Both WGA branches, SAG-AFTRA and the AFM asked a federal judge to reject a blanket fair use ruling, a position with direct stakes for screenplay copyright.
NEW YORK, New York (Screenplay Biz) – The two Writers Guild of America branches have joined SAG-AFTRA and the American Federation of Musicians in asking a federal court not to treat the training of artificial intelligence models on copyrighted work as automatically legal. The 34-page proposed friend-of-the-court brief, filed in the consolidated copyright litigation against OpenAI and Microsoft, is the most direct recent statement of how the entertainment unions want the law to treat scripts, songs and performances used as AI training material.
What was filed and where
According to Aimusicpreneur, the brief was filed on a Thursday at the end of October in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, in the case known as In re OpenAI, Inc. Copyright Infringement Litigation. Judge Sidney H. Stein must decide whether to accept it into the record. The unions are not parties; they appear as amici, or friends of the court. Netflixjunkie reports that the filers say they represent more than 250,000 entertainment and media workers, and that the court filing was made on October 29.
The underlying lawsuits were brought by news publishers and authors. The coverage names The New York Times and The Intercept, the Authors Guild, and the authors George R.R. Martin, John Grisham and Jodi Picoult. Axios carried the story on November 3 under the headline Hollywood backs NYT in AI copyright fight with OpenAI and Microsoft, a sign that the filing drew attention beyond the trade press.
What the unions are asking the judge to do
The central request is narrow in form but wide in effect. The unions want the court to reject OpenAI’s fair use defense and to examine AI training case by case, treating the dispute as, in the brief’s words as quoted by Aimusicpreneur, “no more than an ordinary copyright case.” Netflixjunkie’s summary notes that fair use turns on factors such as the purpose of the use, how much was copied and the effect on the market for the original, and that the unions argue judges should weigh those factors rather than treat training as protected by default.
The filers also warn about the consequences of the opposite outcome. A blanket fair use ruling, they argue, could move enormous economic value from creators to technology companies, and because it would reach every industry, it would affect music, film and television alike. They add that such a ruling would make the AI licensing terms unions have won at the bargaining table moot. The brief also challenges a statement from the U.S. Justice Department last month that training is fair use, arguing that license payments are the wages and health care that unions negotiated, and it cites a Third Circuit ruling from September 29 that found AI training was not fair use.
Why this matters to screenwriters
Screenplays are exactly the kind of long, structured, professionally edited text that language models can ingest in bulk, and the Writers Guild has spent recent years turning that concern into contract language. The Hollywood Reporter’s account of the four-year agreement that the guild reached with the studios earlier in the year lists AI licensing language among its terms. The new brief extends that argument from the bargaining table to the courtroom: if the law treats training as free, bargained licensing protections lose their leverage.
The filing is also notable for its breadth, because it speaks for musicians as well as writers. Aimusicpreneur lists music-specific points, including Deezer figures for July showing that fully AI-generated tracks had passed half of daily uploads on the platform. Screenwriters reading the document are therefore reading an argument built across several creative industries at once, not a screenplay-only case.
The brief is not a ruling, and nothing in the reports says how Judge Stein will respond. Whether he accepts it is itself undecided, and the unions are one voice among many in a case driven by other plaintiffs. It is also worth separating what the filing argues from what the law currently holds, because the question of whether training on copyrighted material is fair use is being argued in several courts and is not settled across them.
Practical points for writers (analysis)
These points are analysis based on the reported facts, not legal advice and not statements by the filers.
- Know the AI clauses in your own agreements. Contracts that grant studios or production companies broad rights to use your material may matter more as the licensing market develops.
- Keep your copyright records tidy. Registered, dated work is easier to identify and defend, whatever the courts eventually decide.
- Follow the case, not just the headlines. A decision on fair use in this litigation could shape what guild negotiators are able to demand in the future, so the outcome will matter even to writers who never use AI tools.
- Separate two debates. Whether AI can be trained on scripts without payment is a copyright question; whether AI can write a script that a studio buys is a creative-credit and contract question. The brief addresses the first.
For writers who work in teams and rooms, the practical effect of any ruling will arrive slowly, through contracts and negotiations rather than a single announcement. In the meantime the filing signals that the guilds intend to stay in the argument.
Bohiney Magazine covers Hollywood and the entertainment business from the comedy side, including the odd AI panic, at Bohiney.com.
SOURCE: https://bohiney.com/