Axios AI+DC Summit: Copyright protection in the AI era will be up to the courts, industry leaders say; Axios, March 27, 2026

 Julie Bowen, Axios ; Axios AI+DC Summit: Copyright protection in the AI era will be up to the courts, industry leaders say

"Washington, D.C. — As policymakers grapple with how to regulate AI, the hardest questions around copyright and fair use are being punted to the courts, according to governance, creator, and technology experts at an Axios expert voices roundtable.

The big picture: With Congress moving slowly and disagreements over policy, judges are becoming the primary deciders of how AI and the creators work together — or don't.

That's partly by necessity: "Fair use is incredibly complicated — case by case, fact specific," News/Media Alliance president and CEO Danielle Coffey said.

"Each case that we get … we start to get these new guideposts," Jones Walker partner Graham Ryan said.

Ryan said they expect at least three fair use decisions this year that will have implications for the broader AI-artist ecosystem.

Axios' Maria Curi and Ashley Gold moderated the March 25 discussion, which was sponsored by Adobe.

What they're saying: Legal uncertainty remains. For example, two courts within the same district, and during the same week, differed in the reasoning behind their rulings on similar matters of fair use and AI.

"There is a current, live controversy over … the extant understanding of the fourth factor in fair use, which is: Does the copy replace the market for the work?" said Kevin Bankston, senior adviser for the Center for Democracy & Technology.

Still, "we have been trying to support the process through the courts, because we think there is a really strong framework in copyright law for protecting artists right now," according to Public Knowledge president and CEO Chris Lewis."

Q&A: The UK’s Copyright Report - A Gift to Creators, a Problem for AI; JD Supra, March 27, 2026

 Oliver Howley, JD Supra; Q&A: The UK’s Copyright Report - A Gift to Creators, a Problem for AI

"The UK Government has released its long-awaited copyright report, framed as an attempt to reconcile the competing interests of creators, technology companies and the wider innovation ecosystem. Rightsholders will welcome it, while the UK’s AI sector will find less comfort.

Two core policy decisions (on training data and on the ownership of AI-generated outputs) mark a shift away from earlier, more developer-friendly proposals. Both decisions leave significant questions unanswered: how AI developers can lawfully assemble training data at scale, what happens to content produced with minimal human input, and whether the UK’s current posture is sustainable in a world where capital and training runs are increasingly mobile.

In this Q&A, Oliver Howley, partner in Proskauer’s TMT Group and one of The Lawyer’s 2026 Hot 100, unpacks what the report says on these two decisions, what it leaves open, and what it means for developers, investors and rightsholders navigating the uncertainty ahead."

America's Newspapers emphasizes importance of protecting publishers’ intellectual property; Editor & Publisher, March 25, 2026

 Staff | America's Newspapers , Editor & Publisher; America's Newspapers emphasizes importance of protecting publishers’ intellectual property

"America’s Newspapers has issued the following statement in response to the comprehensive national legislative framework on artificial intelligence released by the Trump administration...

Specifically, the framework affirms that the creative works and unique identities of American innovators, creators and publishers must be respected in the age of AI. At the same time, it recognizes that artificial intelligence systems require access to information to learn and improve, and proposes a balanced approach that both enables innovation and safeguards the rights of content creators.

“America’s Newspapers strongly supports the administration’s recognition that high-quality journalism and original content are essential to the continued strength of our democracy and economy,” said Matt McMillan, chair of America’s Newspapers and CEO of Press Publications."

Chicken Soup for the Soul Sues AI Firms for Copyright Infringement; Publishers Weekly, March 20, 2026

 Ed Nawotka , Publishers Weekly; Chicken Soup for the Soul Sues AI Firms for Copyright Infringement

"Chicken Soup for the Soul is suing tech companies OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, Meta, xAI, Perplexity, Apple, and Nvidia for copyright infringement. The suit, filed March 17 in the Northern District of California, alleges that hundreds of its copyrighted works were ingested without authorization or compensation to train large language models...

Much like the complaint filed in December by author John Carreyrou and others against many of the same defendants, this filing also aims to challenge the class-action model that has dominated AI copyright litigation.

Pointing to the pending Anthropic settlement in the Northern District of California, the suit notes that the framework would pay rights holders approximately $3,000 per work—"just 2% of the Copyright Act's statutory ceiling of $150,000 per willfully infringed work." The complaint states that such settlements "seem to serve Defendants, not creators."

