Presented at XIII CODAIP, Curitiba, Brazil

1. D O A N D R O I D S D R E A M O F
E L E C T R I C C O P Y R I G H T ?
D R A N D R E S G U A D A M U Z , U N I V E R S I T Y O F S U S S E X

2. A P O L O G I E S

3. A I I N C R E AT I V I T Y

4. T H E M A C H I N E S A R E C O M I N G !

5. A L L Y O U R D ATA A R E B E L O N G T O U S

6. M E E T B O T D Y L A N

7. M A C H I N E M U S I C
J U K E D E C K

8. G P T- 2 P R E D I C T I V E T E X T T O O L

9. A L G O R I T H M I C P H O T O G R A P H Y

10. E D M O N D D E B E L A M Y

11. I M P O S S I B L E P E O P L E

12. T H E T E C H N O L O G Y
G E N E R AT I V E A D V E R S A R I A L N E T W O R K S ( G A N S )

13. U S E R I N P U T

14. W H Y I S I T I M P O R TA N T ?
Y O U M AY B E A S K I N G “ S O W H AT ? ”

15. C R E AT I V E
I N D U S T R I E S
• Procedurally-generated
games.
• Journalistic pieces.
• Art.
• Music.
• Literature.

16. C O P Y R I G H T L A W

17. W H Y D O W E H AV E
C O P Y R I G H T ?
• Natural rights
• Promote the arts
• Reward
• Incentive

18. S C E N A R I O S
• Only humans can create
copyright: All AI works are
in the public domain.
• Sui Generis rights. Akin to
database rights,
investment reward.
• Machines can create
copyright: AI rights?
Programmer?

19. U K L A W
S 9(3) “In the case of a
literary, dramatic,
musical or artistic work
which is computer-
generated, the author
shall be taken to be the
person by whom the
arrangements necessary
for the creation of the
work are undertaken.”

20. S TA N D I N G
Q U E S T I O N
• Who gets the copyright? The
programmer or the person who
turned on the computer?
• Paper and pen analogy, pen
makers do not get literary work
copyright.
• Microsoft does not get copyright
over everything written in Word.
• Interpretation that “whoever
made arrangements” will usually
mean the user.

21. O T H E R E X P E R T S
H AV E S P O K E N
• s9(3) is a remnant of
another time, intention
was to clarify authorship of
computer generated
works, not AI.
• No person, no creativity,
no “intellectual creation”.
No originality.
• No case law.

22. U S C O P Y R I G H T
O F F I C E
“In order to be entitled to
copyright registration, a work
must be the product of human
authorship. Works produced by
mechanical processes or random
selection without any
contribution by a human author
are not registrable. Thus, a
linoleum floor covering featuring
a multicolored pebble design
which was produced by a
mechanical process in
unrepeatable, random patterns, is
not registrable.”

23. G H O S T I N T H E
S H E L L ?
• There used to be a relatively strong case
to be made towards the recognition of
non-human rights in some US case law.
• Take Urantia Foundation v. Maaherra,
114 F.3d 955 (1997), where the spirit of
dead aliens dictated a book, and it was
argued that this work could have
copyright: “copyright laws . . . do not
expressly require ‘human’ authorship.”
• Also see Jap Herron case (Mark Twain’s
ghost).
• Artificial solutions to fix similar issues
involving spirit guides and mediums.

24. N A R U T O V
S L AT E R
• PETA (acting as Naruto’s friends),
sue British photographer David
Slater in a California court for
copyright infringement.
• Case never deals with whether
monkeys can own copyright, but
rather on whether the monkey can
sue at all.
• Case dismissed and appealed, then
settled out of court (Naruto’s wildlife
refuge will receive percentage of
royalties), so ownership question
was not fully addressed.
Internet Policy Review: http://bit.ly/
1O0qZSW

25. E U R O P E A N
L A W
• In Europe a work is original if
it is “author’s own intellectual
creation reflecting his
personality”.
• Choice, selection of
elements, composition, all
may prove originality.
(Infopaq, Painer cases).
• Unclear if setting parameters
and algorithms would be
enough.

26. J A PA N
• “person” required under current
law.
• Intellectual Property Strategic
Program 2016 and 2017 includes
overhaul to copyright law (not
implemented yet).
• Computer-generated works given
similar treatment to UK.
• However, not all works to be
protected, only works with
significant economic impact to be
given protection.

27. A U S T R A L I A
• Acohs Pty Ltd v Ucorp Pty Ltd [2012]
FCAFC 16.
• HTML source code for some data
sheets were generated by a
computer program. Question arose
whether the code can be protected
by copyright as original work.
• In first instance judge found that the
code was “not the work of any one
human author”.
• Federal Court agrees that there’s no
copyright as there’s no human author.

28. O P T I O N S F O R
A I C O P Y R I G H T
• No copyright due to no
originality/creativity.
• No registration.
• Make UK’s approach more widely
used, programmer gets copyright.
• Take a wider approach: “copyright
laws . . . do not expressly require
‘human’ authorship.” Urantia
Foundation v. Maaherra (1997).
• Artificial Intelligence rights?

29. P U B L I C D O M A I N S U I G E N E R I S
C O M P U T E R
G E N E R AT E D
W O R K S
W H E R E ?
C O N T I N E N TA L
E U R O P E / U S A ?
A U S T R A L I A
J A PA N ? U K
O R I G I N A L I T Y
I N T E L L E C T U A L
C R E AT I O N /
C R E AT I V I T Y
E C O N O M I C
T E S T E D
S K I L L A N D
L A B O U R
E F F E C T ¯ _ ( ツ ) _ / ¯ ¯ _ ( ツ ) _ / ¯ ¯ _ ( ツ ) _ / ¯

30. @ T E C H N O L L A M A
A . G U A D A M U Z @ S U S S E X . A C . U K
The mech shall inherit the Earth