Schiff and Curtis bill would make AI companies disclose the copyrighted works they train on

Senators Adam Schiff of California and John Curtis of Utah have introduced the CLEAR Act, short for Copyright Labeling and Ethical AI Reporting Act. It would require AI developers to tell the Register of Copyrights which copyrighted works went into training their models, before a new system is released, and retroactively for models already on the market.

The Copyright Office would publish those notices in an open, searchable database, and companies that fail to file would face civil penalties. The bill stops at disclosure: it does not make developers license or pay for the material.

The bipartisan sponsors present it as protection for creators with predictable rules for companies. Backers already cover much of the entertainment business, including SAG-AFTRA, both Writers Guilds, the DGA, IATSE, the American Federation of Musicians, the NMPA, the RIAA, SoundExchange and the Television Academy.

It arrives as studios pursue AI firms such as Midjourney in court, and against President Trump's stated view that paying for everything used in training is unworkable.