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By Danielle Broadway LOS ANGELES (Reuters) -Fans sang along on Sunday in Los Angeles to celebrate the 20th anniversary orchestra concert of “Avatar: The Last Airbender,” which features music from the popular 2005 animated Nickelodeon series. "It's really cool to get a younger generation in to see an orchestra concert and get 'em to see something that they're excited about because they know and love Avatar,” conductor Emily Marshall told Reuters at the Dolby Theatre. The 2025 "Avatar: The Last Airbender" tour takes place in over 80 cities across the globe and is based on the story of a boy named Aang, the last Airbender and the world's protector called the Avatar, who journeys to restore balance despite a war dominated by the Fire Nation. Marshall believes it was important to have a team so dedicated to ensuring the show was authentic for fans. "It is really special that the whole original creative team of "Avatar" was involved in the creation of our show here," she said. Original composer for the show, Jeremy Zuckerman, never imagined that he would go from knowing very little about scoring music to composing for an award-winning franchise. However, the course of his life changed in 2005 when he began working on the music for the show with co-creators Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko.  "It's so satisfying finally seeing these pieces performed by humans, because originally all the orchestra was samples," Zuckerman said. The live performance offers fans a chance to hear Asian instruments like the Erhu, a Chinese stringed instrument, and the Taiko drums from Japan. Some of the concert music features the "Agni Kai" battle music and the campy song "Secret Tunnel."  DiMartino and Konietzko spent two years creating a live-action adaptation of the first “Avatar” series for Netflix until parting ways with the studio in 2020, explaining that “creative differences” caused them to depart the project. The live-action show debuted in 2024 under the leadership of Albert Kim for the first season. Jabbar Raisani and Christine Boylan will be directing the next two seasons after Kim stepped down in 2024. In 2021, the "Avatar" co-creators announced that they were teaming up with Nickelodeon again to form their own production company and division of Nickelodeon called Avatar Studios that will continue the world-building of the original show with new projects. "The two main things that we've got in the pipeline and hopefully coming out in the next year or two is the big feature film starring Aang and his friends. They're a little bit older now. The animation is looking incredible and I can't wait until it shows in theaters and everybody can enjoy it," DiMartino said at the Dolby. "Then we have ‘Seven Havens,’ which is about a girl named Avatar Pavi, who is the Avatar after Korra. She's an Earthbender. So, a lot of mystery around the show and it's also gorgeous kind of new style," he added. Zuckerman, who also composed the music for the sequel "The Legend of Korra", will return for the upcoming film "The Legend of Aang: The Last Airbender” and the series "Avatar: Seven Havens."  (Reporting by Danielle Broadway and Sarah Wemy; Editing by Saad Sayeed)

(The article has been published through a syndicated feed. Except for the headline, the content has been published verbatim. Liability lies with original publisher.)

By Danielle Broadway LOS ANGELES (Reuters) -For Ariana Greenblatt, learning magic tricks at The Magic Castle clubhouse in Los Angeles was the best part of starring in the third installment of the American heist film, "Now You See Me: Now You Don't." "Before opening hours, we would spend a couple hours in there and just learn as much as we possibly could in the time given, and it was so much fun," the former Disney Channel star said of the month the actors spent at the home of the Academy of Magical Arts learning illusions seen in the film. "It's so weird. I feel like we have newfound skills, which is my favorite part of this job," said Greenblatt, who received several film award nominations for her role in "Barbie." The new movie, directed by Ruben Fleischer, features returning actors Jesse Eisenberg, Woody Harrelson, Dave Franco, Isla Fisher and Morgan Freeman, along with newcomers Justice Smith, Dominic Sessa, Rosamund Pike and Greenblatt. The film, distributed by Lionsgate and opening in U.S. theaters on Friday, continues the story of "The Four Horsemen" as they reunite to recruit three skilled illusionists for a high-stakes robbery of the world's largest "queen diamond" from a crime syndicate. "We learned so much, … a lot of card tricks," said Sessa, whose debut in "The Holdovers" earned him the Critics' Choice Movie Award for Best Young Performer. "Ariana did a lot of pickpocketing (in her role), and she was constantly trying to use me as her prop to practice on." For franchise veteran Franco, the magic tricks he learned over years of working on the films paid off. "We're playing the greatest magicians in the world. So, as an audience, when you're watching us, you want to believe that we're actually doing some of these tricks," he said. "Our director, Ruben, encouraged us to learn as much as we could to make it look as real as possible," he added, noting that his card-throwing skills have become especially advanced. It was important to Fleischer and the cast that the illusions looked convincing. "The director really wanted to make sure that the magic was real, that it wasn't just computer-generated effects, which meant for us as actors, practicing every day, the tiniest little hand moves," fellow franchise veteran Eisenberg said. (Reporting by Danielle Broadway and Rollo Ross; Editing by Richard Chang)

