AI-Generated Work Can Be Original, But AI Cannot Be Author Under Copyright Law: Indian Copyright Office

New Delhi, Sep 1 (KNN) The Indian Copyright Office has ruled that an artificial intelligence (AI) system cannot be recognised as an author under the Copyright Act, 1957, rejecting an application that named DABUS as the author of an artwork.

Registrar of Copyrights Prof. (Dr.) Unnat P. Pandit passed the order on August 31 on an application filed by American computer scientist Stephen L. Thaler for copyright registration of A Recent Entrance to Paradise.

DABUS Cannot Be Recognised as Author

The application named the Device for the Autonomous Bootstrapping of Unified Sentience (DABUS), an AI system developed by Thaler, as the author and Thaler as the copyright owner.

The Copyright Office held that DABUS is neither a natural nor a juristic person recognised under Indian law and therefore cannot be an author under Section 2(d)(vi) of the Act.

The provision states that the author of a computer-generated artistic work is “the person who causes the work to be created.”

Thaler Held Responsible for Creation

Thaler had argued that DABUS autonomously generated the artwork after being trained using photographs, thesaurus entries and English sentences supplied by him.

The Registrar rejected the argument, noting that Thaler had conceived, configured and trained the system and provided the inputs used to generate the work. He therefore qualified as the person who caused the work to be created.

“Autonomy in execution is not synonymous with conception of a work,” the Registrar observed.

AI-Generated Work Can Still Be Original

The Copyright Office distinguished between originality and authorship, holding that an AI-generated work can satisfy the originality requirement under Section 13.

It said the artwork was not shown to reproduce any identified pre-existing work and contained a specific arrangement of colours, forms, tonal variations and spatial elements.

“The fact that the work was generated through algorithmic or computational processes cannot, by itself, render the resulting expression unoriginal,” the order stated.

However, copyright authorship must still be attributed to a person recognised by law.

Application Rejected

The Copyright Office had given Thaler an opportunity to amend the application and name himself as the author, but he declined and continued to identify DABUS as the author.

The Registrar also held that DABUS, having no legal personality, could not own copyright or transfer it to Thaler under Sections 17 to 19 of the Act.

The Copyright Office said whether AI systems should be granted legal personhood or independent authorship is a policy matter for Parliament and cannot be introduced through administrative interpretation.

The application was accordingly rejected, while Thaler remains free to file a fresh application naming himself as the legally recognised author.

(KNN Bureau)