Chicken Soup for the Soul is instead seeking individualized statutory damages determined by a jury. The law firms behind the suit say more than 1,000 authors representing more than 5,000 works have signed on to the same approach."

Actors And Musicians Help Launch “Stealing Isn’t Innovation” Campaign To Protest Big Tech’s Use Of Copyrighted Works In AI Models; Deadline, January 22, 2026

 Ted Johnson , Deadline; Actors And Musicians Help Launch “Stealing Isn’t Innovation” Campaign To Protest Big Tech’s Use Of Copyrighted Works In AI Models

"A long list of musicians, content creators and actors are among those who have signed on to a new campaign to protest tech giants’ use of copyrighted works in their AI models.

The list of signees includes actors like Scarlett Johansson and Cate Blanchett, music groups like REM and authors like Brad Meltzer. 

The ‘Stealing Isn’t Innovation” campaign is being led by the Human Artistry Campaign. It states that “respect and protect” the Creative community, “some of the biggest tech companies, many backed by private equity and other funders, are using American creators’ work to build AI platforms without authorization or regard for copyright law.”"

Britain seeks 'reset' in copyright battle between AI and creators; Reuters, January 13, 2026

 Reuters; Britain seeks 'reset' in copyright battle between AI and creators

"British technology minister Liz Kendall said on Tuesday the government was seeking a "reset" on plans to overhaul copyright rules to accommodate artificial intelligence, pledging to protect creators while unlocking AI's economic potential.

Creative industries worldwide are grappling with legal and ethical challenges posed by AI systems that generate original content after being trained on popular works, often without compensating the original creators."

Proposal to allow use of Australian copyrighted material to train AI abandoned after backlash; The Guardian, December 19, 2025

Patrick Commins , The Guardian; Proposal to allow use of Australian copyrighted material to train AI abandoned after backlash

"The Productivity Commission has abandoned a proposal to allow tech companies to mine copyrighted material to train artificial intelligence models, after a fierce backlash from the creative industries.

Instead, the government’s top economic advisory body recommended the government wait three years before deciding whether to establish an independent review of Australian copyright settings and the impact of the disruptive new technology...

In its interim report on the digital economy, the commission floated the idea of granting a “fair dealing” exemption to copyright rules that would allow AI companies to mine data and text to develop their large language models...

The furious response from creative industries to the commission’s idea included music industry bodies saying it would “legitimise digital piracy under guise of productivity”."

Government's AI consultation finds just 3% support copyright exception; The Bookseller, December 15, 2025

 MAIA SNOW, The Bookseller; Government's AI consultation finds just 3% support copyright exception

"The initial results of the consultation found that the majority of respondents (88%) backed licences being required in all cases where data was being used for AI training. Just 3% of respondents supported the government’s preferred options, which would allow data mining by AI companies and require rights holders to opt-out."

(Podcast) The Briefing: What Is Fair Use and Why Does It Matter? (Featured); JDSupra, December 5, 2025

 Richard Buckley, Jr. and Scott Hervey, JDSupra ; (Podcast) The Briefing: What Is Fair Use and Why Does It Matter? (Featured)

"Creators, beware: just because it’s online doesn’t mean it’s fair game. In this episode of The Briefing, Scott Hervey and Richard Buckley break down one of the most misunderstood areas of copyright law—fair use.

In this featured episode, they cover:

- What makes a use “transformative”?

- Why credit alone doesn’t protect you

- How recent court rulings (Warhol v. Goldsmith) are changing the game

- Tips to stay on the right side of the law"

AI firms began to feel the legal wrath of copyright holders in 2025; NewScientist, December 10, 2025

 Chris Stokel-Walker , NewScientist; AI firms began to feel the legal wrath of copyright holders in 2025

"The three years since the release of ChatGPT, OpenAI’s generative AI chatbot, have seen huge changes in every part of our lives. But one area that hasn’t changed – or at least, is still trying to maintain pre-AI norms – is the upholding of copyright law.

It is no secret that leading AI firms built their models by hoovering up data, including copyrighted material, from the internet without asking for permission first. This year, major copyright holders struck back, buffeting AI companies were with a range of lawsuits alleging copyright infringement."

Bannon, top conservatives urge White House to reject Big Tech’s ‘fair use’ push to justify AI copyright theft: ‘Un-American and absurd’; New York Post, December 1, 2025

Thomas Barrabi , New York Post; Bannon, top conservatives urge White House to reject Big Tech’s ‘fair use’ push to justify AI copyright theft: ‘Un-American and absurd’

"Prominent conservatives including Steve Bannon are urging the Trump administration to reject an increasingly popular argument that tech giants are using to rip off copyrighted material to train artificial intelligence.

