Copyright and AI Battle for the Future
12.23.2025
“Meet George Jetson….”
And with those famous three words, “The Jetsons” premiered on Sept. 23, 1962. The cartoon gave us a glimpse into our near distant future through the lens of George Jetson, a working father who spent a one-hour per day, two-day work week as a “digital index operator” for an atomic supercomputer.[1] Although we are more than 25 years from the Jetsons’ 2060 utopia, in many ways it feels like we are already there.
We have been sold on the inevitability of artificial intelligence and generative AI into our lives as the ultimate life hack with the promise that we too can achieve the same Jetsons’ era level of efficiency. Need a companion?[2] There’s an AI for that. Model for your ad campaign?[3] AI can do that, too. Drafting new laws?[4] Bar exam questions?[5] Rosie the robot?[6] Say less. Yet, even with a growing countermovement toward digital minimalism for those who long for days past in a “semi-analog” world,[7] the march to AI moves on, but not without tension.
In the billion dollar world of AI,[8] information is king[9] and intellectual property is queen.[10] AI relies on input from human creations – human image and likeness, copyrighted and non-copyrightable material alike – to train, learn, mimic, adapt and execute.[11] In a world in which intellectual property rights predicated on human authorship provide authors, for a limited time, the right to exercise their bundle of exclusive rights, it is unsurprising that the proliferation of AI has sparked debate among just about everyone.[12]
This article will explore the balance of progress and protection at play stemming from the use of AI that may shape the future of copyright law.
There is a growing divide on whether and how copyrighted works should be used in AI. In the absence of clear and harmonized law directly on point,[13] some rights holders are taking their fight to the courts with the hopes of making precedent-setting case law in their favor. These rights holders assert that the use of copyrighted works to train large language models without permission from the copyright owner constitutes copyright infringement.[14] AI developers argue that the use of publicly available works for training purposes is “fair use” and, further, that the rights holders’ desired outcome would lead to “a less open, creative, and accessible internet […], which [would be a] disadvantage [..] from an economic, strategic, and cultural standpoint.”[15] The conversation is rooted in both creativity and capitalism, with the latter’s position turning on the concept of “free,” e.g., the notion that freely and publicly available content is also free (as in no fee) content.[16]
Even taking into consideration the court’s ruling in Bartz v Anthropic, case law, thus far, appears to side with the copyright holders. In Thomson Reuters Enter. Ctr. GMBH v. Ross Intel. Inc., the Delaware District Court held that Ross’ use of over 2,000 human-authored Westlaw headnotes to train its AI legal research tool, Ross Intelligence, did not meet the standard for fair use and in fact infringed upon Thomson Reuters’ copyright in its headnotes.[17] After determining that the headnotes were original enough to warrant copyright protection, the court granted partial summary judgment to Thomson Reuters. Balancing the four-factor fair use test, the court found two factors that weighed in favor of each party. While the court acknowledged the creative effort required to draft the headnotes, it found that the nature of the work favored Ross because the headnotes were “not that creative.” On the third factor, the court found that although a substantial portion of the headnotes were used in Ross’ AI training, Ross did not make the copied material available to the public and only used it for internal training purposes. Yet, the court ultimately found that the balance of fair use factors weighed in Thomson Reuters’ favor because Ross’ use of the headnotes was commercial in nature and non-transformative. Additionally, Ross’ product was designed to compete with WestLaw as a market substitute. In other words, the court determined that of all four fair use factors, the fourth prong – the economic impact on the value or potential market for the applicable work and its effect, here, the potential to shrink Thomson’s licensing opportunities and market share – “matters more.”
