A bill introduced in the US Congress on Tuesday intends to force artificial intelligence companies to reveal the copyrighted material they use to make their generative AI models.
The California Democratic congressman Adam Schiff introduced the bill, the Generative AI Copyright Disclosure Act, which would require that AI companies submit any copyrighted works in their training datasets to the Register of Copyrights before releasing new generative AI systems, which create text, images, music or video in response to users’ prompts.
The bill would need companies to file such documents at least 30 days before publicly debuting their AI tools, or face a financial penalty.
“AI has the disruptive potential of changing our economy, our political system, and our day-to-day lives.
We must balance the immense potential of AI with the crucial need for ethical guidelines and protections,” Schiff said in a statement.
Whether major artificial intelligence companies worth billions have made illegal use of copyrighted works is increasingly the source of litigation and government investigation.
Prominent artificial intelligence companies such as OpenAI are facing lawsuits over their alleged use of copyrighted works to build tools like ChatGPT.
OpenAI and other artificial intelligence companies have denied wrongdoing and claimed that their use of copyrighted material falls under fair use, a legal doctrine that allows for some unlicensed use of copyrighted materials under certain conditions.
A bill that was submitted to the US Congress on Tuesday seeks to compel companies that develop artificial intelligence to disclose the copyrighted content that goes into creating their generative AI models. The legislation is an additional effort by legislators, media, and artists to determine how AI companies train their software using creative works such as music, visual art, movies, and books, and whether those companies are using copyrighted content illegally to create their products.
The Generative AI Copyright Disclosure Act was proposed by Democratic congressman Adam Schiff of California. It would force AI companies to register any copyrighted works in their training datasets with the Register of Copyrights before releasing any new generative AI systems—which generate text, images, music, or video in response to user prompts. The bill would penalize companies if they failed to submit these documents at least 30 days in advance of their AI tool’s public debut. These collections contain billions of words and images, or millions of hours of audio and video.
Artificial Intelligence possesses the disruptive potential to transform our daily lives, our political system, and our economy. In a statement, Schiff said, “We must strike a balance between the enormous potential of AI and the critical need for ethical guidelines and protections.
Government investigations and legal action are increasingly focused on whether large, billion-dollar artificial intelligence companies have used copyrighted works illegally. The legislation proposed by Schiff would require businesses to disclose the vast array of works—data that is typically kept confidential—that they use to create ChatGPT, but it would not outright forbid AI from receiving training on copyrighted content.
Supporters of Schiff’s bill include the Directors Guild of America, Professional Photographers of America, Recording Industry Association of America, and Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists. The bill was first reported by Billboard.
“Human creativity is the source of everything produced by artificial intelligence. According to SAG-AFTRA’s national executive director and chief negotiator Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, “that is why human creative content—intellectual property—must be protected.”.
Notable AI firms like OpenAI are being sued for allegedly utilizing copyrighted materials in the development of ChatGPT and other related products. The startup is facing copyright infringement lawsuits from Sarah Silverman and the New York Times. As it prepares to take on more than a dozen significant lawsuits, OpenAI reportedly hired a number of prestigious attorneys in the last year, according to the Washington Post.
OpenAI and other artificial intelligence firms have refuted any misconduct and maintained that their utilization of copyrighted content complies with fair use, a legal theory permitting certain unrestricted utilization of copyrighted content under specific circumstances. OpenAI’s financial line or the livelihoods of artists could be severely harmed by the legal strategy, which puts copyright law to the test. Attorneys representing OpenAI argued earlier this year in a submission to a UK government committee that “training is not prohibited by copyright law legally. In that submission, OpenAI added that its tools would stop working if it couldn’t access copyrighted works.
