Michaels' new MakerPlace online marketplace for handmade goods is a bid to solidify its role as the supplier of “makers” and take on Etsy.

Michaels Takes Aim at Etsy with Launch of Handmade ‘MakerPlace’ Marketplace

MakerPlace by Michaels competes directly with marketplaces such as Etsy and follows the retailer’s addition in March of a third-party marketplace for

Arts and crafts retailer Michaels opens its version of Etsy called MakerPlace

Almost a third of UK workers have found ways of earning extra cash to supplement their income due to the cost of living crisis - but that means they are now in the firing line of HMRC, according to a recent money.co.uk survey. With experts warning of the ...

£1,000 HMRC warning for anyone selling on sites like Depop, Etsy and Vinted

Almost a third of UK workers have found ways of earning extra cash to supplement their income due to the cost of living crisis

'Don't get caught out' warning as HMRC begin new crackdown from January 1

Retail chain Michaels today launched a online marketplace that enables crafters and creators to sell handmade goods and teach online classes.

Michaels Goes After Handmade Market - And Etsy - With New Marketplace

You can find Jonathan on Instagram and Etsy; just search for “Neely Knife and Tool.” His knives are priced from $200 to $600. You can also find him on the website USA Made Blade.

Greensboro craftsman creates high-quality knives

Etsy is a global online marketplace where people can buy and sell handmade, vintage, and craft supplies. It’s a great platform for entrepreneurs to start their own businesses and sell their unique products. What is Etsy? Etsy is an online marketplace ...

How to Start an Etsy Shop? Get Ready To Sell In Easy Steps 2023

But in addition to finding the right presents, it’s arguably just as important to find the right wrapping paper, too. “Presentation of a gift can really make the gift experience,” says Hannah Redmond,

The 20 Best Places to Buy Wrapping Paper of 2023

Give your loved one a good laugh when they pull this gift out of their stocking. These customized dog socks from Etsy are adorned with pictures of your pet’s face and make for an unforgettable yet affordable gift. Simply send the seller some photos ...

25 Handy Stocking Stuffers Under $25

Get the most recent info and news about Etsy on HackerNoon, where 10k+ technologists publish stories for 4M+ monthly readers.

Etsy, Inc. operates two-sided online marketplaces that connect buyers and sellers primarily in the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, Canada, Australia, France, and India. Its primary marketplace is Etsy.com that connects artisans and entrepreneurs with various consumers. The company also offers Reverb, a musical instrument marketplace; Depop, a fashion resale marketplace; and Elo7, a Brazil-based marketplace for handmade and unique items. In addition, it offers various seller services, including Etsy Payments, a payment processing service; Etsy Ads, an advertising platform; and Shipping Labels, which allows sellers in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, and India to purchase discounted shipping labels. Further, the company provides various seller tools, including Shop Manager dashboard, a centralized hub for Etsy sellers to track orders, manage inventory, view metrics and statistics, and have conversations with their customers; and Sell on Etsy, an application to enable enhanced onboarding and video uploading. Additionally, it offers Etsy seller analytics pages that provides insights regarding traffic acquisition for their shops; Targeted Offers, a sales and promotions tool, and social media tool; and accounting and bookkeeping services. The company also provides educational resources comprising blog posts, video tutorials, Etsy Seller Handbook, Etsy.com online forums, and insights; Etsy Teams, a platform to build personal relationships with other Etsy sellers; and a Star Seller program. As of December 31, 2021, it connected a total of 7.5 million active sellers to 96.3 million active buyers; and had 120 million items for sale. The company was formerly known as Indieco, Inc changed its name to Etsy, Inc. in June 2006. Etsy, Inc. was founded in 2005 and is headquartered in Brooklyn, New York.