(The article has been published through a syndicated feed. Except for the headline, the content has been published verbatim. Liability lies with original publisher.)

By Jörn Poltz and Friederike Heine MUNICH (Reuters) -OpenAI's chatbot ChatGPT violated German copyright laws by reproducing lyrics from songs by best-selling musician Herbert Groenemeyer and others, a court ruled on Tuesday, in a closely watched case against the U.S. firm over its use of lyrics to train its language models. The regional court in Munich found that the company trained its AI on protected content from nine German songs, including Groenemeyer's hits "Maenner" and "Bochum". The case was brought by German music rights society GEMA, whose members include composers, lyricists and publishers, in another sign of artists around the world fighting back against data scraping by AI. Presiding judge Elke Schwager ordered OpenAI to pay damages for the use of copyrighted material, without disclosing a figure. GEMA legal advisor Kai Welp said GEMA hoped discussions could now take place with OpenAI on how copyright holders can be remunerated. COPYRIGHT INFRINGED OpenAI had argued that its language models did not store or copy specific training data but, rather, reflected what they had learned based on the entire training data set. Since the output would only be generated as a result of user inputs known as prompts, it was not the defendants, but the respective user who would be liable for it, OpenAI had argued. However, the court found that both the memorisation in the language models and the reproduction of the song lyrics in the chatbot's outputs constitute infringements of copyright exploitation rights, according to a statement on the ruling. POTENTIAL PRECEDENT The outcome of the case could set a precedent in Europe for how AI companies use copyrighted materials. "The internet is not a self-service store, and human creative achievements are not free templates," said GEMA CEO Tobias Holzmueller. "Today, we have set a precedent that protects and clarifies the rights of authors: even operators of AI tools such as ChatGPT must comply with copyright law." The decision can be appealed. "We disagree with the ruling and are considering next steps," a spokesperson for OpenAI said. "The decision is for a limited set of lyrics and does not impact the millions of people, businesses and developers in Germany that use our technology every day." Earlier this year, leading Bollywood music labels asked a New Delhi court to join a copyright lawsuit against OpenAI over alleged unauthorised use of sound recordings to train AI models, underscoring global concerns about AI and music rights. (Reporting by Joern Poltz, Writing by Friederike Heine; Editing by Madeline Chambers and Susan Fenton)

(The article has been published through a syndicated feed. Except for the headline, the content has been published verbatim. Liability lies with original publisher.)

