US senators introduce bipartisan bill to make it easier to sue tech companies over AI copyright theft

Sens. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) rolled out bipartisan legislation to make it easier for people to sue tech companies for pirating their data to train artificial intelligence models — calling the rampant practice “the largest intellectual property theft in American history”

The proposed AI Accountability and Personal Data Protection Act — which follows a recent hearing in which the US lawmaker accused companies including Meta and OpenAI of pirating vast amounts of protected material — would bar AI companies from training on personal data or copyrighted works.

“AI companies are robbing the American people blind while leaving artists, writers, and other creators with zero recourse,” Hawley said in a statement. “It’s time for Congress to give the American worker their day in court to protect their personal data and creative works.”

The bill would allow people to sue for use of their personal data or copyrighted works without giving consent. It would also require companies to disclose which third parties will be given access to data if consent is granted, and provides for financial penalties and injunctive relief.

The Post has sought comment from Meta and OpenAI.

Hawley added that the “bipartisan legislation would finally empower working Americans who now find their livelihoods in the crosshairs of Big Tech’s lawlessness.”

Blumenthal, his Democratic partner on the bill, underscored privacy risks and the need for legal recourse.

“Tech companies must be held accountable — and liable legally — when they breach consumer privacy, collecting, monetizing or sharing personal information without express consent,” he said.

In recent years, tech firms have been sued by content creators and publishers who allege that their copyrighted material was “scraped” for use by AI models.

Thomson Reuters successfully sued Ross Intelligence, saying Ross used Westlaw’s copyrighted legal headnotes to build its legal research AI. In February, a federal court agreed, ruling that Ross was guilty of copyright infringement.

The news agency is seeking unspecified damages.

In December 2023, the New York Times filed suit against OpenAI and Microsoft alleging that its articles were used to train systems such as GPT‑4 without permission. That case is ongoing.

Last month, a federal judge said Anthropic’s use of books to train its AI model was “highly transformative” and counted as fair use, but that keeping direct copies (“pirated” versions) in a central library was “direct infringement.” The fight over damages and remedies is still ahead.

Authors including Richard Kadrey say Meta used their books without permission to train LLaMA and other large language models. A court said Meta’s use was also “highly transformative” and fair use, but the case continues over whether any stored “pirated” materials create liability.