Etsy

Want to hear my favorite perk of getting married? Beware, it’s pretty dorky… You ready? Access to my wife’s data. I was in search of my next side project about four months ago. My wife quickly volunteered me to handle her Etsy product advertising on Facebook. She wanted to take her listings on Etsy and quickly create campaigns using product images, titles, and descriptions. After a night of painfully searching for the same images used on Etsy while copying/pasting endless descriptions and titles I started to think to myself, . marketing “there’s got to be an easier way” My engineering brain kicked into gear. I spent the rest of that night researching the Etsy and Facebook APIs. If you aren’t sure what an API is, good for you, you probably have a life, enjoying bottomless mimosa brunches with your besties. Essentially it’s a (sometimes) free way for programmers to gain access to data from companies like Etsy, and Facebook. I put two and two together. I could use the Etsy API to take my wife’s listings and programmatically move those over to Facebook Ads. Yay technology! My wife was surprised when she woke up the next morning and asked about how the progress was going. I moderately answered, “Wellllll, I wasn’t able to create your Ad last night, BUT…. I did do some research into..” She cut me off. “Wait! So we don’t have an ad created yet?” I then went on to tell her how lazy I am and why it would take forever to create an ad by manually searching for the same images she used for her listings, why it would take forever to copy and paste titles and descriptions into an Ad campaign. I also made the point that Facebook’s Ad manager is a pain to use! Have you seen that thing!? I didn’t know it at the time but I was coming up with my . I was trying to find . Her eyes started to gloss over, but in the end, she was onboard with the idea. So I got to work. value proposition product market fit I first started by creating an App using . Etsy offers a way for developers to easily access their API. They give you basic access using an API key so that you can get started working right away. Etsy’s developer platform There’s two types of access, , and Provisional access allows for read-only access to any unauthenticated resource. allows authenticated read/write access for unlimited Etsy members. You also get to list your application in their App Gallery. Although my application didn’t need write access, I still needed access to authenticated resources such as images, shop info, etc. So I requested and got access to my API keys. The next step was to setup an authentication flow using OAuth. Provisional Access Full Access. Full Access While scouring Etsy’s I noticed every example was written in PHP. What is this 2007? I was planning on writing my backend using Python. So I spent a couple hours translating their PHP code to Python. I used the library to fetch my access tokens. OAuth documentation requests-oauthlib Around this time, a few other areas of the product began to take shape. First, In order to create Facebook Ads I needed to create a using their developer platform. So I went to and began the process. You have to create what they call an App ID. Facebook app www.developers.facebook.com Second, I needed to host my application somewhere. I began to look at the different cloud solutions out there and decided on Amazon Web Services. I used AWS because it was what I was most comfortable with. I used Python/Django for my backend and there’s some on creating an Elastic Beanstalk application using the AWS CLI. good documentation Third, I needed a backend database to store API keys and additional global application information. So I added an Amazon RDS database to my Elastic Beanstalk environment. This was actually really easy to setup using this as a guide. The hardest part was deciding on what tiered storage to use. I went with the cheapest option. I wanted to get a working prototype up without spending a bunch of time making premature optimizations. The point of an MVP (minimum viable product) is to simply get it out the door and optimize as you progress. documentation Fourth, I needed a front end for my website. I had previously been using AngularJS for all of my client side JavaScript projects but I kept reading about ReactJS, so I decided to give it a shot. To make things easier on myself I decided to use an “admin framework” properly named . The admin-on-rest framework offered my everything that I needed. It had one, easy to use ES6 module for interacting with JSON APIs. It had an admin-style UI with menu bars and routing already built in. I used Amazon S3 to host a “static website” using this as a guide. admin-on-rest great Medium write-up Lastly, I needed to setup a way to accept payments. Like most developers, I hadn’t even thought about the business side of my work. This started off as a side project and I slowly began to see value in it. I started to think, I didn’t have a payment model fleshed out. So I started to bounce around some ideas. I quickly came up with a freemium model which allows users to create Facebook ads and interact with the platform in a limited fashion, all the while incentivizing them to upgrade. I used easy to use APIs and form creators to quickly setup a payment pipeline. Rather than developing a bunch of logic around the , Moonclerk abstracts that all away for you. It really sped up the development process. The good thing is it allows me to switch over to using a custom implementation of Stripe later on down the line. “hell, if my wife’s Etsy store could benefit from this tool, so could others.” Moonclerk’s Stripe API For the next few months, I spent nights, weekends and lunch breaks cranking out a working prototype. If you ran into me during this two-month stretch, I’m sorry. Any developer knows that when you’re knee deep in a project, it tends to consume your well-being. My relationship with my family suffered. I would catch myself tuning my boss, wife, or uber driver out while they spoke only to find myself thinking of my next database query, REST endpoint or marketing API call. I started to slip into a small depression only released by late night code commits to Github. This whole time developing I was also trying to locate and interact with my target audience. I joined some Etsy groups on Facebook, began chatting with some of the ladies (and a few gentlemen) and started to hear their pain points on getting traffic to their shops. Lot’s of folks were mentioning SEO and advertising, so I knew I was on the right track. Endless cups of coffee, multiple face palms and a few gray hairs later, I had a working application hosted on AWS. I threw together a using Squarespace with a signup form at the bottom. I shopped it around and started to build my list of beta users! SaaS marketing website And that’s where we are today. We’ve gotten some traction and a handful of daily users. I’ve quickly learned that building something that people want is a marathon. It takes a relentless drive to get your product in front of people, hear what they have to say and iterate on the feature requests that make sense. Signing up users is easy, having them whip out their credit card is a whole different beast with different challenges, that frankly, I am terrible at and am still working on perfecting. I’ve never had to think about things like marketing funnels and payment models. It’s been a hell of a learning experience with lots of ups and downs, and it’s only been 4 months! I’m excited to expand the platform to include more social media outlets like Pinterest, Instagram, and Twitter. Also, including support for other online retail platforms like eBay and Amazon. Please reach out if you have any questions, comments, gripes, etc… Even if you want to tell me I’m open to hearing about it. I’m all for building products people actually use! this is the worst idea in the history of SaaS Interested in learning more about my SaaS platform? Check out NewClick, our advertising platform built for Etsy sellers Want to learn more about the author? Click here Want to learn more about my wife’s Etsy store? Click here

How hacking my wife’s Etsy business led to my first SaaS product

How to Build a Magento Multi-Vendor Marketplace Website like Amazon, Alibaba & Etsy

