How ‘learnrights’ would compensate creators for AI model training; MIT Sloan, May 12, 2026

 Brian Eastwood, MIT Sloan; How ‘learnrights’ would compensate creators for AI model training

"Human content creators are protected by copyright law, in part to ensure that they’re fairly compensated for their work. 

But whether these laws allow artificial intelligence models to learn from human-created content is up for debate — both in court and on Capitol Hill. Encyclopedia Britannica’s lawsuit against OpenAI, for example, is one of the latest allegations of misuse of reference materials. Meanwhile, the U.S. Copyright Office has not made a binding determination about whether using copyrighted works to train AI models is fair use.  

To deal with these issues, in 2023 MIT Sloan School of Management professor Thomas Malone proposed “learnright” laws that would give copyright holders the exclusive right to license their content to AI companies for model training. 

“Copyright law wasn’t designed for a world with generative AI, and without something like learnright laws, the incentives for people to create new content are likely to be greatly reduced,” said Malone, who is also the director of the MIT Center for Collective Intelligence. 

In a more recent article, Malone and co-authors Frank Pasquale of Cornell Law School and Andrew Ting of George Washington University Law School outlined the argument for learnrights and described how they could work legally, economically, and practically...

Malone and his co-authors presented three arguments that support compensating copyright holders whose work is used to train generative AI. 

If AI models produce high-quality content quickly and cheaply without compensating the original creators of this content, that will decrease creators’ motivation to produce new content and thus reduce the volume of original work available to further improve AI models. “It would be unwise to risk such a decline in incentives for human expression,” the researchers write.

The researchers find it “troubling” that for-profit AI companies cry foul when others use their intellectual property — as was the case when U.S.-based AI firms accused China’s DeepSeek of stealing from them — given that the same companies use copyrighted content without compensating its creators. 

Properly acknowledging how other works influenced one’s own is the right thing to do and the foundation of a thoughtful creative process, the researchers write. Conversely, uncredited and uncompensated use of others’ work falls short of ethical standards and undermines what IP protection is supposed to mean."

Committee publishes Government response to AI and copyright report; UK Parliament, May 15, 2026

 UK Parliament; Committee publishes Government response to AI and copyright report

 "Chair’s response

Baroness Keeley, Chair of the Communications and Digital Committee, said:

“I am pleased that the Government’s response today confirms what it set out in March: that it no longer has a preference for introducing a broad copyright exception for AI training with an opt-out mechanism. It was clear that this approach would have been unworkable and placed an unfair burden on individual rightsholders. 

“The UK AI licensing market is emerging, and the Government now needs to create the conditions that will enable it to flourish. It can do this by ruling out any reform to copyright law that removes incentives to license, including proposals for a new commercial research exception, and committing to statutory transparency requirements for large AI developers. The Government says it will develop ‘best practice’ to encourage developers to be more transparent about the sources they use to train their models, but best practice alone will not promote licensing, drive compliance or enable robust enforcement. Only a mandatory framework will create the level playing field needed to foster responsible training data practices. 

“The coming months will be crucial in establishing a clear direction on AI and copyright for all stakeholders. The recently launched Sovereign AI Fund gives the Government the opportunity to insist on enhanced transparency and respect for copyright from the high-potential AI companies it supports. We will keep up a continued dialogue with Ministers to ensure that the Government is using all available levers, and demonstrating the necessary ambition, to drive meaningful progress on this issue.”

Artificial Intelligence and Copyright- Where Does the UK Stand?; The National Law Review, April 23, 2026

 Serena Totino, Simon Casinader, K&L Gates LLP , The National Law Review; Artificial Intelligence and Copyright- Where Does the UK Stand?

"The UK Government’s report on the copyright and AI consultation was recently published. While the report confirms that balancing the interests of copyrights holders and AI developers is a complex exercise, it also provides an indication of likely scenarios to consider in this fast-evolving environment.

The consultation focused on whether AI developers should be permitted to use copyright protected works for training purposes without prior authorisation and, if so, under what conditions...

Takeaways

Rights holders should continue to assess how their content is accessed and used, consider technical or contractual mechanisms for licensing and rights reservation.

AI developers should remain cautious when sourcing training data, ensure governance and record keeping processes are robust, and factor copyright risk into product development and deployment strategies."

Anthropic boss makes big call on Australian copyright as artists say pay up; Australian Broadcasting Corporation, April 1, 2026

  Clare Armstrong , Australian Broadcasting Corporation; Anthropic boss makes big call on Australian copyright as artists say pay up

"In short:

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei has told a Canberra forum AI is moving faster than any technological change before it.

Mr Amodei says he is not trying to change Australia's mind on copyright, is worried about AI in the hands of autocratic countries, and feels a tax on profits is inevitable.

What's next?

