Context
India’s Copyright Office has rejected an application seeking copyright for an artwork created autonomously by an AI system called DABUS. The case raises an important question: if AI creates an original work, who should legally be treated as its author—the AI, the person operating it, or someone else?
Explanation
- The Copyright Act, 1957 protects original works such as literature, music, drama and artistic creations.
- For copyright protection, a work must show some originality and creativity. Simply copying or mechanically reproducing something is not enough.
- The difficult issue with AI is authorship—copyright law normally expects an identifiable person who can legally be called the creator of the work.
- Section 2(d)(vi) says that for a computer-generated work, the author is the “person who causes the work to be created.” In simple terms, the law looks for the person responsible for making the computer produce the work.
- In this case, scientist Stephen Thaler argued that DABUS itself had independently created the artwork and should therefore be recognised as its author.
- The Copyright Office rejected this argument because an AI system has no independent legal personality. It cannot legally own property, enter contracts, transfer copyright or approach courts to enforce its rights.
- The Office treated AI as a tool used to create a work, rather than as a legal author in its own right.
- Under Section 17, the author is generally the first owner of copyright, although ownership can later be assigned or transferred to another person.
- AI-generated works may still receive copyright protection where there is sufficient human creative involvement, but an autonomous AI cannot presently claim authorship itself.
- If India wants to recognise AI as an independent copyright author in the future, Parliament would have to amend the existing copyright law.
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AI Copyright Authorship: India’s Legal Position