Generative AI and copyright: principles, priorities and practicalities
Generative artificial intelligence (AI) is a stress test for copyright law. When is AI a mere tool, and when does it become an author? On 18 August 2023 in the first US court opinion to weigh in on the copyrightability of AI-generated art, the District Court for the District of Columbia held that, while copyright is ‘designed to adapt with the times’, ‘human creativity is the sine qua non at the core of copyrightability’. At the same time, it noted, ‘The increased attenuation of human creativity from the actual generation of the final work will prompt challenging questions regarding how much human input is necessary to qualify the user of an AI system as an “author” of a generated work’.
Creative control is pivotal, reflecting the need to preserve the essence of human-driven creativity from mechanistic outputs. For content creators, accurate documentation is paramount in establishing authorship. Careful identification and claiming of human-authored elements prevent challenges to copyright validity. The US Copyright Office thus obliges authors to use generative AI to identify themselves and highlight the elements that bear their creative mark.
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Work Title | Generative AI and copyright: principles, priorities and practicalities |
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License | In Copyright (Rights Reserved) |
Work Type | Article |
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Publication Date | October 27, 2023 |
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Deposited | May 20, 2024 |
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