So-called “fair use” doctrine – which argues that the use of copyrighted content without permission is legally justified if it is done in the public interest – has become a common defense for AI firms like Google, Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta and Microsoft who have been accused of ripping off work.

The argument’s biggest backers also include White House AI czar David Sacks, who has warned that Silicon Valley firms “would be crippled” in a crucial race against AI firms in China unless they can rely on fair use protection...

Bannon and his allies threw cold water on such claims in a Monday letter addressed to US Attorney General Pam Bondi and Michael Kratsios, who heads the White House’s Office of Science and Technology Policy.

“This is un-American and absurd,” the conservatives argued in the letter, which was exclusively obtained by The Post. “We must compete and win the global AI race the American way — by ensuring we protect creators, children, conservatives, and communities.”...

The conservatives point to clear economic incentives to back copyright-protected industries, which contribute more than $2 trillion to the US GDP, carry an average annual wage of more than $140,000 and account for a $37 billion trade surplus, according to the letter...

The letter notes that money is no object for the companies leading the AI boom, which “enjoy virtually unlimited access to financing” and are each valued at hundreds of billions, if not trillions of dollars.

“In a free market, businesses pay for the inputs they need,” the letter said. “Imagine if AI CEOs claimed they needed free access to semiconductors, energy, researchers, and developers to build their products. They would be laughed out of their boardrooms.”...

The letter is the latest salvo in a heated policy divide as AI models gobble up data from the web. Critics accuse companies like Google, Microsoft, OpenAI and Meta of essentially seeking a “license to steal” from news outlets, artists, authors and others that produce original work."

Two AI copyright cases, two very different outcomes – here’s why; The Conversation, December 1, 2025

 Hayleigh Bosher, Reader in Intellectual Property Law, Brunel University of London , The Conversation; Two AI copyright cases, two very different outcomes – here’s why

"Artificial intelligence companies and the creative industries are locked in an ongoing battle, being played out in the courts. The thread that pulls all these lawsuits together is copyright.

There are now over 60 ongoing lawsuits in the US where creators and rightsholders are suing AI companies. Meanwhile, we have recently seen decisions in the first court cases from the UK and Germany – here’s what happened in those...

Although the circumstances of the cases are slightly different, the heart of the issue was the same. Do AI models reproduce copyright-protected content in their training process and in generating outputs? The German court decided they do, whereas the UK court took a different view.

Both cases could be appealed and others are underway, so things may change. But the ending we want to see is one where AI and the creative industries come together in agreement. This would preferably happen with the use of copyright licences that benefit them both.

Importantly, it would also come with the consent of – and fair payment to – creators of the content that makes both their industries go round."

Rock Hall ‘fair use’ ruling raises big questions for creators; Cleveland.com, November 21, 2024

 Peter Chakerian, Cleveland.com; Rock Hall ‘fair use’ ruling raises big questions for creators

"Seeing things from both sides

“It can be a slippery-sloped and indeed it was a slippery slope,” said attorney Mark Avsec, partner and vice chair of the Intellectual Property Group of Benesch, Friedlander, Coplan & Aronoff.

Avsec was part of the funk-rock band Wild Cherry (“Play That Funky Music”) and was an original member of Donnie Iris & the Cruisers. The keyboardist-songwriter wrote or co-wrote all the latter band’s music, was its sole lyricist and produced all of its albums.

“[C]ases started evolving to where any derivative work based on a copyrighted work was almost by definition transformative and therefore a fair use,” he said. 

“That can’t be right. A copyright owner’s ability to authorize or not authorize derivative works based on the copyrighted work is an important right under the Copyright Act.”

Avsec said that the Supreme Court’s ruling in the recent Warhol case reset things."

Tech should help us be creative. AI rips our creativity away; The Guardian, November 21, 2025

Dave Schilling, The Guardian ; Tech should help us be creative. AI rips our creativity away

"Advocates for AI art always throw the word “democratization” around, claiming that these machine tools remove the barriers for entry to creativity. Those barriers were actually pretty valuable, because they prevented people from having to suffer through things that are objectively bad. But again, that’s the old way of thinking. The concept of “bad” or “good” hardly exists any more. In its place, we have a goopy stew of garbage with a few nuggets of actual sustenance periodically bubbling up to the surface...

