Who Owns The Content Created By AI?

‘It’ constantly struggles to cope with emerging trends and technologies; moreover, ‘It’ struggles and is far behind other fields in doing the same. Do you know who is ‘It’ here? The department that deals with Legal and Regulatory Regimes. The developments in Science and Technology have taken a toll on the lives of people in this sector. To add to it, developments in AI, have made the task even more daunting for them. The concept of Intellectual Property has become more confusing than ever, because now there are several questions, the answers to which  are not straight forward and even with extensive research no feasible answers can be given!

The existing legislation was created before AI was so much involved in our lives, and thus it has provision for several things that might come handy when we consider the copyrights of AI, but at no point it describes the procedure or actions required for the same!

With deep learning and AI applications, development of creative content is no longer a dream. Companies like Boston Dynamics have already tested the working of humanoid robots(prototypes), and have concluded that they can perform the creative tasks quite efficiently. But who owns the content thus created?

IP Law And Its Differences

The IP laws vary across borders. USA and Germany previously declared, that only those things are eligible for copyright that have been created by humans, while in UK the law is much different. Tom Lingard, an expert who specializes in Intellectual property and Technology law has conveyed that in the Copyright Act of UK dated back to 1988, there is an instance as follows, “If there is an invention or a literary, dramatic or musical work which is computer-generated then the author is taken to be the person who made the arrangements necessary for the work to be created.” But still, no single person can be credited or given the copyright as behind every AI machine, there is an entire team that has put in efforts so that the machine can work properly.

What Now?

This disparity has put the experts in deep confusion and their workload has been increased exponentially. They have conveyed that most likely the ownership might slip into the hands of someone who is responsible for making the arrangements because of which the machine could give any type of output. Alas! the confusions still persist! To know the problem, let’s take an example, the tech giant Microsoft owns all the IP rights to Microsoft Word. But the catch in this is that they do not proclaim to own all the documents created using this program! So, if an AI machine creates any content using Microsoft Word, they cannot claim it as theirs. Quite bewildering indeed!

Now the lawmakers and legal teams are researching extensively. If we assume that the technology was developed by the company and thus the credit should be given to the same, then we cannot deny the fact that the information fed in the system was taken from Google and in some way or the other, the source of all information has to be credited.

What Will Happen Anyway?

The experts involved have stated that organizations who are using machines to complete their creative task, first need to decide if they want an ownership or not? If they are producing something worthwhile, then they should look forward to taking ownership, but come up with some practical ways of doing so!

As this is concerned with legal experts and the AI professionals, no guidelines can be given without consent of both the parties. Speakers from all around the world have started including this in their discussions so that they can conclude something feasible for both the parties. The events such as WORLD AI SHOW can yield some positive outcomes. These summits are organized with the sole purpose to discuss the possible discoveries and legal implications that might come into being in near future. Furthermore, also come up with some feasible solutions for the same.

Amongst all, the summits organized by Trescon are worth attending, as some of the brightest minds from across the world gather to blow the roof off by their powerful speeches, TED talks, and other activities.

As we do not have any concrete evidence that could clear out the confusion and help us give ownership to someone for the creative tasks completed by AI powered machines, the professionals are not able to give any practical answer as of now. But the events organized on such a large scale will definitely contribute to something desirable.