Authored by: GORDON GAO and Yao Xiaoyi (Sherry)
Whether training AI models with copyrighted materials constitutes copyright infringement is a heavily debated and litigated topic in China and around the world. In this article, we examine the matter with a step-by-step breakdown of the technical process for training AI models and reveal that copyrighted works may be stored only briefly in the memory of computing devices. Additionally, we discuss how AI model training temporarily uses stored copyrighted works for “understanding” and “extracting” concepts and ideas, rather than retaining particular expressions for “independent economic value,” and what this means under copyright laws.