Redefining Human Authorship In The Age Of Generative AI: An Analysis Under The Copyright Act, 1957
- IJLLR Journal
- Mar 31
- 2 min read
Thanushkar B, School of Law, SRM Institute of Science and Technology, Chennai
Sailesh Kumar N, School of Law, SRM Institute of Science and Technology, Chennai
ABSTRACT
The rapid growth of generative artificial intelligence (AI) has introduced several challenges to the traditional copyright doctrine, especially in the foundational requirement of human authorship. Under the Copyright Act, 1957, the copyright protection is grounded on the originality arising from the human’s intellectual efforts. However, the contemporary AI systems are capable of creating literary, artistic, and musical works autonomously with very minimal or indirect human intervention. In some countries like the UK, the Copyright, Designs and Patent Act, 1988 provide certain legal guidelines for the computer-generated works. The Indian statutory framework while not explicitly addressing the status of AI generated creations it provides interpretative flexibility that may be adapted to emerging technological contexts. The judicial interpretation of originality in India, emphasizes a ‘modicum of creativity’ standard that implicitly reinforces the human-centric foundation of copyright. This study adopts a doctrinal methodology to analyse whether the existing legal framework of the Copyright Act, 1957 can incorporate the AI-assisted works through the purposive interpretation. It asserts that the preservation of the human authorship requirements is essential, in order to maintain the doctrinal coherence and the constitutional balance. Also, the study suggests that the Indian Courts shall adopt a structured ‘creative control test’ to assess the extent of human intellectual contribution in AI-assisted creations. The outputs which are made fully by the autonomous AI, that lacks human intervention, should not be made eligible for the copyright protection, instead it must be made available in the public domain. This strategy results in harmonizing the technological innovation with the regulatory goals of the Indian Copyright Law.
Keywords: AI, Indian Copyright Law, AI – generated works, Creative Control Test, Human Authorship, Originality, Intellectual Property Rights.
