Blogs
March 4, 2025

February 2025 Roundup of Copyright News

by Rachel Kim

In February, several very significant developments unfolded in the courts with news publishers filing an AI copyright infringement suit and a court rejecting an AI company’s argument that their copying of copyrighted works for training purposes was a fair use. Meanwhile, the UK creative community was in an uproar over the UK Government’s proposal for an AI copyright exception. Here is a quick snapshot of some of copyright-related activities that occurred during the month of February as well as a few events to look forward to in March.

Copyright Alliance Blogs: The Copyright Alliance published several blog posts in February:

  • At the end of January, the U.S. Copyright Office (USCO) published Part Two of its AI report on AI and copyrightability issues, which we summarized in this blog post.
  • In light of the introduction of judicial blocking legislation this Congress and discussion around such measures, in this blog post we explore the facts surrounding judicial blocking measures around the world and their important role in digital antipiracy efforts.
  • The first court to consider whether AI training is fair use was decided, handing down an important ruling which we explore in this blog post.
  • In another AI-related blog post we explore the recent phenomenon of former employees of generative AI companies stepping forward to blow the whistle on and express their concern with AI companies’ mass copying of copyrighted works and their vital role in shaping the AI and copyright discussions.
  • To wrap up Fair Use Week, this blog post discusses why fair use is a uniquely American concept that should not be exported to other countries’ laws, particularly in the AI context.

Copyright Alliance Submits Comments on UK AI Copyright Consultation: On February 25, the Copyright Alliance submitted comments in response to the Consultation on Copyright and Artificial Intelligence launched by the United Kingdom’s Intellectual Property Office (UK IPO). The comments urge the UK Government to reject a proposal for a text-and-data mining exception in UK copyright law, highlight the inadequacies of various “safeguards” in the proposal, and emphasize the need for adequate transparency. The UK Government’s proposal for an AI copyright exception and approach to copyright in its Consultation has garnered massive opposition and criticism from the UK creative community across all creative disciplines as most recently evidence by the Make It Fair campaign and a silent album campaign as described below. According to MP Peter Kyle, UK Secretary of State for Science, Innovation, and Technology, in a post on X, there were about 11,000 responses submitted in response to the Consultation. 

CCB Final Determinations Summary: As of the end of February 2025, the Copyright Claims Board (CCB) issued 39 final determinations. Claimants prevailed about 67% of the time. The average damage amount awarded by the CCB across all final determinations is $2,339. Fifteen percent of the final determinations issued by the CCB were issued in cases brought through the “smaller claims” process. The average time it took for the CCB to issue a final determination from the time a case was first filed through a standard CCB proceeding is about 16.1 months, while for a case filed through the “smaller claims” process, the average time is about 12.3 months.

USCO Publishes NOI Related to PRO Practices: On February 10, the USCO published a notice of inquiry (NOI) to solicit views on issues related to performing rights organizations (PROs) and the Copyright Act’s public performance right for musical works. The NOI focuses on two main topics: (1) the effects resulting from an increased number of PROs and factors behind the increase; and (2) PRO licensing revenue distribution methods. Initial comments are due April 11, and reply comments are due May 27.

USCO Grants Registration for Compilation Work With AI-Generated Elements and for an AI-Generated Video Based on Editing: According to reports, the USCO granted a registration for an image titled A Single Piece of American Cheese, which covers the creative selection, coordination, and arrangement of elements generated by an AI model called Invoke. According to reports, the USCO also granted a registration for an AI-generated motion picture, titled Film clip for song just Like In A Movie (SNEAK PREVIEW), which covers the lyrics and editing of AI-generated footage. The decisions are in line with the Office’s prior statements, including its most recent AI report, that notes the scope of registration for works containing AI-generated elements could protect creative selection, coordination, and arrangement (SCA) of such elements or creative modifications to AI-generated output.

