vJan 24
Electronic Frontier Foundation
Fair use remains the right starting point for thinking about AI training. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2026/01/search-engines-ai-and-long-fight-over-fair-use
Search Engines, AI, And The Long Fight Over Fair Use

Long before generative AI, copyright holders warned that new technologies for reading and analyzing information would destroy creativity. Internet search engines, they argued, were infringement machines—tools that copied copyrighted works at scale without permission. As they had with earlier information technologies like the photocopier and the VCR, copyright owners sued.

Electronic Frontier Foundation
Jan 24 at 1:13amWeb
Show threadRich BeeJan 24
@eff. The notion of training people to use AI rather than their own intelligence is one of the most bizarre things I've ever had the misfortune to encounter. Plagiarism en masse. Hive mind gathering? It isn't a good thing.
Show threadElaine Jackson-Pimentel 🦄🌈Jan 24
@[email protected] I support this, but we must be careful: AI shouldn't reproduce copyrighted works verbatim. Without a US framework for AI training and fair use, American AI will lag behind Chinese competitors.

It's like reading a JavaScript book, then writing blog posts and teaching others you're not breaking copyright. Why hold AI to a different standard?

E.g., No: "Recite Chapter One of The Hunger Games!"
Yes: "Chapter One of The Hunger Games is about [short summary]."