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AI-Generated Content and Copyright Infringement: Analyzing Corporate Liability in the Era of Artificial Intelligence
Full text linkRecent lawsuits by major content creators against artificial intelligence companies have brought a critical legal question to the forefront: Under current U.S. copyright law, can AI companies be held liable for direct copyright infringement when their systems generate outputs that substantially mirror protected works? This question has gained particular urgency as AI systems like ChatGPT and DALL-E demonstrate increasingly sophisticated capabilities to generate content that may replicate elements of copyrighted materials.
The answer, based on current legal precedent and statutory frameworks, is that AI companies can likely be held liable for direct copyright infringement. However, traditional tests for establishing such liability require significant adaptation to address AI-specific challenges. The application of conventional copyright principles to AI-generated content creates concerning gaps in legal protection that could stifle technological innovation while failing to adequately protect creators’ rights. The current framework’s inability to address the unique characteristics of AI systems, particularly their autonomous learning and generation capabilities, demands a more nuanced approach that balances intellectual property protection with technological advancement.
This Essay examines three key aspects of this emerging legal challenge. First, it analyzes how current copyright law principles establish the foundation for corporate liability in cases of AI-generated infringement, focusing on fundamental elements of direct and contributory infringement. Second, it explores how these traditional principles specifically address AI-generated content, including an analysis of training data implications and transformative use considerations. Finally, it evaluates whether existing legal frameworks adequately address modern challenges in AI copyright enforcement and proposes potential solutions for balancing intellectual property rights with technological innovation
Amici Curiae Brief of Leading Our Children Off Streets (L.O.C.O.S.), League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) Washington, Center for Civil Rights and Critical Justice, and TEAMCHILD in Support of Appellant
Full text linkWhen You’re Arrested for a Felony in Seattle, You’ll Meet Me.
Full text linkIn this Essay, Austin Field, a practicing public defender, uses a first-person perspective to describe what it is like to meet a criminal defendant for the first time. He explains the process from start to finish, detailing everything from the way he introduces himself to how bail works.
I’ll ask you for your name. Most of the time, you tell me. I check your name against my list. On any given day I’m supposed to interview between five and fifteen people. I have a lot of questions for you. We only have about ten minutes
Corporate Scenarios: Drawing Lessons from History
Full text linkAs corporations are increasingly pressed to reveal information about their exposure to climate-related risks, they are often asked to undertake and disclose the outcome of “scenario analysis.” In this exercise, corporations, including financial institutions, examine how their business would fare under different pathways the future may take. One oft-used scenario, for example, is the International Energy Agency’s “Net-Zero by 2050: A Roadmap for the Energy Sector.” This Essay presents a history of the use of scenarios as a corporate planning tool, particularly in the oil industry, arguing that it is key for understanding our present moment and the role of today’s scenarios in corporate governance. Scenarios are a useful tool, but who makes them matters
Hawai’i
Full text linkIn general, Hawai’i’s statute contains a broad management rights provision that appears to at least make permissive bargaining over a range of topics including discipline, duties, and any other decisions to “maintain efficiency.” Hawai’i’s Labor Relations Board issues a very small number of decisions and an even smaller number of cases interpreting the requirement to bargain over mandatory subjects. The small number of decisions that the Hawai’i Labor Relations Board (HLRB) issues tend to be lengthy, poorly written and reasoned, and difficult to understand. The Board itself is comprised of three, full-time members, each of whom is paid over $100,000 per year.
