iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Brandon Butler @bb.usefairuse.com · 22/09/2026

In addition, by crushing, crippling, or driving up the cost of the AI tools already in use at many local papers, the big news oligarchs would strip them of powerful newsgathering and reporting capabilities.

Local newsrooms utilize AI tools to enhance reporting capabilities amid rising costs and licensing issues that threaten their resources.

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Brandon Butler @bb.usefairuse.com · 22/09/2026

Pointing to arguments in the Dept. of Justice's Statement of Interest, RSI's Spence Purnell points out that a win for these national titans will only further consolidate the market for news and information, at the expense of local outlets.

Spence Purnell highlights the decline of local news in the U.S. and the impact of large national outlets on smaller ones.

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Brandon Butler @bb.usefairuse.com · 08/09/2026

Indeed, their market dilution study is strikingly similar to what Cooper describes as a common test for false positives in AI memorization studies - the "negative control." By showing a market effect on works *not* in the data, they show that market effect is NOT a result of being in the data.

Discussion on insufficient experiments and negative controls in AI memorization studies to assess potential false positives.

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Brandon Butler @bb.usefairuse.com · 08/09/2026

Turns out, not so much. As A. Feder Cooper explains, the paper's methods actually show the opposite: that the cost and effort involved in tricking a model into spitting out its data are so high that any rational person would just buy the book instead.

A detailed critique discusses the high costs of extracting data from AI models compared to simply purchasing a book.

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Brandon Butler @bb.usefairuse.com · 10/07/2026

Some subtly deep wisdom here from long-time @eff.org top lawyer Cindy Cohn, on the mistake of turning to #copyright to soothe our AI anxieties. She's exactly right - I’ll unpack a little in the replies. 🧵

Discussion on copyright in relation to AI training, emphasizing potential misinterpretations of infringement versus fair use.

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Brandon Butler @bb.usefairuse.com · 06/07/2026

"Threatened to pull the plug..."

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Brandon Butler @bb.usefairuse.com · 03/07/2026

Finally, the founders’ ideal of civic republican self-government entailed that private benefits derived from government monopolies would eventually mature into fully public goods.

Text on civic virtue, republican self-government, and the relationship between intellectual property and public goods is visible.

Text discusses property as a republican estate, linking it to public goods like roads and bridges in the context of civic governance.

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Brandon Butler @bb.usefairuse.com · 03/07/2026

Second, because of their deep suspicion of government monopolies, and their firm belief that political and religious liberty required free circulation of ideas, the founders were sure to place limits on the privilege.

Text outlines limits on monopoly privileges, emphasizing their role in protecting political and religious liberty in governance.

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Brandon Butler @bb.usefairuse.com · 03/07/2026

Here’s how he breaks it down: First, how did the founders think about copyright? As a monopoly, a privilege, an encouragement to creativity, not a natural right.

Text outlines copyright as a legal monopoly, a privilege encouraging creativity, rather than a natural right for authors and inventors.

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Brandon Butler @bb.usefairuse.com · 03/07/2026

I can’t let the 4th of July come and go without observing that vigilant defense against excess copyright is a deeply American value that goes back to the founding. In his book “Common as Air,” Lewis Hyde explains the American founders’ views of intellectual property.

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Brandon Butler @bb.usefairuse.com · 24/06/2026

Bsky folks who are anxious about AI but also recognize copyright ain't it, @doctorow.pluralistic.net has got you covered, as usual. In promoting his new book, he's got an excellent, pithy answer to this important question:

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Brandon Butler @bb.usefairuse.com · 15/06/2026

He quotes Publishers Lunch analyst Michael Cadon with the correct take:

Discussion emphasizes the importance of supporting authors and libraries, advocating for collaboration over conflict in the publishing community.

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Brandon Butler @bb.usefairuse.com · 19/05/2026

The Authors Alliance has a nice blog post up today from AI Legal Fellow Justin Bonfiglio addressing memorization in AI training. I’ve written and spoken about this several times, and I couldn’t agree more with Justin’s take. authorsalliance.substack.com/p/on-memori...

