A Global Phenomenon: The Creative Community’s Viral Outrage Against AI Theft
Over the past several weeks and months, we have posted several blogs that underscore the angry response by U.S.-based creators, creative industries, and others to AI companies’ ingestion of copyrighted works to train their AI systems without getting permission or compensating the copyright owners of those works. In these blogs we have highlighted various copyright infringement cases in the United States brought by copyright owners against AI companies, whistleblowers in the United States who worked for AI companies, and how an early court decision confirmed that in the case at hand, an AI company’s unlicensed use of copyrighted works was not a fair use. By solely focusing on the U.S. perspective, we fear that we may have given the wrong impression—an impression that the creative community’s objections are happening only in the United States. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth.
The creative communities’ outrage against AI companies stealing their intellectual property is a global phenomenon. More and more, we are seeing creators and creative industries not just in the United States but throughout the world stepping up to voice their disapproval of government actions intended to kowtow to AI companies at the expense of culture, creativity, and the careers of creators. There are so many other places in the world where outrage against mass unlicensed AI ingestion of copyrighted works is taking hold that it’s important to highlight them. These mass, unified protests are happening throughout the globe—protests by rights holders ranging from independent artists and creators to large companies and organizations, across a variety of artistic disciplines through all kinds of avenues and channels.
Uproar in the UK
Without a doubt, the UK creative community has been one of the most unified and prolific in stepping up to voice their concerns over AI ingestion issues. The UK Government is conducting a consultation for a proposed exception for AI uses that “would lay to waste the rights of creators and copyright owners by effectively subjugating them to subsidize AI technologies,” thereby decimating the UK’s long and rich history of cultural and artistic leadership. Unsurprisingly, the consultation sparked incredible outrage from the UK creative industries, the likes of which have never been seen before for a copyright issue.
Some of the UK’s most notable stars came out in strong opposition to the proposed UK Government action. Singer/songwriter Sir Elton John and his fellow musician and former Beatle, Sir Paul McCartney, criticized the proposal, with John stating that copyright is the “bedrock of artistic prosperity.” McCartney also stated that the proposed legal changes “could disincentivize writers and artists and result in a ‘loss of creativity’” and that, “[t]he truth is, the money’s going somewhere…Somebody’s getting paid, so why shouldn’t it be the guy who sat down and wrote [the song] ‘Yesterday?’”
Thousands of UK musicians joined Sir Elton and Sir Paul in their opposition. At the end of February (to coincide with the closing of the consultation) UK musicians released a silent album titled Is This What We Want? in protest of the UK Government’s proposal to introduce the 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 world-renowned artists like 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. Musicians who participated in the silent album protest also sent a letter to The Times, noting that, “[t]he proposal is wholly unnecessary and counterproductive, jeopardising not only the country’s international position as a beacon of creativity but also the resulting jobs, economic contribution and soft power—and especially harming new and young artists who represent our nation’s future.”
But it isn’t just the UK music industry that is livid about the UK proposal. The UK news media publishing sector launched their own protest called the Make It Fair campaign. Throughout the UK, newspaper stands looked like this on February 25:
The campaign cover wrap read, “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.”
UK News Media Association CEO, Owen Meredith, stated, “We already have gold-standard copyright laws in the UK. They have underpinned growth and job creation in the creative economy across the UK—supporting some of the world’s greatest creators, including artists, authors, journalists, scriptwriters, singers and songwriters to name but a few…There will be no AI innovation without the high-quality content that is the essential fuel for AI models. We’re appealing to the great British public to get behind our ‘Make it Fair’ campaign and call on the government to guarantee creatives are able to secure proper financial reward from AI firms to ensure a sustainable future for both AI and the creative industries.”
What’s more, the UK music community came out to support the Make It Fair campaign, with UK musicians holding the Make It Fair placard in protest on the red carpet for the country’s biggest music awards show, the Brit Awards. The cross-industry support in the UK against mass unlicensed AI use and the UK Government’s proposal to undermine copyright laws makes it crystal clear that creators, artists, and rights holders stood unified on the matter, no matter the type of art or creative field.
Outrage in the UK isn’t limited to these recent protests. In fact, the public outrage had been bubbling even before then, with multiple instances of rights holders seeking redress for their injuries, including Getty Images suing Stability AI in January 2023 and a UK publisher sending a cease-and-desist letter to OpenAI over unlicensed use of copyrighted works to train ChatGPT. In December 2024, a new UK coalition of creators and copyrights, including publishers, authors, artists, music businesses, unions, and photographers, called the Creative Rights in AI Coalition, officially launched, publishing three key principles for copyright and generative AI policy. The coalition called on the UK government to adopt its principles in developing AI policies, stating that “Protecting copyright and building a dynamic licensing market for the use of creative content in building generative AI (GAI) isn’t just a question of fairness…it’s the only way that both sectors will flourish and grow. The UK creative industries generate well over £100 billion annually. We have, quite literally, earned the right to have our voice heard. The key to that success, and future growth, is copyright law.”
