Microsoft and OpenAI Workers Worry About ‘Largest Theft of Labor’ in History; The New York Times, September 17, 2026

 Karen Weise and Mike Isaac , The New York Times; Microsoft and OpenAI Workers Worry About ‘Largest Theft of Labor’ in History

Newly unsealed court documents showed concern within Microsoft and OpenAI over the use of millions of news articles to develop A.I. systems.

"Newly unsealed court documents showed considerable concern within Microsoft and its close partner OpenAI over the use of millions of news articles to develop artificial intelligence systems.

As OpenAI was forging ahead with its work, Microsoft employees debated whether what OpenAI was doing represented the “largest theft of labor in human history” and could create a “doom loop” that could ultimately threaten the quality of the large language models they were building...

Snippets of those discussions were made public on Thursday as part of a closely watched lawsuit The New York Times filed against OpenAI and Microsoft in late 2023. Eleven other publishers have joined the suit. Judge Sidney H. Stein of U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York is considering motions for a summary judgment. Documents related to the case are slowly being unsealed as the judge considers those motions.

The publishers argue that the tech companies violated copyright law by scraping millions of their stories off the internet and other databases, and using the text, without approval or pay, to train advanced A.I. systems.

Microsoft and OpenAI contend their work was covered under legal protections for “fair use” of copyrighted material. They say the articles were sufficiently transformed into entirely new work by A.I., and were not substitutes that harm the value of the original work."

An A.I. Giant Made an Enemy of Record Labels. Can It Play Nice?; The New York Times, September 9, 2026

  Ben Sisario , The New York Times; An A.I. Giant Made an Enemy of Record Labels. Can It Play Nice?

"To Suno, its simple interface is a tool and a toy to inspire creativity in novices and professionals alike. More than 100 million people have created songs with the service, Suno says, and two million pay for an upgraded plan that includes commercial rights to the music they make with it...

But to the major record companies that are pursuing it in litigation, Suno is little more than a pirate, violating copyright law on an industrial scale. And as A.I. moves rapidly into the musical mainstream, a growing number of artists have expressed fears that their work will be drowned out by a flood of generic slop enabled by services like it."

Court Filings in A.I. Suit Invoke Copyright Law, Culture and Sports; The New York Times, September 4, 2026

 Mike Isaac and Karen Weise , The New York Times; Court Filings in A.I. Suit Invoke Copyright Law, Culture and Sports

Filings made Friday in The New York Times’s closely watched lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft included a range of copyright law and cultural references.

"Court filings made Friday in a closely watched copyright trial pitting The New York Times against OpenAI and Microsoft invoked a wide range of material, including relevant copyright law, arts and sports.

The suit, filed in 2023 by The Times and joined by a group of other news outlets, claims that OpenAI, a leading artificial intelligence start-up, and its partner Microsoft infringed on the publishers’ copyrighted material by using millions of their articles to train A.I. technologies. A.I. companies now compete with The Times as a source of information, the news outlet argued in its suit.

The briefs, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, largely boiled down to two questions: whether the publishers’ news articles were sufficiently “transformed” into an entirely new work by A.I., and whether A.I. produced content that “substituted” for news articles and harmed their value.

Friday was the last day the companies could file motions for a summary judgment that would head off a trial. Judge Sidney H. Stein is expected to make a ruling in the coming weeks."

Copying? Definitely. Infringement? Maybe.; copyright lately, August 24, 2026

 Aaron Moss , copyrightlately; Copying? Definitely. Infringement? Maybe.

"Last week, Thomas filed a copyright infringement lawsuit in the Southern District of New York against Peyton, Sotheby’s, and David Zwirner Gallery, which represents Peyton and displays the painting on its website. He says Peyton copied virtually every significant element of his photograph: the composition, the brothers’ poses and expressions, the tilt of each head, the hair, the hands, the lighting, even the placement of Liam’s ring near Noel’s collar—and changed only the cropping, the colors, and the medium.

The complaint calls the painting an unauthorized derivative work, and adds claims against Zwirner and Sotheby’s for reproducing, displaying and distributing it."

AI company argues its use of scraped Westlaw legal data was transformative; Courthouse News Service, June 11, 2026

 SYDNEY HAULENBEEK , Courthouse News Service; AI company argues its use of scraped Westlaw legal data was transformative

"“Fair use ruling here brings into question the core technology of the AI revolution,” Mark S. Davies of White & Case in Washington, attorney for ROSS, argued...

“This is a copyright case,” he said. “It’s an interesting case, it raises lots of issues, but it’s a copyright case and the point of copyright is progress.”

“Copyright is not a privilege reserved for the well-behaved,” Davies added."

Intellectual Property and Brainpower Versus AI in Academic Publish; Academe Magazine, AAUP, Spring 2026

 Kelly Hand , Academe Magazine, AAUP; Intellectual Property and Brainpower Versus AI in Academic Publish

"The concept of transformation is central to US copyright law—which privileges “transformative” uses of copyrighted material in evaluating “fair use”—and emerging case law on AI. It’s worth thinking about what kind of transformation we value as human readers and writers and as beneficiaries of published academic research—particularly as we reckon with piracy in the training of LLMs and the unchecked growth of the AI industry. Considerations about how academic publications enable AI’s transformative processes extend beyond concerns about emotional authenticity important in creative writing to those about intellectual integrity and factual accuracy. 

