WASHINGTON, D.C. – At a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing yesterday, Senator Peter Welch (D-Vt.) questioned Shira Perlmutter, Director of the U.S. Copyright Office, about the need for increased transparency around the use of AI, and discussed his legislative efforts to increase transparency and protect copyrighted works from being used by AI without consent or compensation.  

“It’s really tough for many artists if their material is used to train AI. My view is that they should be notified of that. My view is that they should be compensated for that. But there’s no way in which they can actually get the information, and I’m considering legislation which would make it more possible for them to do that….In terms of your experience and your position, are you getting expressions of concern from the creative community about the use of their work to train AI and their inability to have any way of determining whether, in fact, that’s the case?” asked Senator Welch. 

Director Perlmutter responded: “Yes, absolutely. Certainly, concerns about use of their work to train AI, and that’s where we will be talking about the fair use analysis in our upcoming report. But, also the transparency issue, because the copyright owners are expressing concern that unless they know if their work was used to train, they can’t do anything about it, whether it’s to license or to bring a lawsuit. And this is an area, of course, that touches other interests besides copyright as well, there’s a lot of reasons why transparency is important in AI training,” testified Director Perlmutter. 

Watch the Senator’s full remarks below: 

Senator Welch has led efforts in the Senate to strengthen consumer protections and safety regulations regarding AI. In March, Senator Welch joined Senator Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.) in introducing the Artificial Intelligence Consumer Opt-In, Notification Standards, and Ethical Norms for Training (AI CONSENT) Act, legislation that would require online platforms to obtain consumers’ express informed consent before using their personal data to train AI models. This Congress, Senator Welch and Senator Michael Bennet (D-Colo.) introduced the Digital Platform Commission Act, legislation to create an expert federal agency to provide comprehensive regulation of digital platforms to protect consumers, promote competition, and safeguard the public interest. 

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