The new year may bring significant developments in a series of copyright lawsuits that could shape the future of artificial intelligence (AI). Several tech companies, including OpenAI, Meta Platforms, and Anthropic, are facing lawsuits from authors, news outlets, visual artists, musicians, and other copyright owners who claim they used their work to train chatbots and other AI-based content generators without permission or payment.
The disputes center on whether the companies’ use of copyrighted material constitutes “fair use,” a legal concept that determines when the use of someone else’s work is permissible. Courts will begin hearing arguments in 2025 on this question, which could be the defining issue in the AI copyright wars.
Tech companies argue that their AI systems make fair use by studying copyrighted material to create new, transformative content. However, copyright owners counter that the companies unlawfully copy their works to generate rival content that threatens their livelihoods.
If courts agree with tech companies on fair use, they could escape U.S. copyright liability entirely. Judges in different jurisdictions may reach conflicting conclusions, leading to multiple rounds of appeals.
Several ongoing disputes, including one between Thomson Reuters and Ross Intelligence, could provide early indications of how judges will treat fair use arguments. Another case involves music publishers and Anthropic over the use of their song lyrics to train its chatbot Claude.
In November, a U.S. District Judge in New York dismissed a case from news outlets Raw Story and AlterNet against OpenAI, finding that they failed to show they were injured by OpenAI’s alleged copyright violations. However, other cases could end without a determination on fair use if judges decide that copyright owners were unharmed by the use of their work in AI training.
The outcome of these disputes will have significant implications for the U.S. AI industry and its growth in the coming years.
Source: https://www.reuters.com/legal/litigation/tech-companies-face-tough-ai-copyright-questions-2025-2024-12-27