The Japanese Newspaper Association submitted an opinion on the “Intellectual Property Promotion Plan” to be established by the Japanese government next year on the previous day. The intellectual property promotion plan includes basic policies of policies to be implemented by the government to create, protect and utilize intellectual property such as articles and video content.
The opinion piece included raising the issue of so-called search augmentation generation (RAG), in which search services using AI, such as ChatGPT, search for information from various online sources and then combine them to present answers. AI generates answers by citing a large amount of press content, but the so-called “zero click” phenomenon occurs in which users do not visit media sites, which are the sources of information, just by looking at these answers.
If the number of visitors to media sites decreases, not only advertising revenue but also potential readership opportunities may be reduced. As a result, the association argued, “The cycle of reinvesting profits into additional reporting activities may be undermined, deteriorating the function of the reporting agency and ultimately undermining the people’s right to know.”
The Japanese media has been making technical response efforts to prevent the unauthorized use of AI articles. For example, major media sites in Japan are expressing their intention not to read articles against “Crawler,” a program used by AI operators to collect information.
However, the Nihon Keizai Shimbun reported that some AI providers are reportedly ignoring the current law and reading the article because there is no legal basis for expressing their intention to reject the article. In response, the association urged in its opinion that respect for expressing intention to reject the article should be legally mandated. It also said that AI operators should disclose the names of crawlers used to collect data to increase the effectiveness of measures to disallow providing articles.
The Japanese media has recently taken active legal action against AI search services. Earlier, the Yomiuri Shimbun, Nihon Keizai Shimbun, and Asahi Shimbun filed a lawsuit against Purple Lexy in the U.S. in August, claiming that they violated copyright laws by using their online articles without permission. Kyodo News, a Japanese news agency, and affiliated newspapers filed a complaint against Purple Lexy earlier this month calling for the suspension of the use of articles without permission and compensation.
Japan’s Fair Trade Commission announced on the same day that it will launch an investigation into the possibility that unauthorized use of AI-based search services could constitute an “abuse of superior status” under the antitrust law. The Fair Trade Commission is said to have not only Purple Lexy, but also Google of the U.S., Microsoft of the U.S., and Lineyahu of Japan in mind. Kyodo said that U.S. OpenAI, a developer of ChatGPT, is also expected to be included in the investigation.
JENNIFER KIM
US ASIA JOURNAL
