Opinion: Legacy Media is Trying to Kill AI Innovation

Last week, a coalition of entertainment companies filed a lawsuit against Midjourney, an AI company that builds generative tools using publicly available data. These lawsuits follow similar actions against other leading AI firms. The strategy is clear: ensnare AI startups under an avalanche of litigation before they can challenge entrenched business models. If established media wins this battle, it won’t just hurt AI companies—it will harm the millions of American businesses and consumers who stand to benefit from the most transformative technology since the internet itself.

At issue in this debate is the legal principle of fair use, a uniquely American doctrine that has powered nearly every great leap in modern technology innovation. Fair use allows search engines to index the web. It allows us to forward emails and quote text in news articles. It protects VCRs, DVRs, cloud computing, search, and social media. Without fair use, none of these technologies would exist as we use them today.

We’ve seen this movie before. In 1984, the entertainment industry fought to ban the VCR, claiming it would destroy film. The Supreme Court disagreed, laying the foundations for the home video market. That industry, which generates some $24 billion a year, saved Hollywood from stagnation. A technology legacy media tried to kill became one of their most profitable lines of business.

The new tech skeptics were wrong then. They are catastrophically wrong now.

AI models, like people, learn from the world around them. Training on publicly available text, images, and video isn’t a flaw—it’s the engine for AI innovation. The law agrees: the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California affirmed this week that large language models create “quintessentially transformative” content—squarely within the bounds of fair use. If we start outlawing learning, we’re strangling our AI future.

Worse, we’re making it harder for AI innovators to thrive and grow in the United States. While the U.S. dithers in court, our geopolitical rivals are moving forward at a breakneck pace. China has made AI a national imperative, pouring billions into research and deployment. The EU is building an aggressive regulatory framework designed to enable domestic champions, even if it does so imperfectly. Here in the U.S., we’re allowing copyright lawsuits to squeeze our most promising innovators at the outset.

If we let copyright maximalists rewrite fair use to ban AI training, we are disarming ourselves in the 21st-century tech race. Worse, we are handing the keys to the next industrial revolution to authoritarian regimes with no such hesitation.

Let’s be clear: these lawsuits aren’t about protecting artists. They’re about hijacking our legal system to protect legacy business models.

AI doesn’t replace creativity, it amplifies it. Photoshop didn’t eliminate photographers, it helped them perfect their craft. GarageBand didn’t limit musicians, it opened the door to new artists. AI will do for storytelling what these tools did for visual art and music: expand access, enhance quality, and lower the barriers to entry.

Hollywood has a choice. Legacy studios can partner with technologists and reinvent entertainment for the AI era. Or they can litigate their industry into irrelevance while the rest of the world moves on.

Congress must act now to codify and clarify that AI training on public data is textbook fair use. That will shut down weaponized litigation designed to block innovation and make American AI leadership a non-negotiable strategic priority. If the United States cedes our AI lead now, we may never get it back. This is an innovation issue. A national security issue. A future-of-the-economy issue. Hollywood already lost this fight once and got lucky – and rich – anyway. This time, we can’t afford to let them win.

Image Source: Deposit Photos
Author: garagestock
Image ID: 133247770