Copyright Protection For AI-Generated Works: Rethinking Authorship Under Indian Copyright Law
Selgin B, Joy University, Tirunelveli District, Tamil Nadu, India.
ABSTRACT
Artificial Intelligence (AI) has revolutionized creative industries because it can create literary works, art, music, software code, and audiovisual content on its own. These developments question the traditional copyright bases, which are based on human creativity, originality and authorship. Although the Copyright Act, 1957, covers a wide range of human-generated works, it does not address the legal status of AI-generated works. This gives rise to doubts about authorship and ownership, originality of the writing, liability and copyright extent. This article critically reviews if the present Indian copyright system is sufficient to protect AI-generated works. It examines the definition of authorship under the Copyright Act, 1957, judicial views on originality and India's commitment to international copyright treaties. The article also conducts a comparative study of the laws in the United Kingdom, the United States, European Union, China and Singapore on the issue of copyright protection for AI generated works. It is claiming that without a clear statutory framework it will have a negative impact on innovation as well as squander the interest of human creators. The article suggests a legislative approach that balances the interests of authors and technology and establishes a clear framework for the ownership of AI-assisted and AI- generated works, while still maintaining the copyright law's human-centric goals of fostering creativity and innovation in the world of technology. This is necessary to keep the Indian copyright regime relevant in AI's generation.
Keywords: Artificial Intelligence; Copyright; Authorship; Ownership; Originality; Generative AI; Intellectual Property; India.
