For years, AI companies and content companies have been controlling whose content, engaged in vigilant dances, and sometimes even a low-level war. Now the battlefield has moved to the more obscure Washington offices, having a significant impact on the film, television and music industries.
The fight involved Shira Perlmutter, a senior U.S. lawyer and chief executive, who was suddenly rejected by President Donald Trump last weekend, which seemed to mark a major blow to content by big technology. But, despite this, the legendary worries are not simple and do not end: Trump’s replacements were revealed on Tuesday, and they may be in line with the big technology as the industry hopes.
The TV series began Friday when Perlmutter and the Copyright Office released a former publication of a report on whether AI companies can use thousands of copyrighted works, such as news articles, movies, TV shows and songs, to train their texts and video models. The issue is at the heart of multiple lawsuits, as record labels and media companies, such as record labels and media companies, believe that the material can be taken without its consent - and then provided it to models that compete with their own products.
Most of the office's 108-page report is couched in careful legal language. "The public interest needs to be balanced effectively, allowing technological innovation to flourish while maintaining a thriving creative community," it said. However, Perlmutter and her team also postponed the tech company's argument that exceptions to fair use should be allowed to access the model on training models of unlicensed content, essentially, they re-delayed the claims based on most of their operations.
It said: “Commercials use a large number of copyrighted works to produce expressive content that competes with existing markets (the (content master) that achieves this through illegal access), which is beyond the boundaries of fair use.”
The report inspired the joy of artist advocates. Ed Newton-Rex - an expert in AI music who left work on a stable AI in 2023 on the rational use argument for training his model - Hollywood Reporter It "supports what many people are saying for a long time... The report is very clear that AI companies cannot assume that all generated AI training is fairly used."

Trump fired Perlmutter's sack, which the White House has not commented on or given a reason, thus eliminating the key bastion of content companies. While the Copyright Office has no legislative power, Congress and the court can get tips from it (“It is convincing that courts often cite expertise (the offices that can be copyright),” Blake Reid, a professor at the University of Colorado Law School, pointed out in his comments about the Blues in his comments on the report).

Music and copyright attorney Lisa Alter is Alter, founding partner of Kendrick and Baron, “This represents the concerns about repositioning for creators and content developers are very real.” thr.

In music and movies, the principal expressed their concerns. A music policy chief has no right to make a public statement on the matter thr Shooting is "very worrying. We're in the panic of existence, and we're trying to figure out what this means, what is this open season, and it's a fairly free to use?" Plus the worry: Elon Musk has recorded records of the concept of intelligence-ruling copyright in recent months, a mechanism by which all major content creators protect their work and all major content companies make money.

Reid Southen, a concept artist and illustrator of some of Hollywood's largest film franchises and a concept artist and illustrator of AI companies, said he saw signs of worrying large-scale technology encroachment in Perlmutter. "This report is very important, and the second time that happened was that the government rebounded completely," Southen said in an interview. “It’s not surprising, but it’s very frustrating.

He added: “If tech companies can plunder and plunder people’s creative work so that they can make money for themselves and their friends, it will ruin the entire creative industry.”
The American Federation of Musicians issued a statement saying that Permot's "illegal dismissal will seriously damage the entire copyright community. She understands what we all know is true: human creativity and authorship are the basis of copyright law - for which she lost her job." None of the company's trading groups like MPA or RIAA, other guilds including SAG-AFTRA and WGA weighed in on the dismissal.

There is also a feeling of uneasiness as some activists warn that Perlmutter's shooting could have an encouraging impact on tech companies eager to devour existing data. They say this could prompt tech companies to negotiate more actively and reduce leverage for media companies and other content owners. A long-time technology follower demanded disagreement because they were not authorized to talk to the media by the company, said on Monday that AI companies could shoot Perlmutters as a "flashing green light" to snap up content.

But Tuesday brought all sorts of twists and turns. The Verge revealed that the two people accused of taking over the copyright office are Paul Perkins and Brian Nieves, who are hardly friends of large-scale technology and AI companies. Perkins, a former Justice Department official, prosecuted fraud cases under his first Trump, while Nieves once served as a lawyer for the House Judiciary Committee and chairman Jim Jordan, an Ohio Republican, is an active pursuing large-scale technology.

Todd Blanche, who was hired to replace Perlmutter's boss Carla Hayden as Congressional librarian (also just laid off by Trump), is helping lead the Justice Department case against Google to dominate the company's search. Perlmutter shooting is far from a big tech win, which could be a victory over hardcore Maga Republicans who show signs of a more skeptical pose about the AI ​​Companies' land grab.

Regardless of where Trump’s appointment landed in the AI ​​debate, Perlmutter’s strike “hinted at an unprecedented breakthrough in the decades-long nonpartisan nature of the Copyright Office,” Alter said, which could raise wider attention to artists and content creators.

"Shira Perlmutter is a masterful intellectual property scholar, and that's what she does," the lawyer noted. "And if the libraries of Congress and the Copyright Office are controlled by a right-wing political viewpoint, who says copyright protection will not be rejected by materials that the current government considers unsuitable?"

At the same time, the artist advocates that at least on the AI ​​front, the court hopes that the court can slack off. Wearing a suit that is closely watched, The New York Times OpenAI and its supporter Microsoft are currently being sued for copyright infringement. The complaint noted that many cases were nearly verbatim repeating works by its journalists in the company’s ChatGpt output, calling Sam Altman “a multi-billion dollar for-profit business built largely on unlimited copyrighted works.” Openai insists that existing copyrighted content be trained under reasonable use.

A federal judge this spring allowed the core to claim to move forward, and the end result of the case could determine whether training for large language models could continue at an alarming rate.

In music, major record labels are suing AI music generation platforms Suno and Udio, accusing them of training on models that violate unlicensed music on a large scale.

While News Corp, Dotdash Meredith and the Associated Press have been media companies that have signed deals with Openai, the problem has been avoided, but many people have not, while people like Ziff Davis, intercepts and publishers New York Daily News and Chicago Tribune File a lawsuit against the company by yourself.

The record label has shown that it is willing to dip its toes into AI music, targeted drama involving individual artists, as shown last year through YouTube's AI experiment Dream Track, which features UMG and WMG artists such as Charli XCX, Demi Lovato and John Legend.

For their characters, while their content can appear in video-based generative AI tools, film studios often try to stay away from the competition. Studios’ position on AI copyright is complex: they are wary of anyone who strips its content, but may also want to use the AI ​​tool itself as a way to simplify production, so may be interested in seeing the removal of training Speedbumps like creator permission.

Some studios have been working quietly with Runway AI, OpenAI and other tech companies to test these models. Last month, Harmony Korine's company signed a first-view deal with Runway AI, and some of the larger studios are believed to have made more informal arrangements with the company.

However, not every film company is enthusiastic. Ghibli Studio's US distributor Gkids reacted negatively when the new OpenAI tool allows users to easily copy the signature style of the animation studio. Chance Huskey, the company’s vice president of distribution, pointed out dryly: “As technology tries to replicate humanity, we are pleased that audiences value the theatrical experience, respect and celebrate the masterpieces of Hayao Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli.”

Later on Tuesday, Southen was optimistic about the appointments of Perkins and Nieves, while Newton Rex urged not to assume Trump, who alternated allegiance to big tech and a larger Margma populist foundation, with a clear position on the topic of AI and the No. 1 soldier.

Newton-Rex said he did not give up hope for the White House and opposed large-scale technology crawling data without consent. "We don't know what the Trump administration thinks about these issues yet," he said.