I have reported on what seems like a weekly basis on legal cases around AI and copyright, but this week I want to report on a hearing held in the legislative branch of the U.S. government. Before doing so, being an ignorant Brit, I undertook some brief research on what exactly the status of Senate hearings is—so if nothing else, this has increased my knowledge of how government works across the world (note for U.K. readers: I think it’s a bit like a Select Committee).
ALLi News Editor Dan Holloway
The hearing’s title was “Too Big to Prosecute? Examining the AI Industry’s Mass Ingestion of Copyrighted Works for AI Training,” which in itself made what may be seen as a surprisingly provocative statement.
Familiar Players and Perspectives
There was a familiar cast of characters. Maria Pallante is the CEO of the Association of American Publishers (AAP). And author representation was provided by bestseller David Baldacci, who showed that he was part of the traditional, not the indie, world by suggesting that we are reaching a point where the number of books that can be published on a day will be limited—something that happened on Kindle more than a year ago as part of Amazon’s pushback on AI content.
Nothing particularly new emerged. The argument in favor of more freedom for tech companies focuses on keeping up with China and using the fair use parts of existing copyright law as the tool for providing that freedom. Against this, the argument was put that mass piracy through sites like LibGen could never be fair use.
The National Interest Reframed
It was interesting, though, to hear Senator Josh Hawley, who convened the hearing, flipping the national interest argument, pointing out that authors like Baldacci are U.S. citizens and illicitly using their work is hardly patriotic. That’s closer to the European emphasis on the importance of the creative industries for national economies.
But having the same arguments heard together in a new context—one closer to the lawmaking process rather than the law-interpreting one—might serve a useful purpose as a new landscape forms in the months and years to come.Top of Form
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