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Cheaters Never Win, Bungie’s 4.3 Million Dollar Award Against AimJunkies

/ Washington Journal of Law, Technology & Arts / 1 Comment
Photo by Soumil Kumar on Pexels.com

By: Perry Maybrown

Does anyone else remember being a kid, getting stuck on that super hard level and having to insert a Game Genie or GameShark into their machine to activate cheats? Apparently Nintendo really did not like these types of add-ons, so they sued the company that made them, and lost. But in today’s internet age, cheating has gotten more sophisticated, and much more illegal. 

Earlier this month, AimJunkies.com, a website that offers video game cheats for sale, was ordered by an arbitration judge to pay Bungie 4.3 million dollars after being sued for copyright infringement and violations of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). Bungie followed up by filing a motion with the court, to affirm this monetary award. 

Bungie brought nine claims in its original complaint filed in 2021 . The company argued that AimJunkies had infringed upon their copyright of Destiny 2, by “copying, producing, preparing unauthorized derivative works from, distributing and/or displaying Destiny 2 publicly all without Bungie’s permission.” Under those same facts, AimJunkies also infringed upon Bungie’s Destiny 2 trademarks. Furthermore, by making use of Bungie’s trademarks and copyrights, AimJunkies was also accused of false designation of origin. As well as two separate DMCA violations, breach of contract, tortious interference, consumer protection act violations and unjust enrichment. 

Later in 2022, a court dismissed Bungie’s copyright infringement allegations, for failure to state a claim. And while the copyright issue was dismissed, the door was still left open by the judge for Bungie to refile the claim later, with more evidence. Which Bungie unsurprisingly did. The court later upheld this amended complaint when AimJunkies once again tried to get it dismissed. 

After substantial litigation, Bungie decided to change tactics. Rather than attacking AimJunkies in court, they would drag them into mandatory arbitration.  This was accomplished by citing Destiny 2’s user agreement. Whenever a user plays games online, they are usually required to sign some kind of user agreement, which almost alway includes a mandatory arbitration agreement. Arbitration is a process that happens out of court, where two sides argue their case to a neutral arbitrator (usually a retired judge). There is a lot of controversy surrounding mandatory arbitration. For one thing, the “neutral” party deciding the case is usually paid/hired by whatever company included the arbitration agreement in the first place. It’s also difficult to overturn an arbitration agreement, as decisions can only be challenged for a limited number of very specific issues. 

A judge agreed to allow claims four through nine in Bungie’s lawsuit to be decided by mandatory arbitration. This meant that JAMS, one of the world’s largest private alternative dispute resolution providers, would be overseeing these six claims. Thus beginning the long, 9 month, process of arbitration. Bungie won and was awarded more than $4 million in damages as reported by TorrentFreak. 

So how did the arbitrator reach that huge number? It’s mostly thanks to the DMCA. The DMCA is an amendment to the copyright act from 1998 which seeks to address the relationship between the internet and copyright. The DMCA includes a section also referred to as the anti-circumvention law, which makes it illegal to knowingly circumvent a copyrighted work’s electronic security measures. For example, most video games have some kind of security measure, or Digital Rights Management (DRM) that stops users from getting into the source code. But some bad actors will sneak around these protections, so they can get a peek into the code. This allows those same bad actors unfettered access to the games, making it possible for them to reverse engineer different systems or download the game itself and share it. In this case the arbitrator found that AimJunkies had circumvented Destiny 2’s DRM to see the code and develop an effective cheat. Following § 1203 of the DMCA, the arbitrator awarded Bungie 2,500 per violation. With  102 violations, that meant AimJunkies was fined $255,000 for just one of Bungie’s six claims. 

Additionally, by hosting the cheats and selling them, the arbiter found that AimJunkies was in violation of the anti-trafficking provisions of the DMCA. This is where the costs really start to stack up. Just like the previous issue, Bungie was granted $2,500 per violation. With more than  1,316 copies of the Destiny 2 cheat sold, AimJunkies faced a whopping  $3,402,500.00 in anti-trafficking violations.

Finally, Bungie was awarded a further $738,722 in costs and attorney’s fees after proving AimJunkies had committed spoliation, the intentional destruction of evidence. This was found on the grounds that AimJunkies failed to keep proper financial records even after receiving a cease and desist letter from Bungie, which the arbitrator found to be a purposeful choice.

