IT & AI HistoryA Chronicle of AI and Information Technology

Detailed · 10 events

AI and Copyright: A History

AI raises two copyright questions: may others' works be used to train it, and is there copyright in what it makes? Japan's Article 30-4, in force from 2019, broadly allows use for information analysis, while in the US newspapers, a photo agency and authors sued AI companies one after another. Registration of a work made by AI alone was refused, and the courts required a human author. Writers and actors wrote AI terms into their contracts. Different answers in different countries, traced through judgments and statutes.

2010s

  1. EVT.001T1Japan's Copyright Act Article 30-4 — Training AI Without PermissionAI and Society: A HistoryA History of Artificial IntelligenceRead more →

2020s

In the 2020s the two questions, training and output, began to be decided in real cases. The decade inherited Japan's 2019 provision permitting uses not aimed at enjoying a work. On output, the US Copyright Office refused registration unless AI-generated material was disclaimed, an appeals court required a human author, and the Supreme Court declined the case. On training the answers split: an English judge held that model weights were not infringing copies, and a US judge found training on books fair use but a pirated library not, leading to a US$1.5 billion settlement. Japan's government asked OpenAI to avoid infringement over video generation.

  1. EVT.002T1GitHub Copilot — The Start of AI-Assisted CodingA History of Programming LanguagesA History of AI AgentsRead more →
  2. EVT.003T1Stable Diffusion Goes Public — Image Generation on Your Own GPUA History of Artificial IntelligenceAI and Society: A HistoryA History of Open Source and Free SoftwareRead more →
  3. EVT.004T1Théâtre D'opéra Spatial — The AI-Made Picture That Won a State FairAI and Society: A HistoryA History of Artificial IntelligenceRead more →
  4. EVT.005T1Getty Images v. Stability AI — Is a Trained Model an 'Infringing Copy'?AI and Society: A HistoryA History of Artificial IntelligenceRead more →
  5. EVT.006T1Hollywood's Double Strike — Writers and Actors Write AI into the ContractAI and Society: A HistoryA History of Artificial IntelligenceAI and Jobs: A HistoryRead more →
  6. EVT.007T1The New York Times v. OpenAI — A Newspaper Takes Generative AI to CourtAI and Society: A HistoryA History of Artificial IntelligenceRead more →
  7. EVT.008T1OpenAI's Sora — Text-to-Video AI from Announcement to ShutdownA History of Artificial IntelligenceAI and Society: A HistoryRead more →
  8. EVT.009T1Thaler v. Perlmutter — A US Appeals Court Rules an AI Cannot Be an AuthorAI and Society: A HistoryA History of Artificial IntelligenceRead more →
  9. EVT.010T1Bartz v. Anthropic — Training an LLM Is Fair Use; Stocking a Library with Pirated Books Is NotA History of Artificial IntelligenceA General History of Information TechnologyAI and Society: A HistoryRead more →