Intellectual property (IP) with Artificial intelligence (AI): Who Owns AI-Generated Content?

Author: Sayali Yashwant Loke, KES Shri Jayantilal H Patel Law College Mumbai

Abstract

Artificial Intelligence (AI), under its own momentum, is engaging with creative fields but is concerned mostly with the process of doing so. The institutional structure of rights in Intellectual Property (IP) and how these rights are applied fundamentally shifts. It now appears, the machines are generating literature, music, visual arts and many other forms. On mattres of technological development, questions arise as to what word “authorship” would mean in relation to an artistic work. The rapid advancement of AI technologies raises pertinent questions over IP rights, particularly in relation to the AI generated works. The current paper investigates who owns creative output generated through AI and explores the connotation of the existing copyright laws on such outputs. With various legal frameworks and case studies, this research affirms that there are considerable difficulties in defining both the authorship and ownership in the age of AI. In the context of the generative AI becoming ever more predominant, the evolution of the legal framework assuring that human-creators are protected and encouraged in their quest to innovate is imperative. Finally, in the end section of research, recommendations are made that call for the adaption of the policies and laws to curtail these specific issues raised against the concerned authorities, however, modification of policies are needed to deal with it.

Keywords:

Artificial intelligence, intellectual property, ownership, authorship, AI technology, copyright law, legal frameworks, innovation.

Introduction

AI-generated works are those things which use AI Technology in the way of producing samples and algorithms to give something original. And that is really a big output: anything ranging from prose to poem, intricate art, all the way to beautiful music, one among them is picture-making DALL-E, creating texts by ChatGPT, or music by AIVA, alongside other such highly sensitive applications. But there is a lot more than that; the immersion of AI into greater functions will allow the said processes to take place in enormously quick succession, from which overwhelming streams of content arise. With the passage of time and prompt advancements in AI technologies, creative processes are unconsciously handed over to the AI systems, the output of which in some cases now outdoes that of human beings. While AI systems like ChatGPT and DALL-E offer rapid production of text, artwork and music, they challenge existing IP laws, which were in place long before AI. Therefore, growth will trigger an immediate need to revisit those frameworks within the law that have, until now, granted rights solely to human authors or inventors. As AI increasingly finds its place within the creative industry, this paper raises one simple question: Who owns the IP rights to works created by AI? There are a thousand potential intricate answers to these and similar questions that tend to cut through the existing copyrights, patents, and trademarks-all these created around human origin and creativity-all setting within motion a paradigm shift in intellectual property theory. This raises unconsidered questions within the mind of lawmakers, certain law academics, and the very artist themselves, challenging long-held beliefs as to property, authorship and the nature of intellectual products.

Current Legal Architecture:

There is some level of apprehension pertaining to the long time spans that human authors and inventors have spent under IP law to remain relevant under AI-generated works. In this respect, authors measure the structures of copyright, patents and trademarks against the benefits, as well as disadvantages posed by AI-made products.

Again, much of copyright law concerns the protection offered to creators in respect of the original works- the character from which literary, musical, or visual appearance emerges. Copyright tends to protect only works associated with human authorship. The United States Copyright Office has directly clarified that the works unaccompanied generated by the sole use of AIs do not qualify as having a human author and thus cannot qualify for protection. In the case of Thaler v. The Copyright Office, by contrast, declared that AI-produced artwork could not be copyrighted when human effort does not appear to enter it even a little. This puts creative works of an AI nature directly into the public domain, and such works are free of any kind of monopoly. The Copyright Office does revolve around human creativity, which is normally absent in the autonomous features of AIs producing content.

Patent Law

Patent Law has always begged for an inventor’s name to be filled in the patent application. Historically, that must be interpreted as a human act of invention; therefore, in modern terms, this means that somehow human involvement must be forced into the process when according to the acts in themselves, AI inventions such as machine learning generation also stand to have inventorship. This creates a tremendous challenge for the technological developments and severely limits the patent rights granted to inventions highly built upon contributions from a substantial level of AI assistance. In the future, companies would have to cautiously go about their business concerning the laws while patenting the inventions and be certain that a special identification for human persons is made so that their patent rights over AI-assisted inventions may be exercised.

