CLEAR Act Would Establish Notice Requirements for Copyrighted Works in AI Training Data

On Tuesday, news reports indicated that U.S. Senators Adam Schiff (D-CA) and John Curtis (R-UT) introduced the Copyright Labeling and Ethical AI Reporting (CLEAR) Act into Congress. If enacted as drafted, the bill would establish mandatory reporting requirements for companies developing artificial intelligence (AI) models that are trained using original works that are protected under U.S. copyright law, and would create an additional cause of action for copyright owners alleging that generative AI developers failed to give such notice with respect to their works.

Generative AI Developers Must Submit Notice 30 Days Before Commercial Release

The use of copyrighted works to train generative AI models and improve their outputs has been a source of major consternation to the international creative community, which has filed several lawsuits pitting their right to exclusive reproduction of their work against arguments that such training constitutes fair use. In late January, the Human Artistry Campaign kickstarted a public awareness campaign protesting the mass harvesting of copyrighted works by generative AI developers, charging them with earning billions in revenue from misappropriated works.

The CLEAR Act introduced by Sens. Schiff and Curtis would create a notice requirement directing companies developing generative AI platforms to submit a detailed summary with the U.S. Copyright Office of every copyrighted work included in a training dataset used in connection with the training or release of a generative AI platform. Such notice must also provide the Uniform Resource Locator (URL) for that training dataset if the dataset is publicly available at the time that notice is filed. The CLEAR Act also directs the Register of Copyrights to establish and maintain a publicly available online database including each submitted notice.

Generative AI developers would have 30 days before the commercial release of their AI platforms, which would include any use of the AI model internal to a private organization, to file notice of copyrighted works with the Copyright Office. AI platforms available before the act’s effective date have 30 days from the date at which the Register of Copyrights issues regulations regarding the form, content and filing procedures of notice submissions required by the bill.

Civil Penalties Under CLEAR Act Could Max Out at $2.5 Million Payable to Copyright Office

Definitions under the CLEAR Act indicate that the bill’s impact is designed to be large in scope. Under the bill’s draft language, “artificial intelligence” is defined as “an automated system designed to perform a task typically associated with human intelligence or cognitive function.” Further, the bill defines “generative AI model” as a combination of computer codes and numerical values used by AI to generate text, images, audio or video content. Likewise, training datasets targeted under the CLEAR Act include any collection of individual units of material including any combination of text, images, video, audio and other material. Copyrighted work under the CLEAR Act is specifically defined to include any work registered with the Copyright Office pursuant to 17 U.S.C. § 408 and pre-1972 sound recordings protected under 17 U.S.C. § 1401.

Generative AI developers failing to comply with the CLEAR Act’s notice requirements could face a private cause of action under this law brought by a copyrighted work’s owner to U.S. district court. If found liable, generative AI firms facing such actions could be required to pay $5,000 per instance of failed notice and face injunctive relief preventing them from using the violating training data in their generative AI models until the notice defect is cured. Civil penalties levied in this manner shall not exceed $2.5 million without limitation to other copyright remedies, with penalties payable to the Register of Copyrights to offset the Copyright Office’s operating costs. Copyright owners prevailing on their cause of action for defective notice would be awarded attorney’s fees and expenses for the proceeding under this law.

In comments made to the press, Senators Schiff and Curtis argue that the CLEAR Act is necessary to provide legal guardrails protecting human creativity, which Schiff called “the foundation of our cultural and creative economy,” playing a vital role in shaping society. Curtis noted that AI innovation must be balanced with accountability. “By shedding light on how generative AI models are trained, our bipartisan legislation will help build public trust for emerging technologies and foster the best of American creativity.”