Court Rules AI Art Cannot Be Copyrighted
August 22, 2023
Art created by artificial intelligence cannot be copyrighted, a federal judge recently ruled, stressing that “human authorship is a bedrock requirement.” In Issues, Deepak Somaya and Lav R. Varshney examine arguments for and against such a hardline stance—and offer policy options that might “strike the right balance for supporting innovation.” Intellectual property rights could be granted for shorter duration to put AI creations more quickly into the public domain, they suggest, or creations could be automatically licensed at a flexible price that supports their wider use while compensating those who developed or applied the AI during the creative process.