The $555 billion company behind AI program Claude is facing pushback from artists over the use of copyrighted material to train its technology."

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."

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."

Paul McCartney joins music industry protest against AI with silent track; The Guardian, November 17, 2025

 Robert Booth, The Guardian ; Paul McCartney joins music industry protest against AI with silent track

"At two minutes 45 seconds it’s about the same length as With a Little Help From My Friends. But Paul McCartney’s first new recording in five years lacks the sing-along tune and jaunty guitar chops because there’s barely anything there.

The former Beatle, arguably Britain’s greatest living songwriter, is releasing a track of an almost completely silent recording studio as part of a music industry protest against copyright theft by artificial intelligence companies.

In place of catchy melodies and evocative lyrics there is only quiet hiss and the odd clatter. It suggests that if AI companies unfairly exploit musicians’ intellectual property to train their generative AI models, the creative ecosystem will be wrecked and original music silenced.

McCartney, 83 and currently touring North America, has added the track to the B-side of an LP called Is This What We Want?, which is filled with other silent recordings and will be pressed on vinyl and released later this month."

Hollywood-AI battle deepens, as OpenAI and studios clash over copyrights and consent; Los Angeles Times, October 11, 2025

 Wendy Lee and Samantha Masunaga, Los Angeles Times; Hollywood-AI battle deepens, as OpenAI and studios clash over copyrights and consent

• "OpenAI’s new Sora 2 tool allows users to put real people and characters into AI-generated videos, sparking immediate backlash from Hollywood studios and talent agencies.
• The dispute centers on who controls copyrighted images and likenesses, with Hollywood arguing OpenAI cannot use content without explicit permission or compensation.
• The clash between Silicon Valley’s “move fast and break things” ethos and Hollywood’s intellectual property protections could shape the future of AI in entertainment."

New Ruling Makes Old Postings a New Copyright Problem; Lexology, August 21, 2025

 Gordon Feinblatt LLC, Lexology; New Ruling Makes Old Postings a New Copyright Problem

 "Go through your website and delete any old photos and music you do not own or have a license to use. Every company and internet user should be diligent and not post any images, music, or other content unless they are certain they have the rights to do so. Lesson number one is: do not merely pluck material from the internet and use it for yourself.

Lesson number two is that copyright owners can now look back more than three years and obtain damages for a long history of infringement. Last year the Supreme Court ruled that copyright damages can reach back to the beginning of the infringing usage so long as a copyright infringement case is properly brought. This means that historical usage of infringing works can rack up many years of damages."

Why the new rulings on AI copyright might actually be good news for publishers; Fast Company, July 9, 2025

 PETE PACHAL, Fast Company; Why the new rulings on AI copyright might actually be good news for publishers

"The outcomes of both cases were more mixed than the headlines suggest, and they are also deeply instructive. Far from closing the door on copyright holders, they point to places where litigants might find a key...

Taken together, the three cases point to a clearer path forward for publishers building copyright cases against Big AI:

Focus on outputs instead of inputs: It’s not enough that someone hoovered up your work. To build a solid case, you need to show that what the AI company did with it reproduced it in some form. So far, no court has definitively decided whether AI outputs are meaningfully different enough to count as “transformative” in the eyes of copyright law, but it should be noted that courts have ruled in the past that copyright violation can occur even when small parts of the work are copied—ifthose parts represent the “heart” of the original.

Show market harm: This looks increasingly like the main battle. Now that we have a lot of data on how AI search engines and chatbots—which, to be clear, are outputs—are affecting the online behavior of news consumers, the case that an AI service harms the media market is easier to make than it was a year ago. In addition, the emergence of licensing deals between publishers and AI companies is evidence that there’s market harm by creating outputs without offering such a deal.

Question source legitimacy: Was the content legally acquired or pirated? The Anthropic case opens this up as a possible attack vector for publishers. If they can prove scraping occurred through paywalls—without subscribing first—that could be a violation even absent any outputs."

Judge dismisses authors’ copyright lawsuit against Meta over AI training; AP, June 25, 2025

 MATT O’BRIEN AND BARBARA ORTUTAY, AP; Judge dismisses authors’ copyright lawsuit against Meta over AI training

"Although Meta prevailed in its request to dismiss the case, it could turn out to be a pyrrhic victory. In his 40-page ruling, Chhabria repeatedly indicated reasons to believe that Meta and other AI companies have turned into serial copyright infringers as they train their technology on books and other works created by humans, and seemed to be inviting other authors to bring cases to his court presented in a manner that would allow them to proceed to trial.

The judge scoffed at arguments that requiring AI companies to adhere to decades-old copyright laws would slow down advances in a crucial technology at a pivotal time. “These products are expected to generate billions, even trillions of dollars for the companies that are developing them. 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 for it.”