Tuesday, September 17, was the second day of the 4th International TV Festival & Forum Heart of Europe, organized by Polish pubcaster TVP in Warsaw.

During the day, the selected projects from the Feature Film and Documentaries category took the stage. The winning projects will be announced on Wednesday, September 18.

During the second day of the Forum, artificial intelligence (AI) dominated the agenda. The panel discussion AI in the Creative World: Tackling Copyright Issues and Opportunities, hosted by Sylwia Czubkowska (Techstorie cohost, Radio TokFM) featured Bartłomiej Witucki (Sajfan & Witucki) and Michele Evangelista (EBU) who discussed the different threats and opportunities the technology poses for the different players on the entertainment market.

The experts noted that AI has brought a revolution comparable to the appearing of the internet and that the biggest threat that AI poses is that of misinformation and of people becoming lazy, without any mental effort, when using the technology which can lead to them being easily manipulated. Witucki commented that copyright is the field of law that is continuously challenged by technological innovation so artificial intelligence is just the last thing in the line of innovations in the past 50 years that have challenged the principles of copyright. "It causes us, like lawyers and scholars, to wonder the principles of copyright, what is protected by copyright", he noted, adding that "in copyright the works that are protected by copyright needs to be original. This is the main requirement. And the Court of Justice of the European Union has said that a work is original if it reflects the personality of the author. So this gives us an hint about what is protected by copyright and what is not."

On the role of public service media, Evangelista commented that "the first challenge is misinformation. Misinformation, because there is this saying in the artificial intelligence world: garbage in, garbage out. Basically, the output that is produced by the AI systems corresponds to the quality of the data that are fed into the system. So, if you put data that originate from non-reliable sources, or they are not subject to editorial review like public service media do, then you run more risk of having an output that provides inaccurate and unbiased information... There are things that traditional media, like public service media, that have to abide by high-quality standards of information and editorial review cannot be replaced." He also iterated that "I see the problem of lack of control and lack of transparency - if our content goes into the system, they say this is a black box, the AI system, how will the PSM data be used? Is it going to be used in line with the values of a public service broadcaster? So this is one risk that I see, and then we go back to the point of misinformation. But in a broader sense of the service provided by the AI system that is not in line with the values of public service media. Likely the regulator, the European legislator, has done something about it with the AI, there is this transparency requirement, somebody called it the reporting obligation, which is the obligation to disclose the data set with a sufficiently detailed summary of the copyright protected data that are fed into the database. And that's good because it addresses the issue of transparency, but also because it enables the enforcement of copyright."

The two experts also agreed that discussions and consultations between the tech giants and content creators/copyright holders should continue, noting that the European Parliament will open discussions next week. The EBU representative shared that "this is an issue that we've been discussing within EBU at length. A main fear of the members of EBU, the various European public service broadcasters, is that their content can be used to generate misinformation. Actually, we have two divided sides. Those who are against giving their content, they believe that if their content will be fed into the system, it will contribute to generate misinformation. Instead, there is another side that believes that our content needs to be into the system, because we have quality content and we can prevent misinformation. So, who is right, only time will tell. But I believe that it is important to have a dialogue with these systems in order to give a direction of how our content will be exploited and continue to produce information for the society."

Witucki commented that "it turned out that this Article 4 is a gate for using content, and I fully share the opinion of my colleague that it's, of course, misinformation is a very important thing in our society, but on the other hand, I would say that using content without any charge, with no payment, is not fair for that industry too. Right now, as a person who was involved in blocking efforts for many years working for software industry, I must say that I can see that all that industry which stands behind artificial intelligence, so we can call it new technology sector or even software sector, they are in much better position. I'm afraid that all the state members of European Union need to adopt, need to implement the directive exactly in that way it was agreed. I can see that, let's say, all that creative-owned industries are in a not comfortable position while speaking to the players who stand behind artificial intelligence." Evangelista added that "Article 4 of the DSM Directive is not fit for our purpose at least. It gives too much freedom to the providers of a system to do what they want. And we need to turn that paradigm because we provide the content, we provide the material for them to give the service."

Evangelista added: "I don't think that compensation can solve the problem in the long run, we should try to pursue other objectives like analytics, like sharing with us what are the preferences of the users that go to Chat GPT, what do they ask Chat GPT, what kind of information, how often they ask information about the topic, so that we know which kind of product will resonate more in the public. Compensation, that's a good starting point but in order to have a long-term perspective, you have to go beyond that and also try to establish a partnership of collaboration. For instance, we had some members in the EBU, they collaborated with European AI providers, usually they are start-ups or research organizations... On these local levels, and in these cases (using LLMs in different languages), for instance, our members, they are investors in the project, they are not exploited by it. With the IP that is generated by these AI systems, there is a share of ownership also by the public service medium, it's not only in the hands of the private sector. So, those are the kind of solutions, the rules that we want to undertake. Of course, with the European company, that's easier, with the American ones, it's more challenging, because the bargaining power is different. But I think we will need to go united if we want to negotiate with them, and that's another challenge."

Witucki shared his concerns that "these big techs may start speaking about stopping progress, stopping innovation, and therefore we need to change our understanding of copyrights, and I think it's quite dangerous because it would finally undermine humanity, human being in general."

The legal experts admitted that AI gives us also opportunities, i.e. it is very useful for copyright enforcement, i.e. content detection - an example given was with ContentID of YouTube which detects automatically when a user uploads a content that infringes copyright. And it sends a notification to the copyright owner that there was the content. And the copyright owner can choose whether to take down the infringing content or monetize from it. Another element is management rights - automatic licensing or payment of royalties. Some combination with blockchain technology like in the smart contracts. You can receive money every time your content is used without any intermediaries, without any bureaucratic process.

The panelists commented that it's clear that regulation in that industry is needed because it's not only a slogan that copyright is always one step behind technology. Technology goes first and politicians, policymakers, have to be smart enough to follow that progress.

The Forum also featured two presentations: Dubbing a Movie with AI: A Case Study by Łukasz Siódmok (Film RÓJ S.A.) and Cultural Content and Media: Meet the IMZ by Max Beckham-Ortner (IMZ International Music + Media Centre).