Are you ready for AI in your business?
Artificial intelligence (AI) based software and chatbots are increasingly popular in business. After all, what’s not to like?
You can save time by using generative AI to help create content, source images, videos, and more.
In a world where everyone naturally wants more for less money, there is a rush to adopt all sorts of content-creating AI.
Here at KoffeeKlatch, we are all for anything that makes you or your business more efficient and reduces your costs, but there is a dark side to AI and a few problem areas that you and your contracts need to take care of.
Copyright in what people create
Copyright (the right to determine what happens to content) is owned by the person creating the material.
This is something social media clients often forget. If the content creator is self-employed they own the copyright, even though the client paid for it.
Copyright does not pass automatically to the person who commissioned the work and paid for it.
The creator can assign copyright but it does not transfer automatically.
Copyright in what AI creates
There are two schools of thought on this, one is that no copyright exists in anything entirely created by AI (or any other machine) and the other is that it belongs to the programmer/organisation who owns AI.
AI-using platforms call what you give them to work on “inputs” and what they give back to you to use or work on “outputs”.
Some platforms give you either a copyright in the output or a license to use. Some license terms insist you credit the AI, just as some image and music licenses require you to.
Canva is a popular platform for creating social media designs and there rules depend on your membership and what you are doing.
Others assign only non-commercial rights to use. Again many image and music sites do the same. But if you are selling social media posts that is a commercial use!
How much do you have to adapt AI content to make it yours?
We are often asked how much an AI draft needs to be adapted before the resulting content is copyrighted to the human editor/adaptor.
There is no easy answer to this as the law is struggling to keep up with developments.
If we look at how copyright works when two or more people have created something together, each person owns the copyright in their unique elements. That is before they agree to assign copyright, share it, license it etc.
A similar approach may result in the AI-generated content being copyright-free but the human adaptations being subject to copyright. Or (see earlier) the output from the AI will belong to the programmer.
There is no formal percentage threshold of say if the AI-generated draft is adapted more than 20% then all the copyright goes to the adaptor. There is no threshold. People rely on ‘common sense’ but if you have ever been involved in legal disputes, common sense is not how things turn out!
Unique content
The real issue around AI-generated content is that it often lacks originality. It works on mathematical algorithms. This it can tend to regurgitate what is popular regardless of accuracy and originality.
In a world where people want their social media to stand out then doing what everyone else does can be a handicap. People are already learning how to spot the AI bot comments, AI-generated fake images of people, and more.
Associates and team members
Your team may be using AI to generate content. If they don’t have the copyright to pass on to you for you to pass on to your client you may find yourself in a dispute.
As long as your associates are self-employed you don’t want to restrict them to the point of controlling them. But you have to know what is going on. If you passed it off as your copyright there may be problems..
Your contracts and processes need to be AI-ready now
With more mainstream programmes providing AI assisted elements every day, you need to get your contracts and systems in line for the AI world – even if you have no intention of using it right now.
If you are creating content for your clients, or accessing personal or confidential data that they have collected you need to be able to work securely and appropriately.
KoffeeKlatch Social Media contracts are AI ready
We don’t mean you should run our contracts through an AI editor – that would be a breach of our contract with you! But we have updated the contracts you issue to clients (terms) and the contracts for your team (hiring) to give you:
Transparency make sure your associates and team don’t put the wrong data into the wrong programme
Clarity be clear with clients what type of rights you are offering them when creating content
Privacy be clear about which programmes can be used by whom and what can go into them
Find out more about AI ready social media contracts here
