OpenAI, the company that developed Chat GPT, wants permission to use copyrighted material to train its AI. The request was made to the U.S. government as part of President Trump’s AI Action Plan.
AI Action Plan
Back in February, the White House posted a statement asking for public comments on the AI Action Plan. The plan arose from President Trump’s Artificial Intelligence Executive Order. In the statement, Lynne Parker, Principal Deputy Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy, said, “The Trump Administration is committed to ensuring the United States is the undeniable leader in AI technology. This AI Action Plan is the first step in securing and advancing American AI dominance, and we look forward to incorporating the public’s comments and innovative ideas”.
OpenAI said it wants the U.S. government to make it easier for companies to train their AI on copyrighted content. The company included the request as part of its submissions in response to the AI Action Plan. OpenAI wants the government to adopt “freedom-focused policy ideas”. In addition, the company doesn’t want AI developers to have to “comply with overly burdensome state laws”. OpenAI also claimed that its suggestions would protect “the rights and interests of content creators while also protecting America’s AI leadership and national security”.
Copyright infringement
Open AI has already faced legal challenges in relation to the way it has trained its AI technology in the past. The company was sued by a number of new organizations in relation to alleged copyright infringements. These organizations included the Center for Investigative Reporting, the New York Times, the Chicago Tribune and the New York Daily News. A group of authors including John Grisham and George R.R. Martin also sued OpenAI back in 2023. Those claims related to alleged copyright infringements during the training of the ChatGPT model. In addition, a number of visual artists instigated legal action alleging that generative AI was copying their art styles.
Concerns over China
The release of the DeepSeek generative AI back in January this year raised concerns that China was catching up with the U.S. on AI technology. As part of its proposal, Open AI said, “While America maintains a lead on AI today, DeepSeek shows that our lead is not wide and is narrowing”. The company also stated, “The federal government can both secure Americans’ freedom to learn from AI, and avoid forfeiting our AI lead to [China] by preserving American AI models’ ability to learn from copyrighted material”.
What we think
Last year, the CEO of Microsoft AI, Mustafa Suleyman, said he considered all content on the internet to be freeware. Now OpenAI is asking for copyright laws in the U.S. to be weakened or even removed for AI companies. Reducing the protections afforded by copyright will affect the income and livelihoods of many content creators, filmmakers and artists. OpenAI will also profit hugely from the work of others without paying a fair price. However, it’s not the only way for the U.S. to keep ahead in the generative AI technology race. Adobe has adopted a more responsible approach by paying creators for videos to develop its generative AI. If OpenAI wants to use copyrighted work to train AI, it too should be made to pay the copyright owners.
