Intellectual Property Rights at the Training, Development and Generation Stages of Large Language Models

Kirchhübel, Christin and Brown, Georgina (2024) Intellectual Property Rights at the Training, Development and Generation Stages of Large Language Models. In: Proceedings of LEGAL2024: Workshop on Legal and Ethical Issues in Human Language Technologies @LREC-COLING-2024 :. European Language Resources Association (ELRA), pp. 13-18. ISBN 9782493814210

Abstract

Large Language Models (LLMs) prompt new questions around Intellectual Property (IP): what is the IP status of the datasets used to train LLMs, the resulting LLMs themselves, and their outputs? The training needs of LLMs may be at odds with current copyright law, and there are active conversations around the ownership of their outputs. A report published by the House of Lords Committee following its inquiry into LLMs and generative AI criticises, among other things, the lack of government guidance, and stresses the need for clarity (through legislation, where appropriate) in this sphere. This paper considers the little guidance and caselaw there is involving AI more broadly to allow us to anticipate legal cases and arguments involving LLMs. Given the pre-emptive nature of this paper, it is not possible to provide comprehensive answers to these questions, but we hope to equip language technology communities with a more informed understanding of the current position with respect to UK copyright and patent law.