The Intersection of Copyright and AI: Issues, Opportunities and Legal Solutions

Paper Code: AIJACLAV15RP2025

Category: Research Paper

Date of Publication: May 19, 2025

Citation: Mr. Kuncha Anudeep Durga Prasad, “The Intersection of Copyright and AI: Issues, Opportunities and Legal Solutions", 5, AIJACLA, 157, 157-168 (2025), <https://www.aequivic.in/post/the-intersection-of-copyright-and-ai-issues-opportunities-and-legal-solutions>

Author Details: Mr. Kuncha Anudeep Durga Prasad, Student, School of Law, GITAM University

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Abstract

This paper discusses about establishment of Copyright Law through the Berne Convention, 1886 worldwide to protect the creator’s work as well as the moral rights of such work. It examines whether AI (Artificial Intelligence) is considered as a legal person as current legal framework and implications this has for AI-generated works, in terms of authorship, originality, and liability in the context of AI-generated context.

This paper addresses key challenges AI poses to traditional Copyright Principles such as the concept of moral rights and the question of whether AI can be an author. It highlights the global legal uncertainty surrounding issues, with varying approaches across jurisdictions like the US, UN and India. At the same time, AI poses challenges to traditional Copyright principles. It also offers opportunities for collaboration and enhances copyright through tools like plagiarism detection.

This paper proposes the need for a harmonized universal global legal framework to entertain AI–generated works, to balance the protection of the creator’s rights and also analyzing the existing legal frameworks, and case studies. This paper emphasizes the urgency of adopting copyright laws to the evolving landscape of AI – Creativity. And also the importance of ethical considerations and policy updates to ensure a fair and substantial ecosystem for both human and AI-generated works.

Keywords: Copyright, Authorship, Originality, AI-Generated work, Berne Convention, Creator’s Work.

Introduction:

In the 19th century, the growth of Intellectual property rights increased rapidly due to which a lot of issues arose. And there was no regulatory authority or law to address those issues. In 1883, WIPO had introduced the Paris Convention which protects the intellectual property of the owners (property means Industrial property such as Industrial Designs, Patents, and Trademarks) and did not have the scope of dealing with the concept of copyright. As there is no regulation with respect to copyright due to industrialization and trading the books of authors/owners are being traded and those books are making no of copies and being sold in other countries which violates the rights of the author/owner.

In 1886, WIPO had introduced the Berne Convention which talks about the protection of works and rights of their authors and provides creators such as authors, musicians, poets, painters etc. with means to control how their work are used, by whom, and on what terms and these are 3 principles and certain other provisions were also given to them.[1]

In India copyright Act, 1957 was enacted on the basis of the Berne Convention in order to protect the works and rights of the authors. Section 14 of Copyright Act 1957 defines Copyright as the exclusive right subjected to provisions of this Act, to do or authorize the doing any of the following acts in respect of a work or any substantial part thereof namely,     

a)       in the case of literary, dramatic or musical work, not being computer program,

b)      in the case of computer program,

c)       in the case of artistic work,

d)      in the case of cinematographic film,

e)       in the case of sound recording [2]

It means any person who had created their own work upon the above subject matter shall have certain rights as well as the protection upon the same subject matter and it needs to get registered under the Copyright Act 1957 to enforce their right through litigation.

WIPO Copyright Treaty (WCT) 1996

This treaty was a special agreement under the Berne Convention, and it deals with the protection of works and the rights of their authors in a digital environment. This treaty gives more rights, to the existing rights such as the right of distribution, the right of rental, and the right of communication to the public. According to Article 10 of WCT, it incorporate the “three-step” to determine limitations and exceptions, are provided under Article 9(2) of the Berne Convention If established in national law in compliance with Berne Convention and may be extended to the digital environment. Contracting states may bring new exceptions as well as limitations to the digital environment; those will be accepted if the conditions of “three-step” are satisfied.

