Mediagazer: Legal experts offer mixed opinions about how earlier copyright and fair use cases may affect The New York Times' generative AI case against OpenAI and Microsoft (Washington Post)

12:45 PM ET, January 7, 2024

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Armando Tinoco / Deadline:

In response to Pat McAfee's claims, ESPN says no one is more committed to ESPN's success than Norby Williamson and it will “handle this matter internally” — ESPN is responding to claims made by Pat McAfee that an executive from within the sports network is “trying to sabotage” his show.

Discussion: ESPN Press Room U.S., The Pat McAfee Show on YouTube, New York Post, Awful Announcing and Sports Media Watch

Sharon Knolle / The Wrap:

Pat McAfee, who signed a lucrative deal in 2023 for his YouTube show to air on ESPN, accuses top ESPN executive Norby Williamson of “sabotaging” his program — The former NFL punter accuses Norby Williamson of leaking inaccurate ratings information — Video

Christine Burke / Bloomberg:

Radio network Audacy reaches a deal with a supermajority of its debt holders that allows Audacy to reduce its total debt load by 80% to ~$350M — - Deal announced Sunday will reduce total debt load by 80% — Radio, podcast company also files for Chapter 11 protection

Discussion: Radio & Television …, Inside Radio, @lucas_shaw, @lucas_shaw, @lucas_shaw, The Hollywood Reporter and RAIN News

Dan Kennedy / Media Nation:

Cost-cutting by Alden Global Capital and Gannett at legacy newspapers inadvertently created “a call to arms” that helped boost startup local news projects — Is there a silver lining hiding somewhere inside the rise of newspaper ownership by private equity? Brant Houston says yes.

Discussion: Gateway Journalism Review and Simon Owens's Media Newsletter

Kayleigh Barber / Digiday:

Top execs at Bloomberg, The Atlantic, The Independent, The Wall Street Journal, Time, and Vox Media express caution and sometimes optimism about 2024 ad revenue — Media execs are setting their ad revenue goals for 2024 with an abundance of caution as they wait and see just how much of the …

Discussion: Nicholas Thompson on LinkedIn

Financial Times:

Source: the British Library plans to spend £6M to £7M, or ~40% of its reserves, to recover from an October 2023 cyberattack that took down most of its services — London-based institution faces spending millions of pounds to rebuild most digital services

Oliver Darcy / CNN:

Taylor Swift's associates say they are dismayed by an NYT opinion piece that speculated on Swift's sexuality, calling it “invasive, untrue, and inappropriate” — A controversial New York Times opinion piece that openly speculated this week whether Taylor Swift is a closeted queer person …

Discussion: TMZ.com, @gartenberg, The Wrap, Page Six, @karaswisher@threads.net, @karaswisher@threads.net, @mossbergwalt@threads.net, @oliverdarcy@threads.net and New York Times

Scott Roxborough / The Hollywood Reporter:

Universal had the largest share of 2023's global box office, after releasing 24 films that made $4.91B, dethroning Disney, which had the top spot since 2016 — Box office jumped more than 8 percent to $1.35 billion but remained well below pre-COVID levels. — Thank you Barbenheimer.

Discussion: Deadline and Deadline

Naman Ramachandran / Variety: Comscore: UK and Ireland box office revenue rose 8.3% YoY to £1.06B in 2023, the first time it crossed £1B since 2019; box office from 2015-2019 was £1.3B+/year

IEEE Spectrum:

How Midjourney v6 and DALL-E 3 produce “plagiaristic outputs”, even when not directly asked to do so, which could expose users to copyright infringement claims — This is a guest post. The views expressed here are solely those of the authors and do not represent positions of IEEE Spectrum or the IEEE.

Discussion: @rahll, @garymarcus, Matt Marturano on LinkedIn, @tylerking.bsky.social, @baldur@toot.cafe, Tom's Hardware, Rafael Brown on LinkedIn and @clemens.vasters.com, more at Techmeme »

Wall Street Journal:

A look at the ambitious bid to turn around the Golden Globes, as a source say CBS is paying a significantly lower licensing fee than the ~$60M NBC used to pay — The Golden Globes are back with new owners, new prizes and a new network. Now they need viewers to tune back in.

Discussion: Associated Press, New York Post, Vogue, Vanity Fair, Reuters, @albertfong98, CBS News, KTFT, E! Online, New York Times, Awardsdaily, Forbes, Variety and Fox News

Robert D. McFadden / New York Times:

Joseph Lelyveld, The New York Times executive editor from 1994 to 2001 and Pulitzer Prize winner, dies at 86 from complications of Parkinson's disease — As executive editor from 1994 to 2001, he oversaw a period of growth, expanding national and international readerships …

Discussion: @mirtaojito, @dvnjr, @benjbrantley, @dvnjr, @peterbakernyt, @adamnagourney, @danbarrynyt, @marklandler, @stephenkinzer, @brentnyt, Deadline, Marc Lacey on LinkedIn and @jeffjarvis@mastodon.social

Anthony Crupi / Sportico:

