The Taxpayers Protection Alliance (TPA), a Washington D.C.-based nonprofit, has filed an amicus brief with the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. The brief challenges a district court’s decision to use class certification in a copyright case involving artificial intelligence (AI).
TPA President David Williams stated:
“TPA is a strong supporter of intellectual property (IP) rights and strongly champions the rights of copyright, patent, and trademark holders. For these critical rights to be protected, each alleged infringement case must be closely examined and rise and fall on its own merits. The district court is undermining this pivotal principle by irresponsibly using class certification to paint with a broad brush and ignore key concepts in copyright law, such as fair use. Copyright holders, AI consumers/users, and taxpayers deserve a more thorough approach that delves into the specifics of infringement cases and takes all the evidence into account. Class certification is the wrong way to accomplish this.
“This is no ordinary copyright dispute — it’s a test case for the future of AI, creative rights, and the boundaries of innovation. Yet the district court charged ahead, certifying an unprecedented copyright class while waving away the thorniest legal issue in the case without the rigorous scrutiny the law demands. It decided a core merits question at the certification stage, short-circuiting a debate that deserves full, careful, adversarial consideration. The Ninth Circuit must step in to correct that error, protect the integrity of class procedure, and ensure the fair use question is properly litigated — not preemptively buried.”
The TPA was founded in 2011 and works to promote government transparency by educating people through research and investigative reporting about how excessive taxation affects society.
