The intersection of artificial intelligence and copyright has become one of the most complex and rapidly evolving fields in the modern legal landscape. The last two years have seen landmark rulings that are redefining how AI-generated content is treated under copyright.

Andersen v. Stability AI: A group of artists led by Andersen (Sarah Andersen) won a significant victory when Judge William Orrick allowed their copyright infringement claims to proceed against companies such as Stability AI and Midjourney. The artists claimed that these companies had illegally stored copies of their artwork in training datasets without consent or compensation.

The fundamental contradiction: This lawsuit highlights the intrinsic paradox of generative AI: the models are designed to imitate human creativity, but they can only do so by consuming human works.

The copyright crisis in the AI era particularly affects the world of acting, where the very identity of the performer is at the heart of the profession. The possibility of cloning appearances, voices and acting styles is rapidly transforming the concept of “performance” from a unique creative act to a potentially replicable template.

The dissolution of interpretation: When an actor can be digitally recreated, what remains of the interpretive art? Studios have already demonstrated the ability to “resurrect” deceased actors and to digitally manipulate existing interpretations. The fundamental question is not so much whether it is technically possible, but whether it preserves the essence of what makes a performance meaningful.

The inverse value paradox: A peculiar economic phenomenon has emerged: the most famous actors with established careers (and therefore with a lot of material available for AI training) are paradoxically the most vulnerable to algorithmic substitution. Their very success makes them easy targets for unauthorized cloning, inverting the traditional value curve of an artistic career.

Legal fragmentation: While visual artists can rely on emerging case law, actors navigate a still uncertain regulatory landscape. A significant example is the movie “Here”, where digital recreations complete with actors were used for main roles. This is an authorized use, as the production obtained explicit consent and paid the rights to the actors involved - Tom Hanks and Robin Wright - thus creating a commercial precedent for authorized use. This highlights how the problem is not necessarily the technology itself, but the consent and compensation of the artists whose work and image are being used.

In 2024, a Czech court issued the first European ruling on AI-generated copyright, refusing protection for an image created via AI prompts. This position aligns with that of the US Copyright Office.

Legislative hypocrisy: It is interesting to note that Western legal systems refuse to recognize rights to works generated by AI while simultaneously allowing human works to be “devoured” by these same systems. We are witnessing a double standard: human works are considered sacred when created, but expendable when consumed by AI.

The 2025 US Copyright Office report outlined a graduated scale for protection:

The Myth of Originality: These distinctions reveal how artificial the concept of “originality” is in copyright law. What really distinguishes an artist selecting from thousands of AI outputs from a programmer selecting from thousands of algorithms?

The legal distinction seems more ideological than practical.

AI companies increasingly rely on the argument of “transformative use,” arguing that training models on copyrighted data produces new insights rather than direct copies.

The illusion of transformation: The “transformative use” argument is a convenient legal fiction. The truth is that AIs don't “transform” works so much as digest and recycle them. Judges seem to understand this when commercial use is evident, but they struggle to articulate why exactly human learning from protected works is acceptable while artificial learning is not.

The Andersen case established that end users could be liable if the AI outputs resemble the training data too closely.

The impossible burden of knowledge: This is perhaps the most disturbing part of the current legal landscape. How can an end user know the contents of training datasets containing billions of images? We are creating a system in which the average user risks sanctions for violations that they can neither foresee nor avoid. It's like fining someone for unknowingly quoting a book they never read.

P.S. - As in the case of Dr. Frankenstein - who is the creator and not the creature, a common mistake among those who have not read the work of Mary Shelley - we find ourselves in a similar paradox: the user who utilizes AI is treated as the “monster” responsible for the violations, while the real “doctors” who created and trained these systems on other people's data often escape legal consequences. Yet another demonstration of how cultural shallowness is also reflected in our interpretation of responsibilities in the digital age.

The Thomson Reuters and Getty Images cases drive the demand for licensed training datasets. Major media companies are now negotiating revenue-sharing agreements mirroring the ASCAP/BMI model of the music industry. The AI Act and a proposed US law aim to make transparency about training data mandatory, but retroactive compliance is not possible.

Heterogenesis of ends: Paradoxically, lawsuits filed to protect individual creators favor more structured companies, which can afford complex licensing agreements.

The future of human creativity at stake: The current legal battles are not simply about intellectual property, but the very meaning of human creativity in the AI era. Current rulings seem to attempt to preserve an increasingly artificial distinction between human and artificial creativity. The real issue may not be whether AI can infringe copyright, but whether the very concept of copyright will survive in a recognisable form in the coming decades.

As we try to apply 20th-century laws to 21st-century technologies, we may find ourselves defending a system that not only no longer protects the interests it claims to safeguard, but actively hinders the emergence of new forms of creative expression that do not easily fit into existing categories.

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