Independent music publisher Round Hill is suing Suno and Anthropic for allegedly using hundreds of copyrighted songs without permission to train their AI systems. The company says potential damages could exceed $1 billion, arguing there is "nothing fair" about building multibillion-dollar AI businesses on copyrighted material while rights holders receive nothing. From The Hollywood Reporter: Round Hill is a prominent music publisher whose copyrights include the Goo Goo Dolls' "Iris," Bonnie Tyler's "Total Eclipse of the Heart," the Kinks' "Lola" and Dio's "Holy Diver." The company provided a list of 500 songs that the defendants had infringed upon. Round Hill said in the suits that the company plans to "amend to list potentially ten thousand or more of their musical compositions," with those damages potentially exceeding $1 billion. "While in other cases for copyright infringement, Defendant has waxed poetic about the necessity of progress and AI's value to society, there is simply no reason -- other than rote expediency -- to have that progress come at the cost of copyrights holders," prominent music attorney Richard Busch, representing Round Hill, wrote in the suits.

Round Hill further argued that the latter "'expediency' arguments completely falter" when taking into account Suno and Anthropic's significant cash valuations they've earned while "exploiting illicit copies of copyrighted works, including the Round Hill Works." "There is simply nothing fair about a company using theft to build for purely commercial purposes a multi-billion dollar business while those from which they steal receive nothing," Round Hill said.
Suno also faces a lawsuit from Universal Music Group and Sony Music Group.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

CISA says the Medusa ransomware operation has breached more than 500 U.S. critical infrastructure organizations since 2021, up from more than 300 reported last year. The group has targeted healthcare, government, defense, manufacturing, IT and financial organizations, evolving into a ransomware-as-a-service operation that recruits initial-access brokers and uses stolen data to pressure victims into paying. BleepingComputer reports: The three federal agencies recommended that network defenders secure their networks against the ransomware group's attacks by mitigating security vulnerabilities to protect operating systems, software, and firmware from exploitation attempts. Security teams are also advised to segment networks to block lateral movement after compromise and to block access from untrusted origins to remote services on internal systems.

[...] "Medusa developers typically recruit initial access brokers (IABs) in cybercriminal forums and marketplaces to obtain initial access to potential victims," the advisory says. "Potential payments between $100 USD and $1 million USD are offered to these affiliates with the opportunity to work exclusively for Medusa."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Moderna and Merck say their personalized mRNA melanoma vaccine significantly reduced both cancer recurrence and spread in a late-stage trial. The treatment could reach patients as soon as next year if regulators approve it. Reuters reports: Moderna developed the vaccine with Merck and tested it together with immunotherapy drug Keytruda, a widely used treatment for melanoma. [...] This is the first positive late-stage trial result for an mRNA cancer vaccine, which trains a patient's immune system to fight tumors by targeting specific mutations in those cells and the first such study to show that adding a treatment to Keytruda worked better than that therapy alone. Similar approaches are being tested against lung, breast and pancreatic cancers.

[...] The cancer treatment combines Merck's Keytruda with a made-to-order mRNA vaccine from Moderna that is based on an analysis of mutations found in the patients' own tumors. The trial enrolled 1,137 high-risk patients with stage IIB-IV melanoma that had been surgically removed. Volunteers were randomized to receive up to nine doses of Keytruda plus the personalized vaccine or Keytruda alone for about one year. The companies said no new safety signals have emerged in the trial. In January, the companies announced results of a mid-stage trial of the treatment showing that it reduced the risk of recurrence or death by 49% after five years. Karen Knudsen, CEO of the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy, said the Moderna results could signal a new era for treating solid-tumor cancers. "The positive hit here leads us into truly this next phase in immunotherapy," Knudsen said. "This is an auspicious start -- this is where things begin."

Moderna shares more than doubled on the news, adding about $30 billion to its market value.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Thomas Hawk posted a photo:

Thomas Hawk posted a photo:

Why a debate over a hit cartoon is more than culture-war madness.

For many artists, designers, and writers, the daily project is a fruitful, if not invigorating, exercise. Whether it emerges in the form of a morning sketch or collection of objects gathered during walks, disciplined creativity has a certain allure, and many of us long for a regimen that pushes through blocks, demanding that we make even in the most uninspiring conditions.

This is true for Damien Hoar de Galvan, who embarked on a daily sculpture project at the beginning of 2024 from his home studio in Milton, just outside of Boston. He decided that, for the next 12 months, he would fashion a small wood assemblage each day. “I thought it would be a good way to change up how I was making things, new materials, work faster, etc.,” the artist writes, adding that he had been challenged by raising a teenage daughter during COVID and making and selling work through it all. The habit might bring the joy and play back into his process, and if one piece wasn’t his favorite, he could try again the next day.

At the beginning, Hoar de Galvan didn’t plan to exhibit the works but rather focused on leaning into his intuition and pushing himself in a new direction. “I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to stick to the whole year and had no plan as to what to do with all the sculptures or how to show them all,” the artist says.

Rarely sketching a composition before gluing and painting scraps of reclaimed wood, he would begin by selecting a shape or color that interested him and progress from there. “There might be a feeling or impulse that pushes me in a general direction when starting a new one… I’m usually surprised along the way as they inevitably start dictating what they want to be,” he adds.

A trip to Barcelona waylaid the project for a few days, and at the end of 2024, Hoar de Galvan had amassed 362 sculptures, just four short of the leap year total. It wasn’t until ICA Boston curator Tessa Bachi Haas asked for a studio visit that Hoar de Galvan began to think about showing the works, and he later received the 2025 James and Audrey Foster Prize, a biannual award that includes an exhibition at the museum.

Titled I don’t think I’m ever gonna figure it out after the Elliot Smith song, the complete collection appeared atop five long shelves. Presented together, the individual works appear diverse yet cohesive, featuring vibrant fragments of reclaimed wood fanned into pointed geometries, unusual comb-esque shapes fitted together like a puzzle, or radial lines that sweep outward like a starburst.

Standing just a few inches tall, each piece is a sort of record of a moment, while together, they capture a year of devotion and experimentation. “Thinking back to the sculpture a day, I made so many that sometimes an idea would pop up, and I knew there wasn’t time to change what I was working on for that day, but I would try it at some other point. There were some invisible connections running through them all,” Hoar de Galvan shares.

Currently, the artist is working toward exhibitions at Tokyo’s Gallery Side2 and Gallery Naga, where he’s represented. Keep up with his latest pieces on Instagram.

Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member today and support independent arts publishing for as little as $7 per month. The article Damien Hoar de Galvan Puzzles Scraps of Reclaimed Wood for a Daily Sculpture Project appeared first on Colossal.

Just turn left [SLTimewaster]

F1.com's Lawrence Barretto takes a look at Red Bull’s decision to give Liam Lawson another chance, with Yuki Tsunoda also set to return to the grid in Zandvoort.