Training side — among the world's most permissive · Updated 2026-04-26
Copyright Act 2021 — Section 244 (Computational Data Analysis Exception)
Core Point
AI training safe harbour: lawfully accessed content may be used for AI model training, text and data mining and similar purposes without constituting copyright infringement.
Detailed Note
Section 244 of the Copyright Act 2021 ("Computational Data Analysis") provides an explicit safe harbour for the use of training data for AI. "Lawfully accessed" means content obtained through normal channels — subscriptions, purchases, legitimate APIs, public web pages and so on. This makes Singapore one of the jurisdictions with the clearest stated position on AI training and copyright globally, and is a core reason EDB has been able to attract OpenAI, Anthropic, DeepMind and similar institutions.
Position in the Legal Framework
The "Computational Data Analysis" exception immunises the use of training data for AI, on par with Article 30-4 of Japan's Copyright Act. The United States is still litigating fair use case-by-case and the EU relies on an opt-out TDM exception — Singapore and Japan are currently the only two jurisdictions to write this carve-out explicitly into statute.