Monkey Business: Is Machine-created Art Worthy Of Copyright?

In a current US copyright infringement case, the defendants, Ryder Ripps and Jeremy Cahen argue that there is no copyright in the well-known bored ape images traded as NFTs by Yuga Labs, Inc. because they were generated by an automated computer algorithm. If successful, the case would have serious implications for the NFT market but would also be of concern to producers and users of artificial intelligence (AI) systems in the creative industries generally. But are these implications and concerns limited to the US? After all, the UK copyright legislation clearly envisages the existence of copyright in "computer generated works".

BACKGROUND

The advances in AI systems over the last few years have been immense. Unlike in the case of earlier software tools, their outputs are not heavily dependent upon human programming and once they have completed their learning process, they can, for example, produce images in the style of well-known artists that experts cannot