There is an obligation upon contracting parties to provide legal remedies against the circumvention of technological measures used by authors with respect to the exercise of their right, removal, or altering of subject matter that identifies the work of their authors.[3]

Due to the rapid development of technologies across the world, technologies have become a weapon to the existing laws. As the development took place, new issues were risen with respect to the Intellectual Property Rights due to computer program known as Artificial Intelligence (AI), computer program creates the creative working case of art, literacy, etc…

The Copyright Act 1957, Berne Convention, WIPO Copyright Treaty, and more will grant copyright to only individuals who have created their own invention with respect to literary, artistic, sound recording, cinematographic film, etc…

In two aspects, copyright law can deal with works where human interaction is minimal or non-existent. It can either be denied or it can attribute authorship of works which are generated by computer program. In the US, the copyright office has declared that it will only register for copyright if the work is original and creative in nature and it is created by humans. The same statement was reiterated in the case of Feist Publications vs Rural telephone service company, Inc[4] which specifically says that copyright only protects the original and creative work created by human. And In Australia, in case of Acohs Pty Ltd vs Ucorp Pty Ltd[5] the court held that for any work which is generated with the intervention of a computer, then, the copyright shall not be granted as it is not created by a human. In Europe the Court of the European Union has also declared on various occasions in particularly in landmark judgment i.e. Infopaq International A/S vs Danske Dagbaldes Forening[6] that the copyright only applies to original work and that work must reflect the author’s own personality, which says that a human author is necessary for a copyright to exist.

Artificial Intelligence:

Artificial Intelligence means a set of technologies that enables computers to perform a variety of advanced functions, including the ability to see, understand, and translate spoken and written language, analyzes data, make recommendations and more.

And also it can be defined as a field of science concerned with building computers, and machines that can reason, learn, and Act in such a way that that would normally require human intelligence or that involves data whose scale exceeds what humans can analyze.

Artificial Intelligence is in the form of computer code that runs the entire program for that which needs a human interference required to get any output for which there should be an input that  need to be entered. It consists of several algorithms a neutral network with multiple layers to process information, mimicking the structure and function of the Human Interface. Throughout learning and adaptation, AI systems have become increasingly adopted for performing specific tasks, from recognizing images to translating languages beyond. [7]

It is a computer language developed for machine learning purposes that has a built-in algorithm that allows it to learn from data input, and it evolves to make future decisions, which either can be directive or independent. For example: In Japan, the new research scholars had inserted a new option in Artificial Intelligence i.e.to dismantle itself …

AI helps individuals in certain aspects of the field work and works as a tool for beginners as well as an expert in creative fields. It pushes forward the boundaries of imagination and skill in new directions, like professionals. It acts as a tool and generates content efficiently, but it cannot replicate the unique human perspective and experience.

AI Generated Work

AI generated work can be defined as any output which is generated by a computer program without any human interference, or any type of content such as text, image, video or audio created by a computer program. [8]

For Example, a user may ask an AI to ‘write a case study on environment’, prompting the model to compose original text in a specified format. And it gives all the information relating to the prompt entered by the user.

AI as a Legal Person

AI becomes has become  implication for Copyright Law across the world, due to the creation of creative works with AI. The program was merely a tool which supports the creative process. Creative works are subjected to copyright protection unless they are original, and most of the definitions of original say that originality requires a human author, in countries such as Spain and Germany provide copyright protection to original work that was made by humans. It is very crucial to determine whether AI machines are legal person or not due to the rapid development of technology advances. Here, the word ‘Individual’ means a legal person. Salmond defies a legal person as ‘any being to whom the law regards as a capable of rights or duties, any being that is so capable of as a person, whether a human being or not, or not, and nothing that is so capable as a person, even though he be a man’. It means if the law asserts him with rights and obligations, then he shall be regarded as a legal person.[9]

Gray defines a legal person as an ‘entity to which rights and duties may be attributed’, which  means a person in law is any being that is capable of holding certain rights and duties towards society, whether it may be human or not. [10]

This means that not only a human being will be considered as a legal person but other entities will also be considered as legal persons. It shall be noted that there is still an issue of personhood of Artificial intelligence, and lawmakers are having persistent discussions on it; they are surrounded with multiple questions, such as whether AI is complex as well as multifaceted and whether to overcome the future implications of legal complexities pertaining to determine the legality of Artificial Intelligence.

The concept of legal persons was developed during the 20th century, and only legality is granted to individuals such as human beings. In a landmark judgement Salmon vs Salmon[11], it was observed that a company is a separate legal entity having its own identity and independent on its own and distinct from its members and stakeholders. It becomes an artificial person or any incorporation under any legislation shall be treated as a legal person. In India, Chiranjitlal Chaudhary vs Association of India[12], the Supreme Court observed that the fundamental rights are not restricted to individuals but also to corporate bodies such as companies, etc…

