Japan Agency for Cultural Affairs interprets the relationship between AI and copyright: Public sales of AI-generated products may constitute infringement

According to news on June 6, the Japanese Agency for Cultural Affairs and the Cabinet AI Strategy Department recently released an explanatory document on the "Relationship between Artificial Intelligence and Copyright", which was held on May 15 Used at the Japan Cabinet AI Strategy Group meeting. The document has been a trending topic on Twitter since June 3.

▲ Picture source Japan Agency for Cultural Affairs

The document states that The role of copyright is to "protect works that are 'creative expressions of thoughts or feelings' "But this does not include data (facts) and ideas (writing style, painting style). In other words, the relationship between AI and copyright should be considered separately in the “generation/usage stage” and the “AI development/learning stage”.

This means that when publishing an AI-generated image or selling a collection of illustrations, the same laws as ordinary copyright infringement apply. If the AI ​​image is determined to be similar to or dependent on an existing work (created based on an existing work), the copyright owner can apply for damages or an injunction for copyright infringement, and the infringer may also be subject to criminal penalties.

But on the other hand, when using other people’s copyrighted works for AI development, if “the use is not intended to infringe on the thoughts or feelings expressed by others, it can be used without the permission of the copyright owner and is protected by copyright.” s work". The official document gives a counterexample: if the necessary information is extracted from a landscape photo to create a 3D CG image, but the purpose is to create an image in which the "essential characteristics expressed" by the original photo can be felt, this behavior also constitutes infringement.

After reviewing the document, IT House learned that any behavior that uses the original content beyond the recognized necessary limit, or that unfairly harms the interests of the copyright holder, is not bound by the interpretation document.

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