Record STMT-WF04E61Soft law

Opinion: Uses of Copyrighted Materials for Machine Learning

OPINION: USES OF COPYRIGHTED MATERIALS FOR MACHINE LEARNING

Opinion State lawWestern Asia · ILin force

This official legal opinion from the Israel Ministry of Justice addresses whether machine learning enterprises can use copyrighted materials without authorization to train artificial intelligence systems. It concludes that the creation of machine learning datasets is generally permitted under existing copyright doctrines, primarily the fair use doctrine, as well as incidental use and transient copying under certain conditions. The opinion balances the need to foster AI innovation and market competitiveness in Israel against the protection of author rights, while noting specific exclusions such as datasets designed to imitate a single author.

Summary and content fields are drawn from the document text and are pending editorial review.

Who issued it

State of Israel Ministry of JusticeGovernment · IL

Lead issuer

Legal forceSoft law

Under whose authorityState law

Judged fromfull text

Who it governs

AI developers and providersGeneral publicRegulatorsCompaniesAI deployers and usersResearchers and academics

AI developers, legal practitioners, policymakers, and researchers should read this to understand how Israeli copyright law applies to machine learning datasets.

Sectors

Cross-sectorResearch and science · machine learning and artificial intelligence

What the document contains

What's covered

The document addresses whether using copyrighted materials to build machine learning datasets constitutes copyright infringement under Israeli law. It analyzes the applicability of fair use, incidental use, and transient copying doctrines, reviews comparative international approaches, and outlines practical scopes and exceptions.

What's missing

It does not provide a definitive safe harbor for generative AI outputs, nor does it resolve whether private contracts can legally override statutory copyright fair use exceptions.

Key takeaways

Copyright law in Israel permits the use of copyrighted materials for training machine learning systems under existing legal doctrines like fair use.
The creation of diverse machine learning datasets is typically considered transformative and serves worthy societal and innovation purposes.
Market failures such as high transaction costs and holdup problems would otherwise severely inhibit AI development if licenses were strictly required for massive datasets.
This opinion does not provide a blanket safe harbor for the outputs generated by AI systems, which must be evaluated separately for infringement.
The Ministry of Justice opted for interpretive flexibility through existing copyright doctrines rather than pursuing rigid, technology-specific legislative amendments.

Principles it states

Striking a balance between the interests of authors in restricting access to works and the public interest in increasing access to works.The principle of productivity as a major justification for the fair use doctrine.

Outline

Background
Abstract
A. Introduction
B. Background: ML and AI-based Systems
C. The Normative Framework – The Use of Copyrighted Materials
D. Comparative Law
E. The Scope of the Opinion and Exceptions
F. Conclusion

Issued18 December 2022

Length21,518 words · 40 pages

FormatNot recorded

Scopenational

Physical AI Governancesupporting

artificial_intelligence machine_learning copyright fair_use datasets intellectual_property