? Get a license. Period.
- Courts have upheld this for decades, and no amount of fast-fashion, "creator economy" influencer culture is going to rewrite that. For rightsholders and their advisors, this is the moment to get loud. Enforcement matters, and not just for revenues.
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View full threadIf you advise brands, stop letting them peddle products with others' IP. Be the good partner, I promise you rightsholders are open to making licensing fast, easy, and in many cases less expensive than you think. The cost of doing it right is always less than the cost of getting caught.
- The Blumenthal-Hawley AI Accountability and Data Protection Act doesn’t nibble around the edges. It literally calls AI training without consent “the largest intellectual property theft in American history.”
- The bill creates a new federal tort for artists and consumers whose data or works have been scraped, trained on, or mimicked by generative AI systems. It bypasses the limitations of copyright law, sidesteps the DMCA, and removes Section 230 immunity for AI-generated content.
- No registration required. No fair use defense. Just a clear path to court. It’s a bold, bipartisan signal that Congress is no longer content to let the courts sort it out piecemeal.
- A warning shot to AI developers that the era of unregulated data mining may be ending? Sure, but it may be placing an undue burden on individuals and rightsholders. My analysis: lnkd.in/ebG2QRjT
- As Counsel to the Music Fights Fraud Alliance, I give full-throated support to the defense of the integrity of music streaming, and fandom. Michael Lewan's recent Billboard column rightly identifies artificial streaming as the most immediate threat to the music industry. t.co/nK4ab44BFD
- AI is a real concern. Cases like the Anthropic class action may reshape the legal landscape and change behavior, but AI's direct negative impact is still somewhat abstracted. Artificial streaming is happening now, and it’s prodigious, organized, criminal, and global.
- Recent cases make this clear: In Brazil, authorities uncovered a scheme involving 28 million fake streams, fake artist profiles, and AI-generated music, resulting in arrests and asset seizures exceeding $400,000. t.co/yZqQQs4AX5
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View full threadArtificial streaming fraud is theft, and it demands immediate, coordinated action. Support this call for clarity and accountability and join us in protecting the integrity of digital music. t.co/Nw6RSHoxHj
- Really fun and frankly proud news to share: on the heels of my dear friend Maggie Rose signing on, I've officially joined the Folk Americana Roots Hall of Fame Board of Artist/Industry Advisors.
- "As computer technology develops and becomes more sophisticated, difficult questions of authorship are emerging. The Copyright Office had previously received an application for registration of a musical composition created by computer...
- ...This year, copyright was claimed for an abstract drawing, and for compilations of various kinds, which were at least partly the "work" of computers. It is certain that both the number of works proximately produced or "written" by computers...
- The crucial question appears to be whether the work is basically one of human authorship, with the computer merely being an assisting instrument, or whether the traditional elements of authorship in the work...were actually conceived and executed not by man but by a machine."
- 68th Annual Report of the Register of Copyrights, 1966 www.copyright.gov/reports/annu...
- As the end of my semester meets the announcement of the new Pope, the story of Michelangelo and the Sistine Chapel seems very relevant. Censoring the Sistine Chapel threadreaderapp.com/scrolly/1920...
- Extremely happy for friend client and colleague Prof. Erik Nielson, University of Richmond, for his Outstanding Arts and Culture Documentary Emmy nomination as Producer on "As We Speak: Rap Music on Trial" www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-news/2...
- You can watch it in its entirety on Paramount + www.paramountplus.com/movies/video...
- The fine folk at Salt Lick Incubator invited me to join their Leadership Council and I didn’t even let Liza finish the pitch before I accepted. They're just the type of people and organization I want to work with. Visit www.saltlickincubator.org to see how we support indie artists.
- This may not be a stated goal of current immigration policy, but silencing expressions of culture that are considered minority is an absolutely foreseeable outcome, and immigration is now a censorship weapon. Maybe it always was. Thank you, Griselda Flores.
- Not just being a member but contributing to advocacy efforts of the Recording Academy has been a great privilege. I'm extremely proud of the work done to forward legislation in states nationwide to address the use of art as evidence in criminal trials. www.grammy.com/news/2024-gr...
- In a win for the First Amendment, SCOTUS denied certiorari to a petition by casino mogul Steve Wynn that sought to expand libel laws and curtail the free press. This time, Thomas did not dissent. t.co/p7RO3dZUTt
- NYT v. Sullivan is "unfit for the modern era..." the petition said. "[I]n this age of clickbait journalism, even those members of the legacy media have resorted to libelous headlines and false reports to generate views. This Court need not further this golden era of lies."
- Wynn petitioned SCOTUS after Nevada's high court dismissed a 2018 lawsuit against the AP related to an article published that reported on police records from the '70s that included allegations of sexual misconduct against him. Wynn has firmly denied the allegations. law.justia.com/cases/nevada...
- The original article in question apnews.com/general-news...
- New Lawsuit Dropped! Last week Brave Software, of the privacy-focused Brave Browser/search engine, filed for declaratory judgment in California's northern district to head off claims made in a cease-and-desist from News Corp alleging infringement. www.law.com/therecorder/...
- The heart of the dispute is Brave’s scraping "publicly available" content. Brave asserts its practice of indexing content and presenting “snippets” is classic fair use. News Corp contends this practice is unlawful, and undermines its market position. AWF v. Goldsmith in action.
- Brave accuses News Corp of copyright misuse, of restricting fair use, of violating public policy, yada yada. But they also claim any breach claim should be preempted by Copyright. That's the part I find most interesting. If TOS violations aren’t preempted state courts will try these cases.
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View full threadThe outcome of this matter, destined for appeal, could set big precedent. A Brave win can reinforce fair use and create opps for smaller tech companies to compete, but only if it’s copyright. If News Corp wins, it may = tighter restrictions on access and scraping, but as adjudged by the state courts
