---
id: "quote-alsup-transformative"
type: "quote"
source_timestamps: ["¶5"]
tags: ["fair-use", "legal-ruling"]
related: ["concept-fair-use-divergence", "entity-judge-william-alsup"]
speaker: "Judge William Alsup"
speakers: ["Judge William Alsup"]
sources: ["tail2"]
sourceVaultSlug: "hbr-seg-tail2"
originDay: 2
articleStem: "hbr-tail-126-genai-copyright"
sourceUrl: "https://hbr.org/2025/07/can-gen-ai-and-copyright-coexist"
sourceTitle: "Can Gen AI and Copyright Coexist?"
---
# Judge Alsup on Transformative AI Use

> "Like any reader aspiring to be a writer, Anthropic's LLM [is] trained upon works not to race ahead and replicate or supplant them—but to turn a hard corner and create something different."

— [[entity-judge-william-alsup]], *Bartz v. Anthropic* (¶5)

The canonical statement of the AI-favorable pole in [[concept-fair-use-divergence]]: it grounds the fair-use finding in an analogy to human learning. Read alongside its counterweight [[quote-chhabria-competing]] and its own limiting principle [[quote-alsup-piracy]] — the fair-use finding applies only to *lawfully acquired* works.