Copyright and artificial intelligence - why politics now urgently needs to act urgently

Tools of generative artificial intelligence (AI) are quickly used in many areas, companies and organizations to create the content of all kinds. These tools offer both a significant way to promote creative and business activity as well as a significant legal risk, up to existence-threatening scenarios for countless artists.

This is primarily due to the existing ambiguities and lack of legal framework, especially with regard to questions of intellectual property . Generative AI brings with it a variety of risks, problems and open questions that urgently need a political and law solution.

In this context, some even speaks of the greatest expropriation of intellectual creativeism in human history. The mirrors T the magnitude of the problem again. "

When using generative AI, the interests of authors must finally be observed, the German Cultural Council .

What is the core of the problem?

The German Culture Council has positioned itself in a statement on copyright aspects in the context of artificial intelligence (AI) . It becomes clear that numerous authors, active artists as well as creative minds and companies in the cultural and creative industries are very interested in the application of these new technologies for their work.

They use them and experiment with it. Nevertheless, the German Cultural Council notes, the development of AI not only represents a new technical innovation. Rather, it generates machine -generated results that are increasingly not to be distinguished from human creations and the process of being created cannot be understood by humans. This is a fundamental change, the effects of which have not yet been estimated.

The progressive development of AI models is at a breathtaking pace. In particular, AI models with a general area of ​​application that create content in the form of text, image, audio and video ( "generative AI" ) have developed within a shortest possible time on a central topic of the copyright debate. Generative AI has significant, partly existential -threatening effects on authors as well as on active artists.

The same applies to other rights holders such as publishers, film and music producers, game developers or broadcasters. In addition, AI is also of great relevance for educational institutions, memory institutions and libraries. Most actors are confronted with different degrees - both with risks and opportunities.

The copyright questions related to AI are often controversial and urgently need clarification. They are now discussed at international, European and national level, regardless of the fact that they have so far lacked a reliable copyright legal framework .

As early as April 2024, the Stanford Law School examined burning questions about copyright Futurelaw Conference 2024

The pace and the implementation of recommendations for action should be significantly faster in view of the immense threat and financial damage to authors around the world.

What does the German Cultural Council demand?

In its statement, the German Cultural Council initially undertakes a copyright inventory and, on this basis, presents initial considerations for possible legal regulations. It is about copyright regulations in relation to the "input" , i.e. the training of generative AI systems, as well as the "output" , i.e. the use of content that was created by generative AI. It is about transparency and labeling obligations when using content generated by AI.

The German Cultural Council calls for a balance of the interests of all those involved, in particular the consideration of the interests of the authors, exercising artists and all other right -wing holders. "

In the event of use, it is imperative that adequate remuneration is paid that the right-wing owners involved in the economic advantages that arise from the use of protected works and services in AI training and subsequent uses.

Overall, the German Culture Council stimulates a comprehensive legal policy discussion of the open copyright questions. This has not yet taken place sufficiently.

The managing director of the German Cultural Council, Olaf Zimmermann , said literally:

"In connection with artificial intelligence, very complex copyright questions arise. If we do not create a secure legal framework in this topic, authors as well as companies in the cultural and creative industries will get into a situation-threatening situation. to be averted from the cultural sector. "

Here is a complete statement by the German Cultural Council on copyright questions related to artificial intelligence.