IP Law Daily, COPYRIGHT NEWS: Bill would require AI companies to disclose their use of copyrighted training materials, (Feb 12, 2026)

By Matthew Hersh, J.D.

The Copyright Office would be required to maintain a publicly available database.

Artificial intelligence developers that train their models with materials protected by a registered copyright would be required to publicly disclose that use if a bill newly introduced in the Senate becomes law. The bipartisan piece of legislation, known as the Copyright Labeling and Ethical AI Reporting (CLEAR) Act, is the initiative of U.S. Senator Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) and has the co-sponsorship of Senator John Curtis (R-Utah).

The relatively short bill, if adopted, would impose strict obligations on AI developers. The bill requires that any person who uses registered copyrighted materials as part of a “training dataset in connection with the training or release of a generative AI model” must disclose that use to the Copyright Office at least 30 days before the model is released or used commercially. (For AI models that have already been released before the effective date of the Act, developers would have 30 days after the time that the Copyright Office develops implementing regulations.) The notice would be required to include “a sufficiently detailed summary of each copyrighted work in the training dataset” as well as a URL for the training set. The Copyright Office would be required to make those notices available in a public database.

In a public statement, Senator Schiff noted that “[w]hile AI has the potential to improve our lives and change the way we work and innovate, we need a unified approach to implementing guardrails that protect the work and livelihoods of all workers, including artists and creators.” He described the bill as “an important step toward ensuring transparency in the development of AI models and making sure creators are fairly compensated for their work.” Senator Curtis, in turn, emphasized that “Congress must help encourage AI innovation, but not without transparency and accountability.” By “shedding light on how generative AI models are trained,” he stated, “our bipartisan legislation will help build public trust for emerging technologies and foster the best of American creativity.”

Although the bill has only one Senate cosponsor at the present, it bill has been endorsed by a wide variety of organizations in the creative community, including the American Society of Composers Authors and Publishers, the Authors Guild, the National Music Publishers Association, the Recording Industry Association of America, the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, the Songwriters Guild of America, and over a dozen others.

This is the second time that the same legislation has been introduced in Congress. It was first introduced in the House of Representatives in 2024 by Adam Schiff when he was then a member of the House. The bill was referred to the Judiciary Committee but did not receive a hearing.

News: Copyright TechnologyInternet