We're All Copyright Owners. Welcome to the Mess That AI Has Created; CNET, March 23, 2026

Katelyn Chedraoui , CNET; We're All Copyright Owners. Welcome to the Mess That AI Has Created

Copyright is one of the most important legal issues in the age of AI. And yes, it affects you.

"You probably rarely, if ever, think about copyright law. But if you want to understand why there are so many lawsuits being filed against AI companies, knowing a bit about copyright law is key. And whether you know it or not, these issues affect you.

If you've ever written a blog post, taken a photo or created an original video, you're a copyright owner. That's most of us, which means that copyright law -- its protections, limitations and application -- is more relevant to you than you might've thought. Sadly, copyright in the age of generative AI is something of a mess."

Commentary: A win-win-win path for AI in America; The Post & Courier, July 22, 2025

Keith Kupferschmid, The Post & Courier; Commentary: A win-win-win path for AI in America

"Contrary to claims that these AI training deals are impossible to make at scale, a robust free market is already emerging in which hundreds (if not thousands) of licensed deals between AI companies and copyright owners have been reached. New research shows it is possible to create fully licensed data sets for AI.

No wonder one federal judge recently called claims that licensing is impractical “ridiculous,” given the billions at stake: “If using copyrighted works to train the models is as necessary as the companies say, they will figure out a way to compensate copyright holders.” Just like AI companies don’t dispute that they have to pay for energy, infrastructure, coding teams and the other inputs their operations require, they need to pay for creative works as well.

America’s example to the world is a free-market economy based on the rule of law, property rights and freedom to contract — so, let the market innovate solutions to these new (but not so new) licensing challenges. Let’s construct a pro-innovation, pro-worker approach that replaces the false choice of the AI alarmists with a positive, pro-America pathway to leadership on AI."

We're All Copyright Owners. Why You Need to Care About AI and Copyright; CNET, May 19, 2025

 Katelyn Chedraoui , CNET; We're All Copyright Owners. Why You Need to Care About AI and Copyright

"Most of us don't think about copyright very often in our daily lives. But in the age of generative AI, it has quickly become one of the most important issues in the development and outputs of chatbots and image and video generators. It's something that affects all of us because we're all copyright owners and authors...

What does all of this mean for the future?

Copyright owners are in a bit of a holding pattern for now. But beyond the legal and ethical implications, copyright in the age of AI raises important questions about the value of creative work, the cost of innovation and the ways in which we need or ought to have government intervention and protections. 

There are two distinct ways to view the US's intellectual property laws, Mammen said. The first is that these laws were enacted to encourage and reward human flourishing. The other is more economically focused; the things that we're creating have value, and we want our economy to be able to recognize that value accordingly."

Ben Stiller, Mark Ruffalo and More Than 400 Hollywood Names Urge Trump to Not Let AI Companies ‘Exploit’ Copyrighted Works; Variety, March 17, 2025

Todd Spangler , Variety; Ben Stiller, Mark Ruffalo and More Than 400 Hollywood Names Urge Trump to Not Let AI Companies ‘Exploit’ Copyrighted Works

"More than 400 Hollywood creative leaders signed an open letter to the Trump White House’s Office of Science and Technology Policy, urging the administration to not roll back copyright protections at the behest of AI companies.

The filmmakers, writers, actors, musicians and others — which included Ben Stiller, Mark Ruffalo, Cynthia Erivo, Cate Blanchett, Cord Jefferson, Paul McCartney, Ron Howard and Taika Waititi — were submitting comments for the Trump administration’s U.S. AI Action Plan⁠. The letter specifically was penned in response to recent submissions to the Office of Science and Technology Policy from OpenAI and Google, which asserted that U.S. copyright law allows (or should allow) allow AI companies to train their system on copyrighted works without obtaining permission from (or compensating) rights holders."

OpenAI declares AI race “over” if training on copyrighted works isn’t fair use; Ars Technica, March 13, 2025

ASHLEY BELANGER  , Ars Technica; OpenAI declares AI race “over” if training on copyrighted works isn’t fair use

"OpenAI is hoping that Donald Trump's AI Action Plan, due out this July, will settle copyright debates by declaring AI training fair use—paving the way for AI companies' unfettered access to training data that OpenAI claims is critical to defeat China in the AI race.

Currently, courts are mulling whether AI training is fair use, as rights holders say that AI models trained on creative works threaten to replace them in markets and water down humanity's creative output overall.

