32. A recent court ruling in #Japan also challenges my thesis in this thread.
https://www.zmescience.com/science/news-science/a-man-was-given-a-suspended-jail-sentence-in-japan-for-posting-godzilla-spoilers-online/

"The court ruled that detailed plot summaries can replace watching a movie, thereby incurring cost to copyright holders."

Let's concede that some spoilers might cause some market harm. But if they are paraphrases that don't track the original expression too closely, then they are protected by the idea/expression dichotomy. So as with the cases mentioned in posts 30 and 31 above, this case might only show that some paraphrases fail the "substantial similarity" test, perhaps more paraphrases than we used to think. But it can't go further, and overturn the idea/expression dichotomy, without deep disruption to worldwide copyright law.

It might matter that the idea/expression dichotomy is international, through treaty, while the degree and kind of similarity needed before a paraphrase crosses the line varies significantly from country to country.

#Copyright #Paraphrases #Summaries

31. Another US federal judge has ruled (Oct 27) that AI-generated summaries might infringe the copyrights on the original works.
https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nysd.606655/gov.uscourts.nysd.606655.716.0.pdf

Again, the AI company (in this case #OpenAI) has merely lost a motion to dismiss. The court has not yet ruled on the merits.

Again, I acknowledge that if this result survives, it would undermine my thesis in this thread.

My take is that it won't survive because it disregards the idea/expression distinction fundamental to copyright law. Or if it does survive, it will overturn the fundamentals of copyright law.

Here are some comments that support my take.

From @mmasnick:
https://matthewsag.com/copyright-winter-is-coming-to-wikipedia/

From @mmasnick:
https://www.techdirt.com/2025/11/18/book-reports-potentially-copyright-infringing-thanks-to-court-attacks-on-llms/

From @drewwilsonfl:
https://www.freezenet.ca/judge-rules-summaries-are-copyright-infringement-because-common-sense-is-over-rated/

#Copyright #Paraphrases #Summaries