Commercial Crawling Also Allowed If Criteria Are Met... Government Sets Four Copyright Standards for AI Training

Culture Ministry and Copyright Commission Publish "Generative AI Fair Use Guide"
Fair Use Exceptions Determined by Four Factors Including Purpose of Use and Proportion

The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, the Ministry of Science and ICT, and the National Artificial Intelligence Strategy Committee agreed on measures for mutual growth between artificial intelligence (AI) and the cultural industry on the 26th at the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Seoul. In line with this, the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism published the "Guide to Fair Use of Works for Generative AI Training" together with the Korea Copyright Commission on the same day.

The guide specifies four key criteria for determining whether the training of data by generative AI falls under "fair use" under copyright law: the purpose and character of the use, the type and use of the work, the proportion used in relation to the whole, and the effect on the market.

It stipulates that use is not excluded from fair use solely because it is for commercial purposes or relies on automated web crawling, and that the legality will instead be determined based on how these four factors weigh for or against fair use.

The government will step up policy support by each ministry along with the presentation of the guidelines. In particular, it will build a rights information distribution infrastructure in order to ease the transaction cost burden involved in identifying rightsholders.

On the 28th of last month, the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism also introduced and began applying in the field a new "Type 0" category of public works that can be used for training without conditions, as well as an "AI type" category that is opened only for AI training purposes.

In step with this, the Ministry of Science and ICT will promote linkage with private data exchanges and grant research and development (R&D) tax credits for the cost of purchasing data for AI training.

The guide will be available from 11:00 a.m. on the 26th on the website of the Korea Copyright Commission. A Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism official said, "We plan to set up a dedicated contact point and actively support mediation of copyright disputes and tailored consultations between AI developers and rightsholders."