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The U.S. should pass a law that explicitly makes data collection for training models fair use, and bars terms of service that forbid distillation, at least for U.S. companies.

Ben Thompson proposes a U.S. law that codifies training-data collection as fair use and outlaws anti-distillation clauses in AI terms of service, at least for domestic companies. ✦ AI generated

Ben Thompson · Simon Willison's Weblog · 2026-07-20 · original ↗

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The U.S. should pass a law that (1) makes explicit that collecting data for training models is fair use, and (2) bars terms of service that forbid distillation, for U.S. companies at a minimum.

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✳ distillation ✳ fair use ◉ Ben Thompson

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Mechanism · 1

Because U.S. open weight model makers must obey frontier labs' terms of service barring distillation, they end up worse than Chinese alternatives and distill Chinese models instead — the U.S. should legalize training-data collection as fair use and bar anti-distillation terms of service.Ben Thompson · Stratechery · conf 85%

Extends · 1

Policymakers should not conflate legitimate model-development techniques with misappropriation: distillation, the practice of using one model's outputs to help train or improve another, is a widely used technique for model improvement, evaluation, and validation that reflects a long tradition of learning from and building upon existing technologies.the Open Weights and American AI Leadership letter · Simon Willison's Weblog · conf 70%