philip lelyveld The world of entertainment technology

Bipartisan ‘Block BEARD’ Anti-Piracy Bill Surfaces in Senate

A bipartisan group of U.S. senators has introduced what they’re calling “a discussion draft” of a new anti-piracy bill, the Block Bad Electronic Art and Recording Distributors Act of 2025, known as the Block BEARD Act. Inspired by laws in the UK and Australia, Block BEARD proposes to allow federal courts to order ISPs to block foreign piracy websites that violate U.S. copyright law. It would provide copyright owners who have had their property stolen a new form of relief by having the courts interrupt foreign online piracy operations, preventing them from making unauthorized content available to U.S. households. ...

See the full story here: https://www.etcentric.org/bipartisan-block-beard-anti-piracy-bill-surfaces-in-senate/

ElevenLabs Launches Eleven Music

ElevenLabs has launched Eleven Music, their new AI music generation service, and they say they've done it with a new strategy: don't get sued. While competitors Suno and Udio are in litigation with major labels for allegedly training on copyrighted material, ElevenLabs secured licensing deals with Merlin Network (a digital rights agency for independent labels) and Kobalt Music Group before launching. That's revolutionary thinking in AI circles. ...

On the consumer side, ElevenLabs says it has built safeguards to prevent users from generating songs with specific artist names or copyrighted lyrics. They're essentially creating AI guardrails that acknowledge artistic ownership while still enabling creation. It's like building a copy machine that refuses to photocopy currency. ...

 It's hard to say whether or not you need the biggest artist's works to train a model. It's more important to be able to reference an artist as most people associate a "sound" with a name. You are more likely to prompt, "Give me a song that sounds like Bob Marley" than to prompt, "I need a 72-96 bpm reggae groove with a one-drop pulse, skank guitar, and bubble organ." ...

See the full story here: https://shellypalmer.com/2025/08/elevenlabs-launches-eleven-music/

White House Seeks AI Progress Through De Minimis Regulation and Allocation of Federal Resources

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The plan outlines three strategic pillars as its foundation, which include more than 90 federal policy actions. The pillars are titled “Accelerating Innovation,” “Building American AI Infrastructure,” and “Leading in International Diplomacy and Security.” The president also contemporaneously signed three executive orders to implement the plan. They include “Preventing Woke AI in the Federal Government,” directing federal agencies to procure only ideologically neutral large language models (LLM); “Accelerating Federal Permitting of Data Center Infrastructure,” to provide federal lands and resources for AI data centers; and “Promoting the Export of the American AI Technology Stack,” to create and implement the “American AI Exports Program.” ...

Accelerating Innovation

The plan notes that integrating AI technology is often difficult due in part to “a complex regulatory landscape, and a lack of clear governance and risk mitigation standards.” It seeks to facilitate such integration through regulatory sandboxes, or “AI Centers of Excellence,” to be established nationwide, allowing industry to “rapidly deploy and test AI tools while committing to open sharing of data and results.”

The administration is also using the plan to advance broader political and policy objectives. The Department of Commerce and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) are directed to remove references to “misinformation,” climate change, and diversity, equity, and inclusion in the NIST AI Risk Management Framework. Federal procurement guidelines must now be adjusted to ensure that any government-used LLM is “objective and free from top-down ideological bias.” ...

See the full story here: https://www.regulatoryoversight.com/2025/08/white-house-seeks-ai-progress-through-de-minimis-regulation-and-allocation-of-federal-resources/

The uproar over Vogue’s AI-generated ad isn’t just about fashion

... The latest uproar came after Vogue’s July print edition featured a Guess ad with a typical model for the brand: thin yet voluptuous, glossy blond tresses, pouty rose lips. She exemplified North American beauty standards, but there was one problem — she was AI generated.  ...

They said the Guess ad drama highlights questions arising within creative industries being touched by AI’s silicon fingers: When high-quality creative work can be done by AI in a fraction of the time and cost, what’s the point of humans? And in the world of fashion, what happens to the humans — the models, photographers, stylists, and set designers — performing those jobs? ...

“E-commerce is where most models make their bread and butter,” Bovell said. “It’s not necessarily the path to model fame or model prestige, but it is the path for financial security.” ...

“What Vogue does matters,” Odell said. “If Vogue ends up doing editorials with AI models, I think that’s going to make it okay. In the same way the industry was really resistant to Kim Kardashian and then Vogue featured her. Then it was okay.”

See the full story here: https://techcrunch.com/2025/08/03/the-uproar-over-vogues-ai-generated-ad-isnt-just-about-fashion/

61% of white collar workers think AI will replace their current role in 3 years—but they’re too busy enjoying less stress to worry right now

Artificial intelligence is picking up in the workplace. But even with the potential threat of unemployment on the horizon, white collar workers are just happy that they’re less stressed out. New research reveals 4 in 10 say it has provided better work-life balance, reduced stress, and better decision-making. 

