Establishing a new IP right for an artist's "style," as the proposed CREATOR Act suggests, could disastrously empower corporate labels to legally bar creators from making new music that sounds like themselves.

I’ll confess, most of this viral explainer post about how LLMs actually work went over my head, but as a copyright nerd I do have one takeaway: if this ain’t transformative, nothing is. www.0xkato.xyz/how-llms-ac...

Important development on NO FAKES: in a broad new coalition letter, cyber civil liberty groups left, right, and center warn the bill jeopardizes free expression and urge Congress to start over and focus on gaps in existing law. Read more: cdt.org/insights/cd...

I had fun with this one, connecting Taylor Swift's fight for her rights to John Fogerty's Supreme Court win for his, and all of it to the deeply mistaken idea that new IP rights in "style" will be anything but disastrous for artists. Newsletter below; note here: recreatecoalition.org/a-note-from-...

The always insightful Andrew Albanese nails the @AuthorsGuild ’s new survey, in which the Guild bizarrely demonizes libraries and library users. www.wordsandmoney.com/the-queue-l...

🚨 ICYMI: Re:Create submitted a letter to the CA Senate Committee on Privacy, Digital Technologies, and Consumer Protection outlining major concerns over CA AB 412.

Live stream of the Thomson v. Ross oral arguments (first AI case to hit appellate review!) in 3rd Cir. will be fascinating to listen. They're still hearing a previous argument right now. Tune in: www.youtube.com/live/ZTOFs1U...

AMEN to this from Re:Create member @publicknowledge.bsky.social - the House made a grave mistake in passing HR 6028 last week. The Senate should play its time-honored role of slowing down this runaway train before somebody gets hurt. publicknowledge.org/public-know...

This is truly wild. The House is about to reorganize the federal copyright and library system without a hearing or robust buy in from almost any impacted group.

#FairUseFriday 🏀 It’s Game 2 of the NBA Finals and fan edits, parodies, and reaction videos are lay-ups thanks to fair use.

California’s AB 412 is a disaster in the making. @eff has the breakdown: www.eff.org/deeplinks/2...

Why are people fetishizing an ambiguous 1970s Second Circuit opinion over plain, simple Supreme Court precedent? Read copyright guru Jonathan Band's breakdown of the real upshot of the recent Cox v. Sony decision in his new white paper at @WCL_PIJIP

✉️ Ahead of the California Senate Committee on Privacy, Digital Technologies, and Consumer Protection hearing of CA AB 412 on June 8, Re:Create submitted a follow up letter to Chairman Cabaldon opposing the bill.

The fair use legacy of @colbertlateshow.bsky.social is secure after a finale and aftermath that was a fair use tour de force! Read more for #fairusefriday!!

The perfect AI hysteria reductio prank. Chef's kiss... futurism.com/artificial-...

I know @cnn relies on fair use every day, and that (while its international news-gathering apparatus is unparalleled) it also re-reports news that is first broken elsewhere, every day. So they know there's no such thing as "theft" of factual information.

The Pope was right to ignore the copyright hype around AI and focus his attention on real moral issues. More in my blog post for this week's Note from Re:Create: recreatecoalition.org/a-note-from...

If you aren't getting the Re:Create Recap newsletter, what are you even doing?? This week: the Pope was right to stay away from copyright, CA ponders AI self-destruction with AB412, and more! Details, links, and signup:

The GAO shouldn’t treat commercial academic publishing business models (or profit margins) as a fact of nature. Public access is the goal; publishers can help or get out of the way. More from @SPARC_NA sparcopen.org/news/2026/s...

Though it has never pained me more, I have to say, this is a fair use! www.instagram.com/reel/DYoOS_...

Anna’s Archive was sued in March and as of May 21, default judgment for publishers with an order that "all domain name registries and registrars disable access to Anna’s Archive’s domains and prevent their transfer to anyone other than the publishers."

🚨 Today, Senators Marsha Blackburn, Chris Coons, Thom Tillis, & @klobuchar.senate.gov reintroduced the #NOFAKES Act, which would create a broad right of publicity that would address the problem of digital impersonation by prohibiting most unauthorized uses of a person’s voice or likeness.

💿🧊Drake just shattered records with a surprise 3-album drop, sparking an instant wave of creative reactions across social media. From viral fan art to major brands putting a spin on their own logos, everyone is riding the ICEMAN wave.

TL;DR: The right-to-repair movement is growing as consumers face repair bans for electronics and appliances due to 1980s copyright laws and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. The bipartisan Warrior Right to Repair Act aims to lessen legal barriers for consumer repairs.

Nice piece just out from @politico with scholarly critiques of the IP-based NO FAKES approach to regulating deepfakes/digital replicas/etc. www.politico.com/newsletters...

Copyright is supposed to drive authors and publishers to create and share more work for the benefit of all. But in many cases, copyright actually makes works disappear. A robust literature has demonstrated this across multiple media: 20th Century works in particular are in a “black hole”

ICYMI @ccianet.bsky.social argues in an amicus brief to the Northern District CA that utilizing copyrighted lyrics to train generative AI systems is a legally permissible practice that drives technological progress and safeguards the freedom of expression.

