Patreon CEO calls AI companies' fair use argument untenable

Patreon CEO Jack Conte has openly challenged the position of AI companies that invoke the fair use doctrine to justify training models on creators' content without their consent or payment.

Conte pointed to a fundamental contradiction: if training on other people's text, images and video really counts as "fair use," why do OpenAI, Google and other players sign paid licensing agreements with major media outlets such as The Atlantic, Associated Press or Axel Springer? In Conte's view, the very existence of these deals is an admission that the companies understand they have to pay for other people's content.

Patreon is a platform where more than 250,000 creators earn income directly from their audiences. Creators' total earnings through the service have exceeded $3.5 billion. That is why Conte's position is not abstract: it concerns real people whose writing, podcasts and art may have been used to train language models without any compensation.

The fair use debate over AI training continues in courts around the world. In the US, authors, musicians, artists and publishers have already filed lawsuits. The key question is whether using content for machine learning is "transformative" in the legal sense, which traditionally serves as a basis for a fair use defense. Critics, Conte among them, say it is not: AI companies derive direct commercial benefit from other people's work.

Among the other side's arguments is that models do not reproduce content verbatim but "learn" from it, the way a person learns by reading books. That comparison, however, draws more and more doubt as models grow more accurate at reproducing the style and facts of specific authors.

Conte's statement adds an authoritative voice to a growing chorus demanding a fair compensation system. Several countries are already discussing regulatory mechanisms: Europe has adopted a copyright directive requiring platforms to negotiate with rights holders. The question is whether the rhetoric will be followed by real pressure on lawmakers, and when AI companies will face a choice: pay creators voluntarily or by court order.