Private use of the copyrighted works is pretty much a separate topic entirely.

And while the law isn't settled on the topic, it's wrong to argue AI training is something that happens entirely in a private setting, especially when that work is made available publicly in some form or another.

Sure, there's a problem with the current copyright laws that has to be addressed. It's quite similar to the "TiVo loophole" in OSS licenses. It was addressed, and certainly not in favour of the loophole exploiters. That one could be fixed on licence level because it was ultimately a licence question, but the AI training question, however, needs to be taken to the legislation level. Internationally, too.

I still don't think this is correct for two reasons. 1: I believe the DMCA and friends count as copyright law. 2: just reading the text of the law (#17 U.S. Code § 106):

Subject to sections 107 through 122, the owner of copyright under this title has the exclusive rights to do and to authorize any of the following:

(1) to reproduce the copyrighted work in copies or phonorecords;

(2) to prepare derivative works based upon the copyrighted work;

(3) to distribute copies or phonorecords of the copyrighted work to the public by sale or other transfer of ownership, or by rental, lease, or lending;

(4) in the case of literary, musical, dramatic, and choreographic works, pantomimes, and motion pictures and other audiovisual works, to perform the copyrighted work publicly;

(5) in the case of literary, musical, dramatic, and choreographic works, pantomimes, and pictorial, graphic, or sculptural works, including the individual images of a motion picture or other audiovisual work, to display the copyrighted work publicly; and

(6) in the case of sound recordings, to perform the copyrighted work publicly by means of a digital audio transmission

It seems pretty clear that only the copyright owner has the rights to make copies, subject to a number of exemption.

Now IANAL so I could be missing something pretty huge, but my understanding was that this right to make copies (especially physical ones for physical media) is at the core of copyright law. Not just the distribution of those copies (which is captured by right 3)