The advent of Artificial Intelligence (AI) platforms like OpenAI’s ChatGPT and the emergence of AI-generated content has sparked many discussions surrounding intellectual property (IP) rights and copyright laws. Questions such as ‘who owns the rights to the AI-generated content?’ have arisen as AI content-generating platforms are becoming increasingly capable of creating essays, articles, and music as well as graphics with OpenAI’s DALL-E.
From a traditional point of view, human authored works are protected by different forms of Intellectual Property (IP), including copyright. But if AI-generated content satisfies the requirements for copyright protection, it could also be protected. According to South African copyright law, the difference between traditional authorial works and computer-generated works like OpenAI’s DALL-E graphics is taken into account, allowing these AI-generated works to qualify as computer-generated artistic works. It might prove useful to review the Copyright Act as well as the proposed Copyright Amendment Bill in order to gain a good sense of existing and future changes in Intellectual Property law.
The originality of AI-generated works must be evaluated in order to determine their eligibility for copyright protection, i.e. if the author has used enough skill and effort to create the work. With AI-generated content, the author is the person in charge of arranging the creation of the work. In this case, the AI developer, who provides it with the necessary instructions, can potentially be considered the author. Consequently, the origination of the work must be evaluated to decide whether it is eligible for copyright protection.
To conclude, it is not always straightforward to identify the owner of the rights to AI-generated content. Factors such as the circumstances surrounding the creation must be taken into account and each case must be judged on its own merit. OpenAI’s terms assign any rights arising from the creation of works to the user, with a license in place to continue using the content that was generated. Although the potential of AI technology is remarkable, it is important to take legal considerations into account in order to prevent any issues that may arise.
