The New York Times is suing Perplexity for copyright infringement, accusing the AI startup of repackaging its paywalled reporting without permission. TechCrunch reports: The Times joins several media outlets suing Perplexity, including the Chicago Tribune, which also filed suit this week. The Times' suit claims that "Perplexity provides commercial products to its own users that substitute" for the outlet, "without permission or remuneration." [...] "While we believe in the ethical and responsible use and development of AI, we firmly object to Perplexity's unlicensed use of our content to develop and promote their products," Graham James, a spokesperson for The Times, said in a statement. "We will continue to work to hold companies accountable that refuse to recognize the value of our work." Similar to the Tribune's suit, the Times takes issue with Perplexity's method for answering user queries by gathering information from websites and databases to generate responses via its retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) products, like its chatbots and Comet browser AI assistant. "Perplexity then repackages the original content in written responses to users," the suit reads. "Those responses, or outputs, often are verbatim or near-verbatim reproductions, summaries, or abridgments of the original content, including The Times's copyrighted works." Or, as James put it in his statement, "RAG allows Perplexity to crawl the internet and steal content from behind our paywall and deliver it to its customers in real time. That content should only be accessible to our paying subscribers." The Times also claims Perplexity's search engine has hallucinated information and falsely attributed it to the outlet, which damages its brand. "Publishers have been suing new tech companies for a hundred years, starting with radio, TV, the internet, social media, and now AI," Jesse Dwyer, Perplexity's head of communications, told TechCrunch. "Fortunately it's never worked, or we'd all be talking about this by telegraph."

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A federal judge has ordered OpenAI to hand over 20 million anonymized ChatGPT logs in its copyright battle with the New York Times and other outlets. Reuters reports: U.S. Magistrate Judge Ona Wang in a decision made public on Wednesday said that the 20 million logs were relevant to the outlets' claims and that handing them over would not risk violating users' privacy. The judge rejected OpenAI's privacy-related objections to an earlier order requiring the artificial intelligence startup to submit the records as evidence. "There are multiple layers of protection in this case precisely because of the highly sensitive and private nature of much of the discovery," Wang said. An OpenAI spokesperson on Wednesday cited an earlier blog post from the company's Chief Information Security Officer Dane Stuckey, which said the Times' demand for the chat logs "disregards long-standing privacy protections" and "breaks with common-sense security practices." OpenAI has separately appealed Wang's order to the case's presiding judge, U.S. District Judge Sidney Stein. A group of newspapers owned by Alden Global Capital's MediaNews Group is also involved in the lawsuit. MediaNews Group executive editor Frank Pine said in a statement on Wednesday that OpenAI's leadership was "hallucinating when they thought they could get away with withholding evidence about how their business model relies on stealing from hardworking journalists."

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The Supreme Court appears inclined to side with Cox Communications in a major copyright case, suggesting that ISPs shouldn't be held liable for users' music piracy based solely on "mere knowledge," given the risk of forcing outages for universities, hospitals, and other large customers. The New York Times reports: Leading music labels and publishers who represent artists ranging from Bob Dylan to Beyonce sued Cox Communications in 2018, saying it had failed to terminate the internet connections of subscribers who had been repeatedly flagged for illegally downloading and distributing copyrighted music. At issue is whether providers like Cox can be held legally responsible and be required to pay steep damages -- a billion dollars or more -- if they know that customers are pirating the music but do not take sufficient steps to terminate their internet access. Justices from across the ideological spectrum on Monday raised concerns about whether finding for the music industry could result in internet providers being forced to cut off access to large account holders such as hospitals and universities because of the illegal acts of individual users. "What is the university supposed to do in your view?" asked Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., a conservative, suggesting it would be difficult to track down bad actors without the risk of losing service campuswide. "I just don't see how it's workable at all." "The internet is so amorphous," added Justice Sonia Sotomayor, a liberal, saying that a single "customer" could represent tens of thousands of users, particularly in rural areas where an entire region might be considered a "customer." After nearly two hours of argument, a majority of justices seemed likely to side with Cox and to send the case back to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit for review under a stricter standard. Several justices suggested the company's "mere knowledge" of the illegal downloads was not sufficient to hold Cox liable.

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Apple is challenging a new Indian antitrust law that would let regulators calculate penalties based on global revenue -- a change that could expose the company to a fine of roughly $38 billion in its dispute with Tinder owner Match. The 2022 antitrust case centers on accusations that Apple abused its power by forcing developers to use its in-app purchase system. MacRumors reports: Last year, India passed a law that allows the Competition Commission of India (CCI) to use global turnover when calculating penalties imposed on companies for abusing market dominance. Apple can be fined up to 10 percent, which would result in a penalty of around $38 billion. Apple said that using global turnover would result in a fine that's "manifestly arbitrary, unconstitutional, grossly disproportionate, and unjust." Apple is asking India's Delhi High Court to declare the law illegal, suggesting that penalties should be based on the Indian revenue of the specific unit that violates antitrust law. [...] Apple said in today's filing that the CCI used the new penalty law on November 10 in an unrelated case, fining a company for a violation that happened 10 years ago. Apple said it had "no choice but to bring this constitutional challenge now" to avoid having retrospective penalties applied against it, too. Match has argued that a high fine based on global turnover would discourage companies from repeating antitrust violations. Apple's plea will be heard on December 3.

