Want to quote Eminem in a book? Prepare to pay. But if you are a trillion-dollar AI company? Go ahead, it is “fair use”. That is the dilemma a writer lays out in a new Guardian piece.
Writer Alexander Hurst shares how his publisher wouldn’t let him quote a short lyric from the band The National because of strict copyright rules. But AI companies can use full lyrics from artists like Eminem to train their models, without asking or paying. That double standard is at the heart of his argument.
He explains that AI models can copy the style of famous artists and generate new lyrics without any legal trouble. Meanwhile, human writers cannot legally quote even one line. This raises a big question: is copyright law really protecting creators, or just powerful tech companies?
“Is it simply power?” he asks. “Is it simply that Eight Mile Style, Eminem’s publishing company, could crush me for quoting Eminem in a book because I am small in comparison, or that Meta could drown Eight Mile Style… in teams of lawyers and years of delay?”
That mention is not theoretical. Eight Mile Style is actively suing Meta and other tech giants, alleging they used Eminem’s music without a license. The lawsuit frames the practice as “a trillion (with a ‘T’) dollar company exploiting the creative efforts of musical artists… without regard to the rights of the owners of the intellectual property”.
So, why do artists and writers face strict limits, but AI companies do not? Hurst argues that it is not just about the law, it is about fairness. If the system gives more freedom to machines than to human creators, what does that mean for the future of music, writing, and art?
Hurst does not pretend to have all the legal answers, but he believes the law should better protect people who actually make things, not just the companies that copy them.