Text emphasizes the importance of creative freedom and protection against legal repercussions in artistic expression.

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Brandon Butler @bb.usefairuse.com · 13/05/2026

It’s kinda heartbreaking to read AI devs’ descriptions of datasets—written with great pride by people obviously engaged in something radically, undeniably transformative—knowing they will soon be beset on all sides by plaintiffs’ lawyers crying “piracy!” chatgptiseatingtheworld.com/2026/05/12/...

Cerebras announces the release of SlimPajama, a deduplicated, open-source dataset for training large language models, optimizing data quality.

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Brandon Butler @bb.usefairuse.com · 11/05/2026

Ed Lee is right about this, in a Leninist "heightening the contradictions" kind of way. If the maximalists are right, they're right all the way down to the ground, including the academic AI research that makes any of this stuff possible. chatgptiseatingtheworld.substack.com/p/are-ai-re...

Text discusses the implications of copyright on AI research practices at universities, highlighting legal concerns and fair use principles.

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Brandon Butler @bb.usefairuse.com · 11/05/2026

The Washington Post has an interesting little revelation today about one way Claude handles copyright compliance, an aside in a larger story. This is much more conservative advice than any attorney would give a human client, fyi, but not surprising under the circumstances.

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Brandon Butler @bb.usefairuse.com · 01/05/2026

Lol, no, Variety. Fair use isn’t just for when licensing is impossible; it’s for when you’re engaged in criticism, commentary, and storytelling with a new transformative purpose. Netflix knew where to find this licensor; they didn’t license because they were within their rights.

Text discusses fair use in documentary filmmaking, emphasizing challenges with licensing archival footage and the importance of transformative use.

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Brandon Butler @bb.usefairuse.com · 30/04/2026

The court rightly maintains the connection between transformativeness and low/no market harm, established in Campbell and reiterated many times in lower courts and Warhol. When your use is for a new purpose, by definition it won't fulfill the same market niche as the work you use.

A legal text discusses transformative use in copyright, emphasizing market impact and the distinctions between original works and derivatives.

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Brandon Butler @bb.usefairuse.com · 30/04/2026

Citing the brand new Restatement of the Law, Copyright (!!) as well as SCOTUS and Nimmer, the Court notes that there is real risk of circularity, here. If "selling licenses to documentaries" were a derivative market for funeral videos, fair use would cease to exist.

Legal text discusses caution in assessing harm in derivative markets, highlighting potential risks of circularity in copyright cases.

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Brandon Butler @bb.usefairuse.com · 30/04/2026

On Factor 3, amount, the court rightly applies the Campbell test - did the user take an appropriate amount relative to their new purpose. Yes, they did.

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Brandon Butler @bb.usefairuse.com · 30/04/2026

The second factor analysis is interesting, but (for good or ill) not that important in the overall analysis. It is nice that the court recognizes that there should be less protection for works that involve simply pointing a camera at an event as it unfolds.

Text highlights discuss a video labeled as factual, recorded at a funeral with minimal creative input from the videographer.

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Brandon Butler @bb.usefairuse.com · 30/04/2026

This concluding paragraph should warm the hearts of all documentary filmmakers (and their lawyers!). The court is recognizing that a typical documentary film's use of archival clips is transformative and fair under the first factor.

A legal document discusses a court's ruling on the fair use of archival materials in documentaries, highlighting transformative aspects.

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Brandon Butler @bb.usefairuse.com · 30/04/2026

For most docs, any one archival source is a drop in the overall bucket of the film - no single archival clip or group of clips is going to be the key to commercial success for the film. Nobody watches an entire doc for a chance to catch a glimpse of a snippet of old footage.

Text discusses the insubstantial use of a Funeral Video snippet in relation to the Tiger King series, focusing on its minimal impact.

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Brandon Butler @bb.usefairuse.com · 30/04/2026

The court also gets commerciality right - thank goodness! Most docs don't make bank like Tiger King, but they are almost all, technically, "commercial." It would be insane if fair use held that against them; and it doesn't.

The document discusses the commerciality of copyrighted works, focusing on exploitation rather than mere financial profit.