The Authors Alliance has a nice blog post up today from AI Legal Fellow Justin Bonfiglio addressing memorization in AI training. I’ve written and spoken about this several times, and I couldn’t agree more with Justin’s take. authorsalliance.substack.com/p/on-memori...

This #fairusefriday we are highlighting fair use on the campaign trail, with something fresh from California and something vintage from the Obama-McCain contest in 2008. Check it out!

I couldn't possibly be more excited about having the amazing @mozilla Foundation joining our ranks! True pioneers in digital freedom and openness, Mozilla is a voice of reason in the wild world of IP and tech policy. It will be amazing to have them with us in these fights!

Exec Director @bb.usefairuse.com shares more about why breaking up the USCO & LOC would be detrimental to our nation's creativity, innovation and history.

It’s kinda heartbreaking to read AI devs’ descriptions of datasets—written with great pride by people obviously engaged in something radically, undeniably transformative—knowing they will soon be beset on all sides by plaintiffs’ lawyers crying “piracy!” chatgptiseatingtheworld.com/2026/05/12/...

SJC IP Subcommittee hearing - oversight of the US Copyright Office, a thread! Lone witness is Register Shira Perlmutter. Chairman Tillis kicks off the hearing with the usual shibboleths - copyright law needs to be "strong" [why not balanced?], creative industries are big econ engines, etc. 🧵

The Senate Judiciary Committee IP Subcommittee is about to hold a hearing - "Oversight of the US Copyright Office." I'll be watching and typing, but not live-posting, since I want the thread to go up in multiple places. So, when the hearing's over, I'll post. www.judiciary.senate.gov/committee-a...

Ed Lee is right about this, in a Leninist "heightening the contradictions" kind of way. If the maximalists are right, they're right all the way down to the ground, including the academic AI research that makes any of this stuff possible. chatgptiseatingtheworld.substack.com/p/are-ai-re...

The Washington Post has an interesting little revelation today about one way Claude handles copyright compliance, an aside in a larger story. This is much more conservative advice than any attorney would give a human client, fyi, but not surprising under the circumstances.

📸 Every year, the Met Gala floods our feeds with content and we love to see it. By adding critiques and comparisons, creators transform raw celebrity looks into pop culture moments. Shoutout to fair use for making the conversation possible! Who made the best reel? Vote now! 🗳️

In a recent blog post, Exec Director @bb.usefairuse.com explains how the recent Cox v. Sony ruling smooths one edge of the "AI frontier" by making it clear that AI developers won’t be responsible for their users’ infringements as long as they offer a tool with substantial non-infringing uses:

As similarly explained in our opposition to the Pro Codes Act, we must ensure that essential public standards aren’t put behind copyright paywalls. More on this issue from @bb.usefairuse.com:

Lol, no, Variety. Fair use isn’t just for when licensing is impossible; it’s for when you’re engaged in criticism, commentary, and storytelling with a new transformative purpose. Netflix knew where to find this licensor; they didn’t license because they were within their rights.

God bless Ron Wyden, man. Will we ever get another one like him? I hope so.

Huge and very good news for doc filmmakers on fair use today! The 10th Circuit has reversed itself in the Whyte Monkee case, ruling that fair use DOES protect the inclusion of 3rd-party footage in the breakout hit *Tiger King*. Big 🧵, unpacking it all:

Despite years of legal precedent and multiple failed attempts in Congress, special interests continue to push the PRO CODES Act. The law deserves to be in the hands of the people, not behind a paywall. Executive Director @bb.usefairuse.com breaks it down in yesterday's recap:

Last week wrapped Season 2 of The Pitt 🩺 While we wait until 2027 for new episodes, fans are keeping it alive with parody videos. Nurse Dana is a copyrighted character, but fair use is your right to do (or at least attempt) an impression of her wild accent and no-BS personality.

Tomorrow's event at Blum Gallery in LA just got an updated website, and now I'm getting super excited. @jennytoomey.bsky.social was an early inspiration for me - seeing her talk about @futureofmusic.bsky.social at SXSW 2002 showed me there was good work to do at the intersection of art and policy!

I will beat this drum until I die: Most of copyright law was based on assumptions about inefficiency, because things were mostly done by humans. Unfortunately, in trying to "update" the law to cope with greater efficiencies, we ignore--and often hobble--those core, human-driven uses.

Copyright law has never, at any point, been written by--or to protect--artists. It's ALWAYS been formed by political negotiations among record labels, publishers, movie studios, broadcasters, and (now) tech companies. Literally since the dawn of copyright law.

Looking forward to speaking on a panel this Friday as part of Mozilla and USC's "Copyforward" event, a kind of legal nerd pre-party for the Flux Festival, all held at the Blum Gallery in LA: flux.net/

Chairman Issa's opening statement pretty wild so far. He smeared critics as "wanting everything to be free," and he used the human genome project as an example of IP protectionism promoting progress. Which, uh, is not what ppl usually say about that project. #procodes biology.mit.edu/the-human-g...

🚨Tomorrow, @JudiciaryGOP & @HouseJudiciary hold a hearing on the PRO CODES Act. As SCOTUS has already ruled: “No one can own the law.” This bill threatens that precedent by extending copyright to public laws and standards, restricting your right to access the rules we live by. ⚖️🏛️