Copyright in Generative Deep Learning
It tackles legal uncertainties for artists, developers, and policymakers in the emerging field of AI-generated art, but is incremental as it reviews existing laws without proposing new solutions.
The paper addresses legal issues in generative deep learning for the arts, such as using copyrighted works for training and copyright ownership of generated data, by analyzing current laws in the US and EU and providing guidelines for artists and policymakers.
Machine-generated artworks are now part of the contemporary art scene: they are attracting significant investments and they are presented in exhibitions together with those created by human artists. These artworks are mainly based on generative deep learning techniques, which have seen a formidable development and remarkable refinement in the very recent years. Given the inherent characteristics of these techniques, a series of novel legal problems arise. In this article, we consider a set of key questions in the area of generative deep learning for the arts, including the following: is it possible to use copyrighted works as training set for generative models? How do we legally store their copies in order to perform the training process? Who (if someone) will own the copyright on the generated data? We try to answer these questions considering the law in force in both the United States of America and the European Union, and potential future alternatives. We then extend our analysis to code generation, which is an emerging area of generative deep learning. Finally, we also formulate a set of practical guidelines for artists and developers working on deep learning generated art, as well as some policy suggestions for policymakers.