Machines, ethics and copyright
ChatGPT poses difficult questions in the field of authorship as well as in the field of ethics in science (and also in other fields where independent work is required).
We are getting closer to the moment when machines will be able to create independently (we are not there yet, although the result produced by a machine can already look quite similar to a human-made creation). In addition, this technology opens up endless ethical questions in the field of science, since this technology enables the “creation” of works that people can pretend to have created without this tool. These are similar ethical problems as when persons who do not meet the conditions for authorship are listed under articles or when one of these persons is omitted. For the theoreticians who have been and will write about these challenges, these are the most interesting career questions, but in reality commercial players and machine owners in particular are pushing for intellectual property rights to be granted to products produced by machines as well.
Another political point of interest: while we are still debating this in the democratic parts of the world, Ukraine has changed the copyright law in the whirlwind of war, and according to the new law, “creations” produced by machines are protected by related rights (copyright-like rights). It is not talked about very loudly, but it points to the strange backgrounds and foregrounds of the war in Ukraine.
The Internet Archive is a non-profit organization that maintains the Open Library, a digital library index, and is dedicated to preserving knowledge. As many of the works in the Internet Archive are under copyright, the Archive uses a system of controlled digital lending based on digital rights management to prevent unauthorized downloading or copying of copyrighted books. In March 2020, due to the circumstances surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic, the Internet Archive established the National Emergency Library, eliminating the waiting lists used in the Open Library and expanding access to books for all readers. In June 2020, the Emergency National Library faced a lawsuit from four book publishers and was ultimately closed.
The 43rd session of the WIPO Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights (hereinafter SCCR) made substantial progress on the issues advocated by the A2K Coalition (Access to Knowledge Coalition), which IPI is a member of. This year’s session was the most productive on the issues of exceptions and limitations. James Love (Knowledge Ecology International), a long-time observer at WIPO, described the outcome and the impact of the public interest community as the strongest since the conclusion of the Marrakech Treaty, which brought global copyright exceptions for the benefit of the blind and visually impaired.
Today, March 17, 2023, a symposium on law in the information society is taking place in the golden lecture hall of the Faculty of Law in Ljubljana. Dr. Maja Bogataj Jančič will present copyright aspects of artificial intelligence at the symposium.
The third day of the 43rd session of the WIPO Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights is intended for discussion on the topic of exceptions and limitations to copyright, especially in connection with the right to research.