With the rapid development of industrial technologies, there will be a question of the legality of AI machines, and we can say it is a 4th Industrial revolution, as the next phase of digitalization was by human-machine interaction, improvements in robotics and self-learning machinery. There are few developments in the 21st Century; Sofia, a lifelike robot granted a citizenship in Saudi Arabia. Europe has rejected the idea of granting legality to robots, and a resolution was made declaring that ‘AI cannot be considered as legal persons’. [13]

In Singapore, the Copyright Act 2021  has inserted an exception that expressly recognizes the use of copyrighted works for machine learning which support AI research and development. At the same time, they have provided protection for right holder interest, which means requirements for the user to have lawful access to the works and the user may not distribute to those without lawful access, and right holders may implement security measures to maintain the security and stability of the network or system.[14]

In the UK, the Copyright Act Designs Act and Patent Act 1988 sets out subsistence, ownership, and duration of Copyrighted work, and Articles 9(3) and 12(7) refer to computer-generated works.

Copyright Principles v/s AI Generated Works

The principles of Copyright are based upon the definition of Copyright which means original works of authorship should be protected from duplication and gives exclusive rights over the subject matter. The principles of copyright are as follows

Original: To grant the copyright protection to such subject matter, it must be original and shall not be copied from any other protected or unprotected copyrighted. The subject matter should be made by humans and those only granted for protection of copyright as per the Copyright Act 1957.

Creative: The subject matter should be creative as well as original and shall not be contrary to any other protected or unprotected copyrighted. The idea can be taken from any other copyrighted subject matter, and it must be put in a way that is unique as well as not the same as the protected copyright. [15]

In case of Sole Owner,

If a person had written a book, own having his own ideas and it is not a derivate work from any other sources or copyrighted work shall be granted copyright protection to that book and he shall have all rights over such book such as

Moral Rights – If any copyrighted subject matter was licensed to other person and that person had damaged the reputation of such subject matter, it shall be the violation of Moral Rights under section 57 of Copyright Act 1957

In the case of Amarnath Sehgal vs Union of India[16], the author had made a mural and given it to the government for display in the Bhavan, and later, the government was changed. The building was being renovated during that time and mural was damaged while moving it to another place. The court held that there was a violation of Moral rights under Section 57 of the Copyright Act 1957.

Economic Rights – If a person drew a painting and it is registered under Copyright Act 1957 and he shall have all the economic rights over subject matter such as he can make as any as copies of such painting and sell them in market for some consideration or he shall give his painting to any museum and take royalty from them. 

Statutory Rights – The law itself provides certain rights under Copyright Act 1957

Negative Rights – The law restricts all other persons from copying the copyright protection. If we take the above example in that, the law itself restricts others from making the same painting or making copies of that.

In case of a Company or apprentice,

Suppose a person is an employee to such company or works as an apprentice, if he makes any original work within the company or apprentice. It is deemed to be held that the company is the owner and the person or apprentice shall have the authorship.

For example, Ms. Shreya is an employee to M/s Shreya Company Ltd and she had written a book upon a real situation she had faced. And it is a creative work she did during her employment. So, the company will be the owner of the book, and Ms. Shreya will be the author of the book.

AI- Generated Works

Artificial Intelligence is a computer program that enable it to perform various functions, including the ability to see, understand and translate spoken and written language, analyzes data, and more. AI Generated work can be defined as an output generated by a computer program without any human interference, or any type of text, image, video, audio created by a computer program. [17]

AI is a Computer Program that is made or computed by humans, and humans become the owners of that computer program. If any output was generated by AI, the owner of the computer program shall be the author of the generated output and the ownership shall lies within the owner of the computer program.

A person had given a prompt to AI to generate content, and it generated output and provided it to such a person. In this case, the owner of AI (i.e., Computer program) will be the author of generated content and the person who had given the input had ownership. In simple terms, AI becomes a tool for providing ownership and authorship to the owner and prompter.

AI-generated content challenges the traditional principles of Copyright and, creates a debate on authorship and originality, and challenges the creativity and intellectual property. AI tools can generate text, image, video and audio but they lack consciousness, intention, and personal experience. It means AI doesn’t have self-awareness or an independent thought to make. It also doesn’t have any intention i.e. purpose or emotion or a personal vision unless there is a prompt provided by a person. Additionally it doesn’t have any personal experience which is a key element of human creativity, which means musicians or artists or writers etc… have experience with their own lives, emotions, or something to bring unique and meaningful of subject matter.

