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　４月25日、山口地裁岩国支部（小川暁裁判長）で約８年間審理が続いた伊方山口裁判の運転差止訴訟が結審した。３.11後に伊方原発をめぐる裁判は、松山、広島、大分の各地裁で、運転差止めの仮処分、本案訴訟が起こされ山口もこれに […]

　５月29日、大間原発建設差止等請求訴訟の控訴審第14回口頭弁論期日が札幌高裁（齋藤清文裁判長）で開かれた。 　まず、控訴人で福島市在住の小池光一さんが意見陳述を行なった。福島第一原発事故により原発から西北西60キロメー […]

　東アジアにおける紛争の火種は台湾有事だ。宿願の統一をめざし中国が台湾に侵攻と喧伝する米国と日本は、軍備増強の中国への抑止力という名の下で日米軍事一体化による対中臨戦態勢を進める。台湾有事では「日本は最前線に立つ」と３月末に来日したヘグセス米国防長官は明言した。敗戦後８０年、非戦の日本が戦争に加担しない道はないのか。『従属の代償 日米軍事一体化の真実』（講談社現代新書、昨年９月刊行）の著者のジャーナリスト・布施祐仁氏は＝写真＝５月２０日ＪＣＪオンライン講演で「回避の道」を提示..

第27回参議院議員通常選挙の投票日における中央選挙管理会委員長談話

第27回参議院議員通常選挙の投票日における総務大臣談話

「市民とともに歩み自立したNHK会長を求める会」は5月25日、連続公開講座「フジテレビ問題からテレビの未来を考える」を第１回目として開催した。業界の３大病巣　　田淵俊彦・桜美林大学教授(テレビ東京出身)は講演で、「フジは23年5月の事件発生時から、性暴力、性被害の事実を知っていたが、日枝（元社長の支配）体制下で現場が経営にモノが言えない弊害が出て、1年半も事実を隠蔽した」と批判。　「テレビ業界には①隠ぺい主義②横並び体質③忖度の３大病巣がある」と指摘した上で「今回の問題をテレ..

Amid a wave of lawsuits targeting how AI companies use copyrighted works to train large language models that generate new works, a peculiar provision of copyright law is suddenly in the spotlight: Section 1202 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). Section 1202 restricts intentionally removing or changing copyright management information (CMI), such as a signature on a painting or attached to a photograph. Passed in 1998, the rule was supposed to help rightsholders identify potentially infringing uses of their works and encourage licensing.

Open AI and Microsoft used code from Github as part of the training data for their LLMs, along with billions of other works. A group of anonymous Github contributors sued, arguing that those LLMs generated new snippets of code that were substantially similar to theirs—but with the CMI stripped. Notably, they did not claim that the new code was copyright infringement—they are relying solely on Section 1202 of the DMCA. Their problem? The generated code is different from their original work, and courts across the US have adopted an “identicality rule,” on the theory that Section 1202 is supposed to apply only when CMI is removed from existing works, not when it’s simply missing from a new one.

It may sound like an obscure legal question, but the outcome of this battle—currently before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals—could have far-reaching implications beyond generative AI technologies. If the rightholders were correct, Section 1202 effectively creates a freestanding right of attribution, creating potential liability even for non-infringing uses, such as fair use, if those new uses simply omit the CMI. While many fair users might ultimately escape liability under other limitations built into Section 1202, the looming threat of litigation, backed by risk of high and unpredictable statutory penalties, will be enough to pressure many defendants to settle. Indeed, an entire legal industry of “copyright trolls” has emerged to exploit this dynamic, with no corollary benefit to creativity or innovation.

Fortunately, as we explain in a brief filed today, the text of Section 1202 doesn’t support such an expansive interpretation. The provision repeatedly refers to “works” and “copies of works”—not “substantially similar” excerpts or new adaptations—and its focus on “removal or alteration” clearly contemplates actions taken with respect to existing works, not new ones. Congress could have chosen otherwise and written the law differently. Wisely it did not, thereby ensuring that rightsholders couldn’t leverage the omission of CMI to punish or unfairly threaten otherwise lawful re-uses of a work.

Given the proliferation of copyrighted works in virtually every facet of daily life, the last thing any court should do is give rightsholders a new, freestanding weapon against fair uses. As the Supreme Court once observed, copyright is a “tax on readers for the purpose of giving a bounty to writers.” That tax—including the expense of litigation—can be an important way to encourage new creativity, but it should not be levied unless the Copyright Act clearly requires it.

A.B. 412, the flawed California bill that threatened small developers in the name of AI “transparency,” has been delayed and turned into a two-year bill. That means it won’t move forward in 2025—a significant victory for innovation, freedom to code, and the open web.

EFF opposed this bill from the start. A.B. 412 tried to regulate generative AI, not by looking at the public interest, but by mandating training data “reading lists” designed to pave the way for new copyright lawsuits, many of which are filed by large content companies. 

Transparency in AI development is a laudable goal. But A.B. 412 failed to offer a fair or effective path to get there. Instead, it gave companies large and small the impossible task of differentiating between what content was copyrighted and what wasn’t—with severe penalties for anyone who couldn’t meet that regulation. That would have protected the largest AI companies, but frozen out smaller and non-commercial developers who might want to tweak or fine-tune AI systems for the public good. 

The most interesting work in AI won’t necessarily come from the biggest companies. It will come from small teams, fine-tuning for accessibility, privacy, and building tools that identify AI harms. And some of the most valuable work will be done using source code under permissive licenses. 

A.B. 412 ignored those facts, and would have punished some of the most worthwhile projects. 

The Bill Blew Off Fair Use Rights

The question of whether—and how much—AI training qualifies as fair use is being actively litigated right now in federal courts. And so far, courts have found much of this work to be fair use. In a recent landmark AI case, Bartz v. Anthropic, for example, a federal judge found that AI training work is “transformative—spectacularly so.” He compared it to how search engines copy images and text in order to provide useful search results to users.

Copyright is federally governed. When states try to rewrite the rules, they create confusion—and more litigation that doesn’t help anyone.

If lawmakers want to revisit AI transparency, they need to do so without giving rights-holders a tool to weaponize copyright claims. That means rejecting A.B. 412’s approach—and crafting laws that protect speech, competition, and the public’s interest in a robust, open, and fair AI ecosystem. 

　2022年、日本出版学会出版産業研究部会では『平成の出版が歩んだ道――激変する「出版業界の夢と冒険」30年史』をテーマに、平成の出版産業を振り返った。それから3年の短い間に、出版産業をめぐる動きは大きく変わり、特に出版流通は大規模な変化に直面しようとしている。　そのような状況において、このたび能勢 仁・八木壯一・樽見博『出版流通が歩んだ道――近代出版流通誕生150年の軌跡』が刊行された。　著者の一人・能勢仁さんから本書の2・3章の内容を下敷きに、「第4章 出版業界の生き残り..