Strength in Numbers: Group Copyright Registration of Online News Articles as a Weapon in the Battle Against AI Infringement

Generative artificial intelligence companies and authors of the works used to create generative artificial intelligence systems are at war in the courts over whether and to what extent using copyrighted content to train generative AI models is fair use. In this fight, copyright protection remains an essential weapon for publishers to safeguard their content. However, U.S. copyright law has lagged behind the news industry’s integration of new technologies and mediums, with current procedures for staying abreast of copyright registration burdensome or infeasible. A new regulation from the U.S. Copyright Office, “Group Registrations of Updates to a News Website,” or 89 FR 311, allows a digital news publisher to collectively register a group of updates to a news website by submitting a representative portion of the content, rather than the complete contents of the website. It has the potential to resolve challenges standing in the way of online news publishers seeking this protection for their pages. I examine how published content is used by generative AI, current copyright protections, and how 89 FR 311 could strengthen copyright protections for news publishers while significant legal issues regarding generative artificial intelligence and the media await resolution.