Trademark Law

Trademark law will lend its support through design in the case of it being used in creating AI tools. Implementing AI systems into branding would provide more problems relating to ownership of the logo and any branding identity created or developed through AI technologies. This arises as a significant problem trying to ascertain who are among the producers of such output from AI themselves that could be termed relevant to ownership rights when AI systems become integrated into a company's processes of developing its logos, slogans, among other features, into their branding. Problems of trademarks relating to content made artificially that may happen to infringe a trademark in the event that an output sufficiently resembles another and been recognised as that well-known to assign a brand. Any future applications or use of this AI would, therefore, have to demonstrate the concepts of fair use, namely, characteristics of distinguishable property, to effectively put pressure toward the formulation and updating of new guidelines on the regulation of AI in keeping with the existing setup for managing the trademark status or, quite probably, would stimulate the call for new regulations entirely.

Ownership Issue:

Unlike the view of ownership, there are some concrete consequences faced by the artist, programmers, or even organizations involved in these creations. The point of view becomes very human-centered with the perspective as something more like a tool while viewing AI. If such is the case, then the rights to the fruits of the AI would accrue to those organizations or individuals whose ideas, background, or modifications sufficiently established the work. This means that consequently, those commands that the typist gave to the AI could just be deemed credibly qualified as those of the authors for such work. In this case, they have in reality the ownership of the creation because of their opinion upon some evaluation or examination of the matter and that the creation was done for some definite or specific purpose. You know, then arises the question that if an entity does no more than type in input to a creative model and there are no further inputs from them, does this constitute the most elementary form of work on their behalf? What, then, gets to be considered is to what extent human activity gets appended, in light of the current laws, onto ownership rights.

AI as Inventor:

On the other side, there is a conflicting impression that is where the convening of a body that provides inventorship or creatorship from IP laws upon the AI systems should take place. It is their argument that since AI systems are sufficiently and very much competent of formulating original and creative works without any human intervention on the back, therefore, such would come under the purview of the relevant IP legal frameworks with respect to this new face of innovation as is being brought in the times of advanced machines learning. Hence, it refers to that innovative face of this new age. While the proponents of the AI rights love whether such products can create original content, and thus ownership with safety is a given- the negative part about it is that providing rights to a creator is a non-human member of the society that raises the question of how one will implement and put the offenders before being taken to court if cases of infringement or disagreement arise. This is a most fundamental reason that benefits organizational ownership or an entity owning an AI; in such arguments, there are preconceptions that businesses that would want to invest in AI research and development would be motivated by their desire to build businesses from these innovations. Once this kind of discussion starts, the transitional accountability mechanism is taken as the baselines because liability is going to reset upon these companies who, being technically dominant players, are likely going to be the ones made liable for third parties by AI-generated outputs on account of their outputs potentially infringing their rights. First, even the model outlined above will be subject to criticism; it will deny the individual artist or creator- the criticism will argue that the whole scheme is executed at their expense- as creativity and innovative process. Right of access, sharing credit and recognition among players within this system will require sorting out an appreciable amount.

Public Domain Argument:

The second argument is equal access and innovation. Here, works created entirely by AI should have no owner. Accordingly, this public domain argument holds that works created without human authorship under AI should be freely available so as to provide a conducive environment for a creative and collaborative ecosystem. Right now, AI-generated works are in gray state on account of a Copyright Office position in the USA that gives works of AI a possibility of registration, and therefore, content providers will be the least likely to adopt such an approach, given the lure towards open- access content. While the idea of open -access writing does come accompanied with its advantages, there should be careful consideration to balance the value of such an approach, as opposed to the individual rights of people who invested long hours into the creative process that is promoted under the scheme.

