On December 16, 2024, Shira Perlmutter, head of the U.S. Copyright Office,[1] provided the relevant subcommittees of the Senate and House Judiciary Committees with an update on the Copyright Office’s ambitious investigation into the intersection of generative Artificial Intelligence (“AI”) and copyright law and policy.[2]

In August 2023, as we reported previously on this blog, the Copyright Office issued a Notice of Inquiry in the Federal Register on generative AI.[3]  The Notice of Inquiry received more than 10,300 written comments from a wide variety of stakeholders.[4]  In February 2024, the Copyright Office announced that it intended to release a report in several sections through 2024 (the “Report”).[5]  On July 31, 2024, the Copyright Office released “Part 1:  Digital Replicas.”[6]  As discussed previously on this blog, Part 1 of the Report proposes a new, comprehensive statute to deal with the potential harms posed by digital replicas (after discussing shortcomings in current law). 

On November 13, 2024, Ms. Perlmutter testified before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Intellectual Property that the Copyright Office planned to complete the Report by the end of 2024.[7]  However, as disclosed in Ms. Perlmutter’s December 16 Update, the Copyright Office will not meet that timeline.[8]  The Copyright Office now plans to release Part 2, concerning “the copyrightability of generative AI outputs,” in early January 2025 and Part 3, addressing “the legal issues related to the ingestion of copyrighted works to train AI models, including licensing considerations and the allocation of potential liability,” in the first quarter of 2025.[9]  

We will continue to monitor for the Copyright Office’s release of the remaining Parts of its Report.

[1] Ms. Perlmutter’s full title is Register of Copyrights and Director.

[2] U.S. Copyright Office, Letter to Senators Chris Coons and Thom Tillis, and Representatives Darrell Issa and Henry C. Johnson (Dec. 16, 2024) (The “December 16 Update”), https://www.copyright.gov/laws/hearings/US-Copyright-Office-Letter-To-Congress-Providing-Updates-On-Its-Artificial-Intelligence-Initiative.pdf.

[3] See 88 Fed. Reg. 59,942 (Aug. 30, 2023).

[4] See Regulations.gov, Artificial Intelligence and Copyright, https://www.regulations.gov/docket/COLC-2023-0006/comments.

[5] U.S. Copyright Office, Letter to Senators Chris Coons and Thom Tillis, and Representatives Darrell Issa and Henry C. Johnson at 6 (Feb. 23, 2024), https://copyright.gov/laws/hearings/USCO-Letter-on-AI-and-Copyright-Initiative-Update-Feb-23-2024.pdf?loclr=blogcop.

[6] Part 1 of the Report is available at https://www.copyright.gov/ai/Copyright-and-Artificial-Intelligence-Part-1-Digital-Replicas-Report.pdf.

[7] Testimony of Shira Perlmutter, Oversight Hearing Before the Subcommittee on Intellectual Property, Committee on the Judiciary of the U.S. Senate (Nov. 13, 2024), available at https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/committee-activity/hearings/11/06/2024/oversight-of-the-united-states-copyright-office.

[8]  December 16 Update at 2.

[9] Id.