OpenAI is just one AI company fighting with rights holders in several dozen lawsuits, arguing that AI transforms copyrighted works it trains on and alleging that AI outputs aren't substitutes for original works.

So far, one landmark ruling favored rights holders, with a judge declaring AI training is not fair use, as AI outputs clearly threatened to replace Thomson-Reuters' legal research firm Westlaw in the market, Wired reported. But OpenAI now appears to be looking to Trump to avoid a similar outcome in its lawsuits, including a major suit brought by The New York Times."

The Generative AI Copyright Disclosure Act of 2024: Balancing Innovation and IP Rights; The National Law Review, May 13, 2024

 Danner Kline of Bradley Arant Boult Cummings LLP, The National Law Review; The Generative AI Copyright Disclosure Act of 2024: Balancing Innovation and IP Rights

"As generative AI systems become increasingly sophisticated and widespread, concerns around the use of copyrighted works in their training data continue to intensify. The proposed Generative AI Copyright Disclosure Act of 2024 attempts to address this unease by introducing new transparency requirements for AI developers.

The Bill’s Purpose and Requirements

The primary goal of the bill is to ensure that copyright owners have visibility into whether their intellectual property is being used to train generative AI models. If enacted, the law would require companies to submit notices to the U.S. Copyright Office detailing the copyrighted works used in their AI training datasets. These notices would need to be filed within 30 days before or after the public release of a generative AI system.

The Copyright Office would then maintain a public database of these notices, allowing creators to search and see if their works have been included. The hope is that this transparency will help copyright holders make more informed decisions about licensing their IP and seeking compensation where appropriate."

Explainer: who owns the copyright to your tattoo?; The Conversation, August 10, 2020

Marie Hadley, The Conversation; Explainer: who owns the copyright to your tattoo?

"So, why don’t tattooists sue over copying?

In some art industries, there can be a big gap between holding rights and exercising them. 

To tattooists, appropriation is mostly seen as a matter of ethics or manners rather than law...

These norms aside, copyright law does apply to tattoos. Whether or not more tattoo enthusiasts will seek an appropriate licence, as occurred in the case of Jarrangini (buffalo), or a copyright owner will sue for a rights violation, is another matter."

Autocomplete suggestions: Did you mean 'copyright infringement'?; Lexology, January 10, 2019

MinterEllison - Nadia Braad and Ruby Ramachandran, Lexology; Autocomplete suggestions: Did you mean 'copyright infringement'?

"We won't be likely to see a Court consider this particular topic until the value of the copyright is sufficient for a copyright owner to challenge a search engine over the autocomplete suggestions. In the fast paced world of technology, this may not be far away."

The Second Circuit Shuts Down Resale of Digital Music Files in Capitol Records, LLC v. ReDigi, Inc., Lexology, December 18, 2018

Weil Gotshal & Manges LLP - Samuel J. Zeitlin and Bruce Rich, Lexology; The Second Circuit Shuts Down Resale of Digital Music Files in Capitol Records, LLC v. ReDigi, Inc.

 

"If you purchase a copy of music in physical form--like a CD or vinyl record-- you own your copy even though you do not own the underlying songs. Although the law reserves to the copyright owner the right to make more copies, she cannot stop you from selling your copy or giving it away. This rule is called the right of first sale, and it enables all secondhand sales of copyrighted material, from the smallest used bookstore to eBay and Amazon Marketplace. The right of first sale began as judge-made law in the early 20th century, and today is part of the copyright statute at 17 U.S.C. 109(a). In technical terms, Section 109(a) creates an exception for the owners of legal copies to the copyright owner's exclusive right to distribute her work, although not to her exclusive right to reproduce her work.

 

But what happens if you purchase a digital music file? Digital copying unravels the balance between the rights of copyright owners and customers set by the first sale doctrine. Section 109(a) only allows the owner of a copy to distribute it, not to make more copies. In a digital environment, however, distributing a file is done by making a copy of that file in a new location. When the distinction between copying and distributing collapses, is it still possible to exercise the right of first sale?

 

The Second Circuit has just confronted this issue in its December 12, 2018 ruling on the legality of ReDigi, an online marketplace designed to let people resell digital music files purchased from iTunes. In a unanimous decision in Capitol Records, LLC v. ReDigi, Inc. penned by the Second Circuit's preeminent copyright expert, Judge Pierre Leval, the court upheld the conclusion of the district court that ReDigi's business model violated the law."

