Version 1.6

Advocating For American Dominance in AI

THE WHITEBOARD

• Vance Lays Out Trump AI Policies and Reaction
• US Copyright Office Releases Second Report
• NAIA Drafting Response to White House RFI on AI Action Plan
• Thomson Reuters Wins In Landmark AI Model Training Copyright Case
• House Subcommittee Holds Hearing on AI in Manufacturing
• House Bill to Criminalize AI Generated Child Pornography
• NAIA Leadership: General Counsel Steve Britt
• Member Focus: Prithvi Damera of GrowStack
• NAIA Membership Now Over 300, New Enterprise One Pager

THE ADMINISTRATION

Vance Pronounces Shift in US Policy from Euro Safety Focus to American Opportunity. White House AI Czar Confirms

Last Tuesday, Vice President JD Vance outlined at the Paris AI Action Summit, the Trump Administration's planned policy changes related to the growth of Artificial Intelligence. He opened with “I’m not here to talk about AI safety, which was the title of this conference a few years ago, I’m here to talk about AI opportunity.”

As we outlined in last week's newsletter (HERE) the VP expressed four major points: (1) American AI will be the gold standard; (2) excessive regulation could kill innovation; (3) AI should be free of ideological bias; and (4) AI will be more productive and the Admin plans a pro-worker growth path.

This is a significant shift in US policy. The Administration is reacting to new lower-cost, open-weight models from Chinese firms, where previous assumptions were that China was further behind in AI development and a rejection of the stricter European regulatory environment.

White House Crypto and AI Senior Advisor, David Sacks, was on the ALL-IN podcast (HERE) on Friday reviewing the Vance Paris Speech and confirming with the hosts the Administration's belief that there are more issues to focus on than potential safety risks. He goes on to discuss "techno-opportunists" vs. "techno-doomers". Sacks confirms there are risks but the media and regulators never discuss the opportunities. Definitely a good interview to review for better insight on the AI Action Plan (see below) the Trump Administration is working to implement.

The US Copyright Office Releases Second of Four Reports: Human Authorship Required for Copyright Protection

The U.S. Copyright Office has made its stance on AI-generated content known in its second report (HERE) of four to be produced. Basically, they have stated that AI can be a valuable creative tool but human input is required for copyright protection. The law firm Schwabe, Williamson & Wyatt PC released a good review (HERE) of the Copyright Office's report with the highlights below:

• HUMAN AUTHORSHIP REQUIRED FOR COPYRIGHT PROTECTION
• NO COPYRIGHT PROTECTION FOR PURELY AI-GENERATED MATERIAL
• COPYRIGHT PROTECTION FOR WORKS OF HUMAN AUTHORSHIP PERCEPTIBLE IN AI-GENERATED OUTPUTS
• NO CHANGES TO COPYRIGHT ACT TO PROTECT AI-GENERATED OUTPUT
• NO ADDITIONAL OR SUI GENERIS LEGAL PROTECTION FOR AI-GENERATED OUTPUT
• Based on current technology, prompts by themselves do not support copyright protection for AI output.
• The fact that AI assists, rather than replaces, human creativity is not relevant to the copyrightability of AI-generated output.
• Analysis of human contributions to AI-generated outputs must be performed on a case-by-case basis.

NAIA Prepares RFI Response on White House Artificial Intelligence Action Plan. Send Your Input!

As we reported last week, the National Science Foundation posted the RFI (HERE) asking for comments from the public related to the Administration's AI Action Plan.

The NAIA Members, Corporate Board, and Advisory Council, led by our new General Counsel, Steve Britt (see below) are drafting our recommendations for the Administration's AI Action Plan. We will outline the existing legal landscape and our recommendations for possible inclusion in the President's Executive Order AND filing of federal legislation.

We strongly believe that for long-term business planning purposes, the Trump Administration must work with Congress to codify the actions implemented under the EO. The AI industry will find it difficult to innovate and advance with policies that do not become law and change every four years.

RFI comments are open until March 15, 2025 and NAIA will be compiling and filing our recommendations. If you would like to provide input, please contact Ron@thenaia.org

THE COURTS

Thomson Reuters Wins Landmark First Case in AI Copyright Ruling on AI Training

The National Law Review reports (HERE) that last week a landmark opinion came down in Delaware Court that marks a significant development in AI litigation, particularly concerning the use of copyrighted materials in training AI models. "While this decision focuses on the training of an AI model, it does not involve generative AI technology. Hence, it will be important for AI developers and deployers to continue to monitor future decision that address whether the subsequent steps of generating and distributing AI-generated content are considered fair use of the original works." One to watch.

