There is a lot of debate on whether freely training artificial intelligence (AI) models on copyrighted materials is permissible under the law. This debate escalates to court cases filed across varied jurisdictions and companies challenging companies that train their generative AI models by scraping copyrighted materials without permission.
The debate is largely framed as an all-or-nothing proposition. AI model makers argue all training is clearly permissible under the law. Some even assert that there is no copyright protection for online content as highlighted by Mustafa Suleyman, the CEO of Microsoft AI, in remarks earlier this year. "I think that with respect to content that's already on the open web, the social contract of that content since the nineties has been that it is fair use. Anyone can copy it, recreate with it, reproduce with it. That has been freeware, if you like, that's been the understanding,” Suleyman said.