How to Build a P2P Marketplace like Upwork, Etsy, or Airbnb: Steps, Challenges, and Key Metrics

The number of marketplaces to sell items on other than Amazon and eBay are becoming more and more extreme. After doing some research we found a few Amazon and eBay alternatives that are worth selling your items on. I took the time to compile my research to all of the Amazon and eBay alternatives and compare them. After comparing the marketplaces other than Amazon and eBay, Forra seems to be the most impressive to sell on due to its low fees and potential upside. Shopify is also a good amazon or ebay alternative. Let’s dig a bit further into the other places to sell your items than Amazon and ebay. Forra.io A New Marketplace To Help You Grow Your Ecommerce Business came as an idea after being banned from another large marketplace. Forra has many strengths and is a platform for selling your goods that uses cryptocurrency for its transactional efficiencies. Forra is a great method to build a business on top of. I wanted to take the time to compare our new marketplace to existing marketplaces such as Amazon, eBay. We strongly feel that giving back to the seller is at the core of Forra. Forra as a whole wants to help sellers succeed and start a profitable ecommerce business. Most people who sell online already know about eBay and Amazon so I wanted to touch on marketplaces other than Amazon and eBay in comparison to one another. Forra Comparing ecommerce Solutions Other Than Amazon And eBay These ecommerce solutions are compared with one another in a multitude of ways. They are compared to forra, but are also geared toward whatever makes you the most money. Marketplaces and selling platforms all have super high fees. There is a way to avoid eBay, and Amazon fees. Stop selling on Amazon and eBay. I know that sounds obvious, but there are a ton of ecommerce sellers who want to understand where their fees are going toward and how they can increase their business. This article is to serve as a comparison between marketplaces other than eBay and Amazon. IF you are looking for a place to sell online other than Amazon or eBay this is for you. If you are building an ecommerce business in 2018 and beyond you need to know what platform to be on. We need to look into the future, cryptocurrency and blockchain will affect ecommerce in a number of ways. These are the best marketplaces to sell on besides amazon and eBay. I threw in a couple other methods and alternatives to selling items as a whole. Anything that allows you to start an ecommerce business other than Amazon and eBay. Etsy The Handcrafted Marketplace Etsy is a made for people who make their own goods. It is for the passionate do it yourself-er who wants to create a business around the passion or hobby. The majority of people who sell on Etsy do not have the time to do their own marketing. Creating your own product is hard enough. Etsy has a network of buyers interested in buying niche, handcrafted or neat unique objects. You should sell on Etsy if you have something that is handmade, or are a unique boutique style business. Etsy Fees When you sell on Etsy you do not pay much in fees compared to Amazon and eBay. Etsy allows users to have a store and only charge 5% per item in fees. This is much better than 15% in fees on Amazon, and still far better than the 13% in eBay fees. Making it one of the prefered alternatives to Amazon and eBay. This is a breakdown of , a much lower fee alternative to eBay and Amazon. Etsys fees Shopify — Owning Your Own Site And Store Shopify is a great platform for the person who just wants to put up a website and go to work on their own. The low transaction fees make Shopify very appealing. If you are selling on just Shopify you need to rethink how you are growing your business. The majority of people who are on Shopify are experienced pros or are willing to work long hours just to get people to their stores. Shopify Fees Shopify does have fees. Shopify has very high “maintenance” and site fees. Shopify Fees. The number of people coming to your site depends on you. This can be harder to create transactions. Marketplaces are easier to build a business on top of in general because the store owners draw traffic from one another. Shopify fees are lower than Amazon and eBay and make a great alternative for the seasoned business owner. This is an in-depth guide on . Shopify fees Craigslist — The Local Marketplace Alternative An obvious American favorite. Craigslist has been a staple almost since the dawn of the internet. It has endured its title as the go to local marketplace in the united states and is a great marketplace to sell on besides amazon and eBay. Craigslist has a few massive advantages. Ease of use, Super low fee, and fast and “secure” transactions. Craigslist is a great marketplace to sell on. Unlike Amazon and eBay, Craiglist is a super easy to use service that only takes a few seconds to get set up on. Craigslist works on a local basis. If you have heavy unshippable products then craigslist is the better marketplace compared to Amazon and eBay for you. The security involved in meeting up with people is safe so long as you do in a safe way. If you are selling on a local marketplace as an alternative to Amazon Craigslist Fees The fees are zero when selling an item on craigslist. The only cost is your time. The time spent meeting up with someone when selling an item. Craigslist is the only marketplace that requires you to meet up with the person buy your goods. This is a very different marketplace than Amazon and eBay. So are the next few. Craigslist makes money by charging fees in order to post certain advertisements with them. Craigslist is a great alternative to Amazon and eBay. This is . how Craigslist makes money Offer up — The Craigslist Alternative Offer up is a very similar business to craigslist. Its main focus is on locality. Expect to physically meet up with people if you are selling on offerup as an alternative to Amazon and eBay. Offer up is great to use if you dislike craigslist or if you feel you need some type of a better user experience. Offer up is a great alternative to Amazon and eBay so long as you are ok with not shipping the item. Most people now a days might find it easier to just take a short trip to the post office and not have to deal with the possibility of meeting up with someone sketchy. Offer Up Fees Offerup is free to use on its local level, however if you want to sell an item and ship it to someone you will end up paying 7.9% in fees. The big upside to Offerup is that if you are okay with meeting up with people locally everything is free. Offer up is a good alternative to Amazon and eBay because it has lower fees. This is what they had to say about their . online fees Newegg — The Tech Amazon and eBay Alternative A lot of people do not even know this but you can actually sell on Newegg. Depending on your niche this could be a really great thing to do for your business, or personal items depending on the type of items you are selling. If you are interested in selling on Newegg as an Amazon or eBay alternative click here. Selling on Newegg is a great alternative to Amazon and eBay. In order to sell on Newegg, you need to be accepted as a seller. This ensures the sellers will uphold a certain level of customer service. Newegg is a stiffler when it comes to accepting sellers. Unlike Amazon and eBay who will accept anyone. Newegg selling fees depend entirely on the category of product you sell. Newegg is a great low fee alternative to Amazon and eBay. These are the . fees for selling on Newegg Walmart — The Amazon Alternative Selling on Walmart.com is a great alternative to selling on Amazon or eBay. Most Americans have used a Walmart several times during their lives. Most people do not understand the power of walmart. Walmart is the largest brick and mortar retailer in the United States. Selling on walmart.com is not as easy as it is to sell on amazon and ebay, it is however a very lucrative thing to do if you are able to. Walmart.com is very tricky to actually get on. If you have your own unique product to sell Walmart.com could be a great way alternative way to raise revenues away from amazon and ebay. This is a good guide on If you are able to use walmart to your advantage this may allow you to move even further away from amazon and ebay. how to get on walmart.com Walmart is a great alternative to selling on Amazon or eBay. It has far less competition, but will most likely have more fees. Here is a breakdown of the . walmart.com fees Growing Retail Accounts Instead Of Selling On Amazon and eBay Growing your business through a network of retail stores is the traditional alternative to Amazon and eBay. If you have some type of a private label or your own product it is wise to start looking into retail accounts and partnerships, otherwise, I wouldn’t recommend it. Getting a retail account is hard to do. Drawing the interest from large retailers is easy so long as you have a product with an existing demand. Most retailers are very open to what they put in their stores. At the end of the day they only care about sales. If you are looking to sell using retailers as an alternative to selling on amazon and ebay you need to figure out where to find the right people so that you can get your product in their store. Often times, large retailers are constantly looking for new products. You need to be where they are looking. Go to trade shows, meetups, talk to people about your product. The most important tip is this. Reach out to retailers on Linkedin. Search for job titles such as “purchaser” “buyer” “product research” message them and setup a call to talk about the possibility of them testing your product. Cryptocurrency Alternatives To Amazon And eBay Cryptocurrency ecommerce marketplaces are perfect alternatives to amazon and ebay. As an alternative to amazon and eBay you are able to sell your items on the following websites. These Amazon and eBay alternatives have the same features but tend to do them in a much lower fee way. Forra Forra is the future of ecommerce in our minds. It is the cheapest way to do online ecommerce. We have a zero fee platform for sellers and are the cheapest way to do business online. We think we are the best marketplace compared to amazon and ebay. Forra is the cheapest way to do business online from a sellers point of view. Originally published at forra.io .

