Photo Credit: Kristina Volgenau
The White House publishes a National AI Legislative Framework, and at least one copyright advocate is applauding the government for taking action to protect IP. Individual states are far less enthusiastic, however.
On Friday, the Trump administration released an artificial intelligence (AI) policy urging lawmakers to enact legislation ahead of states imposing their own rules, after months of pushing for a single legislative framework to be applied at a national level. The White House said it looked forward to working with Congress to transform the framework into actionable law.
According to Republican House leaders, including Speaker Mike Johnson and Majority Leader Steve Scalise, the policy provides Congress with the necessary roadmap for legislation “that provides innovators with much-needed certainty, while protecting consumers and prioritizing kids’ online safety.”
The White House’s framework includes giving parents control of accounts and devices to protect their children’s privacy, and suggests features designed to combat potential self-harm or sexual exploitation of minors. Further, it urges Congress to streamline permitting so that data centers that use tremendous amounts of power can generate their own energy on-site. It also aims to increase the federal government’s ability to combat AI-generated scams, though the document only lightly touches on concerns of national security.
In light of the release of the legislative framework, as well as the unveiling of the “Trump American AI Act” earlier this week by Senator Marsha Blackburn, Copyright Alliance CEO Keith Kupferschmid released a statement to Digital Music News.
“The Copyright Alliance is pleased to see that the Administration’s National Policy Framework for Artificial Intelligence, issued earlier today, acknowledged the need for any AI framework to ‘respect intellectual property rights and support creators.’ Specifically, the White House framework acknowledges that there are differing views related to fair use of copyrighted works for AI training, and reflects the long held vies of the Copyright Alliance and many others in the creative community that AI fair use determination should be left to the judiciary where the Supreme Court has ruled that ‘bright-line rules’ are inappropriate,” wrote Kupferschmid.
“We also applaud the administration’s recognition that free-market AI licensing is crucial to preserving the creative economy and the 11.6 million American workers and over $2 trillion in GDP it supports,” his statement continued. “And we thank Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) for her continual support for the creative community and for releasing her thoughtful and comprehensive ‘Trump America AI Act’ discussion draft earlier this week. We especially applaud the draft’s provisions that directly address the use of copyrighted works for AI training.”
In December, Trump said he would withhold federal broadband funding from states whose laws to regulate AI are deemed by his administration to be preventing America’s dominance in the technology’s ongoing race. It’s notable that the AI industry has been a major driver for profit in the tech sector, and has been instrumental in propelling Nvidia to become the world’s largest company. Trump himself is a major stakeholder in Nvidia.
