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Google Takes Stride in AI Copyright Regulation, Promises Indemnity for Users

By  |  November 15, 2023
Google AI

Google has announced measures to shield users of its generative artificial intelligence (AI) products from copyright infringement claims originating from third parties. The tech giant revealed its commitment in a comprehensive policy agenda, emphasizing collaboration between private sector AI companies and governments to establish a legal framework for regulations that balance AI opportunities and mitigate potential harm to civil society.

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    The company made its intentions clear in a blog post, outlining a proactive stance in assuming full responsibility for all legal risks associated with intellectual property (IP) violations when clients employ its AI products. Google outlined a “two-pronged” approach to safeguarding users, with the first prong focusing on indemnifying users for the use of training data.

    Under this protective umbrella, Google asserted its commitment to assume full legal liability if users face lawsuits from third parties alleging copyright infringement related to the data used in training AI models.

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    The second prong of Google’s approach pertains to AI-generated content. The company pledged to indemnify users against claims of IP rights infringement arising from the output generated by its AI systems, reported Coindesk. However, Google emphasized that these protections are not absolute, cautioning users against intentionally violating the IP rights of third parties.

    Read more: Google And OpenAI Disagree On Government Oversight Of AI

    “This indemnity only applies if you didn’t try to intentionally create or use generated output to infringe the rights of others, and similarly, are using existing and emerging tools, for example, to cite sources to help use generated output responsibly,” Google stated in its blog post.

    Notably, Google’s indemnity offering is not universal but is specific to AI offerings in Workspace and Google Cloud, excluding its generative AI platform ChatGPT. Covered products include Duet AI in both Cloud and Workspace, Vertex AI Search, Conversation, Text Embedding API, Multimodal Embeddings, Codey APIs, and Visual Captioning.

    Importantly, Google assured enterprise users that they need not update existing agreements to avail themselves of the indemnity benefits, as the company has already incorporated these changes into its public service terms.

    Describing this move as the “first step,” Google committed to introducing additional features to empower users to derive maximum benefit from generative AI while reinforcing its commitment to responsible and ethical AI use. This development signals a proactive approach by a tech giant in addressing legal challenges associated with AI and underscores the importance of collaboration between the private sector and governments in shaping regulatory frameworks for emerging technologies.

    Source: Coin Geek