Authors, editors, and publishers will need to make consequential IP decisions—including those about settlements in lawsuits over AI piracy, invitations to enter into licensing agreements with AI companies seeking to avoid future lawsuits, and editorial policies and guidelines to prevent the misuse of AI in academic research and writing. Some individuals and organizations, including scholarly publications and presses, will encounter opportunities to “cash in.” However, their relatively modest financial gains facilitate the disproportionate enrichment of AI companies that use copyrighted material for training LLMs. Even if that use is transformative in the strict legal sense, it fails to effect the kind of transformation that depends on the uniquely human capacities for thinking, feeling, and complex analysis. Academic journals and university presses must also protect IP—by upholding ethical standards and principles of copyright law—and commit to publishing human-authored works."

Devious New AI Tool “Clones” Software So That the Original Creator Doesn’t Hold a Copyright Over the New Version; Futurism, April 26, 2026

 Victor Tangermann , Futurism; Devious New AI Tool “Clones” Software So That the Original Creator Doesn’t Hold a Copyright Over the New Version

"The advent of generative AI continues to undermine the very concept of copyright, from entire books shamelessly ripping off authors to tasteless AI slop depicting beloved characters going viral on social media. The sin is foundational: all today’s popular AI tools were built by pillaging copyrighted material without permission.

Even software isn’t safe. As 404 Media reports, a new tool dubbed Malus.sh — pronounced “malice,” to give a subtle clue where this is headed — uses AI to “liberate” a piece of software from existing copyright licenses, essentially creating a “clean room” clone that technically doesn’t infringe on the original code’s copyright."

Anthropic seeks pivotal court win in music publisher lawsuit over AI training; Reuters, April 21, 2026

 Blake Brittain, Reuters; Anthropic seeks pivotal court win in music publisher lawsuit over AI training

"Artificial intelligence company Anthropic has asked a California federal court to ​rule in its favor in a copyright lawsuit brought by music publishers Universal Music Group, Concord ‌and ABKCO, arguing it made "fair use" of their song lyrics to train its AI-powered chatbot Claude.

Anthropic's Monday filing addresses the key question for a wave of high-stakes copyright cases brought by creators against tech companies: is it legally permissible to copy millions of copyrighted works ​without permission to train AI models?...

The lawsuit ​is one of dozens of disputes between copyright owners such as authors and news outlets, and tech giants ​including OpenAI, Microsoft and Meta Platforms over the training of their AI systems. Amazon- and Google-backed Anthropic was the first major AI ‌company ⁠to settle one of the cases, agreeing last yearto pay a group of authors $1.5 billion to resolve a class-action lawsuit."

Anthropic’s Leaked Code Tests Copyright Challenges in A.I. Era; The New York Times, April 22, 2026

  Meaghan Tobin, The New York Times; Anthropic’s Leaked Code Tests Copyright Challenges in A.I. Era

Artificial intelligence tools are making it faster than ever to reproduce creative work. Does copyright even matter anymore?

"Sigrid Jin was waiting to board a plane when he saw stunning news that artificial intelligence start-up Anthropic had accidentally leaked the source code for Claude Code, its popular A.I. agent. Mr. Jin, 25, an undergraduate student, scrambled to post a copy online. His worried girlfriend quickly texted him: Was he violating copyright law?

Mr. Jin turned to a team of A.I. assistants for a solution. He directed them to rewrite the leaked code in another programming language, then shared that version online. Within hours, more than 100,000 people had liked or linked to it.

Anthropic, one of the leading A.I. companies alongside OpenAI, has said the leak had been caused by human error and, citing copyright violations, demanded that GitHub, an online library of computer code, remove posts sharing the code. Thousands of posts were taken down. But Mr. Jin’s version remains online. He said Anthropic had not asked him to take it down.

It is unclear whether Anthropic, which did not respond to questions from The New York Times, is drawing a distinction with the rewritten code. Mr. Jin said he believed rewriting the code transformed it into a new work, one that Anthropic could not claim ownership over.

He said he was driven less by money or fame than by a desire to make a broader philosophical point. What is the value of copyrighted intellectual property in an era when A.I. can easily replicate not just computer code but art, music and literature in minutes?

“I just wanted to raise some ethical questions in the A.I. agent era,” he said. “Any creative work can be reproduced in a second.”"

(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"

Rock Hall ‘fair use’ ruling raises big questions for creators; Cleveland.com, November 21, 2025

 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."

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."

The U.S. Copyright Office used to be fairly low-drama. Not anymore; NPR, June 6, 2025

 Andrew Limbong, NPR ; The U.S. Copyright Office used to be fairly low-drama. Not anymore

"The U.S. Copyright Office is normally a quiet place. It mostly exists to register materials for copyright and advise members of Congress on copyright issues. Experts and insiders used words like "stable" and "sleepy" to describe the agency. Not anymore...

Inside the AI report

That big bombshell report on generative AI and copyright can be summed up like this – in some instances, using copyrighted material to train AI models could count as fair use. In other cases, it wouldn't.

The conclusion of the report says this: "Various uses of copyrighted works in AI training are likely to be transformative. The extent to which they are fair, however, will depend on what works were used, from what source, for what purpose, and with what controls on the outputs—all of which can affect the market."

"It's very even keeled," said Keith Kupferschmid, CEO of the Copyright Alliance, a group that represents artists and publishers pushing for stronger copyright laws.

Kupferschmid said the report avoids generalizations and takes arguments on a case-by-case basis.

"Perlmutter was beloved, no matter whether you agreed with her or not, because she did the hard work," Kupferschmid said. "She always was very thoughtful and considered all these different viewpoints."

It remains to be seen how the report will be used in the dozens of legal cases over copyright and AI usage."