In Kadrey v. Meta Platforms, Inc.,[18]13 authors claimed that Meta downloaded their copyrighted books from shadow libraries (like Library Genesis) to train Meta’s large language models. The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California granted summary judgement to Meta, but Judge Vince Chhabria emphasized that his holding was narrow, stating that “this ruling does not stand for the proposition that Meta’s use of copyrighted materials to train its language models is lawful” – leaving the door open for case law to build on the fair use argument. In weighing the four-factor fair use test, the court found that Meta’s use was transformative and would not impact the authors’ market. However, in analyzing the fourth factor, Judge Chhabria discussed a theory of potential market harm whereby an LLM can produce works that are similar enough in subject matter and in genre to copyrighted works that the LLM-produced works could compete with the original works and indirectly replace them.[19] However, because the plaintiffs failed to present this argument themselves, the fourth factor favored Meta.
Other AI companies are avoiding making new laws and choosing to settle out of court; for example, Anthropic, one of the leading AI LLM developers. Several authors and publishers sued Anthropic through its flagship LLM, Claude, claiming that Anthropic copied a massive trove of pirated books to train Claude using sites like Library Genesis and Pirate library mirror (PilMi).[20] In June, the court issued a nuanced summary judgement that stated (1) Anthropic’s lawful acquisition of books and its use of training for LLMs was transformative; however, (2) Anthropic’s usage was infringement, and fair use could not apply. Anthropic later settled the dispute for $1.5 billion. Judge William Alsup gave the settlement preliminary approval at a hearing in late September.[21]
In the boardroom, other rights holders are electing to go down the “if you can’t beat them, join them” route by entering into agreements to license their works and data to GenAI companies; the three year licensing deal between Disney and OpenAI partnership being a recent example.[22] There is opportunity for both licensor and licensee in these arrangements: for licensor, a new revenue stream; for licensee, permissioned access to and use of quality training material, which would increase the commercial value and informational integrity of the LLM outputs. There is also risk for both sides, and the devil is in the details. Among the negotiation points to consider for licensor and licensee are data ownership, data licensing and restrictions, use and restrictions on derivative works, the scope and applicability of “all media in perpetuity” and non-compete clauses. How to assess the fair market value of the AI bundle of rights remains as shrouded in mystery as the proverbial AI black box.[23]
Other copyright-related questions arise from the output side of the ledger: Can a work created using AI be afforded copyright protection? (answer: Maybe). If so, who owns the rights, if any, to that content? (answer: It depends). Should AI itself be considered an “author” under copyright law? (This one seems settled.)
The U.S. Copyright Office’s guidance on the use of AI in a copyrightable work suggests that AI can be incorporated into a copyrighted work under limited circumstances. A human author must drive the creative process, and AI must serve as a tool, exercising the original intellectual input of the author. Similar to a fair use inquiry, whether AI is considered the creator or a tool is a highly fact-specific inquiry.
The office has granted copyright registrations to “Zarya the Dawn,”[24] a comic book including images created by Midjourney; “A Single Piece of American Cheese,”[25] a visual work created entirely with Invoke AI, a platform founded by the copyright applicant; and “Sennzia Opera,” a music opera that features AI-generated voices – despite the use of AI in the creation of each of these works.[26]
In granting the registrations, the office focused on the degree of human control in the creative process with an analysis focused on the selection, arrangement and coordination of the elements incorporated into the work in question. For “American Cheese,” the office examined an almost 10-minute video provided by the copyright applicant that demonstrated the use of AI in the creative process.[27] The office determined that each work contained a sufficient amount of original human authorship in the selection, arrangement, and coordination of the AI-generated material and further expressly excluded the AI-generated material from the copyright registration. For “Sennzia,” this meant granting copyright registration only for the story, lyrics, and spoken words, and the selection, coordination, and arrangement of those elements in the sound recording, but expressly excluding certain music and vocal elements in the sound recording that were AI-generated.
The copyright office has also made clear that AI cannot be considered an “author” under copyright law because copyright does not extend to non-human authored works – meaning, works created solely by AI are not afforded full copyright protection.
