Everything a computer does includes copying; data is processed, written to memory, retrieved, and transmitted.
Mahi Sall, Advisor, Fintech-Bank Partnerships, Payments and Financial Inclusivity
January 25th, 2023
Mahi Sall is the CEO & Founder of FinXpair, a Berlin-based strategic advisory boutique firm focu[...]
The future relationship between AI and IP
The Law Society UK | Giles Parsons | Sep 16, 2020
Everything a computer does includes copying; data is processed, written to memory, retrieved, and transmitted.
Copyright is infringed when the 'expression of the intellectual creation of the author of the work' is copied. So in order to allow the internet to function, the EU passed an exception in copyright law that allows temporary copying when that copying forms part of a transmission of a copyright work in a network.
This isn’t an issue for people – we don’t 'copy' documents in the same way to read them. Perhaps use by AI would fall within exhaustion of rights – once a book has been sold, it can be read by both man and machine.
But behind this is a bigger question: what use by AI of a copyright work should be allowed? Copyright does not protect ideas; it protects the expression of ideas. But drawing a neat line between the two has always been difficult.
See: How do intellectual property rights apply to AI?
Machine learning software, using artificial neural networks, can learn from information it receives and reach decisions on its own volition, with limited or no human intervention. AIs have been trained to paint like Rembrandt and compose like Bach. When a machine, which is trained only on one author’s works, goes on to make similar work, is it not copying something protected by copyright?
When alternate products are sold from the results of an image search, all the retailer needs is something that looks like the product being searched for to increase the prospects of sale of their own products.
AI will make it easier to create lookalikes and will automate and make it easier for consumers to find lookalikes.
AI creating copyright works
This also leads us back to the problem of whether copyright should subsist in AI generated works. EU jurisprudence says that copyright protects intellectual creations and that ‘an intellectual creation is an author’s own if it reflects the author’s personality’. The Advocate General in Painer C-145/10 has explicitly said that only human creations are protected.
The UK’s Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 provides for computer generated works to be protected by copyright. So, EU case law and UK statute are incompatible, perhaps because neither is designed with AI generated works in mind.
UK law expressly excludes computer generated works from holding moral rights. Perhaps the paternity right for computer generated works would be a good thing to keep people honest, even if the computers don’t care.
See: Podcast Strictly Legal: Who Owns Blockchain?
News organisations are using machines to interpret data, detect trends and generate articles – including Bloomberg’s Cyborg, Forbes’ Bertie and the Washington Post’s Heliograf.
Retail and trade marks
AI is changing our shopping habits. Smart assistants can order goods; smart fridges can keep us stocked with fresh milk; AI fashion assistants can tell us what to wear. However, when I ask Alexa for an iPhone charger or a Nintendo Switch charger, it tells me that it has put a compatible charger in my basket. If I ask Siri for the BBC weather forecast, it shows me results from the iPhone’s weather app.
These issues are an extension of the ones consumers already encountered when shopping online. We know that if we enter 'Canon camera' into Google, we may be shown results for Nikons.
Using a trade mark in an advertisement is not trade mark infringement if the advert enables 'normally informed and reasonably attentive internet users' to ascertain whether the goods or services referred to in the ad originate from or are connected with the proprietor of the mark.
To avoid trade mark issues, AI platforms will have to inform consumers about the products they are being offered. Brand owners will have to ensure consumers still care about what brand they are purchasing.
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