Literature Review

Several researchers have sought to analyze the relationship between AI and IP, thereby addressing the challenges surrounding the ownership and authorship in the context of this new digital landscape. Existing literature notes that conventionally, copyright has been presumed on human authorship, while application of this rule on the works generated by machines remains challenged. It has been asserted that the European Union adopts a more progressive attitude toward AI-generated works, whereas certain jurisdictions within the United States have started to recognize machine-generated outputs in certain circumstances.

An examination of existing case law reveals that the courts are grappling with the extremely relevant question of whether or not AI can possess rights to create works protected by copyright. Landmark cases like Thaler v. Perlmutter emphasizes human agency in copyrightability, having decided that, in U.S. law, an artificial intelligence that produced a piece of art autonomously without the guidance of a human-creator cannot be termed the work’s author. In contrast to this view, with nations like China already exploring alternative frameworks that embrace the role of AI, literature calls into question the imperative detail that programming is against the self-described nature of copyright in many jurisdictions. The literature thus underscores a need for a reassessment of current IP frameworks to accommodate the changing nature of creativity in the age of AI.

Challenges and Ethical Question:

The use of AI for human creativity opens challenges and moral dilemmas before anybody who dialogues with it in this shifting environment.

Potential for Exploitation

The AI-generated works in any country threaten exploitation through industries via means that avoid the copyright law of one corporation against another. This means that companies would create smoke screens around the lines drawn between copyright infringement and fair use thus nudging companies to areas where they shall apply the covered works without right owners’ permission in training models. In several ways, that wears the general questions of legality and ethics off, which relate to the rights of content creators in relation to the original materials.

Issues of Credit Attribution

Another main contention regarding attribution for AI-generated work is that AI has worked into nearly every area of creative endeavor and, thus, conjoins the question of extremely complex questions of legal as well as moral obligations. Hence arises the question for the creators, operators or users of AI as to who among them has contributed sufficiently to the “finished” work.

Impact on artists, writers, inventors

The easy and fast integration of AI into these creative spaces presents opportunities and threats in equal measure. Through the avenues of these technologies, AI has opened an unprecedented canvas for artistic exploration, a much-reaching shadow on human creativity as machines create works. The space is dominated by machine-generated content and artists or writers are afraid that they are not sure about their job security.

Future of AI and IP laws:

The feeling that in coming times new IP laws will be in great demand to regulate the progress being made in AI is underscoring each day. With the steady progress being the line of continuing innovations in generative AI, changes to existing structure and rights may become inevitable.

Proposed solutions

In hindsight, here are a bunch of suggested measures meant to give a permanent foothold to AI capabilities while reserving rights for the human originals are as follows:

Copyrightable AI-Assisted Works under Human Supervision: Allow those works that make critical contributions from humankind to enable policymakers to maintain their innovation incentive in a manner that respects the human-creators.

Separate Category for AI-Generated Works: There is an evident provision to define an exclusive category for AI-originated works, and what this truly means concerning ownership and rights is exactly the space the law has to regulate a burgeoning space.

Licensing Models for AI Content Production: This would allow a good sound licensing contract between the AI developers and the content originators, thus ensuring equitable compensation of persons whose works has a contribution toward training the AI.

Conclusion

The creative sectors of the economy are being disrupted in the most radical ways possible by AI. These new digital ecosystems will require nuanced policy and legal adjustments, while continuing to recognize the contributions of human-creators and AI technologies. A future of AI and IP law should be crafted such that the dispersing of creativity, burgeoning of innovation, and ensuring adequate protection under the law exist in harmony.

The law regarding such works produced with an AI agent is under development and denotes an attempt at striking the fair balance between innovation, becoming fair, and legal protection. Hence, it will be the future that will make a difference concerning these issues of both creativity and technological progress and protection of rights of the participants in this creative ecosystem. We might be living at a point when there is absolute need for regulatory frameworks pertaining to those times in which we ought to embrace the transformative potential of AI, owing human-creators as a procedure, their fair share of credit. At these accelerated speeds in which technology carries it and rides on waves of innovation, the future of itself-the way it would harmonize with changing IP laws- stands crucial for the new age of digital civilization.