Ray Seilie was recently featured in Law360 as part of its annual roundup, “Copyright Cases To Watch in 2026,” examining the most consequential copyright disputes expected to shape the legal landscape this year, particularly those involving artificial intelligence.
The article looks at ongoing lawsuits and appeals that could determine how much freedom AI developers have to train their systems using existing content, such as news articles, software code, artwork and other copyrighted works. One key issue is whether copyright holders can bring claims against AI companies based on technical violations of copyright rules, even if an AI system does not directly copy or reproduce protected material in its outputs.
Ray maintains that if courts allow these types of claims to move forward, it could materially strengthen copyright holders’ position in the eyes of the law. “If they could secure a court holding that says even technical violations of the CMI rules under the DMCA are enough to result in liability,” he tells Law360, “then they would have a tremendous amount of leverage, because then they don’t need to prove that these AI models are generating outputs that violate copyrights.”