Moral Rights v/s AI Generated works

Section 57 of Copyright Act 1957 and Berne Convention 1886 provides additional rights to existing protected copyrighted work. According to Section 57 of Copyright Act 1957, independently the author’s copyright had been assigned to any other either partly or fully of the copyright shall have certain rights such as

(a)    right to authorship

(b)    right claim damages in case of distortion, mutilation, modification or other acts in relation to copyright work , if such distortion, mutilation, modification or other acts would be prejudicial to his honor or reputation [18]

The both clauses which mentioned above are provided in Berne convention 1886 as Right to Paternity as well as Right to Integrity[19].

Moral rights are always connected to human dignity, which signifies the human emotions as well as human personality, and it shows the significance of human values of work. And AI lacks the consciousness, human emotions, and experience which shows that there is no relation to AI with respect to Moral rights, and it becomes an issue and raises problems if we attribute moral rights to AI. AI doesn’t have any reputation or personal interest to protecting the integrity of work; human authors may make any alteration in work when it comes to AI-generated content. Anyone can alter the information easily without ethical repercussions.

Jason Allen vs US Copyright Office[20] also known as Theatre D’opera Spatial, is a case that happened in US District in 2022; Allen makes an art using the AI. That AI makes an  image if we give prompts, and nearly he makes 624 iterations to make the art, i.e. Theatre D’opera Spatial. And applied the same to the Copyright Officer at the register stating that the work lacks the necessary human authorship for copyright protection. Allen had filed a case stating that he has used AI as a tool for making it, but it is not passive as well as it has a human effort to complete the artwork. Over 114 hours of time was taken to complete the final artwork and I mentioned that AI was merely a tool that helped me to direct rather than an independent creator. His lawsuit claims that the Copyright Office violates the Administrative Procedure Act as well as the Copyright Act. The ruling is still pending, and this case can set as a precedent for future creators/users of AI in making content or any Copyright subject matter.[21]

International Cases

Kadrey vs Meta Platforms[22]

On behalf of several authors, Kadrey filed a case against Meta Platforms. Meta had trained their AI models with a group of elements that they believe in the plaintiff’s copyright works. Meta argued that AI text is a violation of as it is similar to their books, and Plaintiff didn’t claim a  portion of copyright in a model of AI but instead claimed infringement based on extraction of information from books. It is insufficient to state a claim for copyright infringement resulting in inputs Copyright Works are used as training data.

The Court had agreed with Meta AI and dismissed the plaintiff’s Copyright Infringement and said that plaintiff has to allege that AI outputs are actual copyright work and it is substantially similar to Copyright Works. The stages of Pleadings are not crossed.

Anderson vs Stability AI[23]

Plaintiff alleged that Stability AI had infringed the Copyright of Artists’ copyrighted works. Further, the plaintiff was not able to provide a substantial similarity of AI output with respect to copyrighted work. The Court had dismissed the case and mentioned that the plaintiff should allege that the outputs are actual copies of copyrighted works or substantially similar.

Concord Music Group vs Anthropic [24]

The plaintiff alleged that the output by AI is identical or substantially similar to lyrics from copyrighted songs. This case was at an early stage, and the court had moved a motion to dismiss the case. The court may take Kadrey vs Meta platforms[25] and Anderson vs Stability AI[26] as a precedent before passing judgment of this case.

Chabon vs Open AI[27]

Plaintiff argued claims that ChatGPT’s ability to consistently summarize and analyze their copyrighted text makes clear that their works have been used to train LLM’s and claim that the use of ChatGPT continues to produce unauthorized derivative works of copyrighted material. This case supported the Author’s Guild, highlighting growing concerns over AI and copyright protection, and the court set a precedent on how Ai can use copyright materials and whether AI generated work can be considered derivatives work under Copyright law.

UN Initiatives on AI

UN had provided a way with the recently passed AI Act, a comprehensive legislation covering the entire technology. The committee consists of 46 members human rights body and has agreed upon the draft of the AI treaty to protect human rights, democracy and the rule of law. It also highlights transparency, inclusivity, and fairness to promote our diverse needs, preferences, and emotions.

They have provided that AI systems should be designed and developed in a way within the legal frameworks of International, national, and regional to minimize risks and liabilities and ensure the preservation of human rights and fundamental freedoms. Combining ethics, law, sociology, and philosophy helped to make ethical frameworks and standards. It also addresses the data privacy and protection, especially when using health, biometrics, or financial data. And there is an obligation upon member states to encourage monitors AI to safeguard the security measures and personal data protection throughout life. [28]

Opportunities AI to Copyright

AI can help in certain ways where the copyrighted content is being used to enhance copyright protection by assisting in plagiarism detection, copyright management, and creative collaboration. When AI raises concerns about copyright infringement, it also offers tools to safeguard intellectual property rights.  It also helps musicians, writers, and artists for generating creative ideas. It also boosts efficiency when AI used. In a simple way, we can say that to fulfill the gap in AI as an author, people need to become a collaborators to fill the gap of creativity with respect to AI.