Even in the face of lax standards and broad discretion to employers to implement accountability, efforts to heighten police oversight have not succeeded in Hawai\u27i
Alaska
Full text linkThere are not enough cases from the Alaska commission to draw general conclusions about the commission’s treatment of mandatory subjects of bargaining in police and non-police contexts. In the cases discussed below, the commission typically found that the employer’s interests outweighed the employees’ interests, with a slight preference to find bargaining subjects mandatory in the police context
Illinois
Full text linkAs compared with other states, the Illinois Labor Relations Board (“ILRB” or “Board) is unusually protective of the right to bargain. The Board is more protective still of the ability of police unions to bargain over employer decisions. In the last several years in cases involving the Chicago Police Department, the Board has moderated somewhat by, in key cases, refusing to issue a decision but rather holding the matter “in abeyance.” A few highlights follow: Only Police Have the Right to Interest Arbitration. The Illinois Labor Relations Act requires police bargaining units to resolve contractual impasses through interest arbitration. Most other types of public sector workers have the right to strike during a contract hiatus, but during its term the CBA generally precludes a strike. For police bargaining units, however, an impasse in mid-term bargaining would still be resolved through interest arbitration. Illinois’s Police Officers Bill of Rights Limits Any Changes to Disciplinary Processes. For police (but no other unit), the Board holds that the terms of the disciplinary process are set by Illinois’s Uniform Peace Officers Act and can be neither negotiated nor changed. Illinois’s Board is Unusually Protective of the Right to Bargain for Both Police and Non-Police. The ILRB generally requires bargaining over changes to work rules because the violation of those rules could result in discipline. The decision to move work out of the bargaining unit is almost always a mandatory subject in all units. In Politically Sensitive Police Cases, The Board Holds Police Decision “in Abeyance.” In cases involving the Chicago Police after the 2019 imposition of a consent decree, the Board has held the decisions over disciplinary enhancements “in abeyance” and ordered the parties to bargain. Likewise, the Board refused to decide whether the employer’s decision to make police video recordings public is a mandatory subject of bargaining, instead holding the case “in abeyance” and ordering bargaining. Moving to Civil Service is a MSB for All Units. For both police and non-police, units, the Board has found that the decision to move review of disciplinary decision from private arbitration to a civil service forum to be a mandatory subject of bargaining. Subcontracting More Likely to be an MSB for Police. The Board is more likely to find the decision to subcontract a mandatory subject in a police units than in other types of unit
Moral Panic or Public Health Crisis? Lessons from Drugs and Gambling for “Addictive” Design
Full text linkAlcohol, automobiles, guns, lottery, loot boxes, meat, music, opioid painkillers, processed foods, prop bets, slot machines, television, tobacco, violent video games. Over the last century each of these has been subject to concerns—some might even say “moral panics”—from parents and policymakers about avoidable harms to kids and adults. In some cases we look back with the benefit of hindsight and dismiss those concerns as naïve or moralistic. In others we look back at them as justified or as having come too late to check an expanding industry before it did unfathomable harm while growing so powerful that it became all but impossible to regulate.
As exemplified by Jonathan Haidt’s The Anxious Generation, David Courtwright’s Age of Addiction, and recent Surgeon General’s warnings, today, the social media industry is increasingly subject to concerns that it causes unnecessary, avoidable harm to kids and adults. The question is: In the long run, will we look back at today’s concerns about the effects of social media on children and adults as naïve and moralistic? Or will we think that regulation came years, or decades, too late to address genuine harms? Are we in the midst of a moral panic or a public health crisis?
That is a big question. We do not come to answer it (though we have views), but to offer some insights from the broader fields of public health law and health law for scholars, parents, policymakers, and industry seeking to do so themselves. In her important book, Unwired: Gaining Control Over Addictive Technologies, Gaia Bernstein illustrates the value of a comparative approach, drawing lessons from fights around the regulation of tobacco and ultra-processed food for the regulation of social media. Building on Bernstein’s work, this symposium contribution aims to draw additional insight from experience with drug and gambling regulation for the regulation of social media, video games, AI, and other potentially-addictive technologies. Specifically, after introducing Bernstein’s book and the foundation it lays, we draw six lessons from the study of psychoactive drugs and gambling
Let the Sunshine In: Crafting Constitutional Transparency Regulations for Content Moderation
Full text linkIn response to public concern about the impact of social media, legislators in some U.S. states have developed laws to regulate the process of content moderation. Many include mandatory transparency and disclosure requirements, some of which courts have already deemed an unconstitutional infringement on social media platforms’ right to free expression. This article explores the parameters for crafting constitutional social media transparency regulations using existing U.S. media policy and insights from recent legal challenges. The resulting analysis identifies content neutral transparency requirements that mandate the disclosure of purely factual, non-controversial information as those most likely to withstand judicial scrutiny. Specifically, the article advocates for laws that require social media companies to publish acceptable use policies and produce transparency reports using aggregate data. This approach is best suited to increasing transparency and minimizing consumer deception while preventing government overreach