MCST to Publish Guidebooks on Copyright Registration and Dispute Prevention for Generative AI Outputs

Second Meeting of the AI Copyright System Improvement Consultative Body

On June 13, the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and the Korea Copyright Commission will hold the second plenary meeting of the "Artificial Intelligence (AI) Copyright System Improvement Consultative Body (Working Group)" at the Korea Press Center. The three subcommittees of the consultative body, which was launched in March by bringing together representatives from the AI industry, rights holder organizations, academia, the legal community, and relevant government agencies, will share the results of six meetings held over the past two months, as well as the latest international trends. The three subcommittees are: "AI Training Data System Subcommittee," "AI Training Data Transaction Activation Subcommittee," and "AI Output Utilization Subcommittee."

The System Subcommittee diagnosed that there are differing opinions on the introduction of a "Text and Data Mining (TDM)" exemption for analyzing various materials for AI training, and therefore a cautious review is necessary. In addition, the subcommittee gathered opinions that, despite advances in AI technology, there remains a strong demand for high-quality human-created works.

The Transaction Activation Subcommittee, reflecting the opinions of AI business operators, decided to begin operating a sub-subcommittee in the field of literary works within this month and to consider expanding to other fields in the second half of the year. The Output Utilization Subcommittee has been reviewing the "Guidebook for Copyright Registration of Works Created Using Generative AI" and the "Guidebook for Preventing Copyright Disputes Arising from Generative AI Outputs."

The registration guidebook will include information on whether generative AI outputs can be registered for copyright, instructions for copyright registration, and examples of registrations. The dispute prevention guidebook will contain the legal principles for determining copyright infringement, the criteria for assessing copyright infringement of AI outputs, and important considerations for each stakeholder, including rights holders and AI business operators. Both guidebooks will be reviewed at this meeting, and after gathering public feedback through an explanatory session on June 20, they will be published at the end of this month.