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The Use of Copyrighted Works by AI Systems: Art Works in the Data Mill

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 November 2019

Mirko DEGLI ESPOSTI ,
Francesca LAGIOIA Open the ORCID record for Francesca LAGIOIA [Opens in a new window]  and
Giovanni SARTOR
Mirko DEGLI ESPOSTI
Affiliation:
University of Bologna, Department of Computer Science and Engineering; email: mirko.degliesposti@unibo.it
Francesca LAGIOIA
Affiliation:
European University Institute of Florence, Law Department, University of Bologna; CIRSFID; email: francesca.lagioia@unibo.it
Giovanni SARTOR
Affiliation:
European University Institute of Florence, Law Department, University of Bologna; CIRSFID; email: giovanni.sartor@unibo.it
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Abstract

We shall first introduce the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in producing new intellectual creations, distinguishing approaches based on knowledge representation and on machine learning. Then we shall provide an overview of some significant applications of AI to the production of intellectual creations, distinguishing the extent to which they depend on pre-existing works, and the different ways in which such pre-existing works are used in the creative process. In addition, we shall discuss some methods to automatically assess the similarity of works and styles, in the context of AI technologies for text generation. Finally, we shall discuss the legal aspects of AI-reuse of copyrighted works, focusing on the rights of the authors of such works relative to the process and the outputs of AI.

Type
Articles
Information
European Journal of Risk Regulation , Volume 11 , Issue 1 , March 2020 , pp. 51 - 69
Copyright
© Cambridge University Press 2019

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36 ibid.

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40 We may wonder whether the traces of the work in a trained system (eg in the data structures resulting from the training of a neural networks) should also be removed, assuming that this does not require an unreasonable effort. We thank Bert-Jaap Koops for pointing to this issue.

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