While this is a huge win for Bungie, the war is not over. As of February 28, 2023, AimJunkies is attempting to contest the arbitration decision. While it is unclear whether they will succeed, it’s a good lesson for us all. Just like the old saying goes, cheaters never win.

Virtual Reality? Depictions of Real Locations May Land Video Game Developers in Hot Water

/ Washington Journal of Law, Technology & Arts / 1 Comment
Photo by Polina Tankilevitch on Pexels.com

By: Matt Williamson

One of the most interesting, and sometimes annoying, parts of being a law student is that legal analysis starts to seep into even the most mundane aspects of your life. Recently, as part of my workout routine, I stumbled across something odd in a virtual world which led me down a rabbit hole of legal considerations that video game developers must navigate when including real locations and buildings in their games.

Biking Up a Bagel

Anyone who knows me can attest that I absolutely love riding my bike. In fact, I love it so much that last October, staring down Seattle’s 3:30pm sunsets and months-long drizzle, I invested in an indoor bike trainer. To make the experience of indoor riding slightly less monotonous, I got a subscription to the popular fitness app, Zwift. Zwift is a video game-style program that allows users to bike (via a trainer or stationary bike) through an animated world, complete workouts, and compete with one another. 

One evening, I noticed a new route available in New York City, specifically around the internal Central Park Perimeter Loop. I was intrigued as I have personally spent lots of time running this exact loop while training for a marathon a few years ago.

Excited to pedal around the familiar loop, I started my ride. It was almost surreal to watch my avatar pedal around a digitally animated version of a mixed-use path I knew essentially by heart. I was especially struck by how accurate the twists and turns were and how many of the roadside landmarks were faithfully rendered. However, as I made my way up to the Northeast corner of the park, I noticed a feature that I had never seen in the real Central Park: a giant glass tube opened up before me, stretching into the sky. Myself and a pack of other riders dutifully climbed up its glossy surface. That’s right – Zwift designers added a giant bagel-like glass causeway to the iconic New York skyline.

As I sweated up the absurd glass-bagel climb, I couldn’t help but wonder: Why the hell is this here? 

Too Close to Reality

As it turns out, the answer may be as complicated as the relationship between video games and the real location and buildings they portray virtually.

Back in 2022, the perennially popular video game franchise Call of Duty released the newest installment in its Modern Warfare series: Modern Warfare II (“MWII”). Even before the full launch of MWII, fans noticed something intriguing about several of the maps featured in the game – they were remarkably similar to real world locations. Three maps in particular stood out: Crown Raceway, Breenbergh Hotel, and Valderas Museum. Each bore a striking resemblance to a real place: the Marina Bay Street Circuit in Singapore, the Conservatorium Hotel in Amsterdam, and the Getty Museum in Los Angeles, respectively. 

At first, little attention was paid to these maps beyond their expected gameplay characteristics, but things quickly started to take a turn. Valderas Museum was featured heavily in the game’s open Beta, a limited release that allows developers a chance to mass test a game before it is fully released, yet it suddenly and without explanation dropped out of the game’s map-pool at launch. Though neither Activision, the game developer behind MWII, nor the Getty, commented, widespread speculation arose that the developer had been forced to remove the map from the game over concerns about possible copyright infringement claims raised by the museum.

New rumors arose when early marketing for MWII featured a map called Marina Bay Grand Prix – a faithful depiction of the Marina Bay Street Circuit in Singapore complete with both signage and car models that directly evoked both the real life racetrack and the immensely popular motorsport series Formula One. Yet, the map never appeared in the Beta and, by the time the game was released, these assets had been altered to reflect a more generally branded race track called Crown Raceway.

The final act in this string of mishaps came when the game was released with the third of these controversial maps as a part of its core gameplay rotation. Breenbergh Hotel is easily recognizable as the Conservatorium Hotel, a 5-star establishment located in Amsterdam. The owners of the Conservatorium were incensed by the use of their building in a game that depicts intense and realistic violence. The hotel’s manager, Roy Tomassen, was quoted by Dutch newspaper de Volkskrant as saying: “The game in no way reflects our core values ​​and we regret our apparent and unwanted involvement.” Though de Volkskrant also reported that the Conservatorium was considering legal action, the map is still playable in MWII, and is even a common battleground in the game’s eSport championship series the Call of Duty League. 

Toeing the Line

MWII clearly ran afoul of a number of parties with its map design, but, perhaps as Breenbergh Hotel illustrates, the legal options available to these parties are a bit murky, and even more ephemeral than one might expect.

