At the World Artificial Intelligence Conference held in Shanghai, the audience stopped at the AI painting exhibition area to watch.
Photographed by Xu Kunde (People's Vision)
At the 4th Consumer Expo held in Haikou, Hainan Province, the audience is watching the AI calligraphy demonstration.
Shot by Yang He (People's Vision)
AI creation is very different from the traditional creation mode. Training AI requires massive data "feeding"; The creation process will refer to existing works. Are these "feeds" and "references" infringing? There are many discussions in the industry.
These discussions are accompanied by the increase of AI infringement cases - the first "AI audio-visual works infringement case", "AI voice infringement case", and "AI 'Wenshengtu' infringement case" in China... All these remind people that intellectual property protection is indispensable for AI to develop well.
What are the characteristics of AI creation infringement cases? Should the generated content be protected by copyright law? How to balance the relationship between intellectual property protection and AI industry development? Our reporter conducted an interview.
"The first case in China" keeps increasing
In April this year, the Beijing Internet Court sentenced the first case of "AI Voice" infringement in China. The plaintiff, Yin Mou, is a voice dubber, whose recorded audiobook was AI processed by a company in Beijing and used to provide consumers with text generated voice services. Since the defendant did not obtain legal authorization, the court decided that the defendant should compensate the plaintiff for various losses of 250000 yuan and make a written apology.
In fact, there is a risk of copyright infringement in all stages of AI creation. AI involves copyright authorization of training data in the R&D stage, and faces problems such as judgment of work attribute and copyright ownership of generated content in the utilization stage.
In November 2023, the Beijing Internet Court concluded the copyright infringement case of "AI Wenshengtu" between the plaintiff Li and the defendant Liu, which has attracted wide attention. In this case, the court held for the first time that as long as AI generated pictures can reflect the original intellectual input of natural persons, they should be recognized as works and protected by copyright law.
In addition, because the AI generated content is consistent with the training works in the creation context, the AI generated content may also have the problem of infringement due to style imitation. For example, Van Gogh style painting creation, AI imitating songs of famous singers, etc. This has led to the discussion of style imitation from all walks of life.
"At present, the generated AI infringement cases accepted by the courts cover copyright, personality rights, data rights, etc., and are basically new cases, many of which are 'the first in China'." Yan Jun, the head of the Third Comprehensive Trial Division of the Beijing Internet Court, told reporters that, Whether AI generated content can be included in the scope of copyright protection is currently the focus of controversy from all walks of life, and the related intellectual property protection issues are increasing, which needs attention from all parties.
"Originality" judgment is the key
Can AI generated content be included in the scope of copyright protection?
"The personalized elements embodied in AI generated content in the case, the contribution of creators' participation in the input, and the choice of creative elements are not the same, and cannot be generalized." Zhang Ping, a professor of Peking University Law School, believes that only generated content can meet the "touchstone" of the work - the standard of originality judgment, and meet the copyright requirements of the work, Can be protected by copyright law.
Take the first copyright infringement case of "AI Wenshengtu" in China as an example, the pictures involved were generated by the plaintiff using generative AI technology, and the intellectual input of the plaintiff was reflected from the presentation form of the design characters, the order of arranging prompt words, and the setting of relevant parameters.
"The plaintiff made a series of aesthetic choices and personality judgments when creating pictures, which reflected the plaintiff's outstanding personalized expression and reached the criteria of 'originality', so the plaintiff enjoys the copyright of the pictures involved." Bai Niannian, senior partner of Beijing Gongheng Law Firm, added that those who lack human ingenuity Content that is automatically generated entirely by AI should not be recognized as a work, nor should it be protected by copyright law.
In addition to the copyright identification and attribution of AI generated content, there are many other controversial points in practice. In Zhang Ping's opinion, the current copyright system takes the intellectual achievements of "people" as the measurement standard, and the provisions on AI generated content are not complete. At the same time, the traditional infringement identification standard also faces the problem of difficulty in application in AI creation scenarios. The AI generated content may be "substantially similar" to existing works, but due to the complexity and diversity of the generation process, it is difficult to make a clear judgment through the traditional "thought expression dichotomy", which also brings new challenges to judicial practice.
Yan Jun added that in terms of AI product protection, the copyright law has no clear provisions on this; In terms of the ownership of AI generated content, there is still a dispute whether the relevant rights and interests belong to the developers or actual users of AI technology, which needs clear guidance at the legal and policy levels; In terms of the response to judicial protection, there are still some unresolved judicial protection issues, such as the identification of originality, the identification of algorithm infringement standards, and the identification of legal nature.
Protection for development
The legal regulation of AI generated content is not only closely related to the core interests of copyright owners, but also related to industrial development and technological progress. How to properly balance the relationship between protection and development and test the governance wisdom of all parties.
Zhang Ping believes that, on the whole, China's current generative AI technology innovation is in a rapid development stage, and the formulation of laws and regulations should leave certain development space for scientific and technological innovation, adopt an open and inclusive normative principle, and appropriately expand the scope of interpretation of reasonable use.
It is understood that there has been some international exploration in this regard. The copyright laws of some countries have set some criteria for judging the intellectual property rights related to AI creation. For example, whether AI's use of existing works is for commercial purposes, the number and similarity of works used, and the impact of use on the potential market or value of the original works. In general, if it is conducive to the dissemination of public knowledge, the "transformational use" of the original work that does not affect it is likely to be recognized as fair use.
How to give consideration to the rights and interests of all parties and fully stimulate AI's creative vitality? Zhang Ping suggested that, first of all, we can improve laws and regulations, clarify the scope and standards of copyright protection of AI generated content, and strengthen the normative management in the data training process; Secondly, explore and establish a responsibility sharing mechanism suitable for the development of AI industry; Finally, establish an open data sharing platform, encourage the rational use and authorization of data, and promote self-discipline and multi-party cooperation in the industry to promote the healthy development of AI creation.
So, how can AI users such as enterprise platforms and ordinary individuals maintain their own intellectual property rights and not infringe others' intellectual property rights in specific practice? Bai Niannian believes that the AI platform should try to improve its internal intellectual property compliance mechanism, including copyright, for example, try to use universal, open or legally authorized basic materials, identify the copyright source, and try not to infringe the intellectual property rights of third parties. When individuals use AI to create, they should also pay attention to preserving creative materials to avoid problems such as difficulty in providing evidence in the subsequent process of rights protection.
"The 'balance of interests' is an important principle of China's intellectual property legal system. Its essence is to coordinate various conflicting factors through legal authority, so that the interests of all parties concerned can be reasonably optimized on the basis of coexistence and compatibility." Zhang Ping said, "The rise of AI creation has inevitably challenged the traditional intellectual property rules, but this challenge is not insurmountable. The key is to clarify the property rights protection norms in all aspects of AI creation, and form a benefit balance and sharing mechanism for relevant parties to protect and promote the development of AI creation."
