Robots As Creators: Legal And Ethical Implications In Copyright Regulations And Human Rights
V Sri Pranavi & Vasanth Joel
ABSTRACT
AI and robots are improving very fast. And because of this, the law’s old ideas about who is creative, who is the author, and who owns a creative work are no longer clear or sufficient. Earlier, law assumed only humans created things. That assumption is now being questioned. Today, AI can write poems, compose music, create paintings, and even invent things, often without much human help. But copyright law was designed only for human creators, so it is now under legal confusion (doctrinal strain) and moral confusion (ethical strain). This paper studies the new idea that robots might be treated as creators. It also asks whether our current copyright laws handle non-human creators or do we need to completely rethink and redesign the system. The paper closely examines how different legal systems deal with AI-created works with Indian copyright law, UK law which already talks about computer-generated works, and how other countries are slowly changing their laws. The paper also asks some important legal questions like who should be called the author, who owns the copyright, and what does “original” mean if a machine creates it, and what if the AI copies or infringes, who is legally responsible. This part of the paper goes beyond copyright law and looks at wider human rights and ethical concerns. It examines whether the rise of AI created works could affect the right to livelihood of human artists, writers, and musicians by reducing their income and opportunities. It also considers whether excessive dependence on AI could limit human freedom of expression and slowly reduce the value of human creativity in a cultural economy that is increasingly driven by algorithms rather than people. In addition to this, the paper discusses important ethical issues such as who should be held responsible when AI-generated content causes harm, how transparent AI systems really are, and whether creative power is becoming concentrated in the hands of large technology companies. The paper argues that giving robots legal personhood or recognizing them as authors could weaken the fundamental philosophy of copyright law and dilute human-centred rights frameworks, which are designed to protect people, not machines. Therefore, it concludes by supporting a human-centric regulatory approach, where legal rights are assigned to identifiable human or corporate actors behind AI systems, while ensuring that human creators continue to receive fair protection in the age of artificial creativity.
Keywords: Artificial Intelligence, Robots as Creators, Copyright Law, Human Rights and Authorship and Ownership
