In recent years, Artificial intelligence has been continuously developed and gradually entered the fields of literature, artistic creation, etc. Some artificial intelligence products are difficult to distinguish from human works, and the traditional copyright protection system has suffered a huge impact. Clarifying whether artificial intelligence products belong to the objects protected by copyright has become the primary issue that needs to be solved urgently in improving the copyright protection system in related fields.
1 Problem
1956, John McCarthy first proposed the concept of artificial intelligence (AI) at the summer meeting of Dartmouth College. But in the past forty years, people have not paid too much attention to artificial intelligence. It was not until 1997 that the artificial intelligence DeepBlue developed by IBM defeated the then chess world champion Gary Kasparov, and thus artificial intelligence truly entered the public's vision. Artificial intelligence technology has continued to develop over the years and has made major breakthroughs in many fields. In 2009, the music album "Light from Darkness" created by artificial intelligence "EIM" was released. In 2014, Associated Press and artificial intelligence companies jointly developed an artificial intelligence writing platform - Wordsmith. In 2017, the first collection of poems completed entirely by artificial intelligence, " Sunshine Losts Glass Window " was officially published.
The ability of artificial intelligence to show in the field of artistic creation is becoming more and more outstanding, but the existing copyright legal system lacks regulation of related content.
2 Artificial intelligence generics constitute works in the sense of copyright law
Academic issues on whether artificial intelligence generics constitute works in the sense of copyright law
At present, there are two main views on whether artificial intelligence generics constitute works in the sense of copyright law, one is the affirmative statement and the other is the negative statement. [1] Scholars who support affirmative statements believe that although artificial intelligence products are special, they are still the embodiment of the designer's will and can constitute a work. Scholars who support the negative theory believe that artificial intelligence products do not meet the conditions required to constitute a work. On the one hand, artificial intelligence products are only part of several results of algorithm operation, and do not reflect the creator's personality and are not original. On the other hand, this group of scholars believe that the creative subject of artificial intelligence is artificial intelligence, which does not meet the requirements of the Copyright Law for the author subject, so it cannot be classified as a work [2]. The author agrees with and affirms that the reasons are as follows:
On the one hand, the author believes that the creative subject of artificial intelligence products is still a natural person. So far, the development of artificial intelligence is still at the level of intelligent operation such as obtaining and refining information, deduction and execution. Although it is sometimes difficult for us to distinguish the size of artificial intelligence and human contributions to the generation of works, it is certain that there must be participation of substantial contributions from human beings. In fact, at this stage, artificial intelligence still plays the role of auxiliary tools in the process of creating works, and its generation is still human wisdom and thoughts. There is no substantial difference between the role of artificial intelligence in human creation and the process of craftsmen using electric drill to help carve. The only difference is that mechanical tools such as electric drills replace craftsmen's physical labor, while artificial intelligence replaces part of human mental labor.
On the other hand, there are currently judicial practices and effective legal systems in the world to support it. For example, the Shanghai Pudong New District Court in my country determines that the picture composition of a plot online game [3]; it should have been expressed in 1998 and in its " Copyright Law " that "the work generated by computers is not a writer"; the WTPO also discussed this issue and believed that for computer system products that meet the constituent elements of the work, copyright should be applied to protect [4].
3Criteria for determining the copyrightability of artificial intelligence products
As mentioned earlier, the creative subject of artificial intelligence products is still human, which meets the requirements of copyright law for the author subject.Under this premise, we only need to discuss whether the artificial intelligence generator meets the "originality" requirements that constitute the work, and we can draw a conclusion on whether the artificial intelligence generator can be copyrighted.
The author believes that the judgment of originality can adopt the US Supreme Court standards, namely "independent completion" and "minimum innovation". That is, as long as the artificial intelligence generative is not a simple copy of existing works of others, it can be distinguished in expression and excluded from the usual expression in the public domain, it can be considered an original expression. As for the "aesthetic standards" and "author personality standards" that some scholars advocate for determining originality, the author does not agree with it. If these judgment conditions are applied, works such as software works that should obviously be protected by copyright will be mistakenly excluded from the scope of the works. Therefore, these standards can be used as considerations for judging the originality of a work, but cannot be used as a necessary condition.
4 Response to the questioning of the copyrightability of artificial intelligence products
Some scholars believe that with the development of science and technology, the creation of artificial intelligence will be simpler, and its creative activities will increase. Correspondingly, a large number of artificial intelligence-generated works will become orphan works, which is obviously contrary to the purpose of the Copyright Law encourages creation. This questionable view cannot be consistent. Because there are currently relatively complete legislation around the world that can solve this problem, for example, Article 57, paragraph 1, of the British Copyright Law, stipulates the statutory licensing model: when the user fulfills his or her obligation to search in good faith and cannot determine the copyright owner, the act of applying the work will be legalized.
Some scholars believe that if the "minimum innovation" standard is adhered to, the protection of artificial intelligence products will be slightly excessive, and excessive protection will lead to an increase in transaction costs , which is not conducive to technological innovation [6]. This view is unreasonable. On the one hand, the originality stipulated in the copyright law refers to the distinction between a work and another's work, and does not limit the level of creation. On the other hand, if we only use transaction costs, we will improve the criteria for determining works and classify some artificial intelligence products into the public domain, this will undoubtedly hit the enthusiasm of artificial intelligence developers and investors, and will also be detrimental to innovation.
5 Conclusion
With the continuous advancement of artificial intelligence technology, the penetration of artificial intelligence products into all walks of life has gradually deepened. The current laws must confirm the copyrightability of artificial intelligence products as soon as possible, so as to give full play to the incentive role of the intellectual property legal system and promote the innovative progress of the artificial intelligence industry and the cultural and artistic industries.
[References]
[1] Article 3 of the Copyright Law stipulates: "The works referred to in this law refer to intellectual achievements that are original and can be expressed in a certain form in the fields of literature, art and science.
[2] Wang Guo: "On the Copyright Protection of Computer "Creative Works", published in Journal of Yunnan University (Legal Edition)" 2016, No. 1, Page 20.
[3] (2015) Pu Min San (Zhi) Chu Font No. 529
[4] Li Xiaoyu. A brief discussion on the copyrightability and rights distribution of artificial intelligence products [J]. Electronic Intellectual Property, 2018(06): 31-43.
[5] Article 58 of the UK "Copyright, Design and Patent Act 1988":
"After reasonable investigation, the identity of the work's right holder cannot be determined, and there are reasonable reasons to presumably be presumed that the copyright protection period has expired, or the author should have passed away 50 years or more ago, so the use of the work is not an infringement. ”
[6] Liu Ying. A preliminary study on the protection of copyright law of artificial intelligence products [J]. Intellectual Property, 2017(09): 44-50.
The above articles are provided by Zhonglele Entertainment Law.
[Zhonglele Entertainment Law] is a legal service platform focused on the cultural and entertainment industry created by Beijing Junzhong Law Firm and has gathered a group of senior experts in the fields of intellectual property, infringement, finance, labor law, etc. to jointly build a legal service platform focusing on the cultural and entertainment industry.Zhonglele Entertainment Law is based on the cultural and entertainment industry, deeply rooted in the law, understand entertainment, and understand the law better. Work with the Chinese cultural and entertainment industry to move forward with confidence!
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