A collective of approximately 800 prominent figures in the arts, including authors, actors, and musicians, has launched a campaign against what they describe as large-scale intellectual property theft by artificial intelligence companies. Dubbed “Stealing Isn’t Innovation,” the campaign boasts signatories such as acclaimed writers George Saunders and Jodi Picoult, actors Cate Blanchett and Scarlett Johansson, and musicians including R.E.M., Billy Corgan, and The Roots.

The campaign’s press release criticizes technology companies for their aggressive push to dominate the emerging generative AI space. “Driven by intense competition, these profit-driven tech giants, some of the wealthiest entities globally, along with private equity-backed firms, have unlawfully replicated vast amounts of creative content from the internet without compensating the original creators,” the statement asserts. “This unauthorized appropriation jeopardizes the integrity of information, fosters misinformation, produces deepfakes, and overwhelms the digital landscape with low-quality content, thereby risking the stability of AI models and undermining the United States’ AI leadership and global competitiveness.”

The initiative is spearheaded by the Human Artistry Campaign, a coalition that includes the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), professional athletes’ unions, and performers’ unions such as SAG-AFTRA. “Stealing Isn’t Innovation” will promote its message through full-page advertisements in newspapers and social media outlets. The campaign advocates for the establishment of licensing agreements, the enforcement of rights, and the ability for artists to exclude their work from being used in generative AI training.

On a national scale, efforts by former President Donald Trump and his technology industry supporters aim to influence state regulations concerning AI and penalize non-compliance. Meanwhile, at the corporate level, there is a growing trend of collaboration between tech companies and rights holders who were previously at odds. These parties are increasingly engaging in licensing agreements that permit AI companies to utilize protected works, with licensing now seen as a mutually acceptable solution. For instance, major record labels have teamed up with AI music startups to grant access to their catalogs for AI-driven remixing and model training. Some digital publishers, having previously pursued legal action against AI firms using their content, are endorsing a licensing framework that allows them to restrict their content from appearing in AI search outputs. Additionally, certain media outlets have reached individual agreements with technology firms to enable AI chatbots to feature news content. (Disclosure: Vox Media, which owns The Verge, has a licensing arrangement with OpenAI.)