Protecting AI-Generated Works: Navigating Copyright Challenges in Intellectual Property Law

Introduction

Artificial Intelligence has come a long way from its early days as simply a tool for automation. Currently, AI can paint beautiful artwork, create heart-wrenching music, create poetry and even write detailed stories. These advancements have fascinated technologists and artists, but also disturbed lawmakers. At the center of this disturbance is a simple question: who owns the rights to works that are created not by human fingers, but by clever algorithms?

Classic copyright law developed based on the concept of human authorship, rewarding creativeness by granting sole rights to the author. However, works generated by AI pose a problem to this concept. If a work of music or art is generated wholly by a computer with little or no human contribution, is it worthy of copyright protection? If it is, who should be identified as the author? If not, how do we prevent such works from being freely exploited without credit or compensation? These questions are where law, technology, and ethics come together, and the answers will shape the future of intellectual property in the age of AI.

Main Blog

AI works are creative products like text, images, music, or video that are created by Artificial Intelligence systems. Such systems tend to learn from huge datasets and employ complicated algorithms to create content that looks original and inspired. The problem is that the existing copyright law fails to deal with such creations effectively. In most legal systems, copyright exists only where a work is the result of human creativity, showing originality and being fixed in a material medium. AI works will typically satisfy the latter two, but the former-  human authorship, is where controversy starts.

In the United States, the Copyright Office has given its position: if a work is created entirely by a machine with no significant human involvement, it cannot be copyrighted. But if the contribution of a human as director, selector, or editor of the AI product is significant, that component of the work can be copyrighted. The United Kingdom does things somewhat differently. Under its Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, where a work is created by a computer and does not have a human author, the individual who arranged for its creation is considered the author. India's stance is less clear, but its Copyright Act has a provision which might extend authorship to an individual who caused a computer-generated work to be created. The European Union tilts towards human authorship but is busy studying policy reforms in order to respond to the increasing use of AI in creative industries.

Image Sources: Shutterstock

The ambiguity persists when we consider ownership. If AI cannot be an author legally, the rights can vest in the developer of the system, the user who provided the prompts, or even an employer under work-for-hire statute. In collaborative situations, ownership can vest with more than one entity, which introduces the possibility of disputes. To this is added the problem of proving originality. Since AI models are trained on works that exist, there is always the risk of accidental copying, giving rise to plagiarism and infringement problems.

These legal areas of uncertainty are concrete. Without express protection, little prevents the unauthorized alteration, reproduction, or use of AI-generated works. This would deter investment in AI creative software by companies and individuals. Conversely, granting AI works the same protection as human work is a moral issue. Would these rights dilute cultural and moral importance placed on human creativeness? And in the event that a creation of an AI infringes on an already existing work, who is responsible — the coder, the user, or the AI itself?

Some solutions are in sight. Legislators could extend authorship to encompass some AI-enabled works, granting rights to the person most committed to their development. Another option would be to create a new intellectual property type for works developed by AI alone, similar to the database rights in the European Union. Until such legal reforms are passed, most creators are turning to licensing agreements and contracts to safeguard the use and distribution of AI products. Globally, institutions like the World Intellectual Property Organization are headed towards rules that would bring law in line with a concordance of laws across borders and reduce uncertainty in international markets.

But above and beyond the policies and the statutes, there is an ethical component which cannot be wished away. AI challenges our understanding of what it means to create. It invites us to consider whether creativity is defined by the act of producing something new or by the human experiences, emotions, and intent behind it. As we struggle with these issues, the goal must be towards a fair solution — one that protects genuine innovation, supports artistic expression, and protects the rights of human creators while acknowledging the revolutionary potential of AI.

Conclusion

The creation of AI as a source of artistic output is pushing copyright law into uncharted ground. Current regulatory frameworks, based on human authorship, are struggling to keep pace with technology that can create compelling works on its own. Some jurisdictions have begun to adapt already, but no single solution is in place yet. It is imperative that policymakers, technologists, and artists collaborate to ensure intellectual property law evolves to deal with these challenges without undermining the value of human creativity.

Future years will call for legislative overhaul and worldwide cooperation to solve ownership disputes, originality questions, and ethical questions. Saving AI-generated work will not be a clash of human vs. machine but a clash of creating a system where both can coexist and flourish — where law embraces the fluid nature of creativity while guaranteeing fairness, innovation, and cultural value.

Author: Shashank Shekhar, 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.      U.S. Copyright Office, “Copyright Registration Guidance: Works Containing Material Generated by Artificial Intelligence” (2023).

2.      European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO), “Artificial Intelligence and Intellectual Property” Reports.

3.      U.S. Copyright Office, Copyright Registration Guidance: Works Containing Material Generated by Artificial Intelligence, Federal Register, Vol. 88.

4.      World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), WIPO Conversation on Intellectual Property (IP) and Artificial Intelligence (AI), 2020–2023 Sessions.

5.      European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO), Artificial Intelligence and Intellectual Property Reports, 2020–2023.

6.      European Parliament, Intellectual Property Rights for the Development of Artificial Intelligence Technologies(Policy Department for Citizens’ Rights and Constitutional Affairs, 2020).

7.      Australian Government, Copyright in the Age of Artificial Intelligence – Issues Paper, Australian Law Reform Commission (2021).

8.      Canadian Intellectual Property Office (CIPO), A Review of AI and Intellectual Property, Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada (2022).

9.      Singapore Intellectual Property Office (IPOS), AI and Intellectual Property: Policy Considerations and Future Directions, Discussion Paper (2022).

10.   United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), Steering AI and Advanced ICTs for Knowledge Societies: A Rights, Openness, Access, and Multi-stakeholder Perspective (2021).