Influential German producer Max Wiedemann has said the likes of OpenAI and Google need to let content owners share in the upside created by new artificial intelligence tools.
“You have to let the rights holders participate in your productivity gains,” he said, before suggesting a body similar to those found in the music business could redistribute some of the bounty. “Maybe we need some kind of AI collection agency; those AI models that earn money from offering these tools have to pay the agency and the money is distributed among the copyright owners.”
Wiedemann is cofounder of Munich-based Wiedemann & Berg, the German producer behind movies including The Lives of Others and series such as Dark. He was speaking at a Munich Film Festival debate about the legal ramifications AI in Film.
Copyright and how rights owners are compensated is a hot button issue in the world of AI. Last week it was revealed that the world’s biggest record labels are suing AI start-ups Suno and Udio, alleging mass copyright infringement because the tech firms have trained AI products using their material.
Wiedemann said the tech companies need to be more open about the content they are using to train AI systems. “The first thing I think we need is transparency – I really don’t understand why we don’t tell these big companies like Open AI and Google that if you want to make new business in the European Union you have to show your training data, that’s something you have in your books, it’s not a complicated thing.”
The German producer said Leonine-backed Wiedemann & Berg has embraced AI in its own working practices, making tools and training available to hundreds of staff. At a creative level, he added that making AI tools ubiquitous “opens the door for a lot of creative people to show what they can do,” but added: “Not everyone who can create high-end pictures is Christopher Nolan, you still need these paramount talents to create real content that people actually want to watch.”