Digital Hollywood Focus on AI and Copyright

Since 1787, US copyright law has raced to keep up with innovation and change.

While the US Congress holds the power to legislate on copyright, the last update of the Copyright Act went into force in 1978, and the last major copyright legislation, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, was passed in 1998.

In the meantime, shaping the evolution of copyright law has been left not to elected representatives but to appointed judges.

In September, the Authors Guild, John Grisham, Jodi Picoult, David Baldacci, and George R. R. Martin, along with 13 other authors, filed a class-action suit against OpenAI, the creators of ChatGPT, for copyright infringements of their works of fiction, on behalf of a class of such fiction writers.

For a recent Digital Hollywood virtual conference on AI and the creative industries, CCC’s Chris Kenneally moderated a panel program considering the copyright questions involved in such cases as well as the implications across all creative industries when AI systems use copyright-protected content in developing so-called generative AI solutions. Guest speakers included:

• Matthew Asbell, principal with Offit Kurman in New York City;
• James Sammataro, a partner and co-chair of the music group and media and entertainment litigation practice at Pryor Cashman in Miami;
• Pamela Samuelson is co-director of the Berkeley Center for Law & Technology; and
• Scott Sholder, partner of Cowan, DeBaets, Abrahams & Sheppard in New York City.