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Dave Lee, Columnist

The Anthropic Copyright Ruling Exposes Blind Spots on AI

The “fair use” decision stands to cripple the ability of creators of original work to make money in the coming age of artificial intelligence.

Voracious reader.

Photographer: Gabby Jones/Bloomberg

In what is shaping up to be a long, hard fight over the use of creative works, round one has gone to the AI makers. In the first such US decision of its kind, District Judge William Alsup said Anthropic’s use of millions of books to train its artificial-intelligence model, without payment to the sources, was legal under copyright law because it was “transformative — spectacularly so.”

The closely watched ruling is a warning of what lies ahead under existing copyright laws. Designed to protect creative freedom, the “fair use” doctrine that Anthropic used to successfully defend its actions is now the most potent tool for undermining the creative industry’s ability to support itself in the coming age of AI.