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Brandon Butler @bb.usefairuse.com · 30/04/2026

Inevitably, the court sneaks in some of factor 3 here, noting that the use of an appropriately limited amount is further proof that this use is a new, non-superseding one.

Text from a legal document discussing the limited use of a video for documentary purposes, emphasizing the context and implications of its use.

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Brandon Butler @bb.usefairuse.com · 30/04/2026

Because the purpose of the use of the clip in *Tiger King* is so radically different from the funeral video's original purpose (so transformative!), the commercial nature of the use and its lack of "targeting" recede in importance.

Text excerpt discussing the transformative use of a funeral video in a legal context, highlighting its impact and fair use implications.

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Brandon Butler @bb.usefairuse.com · 30/04/2026

THIS is the most important part, because it corrects the previous opinion's misreading of *Warhol*: no "targeting" is needed here because the funeral footage is used for a "distinctly different" purpose, so is "broadly justified."

Text discusses copyright justification for using content aligned with educational and societal purposes without needing independent reasoning.

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Brandon Butler @bb.usefairuse.com · 30/04/2026

Interestingly, the court also says that the *60-second* clip at issue here is "insubstantial" - implicitly putting it into the same class of uses as all the "incidental" uses it mentions earlier in its discussion. Relative to the complete funeral video, that's probably true.

Text highlights a statement on copyright, declaring a clip as “insubstantial” and not posing a risk to the original work.

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Brandon Butler @bb.usefairuse.com · 30/04/2026

Then we get to the heart of it - why is *this* use fair? Very nice reasoning from the court here. First, yes, generally the doc is for criticism and commentary, but specifically, this clip is used for a new purpose vis a vis the funeral video.

Court reasoning discusses the transformative use of a Funeral Video excerpt, focusing on Mr. Exotic and the big cat industry context.

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Brandon Butler @bb.usefairuse.com · 30/04/2026

Doc film uses aren't *always* fair use (nothing is...), but they VERY OFTEN are, because docs do all the things that fair use has always favored - critique, commentary, news reporting - and that are literally written in the statute as paradigm cases of fair use.

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Brandon Butler @bb.usefairuse.com · 30/04/2026

Then the court turns specifically to doc films:

Text discusses fair use in documentaries, emphasizing copyright snippets and court conclusions favoring fair use for such works.

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Brandon Butler @bb.usefairuse.com · 30/04/2026

Also, very nice (and spot on) recognition that even in the context of "narrowly" justified borrowing, there can be justifications other than targeting, with Google's re-use of Java code for Android as an example blessed by SCOTUS.

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Brandon Butler @bb.usefairuse.com · 30/04/2026

Another nice (and important) corollary: if your use is broadly transformative, then a "narrow" justification (why do you *need* this particular thing?) is less relevant.

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Brandon Butler @bb.usefairuse.com · 30/04/2026

spends some time sorting out when "targeting" is really relevant. It explains that sometimes uses are "broadly" justified by a new purpose, in which case targeting isn't needed. But when the purposes are the same or similar, "narrow" justification (like targeting) kicks in.

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Brandon Butler @bb.usefairuse.com · 30/04/2026

The court credits amici for setting it straight.

Court document discussing fair use rulings related to third-party footage in documentaries, highlighting contributions from supporting organizations.

Legal text discusses the court's decision affirming fair use in relation to the Funeral Video case. Summary judgment favored the defendants.

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Brandon Butler @bb.usefairuse.com · 17/04/2026

For comparison, they needed a bunch of text written by the suspects, ready for computer analysis. And they found it - the online archives of a cryptographer email list:

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Brandon Butler @bb.usefairuse.com · 17/04/2026

To get to a strong conclusion, you want to do this analysis at a large scale, so Carreyrou and the Times needed lots of writing samples. This was the first breakthrough - hundreds of emails from Satoshi published on Github (without Satoshi’s permission):

Text discusses Satoshi's texts, including emails and forum posts, as a key resource for identifying his identity during a civil trial.

