Patreon CEO calls AI companies' fair use argument 'bogus'

Speaking at the SXSW (South by Southwest) conference in Austin this week, Patreon CEO and founder Jack Conte challenged the artificial intelligence industry’s reliance on fair use to train models on creator work without compensation. Conte, who noted that he runs a tech company, argued that AI companies should not be able to train their models on the work of creators without compensation. He specifically labeled the industry’s fair use defense as a bogus argument.

To highlight what he views as a double standard, Conte pointed out that AI companies are already paying large rights holders and publishers—including Disney, Condé Nast, Vox, and Warner Music—for content. According to Conte, this willingness to secure multimillion-dollar deals undermines the legal defense that using individual creators’ work for free constitutes fair use. “If it’s legal to just use it, why pay?” asked Conte, the CEO and founder of Patreon. He questioned why these companies pay major conglomerates but do not compensate individual creators whose work is consumed to train models.

Conte acknowledged that AI will likely break many existing creative business models, comparing the shift to previous industry disruptions like the transition to iTunes or TikTok. However, he emphasized that Patreon’s community of hundreds of thousands of creators deserves compensation for the value AI companies are building, which he estimates at hundreds of billions of dollars. Drawing on his own background as an artist, Conte explained that he originally founded Patreon to solve a personal challenge as a musician: finding a way to get people to pay creators for their work.

Despite the disruption, Conte expressed optimism about the future of human creativity. He noted that great artists do not simply play back what already exists, but instead push culture forward. He added that he accepts the inevitability of change and feels excited to discover his next path through the chaos, asserting that change does not mean death for artists who are willing to adapt and continue.

Why it matters

Conte is leveraging Patreon’s scale to challenge the double standard in AI training data compensation. By highlighting that AI firms can negotiate payouts with major media conglomerates, he is forcing a conversation on why individual creators are excluded from similar compensation.