Most professional journalists are hesitant to write about proposed legislation, much less speak in favor of it. There’s a centuries-old proverb about going to poultry farms to count eggs too soon. And as a legislative poultry farm, Washington, D.C., chickens drop a lot of unhatched eggs.

The COPIED Act feels different because it takes on the largest unaddressed macro problem we face as a species — artificial intelligence (AI) — by breaking off a relatively small piece of it. It is a piece that is also relatively easy to understand, unlike much of AI and Quantum. (In simple terms, AI is the process or methodology — think software — to Quantum Computer, which would be the hardware.)

The Content Origin Protection and Integrity from Edited and Deepfaked Media Act (COPIED Act) aims to protect journalists, artists and songwriters from rapidly developing AI, which is pilfering content from creators at a frightening scale as it grows in sophistication.

Full (if obvious) disclosure that this news organization has a strong interest in seeing something done. 

The COPIED Act was introduced July 10 by U.S. Senators Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) and Martin Heinrich, (D-N.M.)

Blackburn constituents include people who live in and around Nashville, a veritable feast of high-name-recognition entertainers. Think singer-songwriters like Kenny Chesney, Sheryl Crow, Dolly Parton, Taylor Swift, Keith Urban and so on.

New Mexico is a nationally dominant player in film production, which likewise has lured a lot of creatives, who are also constituents of Heinrich’s.

We know Cantwell’s interest given Washington is at the forefront of AI, cloud computing and big data, the term being used for data that grows exponentially and is used in machine learning. It is home to many tech companies, small and large — including Redmond-based Microsoft — a dominant player in AI.

The legislation proposes the creation of transparency standards by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), which would develop guidelines and standards for content provenance information, watermarking and synthetic content detection. NIST also would develop cybersecurity measures to prevent tampering with the disclosures attached to AI content.

The COPIED Act would require providers of AI tools that generate creative or journalistic content to allow owners of that content to attach details of provenance, and prohibit the removal of the watermarks that do that.

It would also prohibit the unauthorized use of content with provenance information to train AI models or generate AI content. Importantly, the legislation has teeth in that it would give individuals a right to sue violators and authorize the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and state attorneys general to enforce the bill.

Likewise, newspapers, broadcasters, artists and other content owners would be able to bring suit in court against platforms or others who use their content without permission.

It isn’t clear the degree to which the seemingly high bar in terms of who can be held accountable — a covered platform would have to generate $50 million in annual revenue, or have at least 25 million monthly users — may undermine the overall effort.

But it’s a big start.     

Cantwell, who serves as chair of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, has taken a leadership role in the Senate on artificial intelligence. In April, she teamed with Blackwell and Senators Todd Young (R-IN) and John Hickenlooper (D-Colo) on the Future of Innovation Act, which “lays the foundation to maintain U.S. leadership in the global race” to develop AI. In May she teamed with Jerry Moran (R-Kan) on the NSF AI Education Act, which would expand scholarship and professional development opportunities to study artificial and quantum with support from the National Science Foundation.

The scope and speed at which AI is advancing — across all industries — can defy comprehension. It’s so big that inertia is natural, otherwise the appeal of the fetal position could take hold, certainly for me.

Breaking it down is key, as is showing what it actually looks like.

Some insight can be gleaned from a lawsuit filed by The New York Times at the end of 2023. It sued OpenAI and Microsoft alleging that millions of NYT articles were used to train its automated chatbots, which are now being used to compete with the New York Times. Motions have been filed to dispense with parts of it. Only time will tell where that goes.

There is plenty of other litigation underway. There is also legislation happening at the state level. Right now states are busy doing their own things.

The beauty of the COPIED Act is that the guardrails it proposes are easy to understand. No one wants their work copied, restaged or reworked, and then sold elsewhere without compensation or even acknowledgement, only to be recast in a form that eliminates jobs and perhaps far worse. Taking on just one small part could well open the door to others. 

AI is piling on when it comes to local news. The U.S. has lost nearly 2,900 newspapers since 2005, according to the Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications at Northwestern University. In its annual report released in November 2023, it said the nation was on pace to lose one-third of all newspapers in place in 2005 by the end of this year.

The Port Townsend and Jefferson County Leader joins The Seattle Times, News/Media Alliance, the National Newspaper Association, and Rebuild Local News, among other organizations like SAG AFTRA and the Recording Academy, in supporting Senator Cantwell’s efforts to protect the work of legitimate news organizations and other content creators through.

We urge other small community news organizations to review this legislation and join the list of larger organizations supporting the effort, as we have.

We need to start where we are, and maybe the COPIED Act can be a catalyst toward more comprehensive legislation that helps ensure artificial intelligence serves humanity, rather than the other way around. 

Meredith Jordan can be reached at editor@ptleader.com.