AI-Generated Work and its Implications on Copyright Law in India

Abstract

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a technology which is known for carrying out various tasks efficiently with little or no human intervention at all. Generative AI is one of the branches of AI which is known for generating content at par with human intelligence. Generative AI tools like ChatGPT, Google’s Bard and DeepAI are being used in today’s world by students, academicians, employees, employers, news channels and others to create textual, pictorial or video-graphical content. All such generated content suffers from one common issue, that is, their copyright. Most of the users are unaware of copyright in the work generated by them using the generative AI tools. They do not know whether the copyright exists in AI-generated work and who is the owner or author of such copyrighted work. The article analyses the subsistence of copyright in AI-generated work and the conditions and criteria of such copyright, if any. It traces the content creation process of generative AI tools and the contractual aspects pertaining to it. Further, the article examines the issues of copyrightability of AI-generated work in various countries and compares it with the legal standing in India. Lastly, the impact of AI-generated work on the Indian copyright regime has been analysed and accordingly, suggestions have been made which may be implemented to address the plethora of challenges arising out of or in relation to AI-generated work.