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The U.S. Supreme Court will discuss next month whether to hear a challenge to federal marijuana prohibition.

As marijuana rescheduling stalls, industry turns to Supreme Court is a post from: MJBizDaily: Financial, Legal & Cannabusiness news for cannabis entrepreneurs

(Credit: AndreyPopov/Getty Images)We may have robot frycooks, robot bartenders, and even robot shoe-shiners, but robot lawyers are apparently where we draw the line. Human lawyers have prevented an artificial intelligence-equipped robot from appearing in court, where it was scheduled to fight a defendant’s speeding ticket.

The “robot lawyer” is the latest creation from DoNotPay, a New York startup known for its AI chatbot of the same name. Last year our colleagues at PCMag reported that DoNotPay had successfully negotiated down people’s Comcast bills and canceled their forgotten free trials. Since then, the chatbot has expanded to help users block spam texts, file corporate complaints, renew their Florida driver’s licenses, and otherwise take care of tasks that would be annoying or burdensome without DoNotPay’s help.

But it appears DoNotPay has taken things a bit too far. Shortly after the startup added legal capabilities to its chatbot’s feature set, a user “hired” the bot to fight their speeding ticket. On Feb. 22, the bot was scheduled to “appear” in court by way of smart glasses worn on the human defendant’s head. These glasses would record court proceedings while using text generators like ChatGPT and DaVinci to dictate responses into the defendant’s ear. According to NPR, the appearance was set to become the first-ever AI-powered legal defense.

As human lawyers found out about DoNotPay, however, the chatbot and its defendant were required to revise their plan. DoNotPay CEO Joshua Browder told NPR that multiple state bar associations threatened the startup, even going so far as to mention a district attorney’s office referral, prosecution, and prison time. Such consequences would be made possible by rules prohibiting unauthorized law practice in the courtroom. Eventually, Browder said, the threat of criminal charges forced the startup to wave a white flag.

Unfortunately for Browder, this isn’t the end of DoNotPay’s legal scrutiny. Several state bar associations are now investigating the startup and its chatbot for the same reason as above. Browder reportedly believes in AI’s eventual place in the courtroom, saying it could someday provide affordable legal representation for people who wouldn’t be able to swing a human attorney’s fees. But if DoNotPay hopes to make robot lawyers a real thing, it’ll have to rethink its strategy: It’s illegal to record audio during a live legal proceeding in federal and some state courts, which collapses the whole smart glasses technique.

DoNotPay still lists multiple legal disputes on its website, indicating that the startup might have faith in its ability to escape from these probes unscathed.

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A district court in Moscow has arrested a man whom local media reports identify as Dmitry Pavlov, alleged administrator of the recently shut down darknet market Hydra. Russian authorities believe he has been involved in drug-related crime punishable by up to 20 years in prison.

Moscow Court Arrests Russian Believed to Be Hydra Administrator

Meshchansky District Court of Moscow has taken into custody a certain Dmitry Olegovich Pavlov accused of production, sale, and distribution of drugs under Russia’s Criminal Code, the “Moscow” City News Agency reported this week, quoting the court’s press service.

Pavlov, who was arrested on Monday, April 11, has the same names as a 30-year-old Russian citizen and resident charged for similar offenses in relation to his alleged role as an administrator of the recently busted Hydra Market, one of the largest marketplaces on the darknet.

Earlier this month, German law enforcement seized Hydra’s server infrastructure in the country and took down the Russian-language platform’s website. The operation was carried with support from several U.S. agencies.

On April 5, the U.S. Department of Justice announced criminal charges against Dmitry Pavlov for conspiracy to distribute narcotics and conspiracy to commit money laundering. According to an indictment filed with the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, the Russian is also accused of administering and providing hosting services to Hydra.

The Russian business daily Kommersant quoted Pavlov telling the BBC on April 6 he had not been contacted by U.S. authorities and that he learned about the charges from the media. He also insisted his company had all the necessary licenses from Roskomnadzor, Russia’s communications watchdog, and was not administering any websites but only leasing servers as an intermediary.

The United States has been alleging the Russian Federation’s involvement with crypto-related criminal organizations, including darknet markets (DNMs) and ransomware actors. In September, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctioned the Russia-based crypto broker Suex, believed to have received more than $20 million from DNMs like Hydra.

The department also imposed sanctions on Hydra itself — which had been active since at least 2015 and had around 17 million customers before it was shut down — and on a cryptocurrency exchange called Garantex, suspected of processing over $2.6 million in transactions from the darknet market platform.

Do you expect other arrests in Russia in connection with the Hydra case? Tell us in the comments section below.