‘You AIn't seen nothing yet’

Abstract

Artificial intelligence (AI) has become a part of our daily life, and ‘algorithmic creativity’ has similarly been in the spotlight recently. From paintings to music, machines generate outputs that seem to comply with various prerequisites of copyright protection. The idea (and to some degree the need) to honour such achievements by legal protection has also emerged. This chapter demonstrates that, contrary to the view of the proponents of an AI-copyright regime, the time is not ripe for AI-copyright. The core elements of copyright law—namely, the concept of authorship, originality, and moral rights, as well as copyright’s history and incentives—are deeply rooted in an anthropocentric (although not only author-centric) world. Without a paradigm shift in copyright law, the lack of direct human element of an AI-generated output entails the unavailability of copyright protection for these outputs. The chapter similarly highlights why the proposed alternative forms of copyright-related rights or sui generis protection are doctrinally unfounded or practically unfit to provide for a sound solution that does not destroy the existing copyright regime and diminish the value of human creations.