Can copyrighted works be used to train AI? The Singapore Government wants your say

SINGAPORE – Can technology companies use copyrighted works to train artificial intelligence models? How can copyrights be protected when this happens?

Ways to foster greater accountability and certainty regarding copyrights when training AI are some of the issues the Government is seeking feedback on with the Aug 26 launch of a public consultation on AI’s impact on copyrights and patents, and how they should evolve in the wake of the technology.

It comes amid a global flurry of lawsuits filed by rights holders alleging that many technology companies have infringed their copyrights. This includes using copyrighted books, news articles, images and music to train AI models without permission from or payment to the rights holders.

The public consultation by the Ministry of Law and Intellectual Property Office of Singapore (IPOS) was announced by Minister for Law Edwin Tong at the Global Forum on Intellectual Property held at Marina Bay Sands Expo and Convention Centre during Singapore IP Week.

Courts overseas have arrived at different conclusions on whether copyright is infringed when copyrighted works are used to train AI without permission, depending on factors such as the details of each case.

For example, in the US, a judge ruled that AI firm Anthropic, which developed the Claude AI chatbot, had to pay thousands of affected authors US$1.5 billion (S$1.9 billion) for infringing their copyrights when the company used millions of pirated e-books to train its AI without consent from the authors or paying them.

But the same judge found that Anthropic did not infringe copyright when it trained its AI by scanning pages sliced from old physical books the company had bought, and later destroyed and recycled. The destructive scanning was found to be transformative and considered fair use of the purchased books, which included rare and out-of-print titles.

Speaking at the Global Forum on Intellectual Property, Tong, who is also Second Minister for Home Affairs, said the issue of whether copyrighted works can legally be used to train AI will increasingly arise.

This is because AI is being used more widely as a creative tool, more powerful in how it can be used and needs more content to be trained on, he explained.

As such, the authenticity of creation is increasingly being questioned.

Tong said: “Courts and IP (intellectual property) offices around the world broadly agree that an author must be a human being. But where do we draw the line? What kinds of acts or decisions made by human prompters demonstrate sufficient creativity?”

While there is a desire to promote innovation and not stifle it, the rights of creators need to be carefully considered and balanced too, he said, noting that it is not good in the long term if creative works can be used on a large scale by AI without a framework that considers the works’ creation.

These are issues that the Government wants to examine with stakeholders, especially those in creative industries, he added.

Tong noted that the rise in litigation related to copyrighted works and AI suggests that a number of practical questions remain about how rights holders should protect their work if they do not want it used for AI training.

The solution may be to deploy more technical measures. But if this is done, the Government must then consider how to support less well-resourced rights holders.

Tong said the Government “will carefully study the global landscape, and consider an approach which gives us the right balance”.

The public consultation is also seeking feedback on how existing principles on inventions should apply when AI is used in the invention process.

Details on the public consultation can be found at go.gov.sg/ai-ip2026, and the submission deadline is 5pm on Oct 22.

Tong also announced other initiatives to bolster IP, including guidelines on valuing intangible assets. This will help build greater consistency and confidence in how such assets are valued.

The guidelines were developed by the Institute of Valuers and Appraisers Singapore, with support from the Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority, IPOS and industry partners.