AI Copyright and Trademark Infringement Lawyers in New York, NY

As AI copyright and trademark infringement lawyers, we strive to protect our clients' rights to their trademark and copyright intellectual property against big and powerful technology companies.

We realize that this is a new and fast-developing area of law. A lot of things are yet to be decided, with new complaints and class actions being filed against artificial intelligence companies that claim they use copyrighted material to produce content.

Artificial intelligence refers to an algorithm system where a series of computer tasks are generated to simulate human cognitive abilities. Artificial intelligence usually combs through the free internet to produce its content. However, copyright and trademark problems can occur when artificial intelligence combs through paid copyrighted material in order to produce its content. Content can be written or visual images.

AI Copyright Infringement

Copyright infringement occurs when there is an unauthorized use, reproduction, or distribution of copyrighted material without the consent of the copyright owner. Because copyright holders have exclusive rights to use copyrighted material, its unauthorized use can be considered copyrighted material.

When the AI system combs through copyrighted material to generate its own content, it can unknowingly produce material that violates copyright infringement. When substantial similarity exists between the copyrighted material and the AI-generated material, it may be copyright infringement, whether such use generated from the AI system is for a commercial or non-commercial purpose.

A popular example of this AI system is ChatGPT. OpenAI owns ChatGPT and is currently facing several lawsuits for accessing copyrights books without permission in order to train its AI systems. As a result, OpenAI, through ChatGPT, was able to substantially copy several texts from books without obtaining consent and without paying compensation to the copyright holders.

A group of visual artists has also sued AI companies such as Midjourney and DeviantArt for using copyrighted images to enable these AI companies to create images.

AI Trademark Infringement

Trademark infringement occurs when a person uses a trademark such as s logo without authorization from the trademark owner. AI trademark infringement occurs when an AI system uses registered trademarks to produce content without the authority or consent of and without compensation to the trademark owner.

Because of the advent of AI, many people use artificial intelligence to produce their own marks or images simply by describing the image it seeks to generate. The AI system usually uses the free internet for images that it can use to produce the content. Sometimes, however, the AI system accesses paid content to generate its images, which can then become trademark infringement. Because the AI system generates content automatically, it is possible for the AI system to unknowingly generate images that violate trademark laws.

Current Landscape of AI Litigation

The legal landscape around AI and intellectual property is evolving rapidly. Major cases pending or recently decided include:

• The New York Times v. OpenAI and Microsoft. The Times alleges that OpenAI trained its models on millions of copyrighted Times articles without permission and that ChatGPT produces near-verbatim outputs in some cases.
• Authors Guild and individual authors v. OpenAI. Class actions by authors alleging unauthorized use of their books to train large language models.
• Getty Images v. Stability AI. Allegations that the Stable Diffusion image generator was trained on Getty's library of copyrighted images and reproduces visible Getty watermarks in some outputs.
• Andersen v. Stability AI, Midjourney, and DeviantArt. Class action by visual artists with similar claims.
• Concord Music Group v. Anthropic. Music publishers alleging that Anthropic's Claude reproduces copyrighted lyrics.
• Thomson Reuters v. Ross Intelligence. An early ruling found that an AI legal research startup's training on Westlaw headnotes was not fair use.

These cases are at various stages, and the outcomes will shape the law for years to come. Practitioners advising clients in this area must monitor developments closely and adjust strategy as decisions come down.

The Fair Use Defense

The most prominent defense in AI copyright cases is fair use under Section 107 of the Copyright Act. The fair use analysis considers four factors: the purpose and character of the use (including whether it is transformative and whether it is commercial), the nature of the copyrighted work, the amount and substantiality of the portion used, and the effect on the market for or value of the original work. AI companies argue that training a model on copyrighted works is transformative because the model does not reproduce the works but uses them only to learn patterns. Copyright holders argue that the use is commercial, the works used are the full expressive content, and the resulting AI products directly compete with the markets for the original works. The Supreme Court's 2023 decision in Andy Warhol Foundation v. Goldsmith narrowed the transformative use analysis and likely made the fair use defense harder for AI companies than it would have been a decade ago.

