AI Copyright & the Death of Intellectual Property

The rise of generative AI is colliding with copyright law in ways that could redefine the economics of creativity, according to a new insight. With lawsuits such as The New York Times v. OpenAI testing the boundaries of data ownership and fair use, the stakes for both innovators and investors are enormous. A single ruling could reshape how AI models are trained, who profits from machine-generated content, and whether startups thrive or collapse under new licensing regimes. For investors, the uncertainty creates both risk and opportunity: if courts uphold broad fair use, growth could accelerate; if mandatory licensing prevails, only well-capitalized players may endure. At its core, the debate centers on a pivotal question: who owns AI-generated content, and who gets paid?