USCO Adjusts Compliance Dates Relating to Final Rule on Cable, Satellite, and DART License Reporting Practices: On February 28, the USCO published a clarification to its final rule for license reporting requirements related to the section 111 statutory license, adjusting the deadline for the final rule’s reporting obligation to apply to the Statement of Account (SOA) due on August 29. The final rule original required reporting to be effectuated through biannual SOAs but noted that the present clarification was necessary as the SOA form would not be available by the upcoming filing deadline of March 1.

Executive Branch Activities

OSTP Solicits Comments for Executive AI Action Plan: On February 6, on behalf of the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), the National Science Foundation published a Request for Information from interested parties on the Development of an Artificial Intelligence (AI) Action Plan as directed by the January 23 Presidential Executive Order. The plan will define priority policy actions to ensure America’s AI leadership “and ensure that…burdensome requirements do not hamper private sector AI innovation.” Comments are due March 15.

Legislative Activities

House Ways and Means Subcommittee Holds Hearing on U.S. Trade Priorities: On February 25, the House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Trade held a hearing titled American Trade Enforcement Priorities. Witnesses at the hearing include Ambassador Gregg Doud, President and CEO, National Milk Producers Federation; Ambassador Jeffrey Gerrish, Partner, Schagrin Associates; Jonathan McHale, Vice President, Computer and Communications Industry Association (CCIA); Kevin Rosenbaum, Executive Director, International Intellectual Property Alliance (IIPA); and Greta Peisch, Partner, Wiley Rein LLP. The hearing examined key trade enforcement priorities, with lawmakers discussing tariffs, intellectual property protection, anti-dumping measures, digital trade, and United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) enforcement. Rosenbaum highlighted the importance of trade agreements and effective enforcement for protecting U.S. copyright industries. He credited trade agreements, like USMCA, for creating opportunities, but stressed that inadequate implementation by partners, particularly Canada and Mexico, has limited these benefits. Rosenbaum also cited Canada’s failure to fully comply with its USMCA commitments due to its Online Streaming Act and Mexico’s delayed implementation of required intellectual property provisions, such as regulations protecting technological protection measures. He further noted similar concerns with China’s persistent market access barriers and piracy issues, as well as problematic copyright reforms proposed in South Africa.

Creative Rights Caucus Announces Leadership for 119th Congress: On February 26, the Creative Rights Caucus announced its bipartisan, bicameral leadership for the 119th Congress, with Representatives Judy Chu (D-CA) and Laurel Lee (R-FL) serving as House Co-Chairs and Senators Mazie Hirono (D-HI) and Thom Tillis (R-NC) serving as Senate Co-Chairs. Representative Lee, a member of the House Judiciary Committee and its Subcommittee on Intellectual Property, replaces former Representative Drew Ferguson (R-GA) who retired after the 118th Congress. The Creative Rights Caucus serves to educate Members of Congress and the public about the importance of preserving and protecting the rights of the creative community in the United States.

AI Copyright Transparency Bill Introduced in California: On February 4, California Assembly Member Rebecca Bauer-Kahn (D-Orinda) introduced AB 412, the AI Copyright Transparency Act in the California legislature. The bill aims to increase transparency of the use of copyright protected materials to train generative AI (GAI) models and systems by requiring GAI companies to provide copyright owners with lists of copyrighted works used to train GAI, providing a mechanism for copyright owners to request such information, and authorizing copyright owners to bring civil actions against GAI companies who fail to provide such information.

Court Holds AI Training Does Not Qualify for Fair Use Exception: On February 11, Judge Bibas of the Third Circuit Court of Appeals acting by designation for the district court for the District of Delaware granted Thomson Reuters’ (TR) motion for summary judgment on direct copyright infringement and related defenses against Ross in their long-running infringement dispute. In 2020, TR sued Ross, a competing legal research service, for copyright infringement related to Ross’ copying of Westlaw headnotes and other copyrighted content to develop its own competing product based on machine learning. The case is significant because it is the first decision to tackle the issue of whether ingestion of copyrighted works for AI training purposes qualifies as a fair use. The court held that TR’s Westlaw headnotes are copyrightable and rejected Ross’ fair use defense. In the opinion, Judge Bibas explains that the use was commercial and not transformative (under factor 1) and that Ross’ use harmed the potential market for AI training data (under factor 4). The Copyright Alliance published a blog exploring the court’s analysis and its potential impacts for the nearly forty impending lawsuits against generative AI companies.

