It is as inevitable as the sun also rising that Artificial Intelligence is on a collision course with traditional IP principles. AI has not only become part of our daily life, but also we cannot live without it, consider transportation, vehicle or aviation. In copyright law, there is now inconsistent protection in different countries for independently (not human) developed output resulting from an artificial intelligence algorithm, work developed by a “neural network” inside a computer program. Fascinating work and experimentation on AI in the art world is being conducted in the Netherlands where a computer created a new “ Rembrandt,” after a detailed analysis of the works of the Dutch Master. Art, music and business methods are now generated frequently with uncertain protection, thereby perhaps creating a chilling effect on the desire for investment in this cutting edge sector. We may not be at the point when Stars Wars-like “personages” (eg R2-D2) need to be given copyrights, but the new article from the WIPO magazine suggests the system in the UK is again at the vanguard of this phenomena, granting copyright “to the person who made the operation of AI possible.”
Also published on LinkedIn on 6th October 2017