Unravelling Copyright Dilemma of AI-Generated News and Its Implications for the Institution of Journalism: The Cases of US, EU, and China

Abstract

This study adopts a multiple-case study design to address ‘Does copyright law protect automated news, and if so, how’ in three jurisdictions: the United States, the European Union and China. Through doctrinal legal analysis of the copyright laws and document analysis of policy reports, corporate responses and other empirical evidence, this study has found that the three copyright regimes differ substantively with regard to both formal texts and informal enforcement of copyright claims to artificial intelligence (AI)-generated news. In the United States, there has been a policy silence. In the European Union (EU), eager regulators have rushed to enact premature laws and failed policy patchwork. In China, the state is instrumentalising both laws and journalism to further its own interests. These findings suggest that current regulatory frameworks in all cases have led to a weakening of the institution of copyright, which, in turn, has contributed to the deinstitutionalisation of journalism and the institutionalisation of algorithms.