News and Magazine Publishers Sue Cohere Over AI Content Theft: On February 13, a group of news and magazine publishers—including Advance, The Atlantic, Guardian, Los Angeles Times, Politico, Forbes, and Vox Media—filed a complaint against AI company, Cohere, for the unlicensed copying, use, and dissemination of the publisher plaintiffs’ news and magazine articles to train Cohere’s suite of large language model AI systems called the “Command Family” of models. According to the complaint, Cohere’s AI models deliver outputs that include full verbatim copies, substantial excerpts, and substitutive summaries of the publishers’ works. The publishers also point out that the retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) feature in Command routinely returns verbatim copies of publishers’ copyright protected works in response to user queries.

NBA Teams File Amicus Brief with SCOTUS on the Discovery Rule: On February 18, eight teams from the National Basketball Association (NBA) filed an amicus brief in the case of RADesign, Inc. v. Michael Grecco Productions, Inc., urging the U.S. Supreme Court (SCOTUS) to take up the case to resolve the issue of whether the “discovery rule” or “injury rule” applies when determining whether infringement claims are made in a timely fashion under the Copyright Act’s three-year statute of limitations period. Amici urged the Court to reject the “discovery rule.”

MPA SEVP Karyn Temple Presents on Judicial Site Blocking During WIPO Meeting: From February 4-6, the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) held its seventeenth session of the Advisory Committee on Enforcement. During the session Motion Picture Association’s (MPA) Senior Executive Vice President (SEVP) and Global General Counsel, Karyn Temple, gave a presentation on experiences and best practices regarding site blocking and no-fault injunctions in combatting online piracy. A written submission of important points in the presentation highlights the availability of no-fault injunctive regimes to combat online piracy in more than 50 countries and the efficacy of such mechanisms in countries such as the United Kingdom, Australia, Portugal, and the Republic of Korea.

Thousands of UK Musicians Release ‘Silent Album’ to Protest UK Government AI and Copyright Proposal: On February 25, thousands of UK musicians released a silent album titled Is This What We Want? in protest of the UK Government’s proposal to introduce an AI copyright exception. The album features recordings of empty studios and performance spaces to represent the harmful effect the government’s proposal would have on musicians’ livelihoods. Musicians involved with the project include Kate Bush, Annie Lennox, Damon Albarn, Billy Ocean, Ed O’Brien, Dan Smith, The Clash, Mystery Jets, Jamiroquai, Imogen Heap, Yusuf/Cat Stevens, Riz Ahmed, Tori Amos, Hans Zimmer, James MacMillan, Max Richter, John Rutter, and countless others. The initiative was spearheaded by Ed Newton-Rex, CEO of Fairly Trained.

UK Creative Industries Launch Make It Fair CampaignProtesting UK Government Proposal for AI and Copyright Exception: On February 25, the UK creative industries launched the Make It Fair campaign to highlight how copyright-protected works are at risk of being given away for free to AI companies as the UK government proposes an AI copyright exception that weakens copyright law. The campaign cover wrap reads “MAKE IT FAIR: The government wants to change the UK’s laws to favour big tech platforms so they can use British creative content to power their AI models without our permission or payment. Let’s protect the creative industries—it’s only fair.”

Paris AI Action Summit Statement Mentions Need for Continued Dialogue on IP Issues: On February 11, sixty countries signed onto the Statement on Inclusive and Sustainable Artificial Intelligence for People and the Planet resulting from the Paris AI Summit, which includes language that the signatories recognize a global need for continued dialogue and cooperation on AI governance issues, including those related to intellectual property. The U.S. and U.K. did not sign the statement.

