Burr & Forman Partner and Intellectual Property attorney Nate Quirk’s article “Copyright Infringement And AI” was featured in the May 2024 edition of HR.com’s HR Legal & Compliance Excellence magazine.

The article discussed the legal issues surrounding the use of generative artificial intelligence (AI) solutions to create new content. These AI solutions are developed through a training process that leverages information from the internet and other data sources.

Quirk noted that the AI's output is still based on copyrighted data owned by third parties, raising questions about copyright infringement. While the AI output may not include a substantial portion of any one copyrighted work, copying copyrighted training data during the training process could constitute copyright infringement.

Quirk further explained that the legal framework for copyrights protects the original works of authors and artists by offering a cause of action for copyright infringement. However, the uncertainty at the intersection of generative AI and copyrights is a prevailing issue for creators.

"While there are active efforts to define law to address many of the legal issues being raised by AI, it is yet to be seen whether courts and lawmakers will find ways to address these issues under new and existing legal frameworks,” Quirk said. “It is, however, clear that AI solutions are beneficial for handling a vast number of tasks and problems.”

"As such, finding ways to embrace and promote this technology while also benefiting contributors who intentionally or unintentionally provide content for model training is an issue that will need to be resolved in the very near future."

For the full article, please click here.