Recently, some self-media disclosed that Microsoft packed all the Chinese AI teams to the United States, including the families of the technicians. Among them, "all" is obviously an exaggeration, but the meaning behind it is significant. On the one hand, artificial intelligence, as a new productive force, will play an irreplaceable role in future economic life. On the other hand, in the United States, new types of copyright may emerge and gradually spread globally.
Today's Talk: Intellectual Property
1. Intellectual property protection of artificial intelligence
In the history of the development of human productive forces, the real epoch-making "revolution" is the application of the steam engine, and the second historical "leap" has formed a prototype, that is, the application of artificial intelligence. The steam engine solved the way of power source in production, and Britain first used it to become the "empire on which the sun never sets". Artificial intelligence mainly solves the operation mode in production, and Microsoft in the United States recognizes its importance and "builds" an AI technology team in China. It should be noted here that the so-called production mentioned above includes warfare, such as drone warfare.
The invention of the steam engine was not protected by intellectual property rights, but it was used first, or used fully and rationally, to become a powerful country, such as the United Kingdom, continental European countries, and so on. Although AI is protected by intellectual property rights, the protection is relatively "weak", for example, computer software is not universally protected by copyright, and the reason is that the expression of the software is only "0" and "1".
The protection of the results of AI needs to be raised in new ways, such as whether articles written by AI technology are protected by intellectual property rights, and the debate may be raised by mainland China, such as Tencent, which has applied the technology to create news. In the U.S., it has been put into practice to prevent the creation of AI technology, such as the original copyright owner or news publishers suing AI software for infringement.
The role of the steam engine in history
Second, the prerequisites for Microsoft to package China's AI team
In the U.S., if the infringement of AI technology to stop the creation of AI technology becomes a precedent, there will be no commercial value for Microsoft to package the Chinese AI team. But there is no precedent in the United States for an earlier ruling prohibiting others from collecting or using, such as fragments from a work. Accordingly, Microsoft's decision to package the Chinese AI team is also based on precedent, or the United States has already ruled on the infringement that prevented the creation of AI technology, that is, its judgment does not constitute infringement.
It should be noted here that if the United States has made a judgment on the non-infringement of the above-mentioned infringement, the failure of the mainland official media or self-media to disclose relevant information is a serious problem of public opinion value orientation. For example, most American national education, including preschool education, is free, while mainland media propaganda is special education in the United States, that is, "aristocratic education".
In mainland China, according to the provisions of the Copyright Law, the use of fragments of another person's work by a neighboring right holder in relation to copyright does not constitute infringement. Not only that, but this law also stipulates the restriction of (copyright) rights, according to which no copyright owner in mainland China has filed an infringement lawsuit against the development of AI technology. Microsoft's decision-makers also saw the judicial practice in the mainland, or had a deeper study of the Copyright Law, and decided to package the Chinese AI team.
3. Copyright may give rise to new types
Although the Copyright Law lists computer software as the object of protection due to its single expression, the protection of software copyright does not extend to the ideas, processing processes, operation methods or mathematical concepts used in the development of software. Accordingly, in mainland China, software infringement lawsuits rarely occur, or even do not occur, but the self-media continue to hype, for example, a certain self-media has hyped the development of the Chinese Academy of Sciences to popularize open source programming software, after the hype is successful, such as training institutions have gained benefits. In response to this hype, the state and society need to reflect on why the rights holder of the original computer software did not sue for infringement.
In Europe, the copyright owner of computer software has filed a lawsuit, but it has been rejected by the British justice, and the gist of the ruling is basically the same as that stipulated in Article 6 of the Regulations on the Protection of Computer Software, that is, the protection of software copyright should not include the ideas used in the development of software. It should be noted here that at the time of the ruling, the UK had not yet "left" the EU.
The United States is a developed country in the development of computer software, and it has benefited from the fact that the United States has "convinced" many countries or regions to protect computer software as copyright. However, the protection of computer software is relatively "weak", and it is possible to anticipate the next "move" of the United States, that is, to make the achievements of artificial intelligence the object of intellectual property protection in its own country, and then persuade other countries to "follow up" the protection. For example, news and articles created by AI technology are new types of works.
AI technology creations may be copyrighted
As far as the incident of Microsoft's packaging of China's AI team is concerned, the mainland has actually been at the forefront of the world, or the first phalanx, such as Kingsoft Docs, Baidu and other self-media AI technology creation. According to this, society does not need to "worry" about Microsoft's packaging of China's AI team, and it is impossible for the members of the core team to be "packaged" out of China. However, developers such as Kingsoft Docs need to pay attention to the fact that the technology they develop cannot make Microsoft's software mainstream, such as the relationship between Word documents and WPS documents.
At present, Baidu's AI creation technology has been able to refine the abstract of articles, and if new types of copyright are generated, its commercial value will be unlimited. Accordingly, Microsoft's "packaging" of China's AI team should be highly valued by relevant mainland development companies and be prepared for commercial applications at the legal level.