Amazon and eBay Alternatives — A Comparison

A Dozen (or so) Learnings From 15 Years of Software Incident Management

সফ্টওয়্যার ঘটনা ব্যবস্থাপনার 15 বছর থেকে এক ডজন (বা তাই) শিক্ষা

Ein Dutzend (oder so) Erkenntnisse aus 15 Jahren Software-Vorfallmanagement

Una docena (más o menos) de aprendizajes de 15 años de gestión de incidentes de software

Une douzaine (ou deux) d'enseignements tirés de 15 ans de gestion des incidents logiciels

सॉफ्टवेयर घटना प्रबंधन के 15 वर्षों से एक दर्जन (या लगभग) सीखें

15 年間のソフトウェア インシデント管理から学んだ 12 の教訓

15년간의 소프트웨어 사고 관리 경험을 통해 얻은 12가지 정도의 교훈

Uma dúzia (ou mais) de aprendizados de 15 anos de gerenciamento de incidentes de software

Дюжина (или около того) уроков за 15 лет управления инцидентами с программным обеспечением

15 Yıllık Yazılım Olay Yönetiminden Bir Düzine (ya da O Kadar) Ders

Hàng chục (hoặc hơn) bài học từ 15 năm quản lý sự cố phần mềm

从 15 年的软件事故管理中学到的十几个经验

Sydney Bencriscutto on His Journey From Music Artist to Options Trader to eCommerce Success

