Hey John,

With Big Tech & Media lobbyists swarming DC for closed-door meetings in Congress,⁴ ❤️Fight and United Musicians and Allied Workers just announced an #AIDayOfAction. Our demand is that Congress slow big corporations’ roll toward replacing human artists with AI machines.

If you care about artists making a dignified living, we ask you to take action as often as you can, now through the day of action on October 2. Can you contact your reps and spread the word?

Multiple cases on generative AI and copyright are moving through US courts,¹ movie studios are trying to negotiate for writers to touch-up AI scripts so they can pretend they were made by people,² the US Copyright Office is considering new regulations,³ and Big Tech CEOs are meeting with legislators behind closed doors.⁴ As a collective of artists and activists, we can’t let the interests of artists be drowned out! Our demand is that Congress “pass a law to block large corporations from getting copyrights for works that include significant AI-enabled elements.”

This demand aims at the heart of economic and human rights concerns when it comes to middle and low income artists and creators. Often, such artists are employed to create “works-for-hire” (aka corporate intellectual property) that the artists themselves get no rights to. By reducing the rights corporations can hold in AI-enabled works, it disincentivizes corporations from replacing human artists with AI.

And, it has the additional benefit of calling for less copyright, not more, as a step toward a better internet for artists and creators.⁵

Sound like a better deal to you than Big Media and Tech billionaires using AI to gobble up even more of the money and power artists should have? Tell your reps now!

Thanks so much, here’s to a future where AI actually benefits ALL of humanity.

Lia at ❤️Fight

Footnotes:

1. CNBC: https://www.cnbc.com/2023/04/03/in-generative-ai-legal-wild-west-lawsuits-are-just-getting-started.html

2. Hollywood Reporter: https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/amptp-ai-writers-guild-strike-1235573351/

3. US Copyright Office: https://www.copyright.gov/newsnet/2023/1017.html

4. NBC News: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/senators-voice-skepticism-leader-schumers-ai-summit-rcna104615

5. TechDirt: https://www.techdirt.com/2023/07/19/stop-rushing-to-copyright-as-a-tool-to-solve-the-problems-of-ai/