"The New York Times has become the first major US media company to sue Open AI and Microsoft over their artificial intelligence chatbots, alleging the tech companies have taken a “free ride” on millions of articles to build the groundbreaking technology. The newspaper is seeking unspecified billions of dollars in damages …"
Financial Times, 27/12/23
Few people will have missed the fact that ‘Steamboat Willie’, the first edition of Mickey Mouse, is now out of copyright in the United States after 95 years. It certainly hasn't escaped the attention of Motley Fool Money, who have dedicated a whole episode thereto.
However, there's been rather less media focus on a much bigger story in terms of copyright and ownership: the fact that the New York Times is suing ChatGPT owner Open AI over claims that its copyright was infringed to train their artificially intelligent system. You'll find reports of this landmark challenge in the Financial Times and the Guardian, and of course in the New York Times itself, but otherwise the main coverage is in broadcast media, and particularly in the BBC.
Might this be because major print titles are watching intently to see if the New York Times lawsuit is successful, with a view to joining the bandwagon themselves if it sets a precedent?
However, what the media often forgets is that the subjects of their reporting and their readers are the real generators of information and analysis, on which they are then claiming copyright. The media are therefore simply intermediaries in this respect — we all deserve a stake in the intellectual property on which they report and which is now being harvested by that generative Artificial Intelligence.
Copyright law has a long history dating back to the start of the 18th century with the ‘Statute of Anne’, enacted in 1710. It is defined as a type of intellectual property — in other words, time-limited ownership — that gives the creator of an original work or another owner the exclusive legally-secured right to copy, distribute, adapt, display or perform a creative work.
Given that all human ownership is time-limited by virtue of our human life cycle, and that the typical duration of those copyright time limits vary between 50 and 100 years (in other words, they are closely related to the human life cycle) dependent on the nature of the work and the various national jurisdictions, copyright and ownership are very closely related.
The New York Times may consider that its legal challenge is simply defending its own creativity but, as noted earlier, it won't stop there. A sense of ownership and responsibility is key to participation for all, and that’s why we have been pressing for ‘Stock for Data’ over these past three years - please see our 6th November commentary on 'Democratising AI' following the Bletchley Park conference. It’s not just looking for compensation for breach of copyright, but a share in the ownership of the tech giants and generative AI companies themselves in return for the use of our data and creativity harvested in the pursuit of their wealth creation.
The major difference is that whereas copyright regulation is negative and restrictive in its application, participation in stock ownership not only shares that wealth creation, but also provides an opportunity to help steer its business direction in the future. It’s a forward-looking, positive approach, in contrast with copyright challenges in a court of law.
One of the key issues is, of course, where do you draw the line?
The New York Times lawsuit claims that millions of its published articles were used without its permission to make ChatGPT smarter. These articles will have drawn on information and analysis which itself has been gleaned from millions of interviewees and readers: why should they not be included as potential beneficiaries? In this respect, the New York Times is simply an intermediator, but its power, influence and resources may well open the door for a much wider revision of the need to recognise the ownership of intellectual property.
However, as the worlds of media, data harvesting and generative AI feed into a rapidly broadening and complex spider’s web of accountability, it will very quickly become impossible to tell where entitlement to copyright ownership begins or ends. We're not talking years or even months for this to happen — it is a reality already.
So why should we agonise over algorithms trying to demonstrate which individual users are entitled to what? Indeed, given that information may flow first through the printed page and not the computer, what does it matter whether an individual owns a PC/tablet/mobile phone or not?
The concept of Universal Basic Income is based on something for everyone — not an algorithm for entitlement. It's our view that UBI itself would create a subservient welfare system, leaving the huge extent of wealth polarisation untouched: but let's consider lifting out the word ‘universal’ and applying it to ‘Stock for Data’ instead, so that human contribution to originality can be recognised in all its various forms.
This is, of course, a long way from the New York Times challenge to Open AI, but it does illustrate why progress with this lawsuit is so important. The case is literally opening a Pandora's Box of human entitlement, and it could radically change the economic prospects for people across the world.
Steamboat Willie and Mickey Mouse have brought smiles to the faces of many millions of people over the past 95 years — can ‘Stock for Data’ do the same for billions?
Gavin Oldham OBE
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