The AI copyright standoff continues - with no solution in sight; BBC, June 2, 2025

Zoe Kleinman, BBC ; The AI copyright standoff continues - with no solution in sight

"The fierce battle over artificial intelligence (AI) and copyright - which pits the government against some of the biggest names in the creative industry - returns to the House of Lords on Monday with little sign of a solution in sight.

A huge row has kicked off between ministers and peers who back the artists, and shows no sign of abating. 

It might be about AI but at its heart are very human issues: jobs and creativity.

It's highly unusual that neither side has backed down by now or shown any sign of compromise; in fact if anything support for those opposing the government is growing rather than tailing off."

U.S. Copyright Office Shocks Big Tech With AI Fair Use Rebuke; Forbes, May 29, 2025

Tor Constantino, MBA

, Forbes; U.S. Copyright Office Shocks Big Tech With AI Fair Use Rebuke

 "The U.S. Copyright Office released its long-awaited report on generative AI training and copyright infringement on May 9, just one day after President Trump abruptly fired Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden. Within 48 hours, Register of Copyrights Shira Perlmutter was also reportedly out, after the agency rushed to publish a “pre-publication version” of its guidance — suggesting urgency, if not outright alarm, within the office.

This timing was no coincidence. “We practitioners were anticipating this report and knew it was being finalized, but its release was a surprise,” said Yelena Ambartsumian, an AI governance and IP lawyer and founder of Ambart Law. “The fact that it dropped as a pre-publication version, the day after the librarian was fired, signals to me that the Copyright Office expected its own leadership to be next.”

At the center of the report is a sharply contested issue: whether using copyrighted works to train AI models qualifies as “fair use.” And the office’s position is a bold departure from the narrative that major AI companies like OpenAI and Google have relied on in court...

The office stopped short of declaring that all AI training is infringement. Instead, it emphasized that each case must be evaluated on its specific facts — a reminder that fair use remains a flexible doctrine, not a blanket permission slip."

It’s too expensive to fight every AI copyright battle, Getty CEO says; Ars Technica, May 28, 2025

 ASHLEY BELANGER , Ars Technica; It’s too expensive to fight every AI copyright battle, Getty CEO says

[Kip Currier: As of May 2025, New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) data values Getty Images at nearly three-quarters of a billion dollars.

So it's noteworthy and should give individual creators pause that even a company of that size is publicly acknowledging the financial realities of copyright litigation against AI tech companies like Stability AI.

Even if the courts should determine that AI tech companies can prevail on fair use grounds against copyright infringement claims, isn't there something fundamentally unfair and unethical about AI tech oligarchs being able to devour and digest everyone else's copyrighted works, and then alchemize that improperly-taken aggregation of creativity into new IP works that they can monetize, with no recompense given to the original creators?

Just because someone can do something, doesn't mean they should be able to do it.

AI tech company leaders like Elon Musk, Sam Altman, Mark Zuckerberg et al would never stand for similar uses of their works without permission or compensation. 

Neither should creators. Quid pulchrum est (What's fair is fair).

If the courts do side with AI tech companies, new federal legislation may need to be enacted to provide protections for content creators from the AI tech companies that want and need their content to power up novel iterations of their AI tools via ever-increasing amounts of training data. 

In the current Congress, that's not likely to happen. But it may be possible after 2026 or 2028. If enough content creators make their voices heard through their grassroots advocacy and votes at the ballot box.]

[Excerpt]

"On Bluesky, a trial lawyer, Max Kennerly, effectively satirized Clegg and the whole AI industry by writing, "Our product creates such little value that it is simply not viable in the marketplace, not even as a niche product. Therefore, we must be allowed to unilaterally extract value from the work of others and convert that value into our profits."

The Copyright Office’s Report on AI Training Material and Fair Use: Will It Stymie the U.S. AI Industry?; The Federalist Society, May 29, 2025

John Blanton Farmer  , The Federalist Society ; The Copyright Office’s Report on AI Training Material and Fair Use: Will It Stymie the U.S. AI Industry?

"Will the Trump Administration Withdraw the Report?

The Trump Administration might withdraw this report.

The Trump Administration is friendlier to the U.S. AI industry than the Biden Administration was. Shortly after taking office, it rescinded a Biden Administration executive order on the development and use of AI, which was restrictive and burdensome.

The day before the report was released, the Trump Administration fired the head of the Library of Congress, which oversees the USCO. The day after the report was issued, it fired the head of the USCO. The administration didn’t comment on whether these firings were related to the report.

The USCO may have rushed out the report to prevent the Trump Administration from meddling with it. The version released was labeled a “pre-publication version.” It’s unusual to release a non-final version.

This report is not the law. Courts will decide this fair use issue. They’ll certainly consider this report, but they aren’t bound to follow it."

