At the Grand Palais, the venue for the Paris AI Action Summit. Image – Getty: Mak Studio
By Porter Anderson, Editor-in-Chief | @Porter_Anderson
See also:
IPA Joins an International Statement on the Paris AI Statement
In India, a Growing Front of Legal Action Against AI Operators
Wiley Releases a Report on AI Research Applications
IPA, AAP Are Aligned in Post-Summit Assessments
This morning, February 12, Publishing Perspectives has been given a statement from the International Publishers Association‘s (IPA) secretary-general José Borghino, who reacts to the statement released by the Paris AI Action Summit, saying, “We welcome the acknowledgement of intellectual property rights in the final ‘Statement on Inclusive and Sustainable Artificial Intelligence’ from the summit in Paris.
José Borghino
“However, it is important that this is developed further and becomes a core tenet of work in this area.
“As demonstrated ahead of the summit, the creative sector is united, and we again call on international leaders to ensure AI development respects intellectual property and encourages and rewards human creativity.”
You now can read the statement, in full here, following Tuesday evening’s (February 11) close of the summit. You’ll also find that Borghino’s reaction is aligning with that of the Association of American Publishers (AAP) leadership in Washington.
Maria A. Pallante, the AAP’s president and CEO, has issued a head-of-house positioner this morning on the results of the summit. Pallante writes:
“We received a mixed readout of the Paris AI Summit from our friends at the French publishing association [the Syndicat national de l’édition].
Maria A. Pallante
“Despite an excellent session Monday on the role of copyright in fostering human progress … president Emmanuel Macron’s official statement yesterday did not position intellectual property rights as a priority, and it did not reference the charter of our international coalition.
“Intellectual property was, however, mentioned at a high level as an area for global reflection.
“As you may be reading in the press, US vice-president JD Vance also spoke in Paris. Stressing that the United States is treating AI as a competitive race vis-à-vis other nations, he questioned the European Union’s focus on regulation as an obstacle to development.”
“For AAP and the international publishing industry, copyright protection is a critical part of the regulatory equation for AI.
“At this moment, however, the most pressing legal questions under existing US law—relating to unauthorized reproduction of protected authorship for training and subsequent derivative uses—remain largely in the courts, and authorized licensing deals continue to emerge, providing opportunities for both control and compensation.”
As references, Pallante refers to the French presidential statement concluding the summit; to Chris O’Brien’s account of the copyright session for The French Tech Journal; and to Olesya Dmitracova’s report for CNN on the American vice-president’s remarks at the summit.
Background on the Summit and Issues
As we reported late on February 11, our international readership will recall the report we had on Friday (February 7) on the International Publishers Association‘s (IPA) participation in a demand from almost 40 world organizations, calling on the Paris AI Action Summit to “build a future that reconciles the development of AI with respect for copyright and related rights.”
International news media on Tuesday evening (February 11) reported that the two-day summit, as Zoe Kleinman and Liv McMahon report for the BBC, had closed with the Macron statement “signed by dozens of countries including France, China, and India, pledging an ‘open,’ ‘inclusive,’ and ‘ethical’ approach to the technology’s development,” but without the United Kingdom and the United States as signatories.
Dan Milano and Eleni Courea at The Guardian write, “A UK government spokesperson said the statement had not gone far enough in addressing global governance of AI and the technology’s impact on national security,” though the spokesperson noted that London had signed “agreements on sustainability and cybersecurity.”
And at the Washington Post, Cat Zakrzewski reports that the American vice-president to the Donald Trump administration JD Vance “cautioned that the Trump administration will not accept foreign governments ‘tightening the screws’ on American tech companies. He warned that a “risk-averse” approach to AI regulation could paralyze the emerging technology.”
As Zakrzewski’s report has it, Vance “promised Tuesday that the Trump administration would prioritize US leadership in artificial intelligence, delivering sharp criticism of the European Union’s sweeping efforts to regulate the tech sector during [this] conference intended to foster international cooperation.”
According to the the Associated Press’ video reports from Paris, Ursula Von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, told the assembly that the bloc will contribute €50 billion, aiming “to mobilize a total of €200 billion for AI investment in Europe. We will have a focus on industrial and mission-critical applications. It will be the largest public-private partnership in the world for the development of trustworthy AI.
“We fully support the AI Foundation that is being launched today. AI can be a gift to humanity, but we must make sure that its benefits are widespread and that its benefits are accessible to all. We want AI to be a force for good. We want an AI where everyone collaborates and everyone benefits. This is our path. This is our European path.”
David E. Sanger at the The New York Times elaborates on Vance’s first speech on an international trip, saying that he “used his opening address at [this] AI summit meeting hosted by France and India to describe his vision of a coming era of American technological domination. Europe, he said, would be forced to choose between using American-designed and manufactured technology or siding with authoritarian competitors—a not-very-veiled reference to China—who would exploit the technology to their detriment.”
‘Respect for Intellectual Property Rights’
The interest, of course, for much of the world book publishing industry has to do with copyright protection in the context of generative AI systems that have trained large language models on copyrighted, published texts without permission or licensing to cover the use of such material.
The statement issued on Friday by 38 organizations including not only the IPA but also the Federation of European Publishers; IFRRO; and the European Writers Council, reads, in part:
“This is an issue that transcends borders, as demonstrated in particular by the ‘Hiroshima’ AI process under the auspices of the G7, by the G20 conclusions and by international treaties.
“The summit therefore has a special responsibility as there will be no trusted AI without respect for intellectual property rights. There will be no ethical AI without the authorization of rights holders. There will be no sovereign AI without a fair business model.
“The states who are party to the summit must seize this opportunity to join us in ensuring that fundamental rights are respected.”
The Elysees Palace, on the conclusion of the Paris summit today, said that India is to host the next iteration of the summit (this was the third edition), this one having been co-hosted by Emmanuel Macron and India’s Narendra Modi.
A Programming Note
On London Book Fair‘s opening day, March 11 at a 3 p.m. GMT, a discussion on the Olympia London Main Stage will feature the Publishers Association’s Dan Conway and the Association of American Publishers’ president and CEO, Maria A. Pallante on AI and Copyright: Policy Developments in the United Kingdom and United States.
Clearly, the timing of the close in late February of the government’s open consultation will make this a pertinent conversation, to be moderated by Publishing Perspectives.
A description of this presentation reads, “AI is here to stay and so are the policy debates that will shape its development and deployment for years to come. In particular, many publishers around the world are watching developments in the UK and US, where regulators, legislators, and courts are weighing legal disputes and policy proposals that could have global ramifications for copyright laws. Please join us for a British, American, and decidedly human discussion on the most important issue of the day.”
More from Publishing Perspectives on artificial intelligence and world publishing is here, more on copyright is here, more on the freedom to publish is here, and more on the International Publishers Association’s work is here.
Publishing Perspectives is the International Publishers Association’s world media partner.