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How advertisers can deal with generative AI’s copyright conundrum

This article is also available in Spanish. Please use the toggle above the headline to switch languages. Visit digiday.com/es to read more content in Spanish.

Brands and agencies know better than to use copyrighted work in their campaigns without permission (or they should). But what about content created using generative AI tools that may be trained on copyrighted work without the copyright owners’ consent?

To what extent copyright law applies to generative AI tools is a legal gray area. Companies including OpenAI, Google and Microsoft assert it’s fair use, whereas others such as News Media Alliance, IAC and The New York Times argue it’s not.

The U.S. Copyright Office is studying the matter, but in the meantime, this ambiguity is cause for concern among marketers who may be best off deploying tactics to insulate themselves against any potential copyright claims, as covered in the video below.

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