Gianpaolo Todisco - Partner
Recently the Senate proposed to insert in Article 171, paragraph 1, of Law No. 633 of April 22, 1941 (Copyright Law), a letter a-ter, under which the following shall be punished
anyone who, without having the right to do so, for any purpose and in any form, reproduces or extracts text or data from works or other materials available on the Internet or in databases in violation of Articles 70-ter and 70-quater, including through artificial intelligence systems.
“Artificial intelligence system” is defined as ”an automated system designed to operate with varying levels of autonomy and which may exhibit adaptability after deployment and which, for explicit or implicit purposes, deduces from theinput it receives how to generate output such as predictions, content, recommendations or decisions that may affect physical or virtual environments.”
It should, by the way, be added that the d.d.l. inserts Article 70-septies into the L.D.A., according to which the reproduction and extraction of works or other materials through artificial intelligence models and systems, including generative ones, are allowed in accordance with Articles 70-ter and 70-quater.
The bill also proposes to introduce the crime of “Unlawful dissemination of content generated or manipulated with artificial intelligence systems” (Article 612-quater of the Criminal Code):
Whoever causes unjust damage to a person by giving, publishing, or otherwise disseminating, without his or her consent, images, videos, or voices that have been falsified or altered through the use of artificial intelligence systems and are likely to mislead as to their genuineness, shall be punished by imprisonment from one to five years.
The crime is punishable on complaint by the offended person.
However, it is prosecuted ex officio if the act is connected with another crime for which it is to be prosecuted ex officio, or if it is committed against a person who is incapacitated by age or infirmity, or a public authority because of the functions exercised
Nothing is provided regarding the liability of the entity under Legislative Decree 231/2001.
Again: the “having committed the act through the use of artificial intelligence systems” (as such, regardless of insidious use) will constitute an aggravating circumstance for the following crimes:
Substitution of person (art. 494, Criminal Code)
Fraudulent raising and lowering of prices in the public market or on trading exchanges (art 501 criminal code)
Fraud (art 640 c.p.)
Computer fraud (art 640-ter c.p.)
Money laundering (art 648-bis c.p.)
Money laundering (art 648-ter c.p.)
Self-laundering (art 648-ter.1)
Agiotage (art 2637 c.c.)
Market manipulation (art 185 T.U.F.)
Finally, the government is delegated to adopt one or more legislative decrees to organically define the regulation of cases of use of artificial intelligence systems for illicit purposes.