copyright

The snap judgment among legal experts was that a federal judge’s dismissal on Nov. 7 of a copyright infringement lawsuit against OpenAI, the leader in advanced chatbots, will short-circuit an ever-growing effort by artists and writers to keep AI firms from stealing their content.

McMahon’s ruling, based on a Supreme Court decision in an unrelated case, “could leave AI copyright claims on shaky ground,” wrote Los Angeles intellectual property lawyer Aaron Moss on his website.

The judge not only dismissed Raw Story’s case; she implied that no copyright holder might be able to show enough harm from AI scraping to win an infringement case.

That’s because the case brings together two muddy legal regimes: copyright law, which is renowned for its craziness and confusion; and AI law, which may be years away from coalescing into coherence.

At least 12 lawsuits against AI developers alleging copyright violations are currently wending their way through the federal courts — with plaintiffs including the publishers of Mother Jones, the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times; the music recording industry; and writers Michael Chabon and Sarah Silverman.