人工智能与创造力：为什么我们反对人工智能生成作品的版权保护

Posted 2021-04-26 AI与法

(全文中文约2500字，阅读约需9分钟。)

【编者按】“心有灵犀一点通，小楼昨夜又东风。无情不似多情苦，镜里空嗟两鬓篷。”机器人小冰“创(拼)作(凑)”的这首诗曾惊艳四座。人工智能所“创作”的作品是否应受版权法保护这个问题，包含着另一个子问题，即人工智能是否能够成为法律权利的主体。在马斯克推动人机脑链接的现实背景下，这个问题亟待充分讨论。

AI与法本期分享非营利组织“知识共享”(Creative Commons)的一位版权专家和一位数据工程师的观点。他们认为，人工智能不具备作为版权作者的法律人格，其所创作的作品也缺乏版权保护所需的独创性，因此，人工智能系统所创作的作品受到版权法保护。见仁见智！

Artificial Intelligence and Creativity: 

Why We’re Against Copyright Protection for AI-Generated Output

人工智能与创造力：为什么我们反对对人工智能生成作品的版权保护

Brigitte Vézina and Brent Moran

August 10, 2020

Should novel output (such as music, artworks, poems, etc.) generated by artificial intelligence¹ (AI) be protected by copyright? While this question seems straightforward, the answer certainly isn’t. It brings together technical, legal, and philosophical questions regarding “creativity,” and whether machines can be considered “authors” that produce “original” works.

人工智能撰写的作品(如音乐、艺术品、诗歌等)是否应该受到版权保护?虽然这个问题看起来很简单，但答案肯定不是。它将关于创造力的技术、法律和哲学问题结合在一起，以及机器是否可以被视为产生原创作品的作者。

In search of an answer, we ran an admittedly unscientific Twitter poll over five days in June. Interestingly, almost 70% of a total of 338 respondents indicated that novel outputs from an AI system belong in the public domain, while 20% weren’t sure. For example, one commentator said that “since an AI will (given the same inputs and the same model) produce the same output every time, it’s hard to argue it’s unique and creative,” another succinctly argued: “system-generated activities=no creative input, therefore, no copyright,” while another respondent noted that it “depends on the nature of the AI, and the source materials used…I don’t think you could make a blanket rule for all AI.” This question was also debated at the World Intellectual Property Organization’s (WIPO) Conversation on Intellectual Property and Artificial Intelligence (Second Session) held from 7-9 July 2020. To share our general policy views on this topic from a global perspective, Creative Commons submitted a written statement and made two oral interventions (here and here).

为了寻找答案，我们在6月份在推特上开展了一次为期五天的民意调查。有趣的是，在338名受访者中，近70%的人表示人工智能系统的新作品属于公共领域，而20%的人不确定。例如,有位评论员说,由于一台人工智能系统(给定相同的输入和模型)每次都会产生相同的作品,这样很难认为它具有独特性和创造性,另一位评论员则言简意赅:“系统生成的作品=没有创意,因此没有版权。”另一个被调查者表示：“这取决于人工智能的性质和源材料，我不认为可以对所有的人工智能一刀切。”这个问题也在2020年7月7日至9日举行的世界知识产权组织(WIPO)知识产权与人工智能(第二届)大会引发讨论。为了从全球角度分享我们对这一议题的总体政策观点，知识共享组织提交了一份书面声明，并做了两次口头发言。

In this blog post, the first in a series on AI and creativity, we explore some of the fundamentals of copyright protection in an attempt to determine whether AI is capable of creating works eligible for copyright protection. In the second blog post, “Artificial Intelligence and Creativity: Can Machines Write Like Jane Austen?“ we walk you through two practical examples of an AI system generating arguably novel content and apply copyright eligibility criteria to them. By doing so, we hope to shed light on some of the copyright issues arising around the nascent field of AI technology.

在此次关于人工智能和创造力的系列文章的第一篇中，我们探讨了版权保护的一些基本原理，试图确定人工智能是否能够创作出符合版权保护条件的作品。在第二篇博文《人工智能和创造力:机器能像简·奥斯汀那样写作吗?》中，我们将介绍两个人工智能系统创作出可探讨的小说作品并对其应用版权资格标准的实例。通过这样做，我们希望能够阐明在人工智能这一新兴技术领域中出现的一些版权问题。

What works can benefit from copyright protection?