The New York Times Company v. OpenAI Update Court Filing, retrieved on February 26, 2024 is part of . You can jump to any part in this filing . This part is 13 of 15. HackerNoon’s Legal PDF Series here C. The DMCA Claim Fails for Multiple Independent Reasons Count V is a claim for violation of Section 1202(b) of the Copyright Act, which prohibits the “[r]emoval or [a]lteration” of copyright management information or “CMI.” 17 U.S.C. § 1202(b). Congress passed that provision in the early days of the internet in recognition of the ease with which unauthorized copies of images and other works might proliferate in cyberspace. The provision encourages rightsholders to affix CMI to their works (and prohibits its removal) so that, if their works do proliferate on the internet, the public will be able to trace those works back to their owner. S. Rep. No. 105-190, at 16–17 (1998) (CMI intended to “track[] and monitor[]”). But Congress limited the statute with a “double-scienter requirement” that prevents its application when the CMI removal occurs as an unintended result of an “automatic [] process.” Zuma Press, Inc. v. Getty Images (US), Inc., 845 F. App’x 54, 57–58 (2d Cir. 2021). A typical CMI case might involve the surreptitious removal of a photograph’s “gutter credit” to conceal a failure to seek a license from the rightsholder. Mango v. BuzzFeed, Inc., 970 F.3d 167, 169–70, 173 (2d Cir. 2020). 1. The Times Did Not Specify the CMI at Issue Count V should be dismissed at the outset for failure to specify the CMI at issue. The Complaint’s relevant paragraph fails to state what CMI is included in what work, and simply repeats the statutory text. Compl. ¶ 182 (alleging “one or more forms of [CMI]” and parroting language of Section 1202(c)).[36] The only firm allegation states that the Times placed “copyright notices” and “terms of service” links on “every page of its websites.” Compl. ¶ 125. But, at least for some articles, it did not.[37] And when it did, the information was not “conveyed in connection with” the works, 17 U.S.C. § 1202(c) (defining CMI), but hidden in small text at the bottom of the page.[38] Judge Orrick of the Northern District of California rejected similar allegations as deficient in another recent AI case. Andersen v. Stability AI Ltd., No. 23-cv-00201, 2023 WL 7132064, at *11 (N.D. Cal. Oct. 30, 2023) (must plead “exact type of CMI included in [each] work”).[39] 2. The Training-Based Section 1202 Claim Fails The first Section 1202 violation alleged in the Complaint asserts that OpenAI “removed” CMI “in building the training datasets” in violation of Section 1202(b)(1) of the DMCA. Compl. ¶ 184. As a preliminary matter, to the extent this claim is based on the “building [of] training datasets” that occurred more than three years ago, it is time-barred. 17 U.S.C. § 507(b). The Complaint also fails to plausibly allege that any CMI was removed. The Times advances three theories of removal: (1) removal of CMI when OpenAI allegedly “scraped” articles from the Times’s website; (2) removal of CMI “from third-party datasets,” i.e., Common Crawl; and (3) removal of CMI during “the training process,” which the Times alleges “does not preserve any [CMI]” “by design.” Compl. ¶¶ 184, 187. As a preliminary matter, each theory fails for failure to allege what CMI was removed or “not preserve[d],” which is particularly damning as the Times concedes that some CMI was preserved.[40] Judge Martínez-Olguín of the Northern District of California recently held an identical set of allegations to be insufficient. See Tremblay v. OpenAI, Inc., No. 3:23-cv-03416, 2024 WL 557720, at *4 (N.D. Cal. Feb. 12, 2024) (allegation that “training process does not preserve any CMI” “by design” was “conclusory”). Each theory fails separately as well. The first theory fails because, while the Times states that OpenAI “scraped” its articles “directly from [its] websites,” none of the specific allegations actually suggest OpenAI designed its alleged “scrap[ing]” process to omit CMI. Compl. ¶ 184.[41] And the only allegations about OpenAI “scraping” articles from Times websites relate to the creation of WebText, which occurred over three years before this lawsuit. Supra Section IV.A.