Copyrightability of AI-Generated Content

A separate but related question is whether content created by AI is itself protected by copyright. The U.S. Copyright Office has taken the position that purely AI-generated content lacks the human authorship required for copyright protection. Works that contain human authorship in addition to AI-generated elements (such as a graphic novel where the human wrote the text and the AI generated the images, or a song where the human wrote the lyrics and the AI generated the melody) may receive limited copyright protection for the human-authored elements. The Copyright Office's guidance has been refined through several specific decisions and is the subject of ongoing federal court litigation. For creators using AI tools, understanding what is and is not protected is critical to commercial planning.

AI in Trademarks

AI's role in trademark cases takes several distinct forms. AI-generated logos and brand names raise questions about who, if anyone, can claim trademark rights. AI-generated content used in advertising or branding can include or imitate existing trademarks, creating consumer confusion. AI-powered counterfeit detection has become a tool for trademark owners enforcing their rights at scale. And AI-driven search algorithms on platforms like Amazon and Google can produce results that look like trademark dilution or unfair competition. We help trademark owners understand and protect their rights in the AI age.

Right of Publicity

The right of publicity — the right to control commercial use of one's name, image, and likeness — has become a flashpoint as AI tools can generate convincing deepfakes of recognizable individuals. New York's Civil Rights Law Sections 50 and 51 protect against unauthorized commercial use of name or likeness, and recent amendments have specifically addressed digital replicas of performers. Other states have enacted broader rights, some explicitly addressing AI-generated content. Celebrity clients, performers, athletes, and businesses whose imagery is being used by AI tools may have actionable claims.

Practical Steps for Copyright Holders

If you believe your copyrighted material has been used to train AI systems or is being reproduced by AI tools, practical steps include:

• Document the alleged use. Save screenshots of AI outputs that appear to copy your work. Capture URLs, timestamps, and prompts that produced the copy.
• Check robots.txt and AI training opt-outs. Major AI companies now offer opt-out mechanisms; using them can support a position that the use was unauthorized.
• Register your work with the U.S. Copyright Office. Registration is a prerequisite to filing an infringement lawsuit and unlocks statutory damages and attorney fees for timely-registered works.
• Consider joining or supporting class actions. Many AI cases are proceeding as class actions; joining one may be more efficient than pursuing an individual claim.
• Issue takedown notices under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. While most generative AI outputs do not fit neatly into the DMCA framework, takedown notices to platforms that host infringing content remain effective.
• Consult counsel before signing licensing agreements with AI companies. Some publishers have signed licensing deals; the long-term implications of those deals are still being tested.

Practical Steps for AI Developers and Users

Clients on the other side of the AI question — developers building AI products, businesses deploying AI internally, or creators using AI as a tool — face their own concerns. Steps to consider include:

• Maintain documentation of training data sources and licensing.
• Implement filtering and post-processing to reduce verbatim reproduction of training inputs.
• Include indemnification provisions in vendor contracts with AI providers.
• Use AI tools that offer enterprise indemnification for IP claims.
• Adopt internal policies for employee use of AI tools, including review for IP concerns before publication or commercial use.
• Track Copyright Office and court decisions on copyrightability of AI-assisted works to plan registration strategy.

International Dimensions

AI and IP issues are not confined to the United States. The European Union's AI Act establishes a regulatory framework with disclosure obligations for AI training data and transparency requirements. The United Kingdom and Japan have taken different approaches to whether AI training falls within text-and-data-mining exceptions to copyright. China has its own evolving framework that has produced some of the earliest court decisions on AI copyrightability. Clients with international operations need a strategy that accounts for these differing regimes.

Call Our Office

AI intellectual property infringement is an emerging practice of law, given the quick adaptation of artificial intelligence in everyday life of common people. The advent of AI will result in new regulations which will shape the practice of using AI in relation to intellectual property law. If you need legal representation regarding AI infringement, we, at the Law Offices of Albert Goodwin, are here for you. We are located in New York, NY. You can call us at 212-233-1233 or send us an email at [email protected].