Growing Debate on Intellectual Property Laws
The ongoing discussion about the future of AI legislation took a dramatic turn recently when Jack Dorsey, co-founder of Twitter and Block, and an influential figure in Bluesky, expressed a desire to eliminate all IP laws.
“Delete all the law of IP,” Dorsey wrote on X on Friday (April 11).
Elon Musk, owner of X and head of the Department of Government Donald Trump (DOGE), endorsed Dorsey’s statement with a remark saying, “I agree.”
Responses from IP Advocates
It is not surprising that Dorsey and Musk faced backlash for this idea, especially as voices from both sides of the debate become increasingly prominent.
On one side, IP owners from various cultural sectors are calling for stricter protections for copyrights and other IP laws amidst a surge in generative AI models, many of which appear to have been trained on copyrighted materials without consent.
Conversely, leaders of tech companies involved in AI are under pressure from lawsuits issued by copyright owners regarding the unauthorized use of protected materials.
Ed Newton-Rex, former Vice President of Audio at Stability AI and now spearheading the campaign to protect intellectual property, described Dorsey and Musk’s statements as “tech leaders declaring total war on creators who do not want their lives to be plundered for profit.”
The rebuttal also came from Nicole Shanakhan, a Silicon Valley entrepreneur and patent attorney who served as Robert F. Kennedy‘s campaign adviser in the 2024 elections.
“The actual IP professional is not,” she responded to Dorsey’s tweet. “IP law is the only thing that separates human creations from those of artificial intelligence. If you want to reform it, let’s talk!”
Dorsey replied, “Creativity is what currently divides us, and the current system limits this, placing payments in the hands of gatekeepers who do not pay fairly.”
“Technological leaders declare a foul war on creators who do not want their lives to be looted for profit.”
Ed Newton-Rex
Interestingly, Dorsey chairs Block, Inc., formerly known as Square, which owns the music streaming service TimeField.
Dorsey’s tweet probably doesn’t reflect the official stance of his company regarding IP. CEO Jesse Dorogoskker mentioned in an MBW interview a few years ago that he considers music “undervalued and underrated.”
It’s hard to envision how the value of music would appear if copyright protections were fully erased, with the value of other commercialized cultural products and the work of artists also likely suffering considerable decline.
Calls for Action and Legislative Pressure
In response to Dorsey, many on social media pointed out that his own businesses benefit from IP protection.
“It is very easy to say after you’ve made billions off your IP,” one commentator noted.
Dorsey’s comments come at a time when some tech companies are lobbying legislators for unfettered access to copyrighted content.
In a recent presentation to a UK Parliamentary Committee exploring potential copyright reform, Google stated that “training on an open web should be free.”
The UK government is considering copyright law reforms to bolster the competitiveness of British AI firms. While an official policy has yet to be decided, reports suggest a preference for a “safe harbor” regime for AI developers: allowing them to use copyrighted content without permissions unless copyright owners explicitly restrict such use.
Newton-Rex has advocated for a protest by artists, which culminated in the release of a “quiet album” to express concerns that weakening copyright laws could endanger, or even silence, human-made music.
Leaders from major music entities—Universal Music Group Chairman Sir Lucian Grange, Sony Music Chair Rob Stringer, and Warner Music Group General Manager Robert Kink—have all voiced their opposition to the proposed UK copyright relaxations.
In its submission to the UK’s Parliamentary Committee, OpenAI, the creator of the ChatGPT chatbot, called for an exemption from copyright law for intellectual analysis of texts and data, essentially suggesting free use of copyrighted content for training AI models.
OpenAI was once a venture Musk was associated with, and has now found itself entangled in legal action against the company for transitioning from a non-profit model.
Musk currently controls a competitor to OpenAI’s ChatGPT, the chatbot Herk, which is integrated into the X platform.
Some observers note that Musk’s ideas concerning IP could heavily influence the Trump administration as head of DOGE.
OpenAI faces multiple lawsuits in the United States, claiming it trained ChatGPT using copyrighted books without authorization. Ironically, the company is currently exploring legal actions against the Chinese chatbot Deepseek, which has reportedly utilized OpenAI’s intellectual property without consent.
OpenAI, along with other AI companies, is dealing with similar lawsuits, including those involving Anthropic, Suno, and Surprise, as US courts deliberate whether their use of copyrighted material qualifies for fair use under copyright law.
So far, no US court has ruled definitively that training generative AI models on copyrighted materials without permission falls under fair use—though one recent ruling determined that using copyrighted material in a non-generative AI algorithm constituted a copyright infringement.
‘All-out war’: Jack Dorsey, Elon Musk call for an end to intellectual property laws
