Foundation of democracy
The statement warned that if such free-riding of articles and other content is not regulated, content production will die out, causing “irreversible damage to the foundation of democracy and the nation’s culture”.
Generative AI search engines, by providing users with a summary of information taken from various websites, reduce the number of visits to the original websites.
News organisations receive advertising revenue based on the number of views on their website.
The news media spend a great deal of effort and money on news gathering and reporting the news. If “free-riding” were allowed, the viability of providing accurate and diverse news coverage could be reduced.
An executive of a local newspaper said: “Our coypyrighted work is displayed in a very similar way … It is like taking bread out of the mouths of our businesses… if the service is used for free”.
“If people no longer… access (the) websites (of the news media), advertising revenue will decrease, and news organisations and other primary information providers will be at a great disadvantage,” said Prof Makoto Nagatsuka of Hitotsubashi University, who specialises in copyright law.
“The legal system should be reviewed in light of the rapid progress of generative AI.”
In August 2023, the Japan Magazine Publishers Association, the Japan Photographic Copyright Association, and the Japan Book Publishers Association issued a joint statement with the Japan Newspaper Publishers and Editors Association calling for measures to protect their rights.
They said the current Copyright Law is favourable to AI learning, but is inadequate for copyright holders.
In other countries, efforts are underway to protect copyrighted works as well.
In May, the News Media Association, an industry group of about 2,000 newspaper and magazine publishers in the United States, asked the US Department of Justice and the US Federal Trade Commission to halt the expansion of AI search engine services, claiming that some operators were improperly using articles from newspapers and other media. THE JAPAN NEWS/ASIA NEWS NETWORK