Gripes from Germany
The German music sector has also joined the global protest against unauthorized mass AI ingestion of copyrighted works. At the end of 2024 and the beginning of 2025, German music royalties collecting society, GEMA, launched its legal campaigns against Open AI and against Suno on behalf of its musician members. In November 2024, GEMA sued OpenAI in the Regional Court of Munich over the unlicensed reproduction of song lyrics in GEMA’s repertoire by OpenAI’s large language model, ChatGPT. GEMA CEO Dr. Tobias Holzmüller stated, “Our members’ songs are not free raw material for generative AI systems providers’ business models. Anyone who wants to use these songs must acquire a license and remunerate the authors fairly. We have developed a license model for this. We are taking and will always take legal action against unlicensed use.”
In January 2025, GEMA also sued Suno in the Munich Regional Court over the unauthorized use of songs in GEMA’s repertoire to train Suno’s AI music generator. (Suno faces a similar lawsuit in the U.S. filed by American record labels.) The lawsuit details that Suno’s AI generator is able to generate audio content “that is confusingly similar to [] original songs,” including “Forever Young,” “Daddy Cool,” “Mambo No. 5,” and “Cheri Cheri Lady.”
Concern in Canada
News broke on November 28, 2024, that a group of major Canadian news media publishers, including The Canadian Press, Metroland, The Toronto Star, Globe and Mail, Postmedia, andCBC/Radio-Canada, sued OpenAI in Ontario Superior Court over the unauthorized use of the publishers’ news content to train ChatGPT. The plaintiffs issued a joint statement, saying, “News media companies welcome technological innovations. However, all participants must follow the law, and any use of intellectual property must be on fair terms. OpenAI regularly breaches copyright and online terms of use by scraping large swaths of content from Canadian media to help develop its products, such as ChatGPT. OpenAI is capitalizing and profiting from the use of this content, without getting permission or compensating content owners.”
Indignation in India
India’s creative sectors also turned to the courts to defend their copyrights against mass unlicensed AI ingestion. In November 2024, Indian news publisher ANI sued OpenAI for using its news content to train ChatGPT without licenses. ANI alleged that ChatGPT can be prompted by users to generate ANI’s content verbatim. In January 2025, additional digital news outlets in India, including the Indian Express and the Hindustan Times, made a bid to join ANI’s lawsuit, as did India’s largest music labels, Saregama and T-Series in addition to the Indian Music Industry (IMI), which represents Sony Music and Warner Music in India.
India’s major publishers joined the fray in December 2024, where the Federation of Indian Publishers, which includes Penguin Random House, Bloomsbury, Cambridge University Press, Pan Macmillan, Rupa Publishers, and S.Chand and Co., filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against OpenAI in New Delhi over the unlicensed use of the publishers’ books to train ChatGPT.
Seething in South Korea
South Korea’s creative sectors have also been outraged over mass unlicensed AI ingestion of their copyright-protected works. On January 21, 2025, South Korea’s three major network television broadcasters, KBS, MBC, and SBS, filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against major online platform, Naver, over the unauthorized use of the broadcasters’ news content to train Naver’s AI platforms, HyperCLOVA and HyperCLOVA X. In December 2024, the broadcasters sent notices to other technology companies including Google Korea, which stated that “separate compensation consultations are required to use news content for AI learning.”
Bothered in Brazil
Brazil’s creative community banded together to protest activities within the Brazilian national legislature to introduce broad exceptions in copyright law for AI training purposes. Twenty-six organizations and companies representing a wide array of creative industries—including the music, publishing, television, and broadcasting industries—published an open letter in August 2024. The Brazilian creative community asked Senators not to enact broad text-and-data mining AI exceptions in copyright law.
Outrage in Other Countries
The creative communities’ indignation is not limited to these countries or the instances highlighted above. There has been an overwhelming response of outrage from creative sectors all across the globe.
Just take a look at a global statement on AI training that warns, “The unlicensed use of creative works for training generative AI is a major unjust threat to the livelihoods of the people behind those works, and must not be permitted.” Since its launch in October 2024, the statement now boasts over 47,000 signatures from songwriters, novelists, authors, actors, scientists, producers, composers, playwrights, government officials, visual artists, music engineers, photographers, directors, and other creators and their supporters from all over the world.
No other copyright issue in recent memory has so unified and ignited the global creative community to stand together against attempts to undermine human creativity and the copyright laws that support it. The global creative community’s protest clearly stands united against AI ingestion issues and in trying to save the creative economy.
The voices are many, but the message is singular and clearly heard: mass unlicensed AI ingestion of creative works cannot continue and imperils the future ability to foster, protect, and promote human creativity and artistry.
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