Cultural Council urges fair compensation for AI's use of copyrighted materials

The German Cultural Council believes that it is long overdue for authors, artists and other rights holders such as publishers, film, games, and music producers or broadcasters to participate in the revenue generated by providers of generative artificial intelligence (AI). This includes OpenAI, Google, Meta, and Antrophic. It is "imperative" that "appropriate remuneration is not only paid for the training of such models and systems" when protected works are used. Politicians must ensure that rights holders also benefit from the economic advantages of the technology.

AI enables "machine-generated results that are increasingly indistinguishable from human creations and cannot be traced back to humans in the creation process", writes the Cultural Council in a statement published on Monday. Generative AI affects authors, artists and media companies "in a very significant, sometimes existence-threatening way". Most of those involved would be – "confronted with both risks and opportunities" to varying degrees –.

Complaint about "mass use" of protected works

According to the review, the legal literature and the case law to date, which has not yet been reviewed by the highest courts, often take the view that legal restrictions on the exclusive exploitation right for the use of protected works for the training of AI models "are applicable in principle". However, there are also very clear dissenting voices, according to which the limitation for text and data mining enshrined in EU copyright law does not apply here. From the perspective of the affected rights holders, it is generally "very difficult to understand why it should be legally permissible" to use their protected works for AI developments based on legal permission. This is because the latter would have "enormous consequences" for the exploitation of their creations.

The required remuneration can best be realized "by contractually granting the necessary rights of use", explains the Working Group of German Cultural Associations. License agreements should therefore "continue to be made possible and supported in the best possible way." The Cultural Council generally calls for a swift and comprehensive legal policy discussion of open copyright issues in Germany and, above all, at EU level. This is by no means just about freedom of use for text and data mining, but "about the mass use" of protected works. Legal requirements should therefore "always be applicable when models and systems of generative AI are placed on the market in the EU" or the results are used in the Community. In principle, they would also apply to US companies.

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