Copyright law should stay true to itself in the age of artificial intelligence
Alice Lee, Phoebe Woo · Edward Elgar Publishing eBooks · 2022
Artificial intelligence has posed new challenges and exposed the inadequacies of copyright law, but a complete overhaul is not the best solution as it is not only a question of legal drafting. The well-intended proposals to substitute the sophisticated multi-layer copyright regime with a simple single test of commercial or reasonable exploitation are appealing but unlikely to solve all the problems. As shown in the EU attempt to curb hyperlinking and the decade-long copyright debates in Hong Kong, the success or otherwise of copyright reforms depends on many factors, judicial interpretation and sociopolitical considerations included. Through European and Asian examples, this chapter defends the current copyright regime and identifies the way forward from a pragmatic perspective. It advocates that, in the digital era, top-down legislative reforms can no longer encourage creativity or guarantee a hassle-free environment for authors and creators, who need to be empowered by non-statutory means.