Cullen International's latest global trend benchmark compared how copyright law applies to artificial intelligence (AI) across 14 jurisdictions around the world.

Key findings
The report's key findings include:
 

• Explicit AI training permissions remain rare: Only four of the 14 jurisdictions analysed explicitly allow the use of copyrighted material for AI training (the EU, Japan, Singapore and the US). Most others either prohibit it, are debating it, or have not addressed it in law.
• No jurisdiction has a fully operational, mandatory opt-out mechanism to prevent AI training from using copyrighted material: The EU offers the most structured framework through the text and data mining (TDM) exception in the Copyright Directive, which allows rights holders to reserve their rights. However, there is no agreed technical standard for machine-readable opt-outs. Most jurisdictions currently rely on other measures, including for example the terms and conditions available online.
• Compensation mechanisms for unauthorised use of copyright material for AI training are largely absent: No surveyed jurisdiction operates a specific compensation mechanism for the unauthorised use of copyrighted material in AI training. India proposed a hybrid model combining mandatory blanket licensing with a statutory remuneration right, but there is no timing for a decision.
• Human authorship is the dominant requirement for copyright protection of AI-generated content: Most jurisdictions require human authorship for copyright protection. Only Japan and Korea explicitly recognise some form of copyright protection for AI-generated content, though both still require a degree of human involvement. China has issued guidelines for court rulings to decide on copyright claims on AI-generated content, recognising AI-generated works gain copyright with original human input in prompts, parameters and post-editing.

For each jurisdiction, the benchmark covers whether:

• the use of copyrighted material in AI model training is allowed and if and how rights holders can opt out of their works being used for AI training;
• mechanisms exist to compensate rights holders for unauthorised use;
• AI-generated content is eligible for copyright protection.

The covered jurisdictions in the benchmark are: Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, the EU, India, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Singapore, South Africa, Taiwan, the UK and the US.

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See also our Global Trends benchmark on regulating artificial intelligence (AI).