“Without visibility into which copyrighted works are used — and how the AI systems use them — rightsholders will have no meaningful copyright protection with respect to AI technology,” he explains., stating that he would launch a “major effort to get ahead of artificial intelligence.”
The NMPA urges Schumer to regulate AI companies by requiring them to “seek permission and licenses from copyright owners” for the use of their music as training data and allow publishers and songwriters the ability to license the use of their songs for the development of AI models on the free market. “Rightsholders must also retain exclusive control over how and with what technologies their works are used,” he says.
While places like the European Union seem to be trying to create a stronger framework for protecting copyrighted material for use as training data, other countries like Singapore, Israel, China, Japan and South Korea are more friendly and lax with AI-related policies, potentially providing AI with safe havens for training abroad and undermining the regulations set forth by more strict, copyright-conscious countries. So far in the U.S.