Scissors + Glue, Choose Wisely- (copyright law-contract-AI-patches)

Scissors + Glue, Choose Wisely? (copyright law/contract/AI/patches)

Li Dongtao

Description: The performance of a contract shouldn’t be based on copyright infringement.

A.    The case : choose wisely

Consequences that may be a burden or joy,

So choose wisely.[1]

This is a case about “choose”.

The plaintiff is a computer engineer.  

The defendant is a publishing house.  

In June 1995, the plaintiff concluded a contract with the defendant. According to the contract, the plaintiff authorized the defendant to publish his book The Latest Operating Systems. The manuscript of the book was to be delivered in July 1995 and the book published in April 1996.  LDT If any pirating problem became known, the author would take the obligations; they also made an agreement on such matters as remuneration, etc.

Afterwards, the plaintiff delivered his manuscripts to the defendant on time, but the latter refused to publish it because the book was composed of lots of published copyrightable works, mainly product manuals and consumer brochures from such famous computer companies as IBM, Intel, Microsoft, Legend, etc., without any license agreements of the relevant copyright owners. 

The plaintiff sued the defendant for breach of contract.  

The defendant argued that it was innocent because what the plaintiff did was just “scissors + glue” and would bring a legal risk.

The court ruled that the breach was not established because the plaintiff hadn’t provided relevant license agreements to the defendant and this would bring unnecessary trouble of copyright infringement to the defendant.

In short, needn’t a burden (copyright infringement), choose wisely.

B.     AI: Patches

Just because you can

—doesn’t mean you should.[2]

Generative AI might be able to transform many industries, including art, music, film and adverting.

But lack of transparency of AI technology, how to use this new tool without a legal risk? 

For example, Sora can turn visual data into “patches” or pieces of data that the model can understand, but where the visual data came from?

        Another case of “scissors + glue”? 

Copyright infringement in the database could limit its adoption, or, a bubble, not a chameleon, would be the final result.

[1] Choice POEM by Arun N.K. at www.poetry.com/poem/68043/choice

[2] Choice POEM by Kurt Philip Behm at www.poetry.com/poem/48257/choice

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