Steve Bannon and conservatives push Trump to block Big Tech's AI copyright defense strategy

Conservative Coalition Challenges Big Tech on AI Copyright

A group of conservatives allied with Donald Trump's MAGA movement, including former White House strategist Steve Bannon, has formally asked the Justice Department and the White House to stop protecting AI companies from copyright infringement. In a December 1 letter addressed to US Attorney General Pam Bondi and Michael Kratsios, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, more than a dozen leaders of conservative organizations urge the government to reject calls to change copyright law to accommodate training artificial intelligence systems 1

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Source: Benzinga

The signatories call Big Tech AI copyright tactics a form of systemic theft and "un-American," arguing that supporting the tech industry's effort to reform copyright law would harm American workers, contradict the Trump administration's AI and trade policy, dilute US soft power, and encourage economic espionage by China. "We must compete and win the global AI race the American way -- by ensuring we protect creators, children, conservatives, and communities," the letter stated 2

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Source: The Register

The Fair Use Debate and Its Implications

The controversy centers on whether training AI on copyrighted data qualifies for fair use for AI training under US law. Prior to OpenAI's ChatGPT debut in November 2022, legal scholars generally supported the tech industry's view that this practice qualified for the fair use defense. The fair use defense requires analysis of four factors: the purpose and character of the use, the nature of the copyrighted work, the amount of material used, and the effect upon the market for the copyrighted work 1

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However, recent AI copyright infringement claims heard by US courts suggest AI companies can't count on a fair use defense in all cases, with more than 50 cases currently pending. Legal scholar Pamela Samuelson concluded that "some training data uses may be found fair use, while others may not," based on outcomes in Bartz v. Anthropic and Kadrey v. Meta cases 1

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Economic Stakes and China Concerns

The conservative coalition argues that weakening intellectual property rights domestically will allow China and other adversaries "to avail themselves of the same dubious 'fair use' theories to not only steal creative content, but also proprietary US AI models and algorithms." They highlighted that copyright-driven industries contribute over $2 trillion to GDP and support more than 11 million high-wage US jobs 1

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The letter dismisses Silicon Valley's argument that licensing copyrighted works is too costly for AI development, calling it implausible given trillion-dollar market caps and hundreds of billions spent annually on AI. "AI companies enjoy virtually unlimited access to financing," the signatories noted 2

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Market Impact and Legal Precedents

The market impact of AI on copyrighted works is starting to materialize. In Thomson Reuters' copyright claim against Ross Intelligence, the court in February found that training a machine learning model on Westlaw content to build a rival legal service did not qualify as fair use. AI companies have recognized the risk by settling or striking licensing deals, though they'd prefer not to incur that cost 1

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As OpenAI CEO Sam Altman stated in a December 2023 submission to the UK House of Lords, leading AI models could not be trained without the use of copyrighted content. "Limiting training data to public domain books and drawings created more than a century ago might yield an interesting experiment, but would not provide AI systems that meet the needs of today's citizens," he said 1

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The coalition insists that letting courts handle the issue, not federal intervention, is essential to preserving America's cultural and economic leadership. Bannon's "War Room" echoed the letter on Truth Social, framing Big Tech's position as "un-American and absurd," urging followers to demand the administration stand with creators 2

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