Judicial Interpretation Of AI-Generated Works Under Copyright Law
- IJLLR Journal
- 19 hours ago
- 1 min read
Aryan Leander Wishard
ABSTRACT
Copyright law has always had to absorb new creative technologies, from the camera to the photocopier to the computer. Generative artificial intelligence is the most disruptive of these technologies yet, because it does not merely assist human creativity but, in certain configurations, appears to substitute for it entirely. This essay examines how courts and the United States Copyright Office have interpreted copyright protection for AI-generated works against the backdrop of foundational authorship doctrine. Beginning with the human authorship requirement as settled by the Thaler v. Perlmutter litigation and the Copyright Office’s 2023 guidance, the essay examines how the partially protected Zarya of the Dawn graphic novel illustrates the emerging “sufficient human control” standard. It then turns to the fair use and training-data questions raised by Andersen v. Stability AI and The New York Times Co. v. Microsoft, and considers the right of publicity gap exposed by AI style mimicry. The essay concludes with a comparative survey of the United Kingdom, European Union, and Indian approaches, and argues that while the bedrock requirement of human authorship is now clear, the line between mere use of an AI tool and genuine human authorship in AI-assisted works remains the central unresolved question in copyright law.
Keywords: Copyright Law, AI-Generated Works, Authorship Doctrine, Sufficient Human Control, Human Authorship
