AI copyright law in 2026 is being shaped by hundreds of pending lawsuits worldwide. Training on copyrighted works without licence is permitted by narrow exceptions (US fair use, EU Text and Data Mining, UK Section 29A) but outputs substantially similar to training works remain infringing.
Copyright questions in AI span three stages:
Key authorities are the US Copyright Office (Reports on Copyright and AI, Part 1 March 2024, Part 2 January 2025, Part 3 May 2025), the UK IPO, the EU Copyright Directive Articles 3 and 4 (TDM exceptions), and Japan's Article 30-4 of the Copyright Act.
| Case | Plaintiffs | Defendants | Filed | Core Issue |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| New York Times v. OpenAI & Microsoft | NYT | OpenAI, Microsoft | Dec 2023 | Training and verbatim memorisation |
| Andersen v. Stability AI | Artists | Stability AI | 2023 | Training on artworks |
| Getty Images v. Stability AI (US + UK) | Getty | Stability AI | 2023 | Training on Getty library |
| Authors Guild v. OpenAI | Authors | OpenAI | 2023 | Novels in training data |
| Concord Music v. Anthropic | Publishers | Anthropic | 2023 | Song lyrics |
| Bartz v. Anthropic | Authors | Anthropic | 2024 | Books in training (settled September 2025 for USD 1.5B) |
| Jurisdiction | Rule | Opt-Out Allowed? |
|---|---|---|
| USA | Fair use (17 USC 107) | N/A |
| EU | Copyright Directive Art. 3 (research) and Art. 4 (commercial) | Yes for Art. 4 via machine-readable opt-out |
| UK | Sec 29A CDPA (non-commercial TDM only) | N/A |
| Japan | Art. 30-4 Copyright Act (non-enjoyment exception) | No |
| Singapore | Computational Data Analysis (Sec 244 Copyright Act 2021) | No |
Bartz v. Anthropic (2025) — The first major AI training settlement: USD 1.5 billion class-action settlement over books used in training, though Judge Alsup had ruled earlier that training itself was transformative fair use when done on lawfully acquired copies.
New York Times v. OpenAI (ongoing) — Federal complaint alleges GPT-4 reproduces Times articles verbatim and competes with the Times' own business.
Stability AI (UK) — Getty Images High Court trial concluded in 2025 with a partial win for Getty on trademark grounds.
US Copyright Office Zarya of the Dawn (2023) — Comic authored by Kris Kashtanova; text and arrangement protected, but Midjourney-generated images denied registration.
In 2026, AI teams must:
Q: Is AI training automatically fair use? No — each case is fact-specific. Several US courts have found training on lawfully acquired data transformative, but not all.
Q: Can AI-generated images be copyrighted? Only if a human author contributes sufficient creative expression. Pure AI output is not protectable under US Copyright Office policy.
Q: What is the TDM opt-out? EU Copyright Directive Article 4 allows commercial TDM unless rightholders reserve their rights in a machine-readable form.
Q: Does robots.txt count as a TDM opt-out? Yes — Cloudflare's AI Crawl Control and W3C signals have now standardised this.
Q: Are lyrics protected differently? Yes — musical compositions have separate copyright from recordings; lyrics are literary works.
Q: What penalties apply? US: up to USD 150,000 per work for wilful infringement. EU: member-state-specific.
Q: Can I train on public-domain data only? Yes — but quality and coverage are usually insufficient for state-of-the-art models.
AI copyright is the most unsettled area of AI law. Teams that document provenance, license data, and indemnify customers will weather the lawsuits best.
Audit your training data with Misar AI's copyright provenance toolkit.
Free newsletter
Join thousands of creators and builders. One email a week — practical AI tips, platform updates, and curated reads.
No spam · Unsubscribe anytime
Comments
Sign in to join the conversation
No comments yet. Be the first to share your thoughts!