AI tools creating copyright free content
One of the world’s biggest picture agencies, Getty Images, is launching a generative AI tool for users to create copyright free pictures. The tool is trained only on the agency’s photos with the agency saying “contributors will be compensated for any inclusion of their content in the training set.” The announcement comes at a time when authors and others in Hollywood are closing their strike that included worries about AI writing copyright free manuscripts.
The AI hype puts a finger on the controversial use of huge amounts of online content to train AI tools with creators demanding compensation for using their content for deep learning. A number of well known news media have blocked AI tools from using their content for deep learning.
Generative artificial intelligence can produce text and pictures that look like created by humans. But who owns the outcome of content produced by AI? Getty avoids the question and says that “content generated through the tool will not be added into existing Getty Images and iStock content libraries for others to license”.
Specialists at the World Economic Forum are warning that copyright laws need to change to keep up with the potential of AI.
“With generative AI impacting content creation, it is essential for policy-makers and legislators to re-examine and update copyright laws to enable appropriate attribution, and ethical and legal reuse of existing content”, specialists write summarising results of a conference called “Responsible AI Leadership: A Global Summit on Generative AI” that took place in San Francisco.
Trying to answer the question if content made by AI is copyrightable, it seems specialists agree that it depends on the level of human interaction. How much have humans contributed and how much is made by software?
Getty says the tool is trained “solely from Getty Images’ vast creative library, including exclusive premium content, with full indemnification for commercial use.”
“Sitting alongside the company’s broader, industry‑leading services, Generative AI by Getty Images works seamlessly with the company’s expansive library of authentic and compelling visuals and Custom Content solutions, allowing customers to elevate their entire end‑to‑end creative process to find the right visual content for any need.”
“We’ve listened to customers about the swift growth of generative AI – and have heard both excitement and hesitation – and tried to be intentional around how we developed our own tool,” said Grant Farhall, Chief Product Officer at Getty Images.
“We’ve created a service that allows brands and marketers to safely embrace AI and stretch their creative possibilities, while compensating creators for inclusion of their visuals in the underlying training sets.”
“We’re excited to launch a tool that harnesses the power of generative AI to address our customers’ commercial needs while respecting the intellectual property of creators,” said Craig Peters, CEO at Getty Images.
“Content generated through the tool will not be added into existing Getty Images and iStock content libraries for others to license. Further, contributors will be compensated for any inclusion of their content in the training set”, the agency says in a press release.
The fast adoption of generative AI is leading to copyright discussions with several rightsholders already having announced they will go to court if not properly compensated.
Owners of huge amounts of data, that can be used for deep learning of AI software, are taking action to protect the use of their data making sure they will be compensated by those using it to build AI solutions.
Legal experts writing in Harvard Business Review say that “ the legal implications of using generative AI are still unclear, particularly in relation to copyright infringement, ownership of AI-generated works, and unlicensed content in training data.”
“Courts are currently trying to establish how intellectual property laws should be applied to generative AI, and several cases have already been filed”, write Gil Appel, Assistant Professor of Marketing at the GW School of Business, Juliana Neelbauer, partner at Fox Rothschild LLP and David A. Schweidel, Professor of Marketing at Emory University’s Goizueta Business School.
Professor Arun Sundararajan, New York University, thinks an important factor when discussing AI and copyright is the scalability: Once this is encoded into an AI system, new creations can be generated at a breath taking pace, he told a World Economic Forum conference.
Sundararajan said that every AI system we use was created by training it on examples.
“A lot of discussion has focused on whether it’s OK for AI companies to use other people’s creations for this. The law is unclear at present.”
“The law is also unclear today on the ownership associated with something generated by AI, a particular creation. So if an AI system writes a story or generates a piece of art or composes a song, in some jurisdictions, if it is completely AI-generated with no human participation at all, nobody owns it, it’s in the public domain.”
“If there’s enough human assistance, such as providing a storyline which the AI completes for you or you outline a song and the song is then AI-generated, then you can continue to own the copyright.”
“On the issue of who owns the creative process, there seems to be little or no law that is giving us a definitive answer on how we can reclaim ownership of our creative process.”
Sundararajan thinks it is likely that the US, the EU or China – one of these three – will take a leadership role and define the first set of guidelines and laws around individuals’ ownership of their creative processes and the use of data.
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