UK proposes letting tech firms use copyrighted work to train AI

Surprise! Enjoy the least surprising headline of the day:

Yep, an AI “created” this image. TVW is posting it hoping someone will be able to tell us its source/sources so we can give credit where credit is due

UK proposes letting tech firms use copyrighted work to train AI
by
Dan Milmo and Robert Booth

Campaigners for the protection of the rights of creatives have criticised a UK government proposal to let artificial intelligence companies train their algorithms on their works under a new copyright exemption.

Book publishers said the proposal put out for consultation on Tuesday was “entirely untested and unevidenced” while Beeban Kidron, a crossbench peer campaigning to protect artists’ and creatives’ rights, said she was “very disappointed”. read article

LB: The Ever-Continuing Changing of the Guard

by Larry Brody

Alas, poor Netflix. Sacrificing quality for quantity never really works in the arts. And, yes, I still consider film and TV to be arts.

Reality Check is HERE read article

LB: Have You Read ‘SHuSH?

by Larry Brody

Earlier this week I recommended a book by the brothers Howard (AKA Ron and Clint). Today I’m recommending something book-related but not a book.

Nosirree. This time around I’m talking about an e-newsletter.

And not just any e-newsletter. A genuine literary one, about subjects of interest to non-fiction writers and readers. read article

Herbie J Pilato Scores Deals for 1-2-3 New Books!

TVWriter™ Contributing Editor Emeritus Herbie J Pilato has inked deals to pen biographies of legendary actors Sean Connery and Diana Rigg, and a combined book about the equally iconic producers/directors George Lucas and Steven Spielberg and their blockbusting influence in Hollywood and with movie-going audiences around the world.

Repped by the Lee Sobel Literary Agency and attorney Gregory Tanner of the Tanner Firm, Pilato is the author of the critically-acclaimed, top-selling celebrity bios Twitch Upon a Star: The Bewitched Life and Career of Elizabeth
Montgomery
, and Mary: The Mary Tyler Moore Story, among several other
successful media tie-in tomes. 
read article

Are We in the Publishing Industry’s Endtimes?

WTF? It’s 2020 and publishers are only freaking out now about public libraries carrying e-pubbed books?  Ooh, “Bad libraries, bad….”

For crying out loud….

from Getty Images

by Aarian Marshall

BEFORE SARAH ADLER moved to Maryland last week, she used library cards from her Washington, DC, home and neighboring counties in Virginia and Maryland to read books online. The Libby app, a slick and easy-to-use service from the company OverDrive, gave her access to millions of titles. When she moved, she picked up another card, and access to another library’s e-collection, as well as a larger consortium that the library belongs to. She does almost all of her reading on her phone, through the app, catching a page or two between working on her novels and caring for her 2-year-old. With her husband also at home, she’s been reading more books, mostly historical romance and literature, during the pandemic. In 2020, she estimates, she’s read 150 books. read article