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July 7, 2026

Top Noteworthy Copyright Stories from June 2026

by Rachel Kim

June 2026 may have been a slightly quieter month in the copyright world relative to prior months. But there was still significant movement on an important copyright-related bill that moved through Congress and an ongoing case where the U.S. Supreme Court made a decision on the Register of Copyright’s ability to continue serving in the position. The Ninth Circuit also granted a rehearing in an infringement case that will likely rewrite the rules of the Ninth Circuit’s long-standing substantial similarity test. Here is an overview of key pieces of copyright news from June 2026.

USCO Receives Comments on Alternative Registration Fee Structure NOI: On June 24, the U.S. Copyright Office received numerous comments in response to its notice of inquiry (NOI) soliciting information on potential alternative fee structures for the Office’s updated electronic registration system. Most comments supported in principle two fee structures proposed by the Office: Small Entity Fees and Subscription Fees. The Copyright Alliance submitted comments proposing two additional fee structures: Registration Fees for a Single Unit of Publication in Digital Form and Graduated Group Registration Fees. Commenters supported alternative fee structures as measures that would advance the dual goals of encouraging broader participation in the copyright registration system and improving overall registration efficiencies.

USCO Issues Final Rule Redesignating the MLC and DLC Under the MMA: On June 3, the U.S. Copyright Office (USCO) issued a final rule continuing the designations of both the Mechanical Licensing Collective (MLC) and the Digital Licensee Coordinator (DLC) in their respective statutory roles under the Music Modernization Act (MMA). The decision was made in conclusion of the Copyright Office’s first review of the designations of these organizations and was a part of the Office’s first periodic review as mandated by the MMA.

USCO Begins Tenth Section 1201 Triennial Rulemaking Process: On June 9, the U.S. Copyright Office (USCO) published a notification of inquiry and request for petitions that initiate its tenth triennial rulemaking proceeding under Section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) to determine recommendations for temporary exemptions to the Section 1201 prohibition against the circumvention of technological measures that control access to copyrighted works. Written petitions for new exemptions and renewal for current exemptions must be submitted to the Office by August 24. Written comments in response to any submitted petitions are due September 28.

USCO Office of Chief Economist Publishes Report on Characteristics of Authors Who Register Copyrights: On June 23, the U.S. Copyright Office’s Office of the Chief Economist released The Characteristics of Authors Reflected in Copyright Registrations, which examines the socioeconomic patterns of authors who register copyrights. The report reveals that many copyright registrations originate from areas where people are highly educated, located in urban areas, earn higher incomes, are older, and work in the information and entertainment industries. 

SCOTUS Denies White House’s Motion in Register of Copyright Case: On June 30, the U.S. Supreme Court issued an order, denying the Administration’s application to stay the injunction in Register Shira Perlmutter’s case against the White House over her dismissal from the position back in May 2025. This means that Perlmutter can continue in the Register position while her case is still pending. On July 1, the District Court for the District of Columbia issued an order for the parties in the case to submit by August 14 supplemental briefing in light of the Supreme Court’s decision in Trump v. Slaughter.

New AI Copyright Cases Filed: In June, more AI copyright lawsuits were filed by authors, news media publishers, and a music licensing platform, as the number of these cases surges to well over 100 cases filed.

  • On June 17, a group of authors, including Thomas William Shakespeare, Nolan Bushnell, Laura Esquivel, and others, filed a complaint against Anthropic over the unauthorized use of their literary works sourced through BitTorrent from pirate eBook websites like Library Genesis and Pirate Library Mirror to train Anthropic’s large language model (LLM) Claude. The complaint includes one claim of direct copyright infringement.
  • On June 18, book author Kalishwar Das, representing himself, filed a complaint against Meta, Google, OpenAI, and X in the District of South Carolina, Columbia Division, alleging the AI companies ingested, reproduced, and commercially exploited his works without authorization. The complaint alleges that the AI companies’ models trained on his books without permission and also generated output that reproduces his copyright-protected expression. The complaint includes counts of direct, willful, and contributory copyright infringement, among others.
  • On June 22, Jamendo, a music licensing platform owned by Belgium-based Winamp Group, filed a lawsuit in the Northern District of California against Nvidia, accusing the chipmaker of using its copyrighted music to train its AI audio models without authorization. The complaint alleges that Nvidia trained its models on the MTG-Jamendo Dataset, a research dataset built from Jamendo’s catalog containing over 55,000 audio tracks that was released for non-commercial use only. Jamendo argues that Nvidia’s own published research papers identify MTG-Jamendo as one of the datasets used to build its models, and that training a commercial AI product falls outside the non-commercial research grant attached to the dataset. The complaint includes counts of copyright infringement, breach of contract, unjust enrichment, and unfair competition. On June 29, Jamendo filed a similar complaint against Suno in the District of Massachusetts.
  • On June 24, 35 publishers that produce nearly 400 local and regional newspapers filed a complaint against OpenAI and Microsoft in the Southern District of New York, alleging the technology companies systematically scraped decades of original local news reporting to train ChatGPT and Microsoft Copilot without authorization. The complaint alleges direct infringement, vicarious infringement, and unlawful removal of copyright management information (CMI) including author bylines, copyright notices, and terms of use. According to reports, the case is the largest consolidated legal effort by local and regional newspapers challenging AI companies’ use of copyrighted news media.

