Washington, D.C. – Today, following the introduction of the Copyright Labeling and Ethical AI Reporting (CLEAR) Act by U.S. Senators Adam Schiff (D-CA) and John Curtis (R-UT), Re:Create Executive Director Brandon Butler released the following statement opposing this legislation:
“The CLEAR Act would erase the U.S.’s crucial competitive advantage in AI: the fair use right. The bill creates an extraordinary bureaucratic burden that would send companies and investments fleeing overseas and crush all but the most massive American AI developers,” said Executive Director Brandon Butler. “Requiring an exhaustive ‘disclosure’ of lawful activity isn’t just anti-competitive—it’s un-American. The CLEAR Act would impose a regulatory squeeze on American innovation, and it would have a fatal, chilling effect on academic and non-profit research as well as commercial startups and small and medium enterprises (SMEs).”
American companies lead the internet sector, and American creators lead global culture, thanks to fair use. American creators and innovators have had flexible fair use rights recognized by courts for nearly 200 years, codified by Congress in the Copyright Act of 1976. Fair use is essential to the American economy and a recent report from Re:Create member, Computer & Communications Industry Association Research Center, found that fair use supports millions of jobs (22 million) across diverse industries and accounts for nearly one-fifth of U.S. GDP ($10.2 trillion).
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About Re:Create: Re:Create is a coalition comprised of a broad membership of think tanks, advocacy organizations, libraries, technology companies – large and small – that serves as the leading coalition united in the fight for a balanced copyright system that is pro-innovation, pro-creator, and pro-consumer. Not every member of the Re:Create Coalition necessarily agrees on every issue, but the views we express represent the consensus among the bulk of our membership.