Many arguments advocating the view that AI training does not conflict with copyright rights share a common fallacy, namely that AI outputs represent “competitive” works that copyright law was intended to promote. This error appears in Judge Alsup’s opinion in Bartz et al. v. Anthropic AI, in a report published by AI Progress, and in an amicus brief filed by ...
Patrick Gallaher at Public Knowledge recently posted an article about AI training with protected works, proposing to distinguish between piracy and fair use. Not to begin on a pedantic note, but the article is subtitled “Words Matter” because it claims that piracy is a provocative, non-legal term, so I have to respond by saying this is wrong. Although we think ...
Although I have expressed aspects of these views in several posts over the past couple of years, I will try to consolidate my opinion as to why GAI training with protected creative works is a more problematic fair use consideration than many, even the courts, seem to believe. I acknowledge that even fellow copyright advocates will disagree with some of ...
Two headlines in the first week of this month said a lot about the United States as an “innovative” nation right now. One story announced that the first driverless semi-trucks are on the highway covering normal long-haul routes, and the second reported that the final shipments of pre-tariff goods from China were arriving at U.S. ports. Leave it to contemporary ...
The purpose of cultivating works of authorship is to shed light on human experience, and the foundational purpose of the fair use doctrine in copyright law is to shed light on works of authorship. From its 18th century, English roots to the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2023 decision in AWF v. Goldsmith, the primary rationale for fair use is to permit ...
