Creators Launch Campaign to Counter Big Tech’s Alleged AI Copyright Theft

On January 22, the Human Artistry Campaign, on behalf of a broad cross-section of the American creative community, launched a new advocacy campaign, titled “Stealing Isn’t Innovation.” The campaign’s core message is a direct protest against the “illegal mass harvesting of copyrighted works” by large technology companies to build and train their Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) platforms.

The campaign argues that in the race for dominance in the new GenAI technology, some of the world’s wealthiest tech companies, along with private equity-backed ventures, have engaged in a “massive rip-off” of creative content without authorization or compensation. According to the campaign, this practice “imperils U.S. jobs, economic growth and global ‘soft power’ supported by the U.S. creative industries.” The campaign warns that this widespread infringement erodes the foundation of the U.S. entertainment industry and disincentivizes the creation of new works.

Dr. Moiya McTier, Senior Advisor to the Human Artistry Campaign, stated, “Real innovation comes from the human motivation to change our lives. It moves opportunity forward while driving economic growth and creating jobs. But AI companies are endangering artists’ careers while exploiting their practiced craft, using human art and other creative works without authorization to amass billions in corporate earnings.”

Moreover, the campaign contends that this “illegal intellectual property grab fosters an information ecosystem dominated by misinformation, deepfakes, and a vapid artificial avalanche of low-quality materials,” which the campaign refers to as “AI slop,” thereby “risking AI model collapse and directly threatening America’s AI superiority and international competitiveness.” The campaign suggests that licensing and a robust enforcement environment are key to mitigating these challenges, while also emphasizing that creators must retain the right to opt out of GenAI training altogether.

Background of Creator Lawsuits

The campaign emerges against a backdrop of increasing legal challenges from creators against AI companies. These lawsuits, filed by a range of creators including authors, artists, and news organizations, allege the unauthorized use of their work to train AI models.

A significant development in this legal landscape was the landmark settlement in the Bartz v. Anthropic case in September 2025. Anthropic agreed to a $1.5 billion settlement to resolve a class-action lawsuit brought by book authors. The lawsuit alleged that Anthropic had used pirated copies of its books to train its chatbot, Claude. The settlement, which amounts to approximately $3,000 for each of the estimated 500,000 books, is considered the largest copyright recovery. The court found that Anthropic had downloaded millions of books from pirate websites, including Books3, Library Genesis, and the Pirate Library Mirror. Notably, Andrea Bartz, the lead plaintiff in the Anthropic case, is also a signee on the “Stealing Isn’t Innovation” campaign.

Following the precedent set by the Anthropic case, another group of authors filed a class-action complaint against Apple in October 2025. In Martinez-Conde v. Apple, professors Susana Martinez-Conde and Stephen Macknik alleged that Apple committed mass copyright infringement by using pirated books from the “Books3” dataset to train its Apple Intelligence platform. The lawsuit claims that Apple, such as Anthropic, built its models on unauthorized copies of copyrighted works without permission or compensation, further highlighting the widespread infringement alleged by the creative community.

A Call for Partnership and Licensing

With support of nearly 800 individual creators, including prominent figures such as Billy Corgan, Bonnie Raitt, Chaka Khan, and R.E.M. members, the campaign emphasizes that a better path forward exists through partnership and licensing. The campaign points out that several AI companies have already entered into licensing agreements, demonstrating that a market for authorized use of copyrighted works is viable. Despite claims that licensing is impractical, the campaign notes that “many content licensing agreements for AI have already been secured, clearly demonstrating that these companies know the law and recognize the market. Nevertheless, they continue to try and get away with theft.”

To amplify its message, the campaign is utilizing a unified social media push and full-page ads in major news outlets. The central argument is that for the United States to maintain its leadership in AI, the creative work that fuels these models must be respected and the creators compensated. As the campaign materials state, “If we sacrifice America’s creators on the altar of AI, the result will be a world without original human creations – no news, no art, no films, no music, no videos. Only AI sameness and regurgitated slop created by machines at the expense of human-made work and humanity itself.”

Consistent with the Human Artistry Campaign’s founding principles, the campaign’s focus is on “ensuring that AI technology is developed legally, responsibly, and ethically, and benefits all Americans.”

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Author: Faithie