AI: Avoiding And Managing Disputes – Copyright And AI

The Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 (CDPA 1988) provides the legislative framework for the rules around copyright ownership and infringement. Under CDPA 1988, copyright protects the way in which an idea is expressed (i.e. a painting, a song, or the text in a book), and not the ideas themselves.

A computer program and the preparatory design material for a computer program benefit from copyright protection under the CDPA 1988 as literary works; it is the software code in which an AI product is written that can qualify for the protection.

Copyright in works created by AI systems

This is where the situation gets more complicated. Where a literary, dramatic, musical or artistic work is created by an individual who uses AI as a tool, such as, for example, a musician who incorporates content created with some AI assistance, or by a photographer using an AI application on their camera, this would be protected as a normal copyright work belonging to the