Daily Links

1. How AI raises challenges to protecting creators’ work. The Senate Judiciary subcommittee on intellectual property held a hearing Wednesday on concerns around patents and innovation, escalating lawmakers’ focus on a wide range of concerns about AI. – Read More on the Hill

2. Yacht maker’s Italy pivot shows the way for Prada. Lorenzo Bertelli, heir to the Prada fortune, has been openly talking about the need to hedge geopolitical risks via a European listing. Shifting winds may force such change sooner rather than later. – Read More on Reuters

3. The Step-Up in Ecommerce Sneaker Fraud. Technology has a significant role to play, with machine learning and AI solutions able to detect patterns to fight popular fraud types. – Read More on Retail TouchPoints

4. TikTok Eyes $20 Billion Commerce Business Despite US Setback. Despite attempted bans the company faced in the U.S., ByteDance Ltd.’s TikTok aims to more than quadruple the size of its global e-commerce business to as much as $20 billion in merchandise sales this year. – Read More on Bloomberg

5. Senators to introduce a bipartisan AI bill aimed at keeping up with China. The Global Technology Leadership Act comes as Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and other members of Congress have made addressing artificial intelligence a key target. – Read More on NBC

6. Scarred by the 2008 Recession and COVID, 48% of Gen Z Frequently Shops at Discount Stores: Four out of five are worried about the health of the U.S. economy, and a significant group, 41%, set aside more money than they spend, compared to 36% who say they spend more money than they save. – Read More on Retail TouchPoints

1. Neiman Marcus Earnings Hit by Steep Discounts, Softer Demand: “Gross margins are challenged due to the highly promotional environment and our own levels of excess owned inventory, which will be back in balance by the end of the fiscal year.” – Read More on Yahoo

2. Consumer fatigue aside, luxury brands still jacking prices: The brands have upped their prices under a marketing strategy to retain their image during the Covid-19 pandemic, but now the prices are rising to make up for the fact that market growth for luxury brands is slowing down globally. – Read More on Korea JoongAng

3. The “Last Mile” in Well-Being and Sustainability: To create a more sustainable future, we need to shift our focus beyond the initial stages of production and address the crucial “last mile” – where consumers also adopt sustainable practices. – Read More on INSEAD

4. ‘Greenwashing’ lawsuit against KLM to proceed, Dutch court rules: A Dutch court on Wednesday allowed to proceed to the next phase a civil suit brought by environmental groups against KLM for commercials that allegedly misled consumers about the airline’s environmental credentials. – Read More on Reuters

5. CEOs Are Rethinking Their Stands on Social Issues. “Not every investor or customer or employee wants a company to speak out. But there is a big enough contingent that do. And in some cases, many executives feel like they don’t have a choice, or in some cases they want to be vocal and out front on issues.” – Hear More on the WSJ

6. Publishers’ group warns that generative AI content could violate copyright law: “Most of the use of publishers’ original content by AI systems for both training and output purposes would likely be found to go far beyond the scope of fair use as set forth in the Copyright Act and established case law.” – Read More on Marketing Brew

1. How Brands Can Sell to Environmentally Conscious Nonconsumers: New research into how consumer attitudes about climate change affect their behavior and purchasing habits find that the largest segment is “Conscious Non-consumers” — that is, people who have changed their behavior to help the environment, but are not purchasing environmentally friendly products. – Read More on HBR

2. How Australian fashion fell to pieces: Even the largest and most established players are suffering. Australia’s prestige department store, David Jones, was bought by a private equity fund for just $100m at the end of 2022, a steep plummet from its 2014 purchase price of $2.1bn. – Read More on the Guardian

3. Binance and Coinbase Show Knives Out for Crypto: US regulators have made it clear that the knives are out for the entire crypto sector, with intent to inflict death by a thousand cuts. – Read More on Bloomberg

*You can find the SEC’s complaint against Coinbase right here.

