Implementing User Rights for Research in the Field of Artificial Intelligence: A Call for International Action

Abstract

Last year, before the onset of a global pandemic highlighted the critical and urgent need for technology-enabled scientific research, the World Intellectual Property Organization ( WIPO) launched an inquiry into issues at the intersection of intellectual property ( IP) and artificial intelligence ( AI). We contributed comments to that inquiry, with a focus on the application of copyright to the use of text and data mining ( TDM) technology. This article describes some of the most salient points of our submission and concludes by stressing the need for international leadership on this important topic. WIPO could help fill the current gap on international leadership, including by providing guidance on the diverse mechanisms that countries may use to authorise TDM research and serving as a forum for the adoption of rules permitting cross-border TDM projects. Copyright law provides protection of the material interests of authors through rights to exclude certain uses of their works, including of their reproduction.1 At the same time, one of the universally accepted axioms of copyright law is that exclusivity should apply only to original expression, not to facts, ideas, procedures or methods of operation.2 It is also universally accepted that copyright contains free spaces to ensure follow-on creativity and to secure important fundamental rights and the public interest, in particular allowing research to be undertaken using protected material.3 We are far from an international consensus about how to give effect to the boundary between copyright and research rights in the context of text and data mining, machine learning, and artificial intelligence (AI). WIPO could play a vital constructive role in establishing a consistent international baseline that resolves potential tensions between copyright and text and data mining practices. It could also facilitate cross-border text and data mining research and collaboration. We explain these points in further detail below.