The AI-Copyright Trap

Abstract

As AI tools proliferate, policy makers are increasingly being called upon to protect creators and the cultural industries from the extractive, exploitative, and even existential threats posed by generative AI. In their haste to act, however, they risk running headlong into the Copyright Trap: the mistaken conviction that copyright law is the best tool to support human creators and culture in our new technological reality (when in fact it is likely to do more harm than good). It is a trap in the sense that it may satisfy the wants of a small group of powerful stakeholders, but it will harm the interests of the more vulnerable actors who are, perhaps, most drawn to it. Once entered, it will also prove practically impossible to escape. I identify three routes in to the copyright trap in current AI debates: first is the "if value, then (property) right" fallacy; second is the idea that unauthorized copying is inherently wrongful; and third is the resurrection of the starving artist trope to justify copyright's expansion. Ultimately, this article urges AI critics to sidestep the copyright trap, resisting the lure of its proprietary logic in favor of more appropriate routes towards addressing the risks and harms of generative AI.

Keywords: Copyright Law, Artificial Intelligence, Generative AI, Text and Data Mining, Copyright Infringement, Intellectual Property, Law and Technology

JEL Classification: K24, O31, O33, O34, O38, P14, P48