Does Artificial Intelligence Violate Copyright, or Does It Deserve Protection?
When ChatGPT writes a story using materials from different authors it can find on the Internet, or similarly, when Midjourney creates a visual piece, who is actually the author? The concept of the AI program is actually quite simple: thanks to machine learning, they are taught to comb through all the content found on the internet in order to respond to your request. The final product, therefore, will be a combination of the most diverse works and ideas of the most diverse people. In that case, who exactly can be presented as the author? Well, you see, that's the problem. Is it even legal to use AI-generated content precisely because of the copyright of all the people whose work it was created from? And can that same AI-generated content still be protected by copyright? The issue of artificial intelligence and copyright is a slippery slope, and it seems that no one is quite sure how to answer it.
Soon it will be necessary to draw clear lines between authenticity and imitation. After the whole AI story started brewing, three artists filed a lawsuit against Stability AI, Midjourney, and DeviantArt for using their work without permission or signature from the authors. Getty Images also sued Stability AI for copyright infringement, and programmers also got involved in legal adventures of this type, since OpenAI, Microsoft, and GitHub software used their codes without authorization. The biggest challenge in regulating this issue is that artificial intelligence programs never use the work of only one author, but it is always a combination of more of them, resulting in a work that is, perhaps, both plagiarism and original to a similar degree.
After all, when we work on a project, don't we ourselves use other people's works as inspiration? Of course, man still has more creativity than machines, but it is clear to you that we are now entering a loop from which we cannot get out with a concrete solution that is black or white. The only thing that each of us can do at this moment is to be exceptionally careful how we use AI-generated content, especially when it comes to commercial purposes. The Copyright Office refuses to protect any work created with the help of artificial intelligence because, it says, there is no human authorship necessary to support a claim of possible copyright infringement. Furthermore, all AI-generated works are public and available to anyone, and everyone can use them without any restrictions.
And yet, as time passes and artificial intelligence programs become more and more advanced, there will evidently be a need to set somewhat clearer boundaries between authenticity and imitation. Because really - who owns the story written by ChatGPT or the visual work created by Midjourney? There are many people who use a wide variety of AI tools every day: if our goal is to do something and finish it quickly, we will settle for average results that are similar (it is enough just to compare several results for the same request), but if quality is important to us, we will self-tentatively limit reliance on such shortcuts.
At the end of the day, don't we want any kind of art or creative work to be human, created by a real person sharing their experiences, hopes, fears, and worldviews? Looking at things from this angle, we still stick to the same conclusion - artificial intelligence cannot replace a real human because it is still not able to think and generate new ideas. Whatever attitude you have towards artificial intelligence, especially at the moment when everyone is talking about it, we cannot deny that it is a powerful tool with incredible possibilities. But instead of endlessly debating whether to use AI in your work, perhaps it is more important to ask how to use AI so that no one is harmed.
Text written for the Netokracija website by: Đina Grčić, Digital Marketing Coordinator
Photo: Unsplash