One type of legal cause of action these parties might try to employ is copyright infringement. Copyright infringement occurs when copyrighted works are used by parties other than the owner of the copyright without the owner’s consent. 

However, unlike many kinds of intellectual property, a great deal of architecture is no longer protected by copyright law and is therefore freely available for use in art. Most famous buildings like the Empire State Building are considered part of the public domain, as are all private buildings constructed before 1990. Thus, this seems like a legal avenue that is unlikely to provide actual relief to parties that may try to utilize it.

What if video game developers included trademarks in their games? Trademarks are symbols or words that have been legally registered or established by use as representing a company or product (think McDonald’s Golden Arches logo or Nike’s “Just Do It” slogan). One fundamental aim of trademark law is giving trademark owners the ability to prevent other parties from copying or closely mimicking a trademark in such a way that might trick consumers into believing that what they are seeing is somehow sponsored, produced, or endorsed by the trademark owner. At first glance, this cause of action seems like it might present a more viable recourse for someone like the owners of the Conservatorium Hotel. However, previous lawsuits show us that developers often need to take only minor steps to effectively head off these sorts of trademark infringement challenges.

For example, in 2008, the owners of a Los Angeles strip club called the Play Pen, sued Rockstar Games, the developers of the Grand Theft Auto series, when they discovered that Rockstar’s GTA – San Andreas game featured a knock-off version of their club called the “Pig Pen.” In deciding the case, the Ninth Circuit assessed Rock Star’s assertion that the inclusion of the Pig Pen was protected by the First Amendment. Notably, the First Amendment protects the use of trademarked images or words in art unless the use has no artistic relevance to the work in which it has been included, or the use “explicitly misleads as to the source or content of the work,” (i.e., makes it seem like the trademark owner has signed off on the inclusion or is behind the game).

In applying this test, the court ultimately ruled in favor of Rockstar. The court’s decision (which I assure you is as hilarious a read as you would imagine) articulates the panel of judges’ belief that the depiction of the strip club had some artistic relevance to the game and was not explicitly misleading. The judges pointed to subtle changes that had been made to the appearance of the club that differentiated it from the real thing, and noted that no one would reasonably believe that the strip club owners had produced the game. 

These and other similar cases show that, while it is theoretically possible for a video game developer to be sued for incorporating a real location or business into the virtual world it creates, it seems as though developers need only take small precautionary measures like subtly changing the look of a building or location, to effectively shield themselves from serious danger. In the end, as much as I might like to believe in some sort of Zwift legal team conspiracy, it seems pretty unlikely that their developers added the glass bagel to the Central Park course as anything other than an extra challenge for cyclists and runners. However, you can be sure that if they ever make a Burke-Gilman trail expansion pack, my eyes will be peeled.

The War on Forgery: An Exploration into Current Technologies Used to Catch Art Fraud

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By: Zachary Finn

The field of art authentication has been revolutionized by several new technologies designed to spot fake art. Supposedly, up to fifty percent of all artworks in the market are fake, forged, or misattributed. Forgery is the act of making, exploiting, selling, and peddling fake art. This practice has become one of the most lucrative businesses in the world. According to the US Department of Justice and UNESCO, the crime of art forgery and laundering has been the third highest-grossing criminal commerce in the world over the last 40 years. This is just behind drugs and weapons. As technology has developed over the years, so has a plethora of developments and methods to detect fake and forged art. Many of the new technologies have successfully infiltrated the art crime domain, but they also raise legal implications to consider. 

One of the most encouraging is spectroscopy, which analyzes the chemical composition of the artwork and compares it to the known composition of genuine works from the same period. Spectroscopists test to identify whether certain specific elements and molecules are present in the pigment used to create works of art. For example, scientists use Mass Spectrometry to identify whether lead is present in certain artworks. Throughout early art history, lead was popularly used in paintings. Ancient paintings are identifiable through this technology because lead is now extremely rare and difficult to come by. After discovering the toxic qualities of lead, the art scene was quick to remove lead from its paint belt. Therefore, using spectrometry technology, an individual can spot a forged or fake painting by testing to see the presence of lead or other comparable elements and molecules. If a Da Vinci is without lead, it is almost certainly a fake. Mass spectrometry requires samples from an artwork, which may cause damage. This can create legal disputes over the damage and restoration of the artwork, especially since most of the artwork being tested has historical and cultural significance.

