Just days after the first major fair use ruling in a generative-AI case, a second court has determined that using copyrighted works to train AI is fair use. Kadrey et al. v. Meta Platforms, No. 3:23-cv-03417-VC (N.D. Cal. June 25, 2025).
The Kadrey v. Meta Platforms Lawsuit
I previously wrote about this lawsuit here
A day after announcing that “fair use” would not shield AI training models against potential copyright infringement, President Donald Trump fired Shira Perlmutter, Register of Copyrights, and her superior, Librarian of Congress, Carla Hayden. These layoffs may shape the future of copyright law in the age of AI.
Legal and Constitutional Concerns
Perlmutter’s dismissal on May
A federal judge has issued a landmark fair use decision in a generative-AI copyright infringement lawsuit.
In a previous blog post, I wrote about the fair use decision in Thomson Reuters v. ROSS. As I explained there, that case involved a search-and-retrieval AI system, so the holding was not determinative of fair use
A long time ago in a galaxy not so far away, voice acting was the exclusive domain of talented humans. But today, in the age of generative AI, even the iconic voice of a legendary villain can be conjured without a single vocal cord, raising major legal questions about name, image, and likeness (NIL) rights
In 2019, Stephen Thaler developed an AI system he called The Creativity Machine. He generated output he called A Recent Entrance to Paradise. When he applied to register a copyright claim in the output, he listed the machine as the author. He claimed ownership of the work as a work made for hire. In his
The U.S. Copyright Office has issued its long-awaited report on the copyrightability of works created using AI-generated output. The legality of using copyrighted works to train generative-AI systems is a topic for another day.
Key takeaways:
Now in its fifth year, Seyfarth’s Commercial Litigation Outlook continues to provide critical insights into the forces shaping business disputes. As we enter 2025, businesses are facing unprecedented legal and regulatory uncertainty. The second Trump administration is expected to reshape agency priorities, while AI-driven innovation continues to outpace the legal frameworks meant to regulate it.
Seyfarth Intellectual Property Partner Lauren Leipold will present as part of a panel of experts discussing the role of GenAI in marketing. The panel is part of the 2025 Marketing Innovation Conference (MIC@S) at Georgia Tech’s Scheller College of Business on Friday, February 21, 2025.
This year’s theme, “Technology Meets Creativity: Shaping Marketing’s Next Chapter,”
A court has handed down the first known ruling (to me, anyway) on “fair use” in the wave of copyright infringement lawsuits against AI companies that are pending in federal courts. The ruling came in Thomas Reuters v. Ross. Thomas Reuters filed this lawsuit against Ross Intelligence back in 2020, alleging that Ross trained its
Warner Chappell Music Inc. v. Nealy
The Copyright Act imposes a three-year period of limitations for copyright infringement claims. There has been a split in the circuits about whether this means that damages could be claimed only for infringement occurring during the three-year period or whether damages could be recovered for earlier acts of infringement