Show-Me State Times

U.S. Senator Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) chaired a Judiciary subcommittee hearing focused on the use of copyrighted content by artificial intelligence (AI) companies, highlighting concerns over alleged piracy by major technology firms. The hearing included testimony from bestselling author David Baldacci, AI experts, and law professors.

“Today’s hearing is about the largest intellectual property theft in American history. . . . AI companies are training their models on stolen material, period. . . . And we’re not talking about these companies simply scouring the internet for what’s publicly available. We’re talking about piracy,” Senator Hawley said.

Hawley questioned whether protections would be extended to American creators or if large corporations would continue to profit without compensating them. “Are we going to protect [Americans’ creative community], or are we going to allow a few mega-corporations to vacuum it all up, digest it, and make billions of dollars in profits—maybe trillions—and pay nobody for it. That’s not America,” he stated.

David Baldacci described his experience with AI systems reproducing his work rapidly and without permission: “Every single one of my books was presented to me . . . in three seconds. It really felt like I had been robbed of everything of my entire adult life that I had worked on,” Baldacci said.

During the hearing, witnesses and committee members discussed findings that AI models have been trained using over 200 terabytes of copyrighted materials—equivalent to billions of pages or approximately 22 Libraries of Congress worth of content. Testimony indicated that this material was obtained through illegal downloads by technology companies.

It was also revealed that some AI firms facilitated additional copyright violations by uploading more than 50 terabytes of protected works for third-party use. Specific allegations were made against Meta regarding its internal practices; employees reportedly warned each other about the illegality of their actions and then minimized these concerns internally. There were further claims that Meta concealed its activities by using non-Meta servers to avoid detection.

The full subcommittee hearing can be viewed online.