Artificial intelligence companies are winning the fight over copyrighted text, with victories in cases involving chatbots, image generators, and music. A US judge ruled that Anthropic’s use of books to train its Claude chatbot did not breach copyright law, compared to a “reader aspiring to be a writer.” Meta was also given a favorable ruling, while writers suing Microsoft for copyright infringement are facing an uphill battle.
The recent wins by AI companies raise questions about the applicability of one type of media format’s copyright rules to another. The industry is grappling with how fair use analysis will change as it moves from written works to images and videos.
Anthropic laid waste to 7 million books in its training database, which was seen as a crude literalization of AI companies’ consumption of content for product creation.
Meanwhile, Google’s emissions increased by 51% due to the growing electricity demand from AI systems. The US supreme court ruled in favor of an age-check law passed in Texas, affirming that online platforms must require users to verify their age before accessing sexually explicit content.
The ruling also has implications for the free speech jurisprudence landscape, with experts warning that it could lead to increased regulation and restrictions on access to information. The decision will be closely watched as Pornhub implements age checks in compliance with the Online Services Act in July.
Source: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/jun/30/ai-techscape-copyright