ImageRights stands with the Digital Media Licensing Association (DMLA) in its formal response to the U.S. Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) Request for Information on the Development of an AI Action Plan. Filed on behalf of DMLA's membership of photographers, illustrators, agencies, and licensors, the submission makes the case that America's leadership in AI depends on respecting the copyright framework that has powered its leadership in the creative industries for more than two centuries.

ImageRights founder and CEO Joe Naylor led the drafting of the response in his roles as President of DMLA and Chair of DMLA's Copyright & AI Working Group, and in his capacity representing DMLA within the Copyright Alliance, where coordinated advocacy across the creative industries informs and strengthens these aligned positions.

Why This Matters

As the federal government develops a National AI Action Plan, the choices made now will determine whether human creators continue to share in the value their work generates. DMLA's submission argues that AI innovation and copyright protection are not in conflict; properly balanced, they reinforce each other. ImageRights supports the DMLA on several core points:

• Existing copyright law is sufficient. Federal courts have applied fair use to every major technology shift for over a century, from the photocopier to the VCR to the internet. They are equally capable of doing so for generative AI on a case-by-case basis. There is no need for a new AI exception in U.S. copyright law.
• Licensing is a free-market solution, not a hindrance. A robust market for AI training licenses is already emerging, with platforms such as Bria.ai, Troveo, Created by Humans, and the Fairly Trained certification program demonstrating that responsible AI development and creator compensation can coexist. The February 2025 ruling in Thomson Reuters v. Ross Intelligence reaffirmed that where a viable licensing market exists, unauthorized ingestion of copyrighted works is not fair use.
• Licensing markets benefit creators of every size. A properly functioning licensing ecosystem opens new revenue pathways not only for established agencies but for independent photographers and illustrators who would otherwise struggle to monetize their work for emerging uses. Preserving the existing copyright framework, rather than carving out AI exceptions, is what makes that democratization possible.
• Clear copyright rules will accelerate, not slow, AI adoption. Enterprise customers are currently hesitant to deploy AI solutions because of unresolved copyright questions. Reaffirming existing law and requiring transparency would reduce that uncertainty and speed responsible adoption, while cutting the resources companies now spend on content filtering and moderation.
• Transparency on training data. Developers of publicly available generative AI models that ingest unlicensed copyrighted works should be required to disclose what they have used. This protects creators' ability to know whether their work has been taken, and it builds the consumer and enterprise trust needed for broader AI adoption.
• Transparency on AI outputs. AI-generated content should be labeled at the point of creation, with granular and durable metadata indicating which model produced or modified it. The U.S. has an opportunity to set global standards here through look-up registries, trust lists, and a multi-layered approach combining metadata, watermarking, and fingerprinting.
• Reject opt-out regimes. U.S. copyright law is unambiguously an opt-in framework. Opt-out schemes, including the one adopted by the EU, place an impossible burden on creators to tag every copy of their work across the internet, and they do nothing about pirated copies already absorbed into training datasets. Opt-out does not work in practice.
• Sustain the pipeline of human-created work. Without compensation, creators have less incentive to produce the high-quality, human-authored content that AI systems depend on. A functioning licensing market protects the long-term supply of training data that future AI development itself requires.
• Global competitiveness. Strong copyright protection is what differentiates the U.S. creative economy from competitors that weaken IP rights. The Administration should oppose broad foreign copyright exceptions for AI and use bilateral and multilateral channels to defend American creators abroad.

Our Commitment

As a long-time member and supporter of DMLA, and through DMLA's participation in the Copyright Alliance, ImageRights remains dedicated to providing the enforcement, registration, and monitoring tools creators need to navigate the generative AI era. The creators we serve built the visual record that AI systems are now trained on. Protecting their rights is not a brake on innovation. It is the foundation that makes durable innovation possible.

Read the full DMLA response to OSTP and join us in advocating for an AI policy framework that values, and continues to invest in, human creativity.