This document discusses copyright issues related to artificial intelligence (AI) generated works. It covers two main types of creative AI - transformative AI that transforms existing works, and generative AI that generates new works. Countries take different approaches to copyright of computer-generated works, with the UK and China providing copyright but requiring arrangements by a human, while Australia and parts of Europe and the US consider such works to be in the public domain due to lacking human authorship. There are open questions around who owns the copyright for AI works and how to balance protection of human authors with enabling the AI revolution.

1. A I C O P Y R I G H T: A U T H O R S H I P
D R A N D R E S G U A D A M U Z , U N I V E R S I T Y O F S U S S E X

2. T H I S I S A S E R I O U S S U B J E C T
A P O L O G I E S

3. B O T O R N O T ?
T I M E T O P L AY …

12. A B I T A B O U T T H E T E C H N O L O G Y

13. W H AT I S A I ?
• “Artificial intelligence is the science of machines that can imitate human
thought. Its importance has grown over the past few years because of the
rapid development of computer technology and the increase in machine
use. AI is involved in many fields, including computer programming,
computer science, robotics, and data science. Artificial intelligence is not a
specific technology, but a computer programming technique for writing
software that can solve problems in a manner that would be considered
intelligent when performed by humans. AI programming allows computers
to do tasks that normally require human intelligence, such as visual
recognition and problem-solving.”

14. E U A I A C T C O M /
2 0 2 1 / 2 0 6
• “‘artificial intelligence system’ (AI system) means
software that is developed with one or more of
the techniques and approaches listed in Annex I
and can, for a given set of human-defined
objectives, generate outputs such as content,
predictions, recommendations, or decisions
influencing the environments they interact with”.
These techniques are:
• Machine learning (supervised and unsupervised)
• Logic- and knowledge-based approaches (symbolic
representation, expert systems)
• Statistical approaches (Bayesian estimation, search
and optimization methods).

15. T H E M A C H I N E S A R E C O M I N G !
N E X T R E M B R A N D T

16. E D M O N D D E B E L A M Y

17. T H E A I A R T R E V O L U T I O N

18. G P T- 3 C O D E

19. C O M P U T E R - G E N E R AT E D G A M E S
H T T P S : / / Y O U T U . B E / K 3 2 F Z - T J Q P 4

20. T W O M A I N T Y P E S
O F C R E AT I V E A I
• Whenever we’re discussing AI and
creativity, we’re dealing with two
different types.
• Transformative AI: the AI is acting to
transform something that already exists.
• Generative AI: the AI is doing
something new, it generates new works
entirely. This can be trying to imitate
something that doesn’t exist, and it can
also be entirely new.

21. G E N E R AT I V E A I
• Generative AI refers to programs that
can use existing content like text,
audio files, or images to create new
plausible content.
• This is a vital distinction from others,
the machine learning is used to train
machines to create new content that
doesn’t exist.
• The content has to look plausible to
the human looking at it.

22. G E N E R AT I V E A I

23. T R A N S F O R M AT I V E A I

24. W H Y I S I T I M P O R TA N T ?
Y O U M AY B E A S K I N G “ S O W H AT ? ”

25. C R E AT I V E
I N D U S T R I E S
• Procedurally-generated games.
• NFT collectibles.
• Journalistic articles.
• AI Art.
• Music.
• Literature.

26. R O B O T I C
W O R K F O R C E
“In the creative economy, advances in the
area of Mobile Robotics may have
implications for making and craft activities
(as industrial robots with machine vision
and high–precision dexterity become
cheaper and cheaper). Data Mining and
Computational Statistics where algorithms
are developed which allow cognitive tasks
to be automated – or become data–
driven – may conceivably have significant
implications for non–routine tasks in jobs
as wide–ranging as content.” NESTA.

27. H O W T O T H I N K A B O U T
A I A N D C O P Y R I G H T
• There are currently three separate
debates.
• Are AI works protected by copyright?
• Are the datasets that fuel the AI
revolution infringing copyright?
(input problem)
• Are AI works infringing copyright of
the inputs? (output problem)

28. S C E N A R I O S
• Only humans can create copyright:
All AI works are in the public domain.
• Machines can create copyright: AI
rights? Programmer?
• Master AI: pre-empts all possible
pleasing melody combinations, no
originality possible.

29. T H I S I S A R E A L LY
I M P O R TA N T Q U E S T I O N …
• Why do we have copyright?
• Do we want to protect investment?
• Do we want to protect authors?
• Do we want to protect human
authors from free cheap
competition?