In Thaler v. Perlmutter, the U. S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia affirmed a decision by the D.C. District Court supporting the copyright office’s refusal to grant copyright protection to “A Recent Entrance to Paradise,” a work created solely by artificial intelligence.[28] In this case, inventor Stephen Thaler sought to register a work created by his own generative AI system, the aptly named “Creative Machine,” naming the Machine as the author. He then requested the copyright office to transfer the copyright to him as the owner of the Machine. The copyright office denied Thaler’s registration application. Thaler subsequently sued Shira Perlmutter, in her official capacity as the register of copyrights, in D.C. District Court. The district court held, and the Court of Appeals later affirmed, that an AI-generated artwork is not eligible for copyright protection where AI is identified as the sole creator and human involvement is absent in the creation process. The holding aligns with precedent, affirming that human authorship is a fundamental requirement for copyright protection.[29]
So, what opportunities, lessons and rules do we arrive to at this moment? In what direction is the balance between progress and protection being tipped? In this moment, we observe that through the deal-making, judicial and legislative processes, we are beginning to see a framework develop that may soon require express authorized permission from rights holders for the use of their copyrighted material for AI training purposes. We are also observing that there is a pathway forward for works created with AI, but not without nuances and limitations.[30]
Beyond the boardrooms and corporate offices, there remain existential questions about the impact and effect of AI from a human perspective: What are we driving toward? What is the blueprint?[31] How much of a role should AI play in our lives? How trustworthy is AI?[32] What are the guardrails? At what age should children be able to engage with AI?[33] Is AI a threat to humanity? If so, how much? What is the breaking point for society?
One answer to the latter question might be workforce displacement.[34] One foundational principle of intellectual property law is that it not only encourages the creation of “useful arts” for the benefit of society, but also provides an incentive-based framework for building an economy around creators, inventors and their creations. The media, entertainment and related industries are perfect examples of this. Yet, in recent years, once-promising jobs in these fields have become obsolete[35] against the backdrop of existential threats such as shifting revenue models,[36] a pandemic, a strike,[37] a cheaper workforce,[38] and now artificial intelligence and a call for the end of intellectual property altogether.[39] This leaves us grappling with questions like, What should we consider in determining a fair value exchange between human and machine, author and inventor? How does the progress of science and useful arts, and society at large, benefit if creators and innovators hide their works from the public? Or if AI replaces humans at scale in the workforce?
As AI continues to evolve and challenge a new normal, so too will the conversations around its uses, applications and guardrails. Whatever compromises are needed to balance technological progress with incentivizing human creativity remain to be seen, but in the coming months[40] we may begin to get a better picture of the balance between the ethical, responsible, and legal integration of AI into our lives.
Nyasha Shani Foy is a business and legal affairs executive, creative and thought leader who shares insights on topics ranging from lifestyle and culture to intellectual property and AI at organizations and institutions both nationally and internationally. Her business and legal affairs roles at early-stage start-ups, scale-ups, iconic global brands and established firms include Buzzfeed, Broadway Video, Complex Media, Horizon Media, VICE Media Group, and Sotheby’s as its first vice president and assistant general counsel, NFTs. She is vice chair of NYSBA’s Intellectual Property Law Section.
Temidayo “Dayo” Akinjisola, J.D., Roger Williams University School of Law class of 2023, contributed research and co-drafted sections for this article. Dayo is a D.C. licensed attorney with experience in economic development, AI policy, and legal research.
James Parker was the legal fellow for the Litigation Department at NBCUniversal for the 2024-25 cycle.
This article appears in a forthcoming issue of Bright Ideas, the publication of the Intellectual Property Law Section. For more information, please visit nysba.org/ipl.
Endnotes
[1] “Boy, this job is a killer. I spend an hour a day, two days a week working my fingers to the bone.” George Jetson, The Jetsons, Season 2, Episode 30, “The Vacation” (ABC aired November 7, 1985).
