Analysing Boundaries of legal Personhood: Artificial Intelligence And Copyrights Conundrum in the E-sports Industry

Introduction

The Esports industry has evolved from being just a mere interest to almost a 2 billion dollar industry in the Global market. Over the last decade, it has evolved to become one of the most active and rewarding sectors of the Economy. At the heart of such electronic renaissance, rests Artificial Intelligence. AI has played a very important role within the gaming sector, not only has it helped in creation of several features within the game, like that of maps and complex arenas, it has also fostered the creation of “Bots”. On one hand, the developers of the game claim copyright protection for their own creation, which ensures that in case of any problem, the developer will hold the liability. But, on the other hand, if there exists a breach by the AI systems, who holds the legal responsibility? The question of whether AI should be granted legal personhood within Intellectual Property laws to ensure an environment of competitiveness and accountability rests to be an unhinged question of the day. 

Importance of legal Personhood

Legal personhood forms the foundation of any legal system. Personhood in legal aspect refers to the capacity of an entity to hold rights and duties. Traditionally, In the past legal personhood has been attributed with an entity having autonomy and mainly, the capacity to bear rights, obligations and duties towards another individual. Artificial Intelligence and related systems significantly stand in demur against such traditionally accepted meaning of legal personhood. Unlike non-human entities like that of a corporation, that has human centrism, Artificial intelligence due to non interference of human beings in its working and independent decision-making skills creates a challenge to let itself fit within the juridical boxes of legal personhood. This further creates a question of whether such systems are enough for setting in AI systems or initiating a new framework is a necessity.  The growing debate over whether Artificial Intelligence is qualified enough to be given legal personhood has been spurred and pushed forward by its ability to make real time decisions. Now, the legitimate concern here is within the Esports gaming arena, if both, the individual developers and AI get copyright protection, how would it affect the accountability for glitches in the game.

Why is Copyright Protection for AI Content a Challenge?

Copyright is an intellectual property right that gives an author of a creative work rights over the work. This includes economic rights, such as the right to commercialize, and moral rights, which deal with the right to reputation, such as giving the author full credit for their work. Copyright ensures that creators can control the use of their work and receive credit. The two basic requirements involve human authorship, where the copyright law historically recognized works of human origin for the purpose of ensuring that there is an identifiable creator and hence an accountable originator of the work's originality, and a minimum threshold of creativity which ensures that the work reflects intellectual effort and originality of the author. This has generally left non-human entities outside the realm of traditional copyright understanding, and reinforced the belief that intellectual property rights are naturally associated with human cognition and effort.With the increasing production of AI-generated works, issues arise as to whether copyright should be adapted for these new creations or remain only for human creators.

With the expanding use and ever-growing excellence of AI in the gaming sector(especially the Esports), the increasing role for AI in the making of copyrightable works is now obviously undeniable and, one may say, inevitable. AI systems can now produce a sophisticated output. This puts into question the traditional principles of copyright, especially with regard to some human authorship and creativity. In creative processes, AI can once again be viewed primarily in two respects: AI may be a tool in the first category whereby it acts as an assisting instrument to human creators in that the human creator modifies, rearranges, or otherwise refines the output generated by the AI to such an extent that the final work retains a significant degree of human involvement and control; whereas in the second, it acts almost like an autonomous creator where the user feeds the AI with a prompt or instructions, and the AI creates complex outputs with little or no further human involvement-the latter scenario indeed challenges the traditional copyright parameters. The latter case raises certain profoundly important legal and ethical questions with respect to ownership and attribution as the boundary of the creative process rapidly blurs between human design and machine execution.

It is extremely difficult to determine the accountability of AI systems within gaming. Using AI systems, without any legal backing has provided unfair ground to the other developers. For instance, “Fortnite”, uses AI generated bots to create a personalized user who fills up the battlefield in case the number of human users is less. It claims to help the new players to be engaged but the ethical consideration for the same is questionable. Further Gram Turismo, a game by Sony uses an AI agent in the game named SOPHY. This bot fights against expert human players and improves by learning over time.

Conclusion

As AI continues to be integrated into various industries including gaming, creating significant profits for the entities that own and operate it, there is a need for accountability and regulation. Just like corporations are held legally responsible for their actions, AI systems, which are decision makers, should be subject to similar frameworks. By lifting the corporate veil of responsibility onto AI, one would ensure that companies profiting from Advancements are not exempt from legal obligations like that of liability as well as the ethical considerations. This would foster greater transparency in AI development and its deployment, while also ensuring that its profits contribute to societal welfare. Further non-existence of a uniform central legislation specified only for regulating esports complicates the matter.  By recognizing AI as a legal entity with special reference to gaming, one can create a fair and accountable system that balances innovation with responsibility.

Author: Prachi Bhattacharya, in case of any queries please contact/write back to us via email to chhavi@khuranaandkhurana.com or at  Khurana & Khurana, Advocates and IP Attorney.

References-

1. ABBOT R., The reasonable robot – Artificial Intelligence and Law, Cambridge University Press.

2. HAFIZ GAFFAR AND SALEH ALBARASHDI, ‘Copyright Protection for AI- Generated Works: Exploring Originality and Ownership in a Digital Landscape’.

3. ROBERT YU, ‘The Machine Author: What Level of Copyright Protection Is Appropriate for Fully Independent Computer-Generated Works?’.

4. SALAMI E., Artificial Intelligence: The End of Legal Protection of Personal Data and Intellectual Property? Research on the Countering Effects of Data Protection and IPR on the Regulation of Artificial Intelligence Systems (2024).

5. World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works.