Copyright
Copyright law and associated issues should be at the forefront of producers’ minds when engaging with AI tools throughout the production process. There is no specific legislation governing AI processes in the UK although current UK Copyright law will still apply as set out in the Copyright Designs and Patents Act of 1988, as well as applicable data protection law. Such laws will apply to all inputs (i.e. prompts/instructions) made into and outputs received from an AI tool, and this means that you will need to consider a variety of copyright- and data-protection- related issues before you use the AI tool including, for example, whether you need permission from any third parties to input certain information and whether you will own (and will therefore be able to commercially exploit) the output.

Terms & Conditions
We recommend that you review the Terms and Conditions of the AI tool you are using prior to use and ask yourself important questions such as: do you know the status of the producer’s copyright once a piece of content has been produced? On initial analysis of the Terms and Conditions of certain AI tools that Pact has reviewed, some state that they may use producer inputs and outputs to train the AI tool and that a producer will be granting the owner a worldwide, royalty free licence to use and reproduce any inputs and outputs. In such circumstance, you will need to ask yourself whether you in a position to grant such a licence with the content/inputs you upload, i.e. whether it contains any third party content you may need to clear or any sensitive proprietary or personal information you do not wish to share. Equally, if the AI tool has a license to use or share or if it claims ownership of your output/content, are you still in a position to commercialise it?

Accountability
If any of the AI tools you use generate inaccurate, discriminatory or biased information, then liability as to who is responsible for the mistake can become complicated – it may be useful to make a record of the use of AI. It is imperative when AI tools are used to check and verify all outputs and to ensure that there is a line of responsibility in place for this. It may be beneficial to check your insurance arrangements for example any errors and omissions insurance or indemnity

Commercially sensitive data/GDPR
Ensure that any data inputted is not commercially sensitive. If sensitive data is being used ensure that the tool is securely hosted and not going to collect user inputted data for training or any other purpose. Ensure that security measures are taken and as a producer, and that you are in a position to process any personal or special category data of identifiable individuals prior to inputting it into the AI tool.

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