Copyright Issues In AI-Generated Content

Author: LawSphereX

Category: Intellectual Property

Published: 2026-08-23T18:58:46.371Z

Updated: 2026-08-30T07:06:44.366Z

COPYRIGHT ISSUES IN AI-GENERATED CONTENT

Tanya Almadi, Amity University, Noida

ABSTRACT

The fast pace of development of artificial intelligence has revolutionized the field of content creation to the point where machines can produce literature, art and even music with little human intervention. Such developments bring a wide range of creative possibilities; however, they give rise to multiple legal and ethical issues, notably regarding ownership and authorship of copyright. This paper studies the existing legal structure of copyright law in India and discusses their relevance to works created by AI. It examines fundamental questions including, whether AI qualifies to be an author, or can AI be considered as the owner of such work. Furthermore, the paper attempts to suggest possible ways and policy recommendations to adapt copyright law to evolving technological landscape.

Therefore, the article aims to contribute to a better understanding of copyright issues emerging from AI-generated content such that, the technological advancements do not take place at the cost of rights of artists. Keywords: Copyright, Artificial Intelligence, authorship, ownership, moral rights

INTRODUCTION

The field of artificial intelligence is developing rapidly and is now capable of creating artworks like stories, music, and even paintings. A tendency has been developed in all countries to automate most of the activities and minimize human intervention to ensure efficiency and rule out errors. 1 AI is no longer a distant dream, rather is it fully embedded within out everyday routines. Smart voice assistants like Siri and Alexa act upon our commands, set reminders and are even used to control the lights and temperature of our homes. AI based algorithms are used in entertainment sectors like Netflix and Spotify to cater to individual needs. Most customer care services use AI-powered chatbots to instantly respond to the queries put forth.

These are a few examples of how AI has become a silent but essential aspect of our daily lives making it an important asset for increasing efficiency and making our everyday tasks easier. This new development, though thrilling, poses new challenges to our current copyright legislation. Copyright protects the rights of the owner of creative works, and in India, our primary statute/legislation for protection of these rights were created before artificial intelligence came into existence. In India, a country rich in diversity of cultural expressions and a rapidly expanding technological landscape, the existing Copyright Act of 1957 acts as the primary legal instrument for safeguarding creative works.

This law, however, developed in an age before the widespread use of the developed systems of AI, which is why it is governed by core premises founded on the ideas of human authorship and originality. The essence of the challenge is to fit traditional copyright concepts into the peculiarities of AIgenerated creation. The central concern is the determination of authorship and ownership of works created autonomously by AI systems. In addition, the mechanism through which AI models learn and create content typically includes the use of massive datasets, which can contain existing copyrighted works. This poses difficult legal questions concerning the copyright consequences of applying such data to train AI and the likelihood of the AI’s results infringing on existing intellectual property rights. 1 See also V. K.

Ahuja, “Contemporary Developments in Intellectual Property Rights: A Prologue” in V. K. Ahuja and Archa Vashishtha, Intellectual Property Rights: Contemporary Development 3-18s (Thomson Reuters, 2020) Furthermore, the very notion of originality, the essential for grant of copyright protection, becomes complicated when extended to works created by AI. Similarly, proving liability in cases of copyright infringement involving AI-created content is challenging since it is not possible to recognize against whom such liability is to be enforced, the creator, the consumer, or the AI program itself. This article explores these multidimensional challenges of AI to understand the settled copyright protection regime within the Indian legal system.

It discusses the provisions of the Copyright Act, 1957 as well as relevant judicial decisions, to critically analyze their sufficiency and shortcomings in meeting the intricacies brought about by AI-created works. Finally, this study aims to contribute to the current debate by suggesting possible legal interpretations, policy suggestions, or legislative changes that can promote both, the technological developments in the area of AI and strengthening the protection of intellectual property rights in India’s rapidly digitalizing future. THE RISE OF AI GENERATED CONTENT The term “Artificial Intelligence” was coined by John McCarthy in 19562. Although there is no particular definition of “artificial intelligence” as of now, it may be states to be “the ability of machines to do things that people would say requires intelligence.

”3 AI creates a machine to perform those operations independently or with minimum human involvement which otherwise needs human intervention. The three categories of AI systems identified by WIPO are – (i) “expert (or knowledge-base) systems”; (ii) “perception systems”; and (iii) “natural language systems”. 4 AI is not to be understood as one technology, but as a discipline which has numerous subdisciplines “such as machine learning, robotics, language processing and deep learning”. 5 Two types of creative works that may be generated by the use of AI are – “AI-generated” works and “AI-assisted” works. AI generated works are those which are created by AI alone and are generated independently by AI. The AI assisted works, on the other hand, are made through

2 Fredy Sánchez Merino, “Artificial Intelligence and a New Cornerstone for Authorship”, WIPO-WTO

Colloquium Papers, 2018, p. 28.

3 Philip C. Jackson, Introduction to Artificial Intelligence 1 (Dover Publications, Inc., 1985).

4 WIPO, “WIPO Worldwide Symposium on the Intellectual Property Aspects of Artificial Intelligence”, WIPO, March 25, 1991, available at: https://www. wipo. int/edocs/pubdocs/en/wipo_pub_698. pdf. 5 Sejal Chandak, “Artificial Intelligence and Policing: A Human Rights Perspective”, 7(1) NLUJ Law Review 46 (2020). extensive human intervention. 6 In order to properly understand the challenges that AI poses to copyright protection, especially in the Indian legal system, it is important to consider the fundamental principles upon which copyright law functions and the concept of authorship. The invention of the printing press i. e. , the Gutenberg press in Germany in the year 1440 can be termed as the steppingstone towards the protection literary works.

