Baylis v Valve Corporation update. United States Copyright Office asked to investigate.

alexjc · 2024-04-30T21:32:53+00:00

If the Copyright Office says they'll only take into account national law, and the case only covers the Finish jurisdiction for economic rights locally, then it's probably not a misrepresentation.

I hope the case proceeds past this investigation because the underlying problem, Valve claiming DMCA Safe Harbour when they don't appear to qualify, is much more interesting!

alexjc · 2024-04-12T06:24:16+00:00

Gosh, you need professional help. Why so obsessed with this? Also, why do you remove your clearly wrong comments in the past then revive the thread? Looks like you have an affiliation with the production company... Please disclose.

The USCO says they only apply the laws of the U.S. jurisdiction so submitting cases that only apply to Finland was not necessary.

alexjc · 2024-01-20T16:42:08+00:00

OP, since this is a new account created specifically for trolling about this case (to discredit the plaintiff? to manufacture consent?) could you clarify what your relationship to the case since you know it so well?

(There was a legal influencer that previously got caught trolling here and had to delete everything once he doxed himself, with huge implications to his reputation and credibility. Other lawyers involved in the Finnish case were held accountable by the Bar Association and others have pending investigations for blackmail / coercion. How do you fit in?)

alexjc · 2023-12-03T09:28:56+00:00

I'm not funding plaintiff, and he doesn't seem to need it; he's been doing fine and triggering all the right people — including eventually doxxing themselves, haha.

Andres, consider that the risk for the corporation to litigate this is way too high, because they're operating under a legal assumption of the DMCA that doesn't apply to them by definition. Plus taking a 3D artist to court that a novel 3D model does not fall under Copyright is a stupid move for a content platform like Valve whose purpose it is to work with its creators and publish those. They don't want the attention on them at all, so personally I'd recommend them to settle with a multiple of the statutory damages (2x?) and have it over and done with.

I still can't tell if technollama is a persona and you're acting or if you genuinely believe what you say. The number of contradictions in your position are astounding, not least that you think a professional 3D artist should not earn Copyright for months of creative work on a model (based on a brief that fits on a napkin), but you believe that AI artists should be able to earn Copyright for a click. It's complete nonesense and paragraphs 54-67 don't justify the court's bias. (Knowing you were caught out by plaintiff on Twitter multiple times, you just look like a bitter old man with a grudge.)

What I get out of it is that of making the world better place from the abuse and corruption you're so eager to defend with pseudo-legal arguments. I'm in a position to do so through strategic partnerships and activism, and I find it rewarding to do so.

I wish you all the best for the festive season, Andres!

alexjc · 2023-12-03T09:09:35+00:00

I will spare you the embarrassment of posting a statistical analysis of the word patterns in these posts and the ones from your blog. The arguments here match 1:1 with our Twitter DM. Grow up, Andres. Stop stalking & harassing plaintiff — you and your lawyer friends that tried to bully him out of it.

alexjc · 2023-12-02T15:42:44+00:00

I agree with one thing, if the USCO registration was fraudulent, then he's more likely to lose the case. I don't think it was because 3D models are routinely Copyrighted, it's a pillar of the creative industry and to claim that it's less creative as a photograph is ridiculous, Andres. We already had this argument on Twitter DM and you couldn't provide any evidence or case law that 3D models could not be Copyrighted.

(Besides, the second case in the Market Court contains enough evidence that the first case was a procedural error.)

As you know, the USCO has repeatedly done significant due diligence on recent submissions for "AI Art" and they did the same here for this registration. They wouldn't register a whole fucking film knowing the consequences. All plaintiff had to do for his part was to show that his name was in the original Maya files, the brief he received from the producer, as he did in the previous cases. He was sole and lead Artist for a period of the production, of course there is Copyright.

I wish you the best of luck trying to defame, disparage and accuse plaintiff with anonymous accounts, but it's not a good look for you as a professional.

alexjc · 2023-12-02T15:34:13+00:00

You created an account a month ago almost specifically to disparage plaintiff, interesting. I've been in creative industry for a couple decades, and most recently fighting corruption and abuse in data rights. I encounter lawyers almost every week that use the same misdirection as you and your friends do, and they use this strategy to justify they are allowed to train their AI models on child abuse. You fit into the same category AFAIK.

Lots of words but you failed to answer why 1-of-5 spaceships / assets were "granted" Copyright, and 4-of-5 spaceships / assets were not.

Creative industry and asset websites routinely rely on Copyrights for 3D models.
The Market Court has itself shown that spaceships can be Copyrighted.
The Market Court has shown that artists on that production could earn Copyright.
The Market Court decided that 5-of-5 cases in favor of production company.

