Artificial Intelligence and the Copyright Dilemma

Introduction

Copyright is legal protection granted to a person for their original creation through their mind and intellect. In India, copyright not only protects creations which is not a mere idea that can be presented in a way that has some use or benefit. 

Section 14 of the Copyright Act 1957, “Copyright” on creation or invention is the exclusive right of the owner. For example, he has the right to reproduce the work, publish it, and translate it. According to Section 17 of the Copyright Act, the first owner of the copyright shall be the author. However, if the author is under some contract for consideration, then the first owner will be the employer of the author. 

Artificial Intelligence in Copyright 

Since the 1970s, computer-generated artworks have attracted a lot of attention. This computer-generated artwork has mostly relied upon the programmer working on it. But in the present times, Artificial Intelligence can understand and think. They are creating results without the help of the programmers. They are doing it by themselves. 

So now the question arises, who is the owner of the copyright created through Artificial Intelligence? With the current laws in place, it is difficult to protect the works created by Artificial Intelligence. Now the works can be categorized as ‘’invention/content created by AI’’ and “invention/content created by AI with human”.  

Whatever work is create with the help of human interference in the work of the AI. The works copyright can be attribute to human working through the AI. 

When an invention/work is created by the AI without any human intervention. Then the laws are unclear regarding as to who is the author of that copyright. In such situations following solutions could be applied:

1. The authorship will rest with the author of the AI who developed the program creating the AI. 
2. The AI created a program without human intervention. It can create equations that can generate results by own, then the creativity will rest with the programmer who created the AI and has sufficient programming. 

 Problems with Recognizing AI as the Author

1. According to Section 17 of the Copyright Act 1957; the author of the invention/work is consider as the first owner of the work. There are exceptions in it. Where the author is under a contract of service for some company for their work; the ownership lies with that company. The problem with AI is that it cannot determine or execute as to who is the owner of the work create by it and transfer its ownership. 

2. According to section 57 of the Copyright Act 1957, the special rights which the author gets can be disputed. Also known as the moral right, it includes the right to paternity and the right to integrity. These rights protect the author from restraining or claim damages from him against any act which is prejudice against the author. If an AI is an author of any work, then these rights will become redundant as the AI will not be able to determine what is morally right or wrong. These rights are for humans who have emotional feelings attach to their work.

3. With the current copyright laws in India, the author of the work has the right to claim royalty for his work. However, if the AI is the author of any work, how will the AI will be able to claim royalty for its work? And how will the royalty be disbursed?

4. Another problem which will occur AI-created work is accountability. For example, if any work create by the AI is obscene or defamatory, then who will be responsible for this? No action can be take against the AI except removing the work or shutting down the AI altogether. In this way, many people can misuse AI, and thus without any accountability, it will become difficult to provide acceptance to AI.

Conclusion

In the present scenario, the Copyright Act 1957 is not able to govern the laws regarding Artificial Intelligence. The most important thing to do right now is to give recognition to AI and to give authorship to AI. The Copyright Act 1957 needs to be amended or separate legislation for works created and related to Artificial Intelligence needs to be made before it’s too late. The Indian Judiciary will suffer from it in the future if the proper structure is not created and then a new committee would need to make to provide guidelines for it. This will ultimately increase the pendency of cases in the Court.