The European Parliament's Legal Affairs Committee approved measures Wednesday requiring artificial intelligence companies to compensate creators and disclose copyrighted material used to train their systems.
The committee voted 17-3, with two abstentions, to adopt proposals ensuring transparency and fair payment to rightsholders whose work is used by generative AI systems.
Under the proposals, EU copyright law would apply to all generative AI systems operating in the European market, regardless of where the training occurred. AI providers and deployers would be required to maintain detailed records of copyrighted works used in training, including comprehensive lists of each work and documentation of automated data collection activities.
The committee stated that failure to meet these transparency requirements could constitute copyright infringement, potentially exposing AI providers to legal liability.
The measures also call for fair compensation to creators when their copyrighted content is used in AI training. MEPs rejected the concept of a global licensing system that would allow AI companies to train their systems for a single flat-rate payment. The European Commission has been asked to examine whether compensation requirements could apply retroactively to past use of copyrighted material.
The committee expressed concern about AI systems aggregating news content in ways that divert traffic and revenue from news organizations, threatening media diversity. The proposals give the news media sector control over whether their content can be used for AI training, including the right to refuse such use.
MEPs specified that content created entirely by AI should not receive copyright protection. The committee called for safeguards against the spread of manipulated and AI-generated content and proposed requirements for digital service providers to combat illegal use of such material.
Rapporteur Axel Voss (EPP, Germany) said creators deserve "transparency, legal certainty, and fair compensation" when copyrighted works train AI systems. "Innovation cannot come at the expense of copyright, both can and must coexist," Voss stated.
The proposals also direct the Commission to develop tools enabling rightsholders to prevent their work from being used by general-purpose AI systems and to facilitate voluntary collective licensing agreements accessible to individual creators and small and medium-sized enterprises.
The full Parliament is scheduled to vote on the own-initiative report in March. The report addresses legal questions surrounding generative AI and copyright, including transparency, consent, and compensation when protected works are used in AI outputs.
