On 12 July 2024, EU Regulation No 2024/1689 of 13 June 2024 on Artificial Intelligence (AI Act) was published in the Official Journal of the European Union.
The act contains a provision dedicated to copyrighted material, which can be used for the purposes of training AI systems and leading to the creation of new contents.
In particular, Article 53 of the Regulation requires suppliers of AI models for general purposes to comply with Article 4.3 of the EU Directive 2019/790 (Digital Copyright Directive), which provides for an exception to authors’ rights for text and data mining (TDM) activities for purposes other than scientific research.
By exception, the extraction of text and data from works or other protected subject-matter to which you have legal access is permitted, unless the use has been expressly reserved by the rightholder. The developers of the AI models are therefore required to implement, under the AI Act, a policy aimed at complying with European Union law on copyright and related rights and, in particular, at respecting any reservation of rights expressed under Article 4.3 of the Digital Copyright Directive, including through state-of-the-art technology.
