Artificial intelligence is the hottest topic right now. There are so many questions surrounding the technology that can create art, text, and even advertisement scripts based on certain actors’ personas. One thing that not a lot of people have talked about are the issues surrounding AI creations and copyright laws. Since it’s such a new territory these waters haven’t really been explored yet but there is some buzz starting to circulate around it. Think about this, AI is trained to search massive data pools that surround the parameters it’s given to create something. These works are from real people in the real world. Plagiarism is a concern when writing essays, so why wouldn’t copyright laws apply as well? People are starting to look into the ownership of AI generated works and whether or not AI should be references the sources and/or getting permission in some cases. There is a lawsuit that was filed in 2022 from three artists suing an AI generator for using their art for a digital collage tool without permission. The argument is that the fair use doctrine says it can be used for “research” purposes without permission. There is also the question of AI generated works and who owns the copyright to that. A lot of jurisdictions state that anything not created by a human cannot be protected by copyright laws. Spain and Germany follow this currently. This could cause problems for business, however, because they could be used by anyone. Companies won’t spend a lot of time and effort putting work into AI generated works if just anyone can come along and steal them. Should the copyright laws include those programmers, etc. who help create the AI work? We think not. That’s like saying the pen is the creator and not the writer. Should computers be given the same rights as humans when it comes to copyright laws? The future of AI will determine the next steps, which seems not that far off. Perhaps granting the person who made the AI possible as the UK is already doing seems the most realistic approach for the time being. It’s mind blowing to think that what we thought of as the very far sci-fy version of reality 20 years ago is now the truth of our world.
