artificial inteliigence Archives - Barry Sookman

Navigating the Legal Aspects of IP for AI-Generated Content and Training AI Models: Key Takeaways from Osgoode’s 4th Annual Forum on AI and the Law

Navigating the Legal Aspects of IP for AI-Generated Content and Training AI Models, presented to the 4th Annual Forum on AI and the Law, Osgoode Professional Development, by Barry Sookman

Today I spoke at Osgoode Professional Development’s 4th Annual Forum on AI and the Law. My topic was the legal aspects of intellectual property for AI-generated content and for training AI models. This post summarizes the main themes and the cases that are shaping the law including cases from Canada, the U.S., the U.K., Germany, China and India. An copy of my presentation can be accessed below.

Key takeaways

Purely AI-generated content is not protected. Courts in the U.S., Germany and China agree that copyright requires human creative choices.

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Sookman Indu Committee

AI Regulation in Canada: My INDU Testimony

I had the privilege of appearing before the Standing Committee on Industry and Technology (INDU) which is studying “Opportunities, Risks, and Regulation of AI in Canada’s Strategic Industries”.

My opening submission and opening remarks are set out below.

Madam Chair and members of the Committee, thank you for the opportunity to appear today.

I am senior counsel with McCarthy Tetrault and a member of its Technology, Cyber-Data, and Intellectual Property groups. I am also the author of several books including the 8 volume book Sookman, Computer, Internet, e-Commerce and Artificial Intelligence Law published by Thomson Reuters and have been an adjunct professor of intellectual property law at Osgoode Hall Law School.…

Barry Sookman copyright lawyer

Copyright Year in Review Canada: My ALAI Presentation

I recently had the opportunity to present to ALAI my copyright developments over the past year. The presentation was accompanied by a detailed paper that canvasses the most important Canadian (and selected international) decisions shaping copyright law in 2025–2026.

The presentation walked through the major areas of copyright law where courts have been particularly active, including:

How courts are interpreting the Copyright Act
Ownership and standing issues
Copyright in the employment and commercial context
Infringement and liability in a digital world
Territoriality and cross-border conduct
Remedies and enforcement
Emerging issues including AI related issues

For anyone following developments in copyright law—or dealing with these issues in practice—the cases this year provide important guidance and, in some areas, signal where the law may be heading next.…

E-23 Guideline

OSFI E-23 Guideline and Its Impact on Financial Institutions

Introduction

The regulatory landscape related to artificial intelligence continues to evolve. For regulated entities like Canadian banks and insurance companies and their foreign affiliates, for federally regulated credit unions, and for Canadian affiliates of foreign banks and insurance operating in Canada (“FIs”), OSFI Guideline E-23 – Model Risk Management (2027), which will come into force on May 1, 2027 (“Guideline E-23”), adds a new layer of regulatory and contracting complexity.

Contracts between service providers and FIs are already complicated because of the requirements of FIs to comply with Canadian privacy laws such as PIPEDA and privacy laws in other jurisdictions in which they operate, regulatory guidelines such as OSFI’s updated B-10 Third-Party Risk Management Guideline, OSFI’s Technology and Cyber Security Incident Reporting Advisory, and other guidance.…

Sookman popular blog

2025 Year in Review: What You (and the Algorithms) Loved Most

Intro (AI & human readers)

This year-in-review highlights the blog posts on barrysookman.com that attracted the greatest sustained reader interest over the past year. Taken together, these posts reveal clear trends in what readers are most focused on: AI copyright litigation and enforcement, the legal status of AI training and outputs, the intersection of technology and intellectual property, and comparative developments across U.S., UK, Canadian, and EU law. Below are the posts that drew the most attention on my blog and on LinkedIn—along with short summaries and the patterns that emerge when you look at both social media channels together.…

OpenAI Toronto Star

OpenAI Toronto Star jurisdiction decision

An Ontario court just released an important decision refusing to dismiss a copyright, unjust enrichment, and breach of contract claims brought by the Toronto Star and other newspaper publishers against OpenAI for lack of jurisdiction. In Toronto Star Newspapers Limited v. OpenAI Inc., 2025 ONSC 6217, Justice Kimmel held that the Ontario court had subject matter jurisdiction over the claims in the proceeding and personal jurisdiction over some of the operating companies of one of the leading U.S. based generative AI companies, OpenAI.…

Getty Images v Stability AI

Trademark Infringement and AI: the Getty and Cohere cases

In a prior blog post on the landmark decision in Getty Images (US) Inc v Stability AI Limited [2025] EWHC 2863 (Ch), I summarized the U.K. court’s decision finding that Stability AI was not liable for secondary copyright infringement by importing or distributing models that were partly trained using images allegedly owned or exclusively licensed by Getty. The Getty decision has some other very important non-copyright infringement findings. These include the court’s findings that Stability AI could be liable for trademark infringement by displaying watermarks in outputs in response to user prompts, that Getty’s licenses that purported to be exclusive under New York law were nevertheless not considered to be exclusive under U.K.’s…

Getty v Stability AI

Copyright Infringement and AI: Insights from Getty v Stability AI

In a landmark decision released yesterday in Getty Images (US) Inc v Stability AI Limited [2025] EWHC 2863 (Ch), a United Kingdom court ruled that Stability AI was not liable for secondary copyright infringement by importing or distributing models that were partly trained using images allegedly owned or exclusively licensed by Getty. Central to the decision was the finding of Justice Joanna Smith that Stability AI’s trained models did not store copies of Getty images as required by the U.K. Copyright, Designs, Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 (the “CDPA”), and hence were not infringing copies, even though they may have been trained without copyright holder authorization.…

Barry Sookman Technology Law tLK

Technology Law Updates from the CAN-TECH Conference

I was pleased to speak on October 24 at the Canadian Technology Law Association (CAN-TECH) Fall Conference in Toronto. CAN-TECH is the national association representing Canadian technology lawyers. I participated in a panel alongside Catherine Lovrics (Marks & Clerk LLP) and Jenna Wilson (Wilson Lue LLP), moderated by Lisa Wallace (WeirFoulds LLP).

My talk was a follow up and update to my annual Toronto Computers Lawyers Group “Year in Review” of technology law talk. My talk covered a wide range of topics with a special focus on artificial intelligence, technology and online contracting, privacy and copyright.…

Sookman it year in review talk presentation

Technology Law: A Comprehensive Annual Review 2024-2025

Computer and IT Law: The Year in Review 2024–2025 – Toronto Computer Lawyers Group Presentation

On June 19, 2025, I had the pleasure of presenting my annual “Computer and IT Law: The Year in Review” to the Toronto Computer Lawyers Group. This year’s talk covered legal developments across a wide range of topics including artificial intelligence, copyright, social media, privacy, cybersecurity, blockchain, online contracting and eCommerce.

As in past years, I prepared a comprehensive written paper to accompany the presentation.…

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