[42] The second theory fails because the Complaint lacks allegations about the inclusion (or exclusion) of the Times’s CMI in any “third-party datasets” like Common Crawl,[43] much less about OpenAI scrubbing any CMI from those datasets. First Nationwide Bank v. Gelt Funding Corp., 27 F.3d 763, 771 (2d Cir. 1994) (courts ignore “unwarranted deductions of fact”). And the third theory fails because there is no allegation in the Complaint supporting the conclusion that the “training process” excludes CMI “[b]y design.” Compl. ¶ 187; see also Tremblay, 2024 WL 557720, at *4. Moreover, the Times fails to allege facts that could show how the alleged CMI removal could “induce, enable, facilitate, or conceal an infringement” of copyright—much less how OpenAI could have “reasonable grounds to know” it would. 17 U.S.C. § 1202(b). The “point of CMI” is to provide information to “the public,” not to govern purely internal databases. Roberts v. BroadwayHD LLC, 518 F. Supp. 3d 719, 737 (S.D.N.Y. 2021); Compl. ¶ 59. As Judge Martínez-Olguín explained, it is far from obvious how “the alleged removal of CMI in an internal database [could] enable infringement.” Tremblay, 2024 WL 557720, at *4 (dismissing claim).[44] 3. The Output-Based Section 1202 Claim Fails The second category of Section 1202 violation in the Complaint alleges that (1) OpenAI violated Section 1202(b)(1)’s removal prohibition by failing to include the Times’s CMI in model outputs, Compl. ¶¶ 185–86; and (2) by displaying those outputs via ChatGPT or its API, OpenAI violated Section 1202(b)(3)’s prohibition on “distribut[ing]” works “knowing that [CMI] has been removed,” Compl. ¶ 189. Neither theory states a claim for relief. As a preliminary matter, the Times’s Section 1202(b)(3) claim fails because the Complaint does not allege that OpenAI “distribute[d]” any outputs. In this context, “distribution” requires a “sale or transfer of ownership extending beyond that of a mere public display.” Wright v. Miah, No. 22-cv-4132, 2023 WL 6219435, at *7 (E.D.N.Y. Sept. 7, 2023) (emphasis added).[45] But “mere public display” of outputs is all the Complaint alleges. See, e.g., Compl. ¶ 102. Regardless, this “output” theory fails because the outputs alleged in the Complaint are not wholesale copies of entire Times articles. They are, at best, reproductions of excerpts of those articles, some of which are little more than collections of scattered sentences. Supra 12. If the absence of CMI from such excerpts constituted a “removal” of that CMI, then DMCA liability would attach to any journalist who used a block quote in a book review without also including extensive information about the book’s publisher, terms and conditions, and original copyright notice. See supra note 22 (example of the Times including 200-word block quote in book review). To avoid such anomalous results, courts have cabined applications of Section 1202(b)(1) and (3) to circumstances in which the works in question were “substantially or entirely reproduced.” Fischer v. Forrest, 286 F. Supp. 3d 590, 609 (S.D.N.Y. 2018). As such, failure to include original CMI in anything less than an identical reproduction of all (or almost all) of the work does not qualify as CMI removal. Tremblay, 2024 WL 557720, at *5 (dismissing claim because “Plaintiffs have not alleged that [OpenAI] distributed their books or copies of [them]”).[46] As the Times has not alleged that OpenAI reproduced entire articles, the output-based claim fails. Even setting that aside, the Times’s output-based CMI claim fails for the independent reason that there was no CMI to remove from the relevant text. The Exhibit J outputs, for example, feature text from the middle of articles. Ex. J. at 2–126. As shown in the exhibit, the “Actual text from NYTimes” contains no information that could qualify as CMI. See, e.g., id. at 3; 17 U.S.C. § 1202(c) (defining CMI). So too for the ChatGPT outputs featured in the Complaint, which request the “first [and subsequent] paragraph[s]” from Times articles. See, e.g., Compl. ¶¶ 104, 106, 118, 121. None of those “paragraphs” contains any CMI that OpenAI could have “removed.” 