What's Happening in the Generative AI Copyright Cases in the U.S.?

At last count, 136 copyright-related lawsuits have been filed against developers of general purpose generative artificial intelligence (genAI) technologies. OpenAI has attracted the largest number of them, but all of the major developers of these technologies are defendants in more than one lawsuit. So far, there have been only two rulings on summary judgment, both in favor of fair use defenses for the developers' uses of in-copyright works as training data. This fall several more summary judgment motions will be argued. The two stickiest issues that have emerged in the last year are, one, whether uses of "pirated" works to train genAI systems can be fair use, and two, whether fair use defenses should fail because of "market dilution" effects. That theory posits that AI-generated works will so flood markets that human authored works will be crowded out, and human authors will lose incentives to create new works. This talk will consider the pros and cons of the fair use cases.

About the speaker

Pamela Samuelson is the Richard M. Sherman Distinguished Professor of Law and Information at the University of California, Berkeley. She is recognized as a pioneer in digital copyright law, intellectual property, cyberlaw and information policy. Since 1996, she has held a joint appointment at Berkeley Law School and UC Berkeley’s School of Information. Samuelson is a director of the internationally renowned Berkeley Center for Law & Technology. She is co-founder and chair of the board of Authors Alliance, a nonprofit organization that promotes the public interest in access to knowledge. She also serves on the board of directors of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, as well as on the advisory boards for the Electronic Privacy Information Center, the Center for Democracy & Technology, and Public Knowledge.