[2] See Meghan Bobrowsky, Zuckerberg’s Grand Vision: Most of Your Friends Will Be AI, Wall St. J. (May 7, 2025), https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/mark-zuckerberg-ai-digital-future-0bb04de7; See also Nilay Patel, Replika CEO Eugenia Kuyda Says It’s Okay if We End Up Marrying AI Chatbots, The Verge (Aug 12, 2024 ), https://www.theverge.com/24216748/replika-ceo-eugenia-kuyda-ai-companion-chatbots-dating-friendship-decoder-podcast-interview; Neil Sahota, How AI Companions Are Redefining Human Relationships, Forbes (July 18, 2024), https://www.forbes.com/sites/neilsahota/2024/07/18/how-ai-companions-are-redefining-human-relationships-in-the-digital-age/.
[3] See Kit Eaton, Clothing Giant H&M Will Use Models’ AI-Made Digital Twins,Consent Included, Inc (March 25, 2025)., https://www.inc.com/kit-eaton/clothing-giant-hm-will-use-models-ai-made-digital-twins-consent-included/91166352; see Helen Reid, Zalando Uses AI to Speed Up Marketing Campaigns, Cut Costs, Reuters (May 7, 2025), https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/zalando-uses-ai-speed-up-marketing-campaigns-cut-costs-2025-05-07.
[4] See Joyce Li, UAE To Become First Nation to Use AI to Write Its Laws, Hypebeast (April 28, 2025), https://hypebeast.com/2025/4/uae-first-nation-use-ai-to-write-laws-news; see Nathan Sanders and Bruce Schneier, AI Will Write Complex Laws, Lawfare (January 16, 2025), https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/ai-will-write-complex-laws (stating that Ohio has used an AI tool to do wholesale revision of state administrative law since 2020. A Brazilian municipality passed the first known AI-written law in 2023; when legislators voted on that Brazilian bill in 2023, they didn’t know it was AI-written; the use of ChatGPT was undisclosed. In 2024, the U.S. House’s Office of the Clerk began using AI to speed up the process of producing cost estimates for bills and understanding how new legislation relates to existing code).
[5] See Benj Edwards, AI Helped Write the California Bar Exam, Arstechnica (Apr 23, 2025 https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/04/ai-secretly-helped-write-california-bar-exam-sparking-uproar/.
[6] Humanoid Robots Could Ease Labor Shortage, Maybe Even Care For Seniors, https://www.investors.com/news/technology/humanoid-robots-labor-shortages/(May 9, 2025); Could AI Robots Help Fill the Labor Gap, Morgan Stanley (April 13, 2024), https://www.morganstanley.com/ideas/humanoid-robot-market-outlook-2024.
[7] See Kerry Justich, The Return of Dumb Things: Why Young People Are Ditching Their Smartphones for MP3 Players And Digital Cameras, Yahoo (Sept. 6, 2025), https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/the-return-of-dumb-things-why-young-people-are-ditching-their-smartphones-for-mp3-players-and-digital-cameras-103012025.html (stating that digital minimalism refers to a lifestyle that focuses on the more analog parts of everyday life where tech is only used when necessary); see Alexandria Abramanian, Why the Ultrarich Are Unplugging From Smart Homes, The Hollywood Reporter (Sept. 6, 2025), https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/lifestyle/real-estate/tech-free-homes-luxury-trend-1236177909/ (stating “Enter the dumb home …We’ve witnessed a surge in interest for low-tech and no-tech homes”).
[8] Rebecca Szutak, Here are the 49 US AI startups that have raised $100M or more in 2025, TechCrunch (Nov. 26, 2025), https://techcrunch.com/2025/11/26/here-are-the-49-us-ai-startups-that-have-raised-100m-or-more-in-2025/; The 2025 AI Index Report, Stanford University Human Centered Artificial Intelligence, https://hai.stanford.edu/ai-index/2025-ai-index-report (Corporate AI investment reached $252.3 billion in 2024. In 2024, U.S. private AI investment grew to $109.1 billion. Governments are also investing at scale: Canada pledged $2.4 billion, China launched a $47.5 billion semiconductor fund, France committed €109 billion, India pledged $1.25 billion, and Saudi Arabia’s Project Transcendence represents a $100 billion initiative.). The case for consent in the AI data gold rush, The Brookings Institute, (January 16, 2025) AI expert Peter Csathy estimates that major AI companies have only used about $1 billion of their total expected spend on AI on content licensing to date, representing just 0.1% of their budgets.
