GenerativeAI vs Copyright
In the past year, there have been significant updates on GenerativeAI. Systems that generate complex texts and images have become popular even at a commercial or industrial level. Many websites and applications have integrated such systems to improve user experience. After all these tech-savvy storms comes the question, “To whom does the copyright go on the generated content?” — the author, the system itself or the authors of data used for training? A lot of noise comes in when this question is raised. In this article let us see how would the copyright of GenerativeAI be handled.
- Understanding Copyright
According to Wikipedia definition,
A copyright is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the exclusive right to copy, distribute, adapt, display, and perform a creative work, usually for a limited time. —Wikipedia
The conflict here is that the owner usually refers to a person — meaning the one with any legal status. Since AI is a computer system that has no legal status, the copyright law will become inapplicable here.
Then the follow-up question arises — Why not give the copyright to the author?
- Giving copyright to the author
Blindly giving copyright to the author has two main challenges concerning the code and data. Not every piece of code used to develop the AI system would be written by the original author. It may or may not be taken from other sources. Secondly, data is what gives AI its intelligent nature. The data that is used for training may or may not be copyrighted and will come from multiple authors. Moreover, IP rights in each country have a fair use policy, under which specific usage of the copyrighted data can be done without permission from the author. Beyond that, anything else will require the author's permission. Identifying this makes the problem even more twisty.
- What is the contribution of the author?
The main intention behind copyrighting anything is the contribution of the author or a person’s work. Considering a generative AI system, what can be considered a contribution? — The code, the tweaking of the algorithm etc.? Few laws consider these while others do not. Either way, similar images resembling a given work can be generated with other algorithms as well, thus confusing law agencies even more.
- Changes among the borders
Each country has its laws, and so does this too. A recently passed US policy states that AI-generated content can be copyrighted in the author’s name if the author proves that he/she has put some creative effort into generating the output. The art law in Australia states that since AI has no legal status it does not qualify for copyright law. Moreover, works with independent intellectual effort only will qualify for a copyright, although the law has not been fully extended for AI systems yet.
Conclusion
Although there is no solid answer to this war yet, each territory will have a different rule regarding this issue, unless standardized. Moreover, since GenerativeAI is quite a recent buzzword, law agencies across the world will require more time to get around this mess of data vs. law war. With GenerativeAI getting into arts and being extensively used by artists, this will take some serious thought to protect the original work of any artist.
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