German publishers call for AI regulation over copyright concerns

German publishers called on Tuesday for artificial intelligence to be regulated amid concerns that AI companies are using copyrighted works to train their language models.

The German Publishers and Booksellers Association used the occasion of the opening of the Frankfurt Book Fair, the world's largest such event, to publish their "Frankfurt Appeal," which has thus far been signed by 120 publishers.

The declaration is addressed to the European Commission, the European Parliament and the German government. The signatories are calling for transparency regarding the works used to train AI systems, fair licensing models and effective mechanisms for enforcing copyright.

"AI companies train their models on copyright-protected works without the consent of publishers and authors, exploit valuable products without remuneration and to date have largely acted with impunity, even when unlawfully disregarding express rights reservations by rightsholders," the appeal says

Sebastian Guggolz, chairman of the German Publishers and Booksellers Association, said copyright holders had to search extensively for evidence themselves and enforce their claims through costly legal proceedings.

He called for "swift and decisive action by policymakers."

The Frankfurt Book Fair opens on Wednesday and runs until Sunday.