Copyright in works generated using artificial intelligence

A work generated by means of artificial intelligence will only be eligible for copyright protection if a human being is involved in its creation process, as is often the case in practice. 

In Switzerland, as in other countries, copyright protection arises automatically upon creation of a work, regardless of any formality. Such a work must be an “intellectual creation” and must therefore have a human origin.

As a result, a work generated by means of artificial intelligence (AI) will only be eligible for copyright protection if a human being is involved in the creation process. In addition, the authors of a work obtained with AI can only be humans who have provided creative inputs that are linked to and reflected in the final work. In that sense, a “creative causal link” must be perceptible between the creative work of the author(s) and the resulting work.

The occurrence and extent of human intervention remains decisive in appreciating the authorship. Whether or not this is the case has to be assessed on a case-by-case basis. In practice, the authors will likely be persons having selected inputs to the AI (e.g., to train a machine learning model), and/or having defined a goal or objective to be achieved by the AI, e.g., by specifically setting parameters of the AI. On rare occasions, the authors of the underlying AI code may also qualify as authors of the resulting work.

In that respect, as far as intellectual property (IP) is concerned, AI can be compared to various other computerized techniques that have emerged in recent decades, such as computer-aided design, graphics software, and digital audio workstations. Such techniques have already raised similar questions as to the eligibility of works generated therewith and the qualification of authors of such works. The authors of software implementing such techniques are typically not regarded as authors of works subsequently created (by other persons) using such software.

Finally, since copyright law has proven to be sufficiently flexible and technology-neutral to reasonably address previous technological evolutions, the advent of AI should not require changes to the existing copyright law.

This, at least, is how we could summarize the report of the Swiss group published on "sic! online".