什么样的作品可以从版权保护中获益？

In order to determine what constitutes a creative work eligible for copyright protection, most national copyright regimes rely on the concepts of authorship and originality, among others.

在认定哪些是符合版权保护条件的创造性作品时，大多数国家的版权制度依赖于作者署名和原创性等概念。

The concept of authorship 署名的概念

For a work to be protected by copyright, there needs to be creative involvement on the part of an “author.” At the international level, the Berne Convention stipulates that “protection shall operate for the benefit of the author” (art 2.6), but doesn’t define “author.” Likewise, in the European Union (EU) copyright law,² there is no definition of “author” but case-law has established that only human creations are protected.³ This premise is reflected in the national laws of countries of civil law tradition, such as France, Germany, and Spain, which state that works must bear the imprint of the author’s personality. As AI systems do not have a personality that they could imprint on what they produce, authorship is beyond limits for AI.

一个作品要受到版权保护，必须有“作者”的创造性参与。在国际层面，《伯尔尼公约》规定，保护应当是为作者的利益(第2.6条)，但没有对“作者”作出定义。同样，在欧盟版权法中，²没有对作者的定义，但判例法确定只有人类的创作受到保护。这一前提在法国、德国、西班牙等大陆法系国家的国内法中都有所体现，规定作品必须带有作者的人格印记。由于人工智能系统没有一种可以印在其作品上的个性，因此作者身份对人工智能来说是望尘莫及。

In countries of common law tradition (Canada, UK, Australia, New Zealand, USA, etc.), copyright law follows the utilitarian theory, according to which incentives and rewards for the creation of works are provided in exchange for access by the public, as a matter of social welfare. Under this theory, personality is not as central to the notion of authorship, suggesting that a door might be left open for non-human authors. However, the 2016 Monkey selfie case in the US determined that there could be no copyright in pictures taken by a monkey, precisely because the pictures were taken without any human intervention. In that same vein, the US Copyright Office considers that works created by animals are not entitled to registration; thus, a work must be authored by a human to be registrable. Though touted by some as a way around the problem, the US work-for-hire doctrine also falls short of providing a solution, for it still requires a human to have been hired to create a work, whose copyright is owned by their employer.

在传统的普通法国家(加拿大、英国、澳大利亚、新西兰、美国等)，版权法遵循功利主义理论，根据功利主义理论，对作品的创作提供激励和奖励以换取公众的使用权，这是一种社会福利。根据这一理论，人格并不是作者身份的核心，这意味着著作权法为为非人类作者敞开了一扇门。但是，2016年在美国发生的猴子自拍案中，猴子拍摄的照片被认为不可能拥有版权，因为这些照片是在没有任何人为干预的情况下拍摄的。尽管“职务作品”被有些人当做一个思路，但“雇佣原则”并未能提供一个解决方案，因为该原则要求人类被雇佣来创作作品，而这类作品的版权归雇主所有。

As AI systems do not have a personality that they could imprint on what they produce, authorship is beyond limits for AI.

由于人工智能系统没有一种可以印在其作品上的个性，因此作者身份对人工智能来说是无法限制的。

Nevertheless, some countries (e.g. United Kingdom, Ireland, and New Zealand) do grant copyright-like protection to computer-generated works. The UK Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988, for example, creates a legal fiction for computer-generated works where there is no human author. Section 9(3) states that “the author shall be taken to be the person by whom the arrangements necessary for the creation of the work are undertaken.” An important nuance is that this provision assumes some form of creative intervention by a human and not autonomous, human-less generation by a computer program alone.

然而，一些国家(如英国、爱尔兰和新西兰)确实对计算机生成的作品给予类似版权的保护。例如，英国《1988年版权设计和专利法》(Copyright Designs and patent Act 1988)为没有人类作者的电脑生成作品创造了一种法律拟制。第9条第3款规定，提交人应被视为负责为创作该作品作出必要安排的人。一个重要的细微差别是，这一规定假定了某种形式的创造性干预，即由人类而不是独立的由计算机程序自动生成。

The originality requirement独创性要求

Common law jurisdictions generally have a low threshold for originality, requiring only a minimal level of creativity or intellectual labor and independent creation for a work to be protectable. The word “originality” in that context refers to the author as being the “origin” of a work, rather than to any creativity standard.⁴ Some other countries, like Brazil, approach originality from the negative, and state that all works of the (human) mind that do not fall within the list of works that are expressly defined as “unprotected works” can be protected.