CONGRESSIONAL ACTIONS

Who has banned DeepSeek from being downloaded by employees so far: NASA, the Navy, the Pentagon, the US Congress, States of Oregon, North Carolina, Nevada, New York, Virginia and Texas, the governments of South Korea, Taiwan, Italy and Australia. (Recently added) Kansas has pending legislation to ban DeepSeek.

Subcommittee Chairman Bilirakis's opening statement on AI in Manufacturing

House Subcommittee on Commerce, Manufacturing and Trade holds hearing on "AI in Manufacturing: Securing American Leadership in Manufacturing and the Next Generation of Technologies"

Last Wednesday the House Energy & Commerce Subcommittee on Commerce, Manufacturing and Trade heard testimony on the impact of artificial intelligence on the domestic manufacturing sector. Chairman Gus Bilirakis (R-FL-12) made. the following opening statement:

"AI’s applications are much broader than what has claimed the spotlight recently. We have seen how AI applied to vehicles is paving the way for the next generation of vehicles that will drive themselves.....America’s global leadership in the 21st century will be contingent on our ability to promote emerging technologies and establishing a pathway to unleash them throughout American manufacturing." 

Click above or HERE to watch.

Florida Representative Bilirakis Files Bill to Amend Criminal Code to Include AI Generated Child Pornography

Republican Congressman Gus Bilirakis (FL-12) that was mentioned in the above article also submitted legislation to amend title 18 of the United States Code to prohibit child pornography produced using artificial intelligence.

H.R. 1283 was submitted by the Congressman on February 13th (no printed text of the legislation at this time) and was referred to the House Committee on the Judiciary. We are tracking and will keep you posted on advancements on this bill.

NAIA Members: Do you have questions or comments on any of the legislation being submitted in Congress? Contact us at Membership@theNAIA.org

NAIA NEWS

National Leadership: NAIA General Counsel, Steve Britt

Steve Britt has an extensive experience in Washington having served in senior Federal positions as General Counsel and Executive Director of independent regulatory agencies and Deputy General Counsel and Congressional Director of two Cabinet agencies. 

Steve's law firm (Britt Law) has advised global corporations on technology law (state and federal) and he is an expert in data protection across the entire legal & regulatory landscape, including cyber, data privacy and artificial intelligence. He holds three IAPP certifications, the AIGP (Artificial Intelligence Governance Professional), the CIPP/E (Europe for GDPR) and the CIPM (Certified Information Privacy Manager).

We are excited to add Steve to the NAIA Team.

NEW MEMBER FOCUS: Prithvi Damera of GrowStack

Based in Raleigh, North Carolina, Prithvi Damera, is the Founder and CEO of GrowStack, GrowStack blends human teams with AI agents and workflows to tackle wasted budgets, fragmented tools, and labor-intensive tasks—scaling operations with remarkable efficiency. GrowStack's goal is to become the “Salesforce.com of "Go-To-Market" AI Agents and Workflows,” offering an outsourced AI workforce. Prithvi and GrowStack just became a new Bronze level Startup NAIA Member this week!

NAIA MEMBERSHIP CLIMBS TO 300+ - NEW ONE PAGER

We are pleased to announce that NAIA has now surpassed 300 Members! It is exciting to see the growth of. our organization and the reception both on Capitol Hill and in the Administration. NAIA is the voice for the startup and enterprise AI community.

NAIA has released a one page briefing sheet for those companies interested in participating at the enterprise level HERE. Contact Membership@theNAIA.org should you have any questions and wish to join.

Make sure the NAIA Digest is not going to spam and below are links to the first five issues if you missed them:

• Version 1.1: 118th Congress 120+ AI Related Bills House AI Task Force Reports - How Many in the 119th Congress?

• Version 1.2: President Trump Revokes 2023 AI Executive Order

• Version 1.3: President Trump Signs Exec Order for 180 Day Review of AI Policies

• Version 1.4: Panic! At the Capitol / China's DeepSeek Release Creates Reaction

• Version 1.5: Request for Info on America's AI Action Plan Review, Bills filed on DeepSeek, HHS, AI Robocalls and more

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