Your Future Film Coalition News Digest #10
This week, we cover: the Senate’s vote to approve Trump’s rescission package, major developments in AI copyright law, and more news.
The Latest in Indie Film as of July 17
Public Broadcasting Gutted by Rescission Bill: After 2:00am ET today, the Senate passed the Trump administration’s rescission bill by a vote of 51-48. This $9.0 billion rescission package will revoke $1.1 billion in funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. In order to win enough votes by Republican senators, the package was amended to not include an additional $400M in cuts to the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). Since the bill was amended it has been returned to the House of Representatives for a final vote before making its way to President Trump’s desk.
When the House last voted on the bill it narrowly passed in a 214-212 vote with six (6) representatives abstaining. Post-mortems on the effects of the rescission on rural stations, children’s programming, and lifesaving news alerts are proliferating. But it might be useful to consider the past. In the ’80s, a coalition of independent film producers spent a decade organizing for a true indie film alternative pathway to public broadcast, creating ITVS by congressional mandate in 1987. POV was also founded the following year. But, as filmmaker Bernardo Ruiz warns, “almost immediately, both ITVS and POV faced backlash. And there are echoes in the present-day efforts to remove films and materials that are deemed controversial by outside critics, typically acting in bad faith, or worse from within public media.” With that in mind, this moment is just another critical juncture where independent voices must organize to fight for a better public media, one that adequately meets our current reality.
Major Developments in AI Copyright Law: In the legal world of AI and film, there are several major lawsuits proceeding through the courts. Their resolution will have profound effects on indie film. Up until now, the legal landscape has been defined by the U.S. Copyright Office directive from March 2023. The directive is focused on the “output,” or material that is generated by AI models. It requires that there be “human authorship” for a work to be copyrightable. Works that merely contain or incorporate AI-generated material may have copyrightable aspects, but courts have already affirmed that purely AI-generated material cannot be copyrighted. Many of the current cases, however, address the untrod territory of “inputs,” or the material used to train the commercial large language models (LLM).
Last month, the first ruling came down in Bartz v. Anthropic, with very mixed results for indie film. This case, filed by Authors Guild, was spurred by Anthropic’s business practice of downloading over seven million books from pirate sites and digitizing millions of legally purchased print books to build a “central library of ‘all the books in the world’” to support the training of its large language models. In addition, these pirated and scanned books are stored in an internal digital library, which engineers used to assemble training datasets for its AI chatbot, Claude. A federal judge ruled that the act of using copyrighted books to train a LLM is fair use and must be permissible, no matter if the training copies were illegally obtained, but that continuing to store a pirated copy is not. The case can proceed to trial to contest the storage requirements. In the next section, we detail where there are major differences between this case and ones that deal directly with films. It’s still too early to tell whether this case stands alone or portends a worrisome trend.
More on the Top Story
Public Broadcasting Gutted by Rescission Bill
“Proposed Public Media Cuts Will Hurt Rural Americans,” Ilana Newman, The Daily Yonder, July 16, 2025.
245 of the 544 stations that receive CPB funding are rural with some tribal stations receiving more than 50% of their funding through CPB. “The communities that will be most affected are the ones that are the smallest and have the most to lose,” Sage Smiley, news director of KYUK in Alaska, told The Daily Yonder. KYUK, which receives 70% of its funding through CPB, serves the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta’s 58 communities and 23,000 and broadcasts bilingually in English and Yup’ik.
“Local Journalist Index 2025,” Muck Rack and Rebuild Local News, July 10, 2025.
In a joint study published this month, Muck Rack and Rebuild Local News found that the US has seen a 75% decline in local journalists since 2002. At the turn of the century, the US had approximately 40 journalists per 100,000 residents on average; as of 2025, that number has dropped to 8.2 journalists. Of the 3,141 counties in the US, more than 1,000, one out of three, do not have a single full-time local journalist. “If you’re in a big city like Los Angeles, which has a mere 3.6 Local Journalist Equivalents per 100,000 people, your neighborhood might be covered if there’s a serious crime but not much else,” the report found. “The crisis is more severe and widespread than previously thought.”
Major Developments in AI Copyright Law
“Bad News for Movie Studios: Authors Just Lost on a Key Issue in a Major AI Lawsuit,” Winston Cho, Hollywood Reporter, June 24, 2025.