Technology used to be seen as an instrument for our creativity. A pencil made it easier to record our thoughts. A typewriter and a personal computer did the same, increasing our ability to say what we felt or wanted. Now, technology is actively interrupting our dreams. Artificial intelligence is not a tool for creativity, it’s a wet nurse who burps little babies and feeds them mashed peas every few hours. If I don’t have to spend time learning how to write or make music, then what do I even do with my creative life? I suppose I could spend more time engaging with content. I could devote my remaining days on this Earth to listening to all 100m songs on Spotify. Doesn’t that sound completely dreadful?"

Disney has lost Roger Rabbit: Termination of Transfer is the most pro-artist form of copyright.; Medium, November 18, 2025

Cory Doctorow, Medium; Disney has lost Roger Rabbit

Termination of Transfer is the most pro-artist form of copyright.

"Gary K Wolf is the author of a fantastic 1981 novel called Who Censored Roger Rabbit? which Disney licensed and turned into an equally fantastic 1988 live action/animated hybrid movie called Who Framed Roger Rabbit? But despite the commercial and critical acclaim of the movie, Disney hasn’t made any feature-length sequels.

This is a nightmare scenario for a creator: you make a piece of work that turns out to be incredibly popular, but you’ve licensed it to a kind of absentee landlord who owns the rights but refuses to exercise them. Luckily, the copyright system contains a provision designed to rescue creative workers who fall into this trap: “Termination of Transfer.”

“Termination of Transfer” was introduced via the 1976 Copyright Act. It allows creators to unilaterally cancel the copyright licenses they have signed over to others, by waiting 35 years and then filing some paperwork with the US Copyright Office."

To protect his copyrights, storm chaser Reed Timmer goes to court often; The Oklahoman, October 19, 2025

 Dale Denwalt, The Oklahoman; To protect his copyrights, storm chaser Reed Timmer goes to court often

"A copyright controversy between celebrity storm chaser Reed Timmer and a YouTube streamer highlights a behind-the-scenes legal industry meant to protect original content online.

For fans, it has offered a peek inside the lucrative but complex world of federal copyright law and the legal tools used to make sure original creators get paid when their work is used by someone else. While the dispute was resolved quickly, Timmer often goes to court to protect his work.

A decade ago, it was mostly large, well-established companies and publishers who rooted out cases of copyright infringement, said Oklahoma City attorney Douglas Sorocco. But now there are more independent creators, citizen journalists and small businesses creating their own digital content...

"For the hurricane, I thought it would be A-OK to show very brief clips of what was happening with Milton so I could stay up to date," White said.

Timmer agreed, even if his digital rights management company didn't. In a response video posted the same day as White's, Timmer clarified he is "not suing Charlie" and asked that the copyright claim be removed."

AI and copyright – the state of play, post the US AI Action Plan; PetaPixel, July 25, 2025

 Chris Middleton , PetaPixel; AI and copyright – the state of play, post the US AI Action Plan

[Kip Currier: This article effectively skewers the ridiculousness and hypocrisy of the assertion of Trump and the wealthiest corporations on the planet that licensing content to fuel AI LLMs is impossible and too onerous. AI companies would never let users make use of their IP without compensation and permission. Yet, these same companies -- and now Trump via his AI Action Plan --  argue that respecting the copyrights of content holders just isn't "doable".] 

[Excerpt]

"The top six most valuable companies on Earth – in history, in fact – are all in AI and tech. Between them, NVIDIA, Microsoft, Apple, Amazon, Alphabet, and Meta already have a market capitalization of $12.9 trillion, roughly equivalent to the value of China's entire economy in 2017-18; or three times the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of the third largest economy today, Germany, and half that of the US.

Spend trillions of dollars on planet-heating, water-guzzling AI data centers to run the likes of OpenAI's frontier models – systems that (in Trump's view) will be powered by coal? No problem. But license some books when you can scrape millions from known pirate sources? Impossible, it seems.

Whether US courts will agree with that absurd position is unknown."

The Art (and Legality) of Imitation: Navigating the Murky Waters of Fair Use in AI Training The National Law Review, July 16, 2025

 Sarah C. Reasoner, Ashley N. Higginson, Anita C. Marinelli, Kimberly A. Berger of Miller Canfield   - Miller Canfield Resources, The National Law Review; The Art (and Legality) of Imitation: Navigating the Murky Waters of Fair Use in AI Training 

"The legal landscape for artificial intelligence is still developing, and no outcome can yet be predicted with any sort of accuracy. While some courts appear poised to accept AI model training as transformative, other courts do not. As AI technology continues to advance, the legal system must adapt to address the unique challenges it presents. Meanwhile, businesses and creators navigating this uncertain terrain should stay informed about legal developments and consider proactive measures to mitigate risks. As we await further rulings and potential legislative action, one thing is clear: the conversation around AI and existing intellectual property protection is just beginning."

