Presented at the US Copyright Office

1. I N T E R N A T I O N A L
P E R S P E C T I V E
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. O P T I O N S F O R
A I C O P Y R I G H T
• Public domain, no copyright
due to no
originality/creativity.
• No registration.
• Some form of protection
given to programmer or user.
• Sui generis rights.

3. E U R O P E A N L A W
• In Europe a work is original if it
is “author’s own intellectual
creation reflecting his
personality”.
• Choice, selection of elements,
composition, all may prove
originality. (Infopaq, Painer CJEU
cases).
• Unclear if setting parameters
and algorithms would be
enough.

4. 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.”

5. C H I N A
• A court in the Chinese city of 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.

6. A R T I S T ’ S
O P I N I O N S
• Artists are not really
preoccupied by copyright
from the author and
ownership side, their
concerns in my experience
are about copyright
infringement.

7. C O N C L U D I N G :
W H A T 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).

8. @ T E C H N O L L A M A
Thanks!
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Star_Wars_Celebration_Orlando_Concept_Stormtrooper_Helmet.jpg
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Stapel_bakstenen_-_Pile_of_bricks_2005_Fruggo.jpg
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/09/R2-D2_en_Lego_%C3%A0_Cusset.JPG
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/56/Mazinger_Z_in_Tarragona_02.JPG
Most images under Creative Commons, links below

9. D R E A M S C A P E B Y D A N I E L A M B R O S I