Generative AI And Copyright: How Businesses Can Mitigate Legal Risks

As in many countries around the world, IP laws in Southeast Asia do not currently specify whether works generated by artificial intelligence (AI) are protected by copyright, and there is also uncertainty surrounding the issue of ownership with respect to works created by AI. While changes to the IP legal framework are expected to respond to the rapid development of AI technologies, existing copyright laws of most countries in Southeast Asia explicitly impose the requirement of a human author for copyright protection to arise.

AI-Generated Works and the Law

This is similar to the position in the United States, where the US Copyright Office issued a policy statement in March 2023 reiterating the US Copyright Act's requirement of human authorship to register copyright works. The policy document states that when an AI technology determines the expressive elements of the output, the generated materials do not fulfil the human authorship requirement.