Three Years Later, The Copyright Office Is Still Wrong (And Now Founders Are Paying For It)
In 2024, I wrote that the Copyright Office's position on AI-generated works was flawed and would not survive contact with the actual Burrow-Giles test. Three years later, the Office has hardened that position into formal policy, the D.C. Circuit has blessed it, and the Supreme Court has refused to look at it. The reasoning is still wrong for the same reasons. What's new is who's paying for it: the AI-native founders building real businesses on tools the Office now tells them they can't own the output of — and a constitutional bargain that's being broken on both ends.
The Hidden Economic Crisis: Supreme Court Ruling Enables $430+ Billion in Congressional Funding Impoundment
On September 26, 2025, the Supreme Court granted emergency relief to the Trump administration in Department of State v. AIDS Vaccine Advocacy Coalition, effectively allowing the executive branch to withhold $4 billion in congressionally appropriated foreign aid. While this decision may seem narrow, the administration is currently blocking at least $430 billion in congressionally allocated funds across numerous federal programs using the same legal theory. Thus, this decision is the tip of an economic iceberg that undermines fundamental constitutional principles at a time when the U.S. economy is already showing signs of weakness and threatens hundreds of thousands of American jobs.