[9] See Tal Roded and Peter Slattery, What Drives Progress in AI? Trends in Data, Future Tech, MIT (March 19, 2024), https://futuretech.mit.edu/news/what-drives-progress-in-ai-trends-in-data (In just 10 years, from 2010 to 2020, the total amount of new data generated per year grew 32x, from 2 zettabytes created in 2010 to over 64 zettabytes created in 2020 alone.); Dipti Parmar, Training Data: The Key to Successful AI Models (Opinion), CIO (May 8, 2025), https://www.cio.com/article/3980243/training-data-the-key-to-successful-ai-models.html (AI models’ data requirements may be outpacing the supply of suitable, usable data available today.); Rohit Sehgal, AI Needs Data Moore Than Data Needs AI, https://www.forbes.com/councils/forbestechcouncil/2023/10/05/ai-needs-data-more-than-data-needs-ai/(Oct. 5, 2024).
[10] Chris Borges, How IP Rights Promote Innovation, https://www.csis.org/blogs/perspectives-innovation/rai-explainer-how-ip-rights-promote-Innovation ( (Apr. 17, 2025); U.S. Patent & Trademark Office, Patent Public Advisory Committee 2024 Annual Report, ,, https://www.uspto.gov/sites/default/files/documents/ppac-2024-annual-report.pdf (noting that annual AI-related patent applications increased by 33% between 2018 and 2023, from approximately 76,000 to over 101,000).
[11] U. S. Copyright Office, Copyright and Artificial Intelligence Part 3: Generative AI Training (Pre-Publication version), A Report of the Register of Copyrights (May 2025), https://copyright.gov/ai/Copyright-and-Artificial-Intelligence-Part-3-Generative-AI-Training-Report-Pre-Publication-Version.pdf.
[12] See Caitlin O’Kane, Actors Urge Government Not to Loosen AI Copyright Laws, CBS News (Sept. 6, 2025), https://www.cbsnews.com/news/actors-artificial-intelligence-ai-hollywood-copyright-regulation/.
[13] Among the differences between the national copyright regimes is whether to adopt an “opt-in” or “opt-out” system for copyright holders. The opt-out system, commonly known as text and data mining (TDM) exception, permits AI to use copyright-protected data for training, unless a copyright owner explicitly “opts out.” Also see Judy Wang and Nicol Turner Lee, AI and the Visual Arts: The Case for Copyright Protection (Commentary) (April 18, 2025), Brookings, https://www.brookings.edu/articles/ai-and-the-visual-arts-the-case-for-copyright-protection/ (Though there appears to be some agreement on restricting copyright for AI-generated artworks, there is substantial diversity in specific national policies. For example, the United Kingdom grants copyright in computer-generated works to whomever undertook the arrangements for the creation, while China recognizes copyright if the prompts are sufficiently detailed.); The 2025 AI Index Report, Stanford University Human Centered, Artificial Intelligence, https://hai.stanford.edu/ai-index/2025-ai-index-report (As of Dec . 2025, over 1,000 AI-related laws have been introduced nationwide. In 2024, U.S. federal agencies introduced 59 AI-related regulations); U.S. State Tech Policy Tracker, Integrity Institute, https://us-state.techpolicytracker.com/ (noting that over 45 states have passed or proposed legislation directly addressing AI considerations).
[14] See Emma Roth, Disney accuses Google of ‘massive’ copyright infringement following deal with OpenAI, https://www.theverge.com/news/842573/disney-google-copyright-infringement-cease-and-desist (Dec. 11, 2025); Reuters, Apple sued by authors over use of books in AI training, https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/boards-policy-regulation/apple-sued-by-authors-over-use-books-ai-training-2025-09-05/ (Sept. 5, 2025); Kevin Madigan, AI Lawsuit Developments in 2024:A Year in Review, Copyright Alliance (January 9, 2025), https://copyrightalliance.org/ai-lawsuit-developments-2024-review/.
