Authorship of AI Generated Works under the Copyright Act, 1957: An Analytical Study

Abstract

With the recent development of artificial intelligence (AI), increasingly creative works have been created by non-human authors. AI is now capable of producing complex creations which becomes indistinguishable from works made by human beings. Traditionally the authorship of copyright in computer generated works was not in question because the program was merely a tool that supported the creative process, very much like a pen and paper. However, with the latest types of artificial intelligence, the computer program is no longer a tool and it actually makes many of the decisions involved in the creative process without human intervention. Section 2(d) of the Copyright Act, 1957 in India defines ‘author’ in the context of different copyrightable works but does not make any reference to the legal personality of the author. The present study explores the feasibility and implications of this assertion. It addresses the scope of the definition of ‘person’ in the Copyright Act, 1957 and examines whether AI can be considered as author. Consequently it analyses the implications of including AI as author of copyrighted work. It further analyses the implication of granting authorship to AI and the problems of handling legal responsibilities arising out of such authorship. Therefore, the study contends that AI cannot be considered as author since they will not be able to discharge legal responsibilities. Drawing analogy from the ‘Lavery’ decision, this paper argues that in the absence of having the legal capacity to claim remedies for copyright infringement, the argument of extending copyright protection to AI generated works will fail.

Keywords: copyright, traditional, legal responsibility, lavery