Exploring Copyright Ownership of AI-Generated Works Around the World

Generative artificial intelligence tools have revolutionized the way businesses create content, from code to text to images. However, the question of ownership of AI-generated works remains a complex and evolving issue around the world.

In the United States, current law dictates that AI-generated works are not eligible for copyright protection, as copyrights require human authorship. This was reaffirmed in the case of Thaler v. Perlmutter, where a machine-generated work was not deemed copyrightable. The US Copyright Office requires identification of AI-generated content and human-authored content in works submitted for registration, with protection granted only to the human-authored aspects.

In the European Union, the requirement for copyright protection is originality flowing from the author’s own intellectual creation, with significant human input necessary. Individual member states will determine if AI-generated works meet this requirement.

In the UK, copyright protection extends to computer-generated works, with the person making the necessary arrangements for the creation of the work deemed the author. This was recently confirmed by the UK government and Intellectual Property Office.

In China, recent court decisions have shown that AI-generated works may be eligible for copyright protection if there is intellectual activity in the output and human input in the generation process.

Overall, the question of ownership of AI-generated works varies by jurisdiction, with laws still being settled in some cases. Businesses utilizing generative AI tools must consider the terms of service, governing law, and jurisdictional factors to determine ownership and protectability of their content.