EFF to Courts: Don't Rewrite Copyright over AI Hype
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is urging courts to avoid expanding copyright law in response to the rise of generative AI. They argue that historical technological advancements were met with similar unfounded fears and that current litigation threatens to stifle innovation.
Why it matters
This position highlights the ongoing legal and ethical debate over whether AI training data constitutes copyright infringement or fair use, which will shape the future of the AI industry.
The history of technology is rife with copyright panics. In the 1980s, major rightsholders ran to Congress and the courts, claiming that videotape recorders (VTR) were “to the American film producer and the American public as the Boston strangler is to the woman home alone .” Then, the Supreme Court declined to embrace the hype, noting that the VTR was capable of all kinds of non-infringing uses, like time-shifting and cautioning courts to avoid rewriting copyright law in response to new technologies. We believe that courts now should be similarly wary about the hype surrounding AI.
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