The Court Battles That Will Decide if Silicon Valley Can Plunder Your Work; Slate, June 30, 2025

  BY NITISH PAHWA , SLATE; The Court Battles That Will Decide if Silicon Valley Can Plunder Your Work

"Last week, two different federal judges in the Northern District of California made legal rulings that attempt to resolve one of the knottiest debates in the artificial intelligence world: whether it’s a copyright violation for Big Tech firms to use published books for training generative bots like ChatGPT. Unfortunately for the many authors who’ve brought lawsuits with this argument, neither decision favors their case—at least, not for now. And that means creators in all fields may not be able to stop A.I. companies from using their work however they please...

What if these copyright battles are also lost? Then there will be little in the way of stopping A.I. startups from utilizing all creative works for their own purposes, with no consideration as to the artists and writers who actually put in the work. And we will have a world blessed less with human creativity than one overrun by second-rate slop that crushes the careers of the people whose imaginations made that A.I. so potent to begin with."

The Anthropic Copyright Ruling Exposes Blind Spots on AI; Bloomberg, June 26, 2025

Dave Lee , Bloomberg; The Anthropic Copyright Ruling Exposes Blind Spots on AI

[Kip Currier: It's still early days in the AI copyright legal battles underway between AI tech companies and everyone else whose training data was "scarfed up" to enable the former to create lucrative AI tools and products. But cases like this week's Anthropic lawsuit win and another suit won by Meta (with some issues still to be adjudicated regarding the use of pirated materials as AI training data) are finally now giving us some more discernible "tea leaves" and "black letter law" as to how courts are likely to rule vis-a-vis AI inputs.

This week being the much ballyhooed 50th anniversary of the so-called "1st summer blockbuster flick" Jaws ("you're gonna need a bigger boat"), these rulings make me think we the public may need a bigger copyright law schema that sets out protections for the creatives making the fuel that enables stratospherically profitable AI innovations. The Jaws metaphor may be a bit on-the-nose, but one can't help but view AI tech companies akin to rapacious sharks that are imperiling the financial survival and long-standing business models of human creators.

As touched on in this Bloomberg article, too, there's a moral argument that what AI tech folks have done with the uncompensated use of creative works, without permission, doesn't mean that it's ethically justifiable simply because a court may say it's legal. Or that these companies shouldn't be required by updated federal copyright legislation and licensing frameworks to fairly compensate creators for the use of their copyrighted works. After all, billionaire tech oligarchs like Zuckerberg, Musk, and Altman would never allow others to do to them what they've done to creatives with impunity and zero contrition.

Are you listening, Congress?

Or are all of you in the pockets of AI tech company lobbyists, rather than representing the needs and interests of all of your constituents and not just the billionaire class.] 

[Excerpt]

"In what is shaping up to be a long, hard fight over the use of creative works, round one has gone to the AI makers. In the first such US decision of its kind, District Judge William Alsup said Anthropic’s use of millions of books to train its artificial-intelligence model, without payment to the sources, was legal under copyright law because it was “transformative — spectacularly so.”...

If a precedent has been set, as several observers believe, it stands to cripple one of the few possible AI monetization strategies for rights holders, which is to sell licenses to firms for access to their work. Some of these deals have already been made while the “fair use” question has been in limbo, deals that emerged only after the threat of legal action. This ruling may have just taken future deals off the table...

Alsup was right when he wrote that “the technology at issue was among the most transformative many of us will see in our lifetimes.”...

But that doesn’t mean it shouldn’t pay its way. Nobody would dare suggest Nvidia Corp. CEO Jensen Huang hand out his chips free. No construction worker is asked to keep costs down by building data center walls for nothing. Software engineers aren’t volunteering their time to Meta Platforms Inc. in awe of Mark Zuckerberg’s business plan — they instead command salaries of $100 million and beyond. 

Yet, as ever, those in the tech industry have decided that creative works, and those who create them, should be considered of little or no value and must step aside in service of the great calling of AI — despite being every bit as vital to the product as any other factor mentioned above. As science-fiction author Harlan Ellison said in his famous sweary rant, nobody ever wants to pay the writer if they can get away with it. When it comes to AI, paying creators of original work isn’t impossible, it’s just inconvenient. Legislators should leave companies no choice."