Similar to spectrometry, X-ray fluorescence is another technology that analyzes the elemental composition of art. With this technology, X-rays analyze shine beams on an artwork, which causes atoms in the pigments to emanate ancillary X-rays These rays identify the specific elements, where then experts can determine if they are consistent with materials used in works from the same period. Forgers practice and develop methods of painting over less valuable but still old artworks to create a more valuable fake art. The advantage of using X-ray fluorescence is that it penetrates through layers of paint. This offers scientists and art historians the capability to examine the underlying painting of an artwork. Like mass spectroscopy, X-ray fluorescence raises legal considerations because it potentially damages an artwork in question. On top of this, like most of these technologies, a legal consideration regarding admissibility for evidential purposes emerges. Courts and juries will have to weigh the credibility of experts and these technologies. 

Continuing with scientific technology, Multispectral Imaging uses expert cameras to capture images of an art piece in different wavelengths of light. This allows the examiners to identify inconsistencies that can be indicative of forgery. With multispectral imaging, cameras use different imaging techniques, including ultraviolet and infrared light. UV imaging reveals polishes, touch-ups, and overpainting. Infrared exposes details such as underlying paint jobs. A big advantage of this tool is that it is a non-invasive process so that it does not alter an art’s composition. Delicate and rare artworks may be susceptible to damage by other types of testing, so therefore this technology can be most useful in the war against art forgery. However, this technology also leads to legal questions involving expert opinions and declarations as imaging results are still open to interpretation, and different experts may reach different results as to conclusions of an art’s composition.

In the “most tech-savvy” way to detect forgery, Artificial Intelligence and machine learning algorithms analyze large databases of both genuine and fake art. The AI and machines extract patterns and features that distinguish real and fake art from one another. In a research development by Case Western Reserve University, this technology “combines data from the precise, three-dimensional mapping of a painting’s surface with analysis through artificial intelligence — a computer system based on the human brain and nervous system that can learn to identify and compare patterns.” In one study, AI and machine learning were able to spot forged art with greater than 95% accuracy. A key advantage of using AI and machine learning in art forgery is that large amounts of data can be analyzed and evaluated quickly and efficiently. This expedites spotting potential forgeries and works more accurately and efficiently compared to other methods. However, legal issues involving privacy arise as AI sift through large amounts of datasets that can possibly contain private or unconsented information. As technology evolves, AI algorithms and machine learning can be updated and revised to improve accuracy and proficiency.

The art world has been plagued with crimes of forgery and faking artworks for centuries, but with new technologies such as spectroscopy, X-rays, multispectral imaging, AI, and machine learning, the ability to detect counterfeit art has revolutionized the way experts fight this war against forgery. It will be exciting to see what other technologies emerge in the upcoming years, as well as what new paintings are discovered to be just fake copies.

Proposed Fee Increase for Artist Visas Threatens International Cultural Exchange

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Image by Ahmad Ardity from Pixabay

By: Smitha Gundavajhala

On Thursday, February 12, the Seattle Symphony opened its doors for a three-day run of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 6. For weeks, the symphony had advertised that soloist Carla Caramujo would take the stage for the performance. However, as opening day approached, the Symphony had a change of plans. The web page for the concert displayed a message: “Due to delays with artist visa processing, soloist Carla Caramujo is regretfully unable to perform on this program.”

Delays in artist visa processing have prevented international artists from making their scheduled performances in the United States, and deprived American audiences of valuable opportunities for cultural exposure and exchange. As Tom Davis, a former Chairman of the Committee on Government Reform, said in an April 4, 2006 hearing on the impact of visa processing delays, “the American cultural scene will continue to remain vibrant only as long as foreign artists are able to bring their work to American stages and galleries.” This blog will explore a history of delays in processing the artist visa, a proposed rule to increase the efficiency of visa processing, and the implications of that rule for cultural exchange.

Delayed Artist Visas: A History

The term “artist visa” actually refers to two kinds of visas: O visas and P visas. O visas are for artists who are coming to the United States for longer terms, and P visas are for artists who are staying only temporarily to perform. Petitions for O and P visas are reviewed by the United States Citizenship & Immigration Service (USCIS). Under the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), the statute that created USCIS, O and P visa petitions must be processed within 14 days (8 U.S.C. §1184 (c)(6)(D)).

