Artificially Intelligent Copyright: Rethinking Copyright Boundaries

My dissertation explores the legal boundaries of copyright law in the wake of artificial intelligence (AI) technology. In building the theoretical foundations for my dissertation, I go through several key phases. First, I highlight important historical events and milestones in AI. I further develop the philosophical debate on AI legal personhood and deliberate whether we are approaching a singularity the next stage of AI evolution. I also explore the concept of AI as it matured through the years. In the second part, I theorize how AI can be regarded as an author under IP normative standards. Part of accepting the argument that AI deserve copyright is a willingness to change the perception that only human creations are worthy of copyright protection. I also seek an answer to two sub-questions the who and the what. The who considers the normative standards of authorship in the ongoing struggle between an authors right and the public domain. The what raise the originality debate and discusses the standard of creation. In the third part, I outline the many candidates for AI authorship the programmer, the user, the AI and an alternative legal framework for AIs ownership like the public domain or author-in-law. Finally, I discuss the outcomes of each model and provide my conclusions.