4. The Times Fails to Allege a CMI-Based Injury Count V separately fails for lack of standing. “[T]o have standing” to sue for a DMCA violation, the Times “must show that [it] was injured by that violation.” Steele v. Bongiovi, 784 F. Supp. 2d 94, 97–98 (D. Mass. 2011); see also 17 U.S.C. § 1203(a). Here, the Complaint’s “Harm to the Times” section relates entirely to its inability to receive speculative licensing revenue, see Compl. ¶¶ 155–56, and the possibility that ChatGPT will “divert readers,” see id. ¶ 157. Neither injury has any nexus to CMI. Nor is there any imaginable harm here: because all of the Complaint’s outputs were either generated using the original Times article itself, see Ex. J, or referenced the Times by name, see, e.g., Compl. ¶ 104, any user who encountered those outputs would have no doubt as to the provenance of the text and could easily find it on the Times’s website (as ChatGPT often invites them to do, see id. ¶¶ 106, 134). Cf. Kelly, 77 F. Supp. 2d at 1122 (DMCA claim failed because users who encounter images are “given the name of the Web site from which Defendant obtained the image, where any associated [CMI] would be available”). Continue Reading . Here [36] Design Pics Inc. v. PBH Network, Inc., No. 20-cv-1096, 2020 WL 8413512, at *4 (E.D.N.Y. Oct. 27, 2020) (dismissing CMI claim based on “conclusory, boilerplate parroting of the statutory text”). [37] See, e.g., John Branch, Snow Fall: The Avalanche at Tunnel Creek, N.Y. Times, https://www.nytimes.com/projects/2012/snow-fall/index.html#/?part=tunnel-creek (last accessed Feb. 11, 2024); see also Compl. ¶¶ 104–05 & n.28 (citing this article). [38] See, e.g., Pete Wells, As Not Seen on TV, N.Y. Times (Nov. 13, 2012), https://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/14/dining/reviews/restaurant-review-guys-american-kitchen-bar-in-timessquare.html; see also Compl. ¶¶ 106–07 & n.29 (citing and quoting this article). [39] See also Wood v. Observer Holdings, LLC, No. 20-cv-07878, 2021 WL 2874100, at *8 (S.D.N.Y., July 8, 2021) (terms on “separate website” not CMI); GC2 Incorporated v. Int’l Game Tech. PLC, 255 F. Supp. 3d 812, 821–22 (N.D. Ill. 2017) (“terms of use notice near a copyrighted work” not “conveyed in connection with” work). [40] See, e.g., Compl. ¶ 106 (ChatGPT responding to query naming “Pete Wells” with a completion correctly identifying the publication date of Wells’ article); see also id. ¶ 104 (same, for title). [41] Kelly v. Arriba Soft Corp., 77 F. Supp. 2d 1116, 1122 (C.D. Cal. 1999), rev'd on other grounds by 336 F.3d 811 (9th Cir. 2003) (no Section 1202 liability vs. search engine “crawler [that] did not include [CMI]”). [42] The Times suggests that OpenAI’s “Browse with Bing” feature “scrap[es] Times Works from The Times’s websites,” Compl. ¶ 185, but the Complaint does not include a single allegation supporting that conclusion, see supra 13 & n.32 (noting that Browse with Bing fetched content from third-party sites, not the Times’s website). [43] OpenAI cannot have removed CMI from datasets that “contained no such [CMI]” in the first place. McGucken v. Shutterstock, Inc., No. 22-cv-00905, 2023 WL 6390530, at 11 (S.D.N.Y. Oct. 2, 2023) (rejecting DMCA claim). [44] See Victor Elias Photography, LLC v. Ice Portal, Inc., 43 F.4th 1313, 1325 (11th Cir. 2022) (requiring “some identifiable connection between the defendant’s actions and the infringement or the likelihood of infringement.”). [45] Id. at *10 (endorsing Section 1202(b)(3) claim where defendant distributed artwork on Etsy); MyPlayCity, Inc. v. Conduit Ltd., No. 10-cv-1615, 2012 WL 1107648, at *12 (S.D.N.Y. Mar. 30, 2012) (“distribution” means “actual dissemination of copies”); FurnitureDealer.Net, Inc v. Amazon.com, Inc, No. 18-cv-232, 2022 WL 891473, at *23 (D. Minn. Mar. 25, 2022) (“[P]ublic display does not constitute distribution, and thus is not a [DMCA] violation.”). [46] See also Doe 1 v. GitHub, Inc., No. 22-cv-06823, 2024 WL 235217, *9 (N.D. Cal. Jan. 22, 2024) (dismissing Section 1202(b) claim against OpenAI because outputs were “not identical” to originals); A’Lor Int’l, Ltd. v. Tapper Fine Jewelry, Inc., No. 12-cv-02215, 2012 WL 12921035, at *10 (C.D. Cal. Aug. 8, 2012) (“the plain language of the statute encompasses only removal and alteration;” does not “include [mere] omissions”); Faulkner Press, L.L.C. v. Class Notes, L.L.C., 756 F. Supp. 2d 1352, 1358–59 (N.D. Fla. 2010) (rejecting claim where “word for word” text was “copied into a different form and [] incorporated into” commercial materials); Kelly, 77 F. Supp. 2d at 1121–22 (“displaying thumbnails of Plaintiffs’ images without [] the corresponding [CMI]” was not CMI “removal”). About HackerNoon Legal PDF Series: We bring you the most important technical and insightful public domain court case filings. This court case retrieved on February 26, 2024, from is part of the public domain. The court-created documents are works of the federal government, and under copyright law, are automatically placed in the public domain and may be shared without legal restriction. fingfx.thomsonreuters.com

