Hundreds of Actors Urge Trump Not to Let AI Train on Their Copyrighted Content

Copyright law is one of the most pressing elements in the tangled web of legality and ethics surrounding generative AI. Now Hollywood is hoping to convince the Trump administration to hold off on allowing AI companies to upend current copyright law. In a letter submitted to the administration's office of science and technology policy on March 15, over 400 actors, writers and directors called for the government to not grant fair use exceptions to tech companies training AI. The signatories include Paul McCartney, Guillermo del Toro, Ava Duvernay, Cynthia Erivo, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Ayo Edebiri, Chris Rock and Mark Ruffalo. Fair use is a fundamental concept in copyright law that gives folks an exception to use protected content even if they aren't the copyright holder, in limited and specific cases. Previously, AI companies, hungry for human-generated content to train and improve their AI models, have needed to pay publishers and content catalogs for access to that material. A fair us ... Read full article.