[15] See Joshua Levine, To Support AI, Defend the Open Internet and Fair Use, Tech Policy Press (Sept. 4, 2025), https://www.techpolicy.press/to-support-ai-defend-the-open-internet-and-fair-use/ (stating that “If 15,000 authors joined the suit, the number of signatories on an Author’s Guild open letter calling for OpenAI to license guild members’ work for training, at one copyrighted work per author, a maximum copyright infringement fine could rise to $2,250,000,000. OpenAI’s latest funding round closed at $6.6 billion, so the copyright fines from this one case alone would account for a little more than a third of these funds.”).
[16] See Alistair Barr and Pranav Dixit, ChatGPT Can’t Decide Whether Its Ghibli-Style Images Violate Copyright or Not, Business Insider (Sept. 4, 2025), https://www.businessinsider.com/openai-studio-ghibli-style-images-violate-copyright-or-not-2025-3.
[17]765 F.Supp. 3d 382 (D. Del. Feb. 11, 2025).
[18] 788 F.Supp. 3d 1026 (N.D. Cal June 25, 2025); 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 123081, 2025 WL 1786418 (N.D. Cal June 27, 2025) (pending).
[19] See Robert D. Carroll, Stefan Mentzer, Timothy Keegan and Ji Young Ahn, Northern District of California Judge Rules That Meta’s Training of AI Models Is Fair Use, Goodwin Procter (June 27, 2025), https://www.goodwinlaw.com/en/insights/publications/2025/06/alerts-practices-aiml-northern-district-of-california-judge-rules.
[20] Bartz et al. v. Anthropic PBC, 787 F.Supp. 3d 1007 (N.D. Cal June 23, 2025) (pending).
[21] See Blake Brittain, U.S. Judge Preliminarily Approves $1.5 Billion Anthropic Copyright Settlement, Reuters (Sept. 25, 2025), https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/boards-policy-regulation/us-judge-approves-15-billion-anthropic-copyright-settlement-with-authors-2025-09-25/..
[22] See The Walt Disney Company and Opene AI reach landmark agreement to bring beloved characters from across Disney’s brands to Sora, https://openai.com/index/disney-sora-agreement/; see also, Sara Guaglione, 2024 In Review: Timeline of Deals Between Publishers and AI Companies, Digiday (Dec. 27, 2024), https://digiday.com/media/2024-in-review-a-timeline-of-the-major-deals-between-publishers-and-ai-companies/.
[23] See Paul Sweeting, Generative AI and Licensing: A Special Report, Variety (Oct.. 1, 2024:), https://variety.com/vip-special-reports/generative-ai-content-licensing-special-report-1236157051/. (To date, more than two dozen content owner deals with AI developers have been publicly confirmed, according to VIP+ research.).
[24] U.S. Copyright Office, Public Record: Zarya of the Dawn, https://publicrecords.copyright.gov/detailed-record/voyager_34743281; see Tony Analla, Zarya of the Dawn: How AI Is Changing the Landscape of Copyright Protection, Harv. J.L. & Tech. Dig. (Mar. 6, 2023), https://jolt.law.harvard.edu/digest/zarya-of-the-dawn-how-ai-is-changing-the-landscape-of-copyright-protection.
[25] U.S. Copyright Office, Public Record: A Single Piece of American Cheese, https://publicrecords.copyright.gov/detailed-record/voyager_37990563; see Adam Schrader, How This AI Image Became the First to Snag Copyright Protection, Artnet (Feb. 12, 2025), https://news.artnet.com/art-world/invoke-snags-first-ai-image-copyright-2608219; see Katelyn Chedraoui, This Company Got a Copyright for an Image Made Entirely With AI. Here’s How, CNET (Feb. 10, 2025), https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/this-company-got-a-copyright-for-an-image-made-entirely-with-ai-heres-how/.
