"Holly+" unsettles narratives of voice ownership and offers a vision of communal music making Gina Markov on September 3, 2021 In July 2021, Berlin-based electronic musician Holly Herndon launched a new project called Holly+. Holly+ is an artificial intelligence voice model that, when fed any song or recording, outputs a version “sung” in Herndon’s voice–like an audio deepfake. The model has been trained on Herndon’s vocal recordings, creating a “vocal puppetry” effect that bears resemblance to Herndon’s real voice but retains a unique “machine learning, scratchy kind of neural net sound.” In essence, Holly+ turns Herndon’s voice into an instrument from which to build new pieces of music.
Germany’s Apex Federal Court voids parts of Facebook’s Term of Services Shreya Tewari on August 23, 2021 On July 29, 2021, the Bundesgerichtshof, Germany’s Federal Supreme Court, invalidated parts of Facebook’s Terms of Service (ToS) relating to community guidelines and ruled that Online Service Providers (OSPs) would be required to inform their users about the removal of posts ex-post at the least and about blocking of user accounts ex-ante. In both cases, the Court noted that the user must be given an opportunity to be heard before a new decision is made on that individual case.
The Olympics, the IOC, Streaming and Copyright Gaby Papper on August 22, 2021 How does the IOC allocate broadcast rights for the Olympic Games? How has the IOC addressed the rise in digital streaming platforms and potential for copyright infringement?
Right to be Forgotten in India Shreya Tewari on August 13, 2021 The contentious “right to be forgotten” has once again found itself at the forefront of jurisprudence in India. In July 2021, Ashutosh Kaushik, an Indian reality TV celebrity, petitioned the Delhi High Court, seeking that his drunk driving videos that date back to 2009 be de-indexed and removed from online platforms.
The United States Revisits a Data Protection Act Gaby Papper on August 10, 2021 On June 17, 2021, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand announced the Data Protection Act of 2021, which is a revival of the Data Protection Act of 2020 bill that Gillibrand introduced in February 2020. This updated bill, which is co-sponsored by Sherrod Brown, would establish a new U.S. federal agency, the Data Protection Agency (“DPA”), that would address privacy concerns and data protection matters.
The Weaponization of Copyright by Police Officers and the Need to Automate Fair Use Shreya Tewari on August 6, 2021 In July 2021, an on-duty police officer in Alameda County being videoed by activists took out his phone and played ‘Blank Space’ by Taylor Swift, in hopes of hindering social media circulation of the video by attracting the attention of automated copyright enforcement algorithms. This was merely one of the more recent examples of a larger unsettling trend in law enforcement where police officers are weaponizing copyrighted music to thwart bystander recordings of police from going viral.
Lumen Researcher Interview Series: Andrea Fuller, Wall Street Journal the Lumen Team on August 5, 2021 The Lumen team interviews Andrea Fuller of the Wall Street Journal about her research within the Lumen database
Lumen seeks examples of fake takedown notices Lumen Team on July 31, 2021 Lumen is collecting examples of backdated specious takedown notices.
Reflections on Care and Dissent in the New AI Lexicon Gina Markov on July 28, 2021 In the beginning of 2021, the AI Now Institute launched “A New AI Lexicon,” a collection of contributions assessing language about critical AI topics. This includes resituating and retooling common AI buzzwords as well as focusing on underexplored, alternative narratives around AI technology.
Lumen Researcher Interview Series: Professor Daniel Seng Adam Holland, Shreya Tewari on July 22, 2021 In part two of Lumen's Researcher Interview Series, Professor Daniel Seng from the National University of Singapore discusses his research methodology when writing about DMCA notices and analysing over 9 million notices in the database!
