On October 30, 2026, the Human Consent Foundation (HCF), five other organizations and three individuals asked the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York for permission to file a proposed amicus brief in the consolidated copyright litigation against OpenAI and Microsoft. The brief argues that collective licensing and machine-readable, opt-in consent can make it practical to identify and clear rights for creative works used in AI systems. Read the proposed brief.
What the proposed brief asks the court to consider
An amicus brief, or friend-of-the-court brief, offers a court a perspective from someone who is not a party to the case. The October 30 motion asks for leave to submit this proposed brief, which focuses on whether rights for works used in AI data ingestion, training and grounding can be identified, cleared and licensed in practice.
The proposed amici connect that question to the market-effects factor in U.S. fair-use analysis: how a challenged use may affect markets for copyrighted works. They argue that collective licensing, machine-readable consent systems and existing licensing activity show that rights clearance can work at scale. The filing presents that position as industry context and says the proposed amici take no position on the ultimate outcome of the summary-judgment motions.
Who is named in the filing
The proposed brief’s caption names six organizations: HCF, Creative Artists Agency, Music Artists Coalition, National Association of Voice Actors, Writer, Inc., and Creators Coalition on Artificial Intelligence. It also names three individuals as proposed amici: Cate Blanchett, Nick Hexum and Steven Soderbergh.
Appendix A separately lists 25 individuals and the Stan Lee Foundation as supporters. Their appearance in the appendix does not make them the proposed amici named in the caption.
The proposed approach is opt-in
The brief describes affirmative, opt-in mechanisms that preserve a rightsholder’s choice to refuse. It says the systems it discusses do not imply compulsory licensing or a default royalty. The filing’s claims about the scale and practicality of licensing are the proposed amici’s argument, not a court finding.
What HCF says its standard and registry do
HCF says it develops and maintains the Human Consent Standard, an XML-based technical specification for machine-readable declarations about AI processing of creative works and likenesses. It also says it operates the Human Consent Registry, where those declarations can be published and made discoverable and queryable by AI systems.
The brief distinguishes that infrastructure from a commercial licensing service: HCF says it does not license works, collect royalties, operate a marketplace or sell data.
