Commentary: Indian Copyright Office makes landmark decision on AI-generated works

“The Indian Copyright Office has ruled that a work generated through algorithmic or computational processes can still meet the legal test for originality and qualify for copyright protection. This is an important first-of-its-kind decision on the protection of AI-generated works in India.

“Unlike the United States, India’s copyright law explicitly recognises ‘computer-generated’ works. Where there is no traditional human author, the law allows the person who caused the work to be created to be treated as its author. This is similar to the approach taken under UK copyright law.

“Significantly, the Registrar rejected the argument that a work created using AI must inherently lack originality. The decision found that the work’s final form was not predetermined, that it did not reproduce an existing work and that it contained the minimum degree of expressive creativity required for copyright protection. The use of AI does not, by itself, make a work unoriginal.

“The application was ultimately rejected on a separate procedural issue because it named the AI system DABUS (Device for the Autonomous Bootstrapping of Unified Sentience) as the author. We had proposed instead naming Dr Stephen Thaler, who created, owned and used DABUS, as the author while explaining that the work was AI-generated.

“An appeal is now planned to seek to have Dr Thaler recognised as the author and producer. Its outcome could provide much-needed clarity on how existing copyright laws apply to AI-generated content and influence the international debate over authorship, originality and artificial intelligence.”