On Wednesday, Legal Affairs Committee MEPs adopted a series of proposals to ensure full transparency and fair remuneration of rightsholders for the use of copyrighted work by generative artificial intelligence (genAI), by 17 votes in favour, 3 against, and with 2 abstentions.
Remuneration for use of protected work
MEPs want EU copyright law to apply to all generative AI systems available on the EU market, regardless where the training takes place. Since genAI relies on and reproduces protected content, MEPs want full transparency about its use, including a list of each copyrighted work used and detailed records of crawling activities by AI providers and deployers. Failure to comply with transparency requirements could be tantamount to infringement of copyright, for which AI providers could bear legal consequences.
MEPs also demand fair remuneration for the use of copyrighted content by AI to ensure that the EU’s creative and cultural sector can thrive in the AI age. They call on the Commission to examine whether such remuneration could also apply to past use, while rejecting the idea of a global licence allowing providers to train their genAI systems in exchange for a flat-rate payment.
Protecting the news media sector and individual rights
In the report, MEPs call on the Commission and member states to protect media pluralism, which is threatened by AI systems aggregating the news in a selective manner, diverting their traffic and revenues. They believe that the news media sector must have full control over the use of its content for training AI systems, including the possibility to refuse such use. MEPs also urge the Commission to ensure adequate remuneration for this use.
MEPs believe that content fully generated by AI should not be protected by copyright. They call for measures to protect individuals against the dissemination of manipulated and AI-generated content and for an obligation on digital service providers to act against such illegal use.
Possibility for rightsholders to prevent their work from being used by AI
MEPs call for new rules to address the licensing of copyrighted material for use by genAI and call on the Commission to facilitate the establishment of voluntary collective licensing agreements per sector accessible to all, including individual creators and small and medium-sized enterprises. They also ask the Commission to explore tools allowing rightsholders to prevent their work from being used by general-purpose AI systems.
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Following the vote, rapporteur Axel Voss (EPP, DE) said: “Generative AI must not operate outside the rule of law. If copyrighted works are used to train AI systems, creators are entitled to transparency, legal certainty, and fair compensation. Innovation cannot come at the expense of copyright, both can and must coexist. Clear and enforceable rules are key to ensuring Europe’s technological sovereignty. Our aim is to foster innovation while safeguarding the core principles of intellectual property.”
Next steps
This own initiative report will be put to a Parliament vote in plenary in March.
Background
The report seeks to answer key legal questions about the interplay between genAI and copyright, including how to ensure transparency, consent and fair remuneration of creators and rightsholders when their protected works are used in the generation, dissemination and distribution of AI outputs.