Generative AI and the use of ‘large language models’ (LLMs) poses many challenges to current copyright law and it is expected that new legislation and case law will clarify the rules in time. The key principles to bear in mind at the present time are that only human beings, and neither non-human animals nor machines, can own copyright, and that any copyright material can be used to ‘train’ an AI system only with the permission of the copyright holder. An exception for ‘text and data mining’ was introduced into copyright law in 2019, but this gives copyright holders the ability to opt out of these uses and the right to be afforded the opportunity to do so. Any system that has used copyright material without this permission/against the wishes of a creator who has opted out, is guilty of infringement and therefore anyone using that system to generate new work is a party to that infringement.
How does copyright law relate to generative AI?
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