Nielsen: NFL made up 93 of 2023's 100 most-watched TV broadcasts, up from 82 in 2022; SOTU and Macy's Parade were the only non-football broadcasts in the top 50 — The actor's glum endorsement of the generic—he looked like a referee who'd been going through a bad divorce …

Discussion: Axios, @sacnesseverdeen, @storminspank, @dinodoodetv, @sportico, @joepompliano, @dylanbyers, @joepompliano, Front Office Sports, Mediaite, College Sports Wire and @joelmathis.bsky.social

Dade Hayes / Deadline:

WBD's Max delays plans to start charging for its Bleacher Report sports tier “for a few more months”; the original start date was the end of February 2024 — EXCLUSIVE: Warner Bros. Discovery plans to launch the paid version of its B/R Sports Add-On several months from now, a shift from the company's initial guidance.

Discussion: Variety, The Hollywood Reporter, The Desk, @davezatz, Sports Media Watch, Awful Announcing, The Wrap and The Verge

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More News:

Washington Post:
Legal experts offer mixed opinions about how earlier copyright and fair use cases may affect The New York Times' generative AI case against OpenAI and Microsoft

Discussion: @carnage4life@mas.to, @newsalliance, @washingtonpost, @willoremus@threads.net, @willoremus@mastodon.social, @MattHodges@mastodon.social, Digital Journal and Publishing Perspectives, more at Techmeme »

Andrew Kersley / Press Gazette:
Analysis: the percentage of fully granted FOI requests in the UK fell from 55% in 2013 to 29% in 2022; in Q2 2023, public bodies granted 34% of FOI requests

Discussion: @rosenbaum6 and @georgegreenwood

Jules Roscoe / VICE:
After WHYY fired a reporter in 2023 for jokes he made as a stand-up comedian, an arbitrator ruled he must be reinstated but delete his jokes from social media

Discussion: @constans, @mattzeitlin, @johnsemley3000, @moorehn, Rolling Stone, @jendiagammon@threads.net, @dathinkyparts@threads.net and @daveleebbg@threads.net

Alex Weprin / The Hollywood Reporter:
The SEC rules that Disney must have a vote on a proposal for a transparency report on Disney's use of AI at its next shareholder meeting

Discussion: The Wrap and Reuters

Alexandra Bruell / Wall Street Journal:
Puck names ex-Twitter executive Sarah Personette as its new CEO; source: the two-year-old publication has 40K paying subscribers and $10M+ in revenue in 2023

Discussion: The Information, @kurtwagner8, @alexbruell, @dylanbyers, @teddyschleifer, Richie Grin on LinkedIn, AJ Brown on LinkedIn, Liz Gough on LinkedIn, Brian Poliakoff on LinkedIn, The Wrap, Sarah Personette on LinkedIn, Variety and Stephanie Prager on LinkedIn

Earlier Picks:

Jessica Toonkel / Wall Street Journal:
Sources: Netflix is weighing how to make money from video games, like via IAPs and ads; Apptopia: as of October 2023, <1% of subscribers played its games daily

Discussion: ClutchPoints, @davemorgannyc, Thurrott, Peter Kuo on LinkedIn, TechCrunch, IndieWire, @carnage4life@mas.to, The Streamable, Chris Heatherly on LinkedIn and Christian Grece on LinkedIn

Press Gazette:
Analysis: in 2023, media outlets in the UK, the US, and Canada cut at least 7,900 jobs and only made 361 announcements for new positions

Casey Newton / Platformer:
Substack wants to be seen as a pure infrastructure provider, akin to Cloudflare, but Substack can't claim to be simple infrastructure while recommending content

Benjamin Mullin / New York Times:
Sources: The Messenger made ~$3M in revenue in 2023 and told potential investors it had $1.8M in cash on hand at the end of December after losing ~$38M in 2023

Discussion: Craig Greiwe on LinkedIn, @maxwelltani, @tvgrimreaper, @arctictony@threads.net, The Wrap, New York Post, @ckrewson, @emilybell, @royprice, @benmullin, @emilybell, Axios, Andy Barr on LinkedIn, Sara Fischer on LinkedIn, Julie Westfall on LinkedIn, Defector and Axios

Om Malik / On my Om:
The decline of Wired, once a magazine that inspired hope in technology's future, illustrates a broader loss of necessary optimism among tech writing communities

Discussion: @jasonkoebler@threads.net, @spencerreiss, @johnnylaird, @keithgrossman, Steve Makofsky on LinkedIn and @joelmathis.bsky.social

From Techmeme:

Meta:
Meta launches Llama 4 Maverick with 400B parameters and Scout with 109B parameters and a 10M context window, and previews Behemoth with 2T total parameters

Emanuel Maiberg / 404 Media:
In backing Trump, effective accelerationists like Musk and Andreessen got a “Decel-in-Chief”, who instigated a brain drain and tariffs that hurt tech companies

Makena Kelly / Wired:
Sources: DOGE is hosting a “hackathon” in Washington DC next week to build a “mega API” for accessing all IRS data, with Palantir as a possible partner

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