Thirty-eight International Creative Organizations, Including AAP, Sign Statement on Need for AI ‘Oversight and Regulation’: According to reports, during the Artificial Intelligence Action Summit in Paris, France this week, 38 international organizations representing creative industries—including the Association of American Publishers (AAP), under the auspices of the International Publishers Association—”released a joint statement calling for oversight and regulation of artificial intelligence development, focusing on respect for copyright and related intellectual property.”

China’s SAR to Propose AI Exception in Copyright Law: According to reports, the Commerce and Economic Development Bureau of China’s special administrative regions (SARs) will propose a text and data mining exception for AI into the SAR’s Copyright Ordinance in the next few months. The exception would allow “reasonable use of copyrighted works for computational data analysis and processing and will be subject to restrictive conditions to comply with the international standard of the “three-step test” and to balance the interests between copyright owners and users.” According to reports, one such condition will be an opt-out provision.

UK Government Plays Down Proposed AI Copyright Exception: According to reports, UK Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer, was recently asked whether the UK Government’s plans were “set in stone” to introduce a AI copyright exception to broadly permit text-and-data mining with other measures including an opt-out function. The Prime Minister stated that the government has thus far only launched a Consultation about the issues and that it would review stakeholder responses. When the Prime Minister was reminded of the fact that the government did state its preferred option of introducing an AI copyright exception, with an opt-out function, he stated, “We will review the responses to the consultation. The creative sector is obviously really important to our economy . . . Artificial intelligence is really important to our economy and we’ll review it in that light. But I’ll be clear, I want creatives to thrive. I think they’re really important for our country — not just the contribution to the economy but our global reputation.” MP Peter Kyle stated in a post on X, that, “As we work through the 11,000 responses I promise no changes will be considered unless we can be sure the solution works for creators- that is a red line and we will honour it.”

NMPA Issues Infringement Notices of Unlicensed Music in Spotify Podcasts: On February 4, the National Music Publishers’ Association (NMPA) sent infringement notices to Spotify for more than 2,500 instances of unlicensed musical works being used in podcasts on Spotify’s platform. NMPA President and CEO David Israelite stated, “Spotify has thousands of unlicensed songs in its podcasts, which it has done nothing to remedy. This takedown action comes as no surprise, we have warned of this issue for some time. Podcasts are a growing source of revenue for songwriters and publishers, and it is essential that podcasts provide lawfully produced entertainment. This is not hard to do, and Spotify knows, and has known, how to fix this problem for their users. We hope podcast hosts will stand up for their fellow creators and demand that Spotify do better.”

Ed Newton-Rex Delivers TED Talk on AI Models Stealing Creative Works: TED Conferences published a video of a TED Talk given by Ed Newton-Rex, CEO of Fairly Trained, titled How AI Models Steal Creative Work—and What To Do About It. Newton-Rex points out that unlicensed training on creative works has grave implications on human creativity and the future of AI technologies, especially in the context of gen AI producing outputs that compete with human-created works. Noting that “the legal framework of copyright affords creators the exclusive right to authorize copies of their works…” Newton-Rex highlights that through traditional licensing, it is possible for a future in AI technologies without sacrificing human creativity. He additionally points out the fallacies and pitfalls of anthropomorphizing AI training to human learning, noting that unlike traditional human learning, generative AI ingests copyrighted works at an unprecedented scale without supporting the copyright ecosystem.