USCIS has struggled to meet this processing time for decades. Art advocacy groups have traced the delay to 2001, when USCIS implemented a Premium Processing Service (PPS) that would guarantee visa processing in 15 calendar days for artists who paid a $1,225 fee. Similar to the creation of express lanes on highways, the PPS option created “traffic” for applicants who could not pay the fee: the processing time for applicants was an average of 45 days before PPS, and extended up to 6 months after PPS. In 2010, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) adopted a rule that committed USCIS to meeting the day processing time required by the INA.

In 2019, Congress passed the USCIS Stabilization Act (HR 8089), a piece of emergency legislation intended to address processing delays, in part by increasing the PPS fee. The USCIS Stabilization Act allowed DHS to suspend the use of premium processing if circumstances prevented the timely processing of petitions. However, despite consistent delays in processing, DHS has not suspended premium processing. Today, the PPS fee costs $2500, and artist visa delays continue to accumulate.

When President Biden took office in 2021, the Biden administration faced the task of reducing backlogs in visa processing times that had been deepened by Trump-era policies. That is where DHS’s proposed rule comes in.

The Proposed DHS Rule

The Department of Homeland Security is proposing a rule that would increase the cost of applying for an O or P visa by more than 250 percent. O visa fees would increase from $460 to $1,655, and P visa fees would increase from $460 to $1,615. DHS justifies the fee increase by citing high demand and insufficient staff in USCIS. The fee increase, along with an increase in the required processing time from 15 calendar days to 15 business days, is intended to provide USCIS with more funding, staff, and time to catch up with the backlog in processing O and P visa petitions. 

DHS’s authority to propose and promulgate this rule comes from the Immigration and Nationality Act — in particular, from the section on the “disposition of moneys” (8 U.S.C. §1356). Administrative agencies like DHS have the power to propose and enact rules to carry out the objectives stated in statutes that the agencies administer, like the INA. If the rule is adopted, it adds an additional layer of requirements to the statute that must be met along with the base requirements of the statute itself. Agencies must provide the public with a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) and allow the public an opportunity to comment before adopting a rule.

The proposed fee increase for artist visas sits within this unassuming administrative framework. Members of the public are often unaware of the existence of NPRMs and uninformed on how to comment. In addition, even though anyone can submit a comment, many of the stakeholders impacted by this proposed rule do not live in the United States, and are unlikely to be aware of the opportunity to comment on the rule.

Implications of the Rule

After the Biden administration committed to reducing processing times, it followed through by approving a $389 million budget for the 2023 fiscal year to support that effort. It is unclear whether that added funding is actually being used to improve processing times. DHS is still passing costs down to artists, and if the rule is passed, those costs will only increase.

The current framework for O and P visa petitions is already inequitable: those without the resources to pay a $2500 PPS fee are impacted by visa processing delays, and risk losing out on opportunities to perform. Independent artists and non-profit organizations are particularly impacted by this inequity, and are likely underrepresented in international cultural exchange. However, the current processing fees are lower than the proposed fees, so despite processing delays, artists currently have greater access to petitioning than they would under the new rule.

If the rule is adopted and implemented, DHS may or may not catch up with the backlog in O and P petitions. However, the cost of applying for an artist visa will increase, and the pool of artists that are able to apply for and obtain visas will skew in favor of those wealthy enough to absorb the fee increase. One thing is certain: adopting the rule will cause the United States to lose out on a great deal of talent, and cultural exchange is likely to suffer. 

DHS is currently accepting written comments on this proposed rule until March 6, 2023. The electronic Federal Docket Management System will accept comments before midnight eastern time at the end of that day.

Talking to Machines – The Legal Implications of ChatGPT

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By: Stephanie Ngo

Chat Generative Pre-trained Transformer, known as ChatGPT, was launched on November 30, 2022.  The program has since swept the world by storm with its articulate answers and detailed responses to a multitude of questions. A quick Google Search of “chat gpt” amasses approximately 171 million results. Similarly, in the first five days of launch, more than a million people had signed up to test the chatbot, according to OpenAI’s president, Greg Brockman. But with new technology comes legal issues that require legal solutions. As ChatGPT continues to grow in popularity, it is now more important than ever to discuss how such a smart system could affect the legal field. 

What is Artificial Intelligence? 

