The Chamber of Progress, a tech industry coalition whose members include Amazon, Apple and Meta, is launching a campaign to defend the legality of using copyrighted works to train artificial intelligence systems.
The group says the campaign, called “Generate and Create” and unveiled Thursday, aims to highlight “how creative AI can be used by artists to enhance their creative output.” use” and “to show how AI lowers barriers to art production”. “Defend the longstanding legal principle of fair use under copyright law.”
Without congressional intervention, courts will decide the legality of using copyrighted works in training datasets. The answer to this question is likely to be fair use, which protects the use of copyrighted material to make a secondary work as long as it is “transformative.” This is one of the primary areas for mainstream adoption of AI, with some companies deploying defenders due to legal ambiguities.
“The principle of fair use is well-established in decades of copyright law,” says Chief Executive Adam Kovacevich, a former Google executive. “All art has responded to what came before.”
The campaign's logo, song and mascot, “Arty Fish,” were created using ChatGPT, Snow and Midjourney, respectively – all using AI tools.
Midjourney is currently facing a class action from artists accusing the company of copyright infringement by using billions of images downloaded from the Internet to train its AI system. The lawsuit alleges that the tech threatens the market for artists' work, among other things.
Asked about allegations of AI companies using copyrighted works to teach their technology, Kovacevich says “fair use has always protected creative inspiration.” “To the extent that human artists have always built on what came before, so are next-gen AI services,” he adds.
In comments to the Copyright Office, which is exploring policy questions related to the intersection of intellectual property and AI, the Chamber of Progress argued that Section 230 — Big Tech's favorite legal shield — would allow AI companies to infringe on certain rights. Should be extended to protect against claims.
“One criterion for determining safe harbor eligibility may include an assessment of the size and diversity of the training dataset used for the model,” it said in its submission. “Furthermore, given the inherently ambiguous nature of generative AI models and the unpredictable behavior of human users, Congress may consider legislation that establishes a liability framework that holds generative AI services accountable.” protects against when users knowingly submit infringing questions.”
The group added that any new legislation should ensure that copyright holders are responsible for identifying specific works used in training datasets.
The agency also received comments from SAG-AFTRA, the Writers Guild of America and the Directors Guild of America, among other major players in the entertainment and media industries.
The Chamber of Progress has also weighed in on a class action lawsuit by music publishers against Anthropic. He also opposed Tennessee legislation specifically designed to protect musicians from the unauthorized use of AI to copy their voices without permission. The Insuring Likeness Voice and Image Security Act, or ELVIS Act, builds on the state's old right of publicity law to protect an individual's “voice” by including it in that circle. California has not yet updated its law.
As part of the campaign, the Chamber of Progress will hire a director of AI, creativity and copyright policy to lead the initiative.
“Gen AI is a net plus for creativity overall,” says Kovacevich. “It's expanding access to creative tools to more people and bypassing many of the traditional gatekeepers.”