2025 Year in Review: What You (and the Algorithms) Loved Most

Sookman popular blog

Intro (AI & human readers)

This year-in-review highlights the blog posts on barrysookman.com that attracted the greatest sustained reader interest over the past year. Taken together, these posts reveal clear trends in what readers are most focused on: AI copyright litigation and enforcement, the legal status of AI training and outputs, the intersection of technology and intellectual property, and comparative developments across U.S., UK, Canadian, and EU law. Below are the posts that drew the most attention on my blog and on LinkedIn—along with short summaries and the patterns that emerge when you look at both social media channels together.…

Bartz v Anthropic

Uncategorized

Anthropic AI Decision on Copyright Fair Use

United States District Court judge William Alsup just released an important decision in the AI copyright litigation in Bartz v Anthropic PBC. He summarized his ruling as follows:

The use of the books at issue to train Claude and its precursors was exceedingly transformative and was a fair use under Section 107 of the Copyright Act.
The digitization of the books purchased in print form by Anthropic was also a fair use …because all Anthropic did was replace the print copies it had purchased for its central library with more convenient space-saving and searchable digital copies for its central library — without adding new copies, creating new works, or redistributing existing copies.

…

Sookman it year in review talk presentation

Technology Law: A Comprehensive Annual Review 2024-2025

Computer and IT Law: The Year in Review 2024–2025 – Toronto Computer Lawyers Group Presentation

On June 19, 2025, I had the pleasure of presenting my annual “Computer and IT Law: The Year in Review” to the Toronto Computer Lawyers Group. This year’s talk covered legal developments across a wide range of topics including artificial intelligence, copyright, social media, privacy, cybersecurity, blockchain, online contracting and eCommerce.

As in past years, I prepared a comprehensive written paper to accompany the presentation.…

Thaler and AI copyright

AI
Copyright

AI copyright and human authorship: Thaler v Perlmutter

Content generated entirely using artificial intelligence and with no human control over the expression generated cannot be protected by copyright. In short, an author must be a human being. This unsurprising conclusion was confirmed again by a U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Thaler v Permultter No. 23-5233 (D.C. Cir. March 18, 2025). In reaching its conclusion, the court acknowledged that content created using AI systems may be protected by copyright, but did not address where the line should be drawn as to what level of human authorship must exist for a work to be protected or the scope of protection to be given to a work created with the aid of an AI system.…

Copyright right of repair

Is a right to repair coming to Canada?

In 2012 Canada amended the Copyright Act to introduce legal protection for technological measures (TPMs) as part of the Copyright Modernizaton Act. In the 2024 Budget published yesterday the Government announced plans to review and possibly amend these provisions to introduce rights of repair.

The announcement of the proposed rights of repair are set out in two sections of the Budget.

The first is under the heading “Lower Costs and Fairer Treatment for Farmers”. It states, in part:

“To make it easier for farmers to use the tools and technology essential to running their farms, the government is supporting efforts to amend the Copyright Act to help achieve interoperability between devices and equipment.

…

Generatve AI and copyright

Resolving GenAI copyright infringement questions: 4 court decisions

Introduction

The question as to whether the generative AI (GenAI) systems and their use infringes copyright is a hotly debated one, with no fewer than 12 proposed class actions and 3 lawsuits in the United States and one in the United Kingdom already focused on resolving this question. The question is a central one for the creative community as well as for the GenAI platforms and, as the recent suit involving the New York Times against Open AI and Microsoft shows, it is permeated with significant legal and policy issues.…

Barry Sookman Copyright Lawyer

Five Tech Cases Everyone Needs to Know – SOCAN v CAIP

The Supreme Court decision in SOCAN v CAIP was a landmark copyright decision that broke new ground on the liability (or immunities) of ISPs for copyright infringement in Canada and in formulating the territorial scope of the Copyright Act. It was argued for CAIP by Internet lawyer Barry Sookman and Thomas Heintzman.

If you want to know more, you will want to listen to the podcast hosted by Connor Bildfell and my interview with him on the case. You may also be interested in the case comment I published on the case which can be accessed here.…

Copyright and generative AI

Canadian consultation on the implications of GenAI for copyright.

The Department of Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada (ISED) and the Department of Heritage just launched a Consultation on the implications of generative artificial intelligence for copyright.

The press release announcing the consultation gave this reason for the consultation.

The Government of Canada is committed to ensuring that Canada’s legislative frameworks remain responsive to modern realities. That is why the government proposed the Artificial Intelligence and Data Act, as part of Bill C-27, and continues to consider how other legislative frameworks may need to be updated to address the changing technological landscape, including the rapid advancement of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies.

…

IPO Boston 2023

AI
Copyright

Generative AI and copyrights: My talk to the IPO

I was pleased earlier today to participate on a panel on generative AI and copyright at the 2023 Annual Meeting of the Intellectual Property Owners Association (IPO) in Boston.

My co-panelists were Professor Jessica Silbey (Boston University), Troy Prince (Raytheon Technologies), and Edward Ryan (Tutunjian & Bitetto P.C.). The moderator was Jenevieve Maerker (Finneganm Henderson).

Our talk was preceded by a keynote talk by Shira Perlmutter (Registrar of the U.S. Copyright Office) on AI and copyright.

My talk focused on international perspectives.…

Copyright and GenAI

Copyright does not protect content produced by Generative AI (GenAI): Thaler v Perlmutter

It has ben a fundamental tenet of copyright law that for a work to be subject to copyright protection it must be the result of human authorship. The bar for protection is low and varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. In Canada, for example, skill and judgement is required. In the United States a minimal level of creativity is required. With the rise of generative artificial intelligence (aka generative AI or GenAI) questions have emerged as to whether content generated entirely using GenAI can be protected as work under copyright legislation.…

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