Copyright news

Google, Microsoft, OpenAI and Anthropic back one AI opt-out

A draft standard lets a website refuse AI training by all four companies with one robots.txt entry. Microsoft will honour it from February 1, 2027, and Google in early 2027. It does not stop crawling.

Microsoft, Google, OpenAI and Anthropic said on October 30 that they will support a shared signal for websites that do not want their pages used to train AI. The signal comes from a draft at the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), the body that writes many internet standards. A website adds one entry to its robots.txt file, instead of one for each AI company.

Appeals court rejects fair use for Ross’s AI training

It is the first US appeals ruling on AI training and copyright. The court’s reasoning is sealed for now, and the case involves a search tool, not generative AI.

A US appeals court on September 29 upheld a ruling that Ross Intelligence infringed Thomson Reuters’ copyright by using material from Westlaw’s legal summaries to train an AI search tool. It is the first US appeals ruling on whether AI training can be fair use. The 32-page opinion is sealed while the two sides propose redactions.

Suno rebuilt its music AI with licensed songs

Creators still need clear payment rules.

Suno v6 offers three music models and more control over parts of a song. The company worked with Warner, BMG, and Believe, but the public details do not show how much each artist will earn.

Two newspapers are suing OpenAI and Microsoft

Both companies had supported the papers’ AI projects.

The Seattle Times and Newsday say OpenAI and Microsoft copied paid articles without permission. A court must now decide if the companies broke copyright law.

The US government supports OpenAI in a major copyright case

The Justice Department says training AI on copyrighted work can be fair use. This may influence the case, but the judge still makes the legal decision.