Prediction Open AI assessment confidence: 90% certainty 3/5 debate potential 4/5

Friedberg: Converting copyrighted data into AI knowledge will be upheld as fair use

David Friedberg · Chip Stocks Crash, $20B Fund Margin Called, Frontier Labs: SLOW DOWN AI, Mamdani's Grocery Stores · Jul 30, 2026 · at 1:10:01

Investor David Friedberg discusses copyright precedents from Google Books and analyzes whether training AI models on copyrighted physical books qualifies as fair use.

0:00 / 0:23exact quote · 24.0s

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“I do think fundamentally that the conversion of that data into what I would call knowledge and ultimately the ability to create new outcomes from that knowledge that are not copyrighted, that are not copies of the original material, I do think is going to end up being the right fair use policy and is going to be the right read on fair use. So I think it'll likely get litigated, and I think it'll take a couple years”

quote is from the automated transcript, cleaned for reading: filler sounds and stutters are removed, nothing is rephrased. names can be misheard (the analysis reads context, assessments check outside sources). how →

The claim, plainly

David Friedberg predicts that converting copyrighted training data into AI knowledge to generate non-infringing new outcomes will ultimately be upheld as protected fair use in copyright litigation within a couple of years.

a quote alone can be ambiguous, so this restates it with the references and context of the conversation around it resolved. AI-written; the tape below the player is the source.

Assessment

As of August 16, 2026, litigation regarding the fair use status of AI training on copyrighted data remains actively pending across federal courts, with no binding appellate or Supreme Court precedent yet established. While district courts have issued split or evolving interpretations (e.g., finding transformative fair use in Bartz v. Anthropic and Kadrey v. Meta in June 2025, while finding liability in Thomson Reuters v. ROSS in February 2025), the first federal appellate argument occurred before the Third Circuit on June 11, 2026, with no opinion issued yet. Because the horizon extends to July 30, 2028 ('within a couple of years'), the prediction cannot yet be resolved.

District courts in 2025 issued mixed rulings on fair use in AI training (e.g., Bartz v. Anthropic, Kadrey v. Meta, Thomson Reuters v. ROSS).
On June 11, 2026, the Third Circuit heard oral arguments in Thomson Reuters v. ROSS (Case No. 25-2153), but has not yet issued a ruling.
As of August 16, 2026, no federal appellate court or the U.S. Supreme Court has issued a definitive, binding ruling on fair use in AI model training, and the prediction horizon remains open until July 30, 2028.

Checked against

[1] copyrightalliance.org [2] goodwinlaw.com [3] whitecase.com [4] authorsguild.org [5] skadden.com [6] duanemorris.com [7] youtube.com [8] multigrid.ai

New York Times OpenAI lawsuit fair use update Authors Guild OpenAI fair use ruling summary judgment AI copyright fair use training lawsuit appellate court ruling Thomson Reuters v Ross Intelligence fair use ruling

assessed as of 2026-08-16

This assessment is an AI reading of a public statement, made against the cited references with the confidence shown. It can be wrong. The quote, the tape and the references are all on this page; if something is off, use report an error below. full disclaimer →

⏳ prediction date: 2028-07-30; checked again automatically on the next resolution wave

Mentioned

AI model David Friedberg fair use

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