Copyright and fair use in the digital era
It’s a slightly strange article because it assumes that an equivalent of “reading” which it posits is permitted under copyright is somehow free.<p>It’s not. If you want to consume copyright protected content you need - unless the copyright owner allows you - to make some sort of value exchange. Often the primary application of this is that an author (or creator) licenses their content to a publisher (or distributor) and that publisher pays them a royalty for the use of the content. However, the licence that the author provides will (should) specify what uses are covered by the licence. So if an author grants a licence to a publisher then the licence may allow the publisher to print and sell books - but might exclude the right for the underlying literary work to be adapted as a screenplay. So if someone wants to make a film or TV show of that work they need to revert to the author. The publisher may or may not be cut in on that deal.<p>This is a primary tenet of copyright: that the copyright owner can control who does what, and only they can grant that permission, and they can sell (or exchange value) for that permission.<p>It’s a logical leap to say “because the copyright owner has licensed this work to a publisher for people to read it is then ok to use that content to inform composite derivative works using AI”.<p>To expand on the proposal of the article that a search engine “reading” an article is the same as AI “reading” an article: when a search engine “reads” copyright protected content it is creating a signpost - similar to Dewey Decimal signposting - not (generally, but see google news lawsuits) aggregating the works to create derivative works.<p>Addressing the google news point there is an argument that a value exchange has taken place - that the publisher is allowing (or excluding) the use based on the utility they get in terms of increased visibility&#x2F;audience&#x2F;ad revenue.<p>If an AI ingests copyright work that is fine <i>so long as the author knowingly permits it</i> and is compensated. However I bet if you said to screenwriters or musicians or journalists “will you licence your work and unique stylistic voice to a company that will create new works that are creatively and stylistically largely indistinguishable from yours” they would say no.<p>Plagiarism is plagiarism and if a human reads and regurgitates a work protected by copyright the copyright owner may (as has been seen in various song lawsuits - and other creative works related lawsuits) have a case to say their copyright has been abused, and be compensated.