Jasnow Forecasts Pivotal Shifts in AI Copyright Battles for 2024

Toward the end of 2023, dozens of authors filed suit against high-profile AI tools alleging copyright infringement after their written works were used to train the large language models (LLMs).

Dan said that the authors’ cases will establish “one high-stakes copyright infringement case against ChatGPT, and another against LLaMA.”

He emphasized that a significant number of AI tools have been built upon extensive volumes of content, often without obtaining the necessary permissions from the original creators. Developers have operated under the assumption that such usage falls under the “fair use” provision of the Copyright Act. However, Dan stressed that this specific interpretation “has never been directly tested in the context of gen AI.”

“After much of 2023 was devoted to pretrial motions and resolving secondary claims, courts are likely to start considering the plaintiffs’ core infringement claims in 2024,” he said. “The next year may determine whether the current moment in gen AI is more akin to the ‘Napster Era’ or the ‘Spotify Era’ of music streaming.”

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