See the full story here; https://fortune.com/2025/07/31/most-white-collar-workers-think-ai-will-kill-their-job-in-3-years-but-too-busy-enjoying-less-stress-to-worry/

US government will ingest all federal data into AI models, WH tech director says

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"The way that these…models operate on the government level is all the government data that the government has is going to be ingested into models to provide citizen services — whether it's the way you pay your taxes, whether it's through health-care records, whether it's small things that apply to get a permit through international park or a campsite. All of this stuff is going to be part of the AI fabric, and it would be a huge problem if the model that is fine-tuned to generate these AI solutions isn't from America," he said.

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He said a “stringent and strong” regime of know-your-customer requirements imposed on data center operators along with monitoring for the scope of AI training runs will help identify bad actors. 

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Kratsios said the Trump administration is weighing the trade-offs of protecting U.S. security while ensuring American tech companies have access to the global market and get the world running on U.S. products. 

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See the full story here: https://www.defenseone.com/policy/2025/07/white-house-tech-director-breaks-down-plan-balance-ai-national-security-and-export-promotion/407102/

As AI changes how movies are made, Hollywood crews ask: What’s left for us?

• AI is reshaping roles across Hollywood, from makeup and editing to storyboarding and production design, raising urgent questions about authorship, labor and creative control.
• The fast-paced changes come as below-the-line workers grapple with production slowdowns and shrinking crews.
• AI may offer an avenue for new players with low budgets, but it may also threaten workers who’ve spent years honing their crafts. 
• From Oscar-winning directors, production designers and makeup artists to grips, storyboard artists and editors, behind-the-scenes players share their fears, frustrations and hopes.

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Tung, whose credits include “Twisters” and Christopher Nolan’s upcoming adaptation of “The Odyssey,” has spent the last two years tracking the rise of generative tools, not just their capabilities but their implications. As co-chair of the Animation Guild’s AI Committee, he has been on the front lines of conversations about how these technologies could reshape creative labor.

To artists like Tung, the rise of generative tools feels deeply personal. “If you are an illustrator or a writer or whatever, you had to give up other things to take time to develop those skills,” he says. “Nobody comes out of the womb being able to draw or write or act. Anybody who does that professionally spent years honing those skills.”

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Earlier this year, he submitted “LATE” to what was billed as the world’s first AI animation contest, hosted by Curious Refuge, an online education hub for creative technologists — and, to his delight, he won. The prize included $10,000, a pitch meeting with production company Promise Studios and, as an absurd bonus, his face printed on a potato. But for Watmough, the real reward was the sense that he had found a new creative identity.

“There’s something to the fact that the winner of the first AI animation competition was an editor,” Watmough says. “With the advent of AI, yes, you could call yourself a filmmaker but essentially I’d say most people are editors. You’re curating, selecting, picking what you like — relying on your taste.”

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See the full story here: https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/movies/story/2025-07-31/what-happens-to-film-production-crews-as-ai-expands-hollywood-tomorrow

Jason Schwartzman, Luca Guadagnino spotted filming OpenAI movie in S.F. park

“Artificial,” the forthcoming film about San Francisco company OpenAI, has been filming around the city this week, and fans have been running into the production crew all over town. 

The $40 million project follows CEO Sam Altman’s firing and rehiring at the artificial intelligence company in 2023. The drama is helmed by “Challengers” director Luca Guadagnino and stars Andrew Garfield (“The Social Network”) as Altman, Mill Valley-raised Monica Barbaro (“A Complete Unknown”) as former Chief Technology Officer Mira Murati and Ike Barinholtz (“The Studio”) as tech billionaire Elon Musk.   ...

See the full story here: https://www.sfchronicle.com/entertainment/article/artificial-openai-filming-dolores-park-20796239.php

Meta’s mixed reality glasses make my Meta Quest 3 look like a boulder

• Meta and Stanford University researchers have developed new MR glasses
• These specs use holography to produce high-quality images
• Support rumors that Meta's headsets may turn into slim goggles

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That’s because Meta’s Reality Labs, alongside Stanford University, published a paper in Nature Photonics showcasing a prototype that uses holography and AI to create a super-slim mixed reality headset design.

The optical stack is just 3mm thick, and unlike other mixed reality headsets we’re used to – like the Meta Quest 3 – this design doesn’t layer stereoscopic images to create a sense of depth. Instead, it produces holograms that should look more realistic and be more natural to view. ...

Even with this technology still likely years (perhaps even a decade) from making it to a gadget you or I could go out and buy, the prototype’s design does showcase Meta’s desire to produce ultra-thin MR tech. ...

See the full story here: https://www.techradar.com/computing/virtual-reality-augmented-reality/metas-mixed-reality-glasses-make-my-meta-quest-3-look-like-a-boulder

Bunnies, Truthiness, and the AI Slop Era

...AI doesn’t need to be right. It just needs to be fast, cheap, and generally believable....

See the full story here: https://shellypalmer.com/2025/07/bunnies-truthiness-and-the-ai-slop-era/