Works created by artificial intelligence: Intellectual property or not?

Abstract

The continued advancement in innovation and technology continues to radically change what is believed to be possible. The progress of technology particularly in the field of entertainment has been most profound. In 1995, British musician, David Bowie and a colleague, Ty Roberts, created the Verbalizer – a program which could take up to 25 sentences and groups of words, rearrange them aleatorically into different combination and by so doing, create new lyrics. In 2016 researchers at Sony took the concept of Artificial Intelligence music a step further. Using a software called Flow Machines they created a melody in the style of The Beatles. In this article we consider the place of works created by Artificial Intelligence, the status of such works as intellectual property and who the owners of such intellectual property should be where Artificial Intelligence is involved in the creative process. This article argues that works created by artificial intelligence software and robots ought to qualify as intellectual property provided other requirements (such as originality) are met. The article however queries whether such intellectual property rights should lie with human inventors or the artificial intelligence. This work also recommends that the extant laws on the recognition and protection of intellectual property rights be amended to reflect the growing involvement of artificial intelligence in the field of intellectual property.