Artificial intelligence works and the potential for copyright protection

Abstract

The rapid and unregulated development of Artificial intelligence (AI) across a variety of technical, economic and social fields raises important policy questions related to intellectual property law. For instance, literary and artistic works produced autonomously by AI applications raises major policy questions for copyright law which has originally associated with the encouragement of human creativity. This question is currently being discussed by the US Patent Office, and at a parallel level by WIPO and the European Patent Office. This article attempts to shed light on these developments and what may they result in at the international level. The paper is structured as follows. Section 1 looks at AI, i.e. what is AI and its legal status. Section 2 attempts to answer the question about the author in artworks originated by AI . Section 3 discusses the impact of AI on copyright and challenges it posed on the system. It can be argued that excluding AI- generated works from eligibility from copyright protection is in conformity with the social purpose for which the copyright law exists. However, to exercise the authorship rights, the author must have a legal personality that AI systems or machines do not enjoy.