4. Zara owner Inditex faces margin test: “The consumer is remaining a bit more resilient than we would have expected last year,” said Ciaran Callaghan, head of European equity research at Amundi, Europe’s biggest asset manager. – Read More on Reuters

5. US corporate bankruptcies tick up in May: S&P Global Market Intelligence recorded 54 corporate bankruptcy filings during May, a slight rise from 52 April. In the first five months of the year, 2023 has recorded more filings than any comparable period since 2010. – Read More on S&P Global

6. Dua Lipa wins dismissal of ‘Levitating’ copyright lawsuit: U.S. District Judge Sunshine Sykes said Artikal Sound System failed to argue that the writers of “Levitating” ever had access to the group’s 2017 song “Live Your Life.” – Read More on Reuters

1. The SEC charged Binance and its founder Changpeng Zhao, with a variety of securities law violations on Monday. It charged Coinbase, Inc. with operating its crypto asset trading platform as an unregistered national securities exchange, broker, and clearing agency and for failing to register the offer and sale of its crypto asset staking-as-a-service program. – Read More from the SEC

2. Chief executives cannot shut up about AI:  So far in the latest quarterly results season, executives at a record 110 companies in the S&P 500 index have brought up ai in their earnings calls. – Read More on the Economist

3. Fast fashion giant with ties to China tries to shake forced labor claims: Shein has hired Washington lobbyists for the first time and is talking up its new status as a Singapore-based company after relocating its headquarters there from Nanjing. – Read More on Politico

4. RELATED READ: As Shein Looks to Lobbying, What is Driving Corporate Political Strategy? “Corporations spend when they are worried about negative media coverage prompting what they perceive to be potentially harmful regulations.” – Read More on TFL

5. A man wants to trademark ‘Trump too small’ for T-shirts. Now the Supreme Court will hear the case. Government officials said the phrase “Trump too small” could still be used, just not registered as a TM because Trump had not consented to its use. But a federal appeals court said refusing registration violated free speech rights. – Read More on AP

6. AI generated content should be labelled, EU Commissioner Jourova says: Companies deploying generative AI tools such as ChatGPT and Bard with the potential to generate disinformation should label such content as part of their efforts to combat fake news, European Commission deputy head Vera Jourova said. – Read More on Reuters

7. The AI Hype Cycle Is Distracting Companies: When you unpack the meaning of “AI,” you discover just how overblown a buzzword it is. If it doesn’t mean artificial general intelligence, a grandiose goal for technology, then it just doesn’t mean anything at all. – Read More on HBR

1. Is the luxury sector recession-proof? Part of the reason for the wait for Birkin bags is constrained supply, which Hermès manages with the precision worthy of its stitching. But another part is booming demand for all manner of luxury goodies. – Read More on the Economist 

2. We need to keep CEOs away from AI regulation. Executives are trying to get ahead and set the tone, by arguing that they are best placed to regulate the very technologies they produce. – Read More on the FT

3. Urban Dictionary Definition Inadmissible in Trademark Case. Stay You, LLC claims that H&M’s use of the phrase “Stay True Stay You” infringes its trademark “Stay You,” and H&M is arguing (among other things) that “the Urban Dictionary definition of ‘Stay You” is strong evidence that the phrase is in common usage and therefore also diminishes the strength of the mark.” – Read More on Reason 

4. The Gap beats shareholder lawsuit over commitment to diversity. The Gap Inc on Thursday beat a shareholder lawsuit claiming the company’s directors breached their duties by making misleading statements in securities filings about the retailer’s commitment to racial diversity in its leadership ranks. – Read More on Reuters

5. Erik Nordstrom Should Unleash His Inner Bernard Arnault: There’s a ton of risk in chasing the aspiring rich. For one, the discount space has become more crowded and competitive in the last few years. Resale companies have consistently outperformed the overall luxury segment even as they too see affluent shoppers squeezed. – Read More on Bloomberg

6. Europe’s new success stories are built on high luxury, not high tech. The top European brands now account for a third of global sales, up from a quarter in 2010. Europe’s top four luxury companies, by market cap, are all French: LVMH, L’Oréal, Hermès, and Christian Dior (which is owned by LVMH). – Read More on the FT