The US Copyright Office has released part two of its AI and copyright report - and it’s not good news for Big AI.
In short: using copyrighted material to train AI models might not qualify as fair use, especially when that material is being used to generate new, expressive content.
This report directly challenges the legal fallback most AI companies have been relying on.
And then - one day later - President Trump fired Shira Perlmutter, the Director of the Copyright Office.
Yes, the Trump administration - not Biden. It’s 2025, and he’s back in office.
The timing? Let’s just say it didn’t go unnoticed.
What the Office Is Saying
Fair use isn’t a blanket excuse. The Copyright Office says some AI training might be fair use - but only in very specific, research-oriented scenarios.
Using copyrighted material to train a system that then outputs commercially viable content? Not so much.
They made it clear: when the result mimics or replaces the expressive value of the original work, the claim to fair use starts to collapse.
What That Means (In Human Words)
AI companies have been scraping the internet - and copyrighted content - with the assumption that it’s all fair game.
The Copyright Office is basically saying: Not anymore.
This opens the door for more lawsuits - and gives real teeth to the ones already happening:
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Getty suing Stability AI for watermarked images
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NYT suing OpenAI for generating near-verbatim article copies
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Artists suing Midjourney and DeviantArt for copying their exact styles
It also puts pressure on lawmakers to step in with actual rules.
🔚 Bottom Line
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Is this live? Yes - the report is published and in effect
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Does it change anything legally? Not directly, but it’s a powerful influence in court
Frozen Light Team Perspective
We’ve heard AI companies say it a hundred times: “It’s fair use.”
But ask yourself - why do they have to keep repeating that?
Because now, it’s clear: It’s not.
This report doesn’t just question the legal grey area. It puts a spotlight on what’s been happening in plain sight. AI companies used creative work to build tools that can now replace that creativity. And they did it without permission.
This isn’t an edge case. It’s the business model.
And the Copyright Office just said: Enough.
And then the Trump administration said: Noted - and fired the messenger.
We’re not saying this is easy to fix. But we are saying: if use is going to be allowed - and creators are compensated - most of this could be solved.
And the way to get there isn’t by banning vendors. It’s by making them part of the solution.
We don’t know if it’s as simple as it sounds. But we do believe the vendors hold the answers - they know what they used, how they used it, and what’s possible.
So it only makes sense: They should help design the solution.