ChatGPT Never Produced "Wholesale Copies" of NYT's Articles

This article was , an independent, nonprofit organization that works side by side with consumers for truth, transparency and fairness in the marketplace. . copublished with Consumer Reports Learn more here By now most internet users know their online activity is constantly tracked. No one should be shocked to see ads for items they previously searched for, or to be asked if their data can be shared with an unknown number of “partners.” But what is the scale of this surveillance? Judging from data collected by Facebook and by non-profit consumer watchdog Consumer Reports, it’s massive, and examining the data may leave you with more questions than answers. newly described in a unique study Using a panel of 709 volunteers who shared archives of their Facebook data, Consumer Reports found that a total of 186,892 companies sent data about them to the social network. On average, each participant in the study had their data sent to Facebook by 2,230 companies. That number varied significantly, with some panelists’ data listing over 7,000 companies providing their data. The Markup helped Consumer Reports recruit participants for the study. Participants downloaded an archive of the last three years of their data from their Facebook settings, then provided it to Consumer Reports. By collecting data this way, the study was able to examine a form of tracking that is normally hidden: so-called “server-to-server” tracking, in which personal data goes from a company’s servers to Meta’s servers. Another form of tracking, in which Meta tracking pixels are placed on company websites, is visible to users’ browsers. Because the data came from a self-selected group of users, and because the results were not demographically adjusted, the study does not “make any claims about how representative this sample is of the U.S. population as a whole,” Consumer Reports noted. Participants were also likely more privacy conscious and technically inclined than typical users and more likely to be members of Consumers Reports. Despite its limitations, the study offers a rare look, using data directly from Meta, on how personal information is collected and aggregated online. Meta spokesperson Emil Vazquez defended the company’s practices. “We offer a number of transparency tools to help people understand the information that businesses choose to share with us, and manage how it’s used,” wrote Vazquez in an emailed statement to The Markup. While Meta does provide transparency tools like the one that enabled the study, Consumer Reports identified problems with them, including that the identity of many data providers is unclear from the names disclosed to users and that companies that provide services to advertisers are often allowed to ignore opt-out requests. One company appeared in 96% of participants’ data: the San Francisco-based data broker LiveRamp. But the companies sharing your online activity to Facebook aren’t just little-known data brokers. Retailers like Home Depot, Walmart and Macy’s all were in the top 100 most frequently-seen companies in the study. Credit reporting and consumer data companies such as Experian and TransUnion’s Neustar also made the list, as did Amazon, Etsy and PayPal. LiveRamp did not respond to a request for comment. What Exactly Does This Data Contain? The data examined by Consumer Reports in this study comes from two types of collection: events and custom audiences. Both categories include information about what people do outside of Meta’s platforms. Custom audiences allow advertisers to upload customer lists to Meta, often including identifiers like email addresses and mobile advertising IDs. These customers, and so-called “lookalike audiences” made up of similar people, can then be targeted with ads on Meta’s platforms. The other category of data collection, “events,” describes interactions that the user had with a brand, which can occur outside of Meta’s apps and in the real world. Events can include visiting a page on a company’s website, leveling up in a game, visiting a physical store, or purchasing a product. These signals originate from Meta software code included in many mobile apps, their tracking pixel, which is included on many websites, and from server-to-server tracking, where a company’s server passes data to a Meta server. The Markup has written extensively about the and how it has been used to surveil people as they , , , , and . Meta Pixel dial suicide hotlines buy their groceries take the SATs file their taxes book appointments with their doctors Website owners can configure the pixel to track user website interactions such as searches or filling out a form, sending each action to Meta, even if the user doesn’t have an account on Facebook. Although research tools like The Markup’s “Pixel Hunt” can detect the Meta pixel or SDK tracking, there is no way for a consumer to monitor the traffic between a company’s server and Meta’s. This Consumer Reports study looks at server-to-server data along with the rest. How Can I See My Data? Facebook users can browse through the list of companies that have sent their data to Facebook by going to: https://accountscenter.facebook.com/info_and_permissions From this menu, users can either download or access their information. To see the companies outside of Meta that have been sharing your information, select “Your activity off Meta technologies,” then “Recent activity.” You might be prompted to re-enter your password at this point. This view will show you the number of recent connections between various third-party businesses you visited and Meta, and examples of the activity that was shared. You can choose to prevent future sharing by the company by selecting “Disconnect.” To see detailed information about these interactions, . request a copy of your data But after jumping through the many hoops required to actually get your hands on this data, you may still be left with lingering questions. For example, in addition to easily recognizable company names, more than 7,000 companies in Consumer Reports’ study were named using unreadable gibberish, or just numbers that don’t mean anything to most users. Even those companies with readable names often did not include links to the company website. Some company names were ambiguous, such as “Viking,” which could be a number of different businesses. “This type of tracking which occurs entirely outside of the user’s view is just so far outside of what people expect when they use the internet,” Caitriona Fitzgerald, Deputy Director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, told The Markup in an interview. Fitzgerald said that while users are likely aware that Meta knows what they are doing while they are on Facebook and Instagram, “they don’t expect Meta to know what stores they walk into or what news articles they’re reading or every site they visit online.” In the report, Consumer Reports calls for a number of policy proposals covering data collection practices, some of which could be part of a national digital privacy law, something that the organization has long advocated for. Among the recommendations specifically aimed at Meta’s technology and the advertisers who use it: Require companies to adopt “data minimization” strategies which call for the collection of the absolute minimum amount of data needed to provide the service being offered. Expand the powers of “authorized agents” to act on behalf of consumers to act on their rights. is a mobile app by Consumer Reports that allows users to quickly opt-out of and delete data from a long list of companies and data brokers on behalf of users; the app takes advantage of state privacy laws’ authorized agent provisions. Permission Slip Increase ad transparency by creating ad archives that allow the public to see all ads that have been served to users on a platform, following the lead of the EU's . Digital Services Act Existing Meta transparency tools should improve the quality and readability of the data that is made available so consumers can actually act on the information they review. Fitzgerald echoed these recommendations, saying the problem lies with the fact that the burden is on the consumer to take action to prevent this data collection. Even a “global opt-out” mechanism allowing users to avoid having their data shared is not enough because “that still requires the user to take an action to protect their privacy. A lot of people are not going to have the time or knowledge to do that,” said Fitzgerald. Vazquez, Meta’s spokesperson, said the company would “continue to invest in data minimization technologies to keep up with evolving expectations. As we cover in our terms, businesses are responsible for getting permission to share people’s information with companies like ours.” For now, the lack of a federal privacy law leaves consumers in most states with few options. “I think people should be encouraging their elected officials to pass privacy laws that require businesses to change some of these business practices to stop this ubiquitous tracking of our every click and every movement,” said Fitzgerald. Credits: , , , , , Jon Keegan Carlo Cadenas Maria Puertas Gabriel Hongsdusit Ryan Tate Michael Reilly Also published here Photo by on Amanda Dalbjörn Unsplash

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