A federal judge ruled that AI company Anthropic’s training of its Claude chatbot on copyrighted books without permission constitutes fair use, marking the first major court decision to side with AI companies over creators in training data disputes. This article points out some differences in the ongoing cases on cases directly relating to films, such as the Disney/Universal suit against Midjourney. For one, Anthropic’s outputs aren’t direct copies of the training material, unlike Midjourney’s outputs, which generates close copies of animation styles and film stills. Several IP attorneys, however, also speculate that this ruling could make other judges hesitant to throttle AI technology development, at the expense of creators’ rights.
“AI Tips for U.S. Documentary Filmmakers,” Dale Nelson and Victoria Rosales, Documentary, July 17, 2025.
Because the legal landscape remains unsettled with federal legislation pending and guild regulations evolving, this piece, written by two entertainment attorneys, recommends cautious implementation for documentary filmmakers wanting to incorporate AI technology. It also gives updates on other cases of interest to indie film, such as disclosing AI generation when filing for copyright and relevant state laws on creating “digital replicas” of real-life or historical people.
What We Are Following
State Tax Incentives & Streaming Levies
“How 5 States Are Trying to Lure Hollywood Productions,” Derrick Bryson Taylor, The New York Times, July 1, 2025.
As California doubles its state tax incentive to retain film and television production, this story looks at how Texas, New York, Nevada, Georgia, and Louisiana have increased or expanded their local incentive programs to attract more production to their local communities.
“U.K. Government Formally Rejects Streaming Levy, Doubles Down on Mixed Production Ecology,” Naman Ramachandran, Deadline, July 3, 2025.
Citing the 31% increase in production spending in the UK in 2024, the government rejected proposals for a 5% levy on streaming platforms operating in the country. A parliamentary committee recently recommended the measure to drive more revenue to the local television industry. The government also declined to undertake a review of Enterprise Investment Scheme impacts on the film industry and proposals for 25% tax relief on print and advertising costs for independent films.
UK Broadcast Codes and Anti-Terror Laws Impact Documentaries
“Gaza film’s producer accuses BBC of trying to gag him over decision to drop it,” Michael Savage, The Guardian, July 3, 2025.
The BBC has suffered a string of scandals on the “impartiality” of its reporting on Gaza, which has spilled over to its broadcast documentary division. In this case, the BBC first commissioned Gaza: Doctors Under Attack from ex-Channel 4 news boss Ben de Pear’s production company Basement Films, but then refused to air it, claiming the film “risked creating a perception of partiality.” The BBC next attempted to impose a “double gagging clause” preventing de Pear from criticizing the broadcaster’s decision. De Pear refused to sign the contract amendment, which would have prevented him and other producers from “disparaging” the BBC or stating that the corporation had refused to air the film. De Pear used public remarks at a panel at Sheffield DocFest to pressure the BBC and secured a release of rights. Last week, Channel 4 broadcast the documentary to critical acclaim.
“Palestine Action documentary makers fear being criminalised under anti-terror laws,” Ben Quinn, The Guardian, June 29, 2025.
This article alerted us to the implications of the UK Home Office proscription of a peaceful direct action protest collective, Palestine Action, the subjects of an indie documentary called To Kill a War Machine. Since July 3, the filmmakers have paused screenings of the doc, as they have been advised that venue partners face the most legal risk if they book the film.
ICYMI
“The New Rules of Media Under Trump,” Winston Cho, The Hollywood Reporter, July 3, 2025.
On July 1, Paramount announced a $16 million settlement to resolve a lawsuit brought by President Trump regarding a 60 Minutes interview with Kamala Harris. This deal has cleared a pathway for Paramount’s tentative merger with Skydance to move forward. As Cho layouts in his analysis, this is the latest in a series of media companies adopting Trump-friendly business maneuvers to avoid scrutiny by the FCC, FTC, or DOJ. The Freedom of the Press Foundation plans to pursue legal action against Paramount’s board and Senator Elizabeth Warren is calling for an investigation into whether Paramount violated anti-bribery laws, whether those efforts will be successful remains unclear.
“‘South Park’ Creators Threaten Legal Action Over Interference on Streaming Deal,” Winston Cho and Alex Weprin, The Hollywood Reporter, June 23, 2025.
Matt Stone and Trey Parker accuse Jeff Shell, who will become president of Paramount if the merger with Skydance goes through, of interfering in contract negotiations for licensing rights of South Park on streaming platforms. Park County, Stone and Parker’s entertainment company, threaten legal action and claim Shell has urged Netflix and Warner Bros. Discovery to amend licensing terms to disproportionately benefit Paramount. This conflict of interest poses risks to creators when major conglomerates engage in mergers and acquisitions.