It ’ s ( probably ) not the end of the world , says Muckle associate solicitor Tom Justice , as he looks at the topical issue of AI and copyright infringement ...
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21st-century problems – Who owns the content produced using Artificial Intelligence ?
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It ’ s ( probably ) not the end of the world , says Muckle associate solicitor Tom Justice , as he looks at the topical issue of AI and copyright infringement ...
– Tom Justice , associate solicitor at Muckle , says caution is needed when using AI tools such as ChatGPT .
Anyone who has ever asked Alexa to add something to the shopping list and , in response , been informed of current weather conditions in Buenos Aires , could be forgiven for being sceptical about claims that AI will soon take over the world .
However , OpenAI ’ s artificial intelligence software programme , ChatGPT , has been the subject of recent headlines that have sent many people spiralling , envisioning a bleak , post-apocalyptic landscape where AI has taken over .
Potential extinction events aside , the use of AI such as ChatGPT does raise numerous legal questions , one of them being , “ Who owns the intellectual property in the content ChatGPT ‘ creates ’?”
What is ChatGPT ? ChatGPT is an online AI tool that uses natural language processing to generate responses . It can perform various tasks , including answering factual questions , generating essays and completing prompts .
How is ChatGPT different to what has come before ? Put simply , it isn ’ t . It ’ s just better at it . ChatGPT combines a “ chatbot ” ( a computer program that cannot “ learn ” and is designed to simulate conversation with human users ) and GPT-3 ( a language model that uses deep learning to produce human-like text ).
A combination of supervised learning and reinforcement learning is used , meaning human feedback is part of the training loop to help minimise errors or biased responses .
The resulting AI tool responds to prompts in a human-like manner , and also seems to understand what it is being asked of it .
Ultimately , you can use ChatGPT to create content . This could be a degreelevel essay on feminist criticism of the works of Virginia Woolf , or it could be a joke about complimentary peanuts – the world is your oyster .
It ’ s worth pointing out that , in some cases , ChatGPT has reportedly produced inaccurate and / or biased results and , occasionally , falsely accused Australian mayors of bribery . You ’ ve been warned .
Who owns the content it creates ? Copyright in the UK protects the form of the expression of an idea but not the idea itself . If you have an idea for a novel , that idea won ’ t be protected by copyright , but the text you produce will .
Copyright gives authors of original works the right to protect their work from being copied . It applies automatically to original artistic works , as well as sound recordings , films , broadcasts and typographical arrangements on creation .
It also applies to original work such as software , web content and databases . Unless an exception applies , no one else can use or copy the original work without the copyright owner ’ s permission .
However , copyright doesn ’ t provide a monopoly and won ’ t protect against the creation of similar or identical work if it has not been copied .
What about an AI tool trained using enormous amounts of copyrighted text it then uses to generate its own work ? Could it be argued that AI infringes the copyright in those texts ? Or is it simply using those texts as inspiration to create original work ?
Under its terms and conditions , ChatGPT assigns ownership of the output it generates to the user ( that is , you ). This means you ’ ll own that content .
However , you ’ re responsible for ensuring the content doesn ’ t violate any applicable laws . So , if the content ChatGPT creates for you does infringe a third party ’ s copyright , then that ’ s your problem .
While ChatGPT may be useful for performing some personal or internal business tasks , you should be cautious . Be careful using AI generators to create content you plan on exploiting commercially , if you don ’ t want to risk copyright infringement proceedings .
For more information on the issues in this article , or any other copyright or intellectual property query , contact Tom Justice ( a human ) on 0191 211 7913 or tom . justice @ muckle-llp . com .
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