TapTechNews July 16th news, three US federal senators from both the Republican and Democratic parties announced on July 11 local time the launch of a proposal named the 'Content Origin Protection and Integrity from Edited and Deepfaked Media Act'. (TapTechNews note: The full English name of this act is the Content Origin Protection and Integrity from Edited and Deepfaked Media Act, and the acronym is COPIEDACT, which will be referred to as the 'COPIED proposal' hereinafter.)
This proposal aims to crack down on the emerging harmful deepfakes and establish a transparency criterion for detecting, marking and certifying AI-generated content at the US federal level, protecting journalists, actors and artists from the impact of AI plagiarism and holding plagiarists accountable.
Specifically, this proposal contains the following four major requirements:
The COPIED proposal requires the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) to develop guidelines and standards for content provenance information, watermarks and synthetic content detection. These standards will increase the transparency of identifying whether content is generated or tampered by AI and the source of AI content.
The proposal also instructs NIST to develop cybersecurity measures to prevent the provenance and watermarks of AI-generated content from being tampered with.
The COPIED proposal requires the providers of generative AI tools to allow the owners of source materials to attach provenance information and prohibits the deletion of such information.
The proposal prohibits the unauthorized use of content with provenance information to train AI models or generate AI content.
If the COPIED proposal is passed, the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and state attorneys general will obtain the authorization to enforce the requirements of the act.
The proposal will also grant the right of all content owners, including newspapers, broadcasters and artists, to file a lawsuit in court against platforms or individuals that use their content without permission.
There is currently no US law prohibiting the deletion, disabling or tampering with content provenance information. The COPIED proposal prohibits any relevant parties including Internet platforms, search engines and social media companies from interfering with content provenance information in various ways.
Maria Cantwell, chair of the US Senate Commerce Committee and a Democratic senator, said:
The COPIED proposal will provide much-needed transparency for AI-generated content.
This proposal will also allow creators including local journalists, artists and musicians to regain control of their content and provide the provenance and watermark procedures that I think are very necessary.
Marsha Blackburn, a member of the US Senate Commerce Committee and a Republican senator, said:
AI gives bad guys the ability to create deepfakes of everyone (including those in the creative community), imitate their likeness without their consent and profit from counterfeit content.
The COPIED proposal takes an important step to better protect ordinary target groups such as artists and performers from deepfakes and other untrue content.