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May 5, 2026

Top Noteworthy Copyright Stories from April 2026

by Rachel Kim

April 2026 marked the celebration of World IP Day 2026, which focused on the impact of IP on sports. Many groups held events and panels exploring the topic, including the Copyright Alliance where we invited a diverse group of copyright experts to a webinar to talk about the importance of copyright to sports. In the midst of this celebration, there was lots of activity in the courts in the wake of the Supreme Court’s fatally flawed analysis in the Cox v. Sony decision. Here is an overview of some of those cases in addition to a few other key pieces of copyright news from April 2026.

World IP Day Celebration

Copyright Alliance Celebrates World IP Day by Hosting a Webinar on Copyright and Sports: On Thursday, April 23, the Copyright Alliance hosted a World IP Day (WIPD) panel via Zoom on The Business of Sports and Copyright. Panelists included Michael Lewis, VP and Associate General Counsel, Law and Policy, ESA, who spoke about eSports and copyright; Christian Dubay, Vice President and Chief Engineer, NFPA, who spoke about how codes and standards keep sports events safe; Edward Muncey, Anti-Piracy Representative, UFC, who spoke on how the DMCA should work in curbing online sports piracy; Guillermo Rodriguez, Director of Live Content Protection, MPA and ACE, who spoke about the role site-blocking plays in alleviating sports piracy; and Randy Cinco, Vice President, Business Affairs and Licensing, BMI, who spoke about the role of music licensing for sports events. The panel moderator was Miriam Lord, Associate Register of Copyrights and Director of Public Information and Education at the U.S. Copyright Office. Additionally, in celebration of World IP Day video messages by 10 Congressional Representatives and Senators were also shared with the creator community. The webinar was summarized in a blog post and a video recording of the event is now available.

YouTube Creators File Three New AI Copyright Lawsuits Against Apple, Amazon, and OpenAI: On April 3, a group of YouTube creators and channels filed three separate class action lawsuits against Apple, Amazon, and OpenAI, alleging that the AI companies illegally circumvented Technological Protection Measures (TPMs) in plaintiffs’ YouTube videos to train various AI video generators.

SCOTUS Remands Copyright Contributory Liability Case: On April 6, the U.S. Supreme Court granted Grande Communications’ petition for a writ of certiorari, vacated the Fifth Circuit judgment against Internet Service Provider (ISP) Grande, and remanded the case back to the Fifth Circuit for further consideration in light of the Court’s recent Cox v. Sony decision. Grande’s petition, which was filed in March of 2025 and was similar to Cox’s petition, asked the Supreme Court to determine “[w]hether an ISP is liable for contributory copyright infringement by (i) providing content-neutral internet access to the general public; and (ii) failing to terminate that access after receiving two third-party notices alleging someone at a customer’s IP address has infringed.”

Filmmakers Move to Dismiss Infringement Lawsuit Against ISP: On April 21, a group of independent film companies moved to dismiss with prejudice the lawsuit they brought against RCN Telecom Services alleging that the Internet Service Provider (ISP) failed to terminate the account of users who repeatedly infringed the copyrights to plaintiffs’ films. The motion comes in light of the Supreme Court decision in Cox v. Sony. The court had previously denied RCN’s motion to dismiss the case, and the contributory and vicarious copyright infringement claims proceeded in the case.

Record Labels Drop Lawsuits Against Verizon and Altice in Wake of ‘Cox v. Sony’ Decision: On April 24, the parties in UMG Recordings v. Verizon Communications filed a joint stipulation of dismissal, agreeing to dismiss the record labels’ case against the internet service provider with prejudice. Similarly, on April 22, a joint stipulation of dismissal with prejudice was filed by the parties in Warner Records v. Altice. Both cases involved allegations of contributory copyright infringement by groups of record label copyright owners against internet service providers (ISPs) for knowingly contributing to the infringement of thousands of their subscribers, and both cases had been paused while the Supreme Court considered the contributory infringement claims in Cox v. Sony.

Third Circuit Holds UpCodes Likely to Prevail on Fair Use Defense in Copyrighted Standards Case: On April 7, the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit affirmed a denial of a preliminary injunction sought by the American Society of Testing and Materials (ASTM) in their lawsuit against online platform, UpCodes, over the publication of ASTM’s copyrighted standards of buildings. The Court affirmed the district court’s decision, stating that UpCodes is likely to succeed on the merits of a fair use defense. Under the first fair use factor, the court agreed that UpCodes’ publishing of ASTM’s standards to increase public access to the codes was transformative enough, concluding that the purpose was very different from ASTM’s purpose, stating that “the degree of transformation in UpCodes’ use goes beyond that required to qualify as a derivative” despite the fact that UpCodes provides plaintiffs’ exact standards. In assessing market harm under the fourth fair use factor, the court also concluded that there was limited evidence of likely market harm for ASTM’s arising from UpCodes’ publication of the standards.

Court Issues $322 Million Default Judgment Against Anna’s Archive: On April 14, the district court for the Southern District of New York issued a default judgment against Anna’s Archive in the lawsuit brought against the pirate website by Spotify and a group of record labels over the scraping of metadata for approximately 256 million audio tracks and 86 million music files and the release and distribution of pirated copies of sound recording files to the public. The court awarded the plaintiffs $322 million in damages and injunctive relief ordering Internet Service Providers and hosting providers for Anna’s Archive to cease providing services and disable access to the website.

