AI and Copyright. Who Will Own What?
It’s complicated. Actually, it’s so complicated that if you were a copyright lawyer you’d be pinching yourself because what’s happening right now can’t possibly be true; it must be a dream. Because you just hit paydirt, baby. For at least the next ten years. And you have generative AI to thank.
Of course, if you’re not a copyright lawyer but are pretty sure you may need advice from one at some time, I apologise unreservedly for the celebrative tone of the preceding paragraph. I don’t have to be a clairvoyant to know that the future foretells the above-mentioned legal sector will part you from a lot of cash in the years to come.
A recent article in the Wall Street Journal showed a collection of some informed opinions about how these laws should be recalibrated in this age of AI. So we’ve broken them down into eight points of view.
They’re opinions, remember. And often, they conflict. But they may help to answer some questions about your, or others’, claims on copyright in the AI universe.
If you use Generative AI to write or create, you have no legal or moral claim to copyright.
Copyright belongs to whoever’s work was used to train the AI which resulted in your work.
The current copyright laws may need to be amended to include design or style.
Prompting needs to be examined on an individual case basis. (prompting is how an LLM is instructed by a human to generate the desired result). If the prompting itself came from other stimulus, whoever created that stimulus must share in the copyright.
AI should be open source so that no copyright should exist at all.
Copyright should be fairly divided amongst developers, AI trainers and original material owners.
Should AI become sentient, then the copyright belongs to AI. (Be afraid. Be very afraid.)
If AI were to be awarded copyright, this would ultimately lead to an obliteration of human creativity. There would be no impetus in the human psyche for originality.
So I hope this provides some clarity. But I also acknowledge that, given the subject matter, it may have made it even more confusing.
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