A bipartisan group of senators introduced a new bill to make it easier to authenticate and detect artificial intelligence-generated content and protect journalists and artists from having their work gobbled up by AI models without their permission.
The Content Origin Protection and Integrity from Edited and Deepfaked Media Act (COPIED Act) would direct the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) to create standards and guidelines that help prove the origin of content and detect synthetic content, like through watermarking. It also directs the agency to create security measures to prevent tampering and requires AI tools for creative or journalistic content to let users attach information about their origin and prohibit that information from being removed. Under the bill, such content also could not be used to train AI models.
Content owners, including broadcasters, artists, and newspapers, could sue companies they believe used their materials without permission or tampered with authentication markers. State attorneys general and the Federal Trade Commission could also enforce the bill, which its backers say prohibits anyone from “removing, disabling, or tampering with content provenance information” outside of an exception for some security research purposes.
(A copy of the bill is in he article, here is the important part imo:
Prohibits the use of “covered content” (digital representations of copyrighted works) with content provenance to either train an AI- /algorithm-based system or create synthetic content without the express, informed consent and adherence to the terms of use of such content, including compensation)
The main goal is cementing the position of the giants, creating a bureaucratic mote around them to keep small players economically unviable.
People keep saying that, all the while ignoring that this bill is granting rights to small time creators to decide if they want their works used for machine learning.
Yes, this gives a head start to companies that have been abusing the system while it was still allowed. But stopping that behaviour too late is still better than not stopping it at all.
You said nothing about creators getting screwed for untold centuries, only when big corporations were threatened slightly did you speak up.
Small creators aren’t competition or an alternative to big tech.
If the only game in town is still big tech. You will need an army of lawyer to get leverage on them.