Initially, the protections such as under the Statue of Anne in England, 1710, were granted to authors to encourage learning by giving the authors benefit of their intellectual work. This initial legislation, and subsequent copyright laws in other jurisdictions, focused on the humans as the creator of work deserving protection. The basic idea was rooted in the belief that intellectual and creative works are an expression of the human mind and ability. The legislation aimed at encouraging intellectual activites by granting authors exclusive rights to control the reproduction, distribution, and adaptation of their original works. The historical development still has its roots in the established notion that the human author is the foundation of copyright protection.

The legal structures were framed based on the knowledge that a natural person developed, worked out and expressed the intellectual idea in a tangible form. Since the 1970s, computer programs have been widely used in the creation of copyrighted works. However, in terms of ownership of such copyright works, it did not cause many issues, the reason being that the computer programs were viewed as merely tools to support creative endeavors. These programs needed a certain amount of human intervention to produce artistic creations. However, now with the growth of AI, the computer programs are no longer just tools, but they can possibly be used to create art on their own by making their own decisions. It can be said that copyright law, at its core has historically catered to a human creator. The foundation of copyright rests on the principle of rewarding intellectual labor creative expression.

However, beyond the economic incentives, the concept of human authorship also finds its roots in the notion of moral rights. Copyright laws of many countries provide moral rights to the authors, although it is not obligatory under the TRIPs Agreement, 1995. 7 These 6 WIPO Secretariat, Revised Issues Paper on Intellectual Property Policy and Artificial Intelligence, WIPO/IP/AI/2/GE/20/1 REV dated May 21, 2020, para 12.

7 Trade Related Aspect of Intellectual Property Rights, art. 9

moral rights can be categorized into- (i) Right of paternity: and (ii) Right of integrity. The former gives the author, the right to be associated with his/her work, while the latter allows the author to claim damages for any mutilation, distortion or destruction of the work if it is prejudicial to his/her reputation. In Amar Nath Sehgal v. Union of India,8 the Delhi High Court observed that “in the material world, laws are geared to protect the right to equitable remuneration. But life is beyond the material. It is temporal as well. Many of us believe in the soul. Moral rights of the author are the soul of his works. The author has a right to preserve, protect and nurture his creations through his moral rights”. Therefore, it can be said that moral rights are related to human emotions which AI does not possess.

COPYRIGHT OF AI-GENERATED WORK IN INDIA In India, Copyright Act 1957 is the primary legislation that deals with the protection of rights of authors, broadcasters, performers, photographers and other artists working in the field of content creation. The Act defines authorship based on the type of work, including literary works, dramatic works, musical works, artistic works, cinematographic films, and sound recordings. 9 It also states that in the case of a literary or dramatic work, the author is the person who creates the work. 10 In addition to this, for literary works, which is generated using computer programs, the Copyright Act identifies the person who caused the work by computer, as author. 11 However, the Act is silent in relation to the works created using Artificial Intelligence.

When it comes to the ownership of the copyrighted work, one has to fall under the definition of “author” under the Copyright Act. The problem arises as an AI has generally been regarded to not have a legal personality. 12 Under the Copyright Act, the author is the first owner of the copyright work. 13 Therefore, the grant of copyright on generated work depends upon various criteria including the originality of the work. The basic requirement of originality is that the work must originate from the Author and not be copied. 14 One could say that the work done through AI could be identified as work done using computergenerated work which is recognized under the Copyright Act. In this regard, the definition of

8 2005 (30) PTC 253 (Del)

9 Copyright Act 1957, s 2 and 13

10 Copyright Act 1957, s 2(d)

11 Copyright Act 1957, s 2(d)(vi)

12 Ghosh J, Power play of artificial intelligence upon intellectual property rights, Indian Journal of Law and Justice, 11 (1) (2020) 112

13 The Copyright Act, 1957 (Act 14 of 1957), Section 17

14 University of London Press v University Tutorial Press, (1916) 2 Ch 601

“author” under Section 2(d)(vi) of the Act comes into play which states that an author, with reference to any computer generated literary, dramatic, musical or artistic work is the individual who causes the work to be produced on a condition that such individual has contributed significantly to the causation of work. Further, a practical problem with making the user of AI the author of the generated work would be to choose the author amongst different users who may use the same AI to generate the same output. 15 Another important question is related to the term of AI-generated works. AI does not die the same way as humans do. For instance, the copyright protection is granted for a term of 60 years from the date of publication or from the end of the calendar year in which the author dies. Since AI is a computer based system, it is capable of producing any number of works.

Therefore, as far as Indian laws are concerned, at present there does not seem to be a possible way to grant the Artificial Intelligence itself or the person using such AI models copyright protection under the current laws. however, since the laws are dynamic and the world of technological developments is always evolving, provisions can still be made to include the authorship of AI or AI-generated content under the realm of Copyright law.

CONCLUSION

The emergence of AI technologies has caused a visible impact on the field of content creation and the rights associated with it. The issues related to ownership and authorship of AIgenerated content have led the international communities to roll out acceptable policies for inclusion of such works. The idea of considering AI and humans as joint authors has its own flaws since certain operation of AI do not need any human intervention at all. Whereas a sui generis system for protection of AI-generated works does offer a sound solution to many challenges of authorship, ownership and term of protection. However, ironically without having a regulated system of protection, AI- generated content is already being used to cause harm to general public, for instance the use of “deep-fakes” to defraud people. Therefore, a balanced approach is need of the hour.

15 Hedrick S F, I think, therefore I create: Claiming copyright in the outputs of algorithms, New York University journal of Intellectual Property & Entertainment Law, 8 (2019) 324