The plan spills over to limit fair use beyond AI
Mantegna 24 (Micaela Mantegna, Affiliate at the Berkman Klein Center at Harvard University (United States) and the Center for Technology and Society at San Andres University (Argentina). “ARTificial: Why Copyright Is Not the Right Policy Tool to Deal with Generative AI” Yale Law Journal Volume 133, 4/22/2024. Accessed 5/27/2024. https://www.yalelawjournal.org/forum/artificial-why-copyright-is-not-the-right-policy-tool-to-deal-with-generative-ai) wtk
Copyright law is currently applied in multifaceted and sometimes problematic ways, and it has often been extended far outside of its original scope. In the evolving legal landscape of digital technologies, the fair-use doctrine stands on precarious ground, especially considering the new challenges posed by AI litigation.
The flexibility of the fair-use doctrine is a double-edged sword. It allows the doctrine to accommodate new emerging scenarios, but it is also unpredictable and creates uncertainty as one is at risk of infringement until a judge rules otherwise. These rulings could solidify interpretations of fair use that may not have been foreseen or intended by the original framers of the doctrine. And because of the principle of stare decisis, the outcomes of these cases could set significant judicial precedents. Thus, a verdict in the context of AI that shrinks fair use could have far-reaching implications for other scenarios across various unrelated fields, where the stakes and the players are substantially different.