Judge Hints Anthropic’s AI Training on Books Is Fair Use; Bloomberg Law, May 22, 2025

Annelise Levy

, Bloomberg Law; Judge Hints Anthropic’s AI Training on Books Is Fair Use

"A California federal judge is leaning toward finding Anthropic PBC violated copyright law when it made initial copies of pirated books, but that its subsequent uses to train their generative AI models qualify as fair use.

“I’m inclined to say they did violate the Copyright Act but the subsequent uses were fair use,” Judge William Alsup said Thursday during a hearing in San Francisco. “That’s kind of the way I’m leaning right now,” he said, but concluded the 90-minute hearing by clarifying that his decision isn’t final. “Sometimes I say that and change my mind."...

The first judge to rule will provide a window into how federal courts interpret the fair use argument for training generative artificial intelligence models with copyrighted materials. A decision against Anthropic could disrupt the billion-dollar business model behind many AI companies, which rely on the belief that training with unlicensed copyrighted content doesn’t violate the law."

The Library of Congress Shake-Up Endangers Copyrights; Bloomberg, May 24, 2025

 Stephen Mihm, Bloomberg; The Library of Congress Shake-Up Endangers Copyrights

Elon Musk’s apparent power play at the Copyright Office completely backfired; The Verge, May 14, 2025

Tina Nguyen , The Verge; Elon Musk’s apparent power play at the Copyright Office completely backfiredi

Most AI chatbots easily tricked into giving dangerous responses, study finds; The Guardian, May 21, 2025

 Ian Sample  , The Guardian; Most AI chatbots easily tricked into giving dangerous responses, study finds

"Hacked AI-powered chatbots threaten to make dangerous knowledge readily available by churning out illicit information the programs absorb during training, researchers say.

The warning comes amid a disturbing trend for chatbots that have been “jailbroken” to circumvent their built-in safety controls. The restrictions are supposed to prevent the programs from providing harmful, biased or inappropriate responses to users’ questions.

The engines that power chatbots such as ChatGPT, Gemini and Claude – large language models (LLMs) – are fed vast amounts of material from the internet.

Despite efforts to strip harmful text from the training data, LLMs can still absorb information about illegal activities such as hacking, money laundering, insider trading and bomb-making. The security controls are designed to stop them using that information in their responses.

In a report on the threat, the researchers conclude that it is easy to trick most AI-driven chatbots into generating harmful and illegal information, showing that the risk is “immediate, tangible and deeply concerning”...

The research, led by Prof Lior Rokach and Dr Michael Fire at Ben Gurion University of the Negev in Israel, identified a growing threat from “dark LLMs”, AI models that are either deliberately designed without safety controls or modified through jailbreaks. Some are openly advertised online as having “no ethical guardrails” and being willing to assist with illegal activities such as cybercrime and fraud."

The AI and Copyright Issues Dividing Trump’s Court; Jacobin, May 19, 2025

DAVID MOSCROP , Jacobin; The AI and Copyright Issues Dividing Trump’s Court

"As many have pointed out, the copyright-AI battle is not only a central struggle within the Trump administration; it is also a broader conflict over who controls intellectual property and to what end. For decades, corporations have abused copyright to unreasonably extend coverage periods and impoverish the public domain. Their goal: maximizing both control over IP and profits. But AI firms aren’t interested in reforming that system. They’re not looking to open access or enrich the commons — they just want training data. And in fighting for it, they may end up reshaping copyright law in ways that outlast this administration.

As Nguyen notes, after the Register of Copyrights, Shira Perlmutter, was turfed by DOGE-aligned officials, Trump antitrust adviser Mike Davis posted to Truth Social: “Now tech bros are going to steal creators’ copyrights for AI profits. . . . This is 100 percent unacceptable.” Trump reposted it. That’s the shape of the struggle: MAGA populists, who see their own content as sacred property, are up against a tech elite that views all content as extractable fuel."

Donald Trump’s Library of Congress fight is really about the separation of powers; AP, May 16, 2025

 SEUNG MIN KIM, Associated Press (AP); Donald Trump’s Library of Congress fight is really about the separation of powers

"It’s not really about the books.

President Donald Trump’s abrupt firing of top officials at the Library of Congress and equally sudden attempt to appoint a slate of loyalists as replacements has instead morphed into an enormous fight over the separation of powers, as the White House tries to wrest control of what has for centuries been a legislative institution.

It’s a power struggle with potentially vast consequences. The Library of Congress not only stores the world’s largest collection of books but also an office overseeing reams of copyrighted material of untold value. 