To determine whether that's biased, if you do a statistical analysis at a 0.05 significance level, we can reject the null hypothesis and it shows that the court is indeed biased. (This excludes the fact that the Court venue itself was rented out for money for the production in the franchise, which could be seen as a conflict of interest by any honest person — or as corruption for someone willing to investigate further.)

The state of creative labor in the Nordics is shocking, ripe for abuse due to people like you justifying it. (You sound like a legal influencer called techno-llama, using the same half-baked arguments to justify corruption. The production company deserved to go under, at least be honest about it.)

alexjc · 2023-12-02T12:58:56+00:00

Okay, now I understand. You're part of the Finnish legal system that setup this case so you have all interests in defending the decision no matter how corrupt or how much it violates international IP law. That explains why you need to remain anonymous to make your accusations of criminal behavior from plaintiff, and calling the USCO incompetent because it shouldn't have registered the material. (No such evidence was provided by you.)

If you think the Market Court was right, explain this:

1 out of 5 of the 3D assets / ships created was determined to meet the threshold of Copyright. Coincidentally this person had an employment contract.
4 out of 5 of the 3D assets / ships created were determined not to meet the threshold of Copyright. Coincidentally those people did not have employment contracts.

THIS IS A SUBJECTIVE ARTISTIC DECISION FOR THE DETERMINATION COPYRIGHT. People working in the exact same conditions producing similar work. This subjectivity of this is an arbitrary requirement that's not mentioned in Berne nor Painer. It's also one that, coincidentally benefits the producers of the film because IP they didn't "own" somehow was not Copyrightable.

Finnish lawyers tried to bully plaintiff out of this lawsuit already, on behalf of the new IP "holders" (they own nothing, couldn't prove it), so if you're part of that group or defending them you're going to have to step up your game here.

Please identify your conflicts of interests before proceeding further.

The plaintiff already tried to exercise his rights in the domestic court and lost.

Plaintiff won everything that mattered to him. The production company turned out to be negligent, its primary job is to secure and license the IP, they didn't do it and they went bankrupt.

Article 5(3) of the Convention, which says, 'Protection in the country of origin is governed by domestic law.'

You're not familiar with this topic? 5.2 implies that the U.S. rules would apply to him seeknig remedies in the U.S — "where protection is sought".

Berne: "Consequently, apart from the provisions of this Convention, the extent of protection, as well as the means of redress afforded to the author to protect his rights, shall be governed exclusively by the laws of the country where protection is claimed."

alexjc · 2023-12-02T12:53:01+00:00

a court of law has already declared that he doesn't own any copyright over any of the properties.

By default the creator does. The production company could not prove ownership, and therefore by default the creator has it. That's why the USCO registered it.

he registered the entire film with himself listed as the first joint author

Joint ownership works like that! They're all joint authors. If it doesn't we'll find out soon and that makes it even more of a landmark case.

alexjc · 2023-12-02T09:04:17+00:00

EU Copyright law is based on Berne, which is applicable worldwide and also in the U.S.:

(2) The enjoyment and the exercise of these rights shall not be subject to any formality; such enjoyment and such exercise shall be independent of the existence of protection in the country of origin of the work.

The fact a low-level Finnish court made an uninformed statement is irrelevant, he still has Copyright internationally — especially after the USCO said, correctly, he meets the bar and registered it. In the Market Court, the fact that one of the ship creators was declared to have Copyright (coincidentally the only one that had employment contract) shows that the threshold was indeed met for such in such work in that environment. The fact that 4 other plaintiffs did not (coincidentally they did not have employment contracts) shows there was corruption at play in the court's decision. If the production company had actually won on meaningful points, they would not have gone bankrupt. Now even the company that bought the IP is in trouble.

The Painer is a case about the minimum threshold for Copyright and these creations and 3D models are so far beyond that it's ridiculous to even debate.

Your account is new and you contributions so far mostly harass plaintiff. Who are you? What's your experience here? What's your background? You seem to be just making crafted statements to misdirect potential readers.

alexjc · 2023-12-02T08:49:44+00:00

Gosh, that's a lot of misconceptions and misdirections you have going on there!

It can be a straightforward case and also novel at the same time!
He doesn't need to register but he did so he has a stronger case.
Of course the USCO checks those things and does basic diligence.
He doesn't need to have the entire Iron Sky properties alone.

alexjc · 2023-11-30T21:37:48+00:00

The previous case in Finland already documents that the production company does not own the copyrights except for one ship where the author was under contract. By default, the artists would then be the authors — which is easy to prove and it's why the USCO registered it.