普通法管辖区通常的原创性门槛较低，只要求最低水平的创造力或智力劳动和独立创作。在这种情况下，原创性这个词指的是作者作为作品的源头而给任何创造性的标准。其他一些国家，如巴西，则从否定的角度看待原创，并指出，所有不属于明确定义为未受保护作品的作品都可以受到保护。

Under EU law and case-law, a work is original if it reflects the “author’s own intellectual creation,”⁵ i.e. the expression of the author’s personal touch and the result of free and creative choices. In short, both EU and US law establish the need for the work to be the proximate (direct) causal result of human action. This implies that AI, as it is currently understood as intelligence completely implemented via computational means, cannot make free and creative choices on its own and that the concept of creativity is not applicable to machines.

根据欧盟的法律和判例法，如果作品反映了作者自己的智力创造，即作者个人情感的表达和自由、创造性选择的结果，那么作品就是原创的。简而言之，欧盟和美国的法律都规定，工作必须是人类行为的直接(直接)因果结果。这意味着人工智能，正如它目前被理解为完全通过计算手段实现的智能，不能自己做出自由和创造性的选择，创造力的概念不适用于机器。

Economics of AI-generated outputs: incentives, markets, and monopolies of exploitation 人工智能作品的经济性：激励、市场和垄断剥削

Leaving aside theories of copyright protection and the rather abstract concepts of authorship and originality (and the even more hypothetical issue of machines having a personality and owning intellectual property rights), the real question we should ask ourselves relates to the economic environment around AI-generated content. Is there any market for AI-generated content? Do people really want to listen to Nirvana-esque algorithm-produced music or Google’s Deep-mind AI piano prowess, get immersed in the writings of a literary robot, or hang a computer-generated Rembrandt, a nightmarish Van Gogh-reminiscent Starry Night or a blurry portrait of a fictional aristocrat in their living room, not to mention to have to pay for any of that? And if so, would AI-generated products truly compete with artistic and literary works produced by humans, as substitute goods? Would the billions of AI-generated outputs produced faster than any human could produce or even consume, need any exclusivity (which is artificially inseminated in the market by means of a copyright “monopoly” of exploitation) to avoid market failure?

撇开版权保护的理论，以及相当抽象的原创和原创性概念(以及机器拥有人格和知识产权这一更为假设的问题)不谈，我们应该问自己的真正问题与人工智能生成作品的经济环境有关。人工智能生成的内容有市场吗? 人们真的想听Nirvana-esque算法生产的音乐或谷歌Deep-mind AI的钢琴技巧,让沉浸在文学的机器人或挂一个计算机生成的伦勃朗,噩梦般的梵高-追忆往昔繁星闪烁的夜晚,或者一个模糊的且虚构的贵族客厅,更不用说还要付钱的吗?如果是这样，人工智能生成的作品是否真的能与人类生产的艺术和文学作品竞争，作为替代品?人工智能产生的数十亿产出的速度会比任何人生产甚至消费的速度都要快吗?

Of course, AI-technology developers might expect to be incentivized to invest in innovation, research, and development to help solve the world’s problems and to make AI as useful to society as possible. But copyright protection of the “artistic” outputs by an AI system is not the appropriate mechanism to stimulate this development. Unfair competition and patent law (and to a certain extent, existing copyright law protecting software as literary works) are far better suited to stimulate innovation and ensure a return on investment for the development of AI technology.

当然，人工智能技术的开发人员可能希望被激励投身于创新、研究和开发，以帮助解决世界问题，并使人工智能尽可能对社会有用。但人工智能系统对艺术作品的版权保护并不是促进这一发展的合适机制。不公平竞争和专利法(在一定程度上，现有的版权法将软件保护为文学作品)更适合刺激创新，并确保AI技术发展的投资回报。

AI needs to be properly explored and understood before copyright or any intellectual property issues can be seriously considered.

