Partner Daniel Hughes was quoted in the Daily Journal story, “9th Circuit’s Reply to AI Identicality Question Might Alter Copyright Playing Field”. The article discusses an appeal by a federal judge in an artificial intelligence (AI) copyright infringement case for the 9th Circuit to clarify a statutory interpretation of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA) to determine whether an output must be an exact copy in order to trigger infringement claims.
In his comments, Hughes said that the 9th Circuit’s interpretation of the word “copies” in the Act will be key: “The DMCA provision that the plaintiffs rely on essentially requires a copy to be made. [So] typically, in the realm of copyright law, when you talk about a copy, you are talking about an exact copy, because you would call something that’s been modified a derivative work.”
Noting that the relevant part of the DMCA includes neither the terms “identical” or “derivative,” Hughes says the 9th Circuit will need to address that issue. “The district courts are split, so I think there’s potential on both sides,” he said.
Hughes also added that this particular question may not be as important for other AI infringement cases with copyright claims that are beyond the scope of the DMCA.
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