Top 10 Posts on the Kluwer Copyright Blog in 2025

As we enter a new year, we would like to take this opportunity to pass on our best wishes for 2026 to all of our readers, as well as reflect on developments in copyright over the past year. Last year was another busy one in the copyright world, with a continued focus on the relationship between AI and copyright, ongoing European copyright reform, a number of landmark CJEU decisions and notable developments in a number of jurisdictions.

Here is a look back at our 10 most-read posts last year:

1. Deepfake Bills in Denmark and the Netherlands: Right idea, wrong legal framework by P. Bernt Hugenholtz

Deepfakes are flooding the internet. Thanks to generative AI, politicians say things on camera they never said, celebrities star in porn clips they never dreamt about, and the Pope dons a puffer jacket he never wore.

Legislators everywhere are now responding.

2. Are the European TDM Exceptions Applicable to GenAI Training? Despite the Three-Step Test? by Martin Senftleben

After the adoption of the AI Act (AIA), the matter seemed to have been settled. With regard to generative AI models (GenAI), Recital 105 AIA refers explicitly to the exceptions for text and data mining (TDM) in the 2019 Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market (CDSMD). Article 53(1)(c) AIA adds the obligation to observe opt-outs declared by copyright holders under Article 4(3) CDSMD. Quite clearly, the EU legislator assumed that the TDM exceptions, including the broad exemption of (commercial) TDM in Article 4(1) CDSMD, could be invoked for GenAI training.

Criticising this approach, Axel Voss stated in his June 2025 Draft Report on Copyright and GenAI for the JURI Committee (2025/2058(INI)) that “the reference to the CDSM Directive in the AI Act is inadequate and fails to provide an appropriate and proportionate solution.”

3. Does Using In-Copyright Works as Training Data Infringe? by Pamela Samuelson

More than forty copyright-related lawsuits have been filed in U.S. courts against developers of generative artificial intelligence (genAI) systems. The most common complaint is that the developers infringed by making copies of in-copyright materials when using them as training data for the foundation models that power their AI systems. The genAI developers’ main defense in the U.S. cases is that training data uses of those works is fair use.

Bartz v. Anthropic and Kadrey v. Meta are the first two decisions in which judges have analyzed training data-related fair use defenses.

4. The Bartz v. Anthropic Settlement: Understanding America's Largest Copyright Settlement by Dave Hansen

When Anthropic agreed to pay $1.5 billion to settle a copyright lawsuit in August 2025, it became the largest copyright settlement in U.S. history. Three authors had sued, but nearly half a million ended up in the class. And a quarter of the money will go to lawyers.

How did we get here? The answer involves several features of American law that, combined, significantly affect the litigation strategy for copyright AI suits in the US. This post attempts to explain the suit and its settlement for those watching outside the US.

5. Copyright Infringements in Output of Generative AI: Who is liable for infringing reproductions? by Malte Baumann, Jan Bernd Nordemann and Jonathan Pukas 

Copyright and AI are everywhere these days. But it’s not just about whether copyrighted works are being used to train generative AI models (as many might assume). There are plenty of other copyright questions that come up as well. One that is often mentioned but rarely explored is this: if AI-generated content is copyright infringing,  like the German collective management organization GEMA argues in its (pending) case against SUNO before the German Landgericht (Regional Court) Munich I for example for the song “Daddy Cool” (written by Frank Farian und George Reyam, see picture of a comparison of the lead sheets for the original and the AI version generated as an output on SUNO), who is actually liable for copyright infringing output?

6. Copyright in Formaldehyde: How GEMA v OpenAI Freezes Doctrine and Chills AI by Giancarlo Frosio

[M]edia coverage, collecting-society press releases and early academic commentary have started to cast GEMA as a landmark for AI training in Europe. That, I think, is dangerous. So, this post tries to do what I have not had the time to do in the conference room: slow down, unpack what the Munich court actually did, and explain why it is a poor candidate for setting the legal frame for AI training in the EU.

7. Can copyright law benefit from the marking requirement of the AI Act? by Kateryna Militsyna

Using generative AI does not necessarily render output non-copyrightable. What matters is whether the human creative contribution to an AI-based outcome is sufficient. The question has been widely discussed in academia, and courts are now taking up the task of clarifying where to draw the line between copyrightable and non-copyrightable AI-based output. Yet, even once this line is established in theory, the issue may not be fully resolved in practice. 

8. Getty Images v Stability AI: A landmark judgment reinforcing the need for the UK government to amend its copyright laws by Estelle Derclaye

The landmark Getty Images v Stability AI judgment came out on 4 November 2025. The decision is a landmark one because it is the first UK case dealing with whether AI training infringes copyright. Some have already criticised it as not so revolutionary as many issues were dropped, including the claims for sui generis database rights and primary copyright infringement for the outputs. But nevertheless it is a landmark decision, as others agree, because the judge, Mrs Justice Joanna Smith DBE, interprets copyright concepts which had not been interpreted much previously and also clearly states the reasons Stability AI does not infringe copyright.

9. DPG Media et al vs. HowardsHome – A national ruling on DSM’s press publishers' rights and TDM exceptions by Etienne Valk and Iris Toepoel

The 2019 Copyright in the Digital Single Market (DSM) Directive is a complex legislative text that raises several questions of legal interpretation. Increasingly, these questions are making their way to national courts. A recent example is the Dutch case ruled upon by the Amsterdam District Court on 30 October 2024. The plaintiffs are the Belgian media companies DPG Media and Mediahuis (both dominant in the Dutch online commercial news sector with a combined market share of over 90%), together with Mediahuis’ Dutch newspaper NRC. The defendant is the company HowardsHome.

The case is particularly relevant because it is one of the first assessments by a Member State’s court of the scope of the DSM Directive’s press publishers right, as well as the appropriate manner of exercising opt-outs in compliance with the text and data mining exception in Article 4 of the DSM Directive.

10. Third European Court Decision on the General Purpose TDM Exception Is Out by Peter Mezei

Regular readers of the Kluwer Copyright Blog may already be familiar with the excellent reviews of the first two rulings on the European Union’s new text and data mining (TDM) exception – one from Germany (see the Kneschke v. LAION ruling) and one from the Netherlands (see the DPG Media v. HowardsHome ruling). The third TDM ruling originates from Hungary. The judgment, issued on 3 December 2024, deserves close attention, as the Municipal Court of Appeals of Hungary had to determine - among other things - whether the scraping of the plaintiff’s website by the leading global search engine, for the purposes of indexing relevant content and providing snippet views, falls within the general-purpose TDM exception under Article 4 of the CDSM Directive.