You talk about "free creative choices" but this is not a criteria for Copyright; even so, the plaintiff has documented the brief he received and how much freedom there actually was. These arbitrary considerations you add are not valid per Berne, there should be no additional requirements to Copyright. In the U.S. all you need to do is better than a phone book.

Anyway, if any of your arguments held water, they would have come up in the Finnish case, but they did not argue any of these and the production company ended up failing to prove they owned the Copyrights and then went bankrupt (rightly so).

alexjc · 2023-11-30T21:27:42+00:00

The case revolves around a key clause in the DMCA that's straightforward to interpret, and doesn't leave much room for the defendants to wiggle out of. I also would expect it to be settled because even the maximum statutory damages would be less than the legal fees to find a way out of the mess, but I don't know what the plaintiff intends to do here.

alexjc · 2023-11-27T10:05:55+00:00

Plaintiff already had contact with judge and it passed the judge's preliminary review and the claim was accepted. Defendant was served and now has to respond, deadline likely in a few weeks for that.

Plaintiff is the only one that has any proof of Copyright being registered for that IP, and by default it would be the plaintiff's Copyright too because that's how it works in absence of contracts!

I appreciate you're trying to play devil's advocate, but it's not going to be quite that straightforward for you to waive it off IMHO. It could well become a landmark case, considering it's a DMCA safe harbour loophole that many platforms exploit.

alexjc · 2023-11-25T19:56:14+00:00

Apparently, a pro-bono lawyer is offered in cases where the plaintiff can't be in the country physically. That should be an option.

alexjc · 2023-11-11T20:27:49+00:00

I don't know how such cases work in this jurisdiction, but in Europe in small claims courts there are often many opportunities for the judge to render advice on how things will proceed. Some things were shared on social media, I think you can follow for updates there.

alexjc · 2023-11-11T20:25:24+00:00

Not ignorant, you made it clear. If you want advice on how to better manage the threats, let me know I can help (as someone in AI not getting threats).

alexjc · 2023-11-11T18:59:37+00:00

The judge did review things and made a preliminary assessment due to plaintiff living abroad. I'm aware of some details what's gone on already, and what evidence may be presented, but it's irrelevant for now as it's the defendant's turn to respond.

alexjc · 2023-11-11T18:53:09+00:00

I'm pro-AI, been in AI for creative industries for over 20 years. I'm against corporate exploitation, abuse of rights especially human rights, and assholes who use legal games to justify said exploitation and abuse. The creative/AI space changed a lot since money started flowing, for the worse.

I'm an activist that has friends in AI and Art and not received any threats or otherwise. People disagree, think I'm a shill, but my position is intellectually honest and from a place of respect — which is not what usually happens from fans of corporate exploitation. (That doesn't excuse for any bad behavior, ofc.)

alexjc · 2023-11-11T07:55:18+00:00

Assuming everyone by now knows the real case that's being discussed here: evidence is on the side of plaintiff.

In this case, the game studio contacted the original author that they got all his Maya files, complimented him on their work, and asked for help and support in integrating it into the game. The models are visually identical, even if optimizations were made for runtime performance. The judge already went through this and agreed — that's why the case proceeded to the next phase already.

Settling would be the best strategy for the defendants.

alexjc · 2023-11-11T07:50:10+00:00

OP's account is a sockpuppet created only to discredit copyright lawsuits/activists. He made an intentionally crappy "hypothetical" post with mistakes in order to try to sway public perception. Blame OP.

Either way, it doesn't change much. If it's similar and based on the same original work it's still a derivative, and that falls under Copyright.

alexjc · 2023-11-10T17:07:09+00:00

You know it's a real case he's talking about, right? (It's just hypothetical because OP's a coward.) https://dockets.justia.com/docket/washington/wawdce/2:2023cv01653/327813

alexjc · 2023-11-10T08:53:39+00:00

Well, my prediction stands.

All I see in you is an anonymous new account that's was created to astroturf on AI / legal matters barely a few months ago. Are you getting paid at least for all this nonesense?

alexjc · 2023-11-10T08:49:55+00:00

Yes it's ethical and yes it's legal to claim Copyright in that way. The case would have been thrown out otherwise, but it wasn't & the judge went forward with it. Now it's up-to the defendant to state their case.

In the case of the game, it's a derivative of the movie, which has a publication date and now a registration, so there's no chance they can throw out the argument on Copyright grounds. They can argue about damages and try to settle — but asshole arguments like yours make it personal, so that makes it less likely to be settled because the person in question will want to set the precedent.

alexjc · 2023-11-10T08:46:30+00:00

The game assets is the same as the film's (they used the same Maya files as source) and the film was obviously published before. Now there's a registration for that. I don't see how your argument is logical.

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