Record Labels Ask Supreme Court to Review ‘Vetter v. Resnik’: On June 11, a group of record label plaintiffs filed a petition for a writ of certiorari with the U.S. Supreme Court asking it to review a Fifth Circuit Court of Appeal’s decision, Vetter v. Resnik, which held that the Copyright Act’s termination right provision allows creators to reclaim their copyrights worldwide rather than only within the United States. In April, Sony Music Publishing, Universal Music Publishing, Warner Chappell, and BMG jointly acquired a stake in “Double Shot (Of My Baby’s Love)” in order to file the petition. The question presented to the Supreme Court is: “When copyright rights revert to authors or their heirs by operation of U.S. law, is the reversion limited to U.S. copyrights (as numerous courts hold and everyone has long understood), or does the reversion extend worldwide to dictate the ownership of foreign copyrights (as the Fifth Circuit held below)?”

Third Circuit Holds Oral Arguments in ‘Thomson Reuters v. Ross’ Appeal: On June 11, the Third Circuit Court of Appeals held oral arguments in Thomson Reuters v. Ross Intelligence in the interlocutory appeal made by Ross Intelligence over a district court’s finding that Thomson Reuters’ Westlaw headnotes are copyrightable and that Ross’ unauthorized use to build a competing AI legal research platform does not qualify as fair use. A three-judge panel primarily asked questions about the application of the second fair use factor and the copyrightable standards and analysis for the legal headnotes at issue in the case and relevant market harm under the fourth fair use factor.

Ninth Circuit Grants En Banc Rehearing of ‘Sedlik v. Kat Von D’ Tattoo Case: On June 9, the Ninth Circuit granted an en banc hearing of photographer Jeff Sedlik’s appeal in the Sedlik v. Kat Von D case, vacating the January opinion that upheld the jury verdict that a tattoo inked by tattoo artist, Kat Von D, was not substantially similar to Sedlik’s photograph of musician Miles Davis. The rehearing by a panel of 11 judges, which will take place the last week of September, will consider the continued viability of the Ninth Circuit’s long-standing intrinsic/extrinsic substantial similarity test for copyright infringement.

Publishers Sue Pirate Website WeLib: On June 16, a group of publishers that includes Apress Media, Elsevier, Hachette Book Group, Harper Collins Publishers, and others filed a complaint against pirate eBook website WeLib and its operators for mass-scale piracy of plaintiffs’ literary works including books and scholarly articles. The WeLib website allegedly hosts over 43 million books and 98 million papers and attracts more than 80,000 active monthly users who illegally access an average of 1.7 million pirated books per day.

House Passes Bill to Make Register of Copyrights a Presidential Appointee: On June 8, the House of Representatives passed by a voice vote H.R. 6028, the Legislative Branch Agencies Clarification Act. Among other things, the bill would make the Register of Copyrights a Presidential Appointee confirmed by the Senate. The bill’s sponsor, Representative Griffith (R-VA), moved to suspend the rules and pass the bill, and Representative Morelle (D-NY) also spoke in support. Both Representatives noted the importance of ensuring the continuity of the relationship between the Library of Congress and U.S. Copyright Office, with Representative Morelle affirming that the bill makes clear that the U.S. Copyright Office remains in the legislative branch. Following passage, the bill was sent to the Senate for consideration. The discussion and vote on the bill can be viewed in this video (at the 3:36 mark). 

HJC IP Subcommittee Holds Hearing Covering Copyright Piracy and AI Issues: On June 30, the House Judiciary Committee, Subcommittee on Courts, Intellectual Property, Artificial Intelligence, and the Internet held a hearing titled A Midlife Crisis? IP and the Internet, which covered a spectrum of pressing copyright and creator rights issues from generative AI to digital replicas to foreign-based piracy. Witnesses included Sean Astin, President, Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists; Chris Floyd, Of Counsel, Amblin Entertainment; Chris Mohr, President, Software and Information Industry Association; Steve Francis, Executive Chairman, IP House; and Bhamati Viswanathan, Non-Resident Fellow, Kernochan Center for Law, Media & Art, Columbia Law School. While the scope of the hearing was broad, the Subcommittee heard from a panel of expert witnesses who spoke directly to problems affecting the copyright and creative communities and the practical legislative solutions that would ensure creators’ rights are enforceable in the age of the internet and generative AI. Subcommittee leadership made clear that Congress is moving ahead with bipartisan efforts to better protect copyright owners and creators, including enacting long-discussed judicial site blocking legislation—which is critical to battling the endemic of foreign-based piracy. More information is available in this blog post summarizing the hearing.