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Brandon Butler @bb.usefairuse.com · 16/04/2026

Of course doc film legend Werner Herzog understands fair use, and recognizes it’s part of free speech, available even to people we don’t like or who misunderstand our art! From this week’s “Regulator” newsletter from the Verge.

Werner Herzog discusses the unexpected resurgence of a penguin scene from his film, mentioning its adoption by various entities and free speech.

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Brandon Butler @bb.usefairuse.com · 02/04/2026

Can’t screenshot Apple Music, so you get these literal screenshots! Here’s who gets the licensing money:

Screen shot shows credits to motion picture studios

Screenshot shows archival footage all sourced from Getty.

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Brandon Butler @bb.usefairuse.com · 02/04/2026

Y’all. Who’s going to tell the Swifties all the Elizabeth Taylor *license fees* are going to a couple of Hollywood studios and Getty Images? It’s the *streaming royalties* going to the ET estate! #itsmeimthepedant

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Brandon Butler @bb.usefairuse.com · 20/03/2026

The President's AI Legislative Framework, released this AM, gets fair use right on substance and process. Training is fair use, and Congress should leave fair use issues to the courts. TRAIN Act, CLEAR Act, and mislabeled TRUMP AMERICA AI Act are all at odds with White House policy.

The text outlines the Administration's stance on AI model training and copyright laws, urging Congress to leave resolutions to the courts.

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Brandon Butler @bb.usefairuse.com · 06/03/2026

Professor Lee has a link and abstract for the article here, as well as a very nice graphic showing his argument's deep foundations in case law. chatgptiseatingtheworld.com/2026/03/06/...

A collage of legal figures discussing copyright principles, featuring key cases and arguments regarding originality and non-infringing expressions.

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Brandon Butler @bb.usefairuse.com · 27/02/2026

Nobody tell Judge Alsup—this long lost bit of film history only exists today because of unauthorized copying!

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Brandon Butler @bb.usefairuse.com · 25/02/2026

Today's the day! Our Capitol Hill briefing for Fair Use Week is at 11:30am in the Russell Senate Office Building. So excited to bring this group of experts to DC to help share the good news about fair use and balanced copyright!*

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Brandon Butler @bb.usefairuse.com · 23/02/2026

We're excited to bring a diverse group of fair use experts to brief Congressional staff and others on the state of play in fair use and AI, and how these questions can resonate beyond the AI realm. Learn more and RSVP here: www.arl.org/event/fair-...

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Brandon Butler @bb.usefairuse.com · 04/02/2026

What matters for fair use is the transformative purpose of the tool, and taking reasonable security steps to prevent its misuse. AI models generally pass these tests with flying colors. Read more: recreatecoalition.org/a-note-from...

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Brandon Butler @bb.usefairuse.com · 03/02/2026

They don't even have a sponsor, yet, much less any momentum on the Hill, so this is mostly just a useful glimpse into the fantasy world of the IAB. It looks like this:

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Brandon Butler @bb.usefairuse.com · 29/01/2026

Someone at the @washingtonpost dialed back the inflammatory "destroy millions of books" headline on @WillOremus' piece. Appreciate that. Is it the same for everyone? I've seen three different headlines on this story since it was first published.

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Brandon Butler @bb.usefairuse.com · 27/01/2026

A "secretive plan to destroy millions of books"...that they bought fair and square! Ugh. And the Google Books program, which was fully vindicated as fair use, is characterized as "legally troubled." Huh? Ugh. www.washingtonpost.com/technology/...

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Brandon Butler @bb.usefairuse.com · 16/01/2026

Copyright doesn't permit rightsholders to shakedown any AI developer for a windfall based on fair use training. But that doesn't mean there's no money in AI training for savvy creators. It means you need to offer something you are actually legally entitled to charge for.

“Wikipedia is a critical component of these tech companies’ work that they need to figure out how to support financially,” Lane Becker, president of Wikimedia Enterprise, told Reuters. “It took us a little while to understand the right set of features and functionality to offer if we’re going to move these companies from our free platform to a commercial platform… but all our Big Tech partners really see the need for them to commit to sustaining Wikipedia’s work.”

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