Artificial Intelligence1 min read

Wikipedia’s operator says a bad AI copyright ruling could threaten the open web

By · Via The Verge · Published by Everything Blog

In short

In an amicus brief filed in The New York Times' lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft, the Wikimedia Foundation urged the court to establish a balanced fair use standard for artificial intelligence. The organization warned that an absolute victory for publishers could restrict AI tools that Wikipedia editors rely on to combat vandalism and identify copyright infractions. Meanwhile, an unqualified win for tech firms could divert essential web traffic away from human-curated resources. To address this friction, Wikimedia proposed permitting model training under fair use while requiring licenses for chatbots that directly replicate copyrighted text.

Key points

  • Training artificial intelligence models on publicly accessible text should be protected a…: Training artificial intelligence models on publicly accessible text should be protected as fair use if the resulting systems are transformative.
  • Chatbots that reproduce direct copies of original materials should be required to obtain…: Chatbots that reproduce direct copies of original materials should be required to obtain proper licenses rather than claiming fair use.
  • A sweeping legal victory for either traditional publishers or artificial intelligence dev…: A sweeping legal victory for either traditional publishers or artificial intelligence developers poses substantial risks to the open internet ecosystem.

Sources checked by our analysis pipeline: 1

The Wikimedia Foundation is staking out a middle ground in a group of landmark AI copyright cases, pushing courts to legally protect large language models (LLMs) training on copyrighted work — but not chatbots regurgitating that work to users. An overly black-and-white ruling, it says, could either deprive Wikipedians of useful AI-based tools or endanger the open web.

Wikipedia’s operator says a bad AI copyright ruling could threaten the open web

In the NYT’s case against OpenAI, the Wikimedia Foundation says training AI should be fair use — but regurgitating articles shouldn’t.

In the NYT’s case against OpenAI, the Wikimedia Foundation says training AI should be fair use — but regurgitating articles shouldn’t.

In an amicus brief filed Friday, the nonprofit behind Wikipedia weighed in on a set of lawsuits pitting publishers including The New York Times against OpenAI and Microsoft, taking neither side. “Wikimedia is concerned that the parties’ positions in this case push for overbroad and simplified applications of the fair use doctrine” around AI, the organization says in its legal filing. A nuance-free victory for publishers, it…

Artificial Intelligence