YouTube CEO asks creators to ‘take action’ against EU copyright law; CNet, October 22, 2018

Richard Nieva, CNet; YouTube CEO asks creators to ‘take action’ against EU copyright law

""This legislation poses a threat to both your livelihood and your ability to share your voice with the world," Wojcicki wrote in a blog post. "And, if implemented as proposed, Article 13 threatens hundreds of thousands of jobs, European creators, businesses, artists and everyone they employ."

She added, "Please take a moment to learn more about how it could affect your channel and take action immediately." She also asked creators to protest using the hashtag #SaveYourInternet."

WHAT IF ‘STAR TREK’ WERE FREE? HOW THE STORIED SCI-FI FRANCHISE COULD INSPIRE COPYRIGHT REFORM; Newsweek, March 5, 2018

Andrew Whalen, Newsweek; 

WHAT IF ‘STAR TREK’ WERE FREE? HOW THE STORIED SCI-FI FRANCHISE COULD INSPIRE COPYRIGHT REFORM

"CBS and Paramount are unlikely to see things the same way. While Star Trek: Discovery press releases trumpet the “ideology and hope for the future that inspired a generation of dreamers and doers,” plans for streaming market domination depend upon exclusivity. The metaphor equating artistic expression and property has become so ingrained that companies regularly reduce their consumers to provisional licensees, subject to whatever controls the copyright holder decides upon, even long after the point of purchase.

“Star Trek stands on the shoulders of giants. It exists because they plundered some of the most interesting stories and memes of science fiction, just as all science fiction writers do, to tell their own story. And to argue that when they did it that was the legitimate progress of art and whenever anyone else does it, it's theft, is pretty self-serving and kind of obviously bullshit,” Doctorow said. “It's a ridiculous thing for a law to ban something that ancient and fundamental to how we experience art.”

Countering the monopoly exercised by copyright holders will require a broader social realignment, under which people come to understand art as a shared cultural endowment, rather than product—a mindset beyond capital."

Supreme Court turns down EFF’s “Dancing Baby” fair use case; Ars Technica, June 19, 2017

Joe Mullin, Ars Technica, Supreme Court turns down EFF’s “Dancing Baby” fair use case

"The Supreme Court has decided not to take up the case of Lenz v. Universal, a ten-year-old copyright lawsuit initiated by the Electronic Frontier Foundation that helped determine the boundaries of "fair use."

Today's order leaves standing an earlier ruling by the US Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit. EFF called that ruling a "strong precedent," while at the same time acknowledging it did not go far enough...

Now that the 9th Circuit precedent stands, EFF will have to decide whether or not it wants to push forward with a jury trial. The damages boundaries have already been set by earlier judicial decisions, so Lenz wouldn't be able to get more than "nominal" damages. That wouldn't be much, since her video was removed for only a couple weeks and has remained up since, garnering more than 1.9 million views.

EFF Legal Director Corynne McSherry said she's disappointed the Supreme Court didn't take the case, since DMCA abuse is "well-documented and all too common."...

At the end of the day, the Lenz case is a clear demonstration that Section 512(f) of the DMCA, which allows for lawsuits and damages against copyright owners, is unlikely to ever be a powerful tool. From a user's perspective, it's hard to imagine what could be a more clear case of fair use than the Lenz video, which features less than 40 seconds of staticky-sounding background music. If copyright owners can say they satisfied the legal requirement by saying, "We considered fair use, but didn't see it," then not much can stop them from basically blowing off 512(f). Few future plaintiffs will be able to summon the legal resources that Lenz did."

Kim Dotcom extradition to US can go ahead, New Zealand high court rules; Guardian, February 19, 2017

Eleanor Ainge Roy, Guardian; 

Kim Dotcom extradition to US can go ahead, New Zealand high court rules

"The high court in New Zealand has ruled Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom can be extradited to the United States to face a multitude of charges including money laundering and copyright breaches.

US authorities had appealed for Dotcom’s extradition to face 13 charges including allegations of conspiracy to commit racketeering, copyright infringement, money laundering and wire fraud."

New US Copyright Rule Sets Trap For Online Firms; Intellectual Property Watch, 11/25/16

Steven Seidenberg, Intellectual Property Watch; New US Copyright Rule Sets Trap For Online Firms:

"The US Copyright Office is supposed to balance the interests of copyright owners with the interests of everyone else. However, the Office’s latest regulation, which takes effect 1 December, may be anything but fair and balanced. It could, according to critics, strip Facebook, YouTube, and other online companies of a vital statutory safe harbor, thus making these companies liable when their users post infringing material online. Online companies could face billions in infringement damages, driving them out of business."

