AI’s capabilities have exploded recently. With a simple prompt, AI can write a story, a poem, or even generate a picture. But can you claim an AI-generated work as your own and protect it from being copied?
Dave learned the hard way that the answer is “no”. Dave decided to publish a novel. To overcome writer’s block, he fed his AI, HAL, the basic plot points and characters. HAL produced a thrilling sci-fi adventure, which Dave published without making any significant changes to HAL’s story. The novel was an instant success, and movie moguls wanted the rights to produce a movie from the book. Dave realized he needed to register his copyrights in the book. However, the Copyright Office rejected Dave’s copyright application because HAL generated the novel, not Dave. Dave found that he had no protectable rights to the novel.
In its recently released Report on Copyright and Artificial Intelligence, the Copyright Office clarified that for a work must be protectable, it must be produced by a human. Since humans do not control AI-produced work, it is not protectable under copyright laws. However, if Dave had modified HAL’s story sufficiently, his contribution to the novel could have been protected.
Don’t make Dave’s mistakes. If you have questions about copyrights, contact the IP Group at Sandberg Phoenix.