在认真考虑版权或任何知识产权问题之前，人工智能需要得到适当的探索和理解。

All said, as much as AI has advanced in the past few years, there exists no clarity, let alone consensus, over how to define the nascent and uncharted field of AI technology. Any attempt at regulation is premature, especially through an already over-taxed copyright system that has been commandeered for purposes that extend well beyond its original intended purposes. AI needs to be properly explored and understood before copyright or any intellectual property issues can be seriously considered. That’s why AI-generated outputs should be in the public domain, at least pending a clearer understanding of this evolving technology.

所有人都说，尽管人工智能在过去几年取得了很大进步，但对于如何定义这一新生的、未知的人工智能技术领域，人们并不清楚，更不用说达成共识了。任何监管的尝试都是不成熟的，尤其是通过一个已经负担过重的版权体系，而这个体系被征用的目的远远超出了其最初的预期目的。在认真考虑版权或任何知识产权问题之前，人工智能需要得到适当的探索和理解。这就是为什么人工智能产生的产出应该在公共领域，至少在对这一不断发展的技术有更清晰的理解之前。

In the second part of this series, “Artificial Intelligence and Creativity: Can Machines Write Like Jane Austen?” we look at two practical examples of an AI system generating “novel” content and apply the copyright eligibility criteria explained above.

在本系列的第二部分《人工智能和创造力:机器能像简·奥斯汀那样写字吗?》中，我们来看两个人工智能系统创作新作品并应用上面解释的版权资格标准的实例。

Notes注释

1. There is as yet no widely accepted definition of “artificial intelligence.” We thus discuss this matter in general terms, and consider, strictly for the sake of discussion, that artificial intelligence is intelligence, or a simulation of intelligence, which is implemented via an automated machine, such as a digital computer.

2.  Information Society Directive, 2001/29/EC.

3. Case C-145/10, Eva-Maria Painer v Standard Verlags GmbH 1 December 2011, Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU).

4. For US case law on the concept of originality, see Alfred Bell & co. v. Catalda Fine Arts, Inc. 191 F2nd, Baltimore Orioles Inc. v. Major League Baseball Players Association, 805 F2nd 663 (7th Cir. 1986) and Feist Publications, Inc. v. Rural Tel. Serv. Co., 499 US 340 (1991).

5. Council Directive 2009/24/EC, Art 1(3), protection of computer programs as “the author’s own intellectual creation”; Database Directive 96/9/EC, Art 3(1); Case C‐5/08, Infopaq, ECLI:EU:C:2009:465; Information Society Directive, 2001/29/EC.

 

参考文献(英文原文出处)：

Brigitte Vézina and Brent Moran, Artificial Intelligence and Creativity: Why We’re Against Copyright Protection for AI-Generated Output,https://creativecommons.org/2020/08/10/no-copyright-protection-for-ai-generated-output/?__cf_chl_captcha_tk__=5ac0448209ab443cf4487dbabf488b1a220418ef-1599246174-0-AWeV8uzhtF21M6z_d-2bOXRYCEw9QZqmhb0GtFEXestnOUc70XnZiJusVwtmJrifPkdsRv4bqd0beoooAUglHdgA4ZVxE-58coQfOhx2YyIz6g22EnsOL4ViOvFbTiK1QS59sEbjW1Ba4WH0jE7agKGTsxPaR--2p6lvHwuQs04-IuzWxEYSKTC6xA2NlU4v5RHh-w9iXofAUIwDUpLlPlAWh6PbcJx4_bzqe-9f_qGNJLtWsbMfLVVOgSX4loxZTZd24CXdE57k_jr2rhjGpg1X9d3hDNn1ZzkrZrObxcbQ66PNYE9U_eZTSTKKyiuM1Y1n3SchpctK0sGg8nJcHDmQwVbuDdB8F9XBK6BFW0nJ5LpBv31mEkQJF-9jvtBfkDzKYaMZ-8i1gRp5O67go6isy7oaNVqRwRm7z1oziNSdLNT5qw_C3bNY-5MyKLxpsP3Vzhns63LCYyiNyf-Qkm6ZBLj5LTk6FuQ9eFHYO17IlL82p_sKP15aAB8Vp5BMqgtn70uESgieyRaK4xSX6-oysLp2gh5LQgnDXlnveOCtp2B1kJoElDdYQk1_Yc2b2-50S0bXaEn2qpET0Dg1TUBs5C20Z52WQraqKJyZm-MULgfZHtIlCFwBEYSEPv_rhA .