30. U K L A W
S 9(3) “In the case of a literary,
dramatic, musical or artistic work which
is computer-generated, the author shall
be taken to be the person by whom the
arrangements necessary for the
creation of the work are undertaken.”
s178: ““computer-generated”, in
relation to a work, means that the work
is generated by computer in
circumstances such that there is no
human author of the work;”

31. S TA N D I N G
Q U E S T I O N
• Who gets the copyright? The
programmer or the person who turned
on the computer?
• Paper and pen analogy, pen makers do
not get literary work copyright.
• Microsoft does not get copyright over
everything written in Word.
• Interpretation that “whoever made
arrangements” will usually mean the
user.

32. O T H E R E X P E R T S
H AV E S P O K E N
• s9(3) is a remnant of another time,
intention was to clarify authorship of
computer generated works, not AI.
• No person, no creativity, no
“intellectual creation”. No originality.
• No case law.

33. U K I P O
C O M M I S S I O N
• shorturl.at/mHOR5
• UKIPO conducted a public
consultation in 2021 on what to do
with AI and copyright. 2 main
recommendations released 2022:
• s9(3) will stay as it is.
• A new exception to copyright to
enhance existing text and data
mining exception.

34. C H I N A
• Tencent v Yinxun: A court in the Shenzen has
decided that an article that was written by an
artificial intelligence program has copyright
protection.
• Tencent owns an AI article writer called
Dreamwriter, which pens half a million articles per
year.
• Competitor published an article from Tencent, got
sued for copyright infringement, defence tried to
argue article had no copyright, no human author.
• Court agrees that article has copyright, it has
originality, Tencent is the owner.

35. U S C O P Y R I G H T
O F F I C E
“In order to be entitled to copyright
registration, a work must be the product
of human authorship. Works produced
by mechanical processes or random
selection without any contribution by a
human author are not registrable. Thus, a
linoleum floor covering featuring a
multicolored pebble design which was
produced by a mechanical process in
unrepeatable, random patterns, is not
registrable.”
See: shorturl.at/FS468

36. H O W E V E R …
• US Copyright Office has been
exploring a wider range of solutions.
• Many artists have expressed their
concern at the public domain
approach, and would like to have
clearer guidance.
• Some registrations have been
rejected, some allowed, US
Copyright Office has said it will be
considered on a case-by-case basis.

37. J A PA N
• “person” required under current law.
• Intellectual Property Strategic Program
2016 and 2017 includes overhaul to
copyright law (not implemented yet).
• Computer-generated works given
similar treatment to UK.
• However, not all works to be protected,
only works with significant economic
impact to be given protection.

38. A U S T R A L I A
• Acohs Pty Ltd v Ucorp Pty Ltd [2012] FCAFC
16.
• HTML source code for some data sheets
were generated by a computer program.
Question arose whether the code can be
protected by copyright as original work.
• In first instance judge found that the code
was “not the work of any one human
author”.
• Federal Court agrees that there’s no
copyright as there’s no human author.

39. E U R O P E A N L A W
• In Europe a work is original if it is the
“author’s own intellectual creation”
(Infopaq) “reflecting his personality”.
• Choice, selection of elements,
composition, all may prove originality.
(Infopaq, Painer cases).
• Identifiable with precision and
objectivity (eg. cheese C-310/17)
• Unclear if setting parameters and
algorithms would be enough.

40. P U B L I C D O M A I N S U I G E N E R I S
C O M P U T E R
G E N E R AT E D
W O R K S
W H E R E ?
C O N T I N E N TA L
E U R O P E / U S A ?
A U S T R A L I A
J A PA N ?
C H I N A ?
U K , S A ,
I R E L A N D , N Z
O R I G I N A L I T Y
I N T E L L E C T U A L
C R E AT I O N /
C R E AT I V I T Y
E C O N O M I C
T E S T E D
S K I L L A N D
L A B O U R
E F F E C T ¯ _ ( ツ ) _ / ¯ ¯ _ ( ツ ) _ / ¯ ¯ _ ( ツ ) _ / ¯

41. C O N C L U D I N G :
W H AT I S A R T ?
• Why do we protect artistic creations in the
first place?
• From helmets to sofas to pictures of red
buses, the courts in the UK have struggled
with the definition of art.
• The latest answer seems to be that
intention is important, and to have
intention, you need an artist.
• But what if we take away the author? Make
this a question of originality (in the
intellectual creation sense).

42. The mech shall inherit the Earth