SUBSCRIBE & SAVE Less than $3 per week View Profile The Explainer Talking Points The Week Recommends Newsletters From the Magazine The Week Junior Food & Drink Personal Finance All Categories Newsletter sign up Intellectual property: AI gains at creators' expense Two federal judges ruled that it is fair use for AI firms to use copyrighted media to train bots Newsletter sign up "AI is already upending long-embattled creative sectors" (Image credit: Oleh Stefaniak / Getty Images) The Week US 15 July 2025 AI companies are winning the battle over copyright, said Nitish Pahwa in Slate, and we may all end up paying the price. In recent weeks, "two different federal judges in the Northern District of California made legal rulings" that mostly absolved Meta and Anthropic of using "published books for training generative bots." AI companies have come under fire for hoovering up data from all corners of the internet, including the intellectual property of successful authors such as Ta--Nehisi Coates and Richard Kadrey. But the two judges have now suggested that this is all fair use and thus "perfectly legal." There are numerous copyright lawsuits against AI firms still working their way through the legal system, but these rulings may set a disastrous precedent "at a moment when AI is already upending long-embattled creative sectors." Silicon Valley is celebrating, but the devil is in the details, said Adi Robertson in The Verge. The rulings "dealt specifically with training—or media getting fed into models—and didn't reach the question" of how closely the end result resembles copyrighted media. That is "extremely pertinent," and it is the linchpin in a legal fight between OpenAI and The New York Times, which claims "that ChatGPT could verbatim regurgitate large sections of Times stories." In his ruling, Judge William Alsup also chastised Anthropic for downloading copies of "more than 7 million books from online 'shadow libraries,'" piracy on a scale "that could expose the company to judgments worth untold millions of dollars," said Michael Hiltzik in the Los Angeles Times. U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria added another wrinkle. He ruled in Meta's favor but "provided plaintiffs in similar cases with a road map to winning their claims." He "all but pleaded" for artists and authors to present him with evidence showing how the AI--generated slop flooding the market is affecting sales of original creative works. Chatbots exist only "thanks to the hard and uncompensated work of others," said Dave Lee in Bloomberg. They are not "creative" on their own. AI doesn't "so much generate new value as it does transfer it—from one place, the original source, to another: itself." Regardless of how much the end output resembles the original works the models devoured, the ease of AI makes it "a shortcut that reduces the need" to visit libraries or subscribe to newspapers or buy books so that human authors can create more of them. If the stated goal of copyright law is to advance original works of authorship, then AI companies should pay a fee to the originators. The tech industry may have decided that authors should "step aside in service of the great calling of AI," but legislators don't have to. Subscribe to The Week Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives. SUBSCRIBE & SAVE Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox. From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox. Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com Contact me with news and offers from other Future brandsReceive email from us on behalf of our trusted partners or sponsorsBy submitting your information you agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy and are aged 16 or over. The Week US Social Links Navigation Bill Moyers: the journalist who was the face of PBS A legend in public broadcasting SCOTUS greenlights mass DOE firings The Supreme Court will allow the Trump administration to further shrink the Education Department Cuomo announces third-party run for NYC mayor He will go up against progressive Democratic powerhouse Zohran Mamdani and incumbent Mayor Eric Adams You might also like Is AI killing the internet? Talking Point AI-powered browsers and search engines are threatening the death of the open web Nvidia hits $4 trillion milestone The success of the chipmaker has been buoyed by demand for artificial intelligence Musk chatbot Grok praises Hitler on X Grok made antisemitic comments and referred to itself as 'MechaHitler' The first AI job cuts are already here Companies are removing entry-level jobs as AI takes over The god in the machine An AI model with superhuman intelligence could soon become reality. Should we be worried? AI chatbots are leading some to psychosis The explainer The technology may be fueling delusions Unreal: A quantum leap in AI video Google's new Veo 3 is making it harder to distinguish between real videos and AI-generated ones Will 2027 be the year of the AI apocalypse? In The Spotlight A 'scary and vivid' new forecast predicts that artificial superintelligence is on the horizon View More ▸ Contact Future's experts Terms and Conditions Privacy Policy Cookie Policy Advertise With Us The Week is part of Future US Inc, an international media group and leading digital publisher. Visit our corporate site. Future US, Inc. Full 7th Floor, 130 West 42nd Street