BMI Urges Creators to Make Their Voices Heard on USCO NOI on PROs: On February 11, Broadcast Music, Inc. (BMI) urged their songwriter, composer, and publisher affiliates to make their voices heard by signing a letter to the U.S. Copyright Office (USCO) in response to the recent notice of inquiry (NOI) on issues related to Performance Rights Organizations (PROs) in the United States. The Copyright Office launched the inquiry in response to a Congressional letter asking that it evaluate the PRO marketplace. The affiliate letter states that the intent of the original Congressional letter was to question the efficacy of the music licensing marketplace in order to further an agenda of additional regulation of PROs and ultimately enable licensees to pay less to music creators and copyright owners for the use of their creative work.

IIPA Publishes Copyright Industry Report: On February 3, the International Intellectual Property Alliance (IIPA) published its Copyright Industries in the U.S. Economy: 2024 Report, which is the organization’s 20th report highlighting the economic impact and contributions of the U.S. copyright sectors. The report showed that in 2023, the total copyright industries contributed more than $3.3 trillion to U.S. GDP, accounting for 12.31% of the U.S. economy. Additionally, foreign sales of selected copyright industry sectors exceeded foreign sales of other major U.S. industries including the chemicals manufacturing industry, the pharmaceutical and medicines industry, the agricultural products industry, and the aerospace products and parts industry.

Save the Date For…

CCC Webinar on Copyright 101 for Academia: Today, on March 4 at 1 p.m. ET, the Copyright Clearance Center (CCC) will host a Copyright 101 for Academia webinar to provide an initial exposure to copyright as well as a refresher for those who work in the world of academia. The session will cover U.S. copyright basics, copyright in the classroom, limitations and exceptions, copyright in the AI lifecycle, and strategies for success. It will conclude with a Q&A session.

Copyright Alliance Co-Hosts Webinar on How Creators Can Protect Their IP: Today, on March 4 from 2-3 p.m. ET, the Copyright Alliance will co-host a webinar with the BIPOC Podcast Creators, titled Protect Your Content Like a Pro: IP Tips for Creative Geniuses. The event will include Copyright Alliance’s VP, Legal Policy & Copyright Council, Rachel Kim, and co-founders of BIPOC Podcast Creators, Tangia Renee Estrada and Maribel Quezada Smith. Topics that will be covered include the basics of intellectual property (IP) and how it applies to your work, what to do when someone copies your content, and how ethical content creation starts with originality and respect for others’ work.

VLANY Webinar on Licensing 101: Debunking Rights and Clearances: On March 4 from 5-6 p.m. ET, the Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts New York (VLANY) will hold a webinar titled Licensing 101: Debunking Rights and Clearances. The event will provide an overview of rights and clearance best practices in connection with television, film, and new media productions to help creators navigate the layers of clearances and ensure their works are protected.

WALA Webinar on Contracts and Copyright 101 for the Film Industry: On March 15 from 1-2:30 p.m. ET, the Washington Area Lawyers for the Arts (WALA) will host a macro-level discussion titled Contracts and Copyright 101 for the Film Industry: Understanding Your Rights and Creative Ownership. Topics that will be discussed include contracts, copyright, fair use, work for hire, licensing, registration, releases, trademarks, and other legal topics of importance for creative professionals. Speakers include Professor Lolita Darden, Darden Betts, and Samantha Levin, Esq. 

PVLA Legal Workshop on Arts and Fashion: On March 21 from 2-5 p.m. ET, the Philadelphia Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts (PVLA) will host The Legal Atelier: An Arts and Fashion Legal Workshop, presented in partnership with the Scarpa Center for Entrepreneurship and Law and Villanova Law Pro Bono Society. The workshop will connect creators with top volunteer attorneys who will offer free legal guidance on issues such as copyright, intellectual property, contracts, and more.

MdVLA Art Law Clinic: On March 22 from 1-4 p.m. ET, the Maryland Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts (MdVLA) will host an art law clinic to answer creators’ questions. Those who are interested can register for a 30-minute consultation with one of MdVLA’s volunteer attorneys.

If you aren’t already a member of the Copyright Alliance, you can join today by completing our Individual Creator Members membership form! Members gain access to monthly newsletters, educational webinars, and so much more — all for free!

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