Washington – The Computer & Communications Industry Association has joined the Chamber of Progress in an amicus brief before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in Doe v. GitHub. The brief argues that artificial intelligence (AI) development should not be thwarted by claims under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA)’s copyright management information (CMI) removal provision.
The brief notes that activities online from creating and sharing memes to altering images may remove CMI and expose people to legal risk. Given that generative AI services field hundreds of millions of queries a day, the outcome of this case could impact AI users by stopping generative AI development in its tracks.
The following can be attributed to CCIA Senior Counsel for Innovation Policy Josh Landau:
“This case involves an important principle that will impact how AI develops in the U.S. and how useful it will be. The DMCA’s CMI removal provision was designed to prevent creating exact copies of copyrighted works while removing their CMI, not to stop the creation of new works. Interpreting the law that way would be dangerous and would make it nearly impossible for startups to proceed with many types of AI development. We’re asking the court to uphold the previous court order dismissing the claims against GitHub.”