Court Grants Stability AI’s Motion to Dismiss Getty’s CMI Claims: On April 23, Northern District of California Judge Trina Thompson issued an order granting in part and denying in part Stability AI’s motion to dismiss copyright and trademark infringement claims brought by Getty for the unauthorized use of its works for training and the generation of output containing distorted versions of its watermark. While the order denies Stability’s attempt to dismiss Getty’s trademark and unfair competition claims, it grants the AI developer’s motion to dismiss 1202(a) claims for providing false copyright management information (CMI). The order explains that 1202(a) contains a “double scienter” requirement (i.e. knowledge and intent) and that Getty “fails to plead that Stability AI acted with the specific intent to induce, enable, facilitate, or conceal the infringement.” Instead, the order says that Getty “appears to concede that Stability AI’s models create distorted watermarks as incidental byproducts of their inherent overfitting or memorization during training processes.” The case also involves claims of direct copyright infringement, which were not challenged in Stability’s motion to dismiss. 

HJC IP Subcommittee Holds Hearing on Pro Codes Act and Standards Copyright Issues: On April 21, the House Judiciary IP Subcommittee held a hearing titled Protecting U.S. Leadership in Codes Development and Enhancing Public Access. Witnesses included James Pauley, President and CEO, National Fire Protection Association (NFPA); Keith Kupferschmid, CEO, Copyright Alliance; John Delli Venneri, General Counsel, American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME); and Jonathan Band, Library Copyright Alliance. The hearing focused on the legal and policy issues and jurisprudence related to the unlicensed use of privately developed standards that are incorporated by reference into law, particularly in the context of H.R. 4072, the Pro Codes Act. Members and witnesses broadly agreed that standards developed by private organizations play a critical role in public safety and regulatory frameworks but disagreed on how to balance copyright protections with public access requirements. Supporters of the legislation argued that recent court decisions have created legal uncertainty by misapplying fair use to incorporated standards, threatening the copyright-based funding model that underpins standards development and potentially undermining U.S. leadership in global standards-setting. Members of the IP Subcommittee generally agreed that action was preferred over inaction on the issues and Chairman Darrell Issa (R-CA) closed the hearing by signaling that the Pro Codes Act will be revised ahead of markup, emphasizing the need to establish a framework that preserves copyright protections while ensuring public access and providing clearer direction to courts.

SJC Committee Holds Hearing on Chinese Theft and U.S. Innovation: On April 22, the Senate Judiciary Committee held a full committee hearing titled Stealth Stealing: China’s Ongoing Theft of U.S. Innovation. Witnesses included Mark Cohen, Senior Technology Fellow, Asia Society of Northern California and Asia Society Policy Institute Senior Fellow, University of Akron Law School, Intellectual Property Institute; Tom Lyons, Co-Founder, 2430 Group; and Helen Toner, Interim Executive Director Center for Security and Emerging Technology. During the hearing, members and witnesses broadly agreed that China’s theft of U.S. intellectual property, estimated at $400 billion to $600 billion annually, and potentially far higher when accounting for unreported losses, constitutes a coordinated national security threat rather than a pattern of isolated incidents. Senators on both sides of the aisle catalogued a wide range of theft factors, including AI model distillation. Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) raised concerns about Chinese AI companies scraping and training large language models (LLMs) on copyright protected works, citing ByteDance’s SeeDance 2.0 as a recent example and noting that she and Senator Welch (D-VT) had written to ByteDance urging it to shut down the technology. Cohen acknowledged the long history of Chinese IP theft but noted that training AI on unlicensed content actually violates Chinese law, which requires a legal source for training data, and suggested that engaging China’s own regulatory apparatus—including its Copyright Bureau—could yield modest results as it has in the past on less technically complex issues.

USTR Releases 2026 Special 301 Report: On April 30, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) published its 2026 Special 301 Report on the effectiveness of protection and enforcement of intellectual property rights in other countries. In this year’s report Vietnam was listed as a Priority Foreign Country, and Chile, China, India, Indonesia, Russia, and Venezuela were listed on the Priority Watch List. In the report, USTR notes that online piracy continues to be a pervasive issue specifically highlighting countries where stream-ripping software, illicit streaming devices, illicit IPTV services, and signal theft are popular. Regarding stakeholders’ concerns of the use of copyrighted materials to develop AI, the report notes that: “[t]he United States supports the development of legal frameworks for AI development that ensure copyrights are respected and supports voluntary licensing regimes for the use of copyrighted works. The United States continues to monitor copyright issues as the AI sector grows globally.”

WIPO Director General Tang Reappointed to Second Term: On April 21, the World Intellectual Property Organization’s (WIPO) General Assembly reappointed Director General Daren Tang to a second six-year term. Tang’s first term emphasized the global copyright framework for AI training, a WIPO toolkit on digital-replica rights, and continuity on the Broadcasting Treaty.

Copyright Alliance Game Show During AI+ Expo: On May 8, from2:30-3:30 p.m. ET, join the Copyright Alliance at the AI+ Expo for the Great AI Copyright Showdown, our own version of a game show. The event location is at Walter E. Washington Convention Center, 801 Allen Y. Lew Place NW, Room 150-A, Washington, DC. The event will be free, fun, educational, and challenge your copyright and AI knowledge. All audience members who are not a government employee or associated with a Copyright Alliance member organization may participate. All you need to do is bring your mobile phone and be ready to go head-to-head with fellow AI+ Expo attendees. There will be prizes for those who answer the most questions correctly. Please register in advance for the AI+ Expo (which is also free), and then head to Room 150-A to attend the game show.

WIPO Standing Committee Meeting on Copyright and Related Rights: From May 18-22, the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) will hold its Standing Committee Meeting on Copyright and Related Rights on continuing discussions from session 47, particularly focused on Limitations & Exceptions (L&Es) for libraries, archives, education, research, and persons with disabilities, as well as Copyright in the Digital Environment, “aiming for progress on access to culture, performer rights (audiovisual authors), and new digital challenges like AI, building on prior discussions and studies.”

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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