Artificial intelligence (AI), per John McCarthy, a world-renowned computer scientist at Stanford University, is “the science and engineering of making intelligent machines, especially intelligent computer programs, that can be used to understand human intelligence.” The first successful AI program was written in 1951 to play a game of checkers, but the idea of “robots” taking on human-like characteristics has been traced back even earlier. Recently, it has been predicted that AI, although prominent now, will permeate the daily lives of individuals by 2025 and seep into various business sectors.  Today, the buzz around AI stems from the fast-growing influx of  emerging technologies, and how AI can be integrated with current technology to innovate products like self-driving cars, electronic medical records, and personal assistants. Many are aware of what “Siri” is, and consumers’ expectations that Siri will soon become all-knowing is what continues to push the field of AI to develop at such fast speeds.

What is ChatGPT? 

ChatGPT is a chatbot that uses a large language model trained by OpenAI. OpenAI is an AI research and deployment company founded in 2015 dedicated to ensuring that artificial intelligence benefits all of humanity. ChatGPT was trained with data from items such as books and other written materials to generate natural and conversational responses, as if a human had written the reply. Chatbots are not a recent invention. In 2019, Salesforce reported that twenty-three percent of service organizations used AI chatbots. In 2021, Salesforce reported the percentage is now closer to thirty-eight percent of organizations, a sixty-seven percent increase since their 2018 report. The effectiveness, however, left many consumers wishing for a faster, smarter way of getting accurate answers.

In comes ChatGPT, which has been hailed as the “best artificial intelligence chatbot ever released to the general public” by technology columnist, Kevin Roose from the New York Times. ChatGPT’s ability to answer extremely convoluted questions, explain scientific concepts, or even debug large amounts of code is indicative of just how far chatbots have advanced since their creation. Prior to ChatGPT, answers from chatbots were taken with a grain of salt because of the inaccurate, roundabout responses that were likely programmed from a template. ChatGPT, while still imperfect and slightly outdated (its knowledge is restricted to information from before 2021), is being used in manners that some argue could impact many different occupations and render certain inventions obsolete.

The Legal Issues with ChatGPT

ChatGPT has widespread applicability, being touted as rivaling Google in its usage. Since the beta launch in November, there have been countless stories from people in various occupations about ChatGPT’s different use cases. Teachers can use ChatGPT to draft quiz questions. Job seekers can use it to draft and revise cover letters and resumes. Doctors have used the chatbot to diagnose a patient, write letters to insurance companies,  and even do certain medical examinations. 

On the other hand, ChatGPT has its downsides. One of the main arguments against ChatGPT is that the chatbot’s responses are so natural that students may use it to shirk their homework or plagiarize. To combat the issue of academic dishonesty and misinformation, OpenAI has begun work on accompanying software and training a classifier to distinguish between AI-written text and human-written text. While not wholly reliable, OpenAI has noted the classifier will become more reliable the longer it is trained.

Another argument that has arisen involves intellectual property issues. Is the material that ChatGPT produces legal to use? In a similar situation, a different artificial intelligence program, Stable Diffusion, was trained to replicate an artist’s style of illustration and create new artwork based upon the user’s prompt. The artist was concerned that the program’s creations would be associated with her name because the training used her artwork.

Because of how new the technology is, the case law addressing this specific issue is limited. In January 2023, Getty Images, a popular stock photo company, commenced legal proceedings against Stability AI, the creators of Stable Diffusion, in the High Court of Justice in London, claiming Stability AI had infringed on intellectual property rights in content owned or represented by Getty Images absent a license and to the detriment of the content creators. A group of artists have also filed a class-action lawsuit against companies with AI art tools, including Stable AI, alleging the violation of rights of millions of artists. Regarding ChatGPT, when asked about any potential legal issues, the chatbot stated that “there should not be any legal issues” as long as the chatbot is used according to the terms and conditions set by the company and with the appropriate permissions and licenses needed, if any. 
Last, but certainly not least, ChatGPT is unable to assess whether the chatbot itself is compliant with the protection of personal data under state privacy laws, as well as the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Known by many as the gold-standard of privacy regulations, ChatGPT’s lack of privacy compliance with the GDPR or any privacy laws could have serious consequences if a user feeds ChatGPT sensitive information. OpenAI’s privacy policy does state that the company may collect any communication information that a user communicates with the feature, so it is important for anyone using ChatGPT to pause and think about the impact that sharing information with the chatbot will have before proceeding. As ChatGPT improves and advances, the legal implications are likely to only grow in turn.