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The handling of artificial intelligence and copyright has been discussed not only since ChatGPT. But especially since the breakthrough of ChatGPT, more and more questions have been raised about this.
ChatGPT and copyright
ChatGPT is a chatbot based on machine learning. In other words, it is an Artificial Intelligence. These so-called AIs are exposed to issues vis-à-vis copyright in two ways.
- On the one hand, there is the question of who owns the rights to the content produced by ChatGPT.
- Texts like poems are written by ChatGPT, but the AI belongs to OpenAI and not itself.
- This is why there is a frequent debate about whether or not OpenAI owns the rights to the content.
- A second important point is that ChatGPT does not produce the content on its own, but based on the data fed into it.
- This means that it cannot be ruled out that the AI only reproduces content and takes it from humans itself.
- Similar cases of an AI infringing copyright already exist with Lensa, for example. The image editing app is based on an artificial intelligence and takes over the work of artists without paying for it.
What problems does this pose?
In Germany there is the so-called Copyright Act. This protects the rights of artists and their works.
- According to Paragraph 2(2) of the Act, works are the personal, intellectual creations of human beings.
- The AI itself is not a human being and its content generation process is also not creative, but based on previously fed data.
- This means ChatGPT’s works are not copyrighted.
- But at the same time, this also means that if the content was possibly taken from third parties, you would be liable to prosecution for simply reproducing it under section 16 and making it publicly available under section 19.
- Thus, you should refrain from having ChatGPT write academic papers, for example, as they could end up being plagiarised.