[26] U.S. Copyright Office, Public Record: Sennzia Opera, https://publicrecords.copyright.gov/detailed-record/38107141. The office also rejected an application from Jason Allen for the artwork entitled “Théâtre D’opéra Spatial.” Notably, Mr Allen was unwilling to disclaim the AI-generated elements of the Work. See Second Request for Reconsideration for Refusal to Register Theatre Dopera Spatia, U.S. Copyright Office Review Board, Sept. 5, 2023, https://www.copyright.gov/rulings-filings/review-board/docs/Theatre-Dopera-Spatial.pdf.
[27] How We Received the First Copyright for a Single Image Created Entirely With AI-Generated Material, Invoke, https://44037860.fs1.hubspotusercontent-na1.net/hubfs/44037860/Invoke-First-Copyright-Image-AI-Generated-Material-Report.pdf. The office initially refused the registration application; the applicant filed application for reconsideration, which included a video showing the creative process and steps for the final work.
[28] 130 F.4th 1039 (D.C. Cir. Mar. 18, 2025) ; see Court Rules Against Copyright Protection for AI-Generated Artworks, Artforum (August 22, 2023), https://www.artforum.com/news/court-rules-against-copyright-protection-for-ai-generated-artworks-252910.
[29] Thaler v. Perlmutter, 687 F.Supp. 3d 140 (D.D.C. Aug. 18, 2023).
[30] One tension that remains unresolved is whether works created by AI are fair game for public use. In IP vernacular, are works created by AI automatically placed in the public domain?
[31] See Alex Heath, OpenAI Abandons Plan to Become a For-Profit Company, The Verge (May 5, 2025,), https://www.theverge.com/openai/661303/openai-stays-nonprofit-sam-altman-employee-memo (stating that CEO Sam Altman says, “We want to build a brain for the world and make it super easy for people to use for whatever they want.”).
[32] See Ashley Gold, Americans are using and worrying about AI more than ever, survey finds, https://www.axios.com/2025/12/10/americans-ai-use-worry-survey (Dec. 10, 2025); Conor Murray, Why AI ‘Hallucinations’ Are Worse Than Ever, Forbes (May 06, 2025), https://www.forbes.com/sites/conormurray/2025/05/06/why-ai-hallucinations-are-worse-than-ever/; see Bhaskar Chakravorti, AI’s Trust Problem, Harvard Bus. Rev. (May 3, 2024), https://hbr.org/2024/05/ais-trust-problem.
[33] See Natasha Singer, Google Plans to Roll Out Its A.I. Chatbot to Children Under 13, N.Y. Times (May 2, 2025), https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/02/technology/google-gemini-ai-chatbot-kids.html. (Describes Google’s testing of a kid-focused version of its Gemini AI chatbot.); Barbara Ortutay, Character.AI is banning minors from interacting with chatbots, https://apnews.com/article/characterai-kids-minors-18-ban-chatbot-5d203e9f22c62c153936ccc776a0ed09 (Oct. 29, 2025); European lawmakers seek EU-wide minimum age to access AI chatbots, social media, https://www.reuters.com/legal/litigation/european-lawmakers-seek-eu-wide-minimum-age-access-ai-chatbots-social-media-2025-11-26 (Nov. 26, 2025) (The European Parliament on Wednesday approved a non-binding resolution which calls for a default minimum age of 16 to access social media and AI chatbots to ensure “age-appropriate online engagement”.)
[34] See Jahuara Michelle, Microsoft Layoffs: 6,000 Workers Axed in Latest Move To Prioritize AI Growth, Blavity (May 15, 2025), https://blavity.com/microsoft-layoffs-6000-workers; see Jay Peters, Duolingo Will Replace Contract Workers With AI, The Verge (Apr 28, 2025,), https://www.theverge.com/news/657594/duolingo-ai-first-replace-contract-workers; see Charles Daly, Klarna Slows AI-Driven Job Cuts With Call for Real People, Bloomberg (May 8, 2025), https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-05-08/klarna-turns-from-ai-to-real-person-customer-service; see Shubham Agarwal, AI Isn’t Ready to Do Your Job, Business Insider (April 22, 2025), https://www.businessinsider.com/ai-agents-study-company-run-by-ai-disaster-replace-jobs-2025-4.