Rhode Island Enacts Compulsory eBook Licensing Bills: On June 18, a pair of identical companion bills, H7606 and S2525, became law in Rhode Island when Gov. Dan McKee allowed the measure to become law without his signature. The bills were drafted by the eBook Study Group, an organization which has worked nationwide to impose compulsory eBook pricing and contracts. The new law would prevent libraries from entering into or renewing certain digital licensing contracts that interfere with what the bill defines as these institutions’ core operations, such as interlibrary loans or collection building efforts. Rather than taking effect immediately, the bills’ activation is contingent on at least four other states enacting similar laws that impose limits on contract terms for electronic book or digital audiobook licensing. The Copyright Alliance, Association of American Publishers, Authors Guild, and other creator and copyright owner organizations have repeatedly submitted written testimony and letters to the Rhode Island legislature and its governor pointing out that these bills have been deemed unconstitutional because they attempt to legislate federal copyright law and harms authors and other creators’ abilities to create and distribute books to the public.

USTR Finds Brazil’s IP Enforcement Failures Actionable Under Section 301: On June 1, the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) published a notice of determination asserting that under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974, Brazil’s acts, policies, and practices—including those related to intellectual property protection—are unreasonable and burden or restrict U.S. commerce. On the intellectual property findings, USTR concluded that Brazil’s failure to carry out consistent and continuous anti-piracy measures and its failure to join the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) Internet Treaties continues to present significant barriers to the adoption of legitimate content distribution channels. USTR has proposed responsive action for public comment, including tariffs, with written comments due July 1, a public hearing set for July 6, and a July 15, 2026, statutory deadline for taking responsive action.

USTR Opens Section 301 Investigation into Vietnam’s IP Enforcement: On May 29, the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) published a notice of determination launching a Section 301 investigation of Vietnam’s intellectual property protection and enforcement. USTR said the inquiry will examine practices related to online piracy, counterfeit goods, border enforcement, unlicensed software use, and cable piracy, and will determine whether Vietnam’s failure to resolve long-standing U.S. concerns is unreasonable or discriminatory to U.S. commerce. Public comments are due July 2.

New Zealand Government Announces Several Major Forthcoming Updates to Copyright Act: On June 3, the Government of New Zealand announced that it will update its Copyright Act. Some of the updates include extending the term of copyright protection as per the country’s Free Trade Agreements with the United Kingdom and the European Union, prohibiting the circumvention of technological protection measures, creating exceptions for the making of digital copies for preservation, introducing a new fair dealing exception for parody or satire, removing peer-to-peer file sharing enforcement regimes to “reduc[e] compliance costs for internet service providers,” enabling courts to issue blocking orders against foreign piracy websites, extending resale royalty rights for visual artists by 20 years, and other changes. The Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs is also tasked with examining generative AI (GAI) and copyright issues and is expected to issue a report on a possible GAI and copyright framework for New Zealand by March 31, 2027.

Amazon Prime Video Ordered to Pay 7.3 Million Dollars in Unpaid Royalties to Chilean Performers: On June 4, the First Civil Court of Santiago, Chile ruled that Amazon Prime Video violated Chile’s intellectual property laws by not paying copyright-related royalties to featured Chilean performers in audiovisual works streamed on the platform. The court ordered Amazon Prime Video to pay approximately $7.3 million in unpaid royalties to the Chilean Actors and Actresses Corp.

CJEU Reduces Liability Shield for European Online Intermediaries: On June 16, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), issued a landmark ruling (in Joined Cases C-188/24 and C-190/24) finding that “information society service providers are liable for the content and information they control.” The case involved the Czech companies WebGroup Czech Republic and NKL Associates, which challenged French regulations that sought to impose strict age-verification obligations and content restrictions on publishers of pornographic websites. The case was joined with a similar dispute involving the navigation service Coyote System, which was fighting a ban on rebroadcasting information about police roadside checks. The CJEU decision “states that the operator of an information society service cannot be exempted from its liability for the information stored and rebroadcast over which it has control” and “[t]hat is the case where the operator determines, by means of an algorithm, under what conditions, how and in which order of priority that information is or is not rebroadcast.” Under the CJEU’s new standard, such online services would lose their designation as a neutral “hosting provider” and cannot automatically claim liability exemptions under the e-Commerce Directive.

Japan Passes Landmark Public Performance Law: According to reports, on June 17, Japan’s parliament approved a major amendment to its Copyright Act, creating a new “record performance and communication right” that will for the first time entitle performers and record labels to royalties when commercially released music is played in public spaces. According to the Japanese government, 142 countries already recognize similar rights for performers and record companies, and before this reform Japan and the United States were the only Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries that had not fully adopted these protections. As the world’s second-largest recorded music market, the change is expected to unlock significant new royalty streams for artists and labels operating in Japan. This makes the United States the sole outlier among OECD countries.

USCO Webinar on Copyright Essentials: On July 15 at 1 p.m. ET, the U.S. Copyright Office (USCO) will host an online webinar titled Copyright Essentials: Copyright 101. This event will educate attendees about the foundations of copyright law, the copyright registration process, and the USCO programs that support research, enforcement, and the understanding of copyright law.

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