Rushing McCarl LLP filed an amicus brief on behalf of ten AI startups — Splice, BandLab Technologies, Boomy, Created by Humans, Credtent, Newstex, ProRata.ai, SourceAudio, Cashmere, and Voice-Swap — in the OpenAI copyright-infringement litigation, in which high-profile authors, publishers, and others are suing OpenAI for training ChatGPT models on copyrighted work without permission. An astonishing 54 outside parties, including Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz, filed amicus briefs. At issue is whether the fair-use doctrine allows AI companies to train on copyrighted work without asking or paying creators and rightsholders.
We wrote: “Developing artificial-intelligence systems does not require mass piracy, and protecting copyright will not throttle innovation. The reverse is true. Copyright law itself promotes innovation by rewarding original work.”
Our clients build AI products using licensed content or operate platforms that help creators license their work. Their experience shows that consent-based AI development is commercially viable. The brief shows how requiring AI developers to license copyrighted content supports innovation, compensates creators, and reduces legal and commercial uncertainty.
Here’s our brief: Read the amicus brief (PDF). It was signed by partners Ryan McCarl and Kimberly Chemerinsky and filed in the Southern District of New York.
McCarl was recruited to write the brief because of his expertise in AI; his software-development experience makes him uniquely qualified to litigate AI-related cases and depose and hire or challenge tech-industry experts, involving. He also consults with clients on AI-related issues and regularly presents and writes about AI to legal audiences. Contact Rushing McCarl LLP (phone | email) to explore whether we might be the right fit for your matter.
Image by Conny Schneider on Unsplash.