What’s the situation with copyright and generative artificial intelligence (generative AI)? Many individuals are using AI in their projects. Popular artists like Drake and The Weekend had their voices used in generative AI to create music by other individuals.

The accessibility of AI to the public means that more and more people will try it out and create content. As people create more content, the potential for intellectual property (IP) infringement increases. This article aims to discuss the potential copyright issues that may arise from using generative AI to create content.

How does generative AI work?

Generative AI relates to algorithms that use machine learning to create content or predict results by relying on available information. The tools that most people are familiar with right now include Chat GPT, a text based generative AI tool.

How it affects copyright law

Ownership

Typically, the author of the IP is the owner. Based on this, the owner of the generative AI system owns the work generated by the AI. In most cases, the generative AI platform will assign all rights in the created content to the person using the platform.

Pre-existing copyrighted works

What if you input data into AI that includes copyright material? Let’s say you input data into AI and you decide to create a song written and sung in the same style that the popular musical artist Drake does? This will amount to copyright infringement. The situation becomes trickier when AI pulls output from multiple data sets that include copyrighted material and the user has no knowledge of this taking place.

How can we help you?

We can help you:

  • Managing the legal risks of generative AI by asking us to train your AI developers, engineers, and data scientists.
  • Determine how AI impacts your organisation by asking us for an AI risk assessment.
  • Protect your commercial, legal and technical interests by asking us to draft your AI contracts.
  • Stay updated with the latest AI law news by subscribing to our newsletter.
  • Discover more about AI by reading our AI law page.