As those of you who follow news in the USA (and the UK) are probably aware, the US government is actively trying to remove copyright laws in favor of allowing the ultra-wealthy to use AI to plunder and steal all the work done by artists, musicians, authors, and other creatives.
The ban of laws that would limit AI use is discussed HERE (https://www.404media.co/republicans-try-to-cram-ban-on-ai-regulation-into-budget-reconciliation-bill/).
The discussion about ending copyright is HERE (https://www.entrepreneur.com/business-news/jack-dorsey-calls-for-end-to-intellectual-property-law/490008) and HERE (https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/may/12/trump-fires-copyright-office-shira-perlmutter).
Copyright laws in the USA being under attack because billionaires want to use everything for AI is worrying.
What happens to books? What happens to music? What happens to TV shows if it’s all fair game for the AI?
What’s going to happen is we will start losing writers of all kinds.
No one is going to publish their book if they can’t pay the bills with their work.
As much as creatives create because they love what they do, they are only allowed to keep doing it if they get paid. There are not ultra-wealthy families financing the lives of young artists. None of the people bragging about how they can buy a second yacht and have billions are covering the bills so your favorite author can write.
Artists of every kind, including authors, can only keep working if they get paid.
If AI replaces authors that means your books become derivative drivel. The current AI programs that Elon Musk and others are so hyped about are pattern recognition programs. They’re looking for the most common phrases, ideas, or whatever that they are trained on. Which means they can’t make an original book. They can only vomit out a mix of sentences and phrases learned from stolen work.
Worse, in many ways, is that the nonfiction books become useless. You don’t want AI writing the history books or the math texts. The AI recognizes patterns, but it can’t create and it can’t fact check. So a textbook written by AI is going to be scary at best, and useless at worst. The AI will see that numbers and symbols are laid out in a pattern, but the AI isn’t necessarily trained in math and [2+3 = 5] is the same pattern as [3+4 = 5] – the pattern being Number-Addition Symbol-Number-Equal Sign-Number.
Meanwhile, there won’t be any music. Musicians are going to pull their work because they don’t want to be replaced. So your playlists are going to become silence. Maybe, if you’re lucky, you’ll get some oldies that were already public domain. But there won’t be new music.
No new art. No new music. No new anything.
Copyright exists to ensure that the artists can earn a living from their work. It is how we fund the arts in our country. It is how we allow people to experiment and create and do new things.
If we hand it all over to AI and let AI create everything, we lose all our creatives. No more new TV. No more new music. No more new books. No more art created by humans for humans. All that AI can produce is derivatives, unthinking mixes of things that have happened before.
We can’t throw away copyright just so the rich can be happy. It’s inhumane, in the most literal sense. Art is part of humanity.
If you love the arts. If you care about books and a future where there’s new music and new TV and new art, you need to defend the artists. If you live in the USA, please contact your representatives. If you are in the UK or Canada and facing similar issues, please contact your officials. If you live elsewhere, please don’t use AI. Don’t support it. Don’t make space for it.
Support your local artists. Buy the books. Listen to the music. Pay the artists.
Art is the heartbeat of a culture and it should not be silenced.
Easy way to contact your reps:
5calls.org
https://www.senate.gov/senators/senators-contact.htm
https://www.house.gov/representa…/find-your-representative