Copyright and the digital world: Pandora's box (and how to close it)

Artificial intelligence (AI) is the talk of the town. On social media, one can drown in all the analyses about ChatGPT and Dall-E. There are also many copyright questions to be asked about this. Can an AI work be copyrighted at all? After all, there is no human author. What about copyright on the vast amount of texts or images used to create the AI work? And what about the moral rights of the authors of the original works?

The debate on AI and copyright is interesting, complex and urgently needed. But even without AI, the digital world is a true copyright minefield. As a company, self-employed person, non-profit organisation or public institution, you legally need a licence for every digital copy and for every (internal or external) digital communication of copyrighted texts and images in a professional context. This also applies to PowerPoint presentations, print-outs and scans.

Just think about it. Take, e.g., a picture on Google Images. How often do you see the name of the photographer, how and where you can obtain a licence, how much it costs, ...? Besides, the rightsholder is often foreign. Or consider an interesting article you find in pdf on the internet. Same problem. Incidentally, how many companies know what their employees do on the internet or in their mailboxes? And if there were an internet policy at all, which companies actively enforce it? Do they regularly make a detailed scan of all externally protected works on their servers and on employees' smartphones, tablets and laptops?

Any digital reproduction or digital communication of a protected work without a conclusive licence is a copyright infringement. Licensing terms, if you find and understand them at all, should also be interpreted restrictively. Therefore, any use not specifically allowed therein is prohibited.

Fortunately, there is Reprobel's Combined Licence. This licence covers in one convenient bundle most forms of digital reproduction and communication of texts and images, and also includes paper reproductions. For Belgian source works but also with an almost worldwide repertoire. With Reprobel’s Combined Licence, you as a company or institution avoid copyright infringements to a maximum, and with that also annoying inspections and considerable penalties. With our licence you also ensure that authors and publishers receive a fair remuneration for the use of their works in the digital world.

Article by Kurt Van Damme (Head of Licensing, Legal & International Reprobel)