[35] See Steven Kurutz, The Gen-X Career Meltdown, N. Y. Times (March 28, 2025), https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/03/28/style/gen-x-creative-work.html; see Advertising Agencies in the US Will Automate 7.5% of Jobs by 2030, Forrester, June 15, 2023, https://www.forrester.com/press-newsroom/forrester-agency-ai-workforce-2030/. (Recent research from Forrester suggests that by 2030, ad agencies in the United States will lose 7.5% of the industry workforce, or 32,000 jobs.).
[36] Global Music Report 2024: State of the Industry, International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (2024), page 7, https://www.ifpi.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/GMR_2024_State_of_the_Industry.pdf.
[37] See Ashley Cullins and Katie Kilkenny, As Writers Strike, AI Could Covertly Cross the Picket Line, The Hollywood Reporter (May 3, 2023), https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/writers-strike-ai-chatgpt-1235478681/;see Matt Scherer, The SAG-AFTRA Strike Is Over, but the AI Fight in Hollywood is Just Beginning, Center for Democracy & Technology (Jan. 4, 2024), https://cdt.org/insights/the-sag-aftra-strike-is-over-but-the-ai-fight-in-hollywood-is-just-beginning/; see Jennifer Maas, Video Game Companies Release ‘Best of Last’ Offer to SAG-AFTRA Addressing AI Demands Amid 9-Month Strike, Variety (May 5, 2025), https://variety.com/2025/gaming/news/video-game-actors-strike-saga-aftra-final-offer-1236387081/.
[38] See Ronald Issy, Fashion Giant H&M Plans To Use AI Clones Of Its Human Models. Not Everyone Is Happy, CNN (March 28, 2025), https://edition.cnn.com/2025/03/28/style/h-and-m-ai-models-intl-scli/index.html; see also Hannah Karp, AI Artist Xania Monet Climbs the Charts – And Signs a Multimillion-Dollar Record Deal, Billboard (Sept. 16, 2025), https://www.billboard.com/pro/ai-music-artist-xania-monet-multimillion-dollar-record-deal/.
[39] See Kenneth J. Withers, Delete All IP Law? Really?, National Law Review (April 30, 2025), https://natlawreview.com/article/delete-all-ip-law-really. (There is strong pressure from Silicon Valley to weaken copyright protection to allow unfettered training of the large language models that are the backbone of artificial intelligence.); see Kyle Wiggers, Google Calls for Weakened Copyright and Export Rules in AI Policy Proposal, Tech Crunch (March 13, 2025), https://techcrunch.com/2025/03/13/google-calls-for-weakened-copyright-and-export-rules-in-ai-policy-proposal/.
[40] See New York Times Co. v. Microsoft Corp., 777 F.Supp. 3d 283 (S.D.N.Y. Apr. 4, 2025); see also Concord Music Grp., Inc. v. Anthropic PBC, 772 F.Supp. 3d 1131 (N.D. Cal. Mar. 25, 2025); see also Authors Guild v. Open AI, Inc., 345 F.R.D. 585 (S.D.N.Y. April 1, 2024), appeal dismissed sub nom.; see also Guild v. Tremblay, 2024 U.S. App. LEXIS 27210, 2024 WL 4564683 (2d Cir. Oct. 4, 2024), and appeal dismissed sub nom; see also Basbanes v. Microsoft Corp., 2024 U.S. App. LEXIS 27209, 2024 WL 4564684 (2d Cir. Oct. 4, 2024); see also Kadrey v. Meta Platforms, Inc., 2024 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 221756, 2024 WL 5008065 (N.D. Cal. Dec. 6, 2024).