There is a research institute that has long been protected from outside influence. Its servers house extremely sensitive information regarding claims of workplace violations on Capitol Hill, as well as payments and other financial data for the legislative branch’s more than 30,000 employees. There’s even speculation that the whole affair is tied to an ongoing debate over whether big tech companies can use copyrighted material for artificial intelligence systems."

'Criminal': Elton John condemns UK's AI copyright plans; Reuters, May 18, 2025

 Reuters; 'Criminal': Elton John condemns UK's AI copyright plans

"The biggest names in the industry, including John, Paul McCartney, Andrew Lloyd Webber, Ed Sheeran and others, have urged the government to change course, saying the proposal will make it even harder for young people to make a living in the creative industries.

"The danger is for young artists, they haven't got the resources to keep checking or fight big tech," John told the BBC. "It's criminal and I feel incredibly betrayed.""

Sir Elton John ‘incredibly betrayed’ by Government’s path on copyright law; The Independent, May 18, 2025

John Besley , The Independent; Sir Elton John ‘incredibly betrayed’ by Government’s path on copyright law

"Sir Elton John described the Government as “absolute losers” and said he felt “incredibly betrayed” after calls by peers to amend the Data (Use and Access) Bill to include greater copyright protections against artificial intelligence (AI) were resisted.

Earlier this week, the House of Lords supported an amendment designed to ensure copyright holders would have to give permission over whether their work was used, and in turn, see what aspects had been taken, by who and when.

MPs voted 297 to 168, majority 129, to disagree with this change on Wednesday evening, which means the stand-off between the two Houses over the wording of the Bill continues."

Trump strikes a blow for AI – by firing the US copyright supremo; The Guardian, May 13, 2025

 Blake Montgomery , The Guardian; Trump strikes a blow for AI – by firing the US copyright supremo

"Over the weekend, Donald Trump fired the head of the US copyright office, CBS News reported. Register of Copyrights, Shira Perlmutter, was sacked after she issued a report questioning AI companies’ growing need for more data and casting doubt on their expressed need to circumvent current copyright laws.

In a statement, New York Democratic representative Joe Morelle pointed specifically to Trump’s booster-in-chief Elon Musk as a motivator for Perlmutter’s firing: “Donald Trump’s termination of register of copyrights, Shira Perlmutter, is a brazen, unprecedented power grab with no legal basis. It is surely no coincidence he acted less than a day after she refused to rubber-stamp Elon Musk’s efforts to mine troves of copyrighted works to train AI models.”

Trump’s abrupt severing of the copyright chief from her job reminds me of the Gordian knot. Legend has it that Alexander the Great was presented with a knot in a rope tying a cart to a stake. So complex were its twistings that no man had been able to untie it of the hundreds who had tried. Alexander silently drew his sword and sliced the knot in two. The story is one of a great man demonstrating the ingenuity that would lead him to conquer the world. Alexander did solve the riddle. He also defeated its purpose. The cart is left with no anchor. Perhaps the riddle had taken on more significance than the original problem of keeping the cart in place, but that is a question for another day.

Trump may have cut through any thorny legal questions the copyright office had raised, but the vacuum at the head of the US’s copyright authority means that richer and better-connected players will run roughshod over copyright law in the course of their business. That may be what the president wants. The more powerful players in lawsuits over AI and copyright are undoubtedly the well capitalized AI companies, as much as I want artists to be paid in abundance for their creativity. These tech companies have cozied up to Trump in an effort to ensure a friendlier regulatory environment, which seems to be working if the firing of the copyright chief is any evidence. Lawsuits over how much AI companies owe artists and publishers for their surreptitious use of copyrighted material with an avowed lack of permission still abound, and both plaintiffs and defendants will be taking their cues from the US copyright office."

Opt out or get scraped: UK’s AI copyright shake-up has Elton John, Dua Lipa fighting back; CNBC, May 12, 2025

Ryan Browne , CNBC; Opt out or get scraped: UK’s AI copyright shake-up has Elton John, Dua Lipa fighting back

"Celebrity musicians from Elton John to Dua Lipa are urging the U.K. government to rethink controversial plans to reform copyright laws that allow artificial intelligence developers access to rights-protected content.

An open letter signed by John, Lipa and a host of other high-profile artists, this weekend called on Prime Minister Keir Starmer to back an amendment proposed by U.K. lawmaker Beeban Kidron to make the legal framework around AI model makers’ use of copyrighted content more strict.

“We are wealth creators, we reflect and promote the national stories, we are the innovators of the future, and AI needs us as much as it needs energy and computer skills,” they said in the letter.

“We will lose an immense growth opportunity if we give our work away at the behest of a handful of powerful overseas tech companies.”"