By Danielle Broadway LOS ANGELES (Reuters) -For Ariana Greenblatt, learning magic tricks at The Magic Castle clubhouse in Los Angeles was the best part of starring in the third installment of the American heist film, "Now You See Me: Now You Don't." "Before opening hours, we would spend a couple hours in there and just learn as much as we possibly could in the time given, and it was so much fun," the former Disney Channel star said of the month the actors spent at the home of the Academy of Magical Arts learning illusions seen in the film. "It's so weird. I feel like we have newfound skills, which is my favorite part of this job," said Greenblatt, who received several film award nominations for her role in "Barbie." The new movie, directed by Ruben Fleischer, features returning actors Jesse Eisenberg, Woody Harrelson, Dave Franco, Isla Fisher and Morgan Freeman, along with newcomers Justice Smith, Dominic Sessa, Rosamund Pike and Greenblatt. The film, distributed by Lionsgate and opening in U.S. theaters on Friday, continues the story of "The Four Horsemen" as they reunite to recruit three skilled illusionists for a high-stakes robbery of the world's largest "queen diamond" from a crime syndicate. "We learned so much, … a lot of card tricks," said Sessa, whose debut in "The Holdovers" earned him the Critics' Choice Movie Award for Best Young Performer. "Ariana did a lot of pickpocketing (in her role), and she was constantly trying to use me as her prop to practice on." For franchise veteran Franco, the magic tricks he learned over years of working on the films paid off. "We're playing the greatest magicians in the world. So, as an audience, when you're watching us, you want to believe that we're actually doing some of these tricks," he said. "Our director, Ruben, encouraged us to learn as much as we could to make it look as real as possible," he added, noting that his card-throwing skills have become especially advanced. It was important to Fleischer and the cast that the illusions looked convincing. "The director really wanted to make sure that the magic was real, that it wasn't just computer-generated effects, which meant for us as actors, practicing every day, the tiniest little hand moves," fellow franchise veteran Eisenberg said. (Reporting by Danielle Broadway and Rollo Ross; Editing by Richard Chang)

(The article has been published through a syndicated feed. Except for the headline, the content has been published verbatim. Liability lies with original publisher.)

MUNICH (Reuters) -A German court on Tuesday sided with the country's music rights society GEMA in a closely watched copyright case against U.S.-based artificial intelligence firm OpenAI. The court in Munich ruled that OpenAI could not use song lyrics without a license and presiding judge Elke Schwager ordered the firm to pay damages for the use of copyrighted material. GEMA had argued OpenAI's chatbot ChatGPT reproduces lyrics from copyrighted German songs without authorisation, and that its AI was trained on protected content from the repertoire of its roughly 100,000 members, who include best-selling musician Herbert Groenemeyer. OpenAI responded by saying that GEMA's arguments reflected a misunderstanding of how ChatGPT works. The case could set a precedent for how generative AI systems are regulated in Europe. GEMA is seeking the establishment of a licensing framework that would require AI developers to pay for the use of musical works in both training and output. The decision can be appealed. OpenAI and GEMA said they would issue statements on the verdict later on Tuesday. (Reporting by Joern Poltz, Writing by Friederike Heine, Editing by Madeline Chambers)

(The article has been published through a syndicated feed. Except for the headline, the content has been published verbatim. Liability lies with original publisher.)

MUNICH (Reuters) -A German court on Tuesday sided with the country's music rights society GEMA in a closely watched copyright case against U.S.-based artificial intelligence firm OpenAI. The court in Munich ruled that OpenAI could not use song lyrics without a license and presiding judge Elke Schwager ordered the firm to pay damages for the use of copyrighted material. GEMA had argued OpenAI's chatbot ChatGPT reproduces lyrics from copyrighted German songs without authorisation, and that its AI was trained on protected content from the repertoire of its roughly 100,000 members, who include best-selling musician Herbert Groenemeyer. OpenAI responded by saying that GEMA's arguments reflected a misunderstanding of how ChatGPT works. The case could set a precedent for how generative AI systems are regulated in Europe. GEMA is seeking the establishment of a licensing framework that would require AI developers to pay for the use of musical works in both training and output. The decision can be appealed. OpenAI and GEMA said they would issue statements on the verdict later on Tuesday. (Reporting by Joern Poltz, Writing by Friederike Heine, Editing by Madeline Chambers)

(The article has been published through a syndicated feed. Except for the headline, the content has been published verbatim. Liability lies with original publisher.)