Change at the Copyright Office; Publishers Weekly, 10/28/16

Andrew Albanese, Publishers Weekly; Change at the Copyright Office:

"Could Pallante’s departure spur Congress to finally appropriate sufficient resources to modernize the Copyright Office, which virtually everyone agrees is badly needed and long overdue? Hayden herself said she intends to build on the work Pallante did in terms of modernizing the Copyright Office for the digital age.

Or, might Pallante’s removal push Congress to consider removing the office from the Library of Congress altogether? Pallante was certainly held in high esteem by lawmakers. But sources expressed doubt that in the current political climate Congress would seek to create a new federal bureaucracy for copyright—which is the domain of Congress—that would be headed by a presidential appointee.

At the very least, ALA’s Sheketoff observed that Pallante’s removal suggests that the future of the U.S. Copyright Office is a high priority for at least one government official—Carla Hayden."

Maria Pallante's Departure From the Copyright Office: What It Means, And Why It Matters; Billboard, 10/25/16

Robert Levine, Billboard; Maria Pallante's Departure From the Copyright Office: What It Means, And Why It Matters:

"Although Hayden spoke about the importance of copyright during her confirmation hearings, she is perceived to favor looser copyright laws, since she previously served as president of the American Library Association, an organization that lobbies for greater public access to creative works, sometimes as the expense of creators. The Obama Administration also has close ties to technology companies, which would like to see a Copyright Office that values fair use and other exceptions to copyright over the rights of creators and copyright owners.

Hillary Clinton is thought to be view copyright more favorably, but she hasn’t said much about the topic, and she initially addressed it in her “Initiative on Technology & Innovation” -- not an encouraging sign for creators. Donald Trump doesn’t appear to have said much about the topic."

Hong Kong Copyright Law To Be Fiercely Debated; Variety, 12/7/15

Patrick Frater, Variety; Hong Kong Copyright Law To Be Fiercely Debated:

"Hong Kong’s legislature is Wednesday to debate a bill that seeks to make the territory’s copyright laws appropriate for the Internet age.

The government seems certain to win the vote in the Legislative Council (LegCo), but the bill is likely to be fiercely contested and extra security may be drafted outside the LegCo building.

Opponents say that the bill reinforces the position of business and copyright owners, but stifles freedom of speech.

In particular, they say that the proposed law does not take enough account of user-generated-content and that it will narrow the scope for sampling of copyright works for parody."

With Key Filings in, Trials Loom In Google Book Cases; Publishers Weekly, 8/3/12

Andrew Albanese, Publishers Weekly; With Key Filings in, Trials Loom In Google Book Cases:

"With the battle lines now drawn, how is the fight shaping up? At this stage, observers say, the Authors Guild may be facing an uphill charge. “Google and HathiTrust have made a compelling case that digitization to support full-text search and long-term preservation is a fair use,” New York Law School professor James Grimmelmann told PW. On the other hand, he notes, in the HathiTrust case at least, the Authors Guild has simply not made “a convincing case” that there is harm to the copyright owners."

If Three Constitutes Company, Add Lawyers to Make It a Crowd; New York Times, 7/17/12

Patrick Healy, New York Times; If Three Constitutes Company, Add Lawyers to Make It a Crowd:

"Most playwrights have jitters on opening night, but David Adjmi was in a panic amid the festivities last month for “3C,” his darkly comic deconstruction of the 1970s sitcom “Three’s Company.” That same day he learned that the copyright owner of “Three’s Company” had sent a cease-and-desist letter to the play’s producers charging that Mr. Adjmi had infringed on the copyright by borrowing so many elements from the TV series, including its premise about a man who pretends to be gay to live with two female roommates.

The show went on — but the copyright fight remains far from resolved.

At issue is whether “3C” is enough of a parody of “Three’s Company” to be protected under First Amendment exceptions to copyright law — specifically, under the legal doctrine of fair use, which allows artists to use copyrighted work to lampoon or critique the material, as the international hit “Forbidden Broadway” has done for years with its sendups of famous musicals."

The case for piracy; ABC, 10/20/11

Nick Ross, ABC; The case for piracy:

"We've been deluged with the arguments against piracy for years. But what's the other side of the story? Could it possibly be that copyright infringers and pirates aren't always the bad guys? Are copyright owners their own worst enemy? Judge for yourself and tell us what you think."