US Copyright Office found AI companies sometimes breach copyright. Next day its boss was fired; The Register, May 12, 2025

Simon Sherwood, The Register; US Copyright Office found AI companies sometimes breach copyright. Next day its boss was fired

"The head of the US Copyright Office has reportedly been fired, the day after agency concluded that builders of AI models use of copyrighted material went beyond existing doctrines of fair use.

The office’s opinion on fair use came in a draft of the third part of its report on copyright and artificial intelligence. The first part considered digital replicas and the second tackled whether it is possible to copyright the output of generative AI.

The office published the draft [PDF] of Part 3, which addresses the use of copyrighted works in the development of generative AI systems, on May 9th.

The draft notes that generative AI systems “draw on massive troves of data, including copyrighted works” and asks: “Do any of the acts involved require the copyright owners’ consent or compensation?”"

Trump fires Copyright Office director after report raises questions about AI training; TechCrunch, May 11, 2025

Anthony Ha , TechCrunch; Trump fires Copyright Office director after report raises questions about AI training

"As for how this ties into Musk (a Trump ally) and AI, Morelle linked to a pre-publication version of a U.S. Copyright Office report released this week that focuses on copyright and artificial intelligence. (In fact, it’s actually part three of a longer report.)

In it, the Copyright Office says that while it’s “not possible to prejudge” the outcome of individual cases, there are limitations on how much AI companies can count on “fair use” as a defense when they train their models on copyrighted content. For example, the report says research and analysis would probably be allowed.

“But making commercial use of vast troves of copyrighted works to produce expressive content that competes with them in existing markets, especially where this is accomplished through illegal access, goes beyond established fair use boundaries,” it continues.

The Copyright Office goes on to suggest that government intervention “would be premature at this time,” but it expresses hope that “licensing markets” where AI companies pay copyright holders for access to their content “should continue to develop,” adding that “alternative approaches such as extended collective licensing should be considered to address any market failure.”

AI companies including OpenAI currently face a number of lawsuits accusing them of copyright infringement, and OpenAI has also called for the U.S. government to codify a copyright strategy that gives AI companies leeway through fair use.

Musk, meanwhile, is both a co-founder of OpenAI and of a competing startup, xAI (which is merging with the former Twitter). He recently expressed support for Square founder Jack Dorsey’s call to “delete all IP law.”"

Copyright and Artificial Intelligence Part 3: Generative AI Training, Pre-Publication; U.S. Copyright Office, May 2025

U.S. Copyright Office; Copyright and Artificial Intelligence Part 3: Generative AI Training, Pre-Publication

Trump fires top US copyright official; Politico, May 10, 2025

KATHERINE TULLY-MCMANUS , Politico; Trump fires top US copyright official

[Kip Currier: If the allegation below is correct -- that Musk or anyone could gain and/or be granted access to the copyrighted works that federal copyright filers are required to provide for deposit to the U.S. Copyright Office (i.e. the U.S. federal government), as a condition of receiving a federal copyright, and that Musk or anyone could then use these federally-deposited copyrighted works to train proprietary AI models without permission or payment to the owners of those federally-deposited copyrighted works -- this is a matter that must be reported on more widely and investigated by the U.S. Congress.]

[Excerpt]

"Rep. Joe Morelle, the top Democrat on the House Administration Committee which oversees the Library of Congress and U.S. Copyright Office, is alleging it is “no coincidence [Trump] acted less than a day after [Perlmutter] refused to rubber-stamp Elon Musk’s efforts to mine troves of copyrighted works to train AI models.”

Perlmutter and her office issued a lengthy report about artificial intelligence that included some questions and concerns about the usage of copyrighted materials by AI technology, an industry which Musk is heavily involved in.

“This action once again tramples on Congress’s Article One authority and throws a trillion-dollar industry into chaos,” Morelle continued in a statement. “When will my Republican colleagues decide enough is enough?”"

COPYRIGHTING AI-ASSISTED FILM AND TV COULD GET COMPLICATED; Variety, May 5, 2025

 Audrey Schumer, Variety; COPYRIGHTING AI-ASSISTED FILM AND TV COULD GET COMPLICATED

"For Hollywood and other creative industries, most of the debate about generative AI and copyright has emphasized the unlicensed use of copyrighted content to train AI models."

Copyright alone cannot protect the future of creative work; Brookings, May 1, 2025

Mark MacCarthy , Brookings; Copyright alone cannot protect the future of creative work

"AI-generated content is nowhere near as good today as the output of skilled journalists, scriptwriters, videographers, photographers, commercial designers, and other creative workers. But the AI technology is getting there. Content producers will soon be able to use AI systems to generate at least some content that used to be generated without any AI assistance. Prompt engineers will work together with traditional content creators to guide new systems of content production. The promise of the new technology is that this output will be satisfactory and maybe even superior for a wide variety of purposes at a fraction of the cost."