Conclusion:

The intersection of Copyright Law and AI provides complex challenges that demand urgent attention. As it evolves, it makes creators sophisticated while creating creative works, and the current legal framework also needs to change to protect the creators. The main issues are revolve around authorship, originality, and liability, which the current legal framework doesn’t address these issues.

This paper identifies that there is a need for a global legal framework that balances the protection of the creator’s rights with respect to AI. The legal framework in such a way that it should address the characteristics of AI-generated work and provide clear guidelines for determining authorship, ownership and liability for copyright infringement.

Ethics, Transparency, Data protection, Inclusivity, and fairness should be primary aspects of any policies. There should be a balance between AI generated work and human work. Promoting collaborations between AI and humans to safeguard the interests and rights of human creators. Upcoming UN and US discussions and debates around AI and Copyright law signify the importance of adopting legal principles to the evolving technological landscape, ensuring that copyright law remains effective in the future.

References

1. WIPO – World Intellectual Property Organization

- Berne Convention

- WIPO Copyright Treaty

- Artificial Intelligence and Copyright

2. Geneva graduate institute,  Mouloud Khelif

3. Role of AI in creative process: Human Contracts and the Journey of Creation, Philip Steiner

4. International Bureau of WIPO, Basic Notions of Copyright and Related Rights

5. The Conundrum of legal person hood in the realm of Artificial Intelligence, 2024

6. Basic Copyright Principles, John Etchemendy

Statutes

Copyright Act 1957

Copyright Act 2021(Singapore)

Copyright Act, Design Act, Patent Act 1988 (UK)

Authorities

Dr. N.V Paranjape, Studies in Jurisprudence and Legal Theory, 10th edition, 2023

[1] WIPO (https://www.wipo.int/treaties/en/ip/berne/) accessed 13 February

[2] Copyright Act 1957

[3]WIPO (https://www.wipo.int/treaties/en/ip/wct/summary_wct.html) last accessed 17-02-2024

[4] 499 U.S 340 (1991))

[5] (2012) FCAFC 16, 201 FCR 173 

[6] (2012) EUECJ C – 302/10

[7] Google Cloud  (https://cloud.google.com/learn/what-is-artificial-intelligence) last accessed 17-02-2024

[8] Role of AI in creative process: Human Contracts and the Journey of Creation, Philip Steiner, CDO/CCO, IDEO

[9] Dr. N.V Paranjape, Studies in Jurisprudence and Legal Theory , 10th edition, 2023, page no. 463 para 4

[10] Dr. N.V Paranjape, Studies in Jurisprudence and Legal Theory , 10th edition, 2023, page no. 463 para 5

[11] [1896] 11 WLUK 76

[12] 1950 SCC 833

[13] Anushka Rao and Vanshika Jain, The Conundrum of legal person hood in the realm of Artificial Intelligence, 2024

[14] Section 243 and 244 of Copyright Act 2021 (Singapore)

[15] Basic Copyright Principles, John Etchemendy (https://fairuse.stanford.edu/2002/03/11/basic-copyright-principles/)

Last accessed (17-02-2025)

[16] (2005 (30) PTC 253 Del))

[17]  ibide 8

[18] Copyright Act 1957

[19] International Bureau of WIPO, Basic Notions of Copyright and Related Rights, page no. 12

[20] (2024) 1 CV 2665

[21] Naik & Naik Company ‘employee’ < https://naiknaik.com/2024/10/16/ai-copyright-human-authorship-the-legal-battle-over-theatre-dopera-spatial/ > last accessed 18-02-2025

[22] (2023) CV 03417

[23] (2023) CV 00201

[24] (2023) 3 CV 01092

[25]  ibide 22

[26]  Ibide 23

[27] (2023) 3 CV 04625

[28] Geneva graduate institute, mouloud khelif < https://executive.graduateinstitute.ch/communications/news/united-nations-ai-resolution-significant-global-policy-effort-harness#:~:text=On%2021%20March%2C%20the%20United,human%20rights%20and%20international%20law.> last accessed 18-02-25