Think about your favorite song, movie or musical. Then consider how you enjoy, watch, listen or engage with that content. The answer? Copyright.

Copyright has not disappeared in the age of A.I., but it is being stress-tested in novel ways. Take music, for example. Digital service providers (DSPs) now report tens of thousands of A.I.-generated tracks being uploaded daily. Some of these tracks have even risen to the top levels of the listening charts, competing alongside human-created works. Generative systems are now producing scripts, visual art and music at scale, blurring the lines between inspiration, imitation and automation. Against this backdrop, current conversations around copyright will determine whether it remains a living promise to creators or becomes an artifact that companies politely acknowledge but can quietly route around. 

I have spent my career defending copyright on behalf of record labels, studios and creators. I now teach business students who are eager to both build with A.I. and protect the sanctity of human creativity. If copyright was ever at a crossroads, that moment is now. What a time to teach the future leaders of the entertainment industry about something that’s changing before our eyes.

A career framed by copyright’s evolution 

Before joining the full-time faculty of American University’s Kogod School of Business, where I am the director of the Billboard-recognized Business & Entertainment program, I spent decades working for companies that relied upon copyright—both for protection and for innovation; copyright not only protects catalogs of creative works, but it also justifies investing in new artists, stories and songs. Without predictable ownership and licensing frameworks, there is little incentive to finance risk. 

In 2013, I left corporate America precisely due to concerns that individual songwriters, filmmakers and other independent creators would be drowned out by better-funded voices when policy lines were drawn. In 2026, A.I. technologies have proven much of that worry held water. The shift from CDs to MP3s, and from physical distribution to streaming platforms like Netflix and Hulu, reshaped the economics of culture. Yet even those transitions were discrete format or platform shifts. Because the impact of A.I. is broader, the stakes surrounding A.I. are higher.

Unlike a new distribution model, A.I. systems can ingest vast quantities of copyrighted works in seconds, generate outputs at scale and compete directly with the very material that trained them. From this vantage point, the rise of A.I. makes stronger the underlying premise that a human author’s contribution should be the anchor of the creative ecosystem.

What the law is quietly signaling 

For all the chaos and uncertainty, U.S. law thus far has sent a clear message: humans are still at the center of copyright. The U.S. Copyright Office has emphasized that human authorship is required for protection; machine-only works do not qualify, a position courts have affirmed in cases like Thaler v. Perlmutter. 

At the same time, courts and agencies are debating whether ingesting massive amounts of copyrighted material to train A.I. models equals infringement or “fair use.” A growing wave of lawsuits—filed by authors, artists, music publishers and media companies—has produced early decisions that cut in different directions. Some judges have emphasized transformative use, while others have signaled limits. 

While we wait for these court opinions to help pave the legal rules of the road, some rightsholders are turning to licensing deals and settlements. These private negotiations between A.I. companies and publishers, music rights organizations and media companies hint that these training uses will be explicitly licensed rather than merely exploited in the future, the impact of which no one can really be sure of yet. These agreements may help formalize compensation structures, but they also raise questions about who has leverage to negotiate and who does not. Large catalog owners may secure deals. Independent creators often lack similar bargaining power. That imbalance represents one of the defining tensions of this moment. 

The legality of A.I. model training

When students ask whether it is “legal” to train A.I. models on copyrighted works scraped from the internet, they are really asking a deeper question: “Does my work matter if a machine can learn from it for free?” Today’s business students are digital natives and emerging rightsholders. Many are also artists themselves. They are experimenting with A.I. tools to write scripts, design campaigns and prototype businesses. And importantly, I do not tell them to turn away from these technologies. They are weighing whether and how a career in the entertainment industry will be sustainable in the years ahead. I expect the presence of A.I. to continue to grow, so they need to understand it deeply to achieve impact in their respective fields of passion.

Addressing the underlying trepidation around their work’s value is relatively easy, but the answer to the question around legality is more nuanced and complex. The current copyright framework was not built for a world where an A.I. system can absorb millions of books or songs in an instant, then generate outputs at scale that feel close enough to the originals to devalue them. Where technology moves exponentially, the law moves incrementally.  

Rather than offering simplistic answers, I prompt students to consider three questions that are increasingly shaping responsible engagement:

• Who owns the inputs to the model you are using, and did they have a real choice in providing content to the model?
• Are your outputs additive to human creativity, or simply cheaper substitutes for someone else’s work?
• If you succeed, will the creators whose work helped train these systems share in that success, or will they be further marginalized?

Those conversations are not theoretical. They will shape how this next generation writes contracts, builds companies and frames policy debates. If we do this right, A.I. literacy and copyright literacy will be taught side by side.

So, can copyright exist in the age of A.I.?

The current moment is marked by overlapping pressures: ongoing litigation, regulatory scrutiny, private licensing deals and workforce anxiety across the creative industries. Concurrently, A.I. adoption is accelerating inside studios, agencies and record labels. Companies are experimenting even as courts deliberate. 

The future of copyright in the A.I. era depends on whether policymakers, companies and educators reaffirm its core purpose: to protect and incentivize human creativity. Preserving the balance between innovation and authorship will require deliberate choices about consent, compensation and accountability before norms calcify around convenience. 

I’ve spent my career trying to make sure creators are not treated as collateral damage in someone else’s innovation story. In the age of A.I., copyright can still be a living promise, but only if we remember who it was written for—and if we give those human voices real power in shaping what comes next.

Not long ago, creativity was the sacred domain of human imagination. Now, A.I. drafts screenplays, remixes songs and even paints the next “masterpieces.” The rise of generative technology is reshaping the creative industry, challenging long-held notions of authorship, authenticity and intellectual property.

Over the last two years, artificial intelligence (A.I.)—technology the industry has used for years—shifted from a niche tool to a mainstream phenomenon. It became the hottest topic of the day, and then of the week, the year and probably now the century. ChatGPT sprang up as a household name, quickly becoming a tool that people of all ages began to use prolifically. In a matter of months, A.I. revealed itself to be much more than a far-off concept confined to sci-fi movies; A.I. rapidly integrated into business operations, transforming industries by streamlining customer service, optimizing data analysis, enhancing product design and automating content creation. 

Since 2013, I have taught a class at American University’s Kogod School of Business called “Protection of the Creative Class in the Digital Age.” When I initially wrote the syllabus, nascent technologies, digital advances and resulting piracy were central concepts of the course. What once felt like a timely discussion on emerging technologies has become an urgent curriculum on the seismic shifts A.I. brings to creative industries. Several times in the past year, students experience a visible “aha moment” when they suddenly realize why the full title of the course makes sense. They ask insightful questions to the creators who visit our classroom about how they protect themselves from the threats of A.I. bots training from their copyrighted works to create competitive material. 

Fast forward a decade. The meteoric rise of A.I. has since sparked novel conversations about technology’s role in fostering creativity. While creativity has traditionally been associated with human imagination, it is now being explored through the lens of a non-human entity. Technology can generate original works, analyze patterns and even assist in complex decision-making. With these advances, questions about “protecting the Creative Class” have evolved to encompass these new technologies, and it seems appropriate to consider an even bigger question.

Where is the role for human creators in this new A.I. ecosystem?

Technological advances and their impacts on business have been at the forefront of my thinking for decades. Before joining Kogod’s faculty full-time in 2023, I spent the bulk of my career working on policy issues of importance to the music, film and TV companies. A.I. presents a new challenge for traditional copyright industries, which, historically, have tended to agree on the importance of intellectual property considerations in the global business environment. With A.I. disrupting content creation, traditional copyright industries—once unified in their approach to intellectual property—found themselves divided on how A.I.-generated works should be classified, owned and monetized. This type of disagreement is what led to the Hollywood strikes of 2023, for example. Book authors, songwriters, music labels and major studios all look at A.I. through drastically different lenses. The important thing to teach students interested in these fields is why this is the case and how those lenses impact the business of entertainment across the industry. 

Kogod students go on to lead businesses, found companies, manage organizations and more. We quickly recognized the importance of incorporating A.I. into the day-to-day business school experience, ensuring students develop not only technical fluency in A.I. but also the strategic mindset to apply it ethically and effectively in their future careers. That means more than using A.I. in the classroom; it means equipping our students with the knowledge and skills required to navigate a world where technology and creativity have converged. 

It is crucial for educators to ensure students have both the tools and understanding to succeed in the modern-day workplace. That includes talking about the ways technology can be (and is actively being!) used inappropriately. From unauthorized A.I.-generated remixes to entire books written using uncredited source material, students must critically evaluate how A.I. intersects with intellectual property and advocate for ethical and transparent creative practices.

To that end, Kogod was honored to have co-hosted the 4th Annual Artist Rights Symposium on AU’s campus. Because the event was held in Washington, D.C., we brought together global thought leaders from government, academia, trade associations and corporations to discuss key issues surrounding artists’ rights in the age of A.I. The industry’s top minds clashed over one question: Can A.I. create art, or is it just sophisticated theft? Lawyers, executives and artists debated how to protect creativity in a world where an A.I. model can remix your life’s work in seconds. The event underscored the urgency of establishing legal frameworks and best practices that protect creative ownership while allowing for technological innovation. Two key panels in particular—entitled, “Show Me the Creator: Transparency requirements for A.I. technology,” and “Name, Image & Likeness Rights in the Age of AI: Current initiatives to protect creator rights and attribution”—squarely posed the timeliest questions about key policy issues that will impact the entertainment industry for years to come, if not forever.

As for the future of my “Creative Class” course, we will work to distinguish how A.I. can serve as a tool to augment human creativity, rather than replace it. Human creators find themselves at a pivotal crossroads in this moment; to find the fair and proper balance between human and machine. How does an artist prove their worth when A.I. can mimic their style in seconds? And if A.I. can create faster, cheaper and at scale, will audiences still value the human touch? The stakes are high for students, artists, and entire industries. That’s why I want to call on all creators, and my students who study them, to leverage A.I.’s power to amplify creativity, ensure originality and set ethical standards in the next era of artistic innovation.