AI-Generated Works: Copyright Ownership

Abstract

Generative AI systems have taken over the world at a raging rate. While loads of content are being produced online by generative AI tools such as ChatGPT using existing works that are a subject of copyright, there has been a sudden rise in disputes regarding the question of who would be the rightful owner of a copyrighted work generated after AI machine learning from existing sources. While the jurisprudence for copyright ownership of compilations and the ‘Sweat of the Brow’ doctrine was laid down by the US Supreme Court in Feist Publications, Inc. v. Rural Telephone Service Co., the answer to ownership of AI-generated works is not that simple. The doctrine says that one who spends even a minimal degree of effort and creativity coming from oneself to create a new work on the basis of existing works becomes the rightful owner of the ‘compilation’. However, with AI, there are several inherent problems that hinder it from being eligible to be a copyright owner of works generated by it. In this article, the author has discussed in detail the reasons why AI cannot be the rightful copyright owner of works generated by it.