The SCL Cosigns Comments on G7 Hiroshima AI Process as Requested by Commerce & State Department
The statement below was submitted at the request of the US State Department and US Department of Commerce by the Society of Composers & Lyricists, Songwriters Guild of America, and Music Creators North America.
The organizations Songwriters Guild of America (SGA), Society of Composers & Lyricists (SCL), and all members of the Music Creators North America (MCNA) coalition join our many colleagues throughout the creative community across all disciplines and genres in support of the US Departments of State and Commerce’s proposed AI Guiding Principle 11, which states as follows:
Principle 11. Implement appropriate data input controls and audits.
[Generative AI] Organizations should commit to implementing appropriate safeguards throughout the AI lifecycle, and particularly before and throughout training, on the use of personal data, material protected by intellectual property rights including copyright-protected content, and other data which could result in harmful model capabilities. Appropriate transparency of training datasets should also be supported, and organizations should comply with applicable legal frameworks.
Our groups likewise respectfully suggest the augmenting of Guiding Principle 11 with language that unambiguously reaffirms that creators and copyright owners across all disciplines and genres are entitled to the rights of consent, credit and compensation for the use of their copyrighted works in Generative AI systems. We further suggest that it be acknowledged that such rights are applicable whether the instances of use concern so-called “training” of such systems via input, the generation of derivative works from such systems via output, or otherwise. Moreover, we believe it helpful to the overall protection and progress of US and global creative culture to reinforce (i) that such Generative AI input uses do not implicate fair use protections as they are presumptively non-transformative, and (ii) that such Generative AI output uses shall likewise be fully subject to existing copyright infringement standards and laws.
For more information concerning our organizations, all of which thank the US Departments of State and Commerce for this opportunity to comment, please see:
https://www.songwritersguild.com/site/index.php
https://thescl.com/
https://www.musiccreatorsna.org/