The use of musical works and works of visual arts for the text and data mining

Reservation of the right to engage in text and data mining the works represented by EAÜ for the AI machine-learning training purposes.

The providers and developers of AI systems and platforms must pay fair remuneration to authors and publishers for the use of their protected works for machine-learning training purposes. Estonian Authors’ Society (EAÜ) only permits AI system and tool developers to use the musical works and the works of visual arts of its members for this purpose after relevant license is acquired from the society.

The development of AI systems is enabled by the use of great volumes of existing text and data, including copyrighted musical works and works of visual arts. EAÜ welcomes technological innovation and new ways and methods for composers and artists to express themselves, but novel opportunities cannot arise at the expense of the creators.

Therefore, EAÜ expressly reserves the right to engage in text and data mining the works represented by EAÜ in accordance with Section 19²(2) of the Estonian Copyright Act implementing article 4 of Directive (EU) 2019/790. With this decision, EAÜ, like many authors’ societies across Europe, wants to safeguard its members’ right to fair remuneration.
EAÜ also calls policymakers to quickly work towards a conclusive regulatory framework that provides more transparency and protects the rights of the creators in the situation where vast amounts of copyrighted data and text are already used to train AI systems without permission of right